Lutheran University Research Articles

Teaching the Physics of Energy While Traveling by Train

Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, WA) is renowned for the number of its courses that offer international and study-away opportunities. Inspired by the theme of sustainability, and my growing concern about the environmental impact of conventional fuels, I offered a course, Physics of Energy, for the first time during PLU's January 2011 term (a one-month semester). The two-week travel portion of the course took students on the Amtrak Coast Starlight train route from Tacoma, WA, to Los Angeles to study various forms of energy production. Students studied physics topics in the classroom, through hands-on activities, by traveling to energy research and production facilities, and while working on their interdisciplinary term projects. The course, which utilized local talent and focused on sustainability, provided a positive physics learning experience for majors and non-majors alike.

An Action Research Projects Impact On Teachers Leadership Attitudes And Perceptions

California Lutheran University is a regional site for the California Reading and Literature Project (CRLP). In 2010, CRLP began a two-year longitudinal study to examine the effects of participating in an institute called Reframing Teacher Leadership: Action Research Study Group had on PreK-12 teachers attitudes and perceptions. The foundation underpinning this study is the New Framework for Teacher Leadership. This study examines the impact that participating in the Action Research Group had on teachers attitudes and perceptions. Mixed-methods were used to analyze participants feedback through surveys and fieldnotes. Results confirmed the claim made by educational researchers that action research empowered teachers to have a greater stake in curriculum and instructional decisions and provided them with a framework to improve their pedagogical practices.

Creating a Culture of Good Writing

Following American Sociological Association’s recommendations for a cumulative curriculum in sociology, sociology faculty at Pacific Lutheran University created cumulative writing competencies to integrate writing into the curriculum on a department level. In this article, I explore the rationale for this programmatic approach to writing, describe the process by which we developed cumulative writing competencies in our major, discuss implementation, and describe our plans for assessment. The writing competencies emphasize that good writing is about more than good grammar; it also requires clear and complex thinking. This model of writing instruction offers students an opportunity to develop their writing skills in a sequential, intentional, discipline-specific way.

Religious and Spiritual Factors in Depression

Religious and Spiritual Factors in Depression

The Value of Offering Sacrifice for the Dead in the Thought of the Fathers of the Church

The Value of Offering Sacrifice for the Dead in the Thought of the Fathers of the Church Christian D. Washburn The practice of offering private prayers and the sacrifice of the Mass for the dead was a controversial topic in the sixteenth century and continues to be an important ecumenical question. Both Lutheran and Reformed theologians of the sixteenth century, for example, admitted the antiquity of the practice but denied that it had an apostolic foundation.1 Moreover, these theologians denied that the purpose of 1 Philipp Melanchthon states: “We know the ancients spoke of prayer for the dead.” Apology of the Augsburg Confession, 24:94, 24:69, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, trans. Charles Arand et al. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2000) 275, 269. Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586) holds that prayers for the dead were unknown in the time of the apostles and were introduced “little by little . . . into the church” but does not appear to deny that the prayers for the dead were the universal practice of the Christians in the postapostolic period. Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 3, trans. Fred Kramer (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1971-1986) 262-263. Calvin’s judgment is considerably more severe, “When my adversaries , therefore, raise against me the objection that prayers for the dead have been a custom for thirteen hundred years, ask them, in turn, by what word of God, by what revelation, by what example, is this done?” Again, “But the observance of it in the Church is of the highest antiquity. . . . I admit that the fathers themselves were also carried off into error. For heedless credulity commonly deprives men’s minds of judgment.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Library of Christian Classics, vol. 20, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960) 3.5.10, vol. 1, pp. 681, 682. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.5.10, vol. 1, pp. 682, 683. Protestant theologians offered various explanations for how this practice entered the Church. Chemnitz, for example, argues that prayers for the dead were derived “from a certain natural disposition of the human mind,” such as “human affection,” or from a desire to preserve something of the good within pagan culture, but modified “in the direction of Christian piety.” Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, vol. 3, 262-263. Calvin asserts that prayers for the dead entered into Christian thought not only on account of “public custom,” and “common ignorance,” but Christians also did it “lest they should seem to have cast Antiphon 16.3 (2012): 154-178 155 The Value of Offering Sacrifice for the Dead these prayers was to assist the dead, arguing instead that they were conducted merely for the benefit of the living.2 On the other hand, the Council of Trent quite clearly insisted that prayers for the dead were derived from “Holy Scripture” and the “ancient tradition of the fathers,” and further claimed that the poor souls in Purgatory “are aided by the suffrages of the faithful, and principally the acceptable sacrifice of the altar,” so that “they might be liberated from the fire of purgatory.”3 This article seeks to examine the teaching of the Fathers of the Church on the purpose of offering prayers and sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of the Mass, for the dead. This article will include an examination of different aspects of this question including: those for whom prayers and sacrifice can be offered, the purpose of praying and sacrificing for the dead, the way in which these prayers and sacrifices assist, and finally the way that different types of sacrifices help the dead. away all concern for them.” Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.5.10, vol. 1, pp. 682, 683. For a recent ecumenical approach see The Hope of Eternal Life: Common Statement of the Eleventh Round of the U.S. Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, ed. Lowell G. Almen and Richard J. Sklba (Minneapolis: Lutheran University Press, 2011). 2 Chemnitz’s explanation: “For there can be many other reasons and far other purposes for such prayer...

