Singing Through Struggle: Music as a Mode of Cultural Exchange in African American Border City Churches After Emancipation, 1862-1890

This project investigates how religious music, invested with symbolic and cultural meaning, provided African Americans in border city churches with a way to negotiate conflict, assert individual values, and establish a collective identity in the post- emancipation era. In order to focus on the encounter between former slaves and free Blacks, the dissertation examines black churches that received large numbers of southern migrants during and after the Civil War. Primarily a work of history, the study also employs insights and conceptual frameworks from other disciplines including anthropology and ritual studies, African American studies, aesthetic theory, and musicology. It is a work of historical reconstruction in the tradition of scholarship that some have called "lived religion." Chapter 1 introduces the dissertation topic and explains how it contributes to scholarship. Chapter 2 examines social and religious conditions African Americans faced in Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA, and Washington, DC to show why the Black Church played a key role in African Americans' adjustment to post-emancipation life. Chapter 3 compares religious slave music and free black church music to identify differences and continuities between them, as well as their functions in religious settings. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present case studies on Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church (Baltimore), Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church (Philadelphia), and St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church (Washington, DC), respectively. Informed by fresh archival materials, the dissertation shows how each congregation used its musical life to uphold values like education and community, to come to terms with a shared experience, and to confront or avert authority when cultural priorities were threatened. By arguing over musical choices or performance practices, or agreeing on mutually appealing musical forms like the gospel songs of the Sunday school movement, African Americans forged lively faith communities and distinctive cultures in otherwise adverse environments. The study concludes that religious music was a crucial form of African American discourse and expression in the post-emancipation era. In the Black Church, it nurtured an atmosphere of exchange, gave structure and voice to conflict, helped create a public sphere, and upheld the values of black people.

Towards Eco-Dharma: The Contribution of Gandhian Thought to Ecological Ethics in India

Ecological concern prompts poor and indigenous people of India to consider how a society can ensure both protection of nature and their rightful claim for a just and sustainable future. Previous discussions defended the environment while ignoring the struggles of the poor for sustenance and their religious traditions and ethical values. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi addressed similar socio-ecological concerns by adopting and adapting traditional religious and ethical notions to develop strategies for constructive, engaged resistance. The dissertation research and analysis verifies the continued relevance of the Gandhian understanding of dharma (ethics) in contemporary India as a basis for developing eco-dharma (eco-ethics) to link closely development, ecology, and religious values. The method of this study is interpretive, analytical, and critical. Françoise Houtart’s social analytical method is used to make visible and to suggest how to overcome social tensions from the perspective of marginalized and exploited peoples in India. The Indian government's development initiatives create a nexus between the eco-crisis and economic injustice, and communities’ responses. The Chipko movement seeks to protect the Himalayan forests from commercial logging. The Narmada Bachao Andolan strives to preserve the Narmada River and its forests and communities, where dam construction causes displacement. The use of Gandhian approaches by these movements provides a framework for integrating ecological concerns with people's struggles for survival. For Gandhi, dharma is a harmony of satya (truth), ahimsa (nonviolence), and sarvodaya (welfare of all). Eco-dharma is an integral, communitarian, and ecologically sensitive ethical paradigm. The study demonstrates that the Gandhian notion of dharma, implemented through nonviolent satyagraha (firmness in promoting truth), can direct community action that promotes responsible economic structures and the well-being of the biotic community and the environment. Eco-dharma calls for solidarity, constructive resistance, and ecologically and economically viable communities. The dissertation recommends that for a sustainable future, India must combine indigenous, appropriate, and small- or medium-scale industries as an alternative model of development in order to help reduce systemic poverty while enhancing ecological well-being.

Practice Links [Issue 48, June 2012]

Practice Links is a free e-publication for practitioners working in Irish social services, voluntary and nongovernmental sectors. Practice Links was created to enable practitioners to keep up-to-date with new publications, electronic resources and conference opportunities. Issue 48 contains information regarding spiritual and religious interventions for adults in the terminal stage of disease as well as research examining the effects focused deterrence strategies have on crime.

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.

