Alloway Library News

News and activities at Norma Marion Alloway Library, Trinity Western University

Category: Religious Studies (Page 30 of 41)

New Titles Tuesday, March 20

March 20, 2018 /

Here is a sample of the nine titles added to the collection in the past week. Click on a title for more information. TWU login may be required.

EDUCATION

Indigenous integration: 101+ lesson ideas for secondary and college teachers /Dr. Adrienne Castellon.  “This book answers the many questions that educators have about how to Indigenize the curriculum. Castellon helps us to move past the struggle of not knowing what to do by showing us how to seize the opportunities and resources that are now existing. This book will help teachers and educators at all levels of learning realize the store of untapped potential for making the curriculum meaningful for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.” Matthew Etherington, Trinity Western University

 

HISTORY

Memory before modernity: practices of memory in early modern Europe /edited by Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, Johannes Müller, Jasper van der Steen. This volume examines the practice of memory in early modern Europe, showing that this was already a multimedia affair with many political uses, and affecting people at all levels of society; many pre-modern memory practices persist until today.

The Netherlands Indies and the Great War 1914-1918 /Kees van Dijk. Van Dijk examines how in 1917 the atmosphere of optimism in the Netherlands Indies changed to one of unrest and dissatisfaction, and how after World War I the situation stabilized to resemble pre-war political and economic circumstances.

RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Awaiting the King: reforming public theology