Seeing Remembering Connecting

This book draws from Bloomquist's many years and formative experiences as a pastor, theologian, activist, seminary professor, and speaker in a number of settings--both within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and ecumenically and globally. Drawing insights from many sources, Seeing-Remembering-Connecting proposes a new "church in society" framework, so that faith communities can engage and transform the urgent systemic injustices confronting us today. This new framework, seeing-remembering-connecting, evokes ordinary practices that can engage those from diverse faith traditions and from no faith tradition, and points to the heart of what churches have long been about: God is becoming manifest in and through what these verbs imply--as transcendently immanent. Seeing-remembering-connecting is nurtured over the long term in faith communities, as they put together what is fragmentary or forgotten, point to what is true, and empower communities to see, remember, and act in organized actions with others--across boundaries of religion, geography, and self-interest.

Radicalizing Reformation provides critical perspectives from North American theologians involved in the international project, "Radicalizing Reformation - Provoked by the Bible and Today's Crises." This project explores the radical roots of what was ignited 500 years ago in order to bring more attention to the systemic challenges that must be addressed today, drawing from both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Reformation legacy. Authors in this all-English volume include: Brigitte Kahl, Paul S. Chung, Samuel Torvend, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Craig L. Nessan, Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Charles Amjad-Ali, Karl Koop, Wanda Deifelt, Vitor Westhelle, and Karen L. Bloomquist. Each article has been published in one of the previous five volumes. This volume also includes background on the overall project, the 94 theses, and a guide for discussion in local contexts. (Series: Radicalizing Reformation / Die Reformation Radikalisieren, Vol. 6) [Subject: Religious Studies]

Memory is typically thought of as a set of neural representations - 'memory traces' - that must be found and reactivated in order to be experienced. It is often suggested that 'memory traces' are represented by a hierarchically organized system of analyzers, modified, sharpened and differentiated by encounters with successive events. Remembering: An activity of mind and brain is the magnum opus of one of the leading figures in the psychology of memory. It sets out Fergus Craik's current view of human memory as a dynamic activity of mind and brain. The author argues that remembering should be understood as a system of active cognitive processes, similar to (perhaps identical to) the processes underlying attending, perceiving and thinking. Thus, encoding processes are essentially viewed as the mental activities involved in perceiving and understanding, and retrieval is described as the partial reactivation of these same processes. This account proposes that episodic and semantic memory should be thought of as levels in a continuum of specificity rather than as separate systems of memory. In addition, the book presents Craik's views on working memory and on age-related memory impairments. In the latter case the losses are attributed largely to a difficulty with the self-initiation of appropriate encoding and retrieval operations compensated, when needed, by support from the external environment. The development of these ideas is discussed throughout the book and illustrated substantially by experiments from the author's lab, but also by empirical and theoretical contributions from other researchers. A broad account of current ideas and findings in contemporary memory research, but viewed from the author's personal theoretical standpoint, Remembering: An activity of mind and brain will be essential for researchers, graduate and postdoctoral students working in the field of human memory.

Moving Beyond (moving beyond theology, contextualization, and binaries) is needed today globally, based on the author’s personal journey and critical challenges today, which call for new worldviews.

Productive Remembering and Social Agency examines how memory can be understood, used and interpreted in forward-looking directions in education to support agency and social change. The edited collection features contributions from established and new scholars who take up the idea of productive remembering across diverse contexts, positioning the work at the cutting edge of research and practice. Contexts range across geographical locations (Canada, China, Rwanda, South Africa) and across critical social issues, from HIV & AIDS to the legacy of genocide and Indian residential schools, from issues of belonging, place, and media to interrogations of identity. This interdisciplinary collection is relevant not only to education itself but also to memory studies and related disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

Moving Beyond (moving beyond theology, contextualization, and binaries) is needed today globally, based on the author’s personal journey and critical challenges today, which call for new worldviews.