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Essay Attempts (essay + attempt)
Selected AbstractsDisturbing Politics: Neo-Paulinism and the Scrambling of Religious and Secular IdentitiesDIALOG, Issue 1 2007Ward Blanton Abstract:, One of the most remarkable characteristics of recent cultural theory is its obsession with the early Christian apostle Paul. With this interest in Paul as contemporary cultural theory, a panoply of modern identities find themselves obsolesced, scrambled, or otherwise useless. This essay attempts to find new points of orientation within those scrambled identities that have appeared with this new Paul, and the essay does so by exploring the idea that we are now repeating a Pauline moment of kairos, that apocalyptic moment in which meaningful transformation of the world may occur. [source] The "Return of the Subject" As a Historico-Intellectual ProblemHISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 1 2004Elías Palti abstract Recently, a call for the "return of the subject" has gained increasing influence. The power of this call is intimately linked to the assumption that there is a necessary connection between "the subject" and politics (and ultimately, history). Without a subject, it is alleged, there can be no agency, and therefore no emancipatory projects,and, thus, no history. This paper discusses the precise epistemological foundations for this claim. It shows that the idea of a necessary link between "the subject" and agency, and therefore between the subject and politics (and history) is only one among many different ones that appeared in the course of the four centuries that modernity spans. It has precise historico-intellectual premises, ones that cannot be traced back in time before the end of the nineteenth century. Failing to observe the historicity of the notion of the subject, and projecting it as a kind of universal category, results, as we shall see, in serious incongruence and anachronisms. The essay outlines a definite view of intellectual history aimed at recovering the radically contingent nature of conceptual formations, which, it alleges, is the still-valid core of Foucault's archeological project. Regardless of the inconsistencies in his own archeological endeavors, his archeological approach intended to establish in intellectual history a principle of temporal irreversibility immanent in it. Following his lead, the essay attempts to discern the different meanings the category of the subject has historically acquired, referring them back to the broader epistemic reconfigurations that have occurred in Western thought. This reveals a richness of meanings in this category that are obliterated under the general label of the "modern subject"; at the same time, it illuminates some of the methodological problems that mar current debates on the topic. [source] Nativist Cosmopolitans: Institutional Reflexivity and the Decline of "Double-Consciousness" in American Nationalist ThoughtJOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2001Eric Kaufmann Debate in the field of historical sociology on the subject of American citizenship and nationality tends to support one of two theories. The exceptionalist argument holds that American nationalist discourse has historically been based on the universal ideals of liberty enshrined in the Constitution, and has been inclusive in character. Critics contend that this was not the case , arguing that the narrative of American national identity has typically been grounded on exclusive ethno-cultural criteria like race, religion or language. This essay attempts to demonstrate that the truth encompasses, yet transcends, both positions. This is not because there were conflicting parties in the nineteenth century nationality debate , indeed, there was a great deal of elite consensus as to the meaning of American nationhood prior to the twentieth century which simultaneously affirmed both the universalist and particularist dimension of Americanism. How to explain this apparent contradiction, which Ralph Waldo Emerson termed "double-consciousness?" This paper suggests that the nineteenth century popularity of dualistic statements of American nationhood, and the eclipse of such conceptions in the twentieth, is a complex sociological phenomenon that can only fully be explained by taking into account the development of institutional reflexivity in the United States. [source] Legal, social, cultural and political developments in mental health care in the UK: the Liverpool black mental health service users' perspectiveJOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRIC & MENTAL HEALTH NURSING, Issue 1 2002S. A. Pierre BA(HONs) MSc PhD RMN Documentary evidence suggests that attitudes among local health and social services professionals towards the concept of user involvement in health and social care remain deeply polarized, a position characterized by commentators simultaneously as praise and damnation. Perhaps user involvement in health and social care will enhance, and it appears to resonate with the logic of, participatory democracy, in localities where the centralization of power has posed questions as to the nature and purpose of local governance in public services provision. The problems experienced by Britain's black and ethnic minorities within the mental health system have been the subject of exhaustive social inquiry. This essay attempts to explore the way in which legal, social, cultural, and political developments interface with mental health care practice in the UK, in order to assist those responsible for mental health services provision to deliver services that are in line with the Government's expectation of a modernized mental health service that is safe, sound, and supportive. An exploration of these developments within the European, national (UK), and local (Liverpool) contexts is undertaken. An appropriate local response to national priorities will ostensibly cut a swathe through the barriers confronted by the ethnic minority mental health service user in the cross-cultural context, an important prerequisite for the implementation of genuine user involvement. [source] Pragmatism, Postmodernism, and Global CitizenshipMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 1-2 2004Larry A. Hickman Abstract: The founders of American pragmatism proposed what they regarded as a radical alternative to the philosophical methods and doctrines of their predecessors and contemporaries. Although their central ideas have been understood and applied in some quarters, there remain other areas within which they have been neither appreciated nor appropriated. One of the more pressing of these areas locates a set of problems of knowledge and valuation related to global citizenship. This essay attempts to demonstrate that classical American pragmatism, because its methods are modeled on successes in the technosciences, offers a set of tools for fostering global citizenship that are more effective than the tools of some of its alternatives. First, pragmatism claims to discover a strain of human commonality that trumps the radical postmodernist emphasis on difference and discontinuity. Second, when pragmatism's theory of truth is coupled with its moderate version of cultural relativism, the more skeptical postmodernist version known as "cognitive" relativism is undercut. [source] Ideal Womanhood in Chinese Thought and CulturePHILOSOPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 8 2010Robin R. Wang Based on original texts this essay attempts to describe two main conceptual constructions and practices of ideal womanhood in the Chinese tradition: Lienu (exemplary women) as the Confucian social inspirations for women and Kundao (way of female) as the Daoist commitment to bodily and spiritual transformation. [source] A Joint Declaration?: Justification as Theosis in Aquinas and LutherTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 3 2000William T. Cavanaugh In the wake of the Lutheran-Catholic Joint Declaration on Justification, this essay attempts to explore ecumenical convergences in the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther on the question of justification. Specifically, this essay takes the recent Finnish uncovering of the theme of theosis in Luther's work and probes Aquinas' Summa Theologiae for similar themes of ontological participation of the human in the divine. I first display Aquinas' doctrine of God and show how human participation in the Trinitarian life is written into the structure of his account of God. I then show how Aquinas' understanding of participation informs his analysis of the virtues. Finally, I present some of the Finns' findings on Luther and examine covergences with Aquinas. Overall, I suggest that language of participation can help overcome the overdrawn contrast between Aquinas' account of the virtues and the forensic interpretation of Luther. [source] Seeking the "Counter," in CounterpublicsCOMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 4 2000Robert Asen As conceptual models of the public sphere have moved toward multiplicity, "counterpublic" has emerged as a critical term to signify that some publics develop not simply as one among a constellation of discursive entities, but as explicitly articulated alternatives to wider publics that exclude the interests of potential participants. This essay attempts to forestall potential reductionism in future counterpublic theory by considering through 3 "ominous examples" how the "counter" in counter-publics may be reduced to persons, places, or topics. Instead, this essay seeks to orient critical attention to the discursive quality of counterpublics. It argues that the ways in which counterpublics set themselves against wider publics may be most productively explored by attending to the recognition and articulation of exclusion through alternative discourse norms and practices. [source] | ||||||||||