In The Nay Science, Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee undertake a careful and rigorous hermeneutical approach to nearly two centuries of German philological scholarship on the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.

I thank Christopher Framarin for his response and would like to address three points he raises in this brief rejoinder.Framarin's book is a self-standing analysis of the central argument of the Gītā, and the reader should take my comments about his papers as additional material in support of the book. In drawing attention to them, my aim was to stress Framarin's long engagement with the subject.Although Framarin's book deals quite extensively with other texts from the Indian tradition, the Gītā is (...) central to the analysis. In fact, Framarin explicitly turns to the other texts "[a]s a means to answering the second question," namely whether the claim that action entails desire is widely held in the Indian tradition. .. (shrink)

Christopher Framarin has spent many years analyzing the problem of niṣkama karma or desireless action in Indian philosophy as evidenced by his many papers on the topic. The results of these papers are gathered into his book, Desire and Motivation in Indian Philosophy, which presents a sustained defense of the doctrine from multiple perspectives. Its philosophical depth and sophisticated argument notwithstanding, Framarin's work is lucid, persuasive, and well-executed. Framarin sets up the basic problem in the introduction and then proceeds to (...) test various interpretive responses. As he develops the book, he shows why each of these responses fails before presenting his own solution. The inquiry into non-viable .. (shrink)

Argument and Designfeatures fifteen essays by leading scholars of the Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, discussing the Mahābhārata's upākhyānas, subtales that branch off from the central storyline and provide vantage points for reflecting on it.

Background Studies have shown that medical students and residents believe that their ethics preparation has been inadequate for handling ethical conflicts. The objective of this study was to determine the self-perceived comfort level of medical students and residents in confronting clinical ethics issues. Methods Clinical medical students and residents at the University of Maryland School of Medicine completed a web-based survey between September 2009 and February 2010. The survey consisted of a demographic section, questions regarding the respondents’ sense of comfort (...) in handling a variety of clinical ethics issues, and a set of knowledge-type questions in ethics. Results Survey respondents included 129 medical students (response rate of 40.7%) and 207 residents (response rate of 52.7%). There were only a few clinical ethics issues with which more than 70% of the respondents felt comfortable in addressing. Only a slight majority (60.8%) felt prepared, in general, to handle clinical situations involving ethics issues, and only 44.1% and 53.2% agreed that medical school and residency training, respectively, helped prepare them to handle such issues. Prior ethics training was not associated with these responses, but there was an association between the level of training (medical students vs residents) and the comfort level with many of the clinical ethics issues. Conclusions Medical educators should include ethics educational methods within the context of real-time exposure to medical ethics dilemmas experienced by physicians-in-training. (shrink)

My thanks to Joydeep Bagchee for his review of my book in this issue of Philosophy East and West. Here I will respond to some of his objections, and offer some points of clarification. First, I want to say something about Bagchee's claim that the earlier papers in which I worked out some of my thoughts on the issue of desireless action are relevant to understanding the book. Bagchee seems to mean this as a criticism, since he (...) says,Each chapter marks a new ingress into the problem. This only becomes clear when one looks at the way Framarin develops the individual approaches in his papers, because he unfortunately does not always spell out the consequences of his moves in the book.I assume that the consequences that .. (shrink)

Ernesto Laclau (1935-2014) est reconnu aujourd'hui comme l'un des philosophes politiques principaux pour le XXIe siècle. Cet ouvrage poursuit les débats entrepris avec lui, et réunit quelques-uns de ses principaux interlocuteurs en France (Étienne Balibar, Toni Negri, Jacques Rancière), aux États-Unis (Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser) et en Argentine (Horacio González, Leonor Arfuch, Emilio de Ipola, Senda Sferco). Laclau a écrit des ouvrages devenus des références sur l'hégémonie, le populisme et l'émancipation. Longtemps ignorées par la philosophie institutionnelle et méconnues du grand (...) public, ses thèses originales ont su perturber la scène contemporaine de la pensée politique. Son activité citoyenne en Argentine a fait de lui un intellectuel familier du public hispanophone. Ce que disent ici les penseurs argentins éclaire d'un jour nouveau la contribution des épistémologies du Sud aux débats politiques français et européens, mais aussi au-delà, portant sur la question d'un populisme de gauche que Laclau appelait de ses voeux et qu'il nous laisse en héritage."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Some individuals and businesses have become increasingly dependent upon multiple financing sources for economic survival. Certain currently used lending policies, such as interest-only loans and revolving credit lines, may encourage borrower dependency on the lender. The paper reviews religious teachings, specifically religious safeguards on lending identified in primary Jewish sources including the Tanach and rabbinic teachings, and finds that the safeguards in place centuries ago may still be relevant for lending practices today to both protect the borrower while still providing (...) a profitable means to help borrowers. (shrink)

