Converting the Story: Toward a Theory of Narrative Conversion in the Muslim Tale of Ǧirǧīs (St. George)

This chapter reviews the frameworks from the first book, Toward Entrepreneurial Community Development: Leaping Cultural and Leadership Boundaries. These frameworks will include the four basic approaches toward entrepreneurship development (i.e., facilitating condition, national and regional policy, entrepreneurial communities, and entrepreneurial ecosystems) and the dozen suggested steps presented in our first book for leaping cultural and leadership boundaries. The role and importance of both culture and leadership in framing entrepreneurial action (aka entrepreneuring) will be revisited and explained. Finally, this chapter also sets up an analytic frame through which the case studies presented and co-analyzed in the companion work, Empowering Entrepreneurial Communities and Ecosystems: Case Study Insights.

Culturalism is an approach that interprets civilizations within the religious, historical, and traditional boundaries. In this approach, it is argued that the cultural accumulations that emerged from and developed in the West are, in principle, unique to the Western civilization, and it is suggested that peripheral countries return to their own cultures in the face of imperialism. However, throughout history, civilizations have interacted with each other independently of religious and cultural boundaries and have created common cultural accumulations. Secularism, democracy, rule of law, and human rights are some of the clearest examples of these universal values of civilization. Moreover, culturalist criticism tends to overlook the capitalism and the economic-class contradictions between the center-periphery countries and bases its argument on the assumption that the main contradiction is about culture and religion. Therefore, although culturalist theories claim to oppose imperialism, they eventually reconciled with imperialism. This was proved by the failure of modernization and socialism in Asia and Africa starting from the 20th century. The importance of Samir Amin and NiyaziBerkes lies in that they made the first and most comprehensive criticisms of the culturalist approach in social sciences. Another reason for examining their views together in this study was that both of them, from Egypt and Turkey, are known to be the modernization theorists of the peripheral countries. Amin and Berkes defined the concept of civilization without referring to the religious and cultural boundaries. This is the most obvious common feature in their modernization approaches. The point where they differ is that Samir Amin draws attention to the real contradiction between the central and peripheral countries and thinks that this contradiction is about the capitalist world system. On the other hand, like Amin, NiyaziBerkes also criticizes the reconciliation of tradition and modernity, but does not dwell on the variables such as capitalism and capitalist world system. The purpose of this study is to keep the criticisms of the culturalist approach alive based on the theoretical approaches of Samir Amin and NiyaziBerkes. Keywords: Turkish sociology, Socialism, Modernization, Imperialism, Culturalism, Historical Materialism, Capitalist World System

Understanding plant significance across cultures and borders is a driving goal in ethnobotany. Often, empirical studies aim to highlight and explain variation in plant knowledge and uses between communities across national, geographic, and cultural boundaries. However, such studies underinvestigate commonality of values and practices between communities. In this cross-border study of highland pastoral communities in both Caucasian Georgia and Turkey, we propose and implement an approach that synthesizes Cultural Importance (CI) and Identified Cultural Importance (ICI) indices. We label this method a “Unified Cultural Keystone Species (UCKS)” approach. We demonstrate that such an approach is uniquely capable of perceiving shared Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and practices across cultures and borders. Our results identify three primary Cultural Keystone Species (CKS) that cut across cultural and political boundaries in the Western Lesser Caucasus. We argue that these findings allow for a more comprehensive understanding of ethnobotanical knowledge and practices in the study area. This, in turn, can enhance conservation and restoration strategies in the study region and beyond by highlighting the breadth of biocultural knowledge and value held within shared traditions and landscapes. By so doing, we show a way to heighten scientific perceptions of the importance of cultural and linguistic connections to environmental well-being in specific places.

In the name of God and profit, Jorge Álvares, the first Portuguese to set foot in China, arrived in 1513 and opened a new chapter for missionary work. One of the most significant forms of “Sino-Portuguese” decorative art, ivory sculpture, is closely linked to the Portuguese mission in the Orient and serves as a witness to encounters between different cultures and religions. This study focuses on representative Sino-Portuguese ivory sculptures of the Virgin and Child from the Late Ming period through a detailed analysis of iconography and a comparative visual critique with European prototypes and Guanyin representations to discuss the significance of missionary visual imagery in cultural interactions. The ivory sculpture of the Virgin and Child is not merely an image; it is a physical object with both material and visual characteristics, acquiring its religious significance during the missionary process. The present study aims to present its artistic hybridity and demonstrate how the Chinese carvers make the Sino-Portuguese “speak” different visual languages, leading to different interpretations. It also reflects the cultural translation that occurs in the complex process of religious contact. In this space of ‘culture in between’, Christianity has been able to transcend cultural and religious boundaries.

