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Criticism
Kinds of Criticism Selected AbstractsMENGZI'S ?? INHERITANCE, CRITICISM, AND OVERCOMING OF MOIST THOUGHT1JOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2008WEIXIANG DING [source] CRITICISM OF LITERATURE AND CRITICISM OF CULTURERATIO, Issue 4 2009Stein Haugom Olsen There is a class of critics who are dissatisfied with the academic status of literary criticism and who want to re-establish for literary criticism the status it possessed in the early and mid nineteenth century as simultaneously cultural and social criticism. This is an impossible task. The ,cultural critics' of the nineteenth century possessed their authority because they were without competition and because they could command the attention and respect of the whole of the literate audience. However, at the end of the nineteenth century intellectual authority came to be based in specialised academic disciplines and individual authority was undermined and ultimately disappeared. At the same time, the arrival of universal literacy in Britain fragmented and ultimately destroyed the generally educated audience to which the cultural critics addressed themselves. Consequently there is today no role for the cultural critic. Literary critics cannot speak with authority about social, political, or cultural questions. They can, however, speak with authority about literature. Whether or not this criticism can be grounded in disciplinary knowledge, it serves a necessary function for an audience that no longer possesses the skill of reading literary works and lacks the background knowledge that is necessary to make sense of literature. [source] Constructive Criticism of Community-Based ConservationCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 4 2005Clara B. Jones No abstract is available for this article. [source] Missing Bodies, Absent Bards: Spenser, Shakespeare and a Crisis in CriticismENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE, Issue 3 2006PATRICIA PALMER First page of article [source] Literary Authority as Cultural Criticism in Aemilia Lanyer's The Authors DreameENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE, Issue 3 2002COLLEEN SHEA [source] Perspectivism, Criticism and Freedom of SpiritEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, Issue 1 2000Bernard Reginster The paper examines the view that Nietzsche's perspectivism about practical judgments, understood as a form of internalism about practical reasons, implies that any legitimate criticism of judgments emanating from a foreign perspective must be in terms that are internal to this perspective. Insofar as it is thought to be motivated by certain general theoretical strictures of perspectivism, this view is incoherent. The paper argues that, on the contrary Nietzsche's recourse to a strategy of internal criticism is motivated by his own particular commitment to preserving the freedom of spirit of his interlocutors. The paper concludes with a discussion of how freedom of spirit is preserved by internal criticism, and how the nature of freedom of spirit affects the particular form such criticism will assume. [source] Higher Criticism and Higher Education at the University of Chicago: William Rainey Harper's Vision of Religion in the Research University1HISTORY OF EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2008Michael Lee First page of article [source] Thoughts on the Current State of Criticism in ArchitectureJOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION, Issue 3 2009GEORGE BAIRD No abstract is available for this article. [source] Wars for Oil: Moby-Dick, Orientalism, and Cold War CriticismLEVIATHAN, Issue 1 2009Jean-François Leroux [source] Finding an Audience for Clarel in Matthew Arnold's Essays in CriticismLEVIATHAN, Issue 1 2004PETER NORBERG [source] What We Think About Donne: A History of Donne Criticism in Twenty MinutesLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 4 2008Paul A. Parrish This paper is part of the second Literature Compass panel cluster arising from The Texas A&M John Donne Collection: A Symposium and Exhibition. [Correction added after online publication 24 October 2008: ,This paper introduces the second Literature Compass panel cluster' changed to ,This paper is part of the second Literature Compass panel cluster'.] Comprising an introduction by Gary Stringer and three of the papers presented at the symposium, this cluster seeks to examine the current state of Donne Studies and aims to provide a snapshot of the field. The symposium was held April 6,7, 2006. The cluster is made up of the following articles: ,Introduction to the Second Donne Cluster: Three Papers from The Texas A&M John Donne Collection: A Symposium and Exhibition', Gary A. Stringer, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00551.x. ,Donne into Print: The Seventeenth-Century Collected Editions of Donne's Poetry', Ted-Larry Pebworth, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00552.x. ,"a mixed Parenthesis": John Donne's Letters to Severall Persons of Honour', M. Thomas Hester, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00553.x. ,What We Think About Donne: A History of Donne Criticism in Twenty