The University of the Future

Abstract

The economic and social pressures on universities will require a more flexible approach to education to be evolved if the system is to survive. An increasingly multicultural and multiethnic mix of students and the growing number of older students demand the ability to tailor programmes to the individuals concerned. Use of fibre optic and other high speed communications technology will be crucial in this endeavour, allowing courses to be pooled between institutions, while multimedia facilities and virtual reality offer students unrivalled opportunities to expand their educational experience. The future must also rest on increased collaboration with industry and in closer integration of universities into their local communities.     

Strategic Essentialism and Vatican Policy

Abstract

Just as women's NGOs around the world use essentialism strategically—calling upon their assigned roles as mothers to create change for their children that they might not feel empowered to create for themselves—the most recent Vatican policy holds on to the remnants of essentialism as a policy for protecting exclusive male access to ordination, and therefore power in the church. Previously, essentialism had protected male superiority in existence, social roles, the family, and the church, but one by one, all of these have been conceded except male superiority in the church. The paper further proposes that the traditional male role, of which the church has been a principal support, has in fact now become detrimental to males.     

Social relations on stage: Witnesses in classical Athens

The study of witness testimony raises questions which are fundamental for the student of other cultures, whether past or contemporary. What are the standards expected of a reliable informant and how is reliability to be recognised? How is reliable knowledge about the past established?

The aim of this paper is to analyse the use of witnesses in classical Athenian lawcourts both for its epistemological implications — what does it tell us about Athenian ideas of ‘expert witnesses’, of reliability, of truthfulness and bias — and for the information it gives us about Athenian society and court practice. What kind of men did Athenian litigants select to act as witnesses for them, and what effect did they hope their witnesses’ testimonies would have on the jury?

If we start out from the assumption of modern courts that witnesses are called to ‘establish the facts of the case’ we shall misunderstand the Athenian data. What witnesses actually testified often was not very important: their testimonies might be insignificant, irrelevant or repetitive. To understand their role it is necessary to see them as minor characters in a drama, whose presence provides the backdrop against which the litigant wishes his own actions and character to be seen. Respectable witnesses — officials, members of the ‘professions’, reputable politicians — establish his own respectability. The support of neighbours, associates and kin shows that those who know the milieu in which the dispute arose are on the litigant's side. Denigration Of the opponent's witnesses, kin and associates presents him as a vicious and unreliable character. In the construction of a character‐portrait in court witnesses had an important role to play.     

The Microbial Stages of Humanity

Abstract

The history of the development of human civilization mirrors the evolutionary innovations and habits of microorganisms. Escape from environmental extremes within caves (cryptoendolithic habitats) has given way to a predominantly surface-dwelling (epilithic) civilization. Humans, like microorganisms, extract minerals and elements from rocks — a form of biological rock weathering — which are fashioned into houses and other technology — a type of biomineralization. During the last century, humans have developed new microbial capabilities including travel from continent to continent in aircraft (spores) and the ability to produce toxins to kill other organisms. The biomineralizing, spore-forming, rock-inhabiting human biofilm will eventually expend its nutrients, unless, in a remarkable departure from the microbial world, humans on other planetary bodies return resources to their progenitor biofilm. Alternatively, as with microorganisms, the human biofilm will be forced to adapt to live in a nutrient-depleted world at much lower productivity or biomass than at present. Comparing humans with microbes, rather than other primates, yields a much more faithful interpretation of the development of our civilization and might provide new ways to model, mathematically and sociologically, the development of society.     

Tolerating Particularity: German Pietism and Jews' Conversion in the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Historical discussions about German Pietism's posture toward Jews underlined Pietists' attempts at their conversion as the dominant feature of their relationship. Contesting orthodoxy, Pietists favored a lenient attitude toward Jews, arguing that their change of heart might hasten salvation. However, revisiting Pietists' texts, I argue that from the late seventeenth century on, these awakened Protestants acknowledged the improbability of conversion. By the new meaning they gave to religious adherence, Pietists believed that mere baptism would not turn Jews into Christians. In fact, as they developed closer acquaintance with Jews, they came to realize that their efforts at mission would not succeed. More than any other confessional strand, Pietists conceptualized Jews not merely as those who denied Christ as the messiah. They also came to see the Jews as a people whose belief in God crossed beyond religious devotion into a unique, inalterable culture, and who therefore should be constructively tolerated.     

Phenomenology,geography and geographical education

Abstract

Phenomenology is a way of study which explores and describes the essential nature of things and experiences as they are in their own terms. Phenomenology has value to geographical education; first, because it introduces the student to a way of understanding that requires openness and quiet attentiveness; second, because it provides important insight into the nature of environmental experience and behaviour; and third, because it says much about how people dwell on the earth and how they might dwell better.     

