Scholarly Conversation Research Articles

What It Means to Be Human: A Response to Harzheim.

This response engages critically with Harzheim's review of Thomas Fuchs' In Defense of the Human Being: Foundational Questions of an Embodied Anthropology. Fuchs' work offers a profound exploration of embodied cognition, arguing that human cognition and existence are deeply shaped by our physical interactions. Harzheim's critique highlights significant aspects of Fuchs' framework, including his critique of functionalist models, the impact of transhumanist technologies, and ethical concerns in healthcare technology. This paper extends Harzheim's review by proposing an integration of functionalist and embodied cognitive models, emphasizing the need for a comprehensive evaluation of technological impacts, and advocating for a more robust ethical framework that considers social equity. Additionally, it addresses the is-ought distinction and explores the implications of technological advancements on human identity and mental health. Doede's critique is also discussed, underscoring the importance of integrating diverse cognitive models and addressing technological determinism. Overall, this response calls for a more nuanced and inclusive approach to the discourse on embodied cognition, aiming to enrich the scholarly conversation and address the complexities and implications of Fuchs' analysis.

How Modern is the Persianate? Aesthetics and Politics of a Scholarly Category

ABSTRACT The introduction to this forum on Alexander Jabbari’s monograph The Making of Persianate Modernity (2023) introduces the scholarly conversation about Persianate literary modernity that has recently developed, and clarifies Jabbari’s role in drawing these conversations together into a coherent subfield. The article situates this book in the historiography of the Persianate as a conceptual category and an object of critique, with particular attention to its extension into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and to the politics of Persianate modernity as a category for post-Cold War scholarship in the West and beyond.

Navigating hidden borderlands: the role of cultural heritage for black African refugee students in American higher education

ABSTRACT In this conceptual paper, we advance a scholarly conversation about Black African refugee students in the United States. Although agreeing on a universal definition of a refugee is conceptually challenging, for the sake of focus, we define refugees as: individuals who have encountered forced migration, who have lived in the U.S. for less than five years, and who are not yet eligible for U.S. citizenship. While there are also Asian, European, Latin American, and South American refugee groups living in the United States, our paper focuses on Black African refugee students because the anti-Black racism of U.S. society positions them distinctly. Overall, we observe that Black African refugees exist in a metaphorical borderland that hides and (dis)locates their existence. While living within this borderland, Black African refugees engage in different mobilities and tap into their social network capital through cultural heritage. Cultural heritage, which includes both tangible and intangible artifacts, can be a source of psychological and social resilience, buttressing resettlement and reconstruction of identity. We also argue that Black African refugee students exhibit agentic, encouraged, and necessitated hiddenness. We conclude with a closer look into how this population may help higher education scholars arrive at liberatory possibilities that have implications for higher education research. Specifically, we recommend explicitly focusing on refugee student needs, crafting a culturally responsive curriculum and instructions, and facilitating relationships with refugee-supporting community organizations.

Collective Housing Tenure in Global Perspective: Articulations across the South/North Divide

Though rich literatures exist on housing models using collective tenure in both the Global South and Global North, research across these geographies is rarely in the same scholarly conversation, and the field uses a variety of imprecise keywords. I put forward “collective housing tenure” as a global keyword to describe this family of programs. I outline the institutional forms of several models around the world, the theoretical frameworks scholars employ to understand them, and findings emerging from empirical research. I find several articulations between the models across South-North geographies, which invites further investigations into collective housing tenure as a traveling policy.