Contemporary pilgrimage in Ireland: a cultural geographic perspective

Using the lenses of contemporary cultural geography, this research develops an understanding of pilgrimage as a relational and reciprocal process that co-produces self and world. Drawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, I argue that through the performances and experiences of contemporary pilgrimage in Ireland, participants and locations emerge as pilgrims and pilgrimage places. This approach unites different strands of cultural geography, including the mobilities field, more-than representational concerns, discussions of embodiment and practice, emotional and affective geographies, and religious and spiritual geographies. I explore how pilgrimage is an active process in which self and world, belief and practice, and the numinous and material entwine and merge. An autoethnographic methodology is enacted as an embodied, intersubjective, and reflexive research approach that incorporates the motivations, experiences, and beliefs of research participants, alongside my own descriptions and reflections. The methodology is focused on encountering and documenting pilgrimage practices as they occur in place and relating these embodied spatial practices to the accounts of pilgrims. The insights generated by engagements with research participants and through my own pilgrimages, offer new appreciations of the enduring appeal of pilgrimage in Ireland as a religious-spiritual and cultural activity that allows people to express personal intentions, to develop their faith, and to seek numinous encounters. Through the pilgrimages at Lough Derg, Croagh Patrick, and three holy wells, I produce a layered account of the empirical circumstances of the practices. The presentation of these places and events is enhanced by the use of evocative images and audiovisual recordings. By centring my study on the practices and experiences of different pilgrimages in present-day Ireland, and critically deploying strands of cultural geography and pilgrimage studies, this research produces new qualitative understandings of pilgrimage and contributes to discussions concerned with the relationships between self and world.

The life of leaders: an intensive health program for clergy.

Clergy suffer from chronic disease rates that are higher than those of non-clergy. Health interventions for clergy are needed, and some exist, although none to date have been described in the literature. Life of Leaders is a clergy health intervention designed with particular attention to the lifestyle and beliefs of United Methodist clergy, directed by Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare Center of Excellence in Faith and Health. It consists of a two-day retreat of a comprehensive executive physical and leadership development process. Its guiding principles include a focus on personal assets, multi-disciplinary, integrated care, and an emphasis on the contexts of ministry for the poor and community leadership. Consistent with calls to intervene on clergy health across multiple ecological levels, Life of Leaders intervenes at the individual and interpersonal levels, with potential for congregational and religious denominational change. Persons wishing to improve the health of clergy may wish to implement Life of Leaders or borrow from its guiding principles.

Sex Education in Northern Ireland Schools: a Critical Evaluation.

To date there has been little research on young people and sexuality in Northern Ireland. This paper draws on the first major study in this area to analyse the delivery of formal sex education in schools. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to access young people's opinions about the quality of the sex education they had received at school. Overall, they reported high levels of dissatisfaction, with notable variations in relation to both gender and religious affiliation. In one sense their opinions mesh well with those of young people in other parts of these islands. At the same time the specificity of sexuality in Ireland plays a key role in producing the moral system that underlies much of formal sex education in schools. Underpinned by a particularly traditional and conservative strain of Christian morality, sex education in Northern Ireland schools is marked by conservatism and silence and by the avoidance of opportunities for informed choice in relation to sexuality on the part of young people.

Risk adjustment for hospital use using social security data: cross sectional small area analysis

Objectives: To identify demographic and socioeconomic determinants of need for acute hospital treatment at small area level. To establish whether there is a relation between poverty and use of inpatient services. To devise a risk adjustment formula for distributing public funds for hospital services using, as far as possible, variables that can be updated between censuses. Design: Cross sectional analysis. Spatial interactive modelling was used to quantify the proximity of the population to health service facilities. Two stage weighted least squares regression was used to model use against supply of hospital and community services and a wide range of potential needs drivers including health, socioeconomic census variables, uptake of income support and family credit, and religious denomination. Setting: Northern Ireland. Main outcome measure: Intensity of use of inpatient services. Results: After endogeneity of supply and use was taken into account, a statistical model was produced that predicted use based on five variables: income support, family credit, elderly people living alone, all ages standardised mortality ratio, and low birth weight. The main effect of the formula produced is to move resources from urban to rural areas. Conclusions: This work has produced a population risk adjustment formula for acute hospital treatment in which four of the five variables can be updated annually rather than relying on census derived data. Inclusion of the social security data makes a substantial difference to the model and to the results produced by the formula.

Notes on the History of Social Work: An Examination of the Transition from Philanthropy to Professional Social Work in Ireland

The objective of the article is to examine the way in which social work in Ireland evolved from practices of philanthropy in the late 19th century to a distinct professional strategy in the present. Results: The results of archival research show that philanthropy in Ireland was provided almost exclusively by religious organizations and was constructed within a discourse of sectarianism and rivalry between the two main denominations, Catholic and Protestant, up to the 1960s. It is only in the past 30 years that social work has become firmly established as a secular strategy. Conclusions: It is concluded that although social work is now clearly distinct from voluntary and religious-based social work practices, some of its present principles and practices remain continuous with its historical antecedents.

