Cosmic Chastity In An Age Of Technocratic Lust

This book arises from the conviction that the ways in which John Paul II and Benedict XVI were confused as allies with American conservativism is as misleading, unclear, and confusing as any misapprehension of Francis’s genuine orthodoxy. As the author does not have a stake in reacting against a liberal Catholicism that he sees dying out anyway, the bigger threat, in his view, sociologically, for the North American church, is falling into a right-wing tribalism—and Francis resists precisely that. First Things editor R. R. Reno, highly critical of Francis, has called for a redemption of hints and suggestions of a cogent argument in the Francis message. Jeremiah Barker reappropriates Reno’s call as a call to draw out or highlight what he takes to be the underlying rationale of the Francis message. That underlying rationale, he compellingly argues, is strikingly identical to that of the two previous popes. Barker, who has learned much from Reno, is in fact inspired by Francis’s call and teaching, and it is the aim of this book to draw out what inspires him and to identify what he hopes Reno and fellow ‘John Paul II Catholics’ don’t miss in the Francis message: the theological, ethical, and spiritual core of his social teaching, which Francis shares with that of John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

With a new afterword by the author, this classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalism—and the culture it creates—harbors the seeds of its own downfall by creating a need among successful people for personal gratification—a need that corrodes the work ethic that led to their success in the first place. With the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new world order, this provocative manifesto is more relevant than ever.

This classic exploration of the Goddess through time and throughout the world draws on religious, cultural, and archaeological sources to recreate the Goddess religion that is humanity’s heritage. Now, with a new introduction and full-color artwork, this passionate and important text shows even more clearly that the religion of the Goddess--which is tied to the cycles of women’s bodies, the seasons, the phases of the moon, and the fertility of the earth--was the original religion of all humanity.

Homo abyssus is based largely on the author's Habilitationsschrift--Universitèat Salzburg, 1958.

Double-entry bookkeeping (DEB), modern capitalism's first and foremost calculative technology, was "invented" during the Middle Ages when profit making was morally stigmatized. James Aho examines the problematic of moneymaking and offers an explanatory understanding of the paradoxical coupling of profit seeking and morality by situating DEB in the religious circumstances from which it emerged, specifically the newly instituted sacrament of penance, that is, confession. Confession impacted the consciences of medieval businessmen both through its sacramental form and through its moral teachings. The form of confession produced widespread habits of moral scrupulosity (leading to compulsive record keeping); the content of confession taught that commerce itself was morally suspect. Scrupulous businessmen were thus driven to justify their affairs to church, commune, and themselves. With the aid of DEB, moneymaking was "Christianized" and Christianity was made more amenable to the pursuit of wealth. Although DEB is typically viewed exclusively as a scientifically neutral account of the flow of money through a firm, it remains as it was originally devised, a rhetorical argument.

One of the founders of the posthumanities, Donna J. Haraway is professor in the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Author of many books and widely read essays, including the now-classic essay "The Cyborg Manifesto," she received the J.D. Bernal Prize in 2000, a lifetime achievement award from the Society for Social Studies in Science. Thyrza Nicholas Goodeve is a professor of Art History at the School of Visual Arts.