Review

In the course of the seventeenth century, ideas concerning the beliefs of Canadian Indians underwent a slow process of modification. Chroniclers at the beginning of the century, influenced by those who, the century before, had flatly declared a number of Indian nations to be “faithless, kingless and lawless,”; continued to describe them pejoratively. However, as they gradually came to see that the Indians were not irreligious, their declarations grew increasingly contradictory. An attentive reading of documents left by missionaries and explorers reveals that towards the middle of the seventeenth century — at a time when, in Europe, conceptions of witchcraft and religion were changing — the observation of American facts became more nuanced. The discovery of a “false religion”; launched the debate as to whether or not the Indians had preserved a secret sentiment of God.

Were the Indians monotheistic or polytheistic? At the beginning of the twentienth century, Paul Radinwasto take up the question and propose a tertium quid — namely that the Indians had practised monolatry or henotheism.     

International student mobility: the role of social networks

Building upon recent work on higher education mobility, this paper contends that social networks of friendship and kinship are critical determinants for students deciding to study overseas, not just, as has hitherto been suggested, a complementary factor. It uses original data collected through interviews and focus groups with thirty-eight higher education international students studying at three UK universities and argues that students who choose to study overseas do not operate within a vacuum but rather draw upon extended networks of individuals who have chosen to do so themselves or advocate studying abroad. While this encouragement may be of an explicit and unequivocal nature – telling students that they ought to study overseas – for the majority it is rather more implicit. The students interviewed invariably related that higher education overseas or mobility more generally was an accepted practice among their peers, thereby leading to a normalisation of the mobility process. The paper concludes that international students come to accept mobility as a taken for granted stage within the life course, and, whether intentionally or not, this is often the driving force behind their decision to study overseas.     

From water to tears: extra-curricular activities and the search for substance in China’s universities

ABSTRACT

Why do university students participate in extra-curricular activities in China? What do they seek in a meaningful education? This paper explains the rising interest in extra-curricular activities by looking into students’ frustration about classroom-bounded education in China’s universities. A transforming socio-economic landscape and increasing imagination about global modernity have inspired new neoliberal demands for practical knowledge and personal meaning. And yet, China’s universities have failed to keep up with students’ changing visions of education, success, and productive personhood. This paper explores students’ agentive pursuit of sociability and emotional sensitivity through extra-curricular activities as a lens to examine the fluidity of meaning-making in contemporary China. In the process, I discuss why self-reported aspirations in skill cultivation cannot encompass the range of motivations that have driven students to extra-curricular participation, and explain how the ethnographic method can help to address gaps of knowledge in inquiries about youthful aspirations.     

Shipboard relations between Pacific Island women and Euroamerican men 1767–1887

Abstract

In January 1942 over 1,500 Australian troops and civilians were captured by the Japanese in Rabaul and on New Ireland and New Britain. Through much of the war the Allies had either coastwatchers or soldiers on New Britain, but remained uncertain what had happened to those captured. Anxious to return to Rabaul after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the Australians found few survivors. Some officers and nurses had been shipped to Japan, and they were soon on their way home. Many of the Catholic missionaries had survived on the Gazelle Peninsula, but only a handful of the civilians, airmen, coastwatchers and soldiers were still alive and in Rabaul. Eventually the Australians learnt that over 1,000 prisoners had been on the Montevideo Maru which had been sunk in 1942. More than three years after the event Australians had to begin the accounting for their biggest single disaster of the Second World War.     

Rutherford – Simple Genius

Abstract

From a superficial glance, it might be thought that men of science are barely represented in Westminster Abbey, among the kings, courtiers, naval and military men, poets, statesmen and heroes of Empire. This is not so. One of the most splendid works of sculpture of the 18th century is the monument, adjacent to his grave, to Sir Isaac Newton. Many Fellows of the Royal Society are there as well, though this might be coincidental as they were also bishops or deans. Not all might be buried in the Abbey, but physicians, astronomers, and engineers are commemorated by marble statues or tablets, in stained glass, by monumental brass, or, like the Herschels, only by their gravestones. It is true that some have had to wait a long time for a memorial: Edmond Halley's stylised comet appeared only four years ago. These are, however, in good company, for even Shakespeare (buried at Stratford-on-Avon) had no memorial in the Abbey until well over a century after his death. Nor should men of science feel that they have been overlooked, because of all the country's architects, only one or two are represented, and only one painter is commemorated, and he is not John Constable.     

Exportando “marginalidad”: Consuelo Tamayo Hernández, “la Tortajada” (1867–1957)

Abstract

Although nowadays barely remembered, the dancer and singer Consuelo Tamayo Hernández, “la Tortajada” (1867–1957), once was a Spanish performer of considerable talent. She was a diva skilled at self-fashioning who knew how to exploit her public image both on and off stage. Born in Santa Fe (Granada, Spain), Tortajada hardly ever performed in her country of birth. But although her presence on the Spanish stage was merely marginal, as a “Spanish dancer” she achieved celebrity status in the music halls of Europe and the United States. Tortajada perfectly exemplifies the mobility and cultural transfer that took place between the cosmopolitan stages at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. This article explores how Tortajada obtained international fame and success, not so much because of the authenticity of her performances—which were often contaminated by the music halls where she performed—but because of her ability to export a certain idea of Spanish “otherness” and “marginality” by staging a series of traditional movements and dances. It is by skillfully embodying a stereotype construction of “Spanishness” (elapsing it into an Oriental fantasy) and a certain type of femininity that the artist achieved international celebrity.     

