From “religion” to “spirituality” in socialist Bulgaria: Vanga, Nicholas Roerich, and the mystique of history

345 Book Reviews Allen Tate: A Study in Southern Modernism and the Religious Imagination. Joseph Kuhn. Series Filologia 32. Adam Mickiewicz UP, 2009. 524 pp. $45.00 paper. IT MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO SEE A RECENT AND LENGTHY STUDY OF THE work of Allen Tate and his influence on Southern letters emerge from Poland. Joseph Kuhn is a professor in the School of English at Adam Mickiewicz University (whose press is the publisher). We who have been engaged in what Lewis Simpson called “Southern self-interpretation” take for granted much that is perhaps unfamiliar to those outside the South. Yet a shift in perspective can teach us things we ourselves are inclined to overlook. It is one of the numerous merits of Kuhn’s book that it poses questions that might not occur to a self-interpreter to ask and highlights relationships that familiarity has kept us from probing. For this reason alone, the book makes interesting reading, though it does a great deal more. After an introduction entitled “A Model of Order,” in which Kuhn explores the implications of the Old South as “a metaphor of spiritual and artistic community,” he offers four stages in the sources, development, maturation, and influence of Tate’s thought: “Beginnings in New England,” “The Two Masters,” “A Modernist Metaphysical: Tate’s Poetry,” and “The Historical Imagination.” The first section offers a good example of what commentators on Southern literature seem to have overlooked: the neo-medievalism of that class of scholars in the nineteenth century called the “Boston Brahmins,” in particular that of Henry Adams, who represented “an awkward paternity” for both T. S. Eliot and Tate. Kuhn has some very acute observations about the crisis of historical relativism that Adams addressed but failed to solve. Nevertheless, his writings provided an important,ifambiguous,precedentfor“traditionalistmodernism.”Eliot, a combination of collateral Brahmin through his New England ancestry and quasi-Southerner because of Missouri’s uncertain regional status, depicted Adams’s dilemma in his “Gerontion,” which Kuhn analyzes at some length and then goes on to explore this intellectual context and make a convincing case for its relevance. In the second section, he further examines the main components of Tate’s inheritance from his two principal literary mentors, Eliot and Ransom. He focuses on the modernist version of traditionalism proposed by the former and the “curious theology” presented by the latter in his God Without Thunder, showing in each instance how Tate built on 346 Mississippi Quarterly and—in Ransom’s case especially—modified their ideas. He challenges the notion that Tate was simply a Southern version of Eliot. In a detailed reading of Ransom’s book, he shows how the disciple diverged significantly from the master, who nevertheless showed him a way to rethink the importance of religion in culture and society and of religious myth as a critical concept—key elements in the thought of all three men. Kuhn warns that this “religious imagination” does not designate mere piety but a longing for the transcendent and the tensions, ironies, and conflicts that arise from such a quest for the whole. The central and, by far, longest section is the third, devoted to a number of close readings of individual poems, early and late, as well as to Tate’s novel, The Fathers. The organization of these pages is thematic in basis but broadly chronological. Throughout his book, Kuhn draws on key passages from the poetry and prose, reinforcing and exploring their nuances by constantly placing them in new contexts. He draws on the rich array of philosophical and literary theory at his command, from Augustine, Aquinas, and Abelard toRicoeur,Levinas,andDerrida,tosay nothing of a host of other contemporary thinkers on whom he draws tellingly to illustrate how enduring are the questions that Tate confronted during his lifetime. Those who know the poetry well will discover many insightful interpretations of individual passages and whole poems. The fourth part of the book is given over to three “Tateians”: Richard Weaver, Lewis Simpson, and Walker Percy. Kuhn does not mean to imply that these three men were necessarily disciples. Rather, he sees in them a continuation of the main concerns of a man...

