The nonformative elements of religious life: questioning the ‘sociology of spirituality’ paradigm

Sociological assertions of religious vitality in Euro-American societies have developed a paradigm of spirituality in which, following earlier studies of the New Age, a distinction is drawn between external authority and self-authority. Methodologically and theoretically problematic, this paradigm diverts attention from people’s social practices and interactions, especially in relation to multiple religious authorities. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork with an English religious network, and building upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu, this paper considers situations in which multiple authorities tend to relativize each other. Conceptualizing this in terms of nonformativeness - the lack of authorities’ abilities formatively to shape religious identity, habitus, and competition over religious capital - a new understanding of individual secularization emerges that questions assertions of vitality.

Strategy in a religious network: A bourdieuian critique of the sociology of spirituality

Within the sociology of religion there has emerged a discourse on spirituality that views contemporary developments as involving the assertion of individuals’ self-authority. This perspective’s theoretical roots have been persistently criticised for their conceptualisation of agency; in contrast, this paper draws upon Bourdieu’s concept of strategy to examine action in an English religious network of the sort often classified ‘New Age’. In particular, one informant is discussed in order to provide focus for an understanding of what Lahire calls sociology at the level of the individual. Her actions, better explained as strategic improvisations than as choices made on the basis of self-authority, help to illuminate the peculiarities of this religious setting, which is characterised in terms of ‘nonformativeness’. By emphasising social contextualisation, this approach addresses people’s meaningful actions in a way that may be applied not only more widely within the religious field but also in other fields of action.

The use of cues for attention in ancient Greek art: aspects that influence concentration in the work of art and its elements

The goal of this study is to identify cues for the cognitive process of attention in ancient Greek art, aiming to find confirmation of its possible use by ancient Greek audiences and artists. Evidence of cues that trigger attention’s psychological dispositions was searched through content analysis of image reproductions of ancient Greek sculpture and fine vase painting from the archaic to the Hellenistic period - ca. 7th -1st cent. BC. Through this analysis, it was possible to observe the presence of cues that trigger orientation to the work of art (i.e. amplification, contrast, emotional salience, simplification, symmetry), of a cue that triggers a disseminate attention to the parts of the work (i.e. distribution of elements) and of cues that activate selective attention to specific elements in the work of art (i.e. contrast of elements, salient color, central positioning of elements, composition regarding the flow of elements and significant objects). Results support the universality of those dispositions, probably connected with basic competencies that are hard-wired in the nervous system and in the cognitive processes.

Vis-á-Vis-á-Vis. The Three-dimensional and artistic view of a problem

ANPO (A Non-predefined Outcome) is an an art-making methodology that employs structuralist theory of language (Saussure, Lacan, Foucault) combined with Hegel’s dialectic and the theory of creation of space by Lefebvre to generate spaces of dialogue and conversation between community members and different stakeholders. These theories of language are used to find artistic ways of representing a topic that community members have previously chosen. The topic is approached in a way that allows a visual, aural, performative and gustative form. To achieve this, the methodology is split in four main steps: step 1 ‘This is not a chair’, Step 2 ‘The topic’, Step 3 ‘ Vis-á-vis-á-vis’ and step 4. ‘Dialectical representation’ where the defined topic is used to generate artistic representations.The step 1 is a warm up exercise informed by the Rene Magritte painting ‘This is not a Pipe’. This exercise aims to help the participants to see an object as something else than an object but as a consequence of social implications. Step 2, participants choose a random topic and vote for it. The artist/facilitator does not predetermine the topic, participants are the one who propose it and choose it. Step 3, will be analysed in this publication and finally step 4, the broken down topic is taken to be represented and analysed in different ways. 

‘‘An old quarrel between us that will never be at an end": Middleton’s Women Beware Women and Late Jacobean Religious Politics

In this article, I examine Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women as a response to the particular religio-political context in the years surrounding 1621. The onset of the Thirty Years War in 1618 and the subsequent humiliation of James' son-in-law Frederick, Elector of Palatine, the vexed question of a possible Catholic marriage for Charles, Prince of Wales, the ever present difficulty of Anglo-Catholic relations, particularly with Spain, as well as growing religious factionalism within the Church of England between Calvinists and Arminians: all contributed towards a culturally febrile atmosphere, one to which, as I will argue, Middleton was well placed to respond. Given Middleton's Calvinistic beliefs, I suggest that Women Beware Women offers an acerbic examination of contemporary debates concerning human will, especially women's will, as well as promoting a sceptically apocalyptic anti-Catholic agenda throughout. I also examine the religious language and imagery used to construct Bianca as the whore of Babylon, and argue that her emergence and fall offer a political commentary on the precarious position of the English Church around 1621.

Interpersonal Aspects of Thinking Skills in an Intercultural Language Learning Context

Asking and answering certain types of questions are thought to develop thinking skills in all types of classrooms. Previous research has demonstrated that asking higher order questions and answering with elaborated responses are associated with high achievement in first, second, and foreign language contexts. Typically more attention is paid to question frequency or achievements inferred from individual performances than to the dialogues in which asking and answering occurs. This paper argues for a focus on the construction of responses in interaction as an alternative to the investigation of questions, effects of training or individual measurements of performance. Drawing on interactional data from an adult English as a Second Language classroom, it is argued that constructing an answer to a critical question appears to be a highly collaborative and evaluative affair. The thinking skills literature suggests that responding to higher order questions is an individual higher cognitive function, however it is argued in this paper that in attempting to construct evaluative answers language learners are involved not only in a cognitive task, which may or may not be helpful to language learning, but also in a complex social task in which perspectives need to be negotiated, stances taken and identities navigated. It is suggested that higher order thinking cannot be separated from the social and cultural knowledge through which it is brought into being. It is argued that any implementation of thinking skills in an English language teaching context ought to consider interpersonal and social aspects, particularly in intercultural settings.