Minutes', Paul A. Parrish, Literature Compass 5 (2008), DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2008.00554.x. *** The standard paradigm of critical responses to John Donne from the seventeenth century to the present is not seriously contested: during his own day Donne was reasonably well known, albeit a somewhat controversial poet. As the century progressed, Donne became increasingly out of fashion, and throughout the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, Donne had largely disappeared from the public and critical eye. The ,rescue' of Donne in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has led to an interest that has continued largely unabated to the present, though often without the unbridled enthusiasm that characterizes some responses early in the twentieth century. In the past few decades, Donne's work has been viewed through the lenses of virtually every critical and theoretical approach one could identify. More recent efforts, particularly as exemplified by the Variorum Edition of the Poetry of John Donne, have not so much challenged the standard paradigm regarding Donne criticism as to add to our knowledge and understanding by filling in gaps and shading in historical transitions, the better to provide a more comprehensive understanding of what we have thought about Donne for more than four centuries. [source] Fortune and the Sinner: Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate and Malory's Morte DarthurLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 2 2008Marilyn Corrie Criticism has debated the causes of the fall of the Round Table in Malory's Morte Darthur. While Malory's protagonists have been blamed for some of the disasters that befall them, other factors have been implicated as well. Arthur's dream of Fortune's Wheel on the eve of his climactic battle with Mordred has been thought to show that metaphysical forces over which human beings have no control bear some blame in the king's destruction. This interpretation makes the Morte discrepant with other canonical late-medieval English texts that contemplate Fortune's role in men's suffering. As is well known, in Troilus and Criseyde and The Knight's Tale, Chaucer undermines the tendency of his pagan characters to blame what happens to them on Fortune. Both texts suggest that their protagonists determine their own fates, an idea that was impressed on Chaucer when he translated Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae. In Chaucer's Monk's Tale, Fortune is often (if not always) the agent of a fate that her victim has determined through sinfulness. In the prologue of the roughly contemporary Confessio Amantis, John Gower also claims that Fortune serves the fate that people have earned through the moral qualities of their deeds. The same idea is propounded in John Lydgate's Fall of Princes, although recent criticism has argued that certain narratives in this text contradict the claims that Lydgate makes for them. The article argues that we might, in fact, see a continuity between Fortune's role in the Morte and the role that is ascribed to her in the writings of Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate. Malory's work is usually said to have little in common with these writings, but future research might probe ways in which it does share their concerns and ideas. [source] Teaching & Learning Guide for: Victorian Life WritingLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 5 2007Valerie Sanders Author's Introduction The Victorian period was one of the great ages for life-writing. Though traditionally renowned for its monumental ,lives and letters', mainly of great men, this was also a time of self-conscious anxiety about the genre. Critics and practitioners alike were unsure who should be writing autobiography, and whether its inherent assertiveness ruled out all but public men as appropriate subjects. It was also a period of experimentation in the different genres of life-writing , whether autobiography, journals, letters, autobiographical novels, and narratives of lives combined with extracts from correspondence and diaries. Victorian life-writing therefore provides rich and complex insights into the relationship between narrative, identity, and the definition of the self. Recent advances in criticism have highlighted the more radical and non-canonical aspects of life-writing. Already a latecomer to the literary-critical tradition (life-writing was for a long time the ,poor relation' of critical theory), auto/biography stresses the hidden and silent as much as the mainstream and vocal. For that reason, study of Victorian life-writing appeals to those with an interest in gender issues, postcolonialism, ethnicity, working-class culture, the history of religion, and family and childhood studies , to name but a few of the fields with which the genre has a natural connection. Author Recommends A good place to start is the two canonical texts for Victorian life-writing: George P. Landow's edited collection, Approaches to Victorian Autobiography (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979) and Avrom Fleishman's Figures of Autobiography: The Language of Self-Writing in Victorian and Modern England (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1983). These two re-ignited interest in Victorian life-writing and in effect opened the debate about extending the canon, though both focus on the firmly canonical Ruskin and Newman, among others. By contrast, David Amigoni's recently edited collection of essays, Life-Writing and Victorian Culture (Aldershot: Ashgate 2006) shows how far the canon has exploded and expanded: it begins with a useful overview of the relationship between lives, life-writing, and literary genres, while subsequent chapters by different authors focus on a particular individual or family and their cultural interaction with the tensions of life-writing. As this volume is fairly male-dominated, readers with an interest in women's life-writing might prefer to start with Linda Peterson's chapter, ,Women Writers and Self-Writing' in Women and Literature in Britain 1800,1900, ed. Joanne Shattock (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 209,230. This examines the shift from the eighteenth-century tradition of the chroniques scandaleuses to the professional artist's life, domestic memoir, and spiritual autobiography. Mary Jean Corbett's Representing Femininity: Middle-Class Subjectivity in Victorian and Edwardian Women's Autobiographies (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992) begins with material on Wordsworth and Carlyle, but ,aims to contest the boundaries of genre, gender, and the autobiographical tradition by piecing together a partial history of middle-class women's subjectivities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries' (3). Corbett is particularly interested in the life-writing of actresses and suffragettes as well as Martineau and Oliphant, the first two women autobiographers to be welcomed into the canon in the 1980s and 90s. Laura Marcus's Auto/biographical Discourses, Theory, Criticism, Practice (Manchester and New York, NY: Manchester University Press, 1994) revises and updates the theoretical approaches to the study of life-writing, stressing both the genre's hybrid qualities, and its inherent instability: in her view, it ,comes into being as a category to be questioned' (37). Another of her fruitful suggestions is that autobiography functions as a ,site of struggle' (9), an idea that can be applied to aesthetic or ideological issues. Her book is divided between specific textual examples (such as the debate about autobiography in Victorian periodicals), and an overview of developments in critical approaches to life-writing. Her second chapter includes material on Leslie Stephen, who is also the first subject of Trev Lynn Broughton's Men of Letters, Writing Lives: Masculinity and Literary Auto/biography in the Late Victorian Period (London: Routledge, 1999) , her other being Froude's controversial Life of Carlyle. With the advent of gender studies and masculinities, there is now a return to male forms of life-writing, of which Martin A. Danahay's A Community of One: Masculine Autobiography and Autonomy in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993) is a good example. Danahay argues that nineteenth-century male autobiographers present themselves as ,autonomous individuals' free of the constraints of social and familial contexts, thus emphasizing the autonomy of the self at the expense of family and community. Online Materials My impression is that Victorian life-writing is currently better served by books than by online resources. There seem to be few general Web sites other than University module outlines and reading lists; for specific authors, on the other hand, there are too many to list here. So the only site I'd recommend is The Victorian Web: http://.victorianweb.org/genre/autobioov.html This Web site has a section called ,Autobiography Overview', which begins with an essay, ,Autobiography, Autobiographicality and Self-Representation', by George P. Landow. There are sections on other aspects of Victorian autobiography, including ,Childhood as a Personal Myth', autobiography in Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and a list of ,Suggested Readings'. Each section is quite short, but summarizes the core issues succinctly. Sample Syllabus This sample syllabus takes students through the landmarks of Victorian life-writing, and demonstrates the development of a counter-culture away from the mainstream ,classic male life' (if there ever was such a thing) , culminating in the paired diaries of Arthur Munby (civil servant) and Hannah Cullwick (servant). Numerous other examples could have been chosen, but for those new to the genre, this is a fairly classic syllabus. One week only could be spent on the ,classic male texts' if students are more interested in pursuing other areas. Opening Session Open debate about the definition of Victorian ,life-writing' and its many varieties; differences between autobiography, autobiographical fiction, diary, letters, biography, collective biography, and memoir; the class could discuss samples of selected types, such as David Copperfield, Father and Son, Ruskin's Praeterita, and Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. Alternatively, why not just begin with Stave Two of Dickens's A Christmas Carol (1843), in which the First Spirit