David Origanus's Planetary System (1599 and 1609)

David Tost, better known as Origanus (Glatz, 1558 - Frankfurt an der Oder, 1628), Professor of Greek and mathematics at the Lutheran University of Frankfurt an der Oder from 1586, was renowned in his time for his ephemerides, Ephemerides novae (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1599), for the years up to 1630, and Ephemerides Brandeburgicae (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1609), for the years up to 1655. His contribution to astronomical theory and cosmology was less important than his calculations, and it was overshadowed by the achievements of the major Copernicans of his day, Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei. For this reason, his name appears only rarely in the history of astronomy. Nonetheless, his views are worthy of closer consideration, in particular those concerning the planetary system and the motion of the Earth. It should be remarked that the time when he investigated these issues was an extraordinary period in the history of astronomy: the peak of his scientific activity lies between the publication of Tycho Brahe's De mundi aetherei recentioribus phaenomenis (Uraniborg, 1588) and Nicolaus Raimarus Ursus's Fundamentum astronomicum (Strasbourg, 1588), on the one hand, and Kepler's Astronomia nova (Prague, 1609) and Galileo's Sidereus nuncius (Venice, 1610), on the other.Origanus received his education in Wroclaw (Breslau) and, beginning in 1578, at the University of Frankfurt.1 Hence, it is very likely that he was well acquainted with the Wroclaw humanist milieu attached to the Italo-Hungarian man of letters Andreas Dudith-Sbardellati, the physician Crato von Krafftheim and the mathematician Paul Wittich, all of whom occupy an acknowledged place in the history of early modern scientific culture. Several British mathematicians belonged to this sodalitas as well, notably the Englishmen Henry Savile and Robert Sidney, and the Scotsmen Duncan liddel and John Craig. The last two were both professors at Frankfurt for a period and discussed astronomy not only with Dudith and Wittich but also with Tycho.2 Hence, Origanus should be seen as a participant in the intensive German debate on post-Copernican astronomy. At this stage Frankfurt was closely tied with other Lutheran universities (Wittenberg, Leipzig, Jena, Rostock, Helmstedt) that played an important role in the first dissemination of Copernicus 's astronomy3 In addition, Origanus maintained a correspondence with the imperial mathematician Kepler. For all these reasons, his cosmological considerations are to be seen in the light of the contemporary collective work on planetary theory, cosmology and celestial physics.Origanus 's Change of Mind on Astronomical HypothesesOriganus began his computations in 1592 and had completed them by 1599 when he published his Ephemerides novae.4 He relied on Reinhold's Copernican tables, Prutenicae tabulae (Tubingen, 1551), and presented his ephemerides as a useful implementation of the works of two renowned Copernicans, Johannes Stadius and Michael Maestlin. In contrast to his forerunners, Origanus was not inclined to accept the heliocentric hypotheses as true and was merely interested in the precision of heavenly predictions. He declared it openly:The only thing that helps astronomers to deal with [celestial] motions is the exact derivation of ephemerides from the tables that the most prominent scholars in this discipline recommend. In actual fact, none are presently more correct than the Prussian.5This interpretation of the Copernican hypotheses as merely mathematical tools for astronomical prediction was endorsed by scholars belonging to the so-called 'Wittenberg school', among them Oslander, Melanchthon, Reinhold and Peucer, to mention only a few.6 Origanus thought he could employ Copernican tables for the sake of exact computations and embrace the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology at the same time. In the dedicatory epistle he referred explicitly to the motion of the Sun:Who does not see that the twofold motion of the Sun (annual and daily) produces seasons (winter, spring, summer and fall), days and nights (from which nature greatly benefits) according to its varying relation and height toward the Earth? …

