San Spirituality

At the intersection between western culture and Africa, we find the San people of the Kalahari desert. Once called Bushmen, the San have survived many characterizations-from pre-human animals by the early European colonials, to aboriginal conservationists in perfect harmony with nature by recent New Age adherents. Neither caricature does justice to the complex world view of the San. Eminent anthropologists David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce present a instead balanced view of the spiritual life of this much-studied people, examining the interplay of their cosmology, myth, ritual, and art.

Exploring Spirituality and Sexuality: An Introduction to an Interdisciplinary Field is a collection of scholarly essays which focuses on the multiple interrelations of spirituality and sexuality, including such facets as intimate relationships, inner cultivation, gender empowerment, gender empowerment, sex education, eroticism, and ecstasy embodiments.

Exploring a hitherto unexamined aspect of San cosmology, Mathias Guenther’s two volumes on human-animal relations in San cosmology link “new Animism” with Khoisan Studies, providing valuable insights for Khoisan Studies and San culture, but also for anthropological theory, relational ontology, folklorists, historians, literary critics and art historians. In Volume I, therianthropes and transformations, two manifestations of ontological mutability that are conceptually and phenomenologically linked, are contextualized in broader San myth. Guenther explores the pervasiveness of human-animal hybridity and transformation in San expressive culture (myth, stories and storytelling, ludic dancing and art, ancestral rock art and contemporary easel art), ritual (trance dance curing, female and male rites of passage) and hunting. Transformation is shown to be experienced by humans, particularly via rituals and dancing that evoke animal identity mergers, but also by hunters who may engage with their prey animals in terms of sympathy and inter-subjectivity, particularly through the use of “hunting medicines.”

Recognizing that we can’t actually imitate Christ, St. Paul calls us to use him as a model and imitate him in his conformity to the paschal mystery.

Searching for Spirituality in Higher Education brings together eclectic points of view on spirituality, drawing upon various theoretical perspectives to frame a discussion of spirituality in higher education. Following a comprehensive review of the current literature on spirituality, chapters examine the relationship between religion and spirituality and explore related legal issues. Subsequent theory chapters make no unified claims about the basis of spirituality, reflecting the speculative nature of an ethereal subject. The final section contains rich examples that explore ways to integrate spirituality in several academic disciplines as well as in student affairs. In its entirety, the book encompasses a comprehensive review of the salient issues related to spirituality in higher education. The volume will be useful in courses on religion, nursing, business, and the humanities.

This history not only serves to acquaint us with the origins and development of Christian spirituality, but, equally importantly in the author's view, projects into our contemporary world the lives and teachings of men and women who have reached a high degree of sanctity through the ages. His study is Catholic in both senses of the word. He has concentrated his attention on the history of spirituality in the Roman Catholic Church; and he has taken a comprehensive view of the full range of forms of that Catholic tradition, including -- so that we can learn from the mistakes of the past -- the heterodox tendencies and movements that have arisen from time to time.

The Fourth Gospel has been known as the “spiritual gospel” since the second century, but only recently have biblical scholars attempted to express the unique spirituality found in that sacred text. Surprisingly, no consensus has emerged even after a century of research. Thus, while John’s Gospel is widely admired as a vibrant source of Christian piety, the distinct features of its spirituality remain unclear. Fr. Fiore addresses this problem from the fresh perspective of spiritual theology. Capitalizing on a century of Johannine biblical scholarship, he uses the interdisciplinary methods of spiritual theology to bring new data to the study of the Gospel and solutions to many lingering questions: How did ancient readers understand what scholars now refer to as the Gospel’s spirituality? How does that ecclesial reading compare to the analysis of modern critical exegesis? What makes Johannine spirituality special among other forms of Christian piety? How does the question of the Gospel’s authorship impact our understanding of its spirituality? Does the Gospel contain what we now call “mysticism”? In what ways is John’s spirituality still relevant for Christians today? Students of Christian spirituality and Johannine exegesis alike will find here stimulating historical and theological analysis of the Gospel’s spirituality.

An explanation of how and why the economic downturn of 2007 became the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009. It explores the root causes of the cycle of boom and bust of the economy. It describes social equity in terms of its arguments and claims in political, economic, and social circumstances.