Religion, heritage and the sustainable city : Hinduism and urbanisation in Jaipur

The speed and scale of urbanisation in India is unprecedented almost anywhere in the world and has tremendous global implications. The religious influence on the urban experience has resonances for all aspects of urban sustainability in India and yet it remains a blind spot while articulating sustainable urban policy.This book explores the historical and on-going influence of religion on urban planning, design, space utilisation, urban identities and communities. It argues that the conceptual and empirical approaches to planning sustainable cities in India need to be developed out of analytical concepts that define local sense of place and identity. Examining how Hindu religious heritage, beliefs and religiously influenced planning practices have impacted on sustainable urbanisation development in Jaipur and Indian cities in general, the book identifies the challenges and opportunities that ritualistic and belief resources pose for sustainability. It focuses on three key aspects: spatial segregation and ghettoisation; gender-inclusive urban development; and the nexus between religion, nature and urban development. This cutting-edge book is one of the first case studies linking Hindu religion, heritage, urban development, women and the environment in a way that responds to the realities of Indian cities. It opens up discussion on the nexus of religion and development, drawing out insightful policy implications for the sustainable urban planning of many cities in India and elsewhere in South Asia and the developing world.

Ulster-New Zealand migration and cultural transfers / Brad Patterson

Books
Medievalism and the Gothic in Australian Culture. Edited by Stephanie Trigg.

What If? Australian History as It Might Have Been. Edited by Stuart Macintyre and Sean Scalmer.

Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand's Pasts. Edited by Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney.

The Myth of the Great Depression. By David Potts.

Memory, Monuments and Museums: The Past in the Present. Edited by Marilyn Lake.

Connected Worlds: History in Transnational Perspective. Edited by Marilyn Lake and Ann Curthoys.

Island Ministers: Indigenous Leadership in Nineteenth Century Pacific Islands Christianity. By Raeburn Lange.

Texts and Contexts: Reflections in Pacific Islands Historiography. Edited by Doug Munro and Brij V. Lai.

Day of Reckoning. By Lachlan Strahan.

Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. By Ian J. McNiven and Lynette Russell.

Recognising Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English-Settler Colonialism. By Peter H. Russell.

Black Glass: Western Australian Courts of Native Affairs 1936-54. By Kate Auty.

Edward Eyre, Race and Colonial Governance. By Julie Evans.

Gender and Empire. By Angela Woollacott.

Uncommon Ground: White Women in Aboriginal History. Edited by Anna Cole, Victoria Haskins and Fiona Paisley.

Mixed Relations: Asian-Aboriginal Contact in North Australia. By Regina Ganter, with contributions from Julia Martinez and Gary Lee.

Botany Bay: Where Histories Meet. By Maria Nugent.

A Man of All Tribes: The Life of Alick Jackomos. By Richard Broome and Corinne Manning.

Black Founders: The Unknown Story of Australia's First Black Settlers. By Cassandra Pybus.

Over the Mountains of the Sea: Life on the Migrant Ships 1870-1885. By David Hastings.

Ulster-New Zealand Migration and Cultural Transfers. Edited by Brad Patterson.

From Paesani to Global Italians: Veneto Migrants in Australia. By Loretta Baldassar and Ros Pesman.

Ways of Seeing China: From Yellow Peril to Shangrila. By Timothy Kendall.

East by South: China in the Australasian Imagination. Edited by Charles Ferrall, Paul Millar and Keren Smith.

Arthur Tange: Last of the Mandarins. By Peter Edwards.

Kin: A Collective Biography of a Working-Class New Zealand Family. By Melanie Nolan.

Ida Leeson A Life: Not a Blue-Stocking Lady. By Sylvia Martin.

Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius. By Ross McMullin.

Francis De Groot: Irish Fascist Australian Legend. By Andrew Moore.

South by Northwest: The Magnetic Crusade and the Contest for Antarctica. By Granville Allen Mawer.

