Search Results (502)

Traditionalist Islamic preaching in the West is not limited to the normative aspects of theology, law, and ethics. In addition, it addresses the most pressing social and political issues that Muslims are currently confronting in the West; it also challenges Western modernity in general and secularism in particular. Two critical sermons of secularism delivered by two of the most well-known traditionalist Muslim preachers in their respective countries—Hamza Yusuf in the USA and Hani Ramadan in Switzerland—are analyzed in this study. First, I shall examine the arguments put up by these preachers against secularism and in support of post-secular society. Next, I will study the rhetorical strategies used in these two sermons. Finally, I will discuss the relevance of these two sermons to the contemporary debates in the West on contesting secularism and multiple secularisms. It is argued here that traditionalist Muslim preachers see secularism as an encroaching power that poses a danger to the figures of authority and norms that control gender, knowledge, and education within Muslim communities and societies. Full article

This article develops a detailed theory of the fetishes of the modern world. Fetishes may still have their original religious application as talismans and totems, but their actual range is much wider, as I illustrate. I show that a modern fetish satisfies our needs in an unexpected and unlikely manner: it does what it, prima facie, is not supposed to do. How does this happen? To explain, we must trace the construction of fetishes; I do this using some key rhetorical concepts. Paradiastole is a technique of evaluative redescription. It describes the world in value terms as something it is not—we can then ironize the result. If it serves the speakers’ essential interests and satisfies their desires, we have explained a fetish as a good-maker. The fetishization of an object, because of its ironic background, tends to invite critical, meiotic, and even derogatory responses—usually, the issue is and remains essentially contested. For example, early Christians wrote hagiographies that treated some people as saints, thus creating ad hoc beliefs that satisfied their religious interests. I also suggest a different, metonymic understanding of fetishes and their educational benefits. Perhaps my theory is overly permissive, allowing too many fetishes. My final conjecture is that true fetishes function as identity markers; for example, the crucifix is a fetish that defines Christianity. Full article

Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cosmologies shared general assumptions about the interconnectivity of heaven and earth. Plato’s Myth of Er, the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch, and Cicero’s Dream of Scipio, narrate the travels of Er, Enoch, and Scipio, respectively, into the Beyond, where they each learn astonishing things about the cosmos, and are tasked with imparting a message to humanity. This comparative study argues that cosmic travel is an integral means of constructing a rhetoric of authority designed to recruit its audiences to its socio-political vision. By analysing literary conventions like pseudepigraphy and epiphany in the features that make up cosmic travel, we better understand how each story bridges the gap between the narrated (story) world and the external (real) world. The ability to blend the realities of a story and its audiences stems from the ways in which tropes of legitimacy render spatio-temporal reality malleable, but is also imperative to the very authority these tropes offer. Without arguing for deliberate intertextuality between all these sources, this study compares the use of heavenly voyages as a literary device for legitimising worldview across cultures, times, and places. Full article

This paper examines the rhetoric and argumentation of two prominent environmental activists, Greta Thunberg and Chris Packham. From the perspective of Ecolinguistics, Thunberg has given voice to a generational movement for change, galvanising young people everywhere through high-profile protests and speeches. Packham represents British mainstream environmentalism, notably as the presenter of the acclaimed nature documentary ‘Springwatch’. We argue that their influence partially stems from their alignment with dominant cultural narratives: Thunberg’s emphasis on intergenerational discord and Packham’s connection to the natural world. We analyse both figures via the lens of the ‘emotionalisation of media discourse’, highlighting argumentation strategies that feature expressions of negative emotions of which anger is a type. Thunberg’s famous ‘How dare you?’ outburst at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit and Packham’s statement to Novara Media, ‘I am more angry now than at any point since my 20s’, exemplify this trend. We explore the pragmatic implications of their argumentative and discursive strategies, suggesting that while both have significantly elevated the profile of ecological activism, their discourse may also have a potentially divisive aspect. Full article

In art-historical terms, a self-portrait in assistenza refers to an artist having inserted their own likeness into a larger work. In Renaissance-era art, more than 90 examples have been identified, famously including Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi (c. 1478/1483). There, Botticelli glances out from the painting, making direct eye contact with the viewer, a feature that appears in other self-portraits of the type. In ancient Egypt, it was not commonly accepted that an artist would lay claim to it, especially when the work’s scale imposed diversification of tasks to be performed or teamwork organized on a workshop basis. This article will present evidence discovered in the Chapel of Hatshepsut in her temple at Deir el-Bahari that can be interpreted as a self-portrait in assistenza and indicates that Djehuty, Overseer of the Treasury under Hatshepsut, took the lead role there. If this identification is valid, the room’s decoration gains an additional layer of meaning and may be “read” in terms of Djehuty’s message, comparable to Botticelli gazing out from his Adoration of the Magi. This ancient Egyptian case will illustrate how that artist-designer, in interweaving subtle indicators of his involvement in the work, expresses awareness both of his intellectual skills and of his pride in creation. Full article

