'La Violence et la mauvaise foi': Context and rhetoric in Pierre Bayle's Ce que c'est que la France toute Catholique

My thesis presents an examination of Ce que c'est que la France toute Catholique (1686) by Pierre Bayle, a prominent figure in the Republic of Letters and the Huguenot Refuge in the seventeenth century. This pamphlet was the first occasional text that Bayle published following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in which the religious toleration afforded to the Huguenot minority in France was repealed, a pivotal moment in the history of early modern France. In my thesis, I analyse the specific context within which Bayle wrote this pamphlet as a means of addressing a number of issues, including the legitimacy of forced conversions, the impact of the religious controversy upon exchanges in the Republic of Letters, the nature of religious zeal and finally the alliance of Church and state discourses in the early modern period. An examination of this context provides a basis from which to re-interpret the rhetorical strategies at work within the pamphlet, and also to come to an increased understanding of how, why and to what end he wrote it. In turn this allowed me to examine the relationship between this often overlooked pamphlet and the more extensively studied Commentaire Philosophique, in which Bayle argued in favour of religious toleration. Ultimately, understanding the relationship between these two texts proves essential in order to characterise his response to the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes and to understand the place of the pamphlet within his oeuvre. Furthermore, an analysis of the pamphlet and the Commentaire Philosophique provide a lens through which to elucidate both Bayle's intellectual development at this early stage in his career, and also the wider context of the rise of toleration theory and the evolution of modes of civility within the Republic of Letters on the eve of the Enlightenment.

The endless search for SA: spiritual ideology in Hindustāni music

This dissertation centres on philosophical attitudes presented by North Indian classical musicians in relation to the concept and experience of rāga improvisation. In Hindustāni music, there is a dynamic tension ideology and pragmatism, devotion and entertainment, fixity and improvisational freedom, and cognition and visceral experience. On one hand, rāga is an embodied methodological template for the creation of music. On the other hand, rāga improvisation is conceptualised as a path to metaphysical experience and as an evocation of an ineffable divine presence. A masterful rendition of rāga is both a re-enactment of a systematic prescribed formula and a spontaneous flow of consciousness. This study presents these apparent dichotomies to highlight ideological concerns, while simultaneously contextualising philosophical idealism in relation to pragmatic realities. A central paradigm is the manner in which pragmatic concerns are elevated in status and given spiritual significance. The dissertation begins with a view into historical and religious context. The discussion continues with a speculative investigation positing co-relations between Hindustāni music and central tenets of Indian philosophy, considering how rāga improvisation may manifest as a philosophy of sound. The study then explores the concept of rāga, a modal and conceptual construct that forms the heart of Indian classical music. The final three sections ground the subject of spiritual ideology within the life experience of Hindustāni musicians: ‘Transmission’ looks at the learning and enculturation process, which encapsulates values intrinsic to the ethos of Hindustāni music culture. ‘Practice’ explores the discipline, science and experience of musical practice, revealing core ideological concerns connecting spirituality to musical experience; and ‘Performance’ examines the live presentation of rāga improvisation, and the relationship between music as ‘entertainment’ and music as ‘devotion’. Both ethnographic and musicological, this research is the culmination of various fieldtrips to India, extensive interviews with Hindustāni musicians, fifteen year’s sitār training, and the study of relevant musicological and philosophical texts.

The ‘Celtic’ dimension of pre-first World War religious discourse in Britain: Wellesley Tudor Pole and the Glastonbury phenomenon

This article will explore the contribution made to the construction of discourse around religion outside of mainstream Christianity, at the turn of the twentieth century in Britain, by a Celticist movement as represented by Wellesley Tudor Pole (d.1968) and his connection to the Glastonbury phenomenon. I will detail the interconnectedness of individuals and movements occupying this discursive space and their interest in efforts to verify the authenticity of an artefact which Tudor Pole claimed was once in the possession of Jesus. Engagement with Tudor Pole’s quest to prove the provenance of the artefact, and his contention that a pre-Christian culture had existed in Ireland which had extended itself to Glastonbury and Iona creating the foundation for an authentic Western mystical tradition, is presented as one facet of a broader, contemporary discourse on alternative ideas and philosophies. In conclusion, I will juxtapose Tudor Pole’s fascination with Celtic origins and the approach of leading figures in the ‘Celtic Revival’ in Ireland, suggesting intersections and alterity in the construction of their worldview. The paper forms part of a chapter in a thesis under-preparation which examines the construction of discourse on religion outside of mainstream Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century, and in particular the role played by visiting religious reformers from Asia. The aim is to recover the (mostly forgotten) history of these engagements.