Bridging anticipation skills and intercultural competences as a means to reinforce the capacity of global citizens for learning to learn together

Reviewed by: Negotiating Transcultural Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Ottoman–Venetian Encounters by Stephen Ortega Amanda van der Drift Ortega, Stephen, Negotiating Transcultural Relations in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Ottoman–Venetian Encounters (Transculturalisms, 1400–1700), Farnham, Ashgate, 2014; hardback; pp. 212; 12 b/w illustrations, 2 maps; R.R.P. £65.00; ISBN 9781409428589. Stephen Ortega’s recent monograph investigates transcultural movement and encounter in the early modern Mediterranean to expose the power structures that facilitated, maintained, and monitored relationships across cultural boundaries. Ortega primarily examines Ottoman–Venetian encounters during a time of transition between the War of Cyprus (1574) and the War of Candia (1645) when the Ottomans and Venetians were experiencing peaceful relations and Venetian commercial interests shifted focus away from the sea. This resulted in an influx of foreign traders to the Serenissima that included many Muslims. Ortega argues that the outcomes of individual transcultural encounters and disputes between East and West were negotiated within networks of interrelated political and social power structures that operated at local and trans-imperial levels. These complex networks were designed to protect and maintain commercial interests between the powerful trading partners. The author supports his thesis through an examination of diverse, individual cases of transcultural encounter taken largely from Venetian inquisition, criminal, trade, and commerce records and makes use of English, Italian, and Turkish primary and secondary sources. The first of five themed chapters demonstrates the way Venetians empowered intermediaries to manage contact with Ottoman foreigners [End Page 343] at both local and state levels. Intermediaries were chosen because of their ability to move between the diverse cultural realms and therefore better establish and monitor local and imperial transcultural interactions. Ortega provides the example of local intermediary, Francesco Lettino, a Greek with ambiguous loyalties who operated as a trade broker on the Rialto. In the Republic’s attempt to reorganise the urban space to reduce the incidence of unsupervised transcultural contact, Lettino was granted permission to establish a fondaco in 1621 to house all Ottoman Muslims in Venice. At a higher social level, state appointed dragomans or interpreters from diverse ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds dealt with diplomacy and trade to promote and protect Venetian interests. Chapter 2 examines the role Venetian councils and magistrates played in providing a space for intercultural dialogue that gave foreign subjects a voice in disputes and conflicts. These forums enabled negotiation and resolution of differences that had the potential to impact transcultural relations at the highest level. In the third chapter, the movement of people across cultural boundaries is addressed. Ortega begins with the case of a Bosnian Muslim woman named Lucia who escaped her marriage and family and fled to Venice. She converted to Christianity and sought protection at the home of a Venetian administrator, only to be pursued by her family and returned. Through an in-depth examination of cases such as Lucia’s, the interrelated social and political contingencies involved in crossing cultural boundaries are revealed. They include the willingness of people to change religion as necessary and the difficulties of crossing state boundaries without the support of powerful connections; in Lucia’s case, the latter being of secondary concern to preserving the political and commercial interests of the respective powers. Chapter 4 investigates the way the Ottoman government projected sovereignty as well as political and legal power through the use of envoys, delegations, ritual, guarantees, letters, and networks of officials who effortlessly crossed religious and social boundaries. In the final chapter, Ortega shows how the ‘integrated political space’ of the Mediterranean became a site of contested jurisdiction characterised by power struggles and power shifts at factional and state levels. This is exemplified in a dispute that occurred in the Adriatic Sea between the Venetians, Ottomans, and Spanish in 1617 that was subsequently resolved through convoluted social and political negotiations and aggressive confrontation. With continuing scholarly interest in relations between the East and the West, Ortega’s well-researched book provides a valuable contribution to revealing the intricacies involved in negotiating transcultural encounters in the early modern Mediterranean. [End Page 344] Amanda van der Drift The University of Queensland Copyright © 2015 Amanda van der Drift