La crise écologique actuelle prend ses racines dans une histoire faite de possibles, parfois aboutis, d'échecs et de renoncements. Près de deux siècles de politiques environnementales que Serge Audier synthétise ici à la lumière des entraves et des infléchissements qui les ont forgées, les empêchant encore aujourd'hui de répondre efficacement à l'urgence toujours plus criante. Depuis la fin du XXe siècle, des signaux d'alarme écologiques ne cessent de retentir : réchauffement climatique toujours plus incontrôlable, destruction exponentielle et dramatique de la (...) biodiversité, déforestations accélérées, pollutions diverses, " plastification " des mers, etc. Pourtant, les défenseurs de la cause écologique peinent à véritablement convaincre l'ensemble de la société ainsi que les décideurs économiques et politiques de la nécessité d'un changement urgent de modèle. Pourquoi les forces politiques, de droite mais aussi de gauche, n'ont-elles pas su ou voulu prendre en charge le défi écologique? C'est à cette question que s'intéresse ce livre de Serge Audier, qui offre une ample fresque inédite sur les racines philosophiques, idéologiques et politiques de la crise actuelle. Au croisement de l'histoire et de la philosophie, cette généalogie intellectuelle examine les logiques doctrinales et politiques qui, depuis près de deux siècles, ont présidé aux prises de position et aux programmes en matière environnementale, à leurs réussites comme à leurs nombreux échecs. L'auteur montre notamment pourquoi, dans de nombreuses régions du monde, la logique socio-économique, politique et culturelle dominante est allée dans le sens d'un modèle productiviste qui a provoqué une destruction accélérée et sans précédent du milieu naturel. Parallèlement, il soulève la question des " possibles " non aboutis ou non réalisés, et invite à (re)découvrir des voies alternatives - entre anarchisme et socialisme - qui ont cherché à articuler critique sociale et critique écologique du capitalisme, dans l'horizon d'une " cité écologique " à venir. (shrink)

Judith Jarvis Thomson; Killing, Letting Die, and The Trolley Problem, The Monist, Volume 59, Issue 2, 1 April 1976, Pages 204–217, https://doi.org/10.5840/monis.

Agricultural biotechnology refers to a diverse set of industrial techniques used to produce genetically modified foods. Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods manipulated at the molecular level to enhance their value to farmers and consumers. This book is a collection of essays on the ethical dimensions of ag biotech. The essays were written over a dozen years, beginning in 1988. When I began to reflect on the subject, ag biotech was an exotic, untested, technology. Today, in the first year of (...) the millenium, the vast majority of consumers in the United States have taken a bite of the apple. Milk produced by cows injected with a GM protein called recombinant bovine growth hormone (bGH), is found, unlabelled, on grocery shelves throughout the US. In 1999, half of the soybeans and cotton harvested in the US were GM varieties. Billions of dollars of public and private monies are being invested annually in biotech research, and commercial sales now reach into the tens of billions of dollars each year. Whereas ag biotech once promised to change American agriculture, it now is in the process of doing so. (shrink)