takes Scrooge back through his childhood and youth? This is a pretty unique type of life-writing, with Scrooge ,laughing and crying' as his childhood and youth are revealed to him in a series of flashbacks (a Victorian version of ,This is Your Life?'). The dual emotions are important to note at this stage and will prompt subsequent discussions of sentimentality and writing for comic effect later in the course. Week 2 Critical landmarks: discussion of important stages in the evolution of critical approaches to life-writing, including classics such as Georges Gusdorf's ,Conditions and Limits of Autobiography', in Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical, ed. James Olney (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 28,47; Philippe Lejeune's ,The Autobiographical Pact', in On Autobiography, ed. Paul John Eakin, trans. Katherine Leary (original essay 1973; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 3,30; and Paul De Man's ,Autobiography as De-Facement', Modern Language Notes 94 (1979): 919,30. This will provide a critical framework for the rest of the course. Weeks 3,4 Extracts from the ,male classics' of Victorian life-writing: J. S. Mill's Autobiography (1873), Ruskin's Praeterita (1885,89), and Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua (1864). What do they think is important and what do they miss out? How open or otherwise are they about their family and personal lives? Are these essentially ,lives of the mind'? How self-aware are they of autobiographical structures? Are there already signs that the ,classic male life' is fissured and unconventional? An option here would be to spend the first week focusing on male childhoods, and the second on career trajectories. Perhaps use Martin Danahay's theory of the ,autonomous individual' (see above) to provide a critical framework here: how is the ,Other' (parents, Harriet Taylor) treated in these texts? Weeks 5,6 Victorian women's autobiography: Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (1877) and Margaret Oliphant's Autobiography (1899): in many ways these are completely unalike, Martineau's being ordered around the idea of steady mental growth and public recognition, while Oliphant's is deeply emotional and disordered. Can we therefore generalize about ,women's autobiography'? What impact did they have on Victorian theories of life-writing? Students might like to reconsider Jane Eyre as an ,autobiography' alongside these and compare scenes of outright rebellion. The way each text handles time and chronology is also fascinating: Martineau's arranged to highlight stages of philosophical development, while Oliphant's switches back and forth in a series of ,flashbacks' to her happier youth as her surviving two sons die ,in the text', interrupting her story. Week 7 Black women's autobiography: how does Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands (1857) differ from the Martineau and Oliphant autobiographies? What new issues and genre influences are introduced by a Caribbean/travelogue perspective? Another key text would be Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave-Girl (1861). How representative and how individual are these texts? Do these authors see themselves as representing their race as well as their class and sex? Week 8 Working-class autobiography: Possible texts here could be John Burnett's Useful Toil (Allen Lane, 1974, Penguin reprint); Carolyn Steedman's edition of John Pearman's The Radical Soldier's Tale (Routledge, 1988) and the mini oral biographies in Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor (1861,62) (e.g., the Water-Cress Seller). There is also a new Broadview edition of Factory Lives (2007) edited by James R. Simmons, with an introduction by Janice Carlisle. This contains four substantial autobiographical texts (three male, one female) from the mid-nineteenth century, with supportive materials. Samuel Bamford's Passages in the Life of a Radical (1839,42; 1844) and Early Days (1847,48) are further options. Students should also read Regenia Gagnier's Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain 1832,1910 (Oxford University Press, 1991). Week 9 Biography: Victorian Scandal: focus on two scandals emerging from Victorian life-writing: Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) (the Branwell Brontë/Lady Scott adultery scandal), and Froude's allegations of impotence in his Life of Carlyle (1884). See Trev Broughton's ,Impotence, Biography, and the Froude-Carlyle Controversy: ,Revelations on Ticklish Topics', Journal of the History of Sexuality, 7.4 (Apr. 1997): 502,36 (in addition to her Men of Letters cited above). The biographies of the Benson family written about and by each other, especially E. F. Benson's Our Family Affairs 1867,1896 (London: Cassell, 1920) reveal the domestic unhappiness of the family of Gladstone's Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson, whose children and wife were all to some extent homosexual or lesbian. Another option would be Edmund Gosse's Father and Son (1907) in which the son's critical stance towards his father is uneasy and complex in its mixture of comedy, pity, shame, and resentment. Week 10 Diaries: Arthur Munby's and Hannah Cullwick's