Book Review Forum

Book Review Forum Andrea Broomfield (bio) and Solveig C. Robinson (bio), Forum Editors At the 2009 RSVP Annual Conference in Minneapolis, amid general discussion about book reviews in Victorian Periodicals Review, the idea was floated to create a forum in which contemporary or classic works of periodicals scholarship could be discussed by scholars from different disciplinary or theoretical perspectives. This inaugural VPRBook Review Forum focuses on Dallas Liddle's The Dynamics of Genre(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009). Historian Leslie Howsam and literary critic Linda K. Hughes offer their insights into what Liddle's book offers scholars in their disciplines. We hope their comments—and Liddle's responses—will provide food for thought. Andrea Broomfield, Forum Editors Johnson County Community College Solveig C. Robinson, Forum Editors Pacific Lutheran University Andrea Broomfield Andrea Broomfield is Professor of English at Johnson County Community College, Overland Park, KS. She specializes in culinary history and is author of Food and Cooking in Victorian England: A History(2007). She is currently writing a history of dining aboard the steamship, 1840-1914. Her most recent work includes an article in Gastronomica, "The Night the Good Ship Went Down: Three Meals aboard the Titanic" (2009) and "Food and Cooking in Scotland" for Food Cultures of the World(2011). She is co-editor with Sally Mitchell of Prose By Victorian Women: An Anthology(1996) and has written several article and book chapters on Victorian-era journalism. Solveig C. Robinson Solveig Robinson is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Publishing & Printing Arts Program at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA. She is the author of a number of articles on Victorian publishing history and the editor of A Serious Occupation: Literary Criticism by Victorian Women Writers(2003). Copyright © 2011 The Research Society for Victorian Periodicals

Using an environmental studies capstone to solidify and assess the integration of interdisciplinary learning at Pacific Lutheran University

Pacific Lutheran University restructured the capstone course for its Environmental Studies Program explicitly to foster interdisciplinary integration. Assignments assess the effectiveness of programmatic learning objectives in keeping with the Program’s mission, “…to engage actively and critically the complex relationships between people and the environment, drawing upon integrated and interdisciplinary perspectives.” This final course in the curriculum focuses specifically on the development of integrated and interdisciplinary perspectives. It builds on previous courses in our curriculum by asking each student to explore an environmental issue through the perspectives of at least two disciplines. Students are expected to integrate the methods and content of these two academic perspectives to develop more complete approaches to complex environmental challenges. Final capstone products are a public oral presentation and a 25–50-page academic paper. To accommodate a range of capstone questions and goals, the faculty created three templates from which the students can choose: investigative, interpretive, and advocacy. Two sets of guiding questions facilitate conversations between students and their disciplinary faculty mentors and lead to integrative analyses. Five short writing assignments focus student attention on the issue, chosen disciplines, audience, methodology, and integrative analyses central to their capstones. These assignments catalyze class discussion about the elements of a capstone, evidenced-based arguments from different disciplinary perspectives, and the writing process. The final short writing assignment, which specifically addresses integration, is used as the key programmatic assessment instrument. These changes have increased the quality of student–faculty mentor conversations and enhanced the complexity of classroom discussions and student outcomes.

Radiological evaluation of the patency of duodenal-esophageal anastomosis during a long postoperative follow-up: effectiveness of an alkaline reflux model in rats

