Visual communication in modern Indian paintings relies heavily on symbols to convey meanings that go beyond simple or literal representation. These symbols come from various sources, such as cultural memories, mythology, personal gender experiences, social and political conditions, and the personal stories of artists. Together, these elements create a strong visual language through which modern Indian art shares ideas, emotions, and social issues. This paper examines semiotics as a tool for interpreting symbols in visual communication, specifically in modern Indian paintings. The study builds on the semiotic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce, focusing on how visual signs create meaning through representation and interpretation. Using a qualitative research approach, the study conducts semiotic analysis on selected modern Indian artworks to explore the symbolic roles of colour, form, line, space, and imagery. Artists like S. H. Raza, V. S. Gaitonde and F. N. Souza use abstraction and expressive distortion to express themes of spirituality, identity, and existential struggle. Meanwhile, women artists such as Arpita Singh, Gogi Saroj Pal, and Nalini Malani use symbolic imagery to tackle issues of gender, memory, mythology, and social critique. Their artworks show how personal experiences and shared cultural symbols intersect, creating layered and complex visual meanings within modern Indian visual communication. The study highlights the viewer's active role in meaning-making, where interpretation is shaped by cultural background, visual awareness, and personal experiences. The findings indicate that semiotics provides a clear and effective framework for understanding the intricate symbolic systems found in modern Indian paintings. By placing modern Indian art within a semiotic and visual communication context, this research contributes to interdisciplinary discussions and underscores the continuing importance of symbolic interpretation in understanding contemporary visual expression at both national and global levels.

Howard Thurman was a seminal figure in the Christian spiritual formation movement of the mid twentieth century. He is widely considered the spiritual grandfather of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement and played a key role in articulating how the religion and spirituality that Jesus embodied enables one to live liberated lives while living within oppressive and dehumanizing systems. This paper chronicles key moments of the life of Thurman and attempts to articulate some of the major spiritual themes that were the core of his preaching, teaching, and spiritual direction. In conclusion, I provide implications for the importance of Thurman’s teachings in our present political moment.

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic  university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study  methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning  experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to  topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study  highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a  historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a  commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is  significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a  virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

This qualitative case study examined how virtual intergroup dialogue (IGD) courses at a Mid Atlantic university impacted teaching and learning of power, oppression, and justice. Utilizing case study methodology and Critical Race theory (CRT), the research team explored the teaching and learning experiences of four facilitators and three students who taught or participated in IGD courses related to topics of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and religion and spirituality. Findings from the study highlighted challenges that facilitators and students faced while navigating a dominant ideology on a historically white campus, various social identities and educational backgrounds, and sharing a commitment to social justice outside the classroom with those of differing viewpoints. This study is significant because it is one of the first of its kind to document teaching and learning of participants in a virtual IGD course, examined through a CRT lens.

ABSTRACT This article analyses the rise and cultural significance of faith-pop (pop emuni) in Israeli popular music since the early 2000s. It argues that faith-pop has become a central genre within the cultural mainstream, exceeding its religious origins. Drawing on Cultural Studies theory (Hall, Gramsci, Grossberg, Deleuze and Guattari), the article situates the genre within broader social and political transformations, including demographic change and shifting hegemonies. Faith-pop is shown to rework religious traditions through contemporary pop-rock aesthetics while articulating themes of spirituality, doubt, redemption, and transcendence. The article conceptualises faith-pop as a process of religious re-territorialisation, producing a hybrid cultural space appealing to both religious and secular audiences.

Perspectives From Leaders in the Black Community on the Black Maternal Health Crisis: A Qualitative Landscape Analysis.