This article examines the relation between policies concerning Corporate Social Responsibility and philosophical moral theories. The objective is to determine which moral theories form the basis for CSR policies. Are they based on ethical egoism, libertarianism, utilitarianism or some kind of common-sense morality? In order to address this issue, I conducted an empirical investigation examining the relation between moral theories and CSR policies, in companies engaged in CSR. Based on the empirical data I collected, I start by suggesting some normative (...) arguments used by the respondents. Secondly, I suggest that these moral arguments implicitly rely on some specific moral principles, which I characterise. Thirdly, on the basis of these moral principles, I suggest the moral theories upon which the CSR policies are built. Previous empirical studies examining the relation between philosophical moral theories and the ethical content of business activities have mainly concentrated on the ethical decision-making of managers. Some of the most prominent investigations in that regard propose that managers mainly act in accordance with utilitarian moral theory, 166–175; Premeaux, S. and W. Mony: 1993, Journal of Business Ethics12, 349–357; Premeaux, S.: 2004, Journal of Business Ethics52, 269–278). I conclude that CSR policies are not based on utilitarian thinking, but instead, on some kind of common-sense morality. The ethical foundation of companies engaged in CSR, thus, does not mirror the ethical foundation of managers. (shrink)

Neither of the two central moral and political obstacles to human embryonic stem cell research survives critical scrutinyThis paper argues that neither of the two central moral and political obstacles to human embryonic stem cell research survives critical scrutiny: first, that derivation of HESCs requires the destruction of human embryos which are full human persons or are at least deserving of respect incompatible with their destruction; second, that creation of HESCs using somatic cell nuclear transfer or cloning is immoral. First, (...) different sources of HESCs are distinguished and the distinct moral objections that might apply to each. Second, it is argued that none of the properties plausibly conferring personhood on an entity is possessed by human embryos, and then shown how destruction of an embryo for research with the prospect of important medical benefits can be compatible with respecting it. Third, it is shown that the main objection to human cloning is only to reproductive cloning and that the objection to creating human beings with the intention of destroying them does not apply to SCNT. Finally, the concern that acquiring human eggs for SCNT would involve exploiting women donors is addressed, and it is shown how that can be avoided.Human embryonic stem cell research has become one of the more politically and morally controversial issues of our time. There is wide variability in what HESC research, if any, is permitted in countries around the world. Within the United States HESC research was a major issue in the last presidential election and some states, such as California, are devoting substantial public monies to fund this research while others prohibit it. In this paper I will explore some of the main obstacles to reaching consensus on this issue in the hope of at least narrowing the disagreement …. (shrink)

La logique classique, qui repose sur trois principes fondamentaux (d'identité, de non-contradiction et de tiers-exclu), a pu séduire par son efficacité orientée vers l'être, elle permet d'appréhender la cohérence du réel, donc de développer les savoirs. Pour autant, sa puissance s'avère limitée dans certaines situations des limitations internes des formalismes à l'apparition de nouveaux objets paradoxaux, la science du XXe siècle a été confrontée à une crise de ses fondements dont elle n'est pas encore sortie. Or, s'affranchir de ce qui (...) vient en nous entraver la pensée a été un enjeu pour des courants soucieux de fonder leur rigueur démonstrative sur un au-delà de l'être. Dans la lignée de l'hénologie néoplatonicienne, ces modes d'explication ont néanmoins souvent été jugés irrationnels, mystiques ou simplement absurdes. À l'aide des logiques non standards contemporaines, c'est une étude systémique de ces positions qui est ici envisagée à travers la critique de l'hégémonie des trois grands principes logiques grâce à la logique intuitionniste, il devient possible de construire rigoureusement la notion de néant suressentiel; grâce aux logiques paraconsistantes, les contradictions et les paradoxes qu'une telle dialectique engendre perdent leur caractère irrationnel; enfin, grâce aux traditions logiques indiennes et japonaises, le principe d'identité peut lui-même être questionné. Cette remise en cause radicale de nos certitudes les mieux ancrées permet ultimement de dégager de nouvelles perspectives à la pensée logique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: SECTION 1 THE WORLD BEFORE GLOBALIZATION: CHANGING -- SCALES OF EXPERIENCE Edited by Denis Shaw -- Chapter 1 Pre-capitalist worlds Denis Shaw -- Chapter 2 The rise and spread of capitalism Terry Slater -- Chapter 3 The making of the twentieth-century world Denis Shaw -- SECTION 2 SOCIETY, SETTLEMENT AND CULTURE Edited by Denis Shaw -- Chapter 4 Cities Allan Cochrane -- Chapter 5 Rural alternatives Ian Bowler -- Chapter 6 Geography, culture and global change Cheryl (...) McEwan -- SECTION 3 POPULATION, RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT -- Edited by iMichael Bradshaw -- Chapter 7 Demographic transformations Tony Champion -- Chapter 8 Resources and development Michael Bradshaw -- Chapter 9 Changing geographies of global food production Brian Ilbery -- Chapter 10 Alternative geographies of global development and inequality -- Marcus Power -- SECTION 4 PRODUCTION, EXCHANGE AND CONSUMPTION -- Edited by Peter Daniels -- Chapter 11 The geography of the economy Peter Daniels -- Chapter 12 The global production system: from Fordism to post-Fordism -- John Bryson and Nick Henry -- Chapter 13 The global financial system: worlds of monies Jane Pollard -- Chapter 14 Worlds of consumption Philip Crang -- SECTION 5 GEOPOLITICS, STATES AND CITIZENSHIP -- Edited by James Sidaway -- Chapter 15 Geopolitical traditions James Sidaway -- Chapter 16 The place of the nation-state James Sidaway -- Chapter 17 States, citizenship and collective action Murray Low -- Conclusions Challenges and promises -- Peter Daniels, Michael Bradshaw, Denis Shaw and James Sidaway -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