relationship (they were secretly married, but lived as master and servant) and diaries, Munby: Man of Two Worlds: The Life and Diaries of Arthur Munby, ed. Derek Hudson (John Murray, 1972), and The Diaries of Hannah Cullwick: Victorian Maidservant, ed. Liz Stanley (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1984): issues of gender and class identity; the idealization of the working woman; the two diaries compared. Half the class could read one diary and half the other and engage in a debate about the social and sexual fantasies adopted by each diarist. It would also be sensible to leave time for an overview debate about the key issues of Victorian life-writing which have emerged from this module, future directions for research, and current critical developments. Focus Questions 1To what extent does Victorian autobiography tell an individual success story? Discuss with reference to two or three contrasting examples. 2,All life writing is time writing' (Jens Brockmeier). Examine the way in which Victorian life-writers handle the interplay of narrative, memory, and time. 3To what extent do you agree with the view that Victorian life-writing was ,a form of communication that appeared intimate and confessional, but which was in fact distant and controlled' (Donna Loftus)? 4,Bamford was an autobiographer who did not write an autobiography' (Martin Hewitt). If autobiography is unshaped and uninterpreted, what alternative purposes does it have in narrating a life to the reader? 5,Victorian life-writing is essentially experimental, unstable, and unpredictable.' How helpful is this comment in helping you to understand the genre? [source] Psychoanalytic Criticism of ShakespeareLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2006David Mikics Why has Shakespeare proved such profitable ground for psychoanalytic study? Part of the answer lies in the affinity between theatre, not just Shakespeare's, and psychoanalytic practice, an affinity recognized by Freud when he adapted Aristotle's idea of catharsis to his own "talking cure." This essay traces psychoanalytic criticism of Shakespeare from its origins in the work of Freud and Ernest Jones through studies by Jung, Rank, Lacan, Norman Holland, and others. In conclusion, the author presents a practical example of psychoanalytic Shakespeare criticism: a reading of The Tempest drawing on the object relations school of D. W. Winnicott. [source] The New Woman in the New Millennium: Recent Trends in Criticism of New Woman FictionLITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2006Ann Heilmann This essay offers an overview of the current state of criticism on New Woman fiction. Starting with a brief survey of the critical perspectives established in the last thirty years of the twentieth century, it moves to a more detailed discussion of three trends since the turn of the millennium. As I argue, critical literature since 2000 has explored the specifically ,feminine' aesthetic of New Woman writers, and scrutinized the racialist and imperialist roots of New Woman thought. The recent move away from an exclusive concentration on white Anglo-American New Women has allowed important new insights into the international, ethnically diverse aspects of this fin-de-siècle and early twentieth-century movement. [source] The Fourteenth-Century Verse Novella Dis ist von dem Heselin: Eroticism, Social Discourse, and Ethical CriticismORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 4 2005Albrecht Classen Late-medieval German literature offers many highly intriguing examples of erotic narratives structured and motivated in the manner of the fabliaux and novelle. One of these maeren, Dis ist von dem Heselin, composed sometime around 1300, presents an account of a tryst between a naive peasant maid and a young knight who barters a hare for her love. The narrative lives from the charming contrast between this young woman's ignorance of the true meaning of the word minne, or ,courtly love,' and the moral decline of the nobility. Whereas she freely and openly grants her love to the knight and later tells everything to her mother, who severely punishes her for her seeming stupidity, the knight's noble fiancée proves to be highly cynical and morally untrustworthy. Mocking the peasant maid during the wedding celebration and emphasizing her own intelligent behavior in hiding her numerous sexual contacts with the family's chaplain, she deeply shocks her fiancé, who then quickly changes the marriage arrangements and takes the peasant maid as his wife. The maid triumphs over the noble lady because of her simplicity, trustworthiness, and true love for the knight. Her moral infraction is easily forgiven because of her ignorance and naiveté, whereas her highly respected competitor for the knight's hand loses because she knows nothing of true love and morality. [source] Language on the Verge of Death: On Language and Language Criticism in Badenheim 1939 by Aharon AppelfeldORBIS LITERARUM, Issue 3 2004Chaya Shacham The question of language became a central issue in writing after the Holocaust, especially for those for whom the years of the Second World War were formative in both their personal lives and their becoming writers. The Hebrew writer