scholarly journals Fighting for “Justice”, Engaging the Other: Shi’a Muslim Activism on the British University Campus

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 189
Author(s):  
Emanuelle Degli Esposti ◽  
Alison Scott-Baumann
Keyword(s):  
Student Activism ◽  
The Other ◽  
University Campus ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

While Shi’a Muslims remain in the minority in Europe, including within universities, the past decade has witnessed the growing profile of Shi’ism on university campuses, especially in Britain. In particular, there has been an emphasis on campaigns that prioritise notions of justice, equality, and human rights. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted amongst Twelver Shi’a students in Britain between 2013–2018, this paper examines the forms of Shi’a activism currently being articulated on university campuses, especially those that explicitly seek to engage non-Muslims and spread awareness about Shi’a Islam. On the one hand, such practices constitute a form of self-representation for Shi’a students who would otherwise feel marginalised within the university space; while on the other, they promote a particular version of Shi’a Islam that both frames it within the European context and that also contributes to the sectarianisation of the contemporary Shi’a subject. While the forms and resonance of Shi’a student activism arguably only have meaning within the context of contemporary Europe, we argue that the discursive contours underpinning such activism ultimately transcend such national and cultural boundaries and contribute to a reinterpretation and reimagining of Shi’a sectarian identity for the modern age.

Perceptions of commercial hospitality space: The case of a UK university campus hotel

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Hay
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
University Campus ◽  
University Staff ◽  
University Campuses ◽  
The Past ◽  
The University ◽  
University Community

Over the past decade, there has been a growth in the number of hotels built on university campuses, in Europe, Asia and the United States. Originally, such hotels were often associated with a university’s hotel school and their hospitality programme; however, an increasing number of full-service campus hotels have recently been developed, with no such connections. Through 30 interviews with Heriot-Watt University staff and students, this study explores their perceptions of a newly built commercial hotel on their campus. The findings highlighted the different opinions held by students and staff as to the benefits of a campus hotel and suggested that they were viewed by both as contested hospitality spaces. However, this study submits that if they were more welcoming to students and staff and were better aligned with the ethos of the university, this would aid in their acceptance into the wider university community.

scholarly journals Po mochlos – prolegomena do możliwych jeszcze rozważań o kondycji uniwersytetu

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marek Chojnacki ◽  
Magdalena Żardecka
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

The text tackles the problem of the condition of university, in a world blindly believing that the only possible worth measure is economic in nature and, in the name of this belief, setting in motion a ruthless bureaucratic machinery that throttles all kinds of creativity and nips in the bud all nonstandard actions and creations. The world apparently is “out of joint”, and things are taking an unexpected turn. University is one of the victims, but also one of active accomplices of this despicable situation. How to speak about the university to those who are exclusively in business of calculating balance of profits and losses? How to speak about it after deconstruction, when all great ideas have been already repeatedly and manifoldly dismounted and discredited? How to speak about it, when the university’s men and women have discredited themselves repeatedly as well, oscillating between libido sciendi and libido dominandi? Trying to solve this puzzle, we are following in the footsteps of Derrida, who in his texts about university makes appeal to Kant, and inspired by his invention, we set in motion two opposite traditions, represented by Lyotard, Bourdieu, Bauman and Readings on the one hand, and by Humboldt, Schleiermacher and Jaspers on the other. With Derrida, we make noises about the return of the ideas of truth, of the light of reason, of the autonomy of university. It is, however, a return of the specters of the past, in alignment with Derrida’s hauntology. Humanists are people of academia who see these specters, but at the same time are already specters themselves – even if they still show up here and there, they are almost insignificant. They are onlyallowed to contemplate their negligibility and to confess their habitual helplessness. University always had to defend itself, and it does defend itself today.