Although separated by almost a decade, there are two relatively recent United States Supreme Court cases involving the first Amendment religion clauses and educational funding. Both cases involved public monies diverted for sectarian educational purposes. One case brought by a plaintiff challenging the diversion; the other by a plaintiff challenging the cession of the diversion. The comparison, contrast and evaluation of the two cases is the intended goal of this essay and is predicated upon the fact that while both cases (...) essentially yield the same result, neither employs the same justifying foundational argument employed by the other. Finally, understanding these two cases may serve as a predicate to a third educational case now before the United States Supreme Court during the 2021 term. (shrink)

In 1988 I began a report on the accuracy of expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases utilizing Ralph Underwager and Hollida Wakefield as a case study (Wakefield & Underwager, 1988). In response, Underwager and Wakefield began a campaign of harassment and intimidation, which included multiple lawsuits; an ethics charge; phony (and secretly taped) phone calls; and ad hominem attacks, including one that I was laundering federal grant monies. The harassment and intimidation failed as the author refused demands to retract. (...) In addition, the lawsuits and ethics charges were dismissed. Lessons learned from the experience are discussed. (shrink)

Conflicts over the proper role of religion in schools-and particularly in public schools supported by tax monies-are frequently featured in news reports. For example, in the United States there currently are conflicts over the teaching of evolution, inserting the word God in the pledge of allegiance, conducting school holiday celebrations, posting the biblical Ten Commandments in schools, and praying at school functions. People who are interested in such controversies often-or, perhaps, usually-fail to understand the historical backgrounds to the conflicts and (...) therefore do not recognize the very complex factors that affect why the controversies become so heated. To help readers gain a better understanding of such matters, this book focuses on the seven major types of conflicts that have become particularly confrontational during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The cases on which the chapters focus concern issues that currently are being hotly debated in America. Controversies are described in relation to their historical origins and the author shows how the history affects current understanding of the issues. Thomas does not take sides in the arguments; rather, he lays out the arguments, their historical and cultural contexts, and the groups that debate them and their goals. Anyone wishing to gain a better understanding of the controversies surrounding religion in American schools will be happy to find here not just a review of the issues, but a deeper consideration of the causes, consequences, and future of the debates and the role of religion in our public schools. (shrink)

Introduction : Gramsci, ce célèbre inconnu -- 1. Trois portaits de Gramsci en intellectuel politique -- 2. Quasi système et histoire dans les cahiers de prison -- 3. Antonio Gramsci : quel socialisme ? Quel communisme ? -- 4. La philosophie de la praxis entre conception du monde, religion, idéologie, sens commun -- 5. Survie et création en prison -- 6. L'hégémonie comme pédagogie: formation de la volonté collective et de la personnalité individuelle.