The research article presents an in-depth exploration of the similarities and differences in the spiritual motifs embedded in the works of two prominent personalities, Zhusup Kopeyuly and Ahmed Yasawi. The primary objective of the article is to identify the unique features and common themes in the spiritual sphere of both authors' works, while also analyzing the influence of their personal and cultural contexts on the formation of these motifs. The study delves into various aspects of spiritual themes, such as mysticism, religious concepts, ideas of spiritual development, and their expression in the poetic and prose texts of both authors. The main emphasis is placed on identifying the peculiarities of each author's approach to spirituality and on discovering common themes that unite their work. The analysis is conducted with consideration of the literary, historical, and cultural characteristics of the periods in which Kopeyuly and Yasawi lived and worked, aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of their spiritual heritage. The study's findings contribute to a nuanced comprehension of the spiritual aspects in these writers' works and enhance our knowledge of the cultural context influencing the formation of spiritual values in their literature.

Abstract Individuals typically experience both good times and adversities in their lives, and being able to bounce back with resilience after challenges contributes to coping and personal wellbeing. Using a health-related applied epistemological approach, this paper explores linkages between resilience and spiritual themes, drawing connections to inform mental health within educational approaches and challenges such as the pandemic. Further, it outlines an innovative tertiary teaching approach focused on building resilience and spirituality for trainee allied health workers within a secular vocational approach to pastoral care. This carefully designed and integrated vocationally influenced learning initiative is explained, as is a subsequent empirical evaluation of participating alumni. Implications of the research findings of this educational initiative are reviewed and discussed in light of linkages between resilience and spirituality, mental health, and societal factors. Further discussions include the way that a vocational initiative in a secular context can cross personal and cultural boundaries to engage in communicating spiritual values of meaning and purpose, in order to support young people as they cope with challenges and transition into their field of work.

Cultural linguistics examines discourse through integrating the culturally-defined, conventional, and contextually situated meaning with the dynamic, momentaneous, and emerging meaning. The poem of Friedrich Hölderlin engages themes such as divinity, homecoming, and the natural world, embodying great philosophical, poetic, and aesthetic value by manifesting the truth of human existential being. From a cultural-linguistic perspective, this paper aims to examine the application of cultural cognitive models in the meaning construction of Hölderlin’s poem Bread and Wine. We first introduced the development of cultural linguistics and its integration into cognitive linguistics theories, and then identified and analyzed four major cognitive models: the propositional model, image-schematic model, metaphoric model, and metonymic model manifested in the poem within the cultural contexts, exploring how they contribute to the poetic meaning construction process. The findings of this paper show that the poetic discourse's meaning is greatly shaped by human cognitive structures and cultural contexts, and different cognitive models rooted in the poet’s embodied experience with the surrounding environment govern the meaning construction process and demonstrate the core poetic themes of humanity, spirituality, and divinity. This study may provide readers with both cognitive and cultural pathways into poetic discourse interpretations. Further research is expected to explore a more comprehensive cultural linguistic model that governs the meaning construction of poetic discourses.

ABSTRACT This paper explores Marlon James’ 2009 novel The Book of Night Women to reflect upon the representation of enslaved women engaging in acts of resistance during the period they were slaves in Jamaica (18th century). Foregrounding a multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological framework, which includes postcolonial theory, Black feminist thought and Caribbean literary criticism, that engages James’ narrative strategies as well as characterization and themes of violence, sexuality and spirituality. This study uses a qualitative methodology that includes textual analysis, comparative literature sensibilities and historical contextualization to investigate the ways James creates female characters as agents who are in conflict with oppressive structures. This research exposes the innovative use of Jamaican patois as a site of linguistic resistance in the novel, examines its complex representation of female agency within the slave economy, and places it within the neo-slave narrative genre. In developing an understanding of the ways women are represented in James, the work also contributes to debates about the capacity of literature to change historical narratives and vested interests. Though offering a complex view of historical enslavement, these insights significantly advance our understanding of how The Book of Night Women navigates language, violence, sexuality and gender.

The book Memoirs of a Survivor is regarded as one of Lessing’s most significant “inner space” books, showing the spiritual theme of individual growth. This paper aims to use Freud’s personality structure theory to make an in-depth interpretation of Doris Lessing’s Memoirs of a Survivor. By analyzing the psychological activities and behavior of the main characters in the novel, this paper reveals the embodiment of Freud's personality structure theory in the novel, and point out the value and significance of Freud’s personality theory in interpreting the book.

