The Significance of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue and Holocaust Studies for Catholic Ethics

Abstract

When I survey the vast field of literature on social ethics, including that from progressive Christian scholars, I find little, if any, recognition that the positive development in the understanding of the Christian-Jewish relationship these past forty years have any relevance for shaping Christian perspectives on social ethics today. In this presentation I share some reflections on various areas of study within the context of the Christian-Jewish dialogue, especially the experience of the Holocaust, which in my judgment do make an important difference in the way we present Christian thinking on social ethical questions. The positive impact of the Hebrew Scriptures is one important area as is the enhanced understanding of law in the Hebrew Scriptures and in Judaism generally. Also of significance is the growing body of literature linking Jesus positively to the Jewish tradition of his time, including in terms of his moral teaching. The same holds true for new studies on Paul's positive relationship to Judaism. Finally the Holocaust provides us with important links to contemporary moral issues such as genocide and human rights.     

通勤时间的幸福绩效——基于中国家庭追踪调查的实证研究

幸福不仅是个人的心愿,也是城市管理者的执政目标之一,因此,对于城市中普遍存在的通勤时间过长所带来的心理影响研究十分必要。本文采用中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据,考察了通勤时间对于个人主观幸福感的影响。实证结果显示,通勤时间对于个人幸福感存在显著的负向影响,随着个人通勤时间的增加,个人幸福感也随之降低。通勤时间与生活满意度也同样呈现显著的负相关,这也证明了结论的稳健性。通过进一步考察通勤时间负面影响的异质性发现,通勤时间对幸福感的影响在不同社会群体间存在差异,对于个人收入高、教育程度高、家庭收入高的居民而言,通勤时间所造成的负面心理影响更大。因此,政府应重视通勤对居民幸福感的影响,并致力于提高交通效率。     

Assessment of open spaces in inland medium-sized cities of eastern Andalusia (Spain) through complementary approaches: spatial-configurational analysis and decision support

The benefits of urban open spaces for improving the quality of life and sustainability in cities are widely recognized. The functions they perform within the framework established by urban planning, as well as their metrics, are now more complex than in the past. It is convenient to develop methodologies for the evaluation of these spaces adapted to the present time to check their level of efficiency, which is useful in urban planning for the establishment of new urban open spaces. The aim of this study is to classify such spaces through a methodology that integrates spatial analysis, configuration analysis, and decision support so as to understand their complexity from a more advanced analytical perspective. In order to do this, a prior exploration of specific literature is carried out, which allows the characterization of the functions of urban open spaces by means of the corresponding analysis variables in a weighted manner. The integrated combination of these advanced tools is a step forward in achieving consistent and detailed results for urban open spaces. They perform their functions best in dense, central, equipped, accessible, connected, and easily walkable urban environments. In addition, future recommendations are provided.     

融入生命历程理论、面向长期空间行为的时间地理学再思考

时间地理学是一种表现并解释时空间过程中人类空间行为与客观制约之间关系的方法论。但是大多数的实证研究仅限于日常行为,长期空间行为研究存在不足。本文通过制约与能动性、行为的长期性、时空间意义等关键命题的再思考,提出可以统合时间地理学和生命历程理论对个体行为进行理解。生命历程理论作为关注个人生命历程和社会变迁互动关系的社会学理论,能够有效地补充时间地理学在社会过程分析中的不足。通过比较二者的异同,本文提出以生命历程理论的生命轨迹和时间地理学的生命路径为基础,重新构建长期空间行为生命路径,整合社会心理因素、多重社会角色、多维社会时间,以实现对于个体生命历程的全面理解。     

FLUID TEMPORALITIES: SAIYID AHMAD KHAN AND THE CONCEPT OF MODERNITY

This article investigates the language the great Indian Muslim reformer of the nineteenth century, Saiyid Ahmad Khan, uses to conceive of temporalities. The attention is directed toward the way he imagined the relationship between the present and the past, on the one hand, and the future, on the other hand, and toward the changes these configurations underwent in the course of his lifetime. The article will follow up these questions in three sections, focusing on three phases of Saiyid Ahmad Khan's life: first, his early years as a colonial officer and scholar (1840s–1860s); second, the period when the comparative gaze became crucial, leading to the establishment of a scientific society and to a voyage to London (1860–1871); and finally, the time when the Aligarh College occupied the center stage of his life (1871–1898). On one level this can be read as a straightforward history of concepts and temporalities. At another level, the article contributes to the ongoing debate about the past, which is simultaneously absent and hauntingly present. It follows Reinhart Koselleck to India where he never went and listens to the conversations between him and Saiyid Ahmad Khan, who died before Koselleck was born, thus blurring the lines not only between the past and the present, but also between the emic and the etic, and between historians and those they study. Like any meaningful encounter, it transforms its participants and the concepts with which they entered the dialogue.     