A Semantic Study of the Beautiful Names of Allah and His Supreme Attributes

the correct understanding of God Almighty is not only the most necessary but the primary prerequisite of religious life, and knowledge of His names and attributes is also connected with this comprehension. Nonetheless, knowledge in this area has never been without significant and stormy adversities whereby many notions related to the names and attributes of God have become displaced and misinterpreted over time. Since Arab accent is crucial in appropriate understanding of these subjects Arabic is thus a powerful and key tool for dealing with these issues. Arabic language is relevant in this study in light of the fact that it is very relevant in crafting right conceptions of the aforementioned concepts. The language’s ignorance has led to many misunderstandings. The research entitled: ‘A Semantics Investigation of the Beautiful Names of Allah and the Supreme Qualities of Allah: A Pragmatic Analysis of Sahih Al Bukhari’. The importance of this issue cannot be overemphasized because it restores the original methodology of the early generations of approaching the understanding of the names and attributes of God. The purpose of this work is to recall the intentions of the first generations in the recognition of God’s names and qualities. I hope that this work helps fulfill the reason for the creation of humanity and jinn, as stated in the Quran: Thus, the Quran says:. existing and based,"Upon the authority of Allah, it stated: “And I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me” Quran 51:56. For this study I carried out a comprehensive study of Sahih Al-Bukhari and its explanations and Arabic dictionaries for all the information on the topic to be sourced. It is made up of two major parts and is followed by the introduction and preface and contains findings from the study. Based on the method used in this piece of research, the analysis is analytical, because it is only possible to choose hadiths that are most discussed in scholarly conversations due to the fact that there is a large number of prophetic hadiths that refer to the names and attributes of Allah.

When generative artificial intelligence meets multimodal composition: Rethinking the composition process through an AI-assisted design project

This study explores the integration of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) design technologies, including Adobe Firefly and DALL·E, into the teaching and learning of multimodal composition. Through focus group discussions and case studies, this paper demonstrates the potential of GenAI in reshaping the various stages of the composition process, including invention, designing, and revising. The findings reveal that GenAI technologies have the potential to enhance students’ multimodal composition practices and offer alternative solutions to the wicked problems encountered during the design process. Specifically, GenAI facilitates invention by offering design inspirations and enriches designing by expanding, removing, and editing the student-produced design contents. The students in this study also shared their critical stance on the revision process by modifying and iterating their designs after their uses of GenAI. Through showcasing both the opportunities and challenges of GenAI technologies, this paper contributes to the ongoing scholarly conversations on multimodal composition and pedagogy. Moreover, the paper offers implications for the future research and teaching of GenAI-assisted multimodal composition projects, with the aim of encouraging thoughtful integration of GenAI technologies to foster critical AI literacy among college composition students.

Reimagining anti-racist translingual pedagogy through multilingual international students’ digital counter-storytelling practices

ABSTRACT Informed by the current scholarly conversations surrounding linguistic racism, this paper investigates anti-racist translingual practices within the context of a college multilingual writing classroom. Fusing translingualism and critical race theory, the paper underscores the significance of translingual digital storytelling as a critical and creative practice of counter-storytelling. Based on a case study of the translingual digital stories created by nine multilingual international students, the paper explores the potential of these stories in combating linguistic racism and inferiority complexes. I begin by framing the issue of linguistic racism within multilingual education, emphasizing the perils of racial marginalization and discrimination experienced by multilingual international students. I then explore how the multilingual students in this study have utilized a range of linguistic repertoires and multiple modalities to document and resist their lived experiences with race and racism. Based on my analysis of the students’ digital stories, I conclude this paper with pedagogical implications for integrating translingual digital storytelling into anti-racist teaching and learning.

Editor bias and diversifying psychology: Commentary on Sharpe (2024).

Sharpe (2024) draws attention to the role that editors may play in perpetuating bias in the published psychological literature. While Sharpe focuses on perspective-related diversity in reducing such bias, I argue that identity-related diversity is paramount. Editors play an important role in diversifying the scholarly conversation by recruiting diverse reviewers and providing clear and encouraging feedback on submissions. Further, enhancing the identities represented in the scholarly conversation is crucial to ensuring that editorial decisions are well-informed, that published science is of high quality, and that published literature is less biased. In addition to bringing scholarly expertise, editors must embrace a compassionate, humble, and courageous stance in their role as gatekeepers for our science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Using Positionality to Address Student Bias in Information Seeking