This research aims to contribute to understanding the concept of spirituality among individuals of the Z Generation by delineating more specific boundaries within the field of spiritual studies. The connections within the minds of adolescent individuals between the concept of spirituality and the areas of socialization that start in childhood and accelerate during adolescence, within the context of their own cultural codes, have been examined to address the need for understanding. Given the developmental stage that the youth of the 21st century are in, where they construct their own concepts of value, it is noteworthy how they establish cognitive contexts, social interaction areas, and their associations with the concept of spirituality at this critical juncture. The notion of spirituality among young individuals, which is continuously discussed to a certain extent in relevant media and public domains, necessitates opening up to their world, and understanding the spiritual perception needs and expectations of young individuals, from their perspective. This study aims to reveal the perception of spirituality in adolescents, understanding the conceptual, operational, traditional, environmental, and socio-political codes of spirituality within their contexts. In line with this purpose, the behaviors attributed to spirituality by young individuals, the values they inherit as cultural, spiritual heritage, their awareness of the spiritual values of their peer groups, their perspectives on the societal order they live in, the characteristics they emphasize in their self-identifications, the relationship they establish between religion and spirituality, and their perceived levels of religiousness have been investigated. To both trace the connections of the individual and interpret the regions being studied and analyzed, a predictive paradigm was adopted, and a qualitative design was preferred. Ethical committee permission was obtained on 09.03.2023. The research was conducted between 10.04.2023 and 10.05.2023 for data collection. The sample group was composed of students attending formal education in Ankara, from Yenimahalle Tevfik İleri Anatolian Imam Hatip High School, Mamak Hüseyin Gazi Anatolian Imam Hatip High School, and Mamak Volkan Gürbüzalp Anatolian High School. Data were obtained from 36 young individuals aged between 13 and 18, through 11 fully structured open-ended questions. The data were collected using a semi-structured interview form. Following one-on-one interviews, the data obtained were analyzed through thematic coding and grounded theory analysis. As a result of the study, participants' spirituality was shaped around three core categories. When positioning their spirituality, adolescent individuals create relational connections, such as friendships, institutions (religious and national education institutions), social relationships, politics, and structural connections. They develop their concepts of spirituality by drawing on information from family, culture, and religious institutions. Furthermore, in intrinsic experiences, the concept of spirituality shaped through material phenomena, self-state, and connection with the transcendent stands apart from others. Each core category provides a detailed structure of adolescent individuals' spirituality through sub-categories. Contrary to common belief, it was observed that the concept of spirituality among adolescent individuals is similarly nourished as in adults. Additionally, feelings related to individual well-being, material possessions received as gifts, and established family and friendship bonds, were found to be part of adolescents' definitions of spirituality, distinct from a purely religious context. Feelings of individual well-being are defined as their spirituality, independent of religious sentiment. These feelings encompass the sense of belonging felt in established family and friendship bonds, the memory of gifted and cherished items, and the pride of being an individual who displays socially accepted behavior and does what is right when interacting with society. It was found that young individuals express these feelings in the form of spirituality. * This study was started in 2023 under the supervision of Assist. Assoc. Dr. Zehra Erşahin's master's thesis titled "Conceptual and Contextual Analysis of Spirituality

The notion of spirituality is increasingly prominent in academic and cultural discourse alike. However, it remains a nebulous concept, capable of diverse interpretations, particularly cross-culturally. In the interest of exploring this diversity, yet also with the aim of identifying common themes, an enquiry was conducted into conceptualizations of spirituality across cultures. Specifically, the enquiry focused on so-called untranslatable words, i.e., which lack an exact equivalent in another language (in this case, English). Through a quasi-systematic search, together with conceptual snowballing, over 200 relevant terms were located. A grounded theory analysis identified three key dimensions: the sacred, contemplative practice, and self-transcendence. Based on these, a conceptualization of spirituality was formulated that may be valid cross-culturally, namely: engagement with the sacred, usually through contemplative practice, with the ultimate aim of self-transcendence.

While notions of spirituality, spiritual experience and spiritual development seem much neglected in the literature of modern analytical philosophy, such terminology continues to be current in both common usage and religious contexts. This author has previously taken issue with some recent attempts to develop (educational and other professional) conceptions of spirituality and spiritual experience as substantially independent of religious attachment. Notwithstanding this, the present paper considers whether such a ‘religiously-untethered’ notion of spirituality, spiritual experience or sensibility might yet be sustainable in terms of two key criteria: (1) as a capacity for non-instrumental perspectives on, or interpretations of, the world of ordinary experience; and (2) as a corresponding capacity to identify goals and values that transcend or are not reducible to the meeting of immediate natural or material—either individual or social—needs.