The parable of the footbridge: Creativity and change in the between

In this article, the author suggests that anthropologists use the creative power of ‘the between’, an imaginative space of invention, as one way to heal the wounds of contemporary social life. His model for such practice is the sohanci, the sorcerer among the Songhay people of Niger in West Africa. The sohanci is a liminal figure who is always between the village and the bush, between health and illness, between life and death, a vantage that makes him or her a spiritual guardian, a person who dares to use the power of the between to transform social turbulence into social harmony. Like the sohanci, anthropologists have long experience of being between things, and as such, the author argues, they can use the insights derived from their experiences between things to chart paths that lead us to innovation, invention and a future of greater social harmony and social justice. What could be more important for the future of anthropology? What could be more important for the future of us all?     

建国后党和政府解决广东疍民问题述论

疍 (d劋ｎ,音但 )民历史上是广东的土著居民 ,以船为家 ,以捕鱼和水上运输为主要职业 ,明清时期虽已基本汉化 ,但仍处贱民地位 ,备受歧视。新中国成立后 ,党和政府高度重视民问题 ,教育广大人民认识到民的落后及其与其他族群之间的隔阂是阶级压迫和阶级剥削的产物 ,采取多种措施将民从旧有的社会地位和生活方式中解放出来 ,实现了真正的民族平等和民族团结 ,使这一历史遗留问题得到了圆满解决     

Understanding processes of ethnic control: segmentation,dependency and co–optation in post–communist Estonia

Amidst an arguably exhaustive range of studies regarding ethno–politics in post–communist Estonia, this article sets out a new framework derived from Ian Lustick’s model of ethnic control. We argue that one of the key reasons for ethnic peace and stability in Estonia over the past ten years has been a considerable degree of control instituted by the Estonian political community over its sizeable Russian–speaking minority. We analyse this control using Lustick’s three main indicators of segmentation, dependence and co–optation. In addition, we differentiate within each of these categories between structural, institutional and programmatic levels of control measures. Our aim is to place Estonia into a better comparative perspective by bringing to light its particular configuration of control mechanisms. The article concludes with an assessment of what this configuration might mean for future ethno–political developments.     

The development of a new geospatial framework for the palaeoanthropological site of the Sterkfontein Caves,Cradle of Humankind,Gauteng, South Africa

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provide an essential element in modern paleoanthropological inquiry through their ability to integrate a diverse range of data within a multidimensional spatial framework which can be used for data storage, analysis and modeling. One of the challenges of creating such a framework is the integration of legacy and new data (collected with digital technologies) at large sites with a long history of research. The Sterkfontein Caves, located in the Cradle of Humankind, is the richest Australopithecus-bearing locality in the world and has been the focus of intense palaeoanthropological research for the past 80 years. A diverse range of spatial data has been collected over this history and future integrative research necessitates the development of a unified, cohesive 3D GIS framework. In this paper we describe three phases of work undertaken to implement such a framework and discuss the next steps in its development and utilization for spatial analyses.     

A new process for negotiating multilateral environmental agreements? The Asia–Pacific climate partnership beyond Kyoto

The Kyoto Protocol is widely regarded as representing a failed approach to the problem of climate change, especially since the US and Australia have declined to ratify, and developing countries such as India and China—sources of much future emissions growth—have signalled an unwillingness to take on obligations for binding reductions within the framework of an extended Kyoto-like instrument. A new Asia–Pacific Partnership to deal with the problems has emerged and held its first meeting in Sydney in January 2006. Involving Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea and the US, this new partnership provides not only an approach better suited to the interests and resource endowments of the region, but a new model for negotiating multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). In the past, MEAs have been beset by a dilemma, in that the slow pace of their negotiation was overcome by devices (such as lowest common denominator measures, creative ambiguity, iterative functionalism, and double standards provisions) that limited their effectiveness. This article argues that by involving only six parties which account for half of existing emissions, the new Partnership provides the opportunity for better policy to be developed among a smaller number of parties, with the potential to overcome the pitfalls of past MEAs.     

Imagining an Archaeology of the Future: Capitalism and Colonialism Past and Present

This paper explores how doing history backward may allow archaeologists to begin imagining an archaeology of the future. The purpose of such an archaeology would be two-fold: first, to examine the past from the vantage point of the present as a way of better understanding the past as precondition, and second, to critically examine the present with an eye toward imagining how archaeology might be able to influence the future. Drawing on case studies that offer windows on the growth of capitalist production and the continuing impacts of colonialism, this paper seeks to demonstrate the power of using archaeology to link past and present. By focusing on the ideological dimensions of processes such as commoditization and the erasure of indigenous histories I hope to highlight the value of doing history backward and its potential for constructing an archaeology of the future.     