Following extensive examination of published and unpublished materials, we provide a history of the use of dexamethasone in pregnant women at risk of carrying a female fetus affected by congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). This intervention has been aimed at preventing development of ambiguous genitalia, the urogenital sinus, tomboyism, and lesbianism. We map out ethical problems in this history, including: misleading promotion to physicians and CAH-affected families; de facto experimentation without the necessary protections of approved research; troubling parallels to the history (...) of prenatal use of diethylstilbestrol (DES); and the use of medicine and public monies to attempt prevention of benign behavioral sex variations. Critical attention is directed at recent investigations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP); we argue that the weak and unsupported conclusions of these investigations indicate major gaps in the systems meant to protect subjects of high-risk medical research. (shrink)

While their strength, electrical, optical, or magnetic properties are expected to contribute a trillion dollars in global commerce before 2015, nanomaterials also appear to pose threats to human health and safety. Nanotoxicology is the study of these threats. Do nanomaterial benefits exceed their risks? Should all nanomaterials be regulated? Currently nanotoxicologists cannot help answer these questions because too little is known about nanomaterials, because their properties differ from those of bulk materials having the same chemical composition, and because they differ (...) so widely in their applications. Instead, this paper answers a preliminary ethical question: What nanotech policies are likely to contribute to society’s ability to give or withhold free informed consent to the potential risks associated with production and use of nanomaterials? This paper argues that at least four current policies appear to jeopardize the risk-disclosure condition that is required for informed consent. These are the funding problem, the conflict-of-interest problem, the labeling problem, and the extrapolation problem. Apart from future decisions on how to ethically make, use, and regulate nanomaterials, this paper argues that, at a minimum, these four policies must be modified. Government must spend greater monies on nanotoxicology; ensure independent nanotoxicology research; label consumer products containing nanomaterials; and avoid assuming that nanotoxicological properties are based merely on mass and chemical composition. Otherwise free informed consent to these new technologies and materials may be jeopardized. (shrink)

The fact that Pentecostal Christianity is the fastest growing form of Christianity in Africa can no longer be a subject of debate. Christianity, one of the major religions in the world, has been growing at unprecedented rates in sub-Saharan Africa. What is being observed on the religious atmosphere is the Pentecostalisation of African Christianity in Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular. From 2009 onwards, Zimbabwe has experienced a mushrooming spree of contemporary Pentecostalism. Though conglomerate in nature, three ecclesiastical figures (...) overshadow the rest, namely Emmanuel Makandiwa’s United Family International Church, Uebert Angel of Good News Church and Walter Magaya of Prophetic, Healing and Deliverance Ministries. The three Pentecostal figures became highly popular through the propagation of the Gospel of Prosperity with vigour and vitality. Their presence in the Zimbabwean religious arena has attracted mixed perceptions. Some people view them as rippers of peoples’ hard-earned monies, while others regard them as true prophets – the messengers of God. The million-dollar question remains: Are they catalysts or antidotes to downward social mobility? This article grapples to assess whether the ‘Big Three’ contemporary Pentecostal prophets serve as propellers or dispellers of downward social mobility. The Big Three are antidotes based on three arguments: (1) Propagation of the Gospel of Prosperity, (2) miracle performances and (3) societal empowerment champions. On the other hand, the prophets are catalysts based on three arguments: white-collar prophecy, negation of social justice and preferential option for the Powerful. Through the application of the justitia pro-povo oprimido liberation hermeneutics, the study argues that the ‘Big Three’ ecclesiastical clergymen serve more as catalysts to downward social mobility than antidotes to downward social mobility. The justitia pro-povo oprimido liberation hermeneutics is a new methodological approach invented by the author based on liberation theology that sees Christianity as seeking the justice of the oppressed. Contribution: The article critically reflects on rise of contemporary Pentecostalism in Zimbabwe focussing on the three outstanding prophets – Emmanuel Makandiwa, Uebert Angel and Walter Magaya. While the three clergymen contributed immensely, both positively and negatively to the rise and development of African Pentecostalisation of Zimbabwe, the justitia pro-povo oprimido liberation hermeneutics reveals the contemporary Pentecostal figures as propellers of downward social mobility. (shrink)