PurposeThe concept of criticality concerns the probability and the possible impacts of shortages in raw-material supply and is usually applied to regional economies or specific industries. With more and more products being highly dependent on potentially critical raw materials, efforts are being made to also incorporate criticality into the framework of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA). However, there is still some need for methodological development of indicators to measure raw-material criticality in LCSA.MethodsWe therefore introduce ‘economic product importance’ (EPI) as a novel parameter for the product-specific evaluation of the relevance and significance of a certain raw material for a particular product system. We thereby consider both the actual raw-material flows (life cycle inventories) and the life cycle cost. The EPI thus represents a measure for the material-specific product-system vulnerability (another component being the substitutability). Combining the product-system vulnerability of a specific product system towards a certain raw material with the supply disruption probability of that same raw material then yields the product-system specific overall criticality with regard to that raw material. In order to demonstrate our novel approach, we apply it to a case study on a battery-electric vehicle.ResultsSince our approach accounts for the actual amounts of raw materials used in a product and relates their total share of costs to the overall costs of the product, no under- or over-estimation of the mere presence of the raw materials with respect to their relevance for the product system occurs. Consequently, raw materials, e.g. rare earth elements, which are regularly rated highly critical, do not necessarily reach higher criticality ranks within our approach, if they are either needed in very small amounts only or if their share in total costs of the respective product system is very low. Accordingly, in our case study on a battery-electric vehicle product system, most rare earth elements are ranked less critical than bulk materials such as copper or aluminium.ConclusionOur EPI approach constitutes a step forward towards a methodology for the raw-material criticality assessment within the LCSA framework, mainly because it allows a product-specific evaluation of product-system vulnerability. Furthermore, it is compatible with common methods for the supply disruption probability calculation — such as GeoPolRisk, ESP or ESSENZ — as well as with available substitutability evaluations. The practicability and usefulness of our approach has been shown by applying it to a battery-electric vehicle.

The Anxieties of History and Memory

Ours is an age of renewed interest in world history. The enthusiastic reception given William McNeill's The Rise of West a few years ago amply illustrates our concern for written history that embraces entire human community and that transcends national, religious, and cultural boundaries. Courses in world history or world civilization seem to be replacing traditional Western civilization courses in our colleges, and we are inundated with textbooks that try to integrate bits of Asian and African history with that of West. Comparative historical studies abound. We have created international commissions for writing of world history, such as UNESCO project, in hope of more successfully avoiding parochial interpretations. The parochial labels and phrases that still clutter our professional vocabulary are gradually being replaced by more descriptive terms: Oriental has become Asian; Far East is now East Asia; and Near East may become Eastern Mediterranean. It is obvious that world history is one of major concerns of this generation's historians. Interest in world history did not begin in our of course. Historians in Western, Christian tradition have always been concerned with world history-universal history, they called it. Universal histories also pretended to be histories of mankind. They described man's beginnings and his development through all time he had been on earth. But while their titles typically embraced the history of world from its creation to our own day, world described between their covers was usually limited to ancient Near East, Greece, Rome, and Western Christendom. The most obvious change since day of old universal history has been a redefinition of what should be included in world history-a change toward geographic universality as well as or even in place of chronological universality. The redefinition of content of world history also has had a fairly long history in West. At least since Renaissance, Western scholars have had to assimilate newly discovered information, both from antiquity and from non-European world, with their view of world history. Usually this new information could be accommodated without impairing traditional struc-