Background:Performing experimental studies has played an important role in acquiring knowledge about esophageal carcinogenesis. In this context, the choice of a more reliable experimental model requires proof of its effectiveness in order to lend greater credibility to the results. The objective of this study was to evaluate the patency of duodenal-esophageal anastomosis during long-term postoperative follow-up in rats.Methods:This was an experimental study in which 45 female Wistar rats were used. A side-to-side anastomosis was performed, going from the anterior side of the esophagus to the second duodenal portion. A standardized radiological technique was used to carry out a contrasted radiological study of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum during weeks 4, 12, 20, and 30 after surgery. Different contrast media were used, and the animals were divided into groups, ie, group 1 (100% barium sulfate), group 2 (50% barium sulfate), and group 3 (60% aqueous iodinated contrast media). Contrast radiographs were taken in each group at weeks 4, 12, 20, and 30 after the surgical procedure. The radiographic images were evaluated by two radiologists who were blinded regarding the contrast groups. Macroscopic evaluation of each animal was compared with the radiological findings.Results:Postoperative mortality was 13.33%. The remaining animals were divided into study groups. All the contrast radiological examinations showed evidence of the location of the esophagus, stomach, and proximal portion of the intestine, and demonstrated the laterolateral relationship of the distal esophagus and the duodenum in the epigastric region. Patency of the anastomosis was observed at each examination period. The different contrast media used were able to demonstrate this outcome shortly after the first phase of injection. Necropsies corroborated the radiological findings.Conclusion:Regardless of the contrast agent used, contrasted radiography revealed that side-to-side duodenal-esophageal anastomosis in rats allowed patent communication during long-term postoperative follow-up.

Drift and Genome Complexity Revisited

51Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America, 2Department of Integrative Biology, University of CaliforniaBerkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America, 3Laboratoire de Biome´trie et Biologie Evolutive, Universite´ de Lyon, Universite´ Lyon 1, CNRS, UMR5558,Villeurbanne, France, 4Department of Biology, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, United States of America, 5Department of Biology, University of California Riverside,Riverside, California, United States of America

“Lest we become beasts who devour each other”: A Lutheran Calling to Higher Education in Multi‐Religious Settings1

Abstract: Lagerquist argues that in view of growing American religious diversity and awareness of religious diversity worldwide, Lutheran theology provides warrants for revising educational practice at Lutheran colleges to better serve the students and in the hope of a transformation of church and theology. American Lutheran colleges and universities are suited to this task by their theological heritage, by their educational experience, and by their place within the ecology of their churches.

Free Health Clinic Links College, Church, and Community

Granville Neighborhood Health Center (GNHC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was conceived out of community need and the vision of Risen Savior Lutheran Church, Wisconsin Lutheran College (WLC), and community leaders. GNHC offers free healthcare services monthly to the uninsured and a service-learning and clinical site for nursing and other students at the college.

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

Conceptualizations of Spirituality, Religion, and Faith: Comparing Biblical Notions with the Perspectives of Protestant Christian Students at a Lutheran College

As part of a larger investigation into the spiritual climate at one Lutheran college, we interviewed Protestant Christian students in order to compare their conceptualizations of spirituality, religion, and faith with biblical notions of those concepts. We found that the students’ understandings of those concepts only loosely reflected general understanding within the higher education literature, and a significant disconnect existed between their conceptualizations of the relevant terms and those found in the Bible. In an effort to make meaning of our findings, we discuss existing literature about religious illiteracy as it relates to inherited faith and to the impact of institutional religious affiliation.