Researchers, scientists, and physicians in Uganda have become increasingly aware of the need to develop a systematic approach to reviewing bio-medical research conducted in their country. Much of this awareness and their concern stems from Uganda's high seroprevalence of human immunodeficiency virus and the consequent large influx of research monies and HIV researchers from developed countries, including the United States and Great Britain.We report on the proceedings of a five-day symposium on bioethical principles governing clinical trials, which convened in Jinja, (...) Uganda in September 1994. The thirteen male and female workshop participants included representatives from the Uganda Ministry of Health, Makerere University, the Uganda AIDS Commission, Uganda's National Council of Science and Technology, and the National Chemotherapeutic Laboratory. These representatives included ethicists, physicians, researchers, and pharmacists, all of whom have conducted research themselves. Initial workshop sessions focused on the history of human experimentation and the development of protections for human participants in medical research, both in the United States and internationally. (shrink)

Two important aspects of the relationship between peer review and innovation includes the acceptance of articles for publication in journals and the assessment of applications for grants for the funding of research work. While there are well-known examples of the rejection by journals of first choice of many papers that have radically changed the way we think about the world outside ourselves, such papers do get published eventually, however tortuous the process required. With grant applications the situation differs in that (...) the refusal of a grant necessarily curtails the possible research that may be attempted. Here there are many reasons for conservatism and reservation as to the ability of a grant allocation process based on peer review to deliver truly innovative investigations. Other methods are needed; although such methods need not be applied across the board, they should constitute the methods whereby some 10–20% of the grant monies are assigned. The nomination of prizes for specific accomplishments is one way of achieving innovation although this presumes that investigators or institution already have available the money necessary to effect the innovations; otherwise it is a question of the selection and funding of particular individuals or institutions and requiring them to solve particular problems that are set in the broadest of terms. (shrink)

Most of us came into ecology with memories of special personal places. A cliff top that Claude Monet might have painted. Allen as a youth spent his holidays on the Dorset Coast near Swanage; he can still smell the sea breeze of his childhood. Curtin grow up on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, the dew of the grass and the bright green on a June morning remains vivid. The catching of reptiles and insects for him awakened a curiosity about the (...) natural world that has remained to this day. But once into the field there came the scholarship. With ever tighter grant monies, the pressure to publish takes so much of the fun out of it. A climate of unbridled careerism prevails and shows itself in the incremental state of the literature: little things to list on this year's activities report. There are now even predatory journals that cynically do not seriously review submissions, and only collect page charges. As journal editors have a desperate time getting reviews done by mature scholars, instead of a hand off to their overworked graduate students. So what is to be done - how can we bring the joy and importance of discovery back into it all? After all ecology is done by human beings. Mostly it is a personal mission, for what great ecologists write is frequently personal and life changing. So an undercurrent of this book is to remind and reveal the original purpose of science. Not professional advancement, but the genuine search for novel ideas and the imperative to share hard won insights and personal passions. (shrink)

There is much law and many guidelines surrounding the whole issue of the indemnity for human volunteers when it comes to clinical trials. The system that had been put in place to protect individual volunteer drug trialists seems largely to have worked by the fact that there are so few examples of legal cases being issued. However, recent events have shown that when the system fails it fails somewhat spectacularly. The difficulty for groups such as the ethics committee is that (...) lawyers look for targets to try and meet the difference between the claims and the monies available and it might therefore always be possible that the ethics committee becomes centre stage in terms of the pursuit of the action. (shrink)

