Pascal D. Bazzell brings the marginal ecclesiology of a Filipino ecclesial community facing homelessness (FECH) into contemporary ecclesiological conversation in order to deepen the ecumenical understanding of today's ecclesial reality. He contributes relevant data to support a theory of an ecclesial-oriented paradigm that fosters ecclesial communities within homeless populations. There is an extensive dialogue occurring between ecclesiologies, church planting theories or urban missions and the urban poor. Yet the situation with the homeless population is almost entirely overlooked. The majority of urban mission textbooks do not acknowledge an ecclesial-oriented state of being and suggest that the street-level environment is a place where no discipleship can occur and no church should exist. By presenting the FECH's case study Bazzell emphasizes that it is possible to live on the streets and to grow in the faith of God as an ecclesial community. To be able to describe the FECH's ecclesial narrative, Bazzell develops a local ecclesiological methodology that aims to bridge the gap between more traditional systematic and theoretical (ideal) ecclesiology and practical oriented ecclesiology (e.g. congregational studies) in order to hold together theological and social understandings of the church in its local reality. He articulates a theological framework for the FECH to reflect on who they are (the essence of identity studies), who they are in relationship to God (the essence of theological studies), and what that means for believers in that community as they relate to God and to each other in ways that are true to who they are and to who God intends them to be (the essence of ecclesial studies). The research provides a seldom-heard empirical tour into the FECH's social world and communal identity. The theological findings from the FECH's hermeneutical work on the Gospel of Mark reveal an understanding of church being developed as gathering around Jesus that creates a space for God's presence to be embodied in their ordinary relationships and activities and to invite others to participate in that gathering. Moreover, it addresses ecclesial issues of the supernatural world; honor/shame values; and further develop the neglected image of the familia Dei in classical ecclesiology that encapsulates well the FECH's nature, mission and place.

Television and the Modernization Ideal in 1980s China: Dazzling the Eyes explores Chinese television history in the pivotal decade of the 1980s and explains the intellectual reception of television in China during this time. While the Chinese media has often been a topic within studies of globalization and the global political economy, scholarly attention to the history of Chinese television requires a more extensive and critical view of the interaction between television and culture. Using theories of media technology, globalization, and gender studies supplemented by Chinese periodicals including Life Out of 8 Hours, Popular TV, Popular Cinema, Modern Family, and Chinese Advertising, as well as oral history interviews, this book re-examines how Western technology was introduced to and embedded into Chinese culture. Wen compares and analyzes television dramas produced in China and imported from other nations while examining the interaction between various ideologies of Chinese society and those of the international media. Moreover, she explores how the hybridity between Western television culture and Chinese traditions were represented in popular Chinese visual media, specifically the confusions and ambitions of modernization and the negotiation between tradition and modernity, nationalism and internationalism, in the intellectual reception of television in China.

Gilbert L. Wilson, gifted ethnologist and field collector for the American Museum of Natural History, thoroughly enjoyed the study of American Indian life and folklore. In 1902 he moved to Mandan, North Dakota and was excited to find he had Indian neighbors. His life among them inspired him to write books that would accurately portray their culture and traditions. Wilson's charming translations of their oral heritage came to life all the more when coupled with the finely-detailed drawings of his brother, Frederick N. Wilson. "Myths of the Red Children" (1907) and "Indian Hero Tales" (1916) have long been recognized as important contributions to the preservation of American Indian culture and lore. Here, for the first time ever, both books are included in one volume, complete with their supplemental craft sections and ethnological notes. While aimed at young folk, the books also appeal to anyone wishing to learn more about the rich and culturally significant oral traditions of North America's earliest people. Nearly 300 drawings accompany the text, accurately depicting tools, clothing, dwellings, and accoutrements. The drawings for this edition were culled from multiple copies of the original books with the best examples chosen for careful restoration. The larger format allows the reader to fully appreciate every detail of Frederick Wilson's remarkable drawings. This is not a mere scan containing torn or incomplete pages, stains and blemishes. This new Onagocag Publishing hardcover edition is clean, complete and unabridged. In addition, it features an introduction by Wyatt R. Knapp that includes biographical information on the Wilson brothers, as well as interesting details and insights about the text and illustrations. Young and old alike will find these books a thrilling immersion into American Indian culture, craft, and lore. Onagocag Publishing is proud to present this definitive centennial edition.

