Here is a selection of titles recently added to our collection.
Così fan tutte, an opera of mimetic revelation /Isabel Díaz-Morlán Così fan tutte, the opera by Mozartand Da Ponte, features two couples as protagonists that noticeable resemble couples from classical literature, including Ovid’s Collatinus and Lucretia, Cervantes’ Anselmo and Camila, and Shakespeare’s Leonatus and Imogen. In this book, Díaz-Morlán reads these characters through the lens of René Girard’s theory of unconscious mimetic desire to argue that their stories are an expression of a truth about human behavior. The book begins by exploring the sources of the libretto, comparing them with each other and with the libretto itself, to detect the themes that could reveal in the opera the mechanism of mimetic desire. This offers the groundwork for the analysis of key moments of the opera, in which the combined action of words, dramatic action and, above all, music, reveal how Ferrando and Guglielmo, Fiordiligi and Dorabella fall into mimetic rivalry, incitement to desire and hypocrisy, always within a méconnaissance that prevents them from recognizing what is happening to them, until the truth is finally unmasked.
Enculturating Christian spirituality : Clement of Alexandria /edited and with commentary by Roger Haight, SJ, Alfred Pach III, and Amanda Avila Kaminski. Clement of Alexandria represents Christianity at the end of the second and early in the third century. He reminds us of the pervasiveness of Greek culture at the time of Jesus that accompanied Roman imperium in the East. The New Testament was written in Greek even though its content was Jewish and appealed back to Jewish history.
Enlightened spirituality : Immanuel Kant, Paul Tillich, and Reinhold Niebuhr /edited and with commentary by Roger Haight, SJ, Alfred Pach III, and Amanda Avila Kaminski. This volume presents reflections on the nature of Christian spirituality in the light of Immanuel Kant’s work Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. It also contains two short comments on Kant’s work: Paul Tillich directly engages Kant’s moral philosophy, and Reinhold Niebuhr indirectly addresses him with his reflections on the role of conscience in religious experience. The whole volume rests on the constituent role that morality, and hence ethics, plays in a comprehensive understanding of Christian spirituality. Kant adds to that discussion by introducing the voice of the Enlightenment into the conversation. His work serves as a bridge between the spirituality displayed in the Medieval and Reformation periods and what may be called modern Western culture. Christians who are socialized into twenty-first century Western intellectual culture may be relatively unfamiliar with the cultures that spawned the characteristic accents of the spiritual languages that are learned in the churches today. When they move into the world of higher education, they will learn a whole series of ideas from science and critical modern thought that directly challenge the ordinary spiritual conceptions of church traditions. The critical discussion between intellectual culture and Christianity during the period of the Enlightenment was deep and serious, and it helps to explain how the churches in the West relate to present-day intellectual culture. Kant’s text on the metaphysics of morals presents in an exemplary way the deep questions that Christian spirituality faces today with almost laboratory precision. The two commentators neatly draw the conversation into contexts that are closer to life in the world of our time.
From dissertation to Christian book : a guide on using a thesis to produce a readable publication /Ian Darke. Darke has produced a kind of shepherd’s manual intended to lead a dispersed doctoral flock across the plains and through the valleys that lie between the graduated ‘doctor’ and the publishing of his doctoral labours as a fresh, accessible, and well-tuned gift to the reading public.
**TWU Author** From Samarqand to Jaipur : evolving al-Kashi’s approximation to the sine of one degree /Clemency Montelle, Kim Plofker, Glen Van Brummelen. Calculating the sine of one degree, not possible with the tools of geometry alone, was a problem approached frequently in various ways in Hellenistic, Arabic, Persian, and European trigonometry. This book situates the problem and the iterative techniques often used to solve it in the context of Indian trigonometry, focusing on the Sanskrit text and manuscript that form the main subject of th is study: the jyÄcÄpasection of theSiddhÄntakaustubhaofJagannÄtha. This text describes the approaches of JamshÄ«d al-KÄshÄ« and Ulugh Beg of 15th-century Samarqand, and also includes innovations produced by astronomers of Jai Singh&s court in Jaipur. This book contains translations and editions of two recensions of the manuscript’s surviving prose texts, along with analyses of its mathematical content. The authors also trace the textual history of the mathematical methods in both Islamic and Sanskrit mathematical traditions. Of timely interest to scholars in the history of early modern Islamic and Indian mathematical sciences, this book contributes an important text to the literature on the interactions between these cultures.
In accordance with the scriptures : the shape of Christian theology /John Behr. This book explores the shape of Christian theology when seen by beginning from the proclamation of the gospel’in accordance with the Scriptures,’that is, with the Scriptures (the’Old Testament’) unveiled in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, rather than presuming the later framework of’The Bible,’with its distinct two testaments. Drawing upon writings, iconography, and the liturgical life of the church in the early centuries, John Behr shows how the mystery of Christ includes not only the head, the Lord Jesus Christ, but also the whole body of Christ, the church, born in the womb of the Virgin Mother. He also reveals how the scriptural arc from Adam to Christ is recapitulated in our own growth, as human, from passively coming-into-being in mortality to our birth into life through death and deification. The shape that Christian theology takes as it develops in this way presents to us, as Irenaeus puts it, the truth about God and the human being, and how these are united in the one Christ, both head and body.
Successful coaching /Rainer Martens, Robin S. Vealey. This book is a practical guide to effectively handling the duties and expectations involved in coaching scholastic and club athletes and teams. It details how coaches can develop coaching philosophies, objectives, and leadership styles to become strong decision makers and communicators as well as how to use discipline and the creation of a culture of character to motivate athletes and support their maturation, cultural uniqueness, mental health, and well-being. It also describes how to be an organized and skillful team manager and teacher capable of enhancing athletes’ skills and knowledge to meet the physical and mental demands of the sport and educating athletes about healthy nutrition and the dangers of drugs and alcohol to enhance their sport-specific performance and general health.
The invisibility of religion in contemporary art /Jonathan A. Anderson. The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art offers a critical guide for rereading and rethinking religion in the histories of modern and contemporary art. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a marked increase in attention to religion and spirituality in contemporary art among artists and scholars alike, but the resulting scholarship tends to be dispersed, disjointed, and underdeveloped, lacking a sustained discourse that holds up as both scholarship of art and as scholarship of religion. The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art is both a critical study of this situation and an adjustment to it, offering a much-needed field guide to the current discourse of contemporary art and religion. By connecting the work of leading art historians, theologians, philosophers, and sociologists, Anderson uncovers the gaps and reveals opportunities for scholars to engage more fully with the theological grammars, histories, and concepts at play in modern and contemporary art. By addressing the religious blind spots in existing scholarship, Anderson opens new lines of inquiry and invites deeper dialogue among religious studies, theology, and art history and criticism.
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