From Woolloomooloo to 'Eternity': A History of Australian Baptists. 2 vols. Volume 1: Crowing and Australian Church (1831-1914), Volume 2: A National Church in a Global Community (1914-2005). By Ken R. Manley.

Shake rattle and roll: a journey with Parkinson's

This is the journey of a man suffering from Parkinson's disease. Ross Collins tells of his past twelve years' experiences of living with Parkinson's. Before, he had a steady job with Victoria Police, with promising future prospects; and was happily married with two young children. The disease struck him at an early age, changing his life and setting him on a different course. His outlook on life has changed, and his decision-making influenced; as well, his relationships with his family affected. He feels normal only when he is shaking, rattling and rolling along on his Harley. His wish for a cure leads him to pin his hopes on faith healing by the 'miracle man', in Brazil. The first two visits did not seem to have done anything to improve his physical condition. Ross is returning to Brazil for the third time, hoping against hope that his condition could be improved by a miracle healing. This documentary gives an intimate look into the life of a Parkinson's disease sufferer and that of his family. Includes al.

Muslim - Christian relations and the third crusade : medievalist imaginings

This article takes as its starting-point the responsiveness of children's literature to socio-political events, considering how contemporary anxieties about relationships between Muslim and Christian individuals and cultures inform three historical novels set in the period of the Third Crusade (1189-92): Karleen Bradford's Lionheart's Scribe (1999), K. M. Grant's Blood Red Horse (2004), and Elizabeth Laird's Crusade (2008). In these novels, encounters between young Christian and Muslim protagonists are represented through language and representational modes which owe a good deal to the habits of thought and expression which typify orientalist discourses in Western fiction. In effect, the novels produce two versions of medievalism: a Muslim medieval world which is irretrievably pre-modern, locked into rigid pracices and beliefs against which individuals are powerless; and a Christian medieval world which offers individuals the possibility of progressing to an enhanced state of personal fulfilment. The article argues that the narratives of all three novels incorporate particularly telling moments when Christian protagonists return to England, regretfully leaving Muslim friends. The impossibility of  enduring friendships between Muslims and Christians is based on the novels' assumptions about the incommensurability of cultures and religions; specifically, that there exists
an unbridgeable gulf between Islam and Christianity.

Pain, passion and faith : revisiting the place of Charles Wesley in early Methodism

Pain, Passion and Faith: Revisiting the Place of Charles Wesley in Early Methodism is a significant study of the 18th-century poet and preacher Charles Wesley. Wesley was an influential figure in 18th-century English culture and society; he was co-founder of the Methodist revival movement and one of the most prolific hymn-writers in the English language. His hymns depict the Christian life as characterized by a range of intense emotions, from ecstatic joy to profound suffering.

Admissible Christianity : a study of Christian fundamentalism in the writings of James Barr

An attempt to set forth the essential nature of a theology is a notoriously difficult task. This thesis addresses two questions to a contemporary study of fundamentalism. It asks to what extent has James Barr been able to describe the theology of fundamentalism and to what extent his critical analysis of that theology is philosophically valid? The first chapter identifies the inherent difficulties in a phenomenology of fundamentalism and includes an historical survey of the theology of the movement. This chapter is supported by appendix one which identifies the philosophical culture associated with fundamentalist thought. Barr's description of the theological and religious character of fundamentalism is accepted within the identified limitations. The second and third chapters give an account of Barr's theological evaluation of fundamentalism. He argues the fundamentalists espouse an aberrant form of Christianity. Their religion represents a projection onto the biblical text of a religion foreign to the theological character of the Old and New Testaments. This projection is achieved by an intellectually sophisticated hermeneutical procedure. The doctrines of inerrancy, verbal inspiration and infallibility establish an understanding of Christianity which does not represent the essential character of the Christian faith. Fundamentalist hermeneutics, Barr concludes, allows for a theology indigenous neither to the biblical text nor to the Christian tradition. It attempts to afford biblical justification to the doctrines of a human religion extraneous to the biblical text. The fourth chapter considers the philosophical basis of Barr's understanding of the Bible. He takes the idealist view that the biblical text possesses a theological meaning whose boundaries can be delineated and whose essential content defined. This chapter is supported by appendix two which locates Barr's writings on fundamentalism within his wider concerns about the hermeneutical problems raised by the biblical text and the religious authority of the Bible. The penultimate chapter surveys the insights of contemporary literary theory concerning the perception of written texts. The philosophical validity of an idealist view of the biblical text is questioned. Two major conclusions are drawn. Barr's assessment of fundamentalism is philosophically dependent upon his idealist perception of the biblical text. This conclusion leads to the more general conclusion that the biblical text contains no essential description of Christianity but is capable of being read according to a range of theological interpretations some of which are more defensible than others.