Recent developments in Christian theological thinking on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit (pneumatology) have raised questions about the relationship between “spirit” and science. Cursory review of the religion and science literature, however, yields a wide array of uses and understandings of the concept of spirit. Current attempts to assess the relationship of pneumatology to science require an inventory or basic classification scheme of the various notions of spirit that have been in circulation over the past generation. This essay presents a preliminary typology of such uses in order to enable scholars and researchers to chart courses for future research in this area.

No longer can we tell whether it is the offering himself to the teacher or the teacher offering herself to the student. We see each of the two beings mirroring the other in pure reflection. - Huang & Lynch, 1995, p. 4 As we come to the end of the 20th century and celebrate 100 years of social work, we take this opportunity to reflect on how we train, supervise, mentor, and teach beginning professionals. Students come to the profession of social work from a wide range of age groups and truly diverse and rich backgrounds and with many hopes and fears as beginning professionals. What is unique about the professional training of social workers is that all full-time and many part-time students enter practice the same day they enter graduate school. This form of education, referred to as instruction, relies heavily on experienced practitioners to provide supervised practice opportunities that enable students to acquire the requisite knowledge, skills, and professional identity for professional social work practice (Rogers & McDonald, 1992). The original goal of this article was to apply Buddhist principles to work supervision, but as we began to explore the topic we found that other worldviews such as Taoism and African and Native American traditions have the potential to add a wealth of insight to the subject. As our discussions began to develop into a thesis, we were struck by the fascinating ways religious and spiritual principles could be applied to social work education. It would run counter to our goals for us to propose a replacement to the traditional model. Instead we seek to broaden the scope of traditional models, allowing for alternatives that may function more effectively in a contemporary context. This article takes this notion of spirituality into the practice setting through instruction. We emphasize the value of this notion in the education of the in the field. Specifically, we suggest some ways of adding to the value of the experience by attending to the spiritual nature of the instructor-student relationship. We bring this sense of spirituality into practice settings because the experience is an important point of entry into practice and as such, one of the most critical points of entry for a paradigm shift. While releasing the roles of field and student from static definitions, we also propose that fieldwork can provide a mutually enriching growth experience for both the and the instructor and effectively respond to the modern changes and challenges faced by that relationship. We chose to use a spiritual perspective and Eastern spiritual concepts toward increasing the intrinsic value of this invaluable part of social work education. Five core concepts from Eastern religious and spiritual traditions (that is, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism) that could prove beneficial to fieldwork supervision are isolated for this purpose. The concepts are Sacred Space, karma, interrelation - emptiness, process dedicated to process - no goal, and Taoist harmony. Reimaging instruction from a spiritual perspective is presented as a specific model of practice and as an alternative way that is useful in our attempts to understand relationships formed during fieldwork education. Approaching the supervisor-student relationship as a sacred space, respecting the radically interdependent nature of all relationships, and focusing on the process of the relationship rather than the goal opens the process of fieldwork supervision to the upper limits of its potential. Although it appears that the meaning of the terms supervision, instruction, and mentorship deserve no further explanation, it is important to present precise definitions of these terms for the purpose of clarity and consistency. Supervision is providing emotional support, sharing of clinical responsibilities, a resource person to discuss client issues, enhanced professional development, opportunity to discuss social work theory and practice, feedback, appreciation, agency, a sense of belonging, and personal growth (Kadushin, 1974). …