Mohammed Arkoun est le père de l'islamologie appliquée. Grâce à cette discipline et ses concepts, il propose une analyse rigoureuse et exigeante des sociétés en contextes islamiques et de leurs rapports avec d'autres. Il aboutit ainsi à la nécessité de l'instauration d'un humanisme universalisable, seul gage pour une paix véritable et durable. En mettant à la portée du penseur-chercheur une nouvelle approche méthodologique qui vise une compréhension plus équilibrée de l'histoire, il rejette les volontés d'hégémonie et prend en compte toutes (...) les composantes de la société humaine. Par la méthode de déconstruction-remembrement de la pensée islamique en particulier et de la pensée humaine en général, il entend libérer l'humanité des clôtures dogmatiques et promouvoir un humanisme universalisable."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This article attempts to reconstruct an early history of the Norwegian Pentecostal Mission’s work in Kenya. The Free Pentecostal Church, known as the Free Pentecostal Fellowship in Kenya until April 2018, was born out of a 1984 merger between the Swedish Free Mission and the NPM. The Norwegians came earlier in 1955, whereas their Scandinavian counterparts arrived in 1960. The article contests that during the period under review, the first 29 years of NPM’s presence in Kenya, the NPM was characterised (...) by a fast-growing enthusiasm in establishing mission stations and local churches through evangelism and social work activities in education, medical care, orphanages, midwifery and compassionate handouts of commodities to villagers. These would be overtaken by the efforts to merge Swedish and Norwegian interests and establishments into one denomination in 1976 and the move towards nationalising the FPFK by handing over church leadership to the Kenyans by 1997. The article contests that the zeal and successes of the missionaries and local church workers in sowing the seeds of the gospel were checked by cultural and socio-economic setbacks in Kenya’s colonial context as well as the nationalisation process. The increased presence of Norwegian missionaries in Kenya during the 1960s were largely motivated by, among other factors, the channelling of Norwegian government aid monies to foreign development regions through missionary agencies and the imminent independence of the East African state. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Disability Embodied: Narrative Exploration of the Lives of Two Brothers Living with Traumatic Brain InjuryDouglas E. KiddAny discussion of personal experiences with disability, inevitably lead me to recall the experiences of my brother, Richard Kidd. An examination of our journeys clearly illustrates the term disability. More so, our stories reveal the outcome of severe physical impairment dictates the limits of personal agency and autonomy. Perhaps an obvious conclusion, but (...) exploration of our experience is useful as we provide living testimony to eventualities that could similarly occur to others. In order to provide context for discussion of our disabilities, I will briefly recall how we acquired our traumatic brain injuries (TBI), as well as how our brain injuries are expressed. The article will demonstrate that due to the severity of the brain damage he acquired, Richard is entirely subject to the whim of the society he encounters, and thus disabled. The article will also discuss how the disabling attitudes I have encountered sought to diminish my humanity.Richard KiddRichard’s descent into impairment began in the early evening hours of December 31, 1987. As a pedestrian, Richard attempted to cross a street in Indianapolis, when a car without using headlights, slammed into him. In addition, the driver fled the scene of the accident. After stabilizing from the initial trauma—multiple compound fractures to both legs and severe brain injury—Richard spent approximately ten months in coma. After emerging from coma, Richard underwent months of therapy. Albeit with consistent direction from others, therapy enhanced Richard’s ability to hold a cup and use a spoon. These were significant victories for Richard and signaled the beginning of his recovery. However, within two years of his accident, monies ended for rehabilitation and Richard entered into custodial care at his first nursing facility. As time passed, his daily interactions with poorly supervised, unskilled, and underpaid nursing facility employees with little time to work with Richard meant it was more cost efficient for staff to simply spoon–feed Richard. Consequently, Richard lost the ability to participate in an aspect of his self–care. Richard’s humanity took years to gradually erode, but due to the severity of his impairments, he became viewed by those he encountered as an object of treatment, or reservoir of pain and pity, rather than an individual worthy of respect. Accordingly, [End Page 199] Richard became viewed as other. Thus began Richard’s descent into disability.A complete lack of dental care for decades provides a good example of Richard’s treatment as other. Richard’s experience also demonstrates that desensitized members of the medical, dental, and long–term care professions sometimes precipitate grave circumstances. The combination of an inattention to his needs and his limited ability to participate with his self–care meant that Richard typically went without dental treatment. His quality of life diminished further when aides at a nursing facility dropped him. During the fall, Richard’s face smashed into the floor and several teeth were shattered. More than a decade passed before Richard finally received follow–up dental treatment—that day nearly cost him his life. Due to prolonged neglect, all of Richard’s teeth required extraction. I do not question the dental surgeon’s assessment of Richard’s teeth. I am certain that all of his teeth needed to be removed; but Richard’s sedentary lifestyle meant that he had limited ability to cope with the trauma associated with having 24 teeth removed in one session. I feel certain the dental surgeon assumed Richard was like most other patients and could handle the stress associated with the procedures. However, Richard could not cope with trauma and blood loss the extractions produced. What is worse than the dental surgeon’s assessment of Richard’s ability to withstand surgery is the post–op personnel decision to discharge him to home, shortly after surgery. The nursing facility was ill–equipped to cope with the extent of the blood loss that ensued and soon Richard began to aspirate on his own blood. Accordingly, Richard was sent to the hospital where he proceeded to slip into coma. Richard remained in a coma for approximately four days and in hospital... (shrink)