ABSTRACTWhile participating in the information search process, students are instructed to choose credible sources for their research. They often interpret this imperative as simply avoiding bias in the sources they choose. Unfortunately, students misunderstand bias and fail to recognize its significance in the scholarly conversation. One way librarians can help with this misunderstanding is by engaging with theoretical concepts such as positionality theory. Positionality theory offers librarians a way to examine bias's function in the research process in order to teach students about its complexity.While bias and positionality are concepts that have been explored in information literacy research, most research does not address them as related topics. This poster explores notions of bias, positionality theory, and strategies to employ that will help librarians use this theory to address student misunderstandings around questions of bias and credibility. This new understanding helps students determine their own positionality when approaching information searching.

The fall and rise of sovereignty

The aftermath of the Cold War signalled a decline of the international norm of sovereignty. The ‘triumph’ of the Liberal International Order during a brief unipolar moment challenged traditional principles of sovereignty, notably non-intervention. However, recent years have seen a resurgence of affirmations of sovereignty in political discourse, coinciding with a broader narrative on the Liberal International Order’s erosion. This article attempts to make sense of this fall and rise of sovereignty. Motivated by genealogical concerns, it historicises political and scholarly conversations on the concept. First, it examines the perceived decline of sovereignty following the Cold War. Second, it traces the proliferation of sovereignty discourses in the European 2000s and 2010s back to debates surrounding the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. Third, it explores the concept of sovereigntism, charting its move from political discourse into academic debates. Finally, the article concludes with a reflection on the trajectory of sovereignty in a post-Liberal International Order world.

Examining the Varied Culinary Practices and Nutritional Patterns: A Comprehensive Analysis of Eating Habits Amongst Student Populations in Educational Settings

Comprehensive bibliometric analysis represents an in-depth exploration of the dynamic and evolving landscape of research concerning eating habits among students, leveraging insights extracted from a vast dataset comprising 563 Scopus-indexed publications spanning diverse academic disciplines. Contrary to anticipated trends, the study's findings reveal a surprising absence of discernible patterns in the convergence of eating habits within the examined literature. This unexpected revelation challenges existing assumptions and underscores the fluidity and complexity of scholarly inquiries into the dietary behaviors of students. Notably, Spain emerges as a crucial contributor, assuming a leadership role in the distribution of documents related to eating habits, thereby highlighting its substantial influence in shaping the global discourse on this pertinent subject. Moving beyond a conventional panoramic overview, this study delves into the intricate fabric of relationships and collaborations within the domain of eating habits research among students. Unraveling these complex dynamics provides nuanced insights into the significant authors, organizations, and seminal papers that have played instrumental roles in advancing the knowledge base within this realm. The dual-focus approach not only enriches our understanding of the multifaceted research terrain but also highlights key contributors and influential organizations that have made noteworthy strides in shaping the discourse on eating habits among students. Furthermore, the analysis identifies essential keywords such as "body mass," "obesity," and "stress" with a notably high frequency of occurrence. These keywords serve as thematic markers, indicating the central dimensions of the scholarly conversation surrounding student dietary behaviors. This revelation underscores the critical relevance of these themes in the existing literature and points towards avenues for further exploration and investigation. By adopting a bibliometric approach, this study not only provides a comprehensive snapshot of the current state of research on eating habits among students but also offers a roadmap for future exploration, emphasizing key contributors, themes, and the intricate collaborative networks that define this evolving field. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike stood to benefit from the nuanced insights gleaned from this expansive analysis, contributing to a more holistic understanding of the multifaceted aspects of student nutrition.

Principles of Teaching and Learning from the Bhagavad Gita: A Thematic Analysis

This article explores principles of teaching and learning found within the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text. After an in-depth thematic hermeneutic analysis of two translations of the text, we found eight themes, including the disciple’s role: questioning and emulating the Guru; the Guru’s role: teaching as the supreme act of love; learning as Enlightenment; ultimate Self-knowledge as Self-realization; taming the mind through meditation; action superseding inaction in learning; devotion and effort as prerequisites to learning; and detachment from the outcomes of learning. Among our most prominent findings are insights regarding teacher and learner motivation and the centrality of effort to learning. We hope this paper adds to scholarly conversation surrounding the Gita and enriches education philosophy generally.