This article discloses those aspects of abolishing the Brest Church Union within the borders of the Russian Empire in 1780–1875, the comprehension of which remains relevant for historical and church-historical science. The author draws the following conclusions: 1) The reunification of the Uniates with the Orthodox completed a centuries-old period in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, which can be characterized as an era of separation. Formally, the canonical division of the Russian Orthodox Church, which took shape in the mid-15 th century, was overcome at the end of the 17 th century, when in 1686, the Orthodox of Rzeczpospolita became part of the Moscow Patriarchate. However, the consequence of the canonical division — the division of the Western Russian population into Orthodox and Uniates — was overcome only in 1875, when 250,000 Uniates returned to the Orthodox faith. 2) As a result of the Uniates’ reunification with the Orthodox, most of the Byelarussian–Ukrainian population returned to the Orthodox path to their salvation and spiritual origins. This freed the Western Russians from the grafting of the alien to them Western Christian form of spirituality and Polish culture and served to develop the Orthodox forms of religiosity natural to the people in the second half of the 19 th century. Therefore, the development of distinctive Byelarussian and Ukrainian cultures as branches of all-Russian culture became possible. 3) The reunification of the Byelarussian–Ukrainian Uniates with the Orthodox was one of, if not the most, significant achievements of the Russian Empire in the lands annexed from Poland. Without this event, a lasting comprehensive integration of the Western Russian territories with the Great Russian provinces would not have been possible. 4) The termination of the Brest Pact halted the process of the involvement of the Byelarussians in the Polish Church and united the Byelarussians spiritually and culturally, having destroyed the religious and cultural boundary which divided the people, and which could be traced on the geographical map. In 1839, the Byelarussians got rid of the intrusive Romanization, Polonization and Russophobia propaganda and returned to the Russian historical and cultural world, where they got the opportunity to cultivate their identity and did not feel like second-rate people, as they did in the Commonwealth of Poland.

In the past, the typical business school professional saw little need to even broach the spiritual calling. However, Andre’s vocational journey as a scholar-teacher significantly contributed to this change, and many of his colleagues are continuing and looking forward to the possibilities of Andre’s work. Through a Jesuit-lay friendship with the second author, the first author began to take Andre’s call in integrating business as a noble vocation at the undergraduate business level. In connecting classroom assignments and activities with Andre’s scholarship, undergraduate business students were invited to consider what kind of person they would want to be and what kind of world they would want to live in. Here, the article chronicles the work of Andre that inspired changes in the first author’s pedagogy toward coursework that embraces the discipline to make profits along with the discipline to be human – crossing geographical, political, cultural and religious boundaries – in order to meet the world’s needs.

This comprehensive study presents an in-depth analysis of Rabindranath Tagore's profound devotional composition "Ami Tomar Premer Hobo Sobar Kolonkho Bhagi" ("I will bear everyone's shame in your love"), exploring its multifaceted spiritual significance within the rich context of Hindu devotional traditions. Through detailed textual examination, musical analysis, and contextual interpretation, this research illuminates how the song articulates a fundamental aspect of authentic spiritual pursuit: the transformative willingness to transcend societal judgment and embrace divine love regardless of worldly consequences. The investigation establishes how the song's central message harmonizes with core Hindu philosophical concepts, particularly those found in Bhakti traditions, Upanishadic thought, and Tantric practice, where the devotee's surrender (sharanagati) necessarily involves moving beyond conventional social and religious boundaries. Drawing on comparative analysis with other devotional traditions and examining the song's continued relevance in contemporary spiritual discourse, this study demonstrates how Tagore's composition offers profound insight into the paradoxical journey of spiritual seekers who must often navigate societal disapproval to achieve authentic divine communion. The research further contextualizes the work within Tagore's broader philosophical vision and personal spiritual journey, revealing how this composition represents a perfect synthesis of artistic expression and spiritual wisdom that continues to inspire seekers across cultural and religious boundaries.

This thesis proposes a new methodology for studying the symbolic and practical aspects of religious dress in fifth-to ninth-century mediaeval China: how ritual dress reflected the religious ideas of the three major traditions in mediaeval China -Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism –and how the interaction between them and the evolution of their new forms of dress resulted in their changed worldviews. I argue that dress was more than a material phenomenon and may have been used to negotiate socio-political power and religious boundaries. An analysis was undertaken, using texts and artifacts as sources. I examined how the state used and developed each tradition so that each was transformed, interacting across sacred, secular, geographical and cultural boundaries. Analysis of dress as a strategy for undermining authority and hegemony revealed implications for the ideology of state-religion relations. I examined the hybridity and cultural brokering influencing interactions between religions and investigated the factors influencing those interactions. Cultural practices in the religious dress of mediaeval China were not coterminous with sectoral or social divisions: both heterogeneity within groups and commonality in dress practices existed across the three great Chinese religions. Boundaries between the religions were blurred, and the intermingling of designs, colours and styles of formal dress reflected the exchanges, parallels, and contradictions of the worldviews which accompanied the formation and evolution of mediaeval religious systems. Relationships between the three religions saw a cross-boundary transmission process –the changes in religious relations appear between internal and external boundaries, illustrating a complex interplay between the agency of ideology and cultural norms in religious dress. I maintain that Chinese religious dress was both a burdensome constraint and a practical source of agentive autonomy. Chinese ritual dress of the period was not an 'autonomous' influence, set apart from other religious dress traditions, but was influenced by factors including political agendas, ecology and local culture. The changed worldview of Chinese religions resulted in the diversification of Chinese religious dress and its assumption of a broader socio-political character. I demonstrate that rather than being purely a representation of religious ideology, mediaeval Chinese religious dress became a blend of spiritual and political influences and thereby an expression of secular trends.


