Embodied Prayer: the practice of prayer as Christian theology

This dissertation attempts to retrieve the integration of prayer and theology in the life of the church. Prayer is a spiritual and bodily theological activity that forms Christian identity and virtuous character. The bodily dimension of Christian prayer plays an essential role in theological understanding and moral formation. However, the embodiment of prayer has been mostly neglected in modern academic theology. This study highlights the significance of the body at prayer in theological studies and spiritual formation.

Chapter 1 presents Karl Barth’s theology of prayer as a model of the integration of prayer, theology, and Christian life (lex orandi, lex credendi, lex agendi). However, Barth’s attempt to overcome the dichotomy between theory and practice in theology did not pay much attention to embodiment of prayer. Through ritual studies and phenomenology (Marcel Mauss, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Pierre Bourdieu), chapter 2 shows why the bodily dimension of the practice of prayer should be recovered in theology and ministry; then it explains how Christians in the early and medieval church actually prayed with the body, how their bodily actions were understood in their theological paradigms, and how their actions contributed to the formation of Christian character. Chapter 3 narrows the focus to the formation of the heart in the making of Christian character. The practice of prayer has been emphasized not only as an expression of the inner heart of pray-ers but also as a channel of grace that shapes their affections as enduring dispositions of the heart. Furthermore, historically the bodily practice of prayer gave theological authority to the devout Christians who were marginalized in academic theology or ecclesiastical hierarchy, and Chapter 4 presents the lex orandi of praying women who gained their theological knowledge, wisdom, and authority through their exemplary practices of prayer (Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Teresa of Avila). These historical examples reveal how Christian communities appreciated and celebrated the theological voices from the margins, which developed from theological embodiments in prayer.

This dissertation concludes that academic theology needs to heed these diverse theological voices, which are nurtured through everyday practice, as an integral part of theological studies. Therefore, it calls for a new paradigm for understanding the relationship between theory and practice in theological education. The integration between theory and bodily practice is necessary for both academic theology and spiritual formation. A more holistic understanding of Christian practices will not only enhance the training of scholars and clergy but also give the laity their own theological voices that will enrich academic theology.

The practice of memory in hypertext wor(l)ds

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

See you in Geneva? Democracy, the Rule of Law and the WTO (Working Paper 16)

This paper is a constructivist attempt to understand a global political space where states as actors (the traditional domain of international relations theory and international law) are joined by international organizations, firms, NGOs, and others. Today we know that many supposedly private or international orders (meaning sources of order other than the central institutions of the territorial state) are engaged in the regulation of large domains of collective life in a world where the sources of power are multiple, sovereignties are overlapping, and anarchy is meaningless. The paper begins with an attempt, discussed in the first section, to sort out what the rule of law might mean in the context of the WTO, where we soon see that it can only be understood by also considering the meaning of Administrative Law. Much of the debate about rule of law depends on positivist and centralist theories of “law,” whose inadequacy for my purposes leads, in the second section, to a discussion of legal pluralism and implicit law in legal theory. These approaches offer an alternative theoretical framework that respects the role of the state while not seeing it as the only source of normativity. The third section looks directly at WTO law and dispute settlement. I tr y to show that the sources and interpretations of law in the WTO and the trading system cannot be reduced to the Dispute Settlement Body. I conclude in the fourth section with some suggestions on how a WTO rule of law could be understood as democratic.

Default Invariance: Naïve Category of Law and Finance

Default invariance is the idea that default does not change at any scale of law and finance. Default is a conserved quantity in a universe where fundamental principles of law and finance operate. It exists at the micro-level as part of the fundamental structure of every financial transaction, and at the macro- level, as a fixed critical point within the relatively stable phases of the law and finance cycle. A key point is that default is equivalent to maximizing uncertainty at the micro-level and at the macro-level, is equivalent to the phase transition where unbearable fluctuations occur in all forms of risk transformation, including maturity, liquidity and credit. As such, default invariance is the glue that links the micro and macro structures of law and finance. In this essay, we apply naïve category theory (NCT), a type of mapping logic, to these types of phenomena. The purpose of using NCT is to introduce a rigorous (but simple) mathematical methodology to law and finance discourse and to show that these types of structural considerations are of prime practical importance and significance to law and finance practitioners. These mappings imply a number of novel areas of investigation. From the micro- structure, three macro-approximations are implied. These approximations form the core analytical framework which we will use to examine the phenomena and hypothesize rules governing law and finance. Our observations from these approximations are grouped into five findings. While the entirety of the five findings can be encapsulated by the three approximations, since the intended audience of this paper is the non-specialist in law, finance and category theory, for ease of access we will illustrate the use of the mappings with relatively common concepts drawn from law and finance, focusing especially on financial contracts, derivatives, Shadow Banking, credit rating agencies and credit crises.