This paper presents a comparative psychoanalytic study of Jordan Plevnesh’s avant-garde drama Erigon (1982) and the figure of Hermes from Greek mythology, focusing on themes of identity, spirituality, guidance, and transformation. Using Jungian and Lacanian frameworks, the analysis interprets Erigon’s protagonist, Isidor Solunski, and his canine alter ego as manifestations of archetypal and unconscious dynamics, including the shadow, the Self, individuation, and the mirror stage. The study highlights how Erigon functions as a modernized psychopomp and trickster, paralleling Hermes’s role as messenger, guide of souls, and liminal boundary-crosser. Jungian theory reveals Erigon’s journey as a paradoxical individuation culminating in death-as-transcendence, while Lacanian theory elucidates the fragmentation of identity across the Imaginary, Symbolic, and Real registers, and the perpetual pursuit of desire. The comparison demonstrates that both Erigon and Hermes embody transformational processes that dissolve boundaries between life and death, human and animal, and individual and collective identity. By merging mythic archetypes with postmodern dramaturgy, Plevnesh reimagines the Hermes figure as a vehicle for cultural and spiritual renewal in a fractured European landscape.

The aim of this study is to explore how the “national code,” encompassing cultural values, historical memory, and identity, is represented in Kazakh and Central Asian literature through the lenses of classical narratology and distant reading. The research employs a mixed-method approach that integrates narratological analysis (drawing on Genette’s and Greimas’s frameworks), close and distant reading (including computational text analysis), and data validation through translation cross-checks and visualizations. The study focuses on Central Asian literary texts, revealing distinctive features such as collective narration, nonlinear time structures, and strong national identity motifs. Unlike Western narratives centered on individualism, these works employ epic structures, kinship networks, depictions of nature, and spiritual themes to convey cultural memory. Comparative analysis highlights unique narratological patterns shaped by regional traditions. The findings demonstrate that Central Asian fiction embeds history, tradition, and moral values into narrative form, turning literature into a medium for preserving cultural heritage and fostering national self-understanding. The study underscores the need to adapt classical narratology to culturally specific contexts and suggests pedagogical applications for teaching literature as both artistic expression and a means of civic education.

This study employed a qualitative systematic descriptive literature review, guided by deconstructive theory, to explore the interplay between cultural authenticity and Western influences in modern isiZulu poetry, with a specific focus on the work of Buthelezi. Drawing on Derrida’s concepts of différance and textual instability, the study examined how Buthelezi’s poetry both affirms and questions traditional isiZulu identity in a contemporary context. Modern isiZulu poets, such as Buthelezi, often reference canonical figures like B.W. Vilakazi, yet their intertextual engagement with these predecessors is underexplored. This article analysed thematic and stylistic connections between Buthelezi’s “Lapho Imihla Yami” and Vilakazi’s “Ma Ngificwa Ukufa,” highlighting recurring motifs of death, spirituality, and cultural heritage. While Buthelezi adopts traditional isiZulu poetic forms and diction, he also reinterprets these elements to address present-day socio-cultural issues, thus engaging in a creative dialogue rather than imitation. The review drew from scholarly sources, including peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations, periodicals, and government reports. Inclusion criteria were poems written by Buthelezi or Vilakazi that addressed themes of cultural identity, spirituality, and Western influence, and were accessible in either isiZulu or English. Exclusion criteria included poems lacking thematic relevance, authorship verification, or academic referencing. Therefore, by applying African literary criticism and intertextual theory, this study revealed how Buthelezi’s poetic work repositions Vilakazi’s legacy within a modern framework. The findings contribute to the broader field of African literary studies by demonstrating how intertextuality fosters cultural continuity, creative innovation, and identity formation within isiZulu poetic traditions.