Society is continually moving towards global interaction, and nations often contain citizens of numerous cultures and backgrounds. Bi-culturalism incorporates a higher degree of social inclusion in an effort to bring about social justice and change, and it may prove to be an alternative to the existing dogma of mainstream Europe-based hegemonic bodies of knowledge. The Handbook of Research on Indigenous Knowledge and Bi-Culturalism in a Global Context is a collection of innovative studies on the nature of indigenous bodies' knowledge that incorporates the sacred or spiritual influence across various countries following World War II, while exploring the difficulties faced as society immerses itself in bi-culturalism. While highlighting topics including bi-cultural teaching, Africology, and education empowerment, this book is ideally designed for academicians, urban planners, sociologists, anthropologists, researchers, and professionals seeking current research on validating the growth of indigenous thinking and ideas.

Heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, affects people from all walks of life, yet who lives and who dies from heart disease still depends on race, class, and gender. While scientists and clinicians understand and treat heart disease more effectively than ever before, and industrialized countries have made substantial investments in research and treatment over the past six decades, patterns of inequality persist. In Heart-Sick, Janet K. Shim argues that official accounts of cardiovascular health inequalities are unconvincing and inadequate, and that clinical and public health interventions grounded in these accounts ignore many critical causes of those inequalities. Examining the routine activities of epidemiology--grant applications, data collection, representations of research findings, and post-publication discussions of the interpretations and implications of study results--Shim shows how social differences of race, social class, and gender are upheld by the scientific community. She argues that such sites of expert knowledge routinely, yet often invisibly, make claims about how biological and cultural differences matter--claims that differ substantially from the lived experiences of individuals who themselves suffer from health problems. Based on firsthand research at epidemiologic conferences, conversations with epidemiologists, and in-depth interviews with people of color who live with heart disease, Shim explores how both scientists and lay people define "difference" and its consequences for health. Ultimately, Heart-Sick explores the deep rifts regarding the meanings and consequences of social difference for heart disease, and the changes that would be required to generate more convincing accounts of the significance of inequality for health and well-being.

In this collection of essays, anthropologists of religion examine the special challenges they face when studying populations that proselytize. Conducting fieldwork among these groups may involve attending services, meditating, praying, and making pilgrimages. Anthropologists participating in such research may unwittingly give the impression that their interest is more personal than professional, and inadvertently encourage missionaries to impose conversion upon them. Moreover, anthropologists' attitudes about religion, belief, and faith, as well as their response to conversion pressures, may interfere with their objectivity and cause them to impose their own understandings on the missionaries. Although anthropologists have extensively and fruitfully examined the role of identity in research-particularly gender and ethnic identity-religious identity, which is more fluid and changeable, has been relatively neglected. This volume explores the role of religious identity in fieldwork by examining how researchers respond to participation in religious activities and to the ministrations of missionaries, both academically and personally. Including essays by anthropologists studying the proselytizing religions of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, as well as other religions, this volume provides a range of responses to the question of how anthropologists should approach the gap between belief and disbelief when missionary zeal imposes its interpretations on anthropological curiosity.

The study investigates the cultural production of the visual iconography of popular pleasure grounds from the eighteenth century pleasure garden to the contemporary theme park. Deborah Philips identifies the literary genres, including fairy tale, gothic horror, Egyptiana and the Western which are common to carnival sites and traces their historical transition across a range of media to become familiar icons of popular culture.Though the bricolage of narratives and imagery found in the contemporary leisure zone has been read by many as emblematic of postmodern culture, the author argues that the clash of genres and stories is less a consequence of postmodern pastiche than it is the result of a history and popular tradition of conventionalized iconography.