Spinoza on method and freedom

The thesis as a whole argues that Spinoza’s Ethics in both method and content is aimed at the normal, partly rational person. Chapter 1 is on Spinoza’s writing style, finding that rather than being arid and technical, it aims to convince the reader by means of various rhetorical techniques, so does not assume an already rational reader. The following chapters of Part 1 examine whether the Ethics’ use of the synthetic geometric method exposes it to Descartes’ critique of that method in the “Second Replies” to his Meditations, that it is not suitable for pedagogy. This involves a consideration of the role of the TIE, finding in that early text not the analytic wing of a two-part analytic-synthetic method, but rather a defence and necessitation of a stand-alone synthetic method. Part 2 of the thesis develops this study of Spinoza’s writing for the common man to consider whether he is writing about the common man. This is done by examining one of the seemingly most abstract propositions in the Ethics, 4P72, which claims that a free man will not deceive even to save his own life. The study examines who exactly is this “free man” and what is his role in the Ethics. The study looks at the examples of free men in the TTP and at the concept of the model in the Ethics, and finds that rather than the free man being an impossible ideal which we can aim at but never achieve, everyone is free to some extent, and that even normal people are at times “the free man”.

Creating religious place in Ireland: Hindu public places of worship and the Indian sculpture park

This paper examines the creation of religious place. It argues that the designation of a place as “religious” is a subjective and creative act which is dependent upon the perception and past, or memory, of the viewer. The paper focuses specifically on the creation of public places of worship by Hindu groups in the Dublin city area of Ireland and on the varied perceptions of the Indian Sculpture Park in County Wicklow. The creation of public places of worship results in places classified as “religious” due to the intention of the creator, the terminology used and the types of activities that take place in the space. This is in contrast to places such as the Indian Sculpture Park in County Wicklow which was created as a secular space but which is viewed by some Hindus as an outdoor temple due to the presence of sculptures of the Hindu deity Ganesh. Other Hindus do not view the space as having any religious significance and so its religiosity is contested. This points to the fact that the creation of religious place is a creative act of interpretation which is dependent upon the perception and past of the viewer and which changes over time.

Religious memory as a conveyor of authoritative tradition: The necessary and essential component in a definition of religion

In a landmark book published in 2000, the sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger defined religion as a chain of memory, by which she meant that within religious communities remembered traditions are transmitted with an overpowering authority from generation to generation. After analysing Hervieu-Léger’s sociological approach as overcoming the dichotomy between substantive and functional definitions, this article compares a ritual honouring the ancestors in which a medium becomes possessed by the senior elder’s ancestor spirit among the Shona of Zimbabwe with a cleansing ritual performed by a Celtic shaman in New Hampshire, USA. In both instances, despite different social and historical contexts, appeals are made to an authoritative tradition to legitimize the rituals performed. This lends support to the claim that the authoritative transmission of a remembered tradition, by exercising an overwhelming power over communities, even if the memory of such a tradition is merely postulated, identifies the necessary and essential component for any activity to be labelled “religious”.

The protective role of religious coping in adolescents' responses to poverty and sexual decision-making in rural Kenya.

In this study, we explored how adolescents in rural Kenya apply religious coping in sexual decision-making in the context of high rates of poverty and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 34 adolescents. One-third (13) reported religious coping related to economic stress, HIV, or sexual decision-making; the majority (29) reported religious coping with these or other stressors. Adolescents reported praying for God to partner with them to engage in positive behaviors, praying for strength to resist unwanted behaviors, and passive strategies characterized by waiting for God to provide resources or protection from HIV. Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa may benefit from HIV prevention interventions that integrate and build upon their use of religious coping.

Rain dances in the dry season: overcoming the religious congruence fallacy

Religious congruence refers to consistency among an individual’s religious beliefs and attitudes, consistency between religious ideas and behavior, and religious ideas, identities, or schemas that are chronically salient and accessible to individuals across contexts and situations. Decades of anthropological, sociological, and psychological research establish that religious congruence is rare, but much thinking about religion presumes that it is common. The religious congruence fallacy occurs when interpretations or explanations unjustifiably presume religious congruence. I illustrate the ubiquity of religious incongruence, show how the religious congruence fallacy distorts thinking about religion, and outline an approach to help overcome the fallacy.