Presbyterian ethos and environment in the novels of John Buchan : a religious and historical study

The aim of this thesis is to establish, from a historical and religious perspective, that the Presbyterian ethos and environment in which John Buchan was reared was the predominating influence in the writing of his novels. Presbyterianism was not the only influence on Buchan that determined the character of his stories. Buchan was by temperament a romantic, and this had considerable influence on his literature. His novels are romances, peopled by romantic figures who pursue romantic adventures. There are the signs of Buchan's romantic nature in the contents of the novels: creative imagination, sensitivity to nature, and expectations of the intrusion of other worlds, with destiny-determining events to follow. But Buchan had also an acquired classicism. His studies at Glasgow and Oxford Universities brought him in touch with a whole range of the master-pieces of classical literature, especially the works of Plato and Virgil. This discipline gave him clarity and conciseness in style, and balanced the romantic element in him, keeping his work within the bounds of reason. At the heart of Buchan's life and work, however, was his deeply religious nature and this, while influenced by romanticism and classicism, was the dominant force behind his work. Buchan did not accept in its entirety the Presbyterian doctrine conveyed to him by his father and his Church. He was moderate by temperament and shrank from excesses in religious matters, and, being a romantic, he shied away from any fixed creeds. He did embrace the fundamentals of Christianity, however, which he learned from his father and his Church, even if he did put aside the Rev. John's orthodox Calvinism. The basic Christianity which underlies all Buchan's novels has the stamp of Presbyterianism upon it, and that stamp is evident in his characters and their adventures. The expression of Christianity which Buchan embraced was the Christian Platonism of seventeenth century theologians, who taught and preached at Cambridge University, They gave prominence to the place of reason and conscience in man's search for God, They believed that reason and conscience were the ‘candle of the Lord’ which was existed every one. It was their conviction that, if that light was followed, it would lead men and women to God. They were against superstition and fanaticism in religion, against all forms of persecution for religious beliefs, and insisted that God could only be known by renouncing evil and setting oneself to live according to God’s will. This teaching Buchan received, but the stamp of his Presbyterianism was not obliterated. The basic doctrines which arose from his father's Presbyterianism and are to be found in Buchan's novels are as follows: a. the fear (or awe) of God, as life's basic religious attitude; b. the Providence of God as the ultimate determinative force in the outcome of events; c. the reality, malignity and universality of evil which must be forcefully and constantly resisted; d. the dignity of human beings in bearing God's image; e. the conviction that life has meaning and that its ultimate goal, therefore, is a spiritual one - as opposed to the accumulation of wealth, the achieving of recognition from society, and the gaining access to power; f. the necessity of challenge in life for growth and fulfilment, and the importance of fortitude in successfully meeting such challenge; g. the belief that, in the purpose of God, the weak confound the strong. These emphases of Presbyterianism are to be found in all Buchan's novels, to a greater or lesser degree. All his characters are serious people, with a moral purpose in life. Like the pilgrims of the Bible, they seek a country: true fulfilment. This quest becomes more spiritual and more dearly defined as Buchan grows in age and maturity. The progress is to be traced from his early novels, where fulfilment is sought in honour and self-approving competence, as advocated by classicism; to the novels of his middle years, where fulfilment is sought in adventures suggested by romanticism. In his final novel Sick Heart River. Buchan appears to have moved somewhat from his earlier classicism and his romanticism as the road to fulfilment. In this novel, Buchan expresses what, for him, is ultimate fulfilment: a conversion to God that produces self-sacrificing love for others. The terminally-ill Edward Leithen sets out on a romantic adventure that will enable him to die with dignity, and so, in classic style, justify his existence. He has a belief in God, but in a God who is almighty, distant and largely irrelevant to Leithen's life. In the frozen North of Canada, where he expects to find his meagre beliefs in God's absolute power confirmed by the icy majesty of mountain and plain, he finds instead God's mercy and it melts his heart. In a Christ-like way, he brings life to others through his death, believing that, through death, he will find life. There is sufficient evidence to give plausibility to the view that Buchan is describing in Leithen his own pilgrimage. If so, it means that Buchan found his way back to the fundamental experience of the Christian life, conversion, so strongly emphasised in his orthodox Presbyterianism home and Church. However, Buchan reaches this conclusion in a Christian Platonist way, through the natural world, rather than through the more orthodox pathway of Scripture.