An indispensable collection that re-examines what it means to belong in the world. "Where are you from?" The word cosmopolitan was first used as a way of evading exactly this question, when Diogenes the Cynic declared himself a "kosmo-polites," or citizen of the world. Cosmopolitanism displays two impulses-on the one hand, a detachment from one's place of origin, while on the other, an assertion of membership in some larger, more compelling collective. Cosmopolitanisms works from the premise that there is more than one kind of cosmopolitanism, a plurality that insists cosmopolitanism can no longer stand as a single ideal against which all smaller loyalties and forms of belonging are judged. Rather, cosmopolitanism can be defined as one of many possible modes of life, thought, and sensibility that are produced when commitments and loyalties are multiple and overlapping. Featuring essays by major thinkers, including Homi Bhabha, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Thomas Bender, Leela Gandhi, Ato Quayson, and David Hollinger, among others, this collection asks what these plural cosmopolitanisms have in common, and how the cosmopolitanisms of the underprivileged might serve the ethical values and political causes that matter to their members. In addition to exploring the philosophy of Kant and the space of the city, this volume focuses on global justice, which asks what cosmopolitanism is good for, and on the global south, which has often been assumed to be an object of cosmopolitan scrutiny, not itself a source or origin of cosmopolitanism. This book gives a new meaning to belonging and its ground-breaking arguments call for deep and necessary discussion and discourse.

In Blind Evolution?: The Nature of Humanity and the Origin of Life, Professor David Frost challenges the dominant worldview derived from Darwin's evolutionary theories and perpetuated in Richard Dawkins's atheistic propaganda for Neo-Darwinism: that our universe has 'at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference'. Frost deploys recent findings from a range of scientific studies that shake Neo-Darwinism to its foundation. Citing entertaining examples, from the inner workings of a single cell to the animal kingdom at large, from elephants and giraffes to the Japanese pufferfish, Frost maintains that Darwinian premises are wholly inadequate to engage with life or to provide a framework for our experiences of joy and sorrow, the problem of suffering, and the stark realities of good and evil. Reflecting on the nature of existence, Frost points to a mode of human understanding parallel to scientific enquiry through the path of 'vision' accessed via the nous (or spiritual intellect). He argues that 'vision' is as much essential to our understanding of creation as is scientific enquiry - reality is best approached through a complementary partnership of both.

The Egungun society is one of the least-studied and written-about aspects of African diasporic spiritual traditions. It is the society of the ancestors, the society of the dead. Its primary function is to facilitate all aspects of ancestor veneration. Though it is fundamental to Yoruba culture and the Ifa?u/Oriss?ua tradition of the Yoruba, it did not survive intact in Cuba or the US during the forced migration of the Yoruba in the Middle Passage. Taking hold only in Brazil, the Egungun cult has thrived since the early 1800s on the small island of Itaparica, across the Bay of Saints from Salvador, Bahia. Existing almost exclusively on this tiny island until the 1970s (migrating to Rio de Janeiro and, eventually, Recife), this ancient cult was preserved by a handful of families and flourished in a strict, orthodox manner. Brian Willson spent ten years in close contact with this lineage at the Candomble temple Xango Ca Te Espero in Rio de Janeiro and was eventually initiated as a priest of Egungun. Representing the culmination of his personal involvement, interviews, research, and numerous visits to Brazil, this book relates the story of Egungun from an insider's view. Very little has been written about the cult of Egungun, and almost exclusively what is written in English is based on research conducted in Africa and falls into the category of descriptive and historical observations. Part personal journal, part metaphysical mystery, part scholarly work, part field research, and part reportage, In Search of Ancient Kings illuminates the nature of Egungun as it is practiced in Brazil.

Explores the role of stories in criminal culture and justice systems around the world Stories are much more than a means of communication-stories help us shape our identities, make sense of the world, and mobilize others to action. In Narrative Criminology, prominent scholars from across the academy and around the world examine stories that animate offending. From an examination of how criminals understand certain types of crime to be less moral than others, to how violent offenders and drug users each come to understand or resist their identity as 'criminals', to how cultural narratives motivate genocidal action, the case studies in this book cover a wide array of crimes and justice systems throughout the world. The contributors uncover the narratives at the center of their essays through qualitative interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and written archives, and they scrutinize narrative structure and meaning by analyzing genres, plots, metaphors, and other components of storytelling. In doing so, they reveal the cognitive, ideological, and institutional mechanisms by which narratives promote harmful action. Finally, they consider how offenders' narratives are linked to and emerge from those of conventional society or specific subcultures. Each chapter reveals important insights and elements for the development of a framework of narrative criminology as an important approach for understanding crime and criminal justice. An unprecedented and landmark collection, Narrative Criminology opens the door for an exciting new field of study on the role of stories in motivating and legitimizing harm.

