Jennifer Holberg Talks With Makoto Fujimura,
2022
Calvin University
Jennifer Holberg Talks With Makoto Fujimura, Jennifer Holberg, Makoto Fujimura
University Faculty Publications and Creative Works
In this episode, Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell interviews Jennifer Holberg, professor of English at Calvin University, co-director of Calvin Center for Faith and Writing, and frequent writer for the Reformed Journal Blog. Jennifer discusses her childhood as an army brat, the effects of the early death of her mother, and her forthcoming book “Nourishing Narratives: The Power of Story to Shape our Faith,” which is expected to come out in July 2023.
Table Of Contents,
2022
Brigham Young University
Two Modes Of Cyclicality In The Ancient World,
2022
Clemson University
Two Modes Of Cyclicality In The Ancient World, Yanming An
Comparative Civilizations Review
The cyclical view of time and history appears in two modes represented respectively by the Indo-Hellenic and the Chinese tradition. The former contains a conception of Mahayuga or Great Year, which signifies the periodic destruction and reconstruction in the cosmos and human world. In addition, it analogizes human affairs to the celestial cycle and therefore generalizes the mode of cyclical movements in both the cosmos and the human world as “uniform rotation.” In contrast, the Chinese tradition incorporates Heaven and human into a unity, containing no conception of periodic interruption in the movement of Heaven-human unity. At the same, it …
Book Review: Mokhtar Mokhtefi. I Was A French Muslim: Memories Of An Algerian Freedom Fighter; Benjamin Stora. Les Clés Retrouvées: Une Enfance Juive À Constantine,
2022
Brigham Young University
Book Review: Mokhtar Mokhtefi. I Was A French Muslim: Memories Of An Algerian Freedom Fighter; Benjamin Stora. Les Clés Retrouvées: Une Enfance Juive À Constantine, Leland Conley Barrows
Comparative Civilizations Review
If one were to choose two words to characterize the books under review, they would be ambiguity and nostalgia. Both are personal reflections of how the final years of Frenchruled Algeria affected the authors.
Mokhtar Mokhtefi (1935-2015) was an Algerian Muslim freedom fighter who, in 1956, having completed high school at the Lycée Aumale in Constantine, enlisted in the National Liberation Army (ALN) of Algeria. We follow his story from early childhood in Berroughaia, a small town south of Algiers, to his re-entry into Algeria from Tunisia in July 1962, just as Algeria achieved independence.
Benjamin Stora (1950- ) …
Book Review: Zheng Wang. Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory In Chinese Politics And Foreign Relations,
2022
Brigham Young University
Book Review: Zheng Wang. Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory In Chinese Politics And Foreign Relations, Constance Wilkinson
Comparative Civilizations Review
“Never Forget National Humiliation!”? Really? Yes. This is Zheng Wang’s very interesting study of the post-Mao Chinese Communist Party’s massive re-education campaign. It was created in the years following the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989 when post-Mao CCP hard-liners approved a military response to civilian protesters that would crush China’s emerging pro-democracy movement.
Hope And Pessimism In ‘Classical’ 20th Century Civilizational Theory,
2022
Former President, International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations
Hope And Pessimism In ‘Classical’ 20th Century Civilizational Theory, David J. Rosner
Comparative Civilizations Review
This paper will involve an analysis of the relation between optimism, pessimism, and realism in 20th century classical civilizational theory, through the perspective offered specifically in Ernst Bloch’s magnum opus The Principle of Hope. Bloch, a German Jew and unorthodox Marxist, wrote The Principle of Hope during 1938–1947 in exile fleeing the Nazi holocaust. Today, humanity in its entirety now faces another set of crises — pandemic, overpopulation, climate change, political impasse, economic inequality, social unrest, growing lawlessness and nuclear threat. One can easily be tempted to give up on the future of our increasingly fragile and endangered world. …
Nationalism In The Context Of Globalization,
2022
Monmouth University, NJ, USA
Nationalism In The Context Of Globalization, Mariana Tepfenhart, M.A.