 Popular writing has brought about an image of Hindu deities that are seen as a part of Hinduism only and Hinduism is also seen as a religion of the Indian subcontinent. While this may be largely true in many cases, it forces us to look at Hinduism in very Semitic terms as a closed religion. On the contrary we see that there was a considerable travel of gods and goddesses from other religions into Hinduism and vice versa. And thus negates the idea of Hinduism as a closed system. This therefore brings us to the problem of defining Hinduism which is by no means an easy task as there is no agreement on any singular definition. Pre-modern India had more contacts with her neighbours and thus central Asia and south East Asia emerge as some of the main regions where Indian influence is seen in many aspects of life. Even to a casual observer of both central Asia and South East Asia we see that there striking Indian influences in culture, religion and other aspects of life. All of them are not part of the textual literature that has become very nationalistic in the recent past and this tends to also dismiss the earlier writings as western Eurocentric. It is true that there is a great element of eurocentricism in the earlier writings but one point that needs to be highlighted is that these earlier writings also faithfully portrayed many aspects like iconography etc. in a very descriptive manner that focused on the measurements, likeness, colour and other associated characteristics of the statues. Such trends are clearly visible in the writings of Jas Burgess,E.B Havell etc. who were influenced by the dominant paradigm in contemporary Europe of the 1850‟s where the duty of the historian was to just record. Such an approach was informed by the writings of the German philosopher Leopold Von Ranke. Though there are certain value judgments at the end of the chapter, the main narrative is a dry as dust and it is easy to decipher the characteristics or reconstruct the iconographic programme in any shrine and by extension the religious practices. In the modern period , where the dominant forms of anti-colonial struggles led to a writing of nationalist history succeeded by Marxist influenced social histories in many parts of Asia, the identification of the national boundaries and national cultures also extended to religions and many aspects were either muted or totally obliterated in history writing to present a homogenous picture. Thus, we have a picture of Hinduism and Buddhism that fits in with the national narratives. Such a collapse of categories is there in the borderland of India where the cultural boundaries are not clearly marked as also h religious boundaries. One single example that illustrates this assertion is the portrayal of Sri Lanka as a Sinhala Buddhist region with the Tamil regions of Sri Lanka marked off as separate entity and both being largely exclusive. In the Buddhist temples of Sri Lanka, one finds firstly the statue of Ganesha and later the images of Karthikeya and also the god Shani or Saturn. This image of a Buddhist monastery sharply contrasts with the highly buddhistic space of a Sinhala Buddhist temple where non-Buddhist elements are not found.

A Korean TV drama series (Daejanggeum), with a story line focusing on Korean food, was exported to over 50 countries resulting in a surprisingly popular mega-hit. The popularity of this TV drama, transcended across countries and cultural boundaries, has brought an enhancement to the national image of Korea or national brand, and led to a surge in sales of Korean industrial products, as well as an increased interest in Korean tourism resources. This study attempted to empirically investigate the effects of the TV drama series on the national image and intention to visit Korea as perceived by Chinese diners. Interestingly, the “peculiarity of Korean culture” was a main reason for preferring Korean cuisine, which positively affected the perception of the national image and the intention to visit Korea to partake in food tourism. Further, this study suggests that future studies are needed to compare the results of this research according to national, ethnic, regional, or religious boundaries. The comparison of other ethnic groups will be helpful for establishing different marketing strategies according to the different cohorts with different consumption patterns.