Aharon Appelfeld is one of them. This study focuses on the problem of language and language criticism in Appelfeld's novella Badenheim 1939 (1975). Language is in fact the covert theme of the novella. The work, which describes the last summer in an Austrian resort before the deportation of its Jews to Poland, is replete with metalanguage whose purpose is to draw the reader's attention to the language and its status in the work. The essay follows and analyses the effects on language made by the characters' experiences (weakening, loss of meaning, loss of referents in the new reality and the new era in Badenheim) and suggests that the meeting point of the murderers and victims is in language corruption and distortion. The study furthermore suggests that from the novella springs the unspoken accusation against the Jewish vacationers of unintentional collaboration with the murderers by conniving in the ,laundering' of the language, which in turn contributed to the coming catastrophe. Central to the explorations of the essay is the possibility of linking Appelfeld's criticism of language with Karl Krause's critical stance on language contamination and doublespeak implied in the work. [source] Morality and Social Criticism , By Richard AmesburyPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, Issue 4 2008Guy Stock First page of article [source] Words from Nowhere , Limits of CriticismPHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, Issue 2 2008Steinar Bøyum In the present essay, I aim to accentuate an analogy between the patterns of thought articulated by Berkeley's Hylas and those of Nagel in his philosophy of bats and aliens. The comparison has a critical purpose, with Philonous playing a role similar to that of Wittgenstein. I argue that Nagel's central claim comes down to statements that are marked by a peculiar form of emptiness. Towards the end, though, I will concede that this kind of Wittgensteinian criticism runs up against certain limits. The fantasies produced by Hylas or Nagel have as counterparts genuine philosophical expressions of experience, which are not vulnerable to the charges levelled at their theoretical parallels. [source] Lack of statistical significancePSYCHOLOGY IN THE SCHOOLS, Issue 5 2007Thomas J. Kehle Criticism has been leveled against the use of statistical significance testing (SST) in many disciplines. However, the field of school psychology has been largely devoid of critiques of SST. Inspection of the primary journals in school psychology indicated numerous examples of SST with nonrandom samples and/or samples of convenience. In this article we present an argument against SST and its consequent p values in favor of the use of confidence intervals and effect sizes. Further, we present instances of common errors that impede cumulative knowledge in the literature related to school psychology. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 417,422, 2007. [source] Performance Criticism of the Hebrew BibleRELIGION COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2008Terry Giles Performance criticism is a critical methodology that is based upon the premise that select portions of the Hebrew Bible (and Christian New Testament as well) are literary variations of originally oral compositions that were read or recited before live audiences. Those readings and recitations were performative in nature and understanding the performative dynamics at work in the material, being read or recited, can yield fresh insights into the meaning of the material. Performance criticism applies concepts commonly used in performative studies to the Hebrew Bible in an effort to better understand the conventions and structures enabling communication. [source] Teaching & Learning Guide for: Can a Darwinian Be a Christian?RELIGION COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2008Gregory W. Dawes Author's Introduction The article was provoked by recent discussion of the so-called ,conflict thesis': the idea that the Christian faith and the findings of modern science are necessarily at odds. This thesis is generally attributed to John William Draper (1811,1882) and Andrew Dickson White (1832,1918). Recent opposition to their work dates from a 1979 publication by James Moore. Moore argues that the warfare metaphor employed by Draper and White misrepresents the historical reality, by suggesting that the religion and science debates were clashes between distinct groups of people who were sharply polarized and violently antagonistic. Since then, similar criticisms have been made by historians, such as David Livingstone, Ronald Numbers, and David Lindberg. A key question here is: what does the conflict thesis entail? If it holds that Christian thinkers have invariably opposed scientific progress, while the defenders of science have been non-believers, it would be demonstrably false. But there exist more interesting forms of conflict thesis, which are philosophical rather than historical. These suggest that there is some tension between what Christians have traditionally believed and the findings of modern science, particularly Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Even if the two are not, strictly speaking, incompatible, the truth of one may constitute evidence against the truth of the other. Darwin's theory also undercuts traditional arguments from design, and highlights the epistemological divide between religious and scientific conceptions of authority. Online Materials The following sites contain audio and video files, as well as text and images. 