International Network Of Scholars Research Articles

Faidh al-Ihsānī Naskah Manaqib Syaikh Abduṣ Ṣamad al-Palimbānī

The main problems of this research are 1) What is the general description of Faidh al-Ihsani's manuscript through a philological approach? 2) How is the biography of Shaykh Abdus Samad al-Palimbani related to the existence of the Faidh al-Ihsani manuscript and how is the analysis of the contents of the text? This research uses philological research methods with stages. The data used are qualitative data obtained from primary and secondary sources. This type of research is a library research study by presenting a facsimile edition of the FI manuscript text, transliterating the original Arabic-Malay text into Latin and at the same time analyzing it. From the research findings, it is known that the FI manuscript is a single manuscript (codex unicus), which contains several mistakes and omissions in writing the manuscript, and there are writings that are forgotten to be written. The contribution of the Faidh al-Ihsani manuscript is very important for the preparation of writing the biography of Shaykh Abdus Samad al-Palimbani, including: First, before the Faidh al-Ihsani manuscript was discovered, the history of the biography of Shaykh Abdus Samad al-Palimbani that has developed so far is still confusing and there are several mistake. Second, thanks to the presence of the FI manuscript, by itself it can neutralize and straighten the history of Shaykh Abdus Samad al-Palimbani's life journey from local sources. Third, Shaykh Abdus Samad al-Jawi al-Palimbani is a great charismatic cleric from Palembang, a well-known Sufi and writer who has a wide range of scholarship in the international network of scholars. Fourth, in the Faidh al-Ihsani manuscript it is stated that Shaykh Abdus Samad bin Abdurrahman was born in Palembang in 1150 H or at the same time 1737 AD. Fifth, Regarding the work, works and teachings of Shaykh Abdus Samad al-Palimbani until now, we can still find them, His written works such as Hidayat as-Salikin, Sair as-Salikin, and others are still being read and studied. Likewise with his teachings, reading manaqib, tarekat remembrance, especially Ratib Samman, are still carried out and practiced by the Islamic community in general.

The Fictility of Porcelain: Making and Shaping Meaning in Lady Dorothea Banks’s “Dairy Book”

While there are extensive records of Sir Joseph Banks’s lifetime of work, the “Dairy Book” is one of the few surviving documents that chart an aspect of the intellectual life of his wife, Lady Dorothea Banks. The Dairy Book represents a record of Dorothea’s interpretation of her porcelain collection, acquired through the Banks family’s international network of scholars, scientists, and manufacturers. Beginning with a discussion of its unusual materiality, this article argues that the Dairy Book is distanced from the ordinary book form and is instead closer to the porcelain collection in substance: occulted, disorderly, and excessive. The Dairy Book functions as a metonym for the porcelain collection and the substance itself. This article examines porcelain and the collector’s text as fictile material: a portable signifier and a repository for meanings that are shaped by the collector’s selection and display. The plasticity suggested by “fictile” destabilizes understandings of how meaning is created and communicated. It frames how porcelain may be interpreted through associated practices of synecdoche, metonymy, and transposition.

Comments on Marc Sageman's Polemic “The Stagnation in Terrorism Research”

Marc Sageman's lamenting about the “Stagnation in Terrorism Research” stands in stark contradiction to my conclusion in the Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research (2011) that “Terrorism Studies—d...

Negotiating the benefits of knowledge

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the origins of tensions between the benefits (such as technologies and skills) and the substance of knowledge (often described as “pure inquiry”) in Australian universities. There are advantages to considering this debate in Australia, since its universities were tightly connected to scholarly networks in the British Empire. After the Second World War, those ties were loosened, enabling influences from American research and technological universities, augmented by a growing connection between universities, government economic strategy and the procedures of industry. This paper thus traces some of routes by which arguments travelled and the ways they were articulated in post‐war Australia.Design/methodology/approachIdeas do not travel on their own. In this paper, the author takes a biographical approach to the question of contrasting attitudes to university knowledge in the post‐war period, comparing the international scholarly and professional networks of two British scientists who travelled to Australia – contemporaries in age and education – both influencing Australian higher education policy in diametrically opposing ways.FindingsThis research demonstrates that the growing connection with economic goals in Australian universities after the Second World War was in part a result of the new international and cross‐sectoral networks in which some scholars now operated.Originality/valueAustralian historiography suggests that shifts in the emphases of post‐war universities were primarily the consequence of government policy. This paper demonstrates that the debates that shaped Australia's modern university system were also conducted among an international network of scholars.

The Flapping Butterfly Wings of Gifted Mentorship: Ruth Richards and Saybrook University

Denita Benyshek is a professional artist and doctoral candidate in the psychology of spirituality and consciousness at Saybrook University. Benyshek shares the life events that led her to study at Saybrook. She describes the serendipitous meeting with her future mentor, Ruth Richards, an eminent scholar on creativity. A metaphor from chaos theory, the butterfly effect, illustrates how one comment from Richards led Benyshek into an international network of scholars, conference presentations, and publications. Mentors are compared with gifted educators and gifted mentorship is discussed. Saybrook University's role, as a gifted institutional mentor, is considered and recommendations are made, including an endowed chair in creative studies, teaching assistantships, conference travel grants, courses in professional practices, and additional support for the essay and dissertation proposal process. Benyshek also proposes a new, innovative program for Saybrook - a master of fine arts degree in transpersonal, humanistic, and socially transformative arts. Finally, ideas for future studies of mentorship are offered.

Improving public health training and research capacity in Africa: a replicable model for linking training to health and socio-demographic surveillance data

Background: Research training for public health professionals is key to the future of public health and policy in Africa. A growing number of schools of public health are connected to health and socio-demographic surveillance system field sites in developing countries, in Africa and Asia in particular. Linking training programs with these sites provides important opportunities to improve training, build local research capacity, foreground local health priorities, and increase the relevance of research to local health policy.Objective: To increase research training capacity in public health programs by providing targeted training to students and increasing the accessibility of existing data.Design: This report is a case study of an approach to linking public health research and training at the University of the Witwatersrand. We discuss the development of a sample training database from the Agincourt Health and Socio-demographic Surveillance System in South Africa and outline a concordant transnational intensive short course on longitudinal data analysis offered by the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Colorado-Boulder. This case study highlights ways common barriers to linking research and training can be overcome.Results and Conclusions: This collaborative effort demonstrates that linking training to ongoing data collection can improve student research, accelerate student training, and connect students to an international network of scholars. Importantly, the approach can be adapted to other partnerships between schools of public health and longitudinal research sites.

Scrutinizing the balance: parental care versus educational responsibilities in a changing society

This paper focuses on the pedagogical responsibilities of parents and schools, as well as the care provided by socializing agencies and local communities. A review of the literature has been carried out on the tasks of schools and parents and the relations between education, parenting and care in a changing society in eight countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, England, France, Sweden and the United States. In addition, an email survey among international experts in Europe and the United States through the European Research Network about Parents in Education and the International Network of Scholars was conducted. This paper presents the results of both studies.

Collaboration and the World Christian Database

The World Christian Database is an online electronic product of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (CSGC) at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. Interdisciplinary in nature, the Center integrates religion, history, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, missiology, demography, and other disciplines in the study of global Christianity. The Center has developed an international network of scholars and informants dedicated to studying global Christianity and plans a series of publications on global Christianity via books, journals, and encyclopedias. A further aim is to apply the research of the Center in assisting churches in their strategic planning. Expounding the research cycle of the Center provides a view into the sources, methodology, and design of the World Christian Database.