Measurements of the XUV transmission of aluminium with a soft x-ray laser

We have used XUV lasers to make absolute measurements of the photoabsorption coefficient of Al at energies just below that of the L3 absorption edge at 72.7 eV. Transmission measurements at photon energies of 53.7 and 63.3 eV have been made using Ne-like Ni and Ge XUV lasers. The XUV laser output was recorded in first and second orders using a flat-field spectrometer. Al foils with steps of various thicknesses were placed over the first order diffracted signal, while the second order diffraction was used to monitor the beam profile at each position. The transmission data agree extremely well with the original measurements at these wavelengths made by Henke and co-workers (Henke B L, Gullikson E M and Davis J C 1993 At. Data Nucl. Data Tables 54 18 1), but are in conflict with subsequent measurements which are currently in common use (Gullikson E M, Denham P, Mrowka S and Underwood J H 1994 Phys. Rev. B 49 16 283). The exact values of the absorption coefficients in this region of the spectrum have significant implications for the diagnosis of the energy and intensity output of XUV lasers.

Fabricating Economic Development

Much of the literature, regardless of academic discipline, presents the publication of Economic Development in 1958 as analogous to a"big bang" event in the creation of modern Ireland. However, such a "big bang" perspective misrepresents the sophistication of economic debates prior to Whitaker's report as well as distorting the interpretation of subsequent developments. This paper reappraises Irish economic thinking before and after the publication of Economic Development. It is argued that an economically "liberal" approach to Keynesianism, such as that favoured by T. K. Whitaker and George O'Brien, lost out in the 1960s to a more interventionist approach: only later did a more liberal approach to macroeconomic policy triumph. The rival approaches to academic economics were in turn linked to wider debates on the influence of religious authorities on Irish higher education. Academic economists were particularly concerned with preserving their intellectual independence and how a shift to planning would keep decisions on resource allocation out of the reach of conservative political and religious leaders.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A People's War

The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is one of the most enduring and complex in the modern world. But, why did the conflict break out? Who is demanding what, and why is peace so difficult to achieve?

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict tackles the subject and analyses the conflict from its historical roots in the late nineteenth century to the present attempts at conflict resolution in the twenty-first century.

Framing the debate and analysis around issues such as Zionism, Palestinian nationalism, international peace efforts, the refugees, state-building, democracy and religious opposition and highlighted by first hand quotes and sources of the conflict from its major participants, Beverley Milton-Edwards explores the deep impact of the conflict on regional politics in the Middle East and why the enmity between Palestinians and Israelis has become a number one global issue drawing in the world’s most important global actors.

An essential insight into the complexities of one of the world’s most enduring conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, this textbook is designed to make a complex subject accessible to all. Key features include a chronology of events and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is an ideal and authoritative introduction into aspects of politics in Israel, among the Palestinians – a vitally important issue for those studying the politics of the Middle East.

Rekonstrukcja pierwotnego przesłania - rzecz o żydowskich przekładach Nowego Testamentu

Restoring the original meaning: Jewish translations of the New Testament Among dozens of new translations of the New Testament published in the last fifty years there are several versions by Jewish scholars which have not yet received enough attention. The article offers an analysis of the most characteristic features of these translations, such as criticism of the existing versions expressed in introductory sections, as well as actual techniques by means of which the Jewish origin and character of the text is emphasized in three spheres: superficial, cultural and religious, and theological, each of them illustrated with numerous examples against the background of traditional versions. It is argued that regardless of the ideological motivation underlying the origin of the Jewish translations of the New Testament they offer valuable and otherwise unavailable insights into the original message of the ancient Christian writings.

The Role of Identity in Adjustment among Survivors of Oesophageal Cancer.

The study sought to contextualize the physical, social and emotional adjustments that are faced by oesophageal cancer patients following surgery. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five survivors, guided by the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Participants’ accounts encompassed descriptions of personal, social and medical relationships, illness and treatment experiences, eating behaviours, and spiritual and religious perspectives, representing myriad challenges to the self-concept. Surviving patients may have a role in addressing patient expectations about eating. The importance of attempts to nurture and maintain a sense of self should be recognized by those providing care.

Beyond Poverty: Social Justice in a Global Marketplace

The social justice paradigm, developed in philosophy by John Rawls and others, reaches limits when confronted with diverse populations, unsound governments, and global markets.Its parameters are further limited by a traditional utilitarian approach to both industrial actors and consumer behaviors. Finally, by focusing too exclusively on poverty, as manifest in insufficient incomes or resources, the paradigm overlooks the oppressive role that gender,race, and religious prejudice play in keeping the poor subordinated. The authors of this article suggest three ways in which researchers in marketing could bring their unique expertise to the question of social justice in a global economy: by reinventing the theoretical foundation laid down by thinkers such as Rawls, by documenting and evaluating emergent “feasible fixes” to achieve justice (such as the global resource dividend, cause-related marketing, Fair Trade, and philanthrocapitalism), and by exploring the parameters of the consumption basket that would be minimally required to achieve human capabilities.