Principles and Practice of Fire Modelling: A Collection of Lecture Notes for a Short Course

Once the preserve of university academics and research laboratories with high-powered and expensive computers, the power of sophisticated mathematical fire models has now arrived on the desk top of the fire safety engineer. It is a revolution made possible by parallel advances in PC technology and fire modelling software. But while the tools have proliferated, there has not been a corresponding transfer of knowledge and understanding of the discipline from expert to general user. It is a serious shortfall of which the lack of suitable engineering courses dealing with the subject is symptomatic, if not the cause. The computational vehicles to run the models and an understanding of fire dynamics are not enough to exploit these sophisticated tools. Too often, they become 'black boxes' producing magic answers in exciting three-dimensional colour graphics and client-satisfying 'virtual reality' imagery. As well as a fundamental understanding of the physics and chemistry of fire, the fire safety engineer must have at least a rudimentary understanding of the theoretical basis supporting fire models to appreciate their limitations and capabilities. The five day short course, "Principles and Practice of Fire Modelling" run by the University of Greenwich attempt to bridge the divide between the expert and the general user, providing them with the expertise they need to understand the results of mathematical fire modelling. The course and associated text book, "Mathematical Modelling of Fire Phenomena" are aimed at students and professionals with a wide and varied background, they offer a friendly guide through the unfamiliar terrain of mathematical modelling. These concepts and techniques are introduced and demonstrated in seminars. Those attending also gain experience in using the methods during "hands-on" tutorial and workshop sessions. On completion of this short course, those participating should: - be familiar with the concept of zone and field modelling; - be familiar with zone and field model assumptions; - have an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of modelling software packages for zone and field modelling; - be able to select and use the most appropriate mathematical software and demonstrate their use in compartment fire applications; and - be able to interpret model predictions. The result is that the fire safety engineer is empowered to realise the full value of mathematical models to help in the prediction of fire development, and to determine the consequences of fire under a variety of conditions. This in turn enables him or her to design and implement safety measures which can potentially control, or at the very least reduce the impact of fire.

Principles and practice of evacuation modelling

A collection of lecture notes for a short course prepared by the Fire Safety Engineering Group - University of Greenwich.

Human motivation and professional practice: of knights, knaves and social workers

Efforts to improve the efficiency and responsiveness of public services by harnessing the self-interest of professionals in state agencies have been widely debated in the recent literature on welfare state reform. In the context of social services, one way in which British policy-makers have sought to effect such changes has been through the "new community care" of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. Key to this is the concept of care management, in which the identification of needs and the provision of services are separated, purportedly with a view to improving advocacy, choice and quality for service users. This paper uses data from a wide-ranging qualitative study of access to social care for older people to examine the success of the policy in these terms, with specific reference to its attempts to harness the rational self-interest of professionals. While care management removes one potential conflict of interests by separating commissioning and provision, the responsibility of social care professionals to comply with organizational priorities conflicts with their role of advocacy for their clients, a tension rendered all the more problematic by the perceived inadequacy of funding. Moreover, the bureaucracy of the care management process itself further negates the approach's supposedly client-centred ethos. The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.com

Determination of factors related to the abandonment of the practice of swimming by former costa rican swimmers

The objective of this study was to determine the importance of different dimensions as the possible causes for the abandonment of the practice of swimming by former Costa Rican swimmers.  Subjects: 51 former swimmers participated, including 17 men (22 ±3.4 years of age) and 34 women (22.5 ±3.4 years of age) from different Costa Rican swimming teams.  The Questionnaire of Reasons for Attrition in the Practice of Sports (Gould et al, 1982; cited by Salguero, Tuero, and Márquez, 2003) was used.  Results:  A positive relationship was noted between perceptions of low skill and low performance (r: 0.372), while negative relationships were noted between years of practice and low skill (r:-0.337), years of practice and influence from others (r:-0.286), and years of practice and starting age for swimming (r:-0.622).  A significant interaction was found in the dimensions gender of participants (F: 2.952; p<0.05) and starting age for swimming (F: 3.147; p<0.01).  An interaction was also found between dimensions and the desire to swim again (F: 2.485; p>0.05).  There were also significant differences in the years of practice; that is, subjects who started before the age of 10 had a higher average of years of practice than those who started later (F: 21.465; p<0.05).  Additionally, a significant interaction was found in weekly hours of swimming practice (F: 2.072; p<0.05).  There were no significant differences (F: 2.535; p>0.05) according to weekly hours of training when subjects were actively swimming. Conclusions: Possible reasons for dropping out were lack of enjoyment and poor physical condition for men and perception of lack of team spirit for women.  The group that started after the age of ten gives similar importance to all the dimensions as possible reasons for dropping out, while the group that began swimming before the age of ten sees lack of team spirit, lack of enjoyment, and poor physical condition as the key reasons for dropping out.  The most important dimensions that represented the reasons for abandonment in subjects who wanted to swim again were lack of team spirit, poor physical condition and low skill, while lack of enjoyment was the most important reason for subjects who do not want to swim again.  In the group of subjects who would swim less than six hours, lack of team spirit is the most important cause, while the dimension lack of enjoyment was the most important reason for subjects who would swim 6 to 12 hours.  Additionally, the highest dropout percentages were observed in the transition from secondary school to college.

Importance in the acquisition of the transversal competences in the degree of law

This project aims to clarify the importance of acquiring cross-disciplinary competencies in the Law and Criminology degrees, specifically entrepreneurial capability in order to further students' comprehensive training and complete preparation for the legal and professional sector, thereby fostering students' greater involvement in the development of such competencies.