Olaf Morgan Norlie: Advocate For Norwegian-American Culture

5 Olaf Morgan Norlie: Advocate For NorwegianAmerican Culture by James S. Hamre The Norwegians came upon the historical arena relatively late. But when they did come they played a leading part, contributing on a large scale to the highest idealism and the soundest material welfare of the world. It is truly remarkable that general histories, as a rule, have so litde to say about Norway and its part in the world's work.. . . It is remarkable, too, that the two lands that have been most signally benefitted by Norwegian idealism and labor, namely, Great Britain and America, should be content with histories that never say one word about the Norwegians and their contribution to the material progress and the pursuit of happiness in these English speaking lands.1 [Columbus] did not give the Norsemen any credit for having shown him the way to the new world. In that respect he is in a class with the average writer of United States history .... The Norsemen contributed their share to making Columbus realize that there was an American continent and they should be given credit for this contribution in the school histories of our land.2 These statements by Olaf Morgan Norlie (1876-1962) in a book published in 1925 reflect his conviction that Norwegian contributions to human developments deserve to be recog125 126 James S. Hamre Olaf Morgan Norlie (1876-1962). Courtesy of St. Olaf College Archives. Olaf M. Norlie: Advocate For Norwegian- American Culture 127 nized and acknowledged.Titled History of the Norwegian People in America, the book is but one. example of his efforts to further such a process. Although interested in the activities of all Norwegians in America and the role they have played in American culture, Norlie 's main focus tended to be on those Norwegian Americans who retained the Lutheran affiliation transmitted from the mother country. Olaf Morgan Norlie was born in Swea City, Iowa, in 1876. He studied at a number of colleges and seminaries, including schools established by Norwegian Americans, as well as several with other origins. He held eighteen academic degrees, both earned and honorary. He earned the Ph.D. degree from the University of Minnesota.3 Norlie 's activities and areas of service indicate that he was a person of varied interests with abilities in a number of fields. In the course of his lifetime he served as a pastor, book editor, college professor, archivist, and statistician, as well as president, secretary, or treasurer of many religious, historical, educational, and statistical societies. One reference describes him as a "tireless collector and compiler of statistical and historical matters in various areas."4 He wrote numerous books, articles, and pamphlets, some of which remained in typed, mimeographed form. His professional career included service as a teacher in public and church schools in Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin (1895-1907); pastor in Atwater, Minnesota (1907-15); editor at Augsburg Publishing House in Minneapolis (1915-19); professor of psychology and sociology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa (1919-28; 1932-41); dean of Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York (1928-32); and librarian at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota (1941 until retirement). He did his writing and statistical work in the context of these various roles.5 Norlie did not confine himself to the study of Norwegian -American life. A polymath, he studied and published in a variety of fields, including psychology and biblical studies. 128 James S. Hamre Psychology was among the subjects Norlie taught at Luther College. In 1924, while he was a professor at the college, he published An Elementary Christian Psychology. The book's foreword states that the Board of Elementary Christian Education of the Norwegian Lutheran Church of America had felt the need for an elementary work on psychology that would present the subject from a biblical point of view. Norlie was selected to write it and the committee representing the board recommended it to ministers, Sunday school superintendents , and teachers involved in elementary Christian education. Norlie stated that the book was called a "Christian psychology" because it attempted "to supplement the science of psychology with the fundamental concepts of the Bible, without prejudice to either the scientific or...

Elias Molee and Alteutonic: A Norwegian American's Universal Language

3 Elias Molee and Alteutonic: A Norwegian American's Universal Language by Marvin G. Slind The history of Norwegian immigration to the United States is full of colorful individuals who made significant contributions to local, regional, and national history. Although some, such as John Albert Thompson (1827-76), better known as "Snowshoe Thompson," had national or international reputations , most are best known in the regions where they finally settled. Still others, moving frequendy from place to place, made contributions that were often unknown to those who came after them. One such individual was Elias Molee (18451928 ). A letter he wrote to the Chicago-based newspaper Skandinaven, dated 31 December 1900, led to the establishment of a Norwegian community in the Palouse, the rich wheat country near La Crosse, Washington. Most of the setders there came from Selbu, Norway, and they named their church and community after their Norwegian home. Molee, however, left before the majority of immigrants arrived, and later generations knew virtually nothing about him. Although his effort to create a Norwegian community was undoubtedly his greatest contribution, it was not his main focus. He wanted to create a universal language, based on Teutonic forms. The language he created, which he eventually called 85 86 Marvin G. Slind Elias Molee (1845-1928). Courtesy of Monte Holm. Elias Molee and Alteutonic 87 Alteutonic, was based on a mixture of Germanie languages and included a system of shorthand that he used even when he wrote in English. It also incorporated his own aversion to capital letters - he wrote only in lower case letters. Although his work in language reform did not succeed, it represents one of the many ways in which Norwegian Americans tried to improve their society in the New World and still keep ties to the old. "MANY SURPRISING ADVENTURES AND DOINGS" The presence of Elias Molee in La Crosse, Washington, marks a significant connection between the Norwegian community there and some of the earliest Norwegian settlements in the Midwest. Molee was born in Muskego, Wisconsin, in 1845. His father, John Evenson Molie, who emigrated in 1839 from Tinn, in Telemark, was one of the earliest farmers in Muskego. John Molie s wedding to Anne Jacobson Einong was the first to be performed at the Muskego setdement and took place in Even Heg's new barn. Anne's sister was the wife of the Civil War hero Colonel Hans C. Heg, and her brother was the pioneer journalist Elias Stangeland.1 Elias Molee was clearly not one to stay in one place for long. In 1863, when he was 18 years old, he attended Luther College. There he became a good friend of Rasmus B.Anderson . Anderson devoted several pages of his Life Story of Rasmus B. Anderson to Molee, noting that "this sketch of Albion Academy students would be sadly defective if I did not mention Elias Molee." Anderson described him as "a young man of extraordinary ambition." 2 Molee spent one year at Luther, from 1863 to 1864. In his autobiography, molee's wandering, he noted, "the year i studied in the lutheran college in decorah, iowa, 1863 and 1864, was the happiest time i have ever enjoyed in my wandering life in this wide, wild, and wonderful world."3 Although he enjoyed his time at Luther and described the school in glowing terms, 88 Marvin G. Slind he was not pleased with the curriculum. He commented: the distinguishing feature of this decorah college was the immense superstitious and dark-aged importance given to the study of the latin, greek and hebrew languages, i did not love latin and greek, i hated them to the bottom of my heart, i heard many other young boys in the college say the same, what boy and girl in the high schools and colleges, who reads this does not hate latin and greek, especially, the stiff latin; that is, if they have tried to learn it, as i did. why not spend our valuable young lives in learning the living german, french, Spanish, Chinese, japanese, or alteutonik? latin and greek are dead languages.4 At Luther, he met a fellow student who greatly impressed him with his intellect. Consequendy, he...