‘God is an equal opportunities employer- pity about the Church’: humour and the campaign for women’s ordination in the Church of England, 1978–1994

ABSTRACT This article seeks to untangle the relationship between religion, humour, and feminism by analysing the humour which underscored the campaign for women’s ordination in the Church of England. By examining the wordplay, the cartoons, and the physical objects through which humour was expressed, this article highlights the creativity which underscored the activism of these lesser-known activists. Through centring the experiences of these religious activists, this article extends existing scholarly conversations which seek to diversify understandings of who and what should be considered part of the ‘women’s movement’.

(Re)Appraising Our Archival Identity: Demystifying the Process and Changing the Dialogue about Promotion and Tenure for Academic Archivists

ABSTRACT Within the archival discourse, there has been minimal research or dialogue about the processes and experiences for academic archivists associated with earning promotion and tenure. Recent reviews of the literature suggest that this topic remains largely unexplored in archivists’ professional and scholarly conversations, despite its pivotal influence on job security, advancement, and identity for those working in academia. This article intends to explain and demystify the procedures and best practices for navigating promotion and tenure by providing guidance and insight for archivists throughout their careers. Furthermore, the authors aim to expose the culture of silence surrounding the promotion and tenure process for archivists while also underscoring the power dynamics involved in evaluation activities. This research explores how these actions have impacted historically underserved and marginalized groups and encourages our archives community to counter these forces through professional awareness and by embracing and applying diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and accessibility principles. The authors advocate for a framework that solidifies, clarifies, and encourages increased transparency in the promotion and tenure process and offer profession-wide recommendations to help make this change. Finally, this article serves as a call to action for rethinking our professional identity by championing our collective contributions to the higher education landscape and distinguishing the specialized expertise of archivists from that of our librarian colleagues in the academy.

Introduction

Games as multifaceted cultural artifacts have repeatedly intertwined with music. The article explores this relationship within European culture. Case studies from the tenth to the twentieth century outline the evolution of music’s conceptualizations and their manifestations in games. By examining this, the study not only suggests their influence on cultural and intellectual developments, but also underscores the significance of nondigital games in constructing and disseminating concepts about music as well as for a history of ludomusicology. Vice versa, it suggests that scrutinizing historical and cultural backgrounds and the socio-historical milieus that shaped play cultures enriches the understanding of historical and contemporary music games. Our tentative overview stresses the need for further dedicated studies on the history of music and games both in Western and in global cultures to uncover the ways in which these two domains interact and inform each other, and thus to broaden the scholarly conversation around music and games.

The Textual Demiurge: Social Status and the Academic Discourse of Early Christian Forgery

AbstractThis article reconsiders the classed and gendered construction of the Author in the Roman Mediterranean, a construction that generates the intertwined notions of authorship and authenticity. Modern scholarly conversations about authorship and pseudepigraphy in the Roman Mediterranean often proceed from the uninterrogated assumptions that (a) ancient texts (including early Christian texts) were the monographic products of solitary authors and (b) everyone in antiquity, regardless of gender or class, had access to the status of being an ‘Author’. While conversations about (in)authentic textual production extend beyond the works that become part of the New Testament, these twin assumptions form the basis for modern debates about ‘forgery’ in New Testament literature. This article challenges both assumptions by first surveying the role of uncredited collaboration in Roman literary culture and then analysing ancient Christian discourses surrounding (a) illicit textual meddling and (b) inappropriate textual ascription. These two discursive categories reveal how the categories of class and gender are entangled with early Christian ideas of the Author. Ancient discourses of authenticity and authorship were not simply about who produced texts but about policing which acts of textual production count as ‘authoring’.