This paper will concentrate upon one aspect of the Crown, and examine the process which turned the once imperial institution of Governor-General into a national office, representing a national Crown. In this will be shown one of the ways in which the Crown has acquired a national identity. The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis that the Crown was a principal agency through which New Zealand independence was acquired or at least symbolised. The attributes of independence were largely seen in those political processes (such as the signing of treaties, and declarations of war) reserved to independent countries. The uncertainty of the process is shown by the inability of commentators to assign a date of independence to New Zealand (or Canada and Australia). This gradual process of conferring independence is illustrated in the office of Governor-General. The paper will also explore how the Crown has been used to symbolically reflect this independence. This paper is in three sections. The first looks at the evolution of the office of Governor-General. Once the tool of imperial government, the Governor-General became one of the principal means though which national independence is symbolised. The process again is one primarily of the political executive, with legal changes having generally followed practical or political changes . The second section looks at the choice of people to fill the office of Governor-General, how this has reflected changing social and political cultures, and how it may have also served in some respects to direct the further evolution of the office. The third section looks at the patriation, or nationalisation, of the office. This will consider the means by which the office acquired a patina of national identity, and effects of the nationalisation of the office of Governor-General upon the evolution of the Crown. In particular, this looks at the way in which the office has come to symbolise national identity, in the permanent absence of the Sovereign. The evolution of the office of Governor-General in New Zealand has been both influenced by and an influence on the developing independence of New Zealand. It has both reflected political changes and been a determinant in such changes. An office at once symbolically important and yet lacking in political power was a means though which national identity was expressed and reinforced. This process was important for New Zealand. But it is also important as a pointer to possible parallel developments further afield, as in the United Kingdom and the wider European Union.

Evidence points toward the impact of nurses' personal views and knowledge about religion, religiosity, and spirituality on health care. This qualitative research investigates nurses' concepts of religion, religiosity, and spirituality and how they use these concepts in practice. Thirty-four nurses were interviewed at a hospital in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. Content analysis was used to organize and code the results. Three main themes generated from the interviews were (i) religiosity/spirituality as an important dimension in life; (ii) notions of religiosity and spirituality; (iii) formal knowledge of the concept of religion, religiosity, and spirituality. The results indicate that religion, religiosity and spirituality should be incorporated into nurse training to improve the comprehension and competence of nurses in these areas of practice. It is recommended that to ensure holistic and person-centered care, there must be constant reflection on these concepts.

In the contemporary political context, religion is rarely out of the news, usually postulated as a regressive force, battling against modern liberal Western values. However, in everyday life, and specifically with regard to place value, the situation is more complex. This paper addresses the challenge this context and the attendant notion of postsecularism bring to planning practice. It argues that religious and spiritual values can be rearticulated as concepts which add a substantive positive dimension to planning and its conceptualisation and constructions of place. This is done by developing the notion of municipal spirituality, which draws on the theological conceptions of transcendence and the common good to redefine the value of places whose worth cannot easily be made in instrumental terms. In so doing, it challenges the current antagonistic opposition of religious and liberal democratic values, repositioning religious and spiritual concepts in an inclusive way. The idea of municipal spirituality illustrates how planning could have a role in defending and promoting such places. Further, it demonstrates the importance of engaging in agonistic rather than antagonistic debate, rearticulating the criteria on which places can be valued by planning practice.

What are the connections between bodies, healing, and transcendence? I propose that by examining the intersections of the medical and the socio-cultural body with dance or the performative body, we can shine a critical light on this question. This paper brings Yoga and Indian dance together to explore how notions of health, spirituality, and morality came to be inscribed in particular kinds of bodies leading to selective ideas of bodily transcendence and spirituality in postcolonial India. I show through a diverse range of scholarships how the heterogeneous roots of Yoga have been homogenized in modern India as something Hindu and Brahminical (which is now integrated with rightwing Hindutva). Interestingly, the Indian classical dance revivalism shared the same logic as Yoga revivalism. As a result, the upper caste Hindu bodies distinguished themselves from their cultural others (Muslims and low caste Hindus) through concepts of purity, health, spirituality, and transcendence. I examine how some of these concepts of Yoga, dance, and embodiment from the east and west mingled in recent times and influenced narratives of ‘contemporary dance’ in India and the U.S. In these symbiotic, cross-cultural exchanges, concepts of somatics and neurobiology blended with modern Yoga and dance to render the elite, upper-caste/class bodies, and/or white bodies as universal, righteous, and transcultural.