Media ethics has long been haunted by the question of representing human beings’ vulnerability to violence. While journalism and photojournalism have an obligation to report on the realities of violence and suffering in the world, the “spectacle of suffering” is fraught with ethical dilemmas. In this essay, I seek to theorize the ethics of vulnerability to violence in media representation. As a starting point, I argue for the politics of embodiment as a generative process that constitutes differential vulnerabilities. I move then to consider the way embodied vulnerabilities play out in the media, as exemplified by recent events such as the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements as well as in times of war, from Vietnam to, more recently, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. This leads to considerations of spectatorship: who looks and who is looked at? How are these relations of gazing related to the vectors of social and geopolitical power? Are images of embodied vulnerability simply media spectacles that reinforce power hierarchies, or are they powerful prosocial messages that might mobilize humanitarian activism? To address these epistemic questions, I propose that the feminist ethics of care encompasses an invitational rhetoric that can guide media praxis. Care ethics is aligned with various religious epistemologies, and because of that, I argue for it as an umbrella framework that has application in a variety of national and cultural contexts. Full article

In October 2018, the election of an extreme right-wing politician as president of Brazil laid bare the histories of antidemocratic practices that guided the policies and rhetoric of the newly elected government. Black, poor, Indigenous, Northeastern, and LGBTQIA+ people were positioned as threats to the stability of the nuclear family and public safety that the government claimed it would protect. The subsequent COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 also put into stark view the antidemocratic practices and the blatant disregard for life in Brazil, which was particularly acute for people who had been marked as a threat. “Beatriz Nascimento and the Erotics of the Quilombo in Times of Peril” revisits the work of Beatriz Nascimento, a Black Brazilian thinker and scholar who lived through the repressive and antidemocratic period of the military dictatorship (1964–1985). Nascimento’s work offers perspective to the current extreme right-wing project and underscores the significance of Black scholars’ interventions when the lives of marginalized people are at stake. Specifically, her concept of the quilombo (maroon communities) uncovers the histories, relations of power, and the possibilities of social relations for Brazilians living in precarity that antidemocratic governments have attempted to diminish and erase. Full article

Drawing upon a survey of teachers in England conducted by the UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education (CCCSE), this paper reports on teachers of geography’s conceptions of climate change, sustainability, climate change education, and sustainability education. We address how teachers of geography across the primary and secondary phase appear to distinguish the concept (climate change or sustainability) from the concept within education (climate change education or sustainability education) given that research to date has not engaged with both these framings together in empirical research with teachers. Across both climate change education and sustainability education, there was recognition for (i) the importance of these concepts for young people, (ii) the ways in which education can support young people to make informed choices or take action, and (iii) the importance of addressing these concepts across subject curricula. Teachers’ descriptions indicate (i) disconnections between policy rhetoric and teaching, (ii) a lack of attention to social and environmental justice, and (iii) an over-focus on individual action. Full article

Every preacher has a unique homiletical theory evident in their preaching, regardless of whether it is understood through scholarly examination. Homiletical theory is the academic examination of disciplines in the understanding of the methodological functionality in preaching. Historically, theology and rhetoric constitute frames of reference in homiletical theory. However, as the field evolves, other frames of reference emerge, including pastoral care. In this paper, I argue that homiletical theory is a pedagogical paradigm in which the lead partner, either rhetoric or theology, determines the point of departure for teaching, with emphasis on the rhetorical situation or the theological implications. Therefore, understanding one’s homiletical theory can lead to a pedagogical experience that translates to more effective preaching by developing a coherent delineation from theory to praxis. As a case study, I use my approach to teaching students how to preach funerals with a rhetorical point of departure that focuses on answering the existential question: how then shall we live now that our loved one has died? Full article

This study examines persistent racism, despite its formal denial, through an interdisciplinary approach that combines critical race theories, whiteness study and social psychology. It questions whether the analytical and empirical distinction between different forms of prejudice—despite their coexistence—can yield positive outcomes in the fight against racism. Considering the case of the Roma community in Italy, specifically within the universalistic approach of the Italian school system, the level of prejudice was measured in a sample of 305 middle school teachers. The main findings confirm the persistence of blatant prejudice concealed beneath a veneer of subtle racism and reveal that an educational institution’s rhetorical commitment to democracy may not substantially impact the behavior of democratic teachers when interacting with Roma individuals. The systemic inequalities ingrained within the education system are reminiscent of colonial times, where practices that once suppressed the potential of Africans are now used against Italian Roma citizens. This article finally suggests how teacher training might be improved to reduce racism, based on the different profiles of prejudicial attitudes detected among teachers. Full article