This volume provides an overview of the history of Greece, while also focusing on contemporary Greece. Coverage includes such 21st-century challenges as the economic crisis and the influx of immigrants and refugees that is changing the country's character. This latest volume in the Understanding Modern Nations series explores Greece, the birthplace of democracy and Western philosophical ideas. This thematic encyclopedia is one-of-its kind in its down-to-earth approach and comprehensive analysis of complex issues now facing Greece. It analyzes such topics as government and economics without jargon and brings a lighthearted approach to chapters on such topics as etiquette (e.g., what gestures to avoid so as not to offend), leisure (how Greeks celebrate holidays), and language (the meaning of "opa"). No other book on Greece is organized like this thematic encyclopedia, which has more than 200 entries on topics ranging from Archimedes to refugees. Unique to this encyclopedia is a "Day in the Life" section that explores the actions and thoughts of a high school student, a bank employee, a farmer in a small village, and a retired couple, giving readers a vivid snapshot of life in Greece. "Day in the Life" features portray the specific daily activities of various people in Greece, from teenagers to working adults in different fields, thereby providing readers with insight into daily life in the country Key terms related to the reading are defined in a Glossary appendix A chart of national holidays provides at-a-glance information about Greece's important religious and secular holidays Photos and sidebars illuminate the text, helping to illustrate key topics and allow students to dive more deeply into ideas Sidebars provide fun facts and anecdotal information that help to engage readers

How should religion and ethics be studied if we want to understand what people believe and why they act the way they do? In the 1980s and '90s postmodernist worries about led to debates that turned on power, truth, and relativism. Since the turn of the century scholars impressed by 'cognitive science' have introduced concepts drawn from evolutionary biology, neurosciences, and linguistics in the attempt to provide 'naturalist' accounts of religion. Deploying concepts and arguments that have their roots in the pragmatism of C. S. Peirce, Believing and Acting argues that both approaches are misguided and largely unhelpful in answering the questions that matter: What did those people believe then? How does it relate to what these people want to do now? What is our evidence for our interpretations? Pragmatic inquiry into these questions recommends an approach that questions grand theories, advocates a critical pluralism about religion and ethics that defies disciplinary boundaries in the pursuit of the truth. Rationality, on a pragmatic approach, is about solving particular problems in medias res, thus there is no hard and fast line to be drawn between inquiry and advocacy; both are essential to negotiating day to day life. The upshot is an approach to religion and ethics in which inquiry looks much like the art history of Michael Baxandall and advocacy like the art criticism of Arthur Danto.

Reforms in Myanmar (formerly Burma) have eased restrictions on citizens' political activities. Yet for most Burmese, Ardeth Maung Thawnghmung shows, eking out a living from day to day leaves little time for civic engagement. Citizens have coped with extreme hardship through great resourcefulness. But by making bad situations more tolerable in the short term, these coping strategies may hinder the emergence of the democratic values needed to sustain the country's transition to a more open political environment. Thawnghmung conducted in-depth interviews and surveys of 372 individuals from all walks of life and across geographical locations in Myanmar between 2008 and 2015. To frame her analysis, she provides context from countries with comparable political and economic situations. Her findings will be welcomed by political scientists and policy analysts, as well by journalists and humanitarian activists looking for substantive, reliable information about everyday life in a country that remains largely in the shadows.

China and Russia are rising economic and political powers that share thousands of miles of border. Despite their proximity, their interactions with each other - and with their third neighbour Mongolia - are rarely discussed. Although the three countries share a boundary, their traditions, languages and worldviews are remarkably different. Frontier Encounters presents a wide range of views on how the borders between these unique countries are enacted, produced, and crossed. It sheds light on global uncertainties: China's search for energy resources and the employment of its huge population, Russia's fear of Chinese migration, and the precarious independence of Mongolia as its neighbours negotiate to extract its plentiful resources. Bringing together anthropologists, sociologists and economists, this timely collection of essays offers new perspectives on an area that is currently of enormous economic, strategic and geo-political relevance.