Demystifying the Discourse: Techniques to Effective Academic Writing

Academic writing is a distinct style of communication with its own set of conventions and purposes. It goes beyond simply expressing personal opinions to engaging in a scholarly conversation, critically analysing existing knowledge, and presenting well-reasoned arguments supported by evidence. This paper aims to unpack the often-opaque world of academic writing, presenting a toolbox of techniques for writers to craft clear and impactful texts. Drawing on genre theory developed by Miller (1984), the study will analyse common academic writing structures and the rhetorical moves employed within them. Genre theory offers a valuable framework for untangling the complexities of academic writing. Using a critical literature review methodology, the paper will synthesize existing research on effective academic writing strategies. This analysis will identify key elements such as establishing context, presenting arguments, and integrating sources. The paper is designed to be accessible to a broad audience, providing writers with the tools and frameworks necessary to not only understand academic writing but also to confidently participate in scholarly conversations.

Host country nationals and cultural intelligence: from two distant scholarly conversations to a joint line of inquiry

PurposeThe stand-alone scholarly conversations on host-country nationals (HCNs) and cultural intelligence (CQ) have developed over decades but have remained distant from each other. This paper aims to bridge them and explain why such a link can offer an initial understanding of HCNs’ CQ and yield new insights that could enrich and extend existing knowledge in the two literature streams.Design/methodology/approachThis conceptual paper establishes a set of arguments that explain why and how the scholarly conversations on HCNs and CQ can be bridged. The authors supplement these arguments with three specific avenues for research that can guide new scholarly inquiry. Each avenue is accompanied with specific research questions that the authors find promising for generating new insights into issues related to HCNs’ CQ.FindingsThe two scholarly conversations that the authors link are strong, vibrant and mature. Each has yielded substantial conceptual and theoretical insights and produced rich empirical evidence. They have, however, remained relatively separate from each other. To bring them together, the authors propose three avenues by considering the role of HCNs’ CQ: in their cultural adjustment, for knowledge sharing and when supporting expatriates. The authors outline the implications of such studies for HCNs’ careers, performance and well-being, for the subsidiaries that constitute their immediate work environment and, for multinational corporations as HCNs’ broader organizational settings.Originality/valueCQ is an important enabler of effective intercultural interactions in culturally diverse settings, precisely the types of encounters that HCNs have with their expatriate colleagues. Surprisingly, the HCN literature has not crossed paths with CQ research in a substantial manner. The authors rectify this by establishing that bridging the two conversations is meaningful and has a high potential for deepening the understanding of HCNs’ CQ as an under-researched but important phenomenon.

Debt on the Ground: The Scholarly Discourse of Bankruptcy and Financial Precarity

A rich literature uses law and social science methods to better understand household financial distress and overindebtedness both inside and outside of bankruptcy. This scholarship contributes to several ongoing scholarly conversations, such as those on income and wealth disparities across race and class, how people live in circumstances of financial precarity, why people turn to the legal system to solve their problems, and how to improve access to justice so people can get the help they need. We first review the current literature about who files bankruptcy, the contributors to people's need to file bankruptcy, what happens to them in bankruptcy court, and what happens after their bankruptcy cases conclude. We then outline a research agenda of low-hanging fruit that will contribute to broader sociological and sociolegal research agendas, including economic mobility, aging, gender studies, health studies, family studies, social psychology, and policy work.

Enhancing Women's Commuting Experience: A Study of Ladies’ Special Trains in the Mumbai Suburban Railway System

The suburban railway network in Mumbai plays a crucial role in the daily lives of millions of people. To improve safety and comfort for female commuters, Ladies’ Special Trains have been introduced. This research paper undertakes a comparative analysis of Ladies’ Special Trains and conventional local trains, examining their historical backgrounds, developmental trajectory, and influence on the commuting experiences of women. Through the evaluation of safety, comfort, and convenience, we analyse the advantages and disadvantages of both transportation methods to inform future enhancements. The results of this study make a valuable contribution to the scholarly conversation and provide valuable insights for policymakers, transportation authorities, and civil society organizations involved in promoting inclusive and secure mobility solutions in Mumbai.