Beyond the Text

Beyond the Text
Author: Lawrence A. Hoffman
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 1989-08-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780253113870

This unique and groundbreaking study moves "beyond the texts" of prayers to carefully study the worshipping community from an anthropological perspective. Hoffman's innovative approach opens up the world of prayer to the academy and the community at large. With the publication of this book, the study of liturgy will never again be the same.

Beyond Reductionism

Beyond Reductionism
Author: Katharine Farrell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2013-05-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1136281703

This is a book about the work of scientists in the era of the Anthropocene: where human beings appear to have become a driving force in the evolution of the planet. It is a diverse collection of empirical, methodological and theoretical chapters concerned with the practice of interdisciplinary social-ecological systems research. The aim of the contributors is to give the reader an appreciation for the range and complexity of the challenges faced by researchers, research institutions and wider communities trying to make sense of the causes and consequences of the this new era of global environmental change. The tragedy of the Anthropocene, of the large scale anthropogenic habitat destruction and planet-wide impacts of anthropogenic climate change, is not that science has failed humanity but rather that it has served humanity all too well, making possible in just a few hundred years volumes and scales of human activity far exceeding anything ever seen before. Coming to terms with that success was the aim of the 1969 Alpbach Symposium, from which this book draws its name, where contributors including Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Bertalanffy, asked themselves: what theory, practices and standards are required to move beyond reductionism? Like those from 1969, the answers presented in this collection are hugely diverse, ranging from PhD students concerned with research methods and institutional obstacles, to mid-career scholars presenting their innovative ‘beyond-reductionism’ research methods, to emeritus professors looking back over what has been achieved in the past 30 years and suggesting where things might go from here. All the contributors begin from the premise that the challenges of the Anthropocene can only be successfully met if interdisciplinary research effectively brings together social and natural sciences, the humanities, stakeholders and decision makers. They conclude, in unison, that both the institutional and the methodological foundations needed to do this work are still sorely lacking. While this may seem a dismal position, the book is full of success stories, such as: the integrative approach of MuSIASEM (Multi-Scale Integrative Assessment of Social-Ecological Metabolism) developed by Mario Giampietro’s group in Barcelona, Spain; the alternative perspectives of what Ariel Salleh calls the ‘meta-industrial’ discourse in Ecofeminism; or the innovative trans-departmental status of the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden. Putting both the theoretical and methodological challenges of moving beyond reductionism on the table for discussion, this text aims to help a growing community of passionate thinkers and actors better understand themselves and their work.

Reinventing the Sacred

Reinventing the Sacred
Author: Stuart A Kauffman
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2008-01-10
Genre: Science
ISBN: 046501240X

Consider the woven integrated complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awe-inspiring to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell, or to consider that the living organism was created by the evolving biosphere? As the eminent complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman explains in this ambitious and groundbreaking new book, people who do not believe in God have largely lost their sense of the sacred and the deep human legitimacy of our inherited spirituality. For those who believe in a Creator God, no science will ever disprove that belief. In Reinventing the Sacred, Kauffman argues that the science of complexity provides a way to move beyond reductionist science to something new: a unified culture where we see God in the creativity of the universe, biosphere, and humanity. Kauffman explains that the ceaseless natural creativity of the world can be a profound source of meaning, wonder, and further grounding of our place in the universe. His theory carries with it a new ethic for an emerging civilization and a reinterpretation of the divine. He asserts that we are impelled by the imperative of life itself to live with faith and courage-and the fact that we do so is indeed sublime. Reinventing the Sacred will change the way we all think about the evolution of humanity, the universe, faith, and reason.

Entangled Life

Entangled Life
Author: Gillian Barker
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2013-09-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9400770677

This volume explores the interactions between organisms and their environments and how this “entanglement” is a fundamental aspect of all life. It brings together the work and ideas of historians, philosophers, biologists, and social scientists, uniting a range of new perspectives, methods, and frameworks for examining and understanding the ways that organisms and environments interact. The volume is organized into three main sections: historical perspectives, contested models, and emerging frameworks. The first section explores the origins of the modern idea of organism-environment interaction in the mid-nineteenth century and its development by later psychologists and anthropologists. In the second section, a variety of controversial models—from mathematical representations of evolution to model organisms in medical research—are discussed and reframed in light of recent questions about the interplay between organisms and environment. The third section investigates several new ideas that have the potential to reshape key aspects of the biological and social sciences. Populations of organisms evolve in response to changing environments; bodies and minds depend on a wide array of circumstances for their development; cultures create complex relationships with the natural world even as they alter it irrevocably. The chapters in this volume share a commitment to unraveling the mysteries of this entangled life.

Japanese Consumer Behaviour

Japanese Consumer Behaviour
Author: John McCreery
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1136831177

What role does consumption play in Japanese lives that are more than study, work and shopping? How have those lives changed since World War II as Japan has wrestled with the meaning of white-collar careers, women spreading their wings, changing family values, a shrinking birth rate, an aging population? This book explores Japan through the eyes of Japanese researchers and discovers patterns of change that are both uniquely Japanese and shared by consumers in other advanced industrial nations.

Readings in Ecology and Feminist Theology

Readings in Ecology and Feminist Theology
Author: Mary Heather MacKinnon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 420
Release: 1995
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781556127625

To find more information about Rowman and Littlefield titles, please visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com.

Evolution and Social Life

Evolution and Social Life
Author: Tim Ingold
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2016-07-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317198131

Evolution is among the most central and most contested of ideas in the history of anthropology. This book charts the fortunes of the idea from the mid-nineteenth century to recent times. By comparing biological, historical, and anthropological approaches to the study of human culture and social life, it lays the foundation for their effective synthesis. Far ahead of its time when first published, the book anticipates debates at the forefront of contemporary thinking. Revisiting the work after almost thirty years, Tim Ingold offers a substantial new preface that describes how the book came to be written, how it was received and its bearing on later developments. Unique in scope and breadth of theoretical vision, Evolution and Social Life cuts across the boundaries of natural science and the humanities to provide a major contribution both to the history of anthropological and social thought, and to contemporary debate on the relationship between human nature, culture, and social life.