In this paper, I focus on the puzzling ending of the apostolic letter in Acts 15 in which the addressees are told that if they hold to four “essential” prohibitions, they will “do well” (εὖ πράξετε, v. 29). The question as to how, exactly, can destabilise some understandings of the decree, with alternative translations creating different problems, and particularly so where theological commitments are at play. Following Danker’s call for greater attention to this phrase, I undertake a fresh, stratified survey of Greek usage across corpora ranging from the arguably less to the more proximate and bring this into dialogue with the senses given in various literary and social approaches to the decree involving epistolary rhetoric, reciprocity theory, and intertextuality. This reveals how purely linguistic data can stand in tension with compositional arguments in different ways and require a more complex arbitration between possibility, likelihood and coherence when both lexical- and discourse-level constraints are applied. Whilst not solving the problem of the decree outright, observing the impacts of different readings of εὖ πράξετε on the delicate balances involved presses some oblique but productive questions into the interpretive task. Full article

Christian universalism, or the theory of universal salvation, is increasingly popular among religious thinkers. A small group of scholars has put forward the contentious claim that Kierkegaard was a universalist, despite that he refers in places to the idea of eternal damnation as essential to Christianity. This paper examines the evidence both for and against the view that Kierkegaard was a universalist and concludes that despite Kierkegaard’s occasional references to the importance of the idea of eternal damnation to Christianity, there is reason to believe that Kierkegaard may have been a universalist, both in terms of the substance of his thought, including two unequivocal statements in his journals that he believed everyone would eventually be saved and in terms of his rhetorical style which prioritizes the effect his writings would have on the reader over the literal truth of the views they present. Full article

In the 7th century BCE, the Kushite king Tanwetamani commissioned his “Dream Stela”, which was to be erected in the Amun Temple of Jebel Barkal. The lunette of the stela features a dualistic artistic motif whose composition, meaning, and significance are understudied despite their potential to illuminate important aspects of royal Kushite ideology. On the lunette, there are two back-to-back offering scenes that appear at first glance to be nearly symmetrical, but that closer inspection reveals to differ in subtle but significant ways. Analysis of the iconographic and textual features of the motif reveals its rhetorical function in this royal context. The two strikingly similar but meaningfully different offering scenes represented the two halves of a Kushite “Double Kingdom” that considered Kush and Egypt together as a complementary geographic dual, with Tanwetamani presiding as king of both. This “Mirrored Motif” encapsulated the duality present in the Kushite ideology of kingship during the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, which allowed Tanwetamani to reconcile the present imperial expansion of Kush with the history of Egyptian activity in Nubia. The lunette of the Dream Stela is therefore political art that serves to advance the Kushite imperial agenda. Full article

This article comprehensively examines Donald Trump’s political leadership, arguing that his tenure as the 45th President of the United States exhibited characteristics commonly associated with authoritarian mob bosses. Drawing upon various empirical evidence and theoretical political science frameworks, the study sheds light on the underlying dynamics that shaped Trump’s leadership style and its implications for democratic governance. The analysis begins by contextualizing Trump’s rise to power within the erosion of democratic norms. It explores how his rhetoric, characterized by demagoguery and the demonization of opponents, mirrors the tactics employed by mob bosses to consolidate their power and suppress dissent. Moreover, the study uncovers the striking similarities between Trump’s administration management and the hierarchical structures of organized crime, highlighting his reliance on loyalty, personal connections, and a disregard for institutional checks and balances. Furthermore, this research delves into Trump’s autocratic tendencies, as evidenced by his disdain for the free press, attacks on the judiciary, and attempts to undermine the integrity of democratic processes. It reveals how these actions align with the strategies employed by authoritarian leaders to silence opposition and perpetuate their dominance. By examining Trump’s presidency through process tracing, this study contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between authoritarianism and the erosion of democratic institutions. The findings underscore the urgent need for continued scholarly and public scrutiny of leaders who exhibit traits akin to authoritarian mob bosses to safeguard the principles of democratic governance and protect the integrity of liberal democracies. Full article

Following the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, Republican-controlled legislatures across the U.S. initiated draconian abortion restrictions. In order to appeal to anti-abortion policymakers, advocates across the country have strategically separated “maternal and child health” (MCH) issues, such as increased insurance coverage for midwifery and doula care, from issues often labeled as “reproductive rights,” such as access to sex education, birth control, and abortion. Advocates point out this strategic separation has likely contributed overall to the downfall of abortion rights. In this paper, we analyze legislative discourse to understand the legislative challenges advocates face, the strategic separations and allyships they employ, and the implications for other states and reproductive health more broadly. We find that legislators legitimate the same scientific evidence in some contexts while not in others in order to hold onto rhetorical purity within the abortion debate. In their attempts to parse the ideal abortion seeker, conservative legislators create legal ambiguities with serious consequences for healthcare. Full article