Teaching About Religion at the State University

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 38-42
Author(s):  
Robert D. Baird (1933–2015) ◽  
Robert N. Minor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public University ◽  
The State ◽  
State University ◽  
Value System ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Religious System ◽  
Teaching Religion ◽  
Teaching About Religion

In 1983 Robert N. Minor and Robert D. Baird wrote a piece for The Bulletin that discussed what it means to teach religion academically in a public university in the United States. By dismantling other popular notions of what it meant to teach religion in a public university—such as the inculcation of values despite the preference this method shows for one religious system over another—the authors illustrate the flaws in these pedagogical styles and ultimately propose a new purpose for teaching religion. This new purpose they highlight strives not to promote one value system over another, or to propose one way of doing religion is right or wrong, but to promote understanding among students by showcasing the individuality that exists within religious traditions.

Epic Cruelty: On Post-Pandemic Performance

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-136
Author(s):  
Rick Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
The United States ◽  
California State University ◽  
The State ◽  
State University ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Disaster Capitalism

As today’s catastrophic Covid-19 pandemic exacerbates ongoing crises, including systemic racism, rising ethno-nationalism, and fossil-fuelled climate change, the neoliberal world that we inhabit is becoming increasingly hostile, particularly for the most vulnerable. Even in the United States, as armed white-supremacist, pro-Trump forces face off against protesters seeking justice for African Americans, the hostility is increasingly palpable, and often frightening. Yet as millions of Black Lives Matter protesters demonstrated after the brutal police killing of George Floyd, the current, intersecting crises – worsened by Trump’s criminalization of anti-racism protesters and his dismissal of science – demand a serious, engaged, response from activists as well as artists. The title of this article is meant to evoke not only the state of the unusually cruel moment through which we are living, but also the very different approaches to performance of both Brecht and Artaud, whose ideas, along with those of others – including Benjamin, Butler, Latour, Mbembe, and Césaire – inform the radical, open-ended, post-pandemic theatre practice proposed in this essay. A critically acclaimed dramatist as well as Professor of English and Playwriting at California State University, Northridge, Mitchell’s published volumes of plays include Disaster Capitalism; or Money Can’t Buy You Love: Three Plays; Brecht in L.A.; and Ventriloquist: Two Plays and Ventriloquial Miscellany. He is the editor of Experimental O’Neill, and is currently at work on a series of post-pandemic plays.

scholarly journals The origins and persistence of psychosurgery in the state of Iowa

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. E8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis J. Jareczek ◽  
Marshall T. Holland ◽  
Matthew A. Howard ◽  
Timothy Walch ◽  
Taylor J. Abel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Mental Health ◽  
The State ◽  
Medical Community ◽  
State University ◽  
University Of Iowa ◽  
The University ◽  
Frontal Lobotomy

Neurosurgery for the treatment of psychological disorders has a checkered history in the United States. Prior to the advent of antipsychotic medications, individuals with severe mental illness were institutionalized and subjected to extreme therapies in an attempt to palliate their symptoms. Psychiatrist Walter Freeman first introduced psychosurgery, in the form of frontal lobotomy, as an intervention that could offer some hope to those patients in whom all other treatments had failed. Since that time, however, the use of psychosurgery in the United States has waxed and waned significantly, though literature describing its use is relatively sparse. In an effort to contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of psychosurgery, the authors describe the history of psychosurgery in the state of Iowa and particularly at the University of Iowa Department of Neurosurgery. An interesting aspect of psychosurgery at the University of Iowa is that these procedures have been nearly continuously active since Freeman introduced the lobotomy in the 1930s. Frontal lobotomies and transorbital leukotomies were performed by physicians in the state mental health institutions as well as by neurosurgeons at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (formerly known as the State University of Iowa Hospital). Though the early technique of frontal lobotomy quickly fell out of favor, the use of neurosurgery to treat select cases of intractable mental illness persisted as a collaborative treatment effort between psychiatrists and neurosurgeons at Iowa. Frontal lobotomies gave way to more targeted lesions such as anterior cingulotomies and to neuromodulation through deep brain stimulation. As knowledge of brain circuits and the pathophysiology underlying mental illness continues to grow, surgical intervention for psychiatric pathologies is likely to persist as a viable treatment option for select patients at the University of Iowa and in the larger medical community.

Is This the Care We Need?: An Examination of Childcare Policy in Pennsylvania

Commonwealth ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennie Sweet-Cushman ◽  
Ashley Harden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Current System ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Federal State ◽  
Women And Politics ◽  
Richard Nixon ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Childcare Policy

For many families across Pennsylvania, child care is an ever-present concern. Since the 1970s, when Richard Nixon vetoed a national childcare program, child care has received little time in the policy spotlight. Instead, funding for child care in the United States now comes from a mixture of federal, state, and local programs that do not help all families. This article explores childcare options available to families in the state of Pennsylvania and highlights gaps in the current system. Specifically, we examine the state of child care available to families in the Commonwealth in terms of quality, accessibility, flexibility, and affordability. We also incorporate survey data from a nonrepresentative sample of registered Pennsylvania voters conducted by the Pennsylvania Center for Women and Politics. As these results support the need for improvements in the current childcare system, we discuss recommendations for the future.

Development of the Concepts for Providing Close Air Support

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-74
Author(s):  
Hristov Manush
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Air Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Present Stage ◽  
Combat Experience ◽  
Second World

AbstractThe main objective of the study is to trace the perceptions of the task of an aviation component to provide direct aviation support to both ground and naval forces. Part of the study is devoted to tracing the combat experience gained during the assignment by the Bulgarian Air Force in the final combat operations against the Wehrmacht during the Second World War 1944-1945. The state of the conceptions at the present stage regarding the accomplishment of the task in conducting defensive and offensive battles and operations is also considered. Emphasis is also placed on the development of the perceptions of the task in the armies of the United States and Russia.

Studies of Islam, Economics, and Governance

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-70
Author(s):  
Florence Eid
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Ford Foundation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
The Subject ◽  
State Of Research ◽  
Traditional Approaches ◽  
Islamic Values

IntroductionThis paper is a report on the state of research in two areas of Islamicstudies: Islam and economics and Islam and governance. I researched andwrote it as part of my internship at the Ford Foundation during the summerof 1992. On Discourse. The study of Islam in the United States has moved far beyondthe traditional historical and philological methods. This is perhapsbest explained by the development of analytically rigorous social sciencemethods that have contributed to a better balance between the humanisticconcerns of the more traditional approaches and efforts at systematizingthe study of Islam and classifying it across boundaries of communities,religions, even epochs. This is said to have s t a d with the developmentof irenic attitudes towards Islam, which changed the direction of westemorientalist writings from indifference (at best) and often open hostility toand contempt of Islamic values (however they were understood) to phenomenologicalworks by scholars who saw the study of Islam as somethingto be taken seriously and for its own sake, which is best exemplifiedby Clifford Geertz's Islam Observed.The work of Edward Said contested this evolution, and the publicationof his Orientalism has been described as "a stick of dynamite"' that,despite its impact in mobilizing a reevaluation of the field, was unwarrantedin its pessimism. In any case, the field has continued to evolve,with the most powerful force moving it being the subject itself. Thephenomenological/orientalist approach, if we can point to one today, ...

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document