CHARTING THE “TRANSITIONAL PERIOD”: THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN TIME IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

This paper seeks to chart a concept of historical experience that French Romantic writers first developed to describe their own relationship to historical time: the notion of the “transitional period.” At first, the term related strictly to the evolving periodic conception of history, one that required breaks, spaces, or zones of indeterminacy to bracket off periods imagined as organic wholes. These transitions, necessary devices in the new grammar of history, also began to attract interest on their own, conceived either as chaotic but creative times of transformation, or, more often, as slack periods of decadence that possessed no proper style but exhibited hybrid traits. Their real interest, however, lies in their reflexive application to the nineteenth century itself, by writers and historians such as Alfred de Musset, Chateaubriand, Michelet, and Renan, who in their effort to define their own period envisioned the “transitional period” as a passage between more coherent and stable historical formations. This prospective self‐definition of the “age of history” from a future standpoint is very revealing; it shows not just the tension between its organic way of apprehending the past and its own self‐perception, but it also opens a window on a new and paradoxical experience of time, one in which change is ceaseless and an end in itself. The paper also presents a critique of the way the term “modernity” has functioned, from Baudelaire's initial use to the present, to occlude the experience of transition that the Romantics highlighted. By imposing on the nineteenth‐century sense of the transitory a heroic period designation, the term “modernity” denies precisely the reality it describes, and sublimates a widespread temporal malaise into its contrary. The paper concludes that the peculiarly “modern” mania for naming one's period is a function of transitional time, and that the concept coined by the Romantics still governs our contemporary experience.     

Memory and Nostalgia in Antonio Tabucchi's Last Two Books

In Il tempo invecchia in fretta, a collection of short stories (2009), and in Viaggi e altri viaggi, a travel book (2010), the Italian novelist Antonio Tabucchi (1943–2012) investigates the conflict between interior time, or duration, and social, or historical time. Il tempo invecchia interrogates the dialectic between individual lives and grand historical processes. Viaggi—Tabucchi's intellectual autobiography—retrieves the past, which exists in the present as memory, so as to counter the “eternal present” of media time and its humus, consumerism, and provide a sense, or direction, to future decision making. Both volumes demonstrate a form of social commitment that is not Sartrean—that interrogates the present while abstaining from proposing solutions—but is well suited to our times: by bringing together narrative remnants of the past in the present of memory, Tabucchi attempts to give the present a sense and a direction to the future. These altrove altrui (the elsewheres of others) provoke a feeling of “nostalgia for the future,” a yearning for what never was, but still might be: a new social and moral order.     

中国家庭史研究刍议

中国家庭史研究存在误区 ,其一是研究对象与婚姻史、家族史错位 ,其二是忽略历史资料中的家庭与实际家庭的区别 ,其三是把复杂多样的家庭简单化 ,最后是认为家庭史研究只研究历史上的家庭。家庭史研究应通家庭的“古今之变” ,理清家庭历史演变的来龙去脉 ,其历史使命是通过了解中国家庭的过去 ,正确地认识现状 ,科学地预见未来 ,从而推进传统家庭向现代家庭转型。     

Recent work on Italian cinema

The end of the Cold War, the globalization of markets, and the end of Fordist models of production have all radically changed the context within which the European parties of the Left operate. This article, through an analysis of a broad range of recently published literature on New Labour in Britain and the Democratici di sinistra in Italy (and its predecessor, the PDS), examines the way these transformations have affected the two parties in recent years. Both have for some time been involved in processes of gradual adaptation of their economic and social policies. The texts analysed reveal that within the Left itself there are diverging perceptions of the value of this adaptation. In one view it represents a 'third way' between subordination to neo-liberalism and a social-democratic model now regarded as obsolete. A more critical view sees the changes as giving way to the technocratic Right.     

MacIntyre and Nussbaum on Diversity,Liberalism, and Christianity

This article argues that the politics of difference has been unsuccessful in its attempt to liberate itself from the modern politics of universal dignity and self-determination. As a result, theorists who emphasize difference ultimately must find a way to balance a conception of diversity with that of a universal normative ethics. To make this case, I examine the virtue ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum as two different examples of this tension, one constructing a particularistic virtue ethics around specific traditions, while the other presents a universalistic virtue ethics around universal human experience, thus serving as an example for how the “right” and “left” engage with diversity. There is a common denominator to the virtue ethics of MacIntyre and Nussbaum in that they both go about this by reconstructing an ethics of character out of elements of Aristotle's ethics of virtue in his Nicomachean Ethics as the basis for a model of pluralism and do so within a modern liberal and hence rational–individualist framework. Both are critical of certain elements of Aristotle's thought, while attempting to recover the “true” essence of Aristotelianism. While those who identify with the different political extremes are diverse, one basic premise is that the former believes in the role of tradition and the values of slow change in dialogue with the past, while the latter advocates the good of all individuals within a state that is blind to differences notwithstanding the practices of the past. Each approach faces a significant weakness: tradition is often unable to recognize that social benefits have often been brought about by modern liberalism's rejection of tradition, while universal human experience tends to forget that universal thinking is not universal but is a liberalization of a particular Christian way of approaching the world.     

