This book covers theoretical aspects of Catholic Religious Education in schools and examines them from multiple theoretical and contextual perspectives. It captures the contemporary academic and educational developments in the field of Religious Education while discussing in detail the challenges that Religious Educators face in different European, Asian, African, Australian, American and Latin American countries. The edited collection investigates how to pass on a Catholic heritage as a "living tradition" in diversely populated schools and communities. In this way it explores and asserts the proper identity of Catholic Religious Education in dialogue with Catechetics and with the wider discipline of Religious Education. As the different articles of this publication demonstrate - through a series of interesting and critical points of view - Catholic Religious Education is confronted with many challenges from the risk of marginalization to the confusion produced by a religious indifferentism leading to a strictly comparative or neutral method in the study of religions. It is essential to take into account in our research perspectives that Catholic Religious Education is not only a subject but also a mission in the light of the diakonia of truth in the midst of humanity H.E. Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect, Congregation for Catholic Education, Holy See, Vatican City Religious education teachers cannot by themselves overcome the ills of society, but religious education...can help to create better citizens of the world as some authors argue throughout this collection. could not ask more from such timely and provocative collection. It is a gift to the profession and to Catholic Religious Education. Prof. Gloria Durka, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA

This monograph takes an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach to 20th and 21st -century Canadian Daoist poetry, fiction and criticism in comparative, innovative and engaging ways. Of particular interest are the authors' refreshing insights into such holistic and topical issues as the globalization of concepts of the Dao, the Yin/Yang, the Heaven-Earth-Humanity triad, the Four Greats, Five Phases, Non-action and so on, as expressed in Canadian literature and criticism - which produces Canadian-constructed Daoist poetics, ethics and aesthetics. Readers will come to understand and appreciate the social and ecological significance of, formal innovations, moral sensitivity, aesthetic principles and ideological complexity in Canadian-Daoist works.

The mainstream approach to the understanding of pain continues to be governed by the biomedical paradigm and the dualistic Cartesian ontology. This Volume brings together essays of scholars of literature, philosophy and history on the many enigmatic shades of pain-experience, mostly from an anti-Cartesian perspective of cultural ontology by scholars of literature, philosophy and history. A section of the essays is devoted to the socio-political dimensions of pain in the Indian context. The book offers a critical perspective on the reductive conceptions of pain and argue that non-substance ontology or cultural ontology supports a more humane and authentic understanding of pain. The general ontological features of the self in pain and culturally imbued dimensions of pain-experience are, thus, brought together in a rare blend in this Volume. The essays dwell on the importance of understanding what cultural, social and political forces outside our control do to our pain-experience. They show why such understanding is necessary, both to humanely deal with pain, and to rectify erroneous approaches to pain-experience. They also explore the thoroughly ambivalent spaces between pain and pleasure, and the cathartic and productive dimensions of pain. The essays in this Volume investigate pain-experiences through the fresh lenses of history, gender, ethics, politics, death, illness, self-loss, torture, shame, dispossession and denial.

This important source for students, researchers, advertisers and parents reviews the debates and presents new research about advertising to children. Chapters cover food and alcohol advertising, the effects of product placement and new media advertising, and the role of parents and teachers in helping children to learn more about advertising.

this volume explores theoretical discourses in which religion is used to legitimize political violence. It examines the ways in which Christianity and Islam are utilized for political ends, in particular how violence is used (or abused) as an expedient to justify political action. This research focuses on premodern as well as contemporary discourses in the Middle East and Latin America, identifying patterns frequently used to justify the deployment of violence in both hegemonic and anti-hegemonic discourses. In addition, it explores how premodern arguments and authorities are utilized and transformed in order to legitimize contemporary violence as well as the ways in which the use of religion as a means to justify violence alters the nature of conflicts that are not otherwise explicitly religious. It argues that most past and present conflicts, even if the discourses about them are conducted in religious terms, have origins other than religion and/or blend religion with other causes, namely socio-economic and political injustice and inequality. Understanding the use and abuse of religion to justify violence is a prerequisite to discerning the nature of a conflict and might thus contribute to conflict resolution.

The book focuses on the history of Elias' most famous and important work "Process of Civilization" in close relation to the historical and biographical context. It starts with Elias' childhood and intellectual background and paints a detailed picture of the development of German sociology in early 20th century up to the World War 2.

Long before the recent "Arab Spring", when the topic of democracy with in many Muslim countries took center stage internationally, Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim, an energetic and charismatic politician, had been one of the most vocal global proponents of the compatibility of Islam and democratic principles. Anwar, who at one time was asked to be secretary-general of the United Nations, has lived a life that is a compelling testimony of the growth and evolution of his love for his country and his faith. Anwar has been active at the highest levels of Malaysian politics for over thirty years, and though he has been jailed for his activism on several occasions, he continues to be a dynamic, passionate voice for the diverse cultures, religions, and peoples of Malaysia. Anwar's life story is told in a factual, impartial way, and his one-on-one interviews with this book's author add a personal component. This volume is essential reading for scholars and students interested in Islamic politics and South East Asian studies.

There is no female religious figure so widely known and revered as the Virgin Mary. Throughout history, Mary has inspired in a multitude of cultures around the world a deep affection, a desire to emulate her virtue, and a strong belief in the power of her apparitions and miracles. Perhaps no population has been so deeply affected by this maternal figure as Filipino Catholics, whose apparitions of Mary have increasingly emerged and responded to recent events, drawing from a broad repertoire of the Catholic supernatural as they draw media attention to the global south. In Mother Figured, historical anthropologist Deirdre de la Cruz offers a detailed examination of several appearances and miracles of the Virgin Mary in the Philippines from materials and sites ranging from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. By analyzing the effects of the mass media on the perception and proliferation of apparition phenomena, de la Cruz charts the intriguing emergence of new voices in the Philippines that are broadcasting Marian discourse globally. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and hitherto unexplored archives in the Philippines, the United States, and Spain, Mother Figured documents the conditions of Marian devotion's modern development and tracks how it has transformed Filipinos' social and political role within the greater Catholic world.