Against a background of neoliberal precarity, the yoga industry promotes a practice experienced by, and inscribed on, the body that is meant to transcend physiological boundaries and expand individual and collective awareness. In this context, research on contemporary yoga has shed light on how women, and specific notions of womanhood, are key to a promise of wellness, healing, and self-realisation that is materialised by White, monied, slender female practitioners as embodiments of the proper way of undertaking self-care. The yoga industry, (...) thus, participates in a politics of the body, embedded in the intricate structures of the current neoliberal politico-economic regime. Based on these observations, this article sets out to interrogate how the yoga industry’s mandate of tending to the body enters the way female teachers and practitioners navigate, experience, and express their journey into yoga. By analysing selected interviews conducted with women yoga instructors and practitioners in the city of Genoa, the article examines how they frame yoga as a way of caring for the self while navigating personal issues and bodily ailments. As a path of self-scrutiny and self-realisation, yoga is talked about as providing some relief from life’s predicaments and embodied vulnerabilities while also accommodating gender normativity. The article develops a critique of the problematic appropriation of self-care by the yoga industry’s mainstream cultural repertoires as a sociologically neutral individual response to living with neoliberal precarity. The article contends that feminist politics of care provide a framework to re-inscribe yogic self-care within a broader process of collectively subverting neoliberal injunctions about tending to the body. (shrink)

Philanthropy is typically hierarchically constructed with an imbalance of power between funders and grantees. While this seems inherent in philanthropic relationships where funders inevitably control resources that grantees need, some women’s funds have sought to construct less hierarchical and thus more feminist relationships with the organizations they support. Based on many years of insider access to a local women’s fund, this article describes and explains the organization’s efforts to develop interactive dialogues with its grantees, which led to a change in (...) grants guidelines that were more inclusive of women’s methods of community organizing. A small survey of women’s community groups, done as background to this research, provides data on challenges and obstacles these groups face when seeking monies to support their work. Some attention is given to implications for general theories of organizations, for funder-grantee dialogues leading to increased accountability in philanthropy, and for support of women’s community organizations. (shrink)

Another Spinoza Baruch de Spinoza is usually portrayed as a sweet, lovable, benign philosopher who spent his life seeking rational truth. In ~958 I ran across some rather contrary testi- mony in an unpublished letter by someone who knew him, and I have finally decided to publish it. The letter is by ~tienne Le Moine, 1624-1689, who from 1676 onward was professor of theology at the University of Leiden. Le Moine was a French Protestant from Caen, who had studied at (...) S6dan. He got in trouble with French Catholic authorities, and went or fled to The Netherlands where he taught and published many theological works.' He was a friend of Bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet, 163o- 1721, the Bishop of Avranches. They both came from Caen, and Huet, whose father had been a Protestant, seems to have kept in touch with his Protestant acquaintances all during the.. (shrink)