Turning Traditions Upside Down

Proceedings of a colloquium held in 2008 at Central European University.

Some of the world's most eminent researchers on Bruno offer an exhaustive overview of the state-of-theart research on his work, discussing Bruno's methodological procedures, his epistemic and literary practices, his natural philosophy, or his role as theologian and metaphysic at the cutting-edge of their disciplines. Short texts by Bruno illustrate the reasoning of the contributions. The book also reflects aspects of Bruno's reception in the past and today, inside and outside academia.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Black hemispheric culture grappled with the legacies of colonialism, U.S. empire, and Jim Crow. As writers and performers sought to convey the terror and the beauty of Black life under oppressive conditions, they increasingly turned to the labor, movement, speech, sound, and ritual of everyday “folk.” Many critics have perceived these representations of folk culture as efforts to reclaim an authentic past. Imani D. Owens recasts Black creators’ relationship to folk culture, emphasizing their formal and stylistic innovations and experiments in self-invention that reach beyond the local to the world. Turn the World Upside Down explores how Black writers and performers reimagined folk forms through the lens of the unruly—that which cannot be easily governed, disciplined, or managed. Drawing on a transnational and multilingual archive—from Harlem to Havana, from the Panama Canal Zone to Port-au-Prince—Owens considers the short stories of Eric Walrond and Jean Toomer; the ethnographies of Zora Neale Hurston and Jean Price-Mars; the recited poetry of Langston Hughes, Nicolás Guillén, and Eusebia Cosme; and the essays, dance work, and radio plays of Sylvia Wynter. Owens shows how these figures depict folk culture—and Blackness itself—as a site of disruption, ambiguity, and flux. Their works reveal how Black people contribute to the stirrings of modernity while being excluded from its promises. Ultimately, these works do not seek to render folk culture more knowable or worthy of assimilation, but instead provide new forms of radical world-making.

In what we tell ourselves is an age of reason, we are behaving increasingly irrationally. An astonishing number of people subscribe to celebrity endorsed cults, Mayan armageddon prophecies, scientism, and other varieties of new age, anti-enlightenment philosophies. Millions more advance popular conspiracy theories: AIDS was created in a CIA laboratory, Princess Diana was assassinated, and the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. In The World Turned Upside Down, Melanie Phillips explains that the basic cause of this explosion of irrationality is the slow but steady marginalization of religion. We tell ourselves that faith and reason are incompatible, but the opposite is the case. It was Christianity and the Hebrew Bible, Phillips asserts, that gave us our concepts of reason, progress, and an orderly world on which science and modernity are based. Without its religious traditions, the West has drifted into mass derangement where truth and lies, right and wrong, victim and aggressor are all turned upside down. Scientists skeptical of global warming are hounded from their posts, Israel is demonized, and the US is vilified over the war on terror—all on the basis of blatant falsehoods and obscene propaganda. Worst of all, asserts Phillips, this abandonment of rationality leaves the West vulnerable to its legitimate threats. Faced with the very real challenges of spiraling demographics and violent, confrontational Islamism, the West is no longer willing or able to defend the modernity and rationalism that it once brought into being.

Study on Christianity in Northeastern India in the works of Frederick Sheldon Downs, b. 1932, American Baptist missionary.

Many Christians have been preaching the gospel of salvation and attempting to disciple the nations by bringing people into their church congregations, but they have not seen their cities and countries transformed. Jesus, however, preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, and He equipped and empowered His disciples to turn the world upside down in a drastic cultural transformation. In the Bible, mountains usually represent the authority of kingdoms. Learn how you can occupy the seven mountains of authority—family, church, business, government, education, arts/entertainment, and media—and bring Heaven’s influence to earth, transforming your culture and discipling the nations! You will learn: How the Gospel of the Kingdom turns the world upside down. What the seven mountains of authority are. How to take your mountains with the Gospel. To step into your destiny as a world-changer! Maiden writes: “You were predestined for a reason and purpose by God! Your gifts, anointing, personality, and history will all synergize into a dynamic purpose when you find your mountain!” Tackle your mountain today!

A heartwarming, feel-good story of friendship and overcoming adversity in a time of COVID, this is a book about community, giving back, and understanding the world around us through the power of generosity from debut author K. Ibura. With one little announcement from their fourth-grade teacher, Shayla, Liam, Ben, and Ai's world turned upside down. Now, with school on hold due to a strange virus that they don't quite understand, the only semblance of safety they feel is knowing that they have one another in their apartment complex. But as each of them head home and experience their own version of confinement, it becomes very real. And as their individual struggles grow, they need each other now more than ever. Very soon, they discover that they're not the only ones who need a little help. Banded together, the friends find ways to help others struggling in their building. And one by one, they do their part in making their neighbors feel just a little bit safer. As the world becomes more complex, as protests take the streets, Shayla, Liam, Ben, and Ai do everything they can to better understand the world around them and the people around them in order to discover the power and comfort that understanding and generosity can bring.

* Authors with wide-ranging experience with children in war zones across the globe * Looks at the psychology of children’s experiences in conflict in the context of their families and communities A World Turned Upside Down looks at the experiences of children in war from a psychological and social ecological perspective, offering thoughtful observations and dispelling myths about what results when children grow up in conflict situations. In contrast to individualized approaches, the volume offers a deeper conceptualization that shows the socially mediated impacts of war. Children exposed to the same traumatic experiences may have different reactions and needs for psychosocial support. Further, psychosocial assistance to war-affected children often occurs not through the provision of therapy by outsiders but via support from insiders. Each contributor has worked extensively with children in war zones in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. They refrain from common perceptions of children as victims of war-induced trauma to provide a holistic understanding of children’s experiences. Each helps pinpoint ways to reduce further violence, foster well-being and nurture the kinds of social connections that can liberate children from the pathologies of war so that they can mature into healthy and well-adjusted adults. Other contributors: Alastair Ager, Cairo Arafat, Catherine Chen, Amy E. Hepburn, Kathleen Kostelny, Siobhán McEvoy-Levy, Susan McKay, Dahab Musleh and Carl Triplehorn