General Conclusion

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Architectural History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Plane Tree ◽  
Monumental Architecture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
The One ◽  
Cultural Pressures

Lucian’s architectural descriptions reveal the moral and cultural pressures that were exerted on new building in the age of the Antonines. Legendary archetypes such as the Persian king’s golden plane tree and the palaces of Homeric epic offered a yardstick by which the monumentality of future buildings could be measured. But they also warned builders of the limits to be avoided. On the one hand, to make its mark in history, monumental architecture needed to exhibit a grandeur, exuberance, and brilliance that would inspire spectators with awe; on the other hand, there was perceived to be something ‘uncivilized’ about buildings which set out only to impress and which reduced viewers to irrational beings. Antonine architecture wanted to be seen as more ‘cultivated’ than that, and to appeal to viewers’ humanity and culture. There was a real dilemma here, one which has preoccupied many subsequent periods of architectural history: if the architecture of the past set the standard of monumentality, how truly ‘monumental’ could the buildings of the modern age be? Older works seemed ‘larger’ than new ones because they inspired more noteworthy memories. To Marcus Piso in the late Republic, the new Sullan senate-house seemed, despite its greater height, ‘smaller’ than its ancient predecessor, the Curia Hostilia, which, when he looked at it, brought him visions of famous senators of the past. Modern buildings, which, by definition, lacked associations, could, it seemed, only make an impression by being more imposing and on a scale too large to invite direct comparison; but, in that, they ran the risk of appearing inhuman. For example, the very first work of Antoninus Pius’ reign, the Tomb of Hadrian, produced a clear impression of monumental scale. The bronze chariot on the summit was said to be ‘so large . . . that a very fat man would be able to pass through the eye of each horse, but, to men on the ground, the horses and statue of Hadrian still look very small, because of the extreme height of the construction’.

TARP DVIEJŲ KOLONŲ: XVIII A. PABAIGOS – XIX A. PRADŽIOS VILNIAUS MASONŲ KASDIENYBĖ SIMBOLIKOJE

2018 ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Daiva Milinkevičiūtė
Keyword(s):  
Daily Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Daily Routine ◽  
The Past ◽  
Secular World ◽  
National Characteristics ◽  
Conservative Christian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Craft Guilds

The Age of Enlightenment is defined as the period when the universal ideas of progress, deism, humanism, naturalism and others were materialized and became a golden age for freemasons. It is wrong to assume that old and conservative Christian ideas were rejected. Conversely, freemasons put them into new general shapes and expressed them with the help of symbols in their daily routine. Symbols of freemasons had close ties with the past and gave them, on the one hand, a visible instrument, such as rituals and ideas to sense the transcendental, and on the other, intense gnostic aspirations. Freemasons put in a great amount of effort to improve themselves and to create their identity with the help of myths and symbols. It traces its origins to the biblical builders of King Solomon’s Temple, the posterity of the Templar Knights, and associations of the medieval craft guilds, which were also symbolical and became their link not only to each other but also to the secular world. In this work we analysed codified masonic symbols used in their rituals. The subject of our research is the universal Masonic idea and its aspects through the symbols in the daily life of the freemasons in Vilnius. Thanks to freemasons’ signets, we could find continuity, reception, and transformation of universal masonic ideas in the Lithuanian freemasonry and national characteristics of lodges. Taking everything into account, our article shows how the universal idea of freemasonry spread among Lithuanian freemasonry, and which forms and meanings it incorporated in its symbols. The objective of this research is to find a universal Masonic idea throughout their visual and oral symbols and see its impact on the daily life of the masons in Vilnius. Keywords: Freemasonry, Bible, lodge, symbols, rituals, freemasons’ signets.

“Ambiguist” Statesmanship

Worldview ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 3 (9) ◽  
pp. 7-8
Author(s):  
Will Herberg
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Fixed Points ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Actual Situation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Mixed Feelings ◽  
Rational Mind ◽  
The One

John Courtney Murray's writing cannot fail to be profound and instructive, and I have profited greatly from it in the course of the past decade. But I must confess that his article, "Morality and Foreign Policy" (Worldview, May), leaves me in a strange confusion of mixed feelings. On the one hand, I can sympathize with what I might call the historical intention of the natural law philosophy he espouses, which I take to be the effort to establish enduring structures of meaning and value to serve as fixed points of moral decision in the complexities of the actual situation. On the other hand, I am rather put off by the calm assurance he exhibits when he deals with these matters, as though everything were at bottom unequivocally rational and unequivocally accessible to the rational mind. And I am really distressed at what seems to 3ie to be his woefully inadequate appreciation of the position of the "ambiguists," among whom I cannot deny I count myself.