New way of seeing things : Ernst Troeltsch and the theological agenda

The aim of this thesis, as set out in the Introduction, is to assess the (seminal) significance of Troeltsch as one who set the agenda for twentieth century theology, particularly modern sociopolitical theology, and whose thought still has a special relevance. The first main chapter deals with the implications of the philosophy of history for theology. The Protestant theological orthodoxy of Troeltsch's time was essential ahistorical: he thought this to be untenable. Theology had to come to terms with the historical method, which was ‘a leaven which transforms everything, and finally bursts all previous forms of theological method.’ This chapter discusses Troeltsch's work concerning the principles, the cultural matrix, and the philosophy of history. The second main chapter examines another main concern of Troeltsch, namely, the status of Christianity vis-a-vis other religions. The background to this was the increasing awareness of the existence of other religions and the question of relativity and universality which this posed. Troeltschfs major response was Die Absolutheit des Christentums in which the ideas of essence, Europeanism, and absolutism were discussed, The third, and longest, chapter looks at the impact of social theory on theology. Sociology gave Troeltsch ‘a new way of seeing things’, and this new perspective is to be seen pre-eminently in The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches. Discussion of this centres on the three main concepts that Troeltsch delineated, compromise, natural law, and church/sect typology.

Descartes on the human soul : philosophy and the demands of Christian doctrine

By the 17th century Catholic orthodoxy had defined a range of propositions concerning the human soul as revealed by God and verifiable by natural reason. The writings of Rene Descartes display a consistent adherence to these orthodox propositions. The conclusion presents him as ultimately unsuccesful in convincing his contemporaries that his philosophy provided the rational demonstration of the key soul doctrines and that he was worthy of the title "Christian philosopher"

Dies of culture and religion : India and Australia, from settlement to post/modern times

In historical sketches of India-Australia or Australia-India relations, the important dimensions of the cultural and religious connections from the shared colonial period and Gandhi's nationalist voice echoing in all corners of the Empire, through to the diasporic migration, settlement and temple culture, is largely overlooked. This essay intends the redress that absence in current research and contribute toward a critical appraisal of that rather 'esoteric' part of history, arguably still in its infancy. The story begins close to the early white settlement period to the aftermath of the events of 9/11 (2001 in New York) and Bali (2002). The focus will be on Hindus with some reference to Sikhs, Muslims, Sri Lankan Tamils, and migrants from the subcontinent, as the conduits for the particular Indian-Australian diasporic connection and 'spiritual diplomacy' being explored.