Robert Musil—Ironie, Satire, falsche Gefühle

Reviewed by: Robert Musil—Ironie, Satire, falsche Gefühle Jennifer Jenkins Robert Musil—Ironie, Satire, falsche Gefühle. Herausgegeben von Kevin Mulligan und Armin Westerhoff. Paderborn: Mentis, 2009. 297 Seiten. €44,00. Robert Musil—Ironie, Satire, falsche Gefühle comprises contributions to a December 2005 conference of the same name in Geneva in honor of Musil’s 125th birthday, as well as an additional article by Gerhard Schurz and two presentations of the Musil working group, also based at the University of Geneva. In light of the editors’ allegation of a general dearth of comparative treatments in Musil scholarship from Germany, this volume aims to continue what they view as the tradition of international (that is, especially French-language) Musil research in establishing interdisciplinary or comparative connections to Musil’s work. Many of the collected essays deliver on this front, elaborating Musil’s work in the context of writers and thinkers such as Nietzsche (Jacques Bouveresse), Freud (Catrin Misselhorn, Philip Payne), Max Scheler (Kevin Mulligan), Stendhal (Patrizia Lombardo), Flaubert (Florence Vatan), Kafka (Philip Payne), Karl Kraus (Stéphane Gödicke), and Joseph Roth (Dominik Müller), although almost a third of the essays lack this comparative approach (cf. Villö Huszai’s close reading of an unpublished chapter from Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften dealing with questions of epistemology and auctorial narrative; Stefan Imhoof’s tracing of connections between the concepts of culture and stupidity in Musil’s Vienna and Paris speeches; Armin Westerhoff’s analysis of Musil’s rhetorical strategy in his criticisms of emotions and kitsch; and Bernhard Böschenstein’s investigation of the relationship of time and knowledge in Musil’s shorter works). Although the collection is certainly not alone in offering studies from a comparative perspective among recent additions to the body of Musil scholarship from both Germany and abroad (see for example Daigger & Henninger, 2008 and Feger, 2009), it is the only such collection dedicated solely to Musil’s use of irony and satire. The volume’s [End Page 314] editors hope that their anthology will inspire fellow scholars to analyze Musil’s work from within a comparative framework and that its readers will, as is attempted in the contributions at hand, take up rather than simply analyze the “Denkimpulse” strewn throughout Musil’s œuvre (10). The introduction to the anthology notes that two fundamental questions are too often insufficiently differentiated in discussions of the nature of irony and satire: First the “content” of irony and satire (i.e. what is the object of both?) and second their style (how does one write or speak in an ironic or satirical manner?) This volume chooses, in contrast to Helmut Arntzen’s classic 1960 monograph on Musil’s satiric style, to focus on the former question of the object of Musil’s irony, positing that whereas Musil’s use of irony varies, its objects are always “[die] Dummheiten und Torheiten, die ihre Quelle oft in dem Versuch haben, den Geist dem Leben anzupassen” (8). Central to these considerations is an examination of Musil’s notion of false emotions (“falsche Gefühle”), which the editors identify as comprising the entire spectrum of Musil’s criticism of emotions—targeting that which is, in Musil’s words, “in der Seele unwahr, spukhaft, geglaubt und respektiert, aber nicht gefühlt.” The various contributions range greatly in their style, from the jargon-free and enjoyably readable (Vatan) to the highly conceptual (Mulligan’s and Schurz’s essays, which read like the Begriffsklärungen that they to an extent are). Although connected to one another via their focus on the irony, satire, and false emotions of the volume’s title, the essays demonstrate an impressive range and scope and articulate through their variety of themes and theoretical as well as disciplinary approaches (German studies, Romance literature, philosophy, and comparative literature are all represented here) the interpretive possibilities opened up in Musil’s literary and theoretical reflections on irony, satire, and false emotions, delineating possible routes for future research along the way. This volume will prove a useful source for any scholar of Musil in particular and of irony and satire in general. Jennifer Jenkins Pacific Lutheran University Copyright © 2011 The Board of Regents of...