Benson and Miller in Perspective

1979 ◽  
Vol 3 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 242-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kuklick
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Applied Science ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The One ◽  
Stock Of Knowledge

Despite differences in coloration Miller and Benson are birds of a feather. Although he is no Pollyanna, Miller believes that there has been a modest and decent series of advances in the social sciences and that the most conscientious, diligent, and intelligent researchers will continue to add to this stock of knowledge. Benson is much more pessimistic about the achievements of yesterday and today but, in turn, offers us the hope of a far brighter tomorrow. Miller explains Benson’s hyperbolic views about the past and future by distinguishing between pure and applied science and by pointing out Benson’s naivete about politics: the itch to understand the world is different from the one to make it better; and, Miller says, because Benson sees that we have not made things better, he should not assume we do not know more about them; Benson ought to realize, Miller adds, that the way politicians translate basic social knowledge into social policy need not bring about rational or desirable results. On the other side, Benson sees more clearly than Miller that the development of science has always been intimately intertwined with the control of the environment and the amelioration of the human estate.

The Origins of Domestic Sheep and Goats: a Reconsideration in the Light of the Fossil Evidence

1969 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 368-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Payne
Keyword(s):  
Direct Evidence ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Wild Relatives ◽  
The Other ◽  
Domestic Sheep ◽  
Sheep And Goats ◽  
Animal Domestication ◽  
The Past ◽  
The One ◽  
And Control

In recent discussions of the origins and process of animal domestication (Reed, 1961, Zeuner, 1963), both authors rely on two kinds of evidence: on the one hand, the present distributions and characteristics of the different breeds of whatever animal is being discussed, together with its feral and wild relatives, and, on the other hand, the past record, given by literary and pictorial sources and the bones from archaeological and geological sites. Increased recognition of the limitations of the past record, whether in the accuracy of the information it appears to give (as in the case of pictorial sources), or in the certainty of the deductions we are at present capable of drawing from it (this applies especially to the osteological record), has led these authors to argue mainly from the present situation, using the past record to confirm or amplify the existing picture.Arguing from the present, many hypotheses about the origins and process of domestication are available. The only test we have, when attempting to choose between these, lies in the direct evidence of the past record. The past record, it is freely admitted, is very fragmentary: the information provided by the present situation is more exact, ranges over a much wider field, and is more open to test and control. Nevertheless, the past record, however imperfect it is, is the only direct evidence we have about the process of domestication.

Camus's Absurd and the World of Melville's Confidence-Man

PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”

The Christian Church in the Last Seventy Years

1943 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-34
Author(s):  
Kenneth Scott Latourette
Keyword(s):  
Large Volume ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Christian Church ◽  
The Past ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

A strange contrast exists in the status of the Christian Church in the past seventy years. On the one hand the Church has clearly lost some of the ground which once appeared to be safely within its possession. On the other hand it has become more widely spread geographically and, when all mankind is taken into consideration, more influential in shaping human affairs than ever before in its history. In a paper as brief as this must of necessity be, space can be had only for the sketching of the broad outlines of this paradox and for suggesting a reason for it. If details were to be given, a large volume would be required. Perhaps, however, we can hope to do enough to point out one of the most provocative and important set of movements in recent history.

DESIGN DISCOURSE AND THE COGNITIVE SCIENCE OF DESIGN

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53
Author(s):  
Jeroen de Ridder
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Other ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
The Past ◽  
The One ◽  
Bare Bones ◽  
Single Focus

Much of Alvin Plantinga’s Where the Conflict Really Lies(2011) will contain few surprises for those who have been following his work over the past decades. This —I hasten to add — is nothing against the book. The fact alone that his ideas on various topics, which have appeared scattered throughout the literature, are now actualized, applied to the debate about the (alleged) conflict between science and religion, and organized into an overarching argument with a single focus makes this book worthwhile. Moreover, I see this book making significant progress on two opposite ends of the spectrum of views about science and religion. On the one end, we find the so-called new atheists and other conflict-mongers. Compared to the overheated rhetoric that oozes from their writings, this book is a breath of fresh air. Plantinga cuts right to the chase and soberly exposes the bare bones of the new atheists’ arguments. It immediately becomes clear how embarrassingly bare these bones really are. On the other end of the spectrum are theologians and scientists who envisage harmony and concord between science and religion.

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