Comparative Civilizations Review
To understand the connection and consequences between nationalism and globalism, I will start with a basic definition of nationalism. According to Websters Dictionary, nations that are focused on national, not international goals, are nationalistic. A nation comprises the same language, customs, and traditions.
Some scholars have argued that nationalism has historical roots. People have been bonded by ethnicity and politics from ancient times. Others consider nationalism as a modern phenomenon due to industrialization, democratization, and modern technology. Jonathan Hearn1 from the University of Edinburgh has argued that some states are more homogeneous than others and they have strong senses of …
Pointers From Sociology: Looking At Trevor Noah’S Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood,
2022
Brigham Young University
Pointers From Sociology: Looking At Trevor Noah’S Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood, Joseph Drew
Comparative Civilizations Review
The book is a study of a basic change in social stratification. It is also a study of poverty in South Africa. Plus, it is a study of the changing nature of community and society in that land.
We know that almost every society organizes inequality by ranking categories of people in a hierarchy. Four important principles of social stratification are:
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Social stratification is inclusive of all, not a reflection of individual differences, and shapes our lives.
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Social stratification carries over from generation to generation.
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Social stratification is universal but variable.
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Social stratification involves both inequality and beliefs about the …
End Matter,
2022
Brigham Young University
The Psychology Of Fascism: Wilhelm Reich Et Al,
2022
Professor of Psychology, University of Maryland Global Campus
The Psychology Of Fascism: Wilhelm Reich Et Al, Kenneth Feigenbaum
Comparative Civilizations Review
There are innumerable definitions and explanations of fascism in the literature of the social and behavioral sciences. This paper only explicates one: the concept of a fascist personality. It focuses on the early work by scholars in this area, beginning with the writings of the 20th century psychiatrist and student of Sigmund Freud, Austrian and American intellectual, Dr. Wilhelm Reich.
In the short story/essay that follows this article, allusion is made by the author — the late writer and United Nations staff member Shawna V. Tropp — to the circle which grew up around Wilhelm Reich. This was a significant …
Small Claims,
2022
Brigham Young University
Small Claims, Shawna V. Tropp
Comparative Civilizations Review
Had Laura Davidov not been a heavy woman in her late fifties, she would have thought that she had made a conquest. A golden young man appeared to have been following her through the Musée Rodin for over an hour; his eyes were turquoise, and he was quite old enough to be her son. There was also something disturbingly familiar about him. She therefore beamed her most maternal smile upon him and took a hesitant step in his direction.
Full Issue,
2022
Brigham Young University
Front Matter,
2022
Brigham Young University
The Future Of Civilization: A Systems Approach,
2022
Professor Emeritus, University of Victoria, Victoria BC, Canada
The Future Of Civilization: A Systems Approach, Robert Bedeski, Ph.D.
Comparative Civilizations Review
Civilization is one of several stages of human evolution and forms a system of interaction. Its past dominance is now challenged by growth of three subsystems — state, economy, and science/technology. These three subsystems have matured through application of rational knowledge. The vertically integrated state now dominates society and demarcated territory. The horizontally integrated global economy and global science/technology society have become worldwide in scope. State domination is reinforced by autonomous global science and international capital. The remaining subsystem of Moral Knowledge occupies present non-material civilization and is characterized by organic knowledge and embracing the unprovable, which includes religion, art, …
Editor's Note,
2022
California State University Monterey Bay
Editor's Note, John Berteaux, Executive Editor
Comparative Civilizations Review
From July 28 to July 30, 2022, it was my pleasure to serve as the Program Chair of the 51st International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations conference — The Future of Civilization(s). This issue of the Comparative Civilizations Review contains a selection of articles presented at the conference.