Reply to Sandra Costen Kunz's "Respecting the Boundaries of Knowledge"

Reply to Sandra Costen Kunz's "Respecting the Boundaries of Knowledge" Paul O. Ingram I am gratified by Sandra Costen Kunz's application of my thoughts on boundary constraints and my call for a Buddhist-Christian-science "trilogue" to her work in spiritual formation within the context of Protestant theological education. Over the past fifteen years I have witnessed numerous examples of what process theologians call "creative transformation" in contemporary science-religion dialogue. To this date, creative transformation has occurred mainly among Christian theologians involved in this particular dialogue. But Buddhists are now beginning to engage the natural sciences in serious conversation. Most of this conversation is with the neurosciences because of Buddhism's strong emphasis on meditation and the fact that the physical realities described in scientific theory imply that nature—from the level of quantum events to the larger-scale structures of the universe—is interdependent and "empty" of permanency. I have argued, as has Kunz, that the New Testament reflects this same view of existence. But it is also true that classical Christian theological tradition, which presupposes Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic substance categories, is in conflict with biblical anthropology and portrayals of God. Process theology, science-theology dialogue, and Buddhist-Christian dialogue have clarified the biblical foundations of Christian faith apart from classical theism, at least among Christian liberal theologians. In my view, it is now time to deepen the process of creative transformation occurring in Buddhist-Christian dialogue by including the natural sciences as a third dialogical partner. Kunz's essay is an example of possibilities of creative transformation and dialogical engagement with the sciences; in her case, the cognitive sciences and Buddhism. She notes that in similarity with most theologians, most scientists are caught up in a Cartesian mind-body dualism. The result is that scientific accounts of mental processes tend to reduce subjective experience to the physical processes occurring in regions of the brain coupled with ignoring what meditators actually say they are experiencing, which scientists sometimes hold to be epiphenomenal. Kunz does not accept this dualism because it not only misrepresents reality, it undercuts the disciplines of spiritual discernment. She argues that combining third-person cognitive [End Page 187] scientific accounts of subjective experiences with Buddhist or Christian first-person descriptions of what is experienced in the disciplines of meditation or contemplative prayer offers a more comprehensive, more accurate account of meditative and contemplative experience. B. Alan Wallace draws a similar conclusion in regard to Buddhist meditation.1 Although acknowledging that Christians have much to learn from Buddhist "discernment practices," distinctively Christian forms of meditation are rooted in the conviction that God's nature as love proclaimed by the historical Jesus is active in any situation. Kunz notes that Christian processes of spiritual discernment engendered by centering and contemplative prayer can be described as "making decisions" that correspond to the sorts of decisions the historical Jesus is portrayed as making in the New Testament: unselfish decisions for the common good. This means that authentic Christian faith is experienced and lived at the boundaries of ordinary conventional concerns. Or, to paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), when God as Jesus experienced God calling a person, God calls that person to his or her death. Sometimes an actual death, but always to life lived at the boundaries beyond mere conventionality. As a Lutheran, I can only agree. Paul O. Ingram Pacific Lutheran University (Emeritus) note 1. B. Alan Wallace, Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). [End Page 188] Copyright © 2011 University of Hawai'i Press

La signification culturelle de Strasbourg pour les Russes au XVIIIe siècle

The present paper focuses on the cultural significance of Strasbourg for Russian people in the eighteenth century. Many Russians travelled through the capital city of Alsace in the eighteenth century, some of them leaving interesting accounts of their visit. Others stayed in town, sometimes for many months or years, in order to study at Strasbourg's prestigious lutheran university. The paper focuses on some of these students, telling about their original social and cultural background, on what and how they studied during their stay in Alsace, and on the consequences which the years spent in Strasbourg had on their personal, intellectual and professional development after they returned to Russia.

Energy conservation programme at Luther college

Energy conservation programme at Luther college