1. http://www.meta-library.net/history/intro-frame.html This is a useful overview of the historical debate by Ronald Numbers, with links to other sites. Most presenters follow Moore in opposing the conflict thesis, narrowly defined, but neglect the conflicts that my article highlights. 2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html Here one can view an excellent, 2-h PBS television documentary on the Dover, Pennsylvania trial in December 2005 regarding the teaching of ,intelligent design' (ID) in public schools. 3. http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/rel_evol_sun.htm This is a letter signed by more than 11,000 clergy, arguing that there is no conflict between religion and science, and encouraging (among other things) the liturgical celebration of evolution by natural selection. 4. http://www.discovery.org/csc/ At the other end of the theological spectrum, this is the website of the Discovery Institute, devoted to opposing Darwinism and promoting ,intelligent design' (ID). Controversially, it presents ID as a scientific theory, rather than a religious doctrine. 5. http://www.asa3.org/ Somewhere between the Clergy Letter Project and the Discovery Institute lies the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA). The ASA ,does not take a position when there is honest disagreement between Christians', so it embraces a variety of perspectives. Sample Syllabus The following could form the basis for a graduate seminar on religion and science, focusing on the Darwinian controversies. One could, for instance, devote two classes to each of these topics. 1. The Draper-White Thesis I recommend reading extracts from the two writers thought to be responsible for the conflict thesis, to establish what each actually said. John William Draper, The History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, International Scientific Series 13 (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1875), chap. 8. Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896; New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1960), vol. 1, chap. 1. 2. Criticism of the Draper-White Thesis Either of the following readings from historians critical of Draper and White's work would be a useful starting point for discussion. James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870,1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), chap. 1. David N. Livingstone, ,Re-placing Darwinism and Christianity', in David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (eds.), When Science and Christianity Meet, pp. 183,202 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003). 3. The Incompatibility Thesis Many authors attempt to show that Darwinism and Christianity and compatible. But it would be useful to examine Pope John Paul II's statement on this topic, along with some responses by biologists and philosophers. John Paul II, ,The Pope's Message on Evolution and Four Commentaries', The Quarterly Review of Biology, 72:4 (1997): 375,406. 4. The Evidential Thesis Students might enjoy reading and discussing the following article by a leading evolutionary biologist. George C. Williams, ,Mother Nature Is a Wicked Old Witch', in Matthew H. Nitecki and Doris V. Nitecki (eds.), Evolutionary Ethics, 217,31 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993). 5. The Replacement Thesis This is an important but often neglected book. Students would benefit from reading at least the first chapter. Neal C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1979), chap. 1. 6. The Faith and Reason Thesis The following article by a well-known historian and philosopher of science touches on some of the key issues. Ernan McMullin, ,Evolution and Special Creation', Zygon 28:3 (1993): 299,335. Focus Questions 1There exist many Christian thinkers who accept Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Does that mean there is no conflict between Darwinism and Christianity? 2Taken at face value, Genesis 1,3 tells the story of the origins of the world and of human beings. What aspects of that story would you consider essential to the Christian faith? 3If we have an entirely natural explanation of the origins of complex living organisms, do we still have reasons to believe in a creator God? 4If God could have created complex living beings by a simple command, why would he choose a lengthy and wasteful process such as natural selection? 