’African Churches Willing to Pay Their Own Bills’: The Role of Money in the Formation of Ethiopian-type Churches with Particular Reference to the Mzimba Secession

ABSTRACT

Matters related to money were fundamental to the causes of the formation of Ethiopian-type churches. These included inter alia the raising of funds abroad and the subsequent need to control such funds by white ministers, delay or refusal of ordination due to cost factors and differentials in stipends, lack of or poor allowances, lack of trust in the use of funds, poor emoluments and accommodation. This was in contradiction to emerging mission policy as propounded by Henry Venn in his Three-Self formula, particularly with regard to the principle of self-support following Pauline methods. At the heart of such issues was the need for missionaries to control what they had created, and maintain and perpetuate a sense of dependency. The Mzimba Secession offers substantial evidence to support the suggestion that finance was a central concern in fostering inferiority and subjection in the mission field leading to the formation of a new church movement.     

Facing the future,surviving the present: strategies for women graduate students in geography

Abstract

Women graduate students in geography programs in US universities face a variety of constraints and opportunities as they work towards advanced degrees and struggle to find a place for themselves in academia. The themes discussed in this paper concern understanding and challenging power relationships, networking, developing communication skills and effective mentoring. The paper concludes with suggestions for positive action and change.     

Conservative Scholarship on the Move

In a series of articles the evangelical scholar Ian Provan has been attacking minimalism for being governed by ideology rather than honest scholarship (as he sees it). Provan's criticism has been joined by other scholars from the conservative field, including the Danish evangelical scholar Jens Bruun Kofoed. A study of these contributions by Provan and other scholars shows that they are attacking the minimalists serving them as a kind of straw man: Their aim is actually not minimalism per se but critical scholarship in general, and the are using the language of traditional conservative Christianity against more critical minds. That they are at the same time—without mentioning it expressly—involved in ideas about causality that reflects modern evangelical ideas about intelligent design is another indication of their religiously based criticism. Here really nothing has changed, only the way they are abusing more traditionally minded critical scholars including self‐acclaimed “maximalists” like William G. Dever or Baruch Halpern.     

The future of Poland, 1914–1917: France and Great Britain in the Triple Entente

Abstract

THE POLISH QUESTION — whether, and if so how and in what form, to recreate an independent Polish state — was one of the most vexing problems that faced European diplomats during the First World War. Believing that aroused Polish patriotism could be a powerful weapon against the Central Powers, yet fearing that support for Polish national aspirations would alienate their Russian ally and fracture the Triple Entente, British and French statesmen had to decide whether they could include the recreation of Poland among their war aims without jeopardizing the Entente, and hence the chances of victory. Given their different strategic priorities, the French and the British gave different answers.     

“Who teaches,learns”: writing groups in geographical education

Abstract

The ability to communicate is acknowledged by employers to be a valuable attribute of a university graduate. That ability is also vital in fulfilling geography discipline objectives of mutual understanding and emancipation. Writing groups have been used in geography departments in Australia and the USA as a means of improving student skills in written communication as well as to stimulate positive attitudes to writing, intellectual growth and rhetorical skills. From the point of view of teachers, writing groups were employed to fulfil pedagogic objectives and to free up time for instructional improvements and other academic business. This paper outlines the rationale for using writing groups in geography courses, means by which they might be applied, and their merits and shortcomings.     

Middle power strategic choices and horizontal security cooperation: the 2009 Australia-South Korea security cooperation agreement

ABSTRACT

This article examines why Asia-Pacific middle powers cooperate with each other on security issues. The article challenges the assumption that middle powers are primarily influenced by great-power structural factors in their security relations with each other. It argues that the dominant structural explanations of security cooperation between secondary states—balancing against the rise of China, responding to burden-sharing pressure from the United States, or hedging during a period of great power transition—have not been sufficiently tested. Using the 2009 Australia-South Korea security cooperation agreement as a representative example of middle power security cooperation, it finds that inter-personal leadership preferences played a key intervening role in filtering existing structural incentives into actual policy cooperation. It shows how congruence in leadership preferences shapes when and with whom middle powers are likely to cooperate on security issues. The article opens up the research agenda on middle powers by examining how they approach security relations in bilateral and horizontal contexts with each other.     

The Interview Hurdle to Postgraduate Studies and the Job Market

Abstract

This paper explores the educational value of a rural trail—a field visit on foot—using as an example a trail in a small area of countryside near Lancaster in northern England. This trail provides those teaching rural geography in higher education with a means of developing their students’ skills of informed observation and interpretation of field evidence based on study and discussion on‐site. A trail can enhance the appreciation and teaching of conceptual matters such as cultural approaches to rural geography. It also encourages the integration of diverse theoretical approaches to rural studies (based on culture, planning and management) and the simultaneous consideration by students of both local (often personal) details and national (or even global) pressures for change. The paper concludes that the rural trail has considerable pedagogical and academic merit for rural geographers.