This interview explores the New Zealand writer Patricia Grace’s fiction from the 1970s to the present and her treatment of Maori culture, life and history. The approach aims to highlight central thematic concerns which recur in her works and seem crucial to the definition of Maori identity and literature. Grace discusses the impact of Western models on Native notions of family, education, imagination and spirituality, with particular reference to Potiki and Baby No-Eyes. She provides an insight into the Maori syncretistic response to Christianity. In the final part, she focuses on her latest novel Tu, dealing with the condition of apartheid experienced by the Maori in the 1940s, the participation of the Maori Battalion in World War II and their experience of a new country (Italy), reconstructed by the writer from documentary research and the account of her father who fought there.

The Hegelian notion of the end of art presupposes his totalizing account of world history. Hegel’s historical vision is inadequate because it fails to recognize that cultures have had different specific goals for art, and that they have not all aimed at the transparent realism that Hegel admires. His relegation of art to a less prominent role than hitherto also amounts to a demotion of beauty from its earlier spiritual role, through art, of guiding humanity to greater collective self-awareness. Hegel underemphasizes another spiritual function of beauty, its role in furthering our sense of life and enabling us to take joy in our own vitality. A recognition of this function of beauty is better able to reflect diverse cultural conceptions of beauty and spirituality than does Hegel’s account. It also suggests a partial explanation of the widespread phenomenon of turning to beauty in contexts of loss and mourning.

This monograph examines the language planning situation in South Africa, where language has been instrumental in the country's transition from colonialism to apartheid to democracy. In particular, it addresses, diachronically and synchronically, the issues of language spread and use, language policy and planning, and language maintenance and shift. The monograph is divided into four parts. The first part presents the language profile of South Africa to provide the background against which the aforementioned issues will be discussed. The second part discusses language spread and use, with a focus on language-in-education and the media. The third section looks at language policy and planning, with a focus on South Africa's new language policy and on attempts currently being made to implement it. It shows that there is a mismatch between the language policy and language practices, with the former promoting additive multilingualism, and the latter showing a trend towards unilingualism in English in virtually all the higher domains of language use. The implications of this trend for the current language policy and for language maintenance and shift are discussed in the final part, with special reference to the country's official languages.

Goal of this work is to find out whether morphing wing configurations are a viable option for flight controls such as elevators, flaps, ailerons etc. This work is divided into 3 sections. First section is about general research of conventional wing constructions, materials used in aircraft and mechanisms used to actuate flight controls. Second section looks into construction of morphing wings, viable materials for these constructions, mechanism used to actuate them and finally designing a functioning morphing wing based on previous research. In final third part we are going to compare morphing configuration against conventional solutions used on aircraft today in CFD simulations as well as in a wind tunnel and compare the results gained by these simulations.

The article takes its cue from Antoine Lilti’s book, L’heritage des Lumieres (2018) and retraces the themes dealt with by the author with the intention of describing the central problem areas in the culture of the Enlightenment. The author’s reflection focuses on the issues of Western economic and colonial expansion and the conflictual nature of the commercial civilization of the West, highlighting how European Enlightenment – the analysis focuses on French culture and, subordinately, Scottish culture – has shown a lively awareness of the problems of contemporary globalization and the demands it has subjected ethics, the vision of history, the conception of society and political power, religious ideas. These phenomena have influenced the development of a cosmopolitan attitude, paradoxically divided between acceptance of diversities and eurocentrism that is, in its contradictory aspects of recognition of the variety of human cultures and of universalistic tension, aimed at affirming the superiority of the values of the white, expanding West and the historical, almost messianic necessity of their global spreading. The article then dwells on the problems of modernity and politics, the other two central aspects of Enlightenment reflection as it is retraced by the author of the book: modernity as the development of a public media communication dimension and as a profound change in the space of private subjectivity; and politics as a space for the affirmation of rights and freedom in which the role played by the intellectual has been experienced by the Enlightenment in a conflictual and contradictory way, between challenge of and cooperation with powerful absolute sovereigns. The final part of the article dwells precisely on how the return to the Enlightenment has represented in various historical periods, as an inspiration for the critical use of reason, doubt and subjective engagement, a necessary moment for the redefinition of the tasks of intellectuals in the face of the conflicts of contemporary societies.