Contracting Freedom: Governance and East Indian Indenture in the British Atlantic, 1838-1917

This is a dissertation about identity and governance, and how they are mutually constituted. Between 1838 and 1917, the British brought approximately half a million East Indian laborers to the Atlantic to work on sugar plantations. The dissertation argues that contrary to previous historiographical assumptions, indentured East Indians were an amorphous mass of people drawn from various regions of British India. They were brought together not by their innate "Indian-ness" upon their arrival in the Caribbean, but by the common experience of indenture recruitment, transportation and plantation life. Ideas of innate "Indian-ness" were products of an imperial discourse that emerged from and shaped official approaches to governing East Indians in the Atlantic. Government officials and planters promoted visions of East Indians as "primitive" subjects who engaged in child marriage and wife murder. Officials mobilized ideas about gender to sustain racialized stereotypes of East Indian subjects. East Indian women were thought to be promiscuous, and East Indian men were violent and depraved (especially in response to East Indian women's promiscuity). By pointing to these stereotypes about East Indians, government officials and planters could highlight the promise of indenture as a civilizing mechanism. This dissertation links the study of governance and subject formation to complicate ideas of colonial rule as static. It uncovers how colonial processes evolved to handle the challenges posed by migrant populations.

The primary architects of indenture, Caribbean governments, the British Colonial Office, and planters hoped that East Indian indentured laborers would form a stable and easily-governed labor force. They anticipated that the presence of these laborers would undermine the demands of Afro-Creole workers for higher wages and shorter working hours. Indenture, however, was controversial among British liberals who saw it as potentially hindering the creation of a free labor market, and abolitionists who also feared that indenture was a new form of slavery. Using court records, newspapers, legislative documents, bureaucratic correspondence, memoirs, novels, and travel accounts from archives and libraries in Britain, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, this dissertation explores how indenture was envisioned and constantly re-envisioned in response to its critics. It chronicles how the struggles between the planter class and the colonial state for authority over indentured laborers affected the way that indenture functioned in the British Atlantic. In addition to focusing on indenture's official origins, this dissertation examines the actions of East Indian indentured subjects as they are recorded in the imperial archive to explore how these people experienced indenture.

Indenture contracts were central to the justification of indenture and to the creation of a pliable labor force in the Atlantic. According to English common law, only free parties could enter into contracts. Indenture contracts limited the period of indenture and affirmed that laborers would be remunerated for their labor. While the architects of indenture pointed to contracts as evidence that indenture was not slavery, contracts in reality prevented laborers from participating in the free labor market and kept the wages of indentured laborers low. Further, in late nineteenth-century Britain, contracts were civil matters. In the British Atlantic, indentured laborers who violated the terms of their contracts faced criminal trials and their associated punishments such as imprisonment and hard labor. Officials used indenture contracts to exploit the labor and limit the mobility of indentured laborers in a manner that was reminiscent of slavery but that instead established indentured laborers as subjects with limited rights. The dissertation chronicles how indenture contracts spawned a complex inter-imperial bureaucracy in British India, Britain, and the Caribbean that was responsible for the transportation and governance of East Indian indentured laborers overseas.

Ill-Posedness, Regularization and Number of Degrees of Freedom

info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Superresolution and number of degrees of freedom in inverse diffraction with subwavelength sources

info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Number of degrees of freedom in inverse diffraction

The problem of inverse diffraction from plane to plane is considered in the case where a finite aperture exists in the boundary plane. Singular values and singular functions for the problem are introduced, and the number of degrees of freedom is defined in terms of the distribution of the singular values. Numerical computations are presented for the one-dimensional problem, and it is shown that the effect of evanescent waves disappears at a distance of approximately one wavelength from the boundary plane, even when the dimension of the slit is comparable with the wavelength of the diffracted field. © 1983 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Consistent couplings between fields with a gauge freedom and deformations of the master equation

The antibracket in the antifield-BRST formalism is known to define a map Hp × Hq → Hp + q + 1 associating with two equivalence classes of BRST invariant observables of respective ghost number p and q an equivalence class of BRST invariant observables of ghost number p + q + 1. It is shown that this map is trivial in the space of all functionals, i.e. that its image contains only the zeroth class. However, it is generically non-trivial in the space of local functionals. Implications of this result for the problem of consistent interactions among fields with a gauge freedom are then drawn. It is shown that the obstructions to constructing non-trivial such interactions lie precisely in the image of the antibracket map and are accordingly non-existent if one does not insist on locality. However consistent local interactions are severely constrained. The example of the Chern-Simons theory is considered. It is proved that the only consistent, local, Lorentz covariant interactions for the abelian models are exhausted by the non-abelian Chern-Simons extensions. © 1993.

Symmetrical freedom quilts: the ethnomathematics of ways of communication, liberation, and art

Symmetrical Freedom Quilts may be considered as links between mathematics, history, ethnomathematics, and the art of quilting. A quilt theme is a pedagogical way to integrate mathematics, art, and history in an interdisciplinary approach. This article combines an ethnomathematical-historical perspective by elaborating a history project related to the Underground Railroad. This work will allow teachers to develop classroom projects that help students to better understand geometry, especially concepts of symmetry and transformations. One of the objectives of this project is to stimulate student’s creativity and interest, because quilts may be considered as cultural and mathematical expressions of student’s daily life.