“Bound in darkness and idolatry”? Protestant working-class underachievement and unionist hegemony

Over the past decade or more there has been a growing concern at the levels of educational underachievement within loyalist working-class areas of Northern Ireland. The inability of both educational and social policy initiatives over the past decade to improve the situation in any meaningful way has raised important questions concerning how the problem can be tackled more effectively. Placing the issue within the theoretical framework of Gramsci's hegemony, this paper argues that there is a need to better understand the historical nature of the problem and to recognise the political and social forces that have shaped its existence. It argues that there is a need to move away from explaining Protestant underachievement simply by the availability of jobs in Ulster's industrial past and to place its roots in the complex battle for social, political, and economic power since the 1801 Act of Union.     

Ber Borokhov

The task of this article is to pose the question: Can there be a principled anti-Zionism? That is, can there be an anti-Zionism that escapes the scourge of anti-Semitism? After suggesting criteria by which this may be possible, the article excavates a tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism (or Zionist agnosticism) in the past that can hardly be branded anti-Semitic. The first current of this tradition flows out of early-twentieth-century Germany, where Jewish thinkers, in conscious opposition to Zionists, envisaged a Judaism that did not submit to the contingencies of time or space. The second current, comprised of twentieth-century Orthodox Jews, similarly opposed Zionism for its attempt to return Jews to history and to their ancestral homeland. After following these overlapping currents, the article concludes by returning to the contemporary scene and inquiring whether a principled Jewish anti-Zionism is possible today.     

The Social Life of Robots: The Politics of Algorithms,Governance, and Sovereignty

This symposium aims to broaden the way scholars theorise and empirically treat the increasingly complex relationships between robots and social life, especially in the context of our historically anthropocentric human geographies. The authors of this symposium engage a range of diverse epistemological, ontological, and methodological commitments, but all in some way address the power dynamics and shifting political economies involved in human–robotic interactions as well as possibilities for resisting and overcoming particular forms of domination and oppression. At the same time, the papers present new avenues for conceptualising the rise of robots and robotics and the everyday socio-spatial relations of contemporary algorithmic life. In a rapidly evolving present and future, where life is increasingly managed in relation to algorithmic imaginaries and automated fantasies, these papers demonstrate the potential for geographers to make significant interventions and contributions to investigate the limits, contradictions, and messy contingencies of socio-technical assemblages, to trace the shifting spatialities and temporalities of the geographies of algorithmic governance, and to envision radical democratic, post-capitalist, emancipatory alternatives. These futures are unlikely to be “robot free”, so the question remains how will we build a future set of geographies that acknowledges this reality while also claiming space for the diverse and rich expansion of all forms of life, both human and non-human?     

“FUTURE PAST”: TIME AND TELEOLOGY IN (ANCIENT) HISTORIOGRAPHY

The historian's account of the past is strongly shaped by the future of the events narrated. The telos, that is, the vantage point from which the past is envisaged, influences the selection of the material as well as its arrangement. Although the telos is past for historians and readers, it is future for historical agents. The term “future past,” coined by Reinhart Koselleck to highlight the fact that the future was seen differently before the Sattelzeit, also lends itself to capturing this asymmetry and elucidating its ramifications for the writing of history. The first part of the essay elaborates on the notion of “future past”: besides considering its significance and pitfalls, I offset it against the perspectivity of historical knowledge and the concept of narrative “closure” (I). Then the works of two ancient historians, Polybius and Sallust, serve as test cases that illustrate the intricacies of “future past.” Neither has received much credit for intellectual sophistication in scholarship, and yet the different narrative strategies Polybius and Sallust deploy reveal profound reflections on the temporal dynamics of writing history (II). Although the issue of “future past” is particularly pertinent to the strongly narrative historiography of antiquity, the controversy about the end of the Roman Republic demonstrates that it also applies to the works of modern historians (III). Finally, I will argue that “future past” alerts us to an aspect of how we relate to the past that is in danger of being obliterated in the current debate on “presence” and history. The past is present in customs, relics, and rituals, but the historiographical construction of the past is predicated on a complex hermeneutical operation that involves the choice of a telos. The concept of “future past” also differs from post‐structuralist theories through its emphasis on time. Retrospect calms the flow of time, but is unable to arrest it fully, as the openness of the past survives in the form of “future past” (IV).