Ave 04

Ave 04 is a short vocal performance with a female singer singing Ave.

China’s foundational thought and ancient philosophers

China's Spring and Autumn (770 BC-403 BC) and Warring States (403 BC-221 BC) periods, though marked by disunity and constant wars, witnessed an unprecedented era of cultural prosperity and intellectual activities. This paper takes this political context and intellectual background into consideration when examining the main schools of thought in that era, and argues that the atmosphere of reform and new ideas was attributed to the struggle for survival among warring regional lords, who needed an ever-increasing number of well-educated officials.

Seven heavens? The character and importance of afterlife belief among contemporary Australians

This article draws on in-depth qualitative interviews with 52 people to examine the meaning and character of afterlife belief among contemporary Australians. It explores the varieties of afterlife belief and considers the impact such beliefs have, particularly in relation to death and dying. The analysis reveals that afterlife belief is varied, individualistic and mainly arrived at with little to no reference to orthodox religious teaching. People variously believe in heaven, reincarnation, life on another planet or something more abstract. Those who follow faithfully a religious tradition are largely ignorant of detailed theological doctrines about life after death and like other kinds of believers, exercise their own authority and judgment over matters of belief.

On Roland Boer’s Marxism and theology

This piece aims to provide a synoptic introduction to Boer’s claims in the five volumes of Marxism and Theology. Obviously, such an account must miss many important nuances across the host of critical readings Boer assembles, guided by his broadly Jamesonian manner of reading the texts with a view to their biblical and theological claims. Nevertheless, by aiming at a synoptic view of a truly compendious contribution to scholarship, it is hoped that the piece will provide assistance to readers, and encourage them to test their own intuitions and thoughts against the original texts. The final part of the article stands back from this ‘‘standing back’’: and asks questions concerning Boer’s treatments of biblical criticism, with and/or against theology; and concerning the role of what might be called (even despite Boer’s own protests) a kind of ‘‘secularised’’ Calvinism in Boer’s work and its interest in a post-Marxian politics of grace.

Reaching for the heavenly bead of teaching through structured problem solving

Japanese Lesson Study has provoked intense interest since it became known in the mid-1990s due to descriptions of the "typical" Japanese abacus - the soroban - with its Earth and Heaven beads as its metaphor, this paper examines the Earth beads necessary to reach the goal of a Heavenly bead - that is, an effective structured problem-solving mathematics lesson.