Our New Iscsc Social Media Presence,
2022
ISCSC Director of Communications
Our New Iscsc Social Media Presence, Bibi Pelić
Comparative Civilizations Review
Social media presence is essential, we could say even critical to any organization today. Social media can for itself be a topic for a discussion on civilization, as social media is today shaping mindsets, for better or worse.
Realizing this major development in our ever-more digitalized world, the ISCSC has undergone, in the past year, significant changes in the direction of establishing its social media presence.
Re-Presenting The Un-Presentable: Annie Ernaux’S "L’Évènement" And Cristian Mungiu’S "4 Months, 3 Weeks, And Two Days",
2022
CUNY Queens College
Re-Presenting The Un-Presentable: Annie Ernaux’S "L’Évènement" And Cristian Mungiu’S "4 Months, 3 Weeks, And Two Days", Victoria Tomasulo
Publications and Research
Situating Annie Ernaux’s L’évènement and Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days in a reproductive justice framework, I argue that both the memoir and the film contribute to working-class historiographies by documenting backstreet abortion in times and places where it was heavily criminalized: 1960s France and Communist Romania. Committed to a working-class aesthetic with roots in neorealism, Ernaux and Mungiu focus singularly on an event once deemed unrepresentable in literature and cinema. Drawing upon the distinction made between empathy and “rational compassion” made by Paul Bloom in Against Empathy (2016), as well as from Kelly Oliver’s Witnessing: Beyond …
Book Review: Michela Coletta. Decadent Modernity: Civilization And ‘Latinidad’ In Spanish America, 1880-1920,
2022
Brigham Young University
Book Review: Michela Coletta. Decadent Modernity: Civilization And ‘Latinidad’ In Spanish America, 1880-1920, Jeremy Smith
Comparative Civilizations Review
There are too few perspectives in civilizational analysis that examine Latin America. One exception is found in the work of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt on multiple modernities and the Americas. Eisenstadt’s research is a point of departure for Michela Coletta’s Decadent Modernity: Civilization and ‘Latinidad’ in Spanish America, 1880-1920. Through chapters on the so-called Latin Race, rural and metropolitan identities, national education, and what Coletta calls the ‘aesthetics of regeneration’, the author explores cultural, sociological, and political trends in Southern Cone countries Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina in the fin de siècle era of European and American modernities. This is a …
Literaturas En Exhibición: Autores-Show Y Posturas Precarias En El Siglo Xxi Hispanoamericano Neoliberal,
2022
CUNY Graduate Center
Literaturas En Exhibición: Autores-Show Y Posturas Precarias En El Siglo Xxi Hispanoamericano Neoliberal, Sara Cordon Hornillos
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
The consolidation of neoliberalism, the demands of the market, the importance of the image, the possibilities offered by social media, and the ways celebrity is constructed not only favor but also demand the exhibition of the artist.
This dissertation examines for the first time how twenty-first-century Latin American and Spanish authors with sexual, ethnic, gender, or class identities traditionally excluded from the realm of literary distinction employ self-exhibition to engage with the public, thus redrawing the limits of literature. Reflecting critically on the commodification and manipulation of the contemporary authorial figure, as well as the possibilities of agency that certain …
The Storytelling Cure: Medicine And Narrative From Galen To Shahrazad And Rousseau,
2022
CUNY Graduate Center
The Storytelling Cure: Medicine And Narrative From Galen To Shahrazad And Rousseau, Ryan A. Milov-Cordoba
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Are stories healing? This dissertation introduces and explores an idea that I call “the storytelling cure.” With this term I capture a set of related notions about the healing power of stories that span literary studies, intellectual history, philosophy, and medical practice. Through a comparative study I make the case for “the storytelling cure” as a cross-cultural, multiconfessional, and multilingual phenomenon of great age, complexity, and power, worthy of the most sustained attention by the contemporary field of Comparative Literature. Concretely, this dissertation presents three extended case studies of “storytelling cures” from three different kinds of texts (case history, frame …