Contemporary environmental crises and revival of spiritual practices have triggered multidisciplinary responses globally. In art education, contemporary female artists increasingly combine ecological consciousness with inner spiritual experiences, using painting as a medium to explore empathetic relationships between self, body, and nature. This study examines how contemporary female artists express ecological and spiritual themes through visual symbolism, analyses the educational potential of ecofeminist art in promoting environmental awareness and explores the social implications of integrating spiritual and ecological consciousness in artistic expression. Through qualitative analysis that combines thematic and visual analysis, this research investigates representative paintings by Gaia Orion and Verena Wild as case studies, examining how their artistic language carries ecological and spiritual meanings. Specifically, this study addresses the gap in understanding how ecofeminist art functions as an alternative pedagogical tool, as this intersection has remained underexplored in art-based pedagogy. The analysis reveals that these works use the female body, natural elements, and cyclical symbols as core visual strategies, responding to ecofeminist critiques of cultural-natural dualism while embodying the integrated "nature-body-sacred" worldview found in feminist theology. The research findings indicate that these artworks serve not only as expressions of personal transformation but also constitute a visual pathway for ecological ethics and feminist subjectivity reconstruction. Through symbolic imagery, sensory composition, and intuitive colour use, they establish an artistic discourse that transcends traditional logic, providing new theoretical reference and aesthetic dimensions for understanding the integration of ecology and consciousness in contemporary female art.

This paper analyzes the theme of morality as the bedrock of F.M. Dostoevsky’s oeuvre, with a specific focus on its manifestation within the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. The study examines the portrayals of the central characters, encompassing the father of the family, four brothers and two female characters. The causality be-tween the inner content of the heroes of the novel and their external data is traced. The analysis of the moral component required an appeal to the theme of spirituality, which appears along with the declared central theme in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov”. The tasks set determined the use of the following research methods: hermeneutic, contextual, comparative. A separate analysis of the Gospel epigraph to the novel, which is the “key” to unraveling the leitmotif of the entire work, was carried out. The heroes are divided into positive and negative, but the duality inherent in almost every hero is noted.

This research explores the intersections of transcendentalism in William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Early Childhood” and Rumi’s The Song of Reed, focusing on their shared themes of spirituality, divine unity, and the human quest for connection with the divine. The study addresses how both works reflect transcendentalist thought, emphasizing individual spiritual experience and the dissolution of the self in divine unity. While transcendentalism advocates for self-reliance and intuition in understanding divine truth, Rumi’s Sufi mysticism similarly stresses an intimate, direct relationship with God. Through comparative analysis, the research highlights how both poets use nature as a metaphor for spiritual awakening and ultimate reunion with the divine. Furthermore, it bridges a gap in academic discourse by emphasize the transformative power of spiritual insight.

This study explores the symbolic meanings embedded in the lyrics of “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin through the lens of Roland Barthes' semiotic theory. The song was selected due to its rich symbolism and the profound philosophical messages conveyed through both its lyrical content and musical structure. The primary aim of this research is to uncover how Led Zeppelin constructs and conveys their artistic identity through symbolic elements that engage with themes of spirituality, existentialism, and critiques of materialistic culture. Employing a qualitative research method with a descriptive-interpretative design, this study draws data from official lyric documentation, musical references, and media archives. The analysis focuses on three layers of meaning in the lyrics: (1) denotation as literal meaning, (2) connotation as emotional and cultural significance, and (3) myth as an ideological narrative. The findings reveal that the symbol of the "stairway to heaven" functions as a critique of consumerism; the crossroads symbolize existential freedom; and natural imagery evokes a sense of spiritual connection to the natural world. Together, these symbols construct a modern myth that demonstrates how Led Zeppelin not only produced music but also engaged in cultural storytelling that is both philosophical and introspective. The song ultimately reflects the band’s identity as an artistic entity that transcends entertainment, inviting listeners to contemplate life’s deeper meanings through metaphor and symbolic representation.