Sam Harris's first book, "The End of Faith," ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people--from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists--agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the primary justification for religious faith.
In this highly controversial book, Sam Harris seeks to link morality to the rest of human knowledge. Defining morality in terms of human and animal well-being, Harris argues that science can do more than tell how we are; it can, in principle, tell us how we ought to be. In his view, moral relativism is simply false--and comes at an increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our "culture wars," Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.

The contributions in this book highlight, contextualize and analyze different aspects of social inequality. What are the various cause and effects of inequality? How have these changed over recent decades? Which social policies might be best able to intervene? Written by authors from a variety of disciplines and geographical regions, these contributions provide a rich account of inequality within contemporary society. The role of the state, the media and the market in exacerbating and alleviating patterns of equality are all accessed alongside analysis of changing patterns of exclusion and hierarchy.

Examining corporeal expressions of indigenousness from an historical perspective, this book highlights the development of cultural hybridity in New Zealand via the popular performing arts, contributing new understandings of racial, ethnic, and gender identities through performance. The author offers an insightful and welcome examination of New Zealand performing arts via case studies of drama, music, and dance, performed both domestically and internationally. As these examples show, notions of modern New Zealand were shaped and understood in the creation and reception of popular culture. Highlighting embodied indigenous cultures of the past provides a new interpretation of the development of New Zealand's cultural history and adds an unexplored dimension in understanding the relationships between M?ori (indigenous New Zealander) and P?keh? (non-M?ori) throughout the late nineteenth and into the early twentieth centuries.

Performing Punk is a rich exploration of subcultural contrasts and similarities among punks. By investigating how punk is made, for whom, and in opposition to what, this book takes the reader on a journey through the lesser-known aspects of the punk subculture.

Every human being is born and has gone through a process of birth. Yet the topic of birth remains deeply underrepresented in the humanities, overshadowed by a scholarly focus on death. This book explores how imagery is used ritualistically in religious, secular, and nonreligious ways during birth, through analysis of a wide variety of art, iconography, poetry, and material culture. Objects central to the book's study include religious figurines, paintings about birth, and other items representative of pregnancy, crowning, or giving birth that have an historical or original meaning connected to religion. Contemporary artists are also creating new art in which they represent birth and mothering as nonreligious events that are sacred or divine. Framed through the concept of social ontology, which examines the nature of the social world and studies how people create meaning out of the various objects, images, and processes that make up human social life, the book theorizes a social ontology of birth, focusing on how the meaning of imagery undergoes metamorphosis between the spheres of religion, secularity, nonreligion, and the sacred when used during birth as a rite of passage. Included in the study are more than thirty images of birth, some of which have never been written about before.

This book develops a new theory of instrumental whiteness and leisure. Empirical research is drawn upon to highlight whiteness across a comprehensive and internationally-grounded range of leisure practices. The book explores sports participation, sports media and sports fandom, informal leisure, outdoor leisure, music, popular culture and tourism.

This book offers a new way to justify privacy based on a theory derived from Buddhist insights. It uses insights obtained from the Buddhist teachings on Non-Self to create an alternative theory of privacy. In doing so, the author first spells out the inherent differences between the Buddhist insights and the beliefs underlying conventional theories of privacy. While Buddhism views the self as existing conventionally through interactions with others, as well as through interrelations with other basic components, non-Buddhist ideas of self are understood as being grounded upon autonomous subjects, commonly understood to be entitled to rights and dignity. In light of this, the book offers ways in which these seemingly disparate concepts can be reconciled, while keeping in mind the need for protecting citizens' privacy in a modern information society. It also argues that the new way of conceptualizing privacy, as presented in this book, would go a long way in helping unravel the difficult concept of group privacy.

Return to Twin Peaks offers new critical considerations and approaches to the Twin Peaks series, as well as reflections on its significance and legacy. With texts that analyze the ways in which readers and viewers endow texts with meaning in light of historically situated and culturally shared emphases and interpretive strategies, this volume showcases the ways in which new theoretical paradigms can reinvigorate and enrich understanding of what Twin Peaks was and what it has become since it went off the air in 1991.

This valuable book is the first to bring together theory and policy with analysis and expertise on practices in key areas of the public realm to explore what religious literacy is, why it is needed and what might be done about it. It makes the case for a public realm which is well equipped to engage with the plurality and pervasiveness of religion and belief, whatever the individual's own stance. It is aimed at academics, policy-makers and practitioners interested in the policy and practice implications of the continuing presence of religion and belief in the public sphere.

This edited collection provides interdisciplinary, global, and multi-religious perspectives on the relationship between women's identities, religion, and social change in the contemporary world. The book discusses the experiences and positions of women, and particular groups of women, to understand patterns of religiosity and religious change. It also addresses the current and future challenges posed by women's changes to religion in different parts of the world and among different religious traditions and practices. The contributors address a diverse range of themes and issues including the attitudes of different religions to gender equality; how women construct their identity through religious activity; whether women have opportunity to influence religious doctrine; and the impact of migration on the religious lives of both women and men.

Jane Austen wrote when sociology was being established as the new discipline to understand social issues such as urbanization and industrialization. Drawing on landmark sociologists such as Durkheim and Bourdieu, this study argues that the novels of Austen were heavily influenced by these early developments in sociology.