5Could a Christian regard the existence of God in the same way as a scientific hypothesis, that is to say, to be accepted only in so far as it is supported by the evidence? Seminar Activity I would suggest a debate, in which students sympathetic to the creationist position are asked to defend Darwin's theory, while students sympathetic to evolution are asked to argue against it. [source] The Nature of Biblical Criticism , By John BartonRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2009Casimir Bernas No abstract is available for this article. [source] Prophets, Performance, and Power: Performance Criticism of the Hebrew Bible , By William Doan and Terry GilesRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2007Marvin A. Sweeney No abstract is available for this article. [source] Apocalypticism, Anti-Semitism and the Historical Jesus: Subtexts in Criticism , Edited by John S. Kloppenborg and John W. MarshallRELIGIOUS STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 3 2006Fred W. Burnett No abstract is available for this article. [source] The Violence of Criticism: The Mutilation and Exhibition of History in From Hell1THE JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE, Issue 4 2005Barish Ali First page of article [source] When Outcomes Prompt Criticism of Procedures: An Analysis of the Rodney King CaseANALYSES OF SOCIAL ISSUES & PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 1 2006Elizabeth Mullen A content analysis of newspaper editorials about the trial of the four officers accused of beating Rodney King investigated when people would become concerned with procedural propriety in the case. Consistent with research demonstrating that people's moral convictions are important determinants of their perceptions of fairness and reactions to outcomes, results revealed that people were more critical of the procedures used in the case after learning the "unjust" verdict than before. Specifically, editorials only mentioned aspects of procedures after the verdict was announced, despite potential reasons for preverdict procedural concern. Editorials also contained more mentions of racism post- than preverdict suggesting that the "unjust" verdict also prompted concerns with institutionalized procedural problems. [source] The German Charitable Welfare System: A Criticism from the Viewpoint of OrdnungspolitikANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2001Dirk Meyer Charitable social welfare care constitutes the market-leader in the provision of social services. Neocorporatist structures have resulted in the latter's exceptional situation. They are characterized by a preferential position in certain circumstances compared to commercial suppliers, cartel agreements which enjoy partial legal legitimacy, financial dependence on the state, as well as a say in social policy planning. Criticism from the viewpoint of Ordnungspolitik maintains a failure of internal and external controls, and above all of competitive structures. Possible starting points for a reform may be founded on the guarantee of equal opportunities and of non-discrimination against commercial suppliers. The governmental monopsonistic power should be removed by a decentralization of bargaining. In addition to this, the position of those having a right to such services needs to be strengthened by greater individual assistance combined with monetary allocations. [source] A Discourse of Originality in Late Ming Chinese Painting CriticismART HISTORY, Issue 4 2000Katherine P. Burnett Late Ming painting critics promoted the discourse of originality in active exchange with literary, philosophical, societal and economic developments. Although this discourse was culturally pervasive, it was transparent, thus unidentified until recently. As this paper argues, a set of key terms signals the discourse. Important texts by late Ming critics newly translated here show how originality was advocated in judging artistic merit. The result is a new way to interpret the painting of early seventeenth-century China. [source] Das Geschäft mit den Schutzplanken , Wissenschaftliche und andere InteressenBAUTECHNIK, Issue 3 2008Hans-A. Als Schutzeinrichtungen am Rande von Straßen und Brücken konnten Stahlschutzplanken fast ein halbes Jahrhundert lang einen unangefochtenen Spitzenplatz einnehmen. Zu ihrer erfolgreichen Vermarktung haben eine wirksame Interessenvertretung sowie unkritische Betrachtungen des Anprallvorgangs beigetragen. Unter Vernachlässigung der an einer Schnittstelle von Bau-, Fahrzeug- und Verkehrstechnik notwendigen interdisziplinären Zusammenarbeit kam auf europäischer Ebene eine fragwürdige Norm zustande. Daran geäußerte Kritik störte das gesicherte Geschäft mit Schutzplanken und wurde mit disziplinarischen Maßnahmen beantwortet. Nachdem auch auf deutschen Straßen Vorteile von Schutzwänden aus Beton sichtbar werden, bedürfen frühere Fehleinschätzungen und Festlegungen einer Korrektur. Business on guardrails , scientific and other interests. For about half a century steel guardrails could rank in first place among safety devices at the borders of roads and bridges. An effective lobby as well as an uncritical observation of the impact test contributed to a successful marketing. Disregarding the need of interdisciplinary cooperation concerning road construction, motor vehicles, and traffic a questionable standard on European level has been accepted. Criticism of that standard seemed to be out of line with safe business on guardrails and was responded by disciplinary measures. After advantages of concrete safety walls are visible on German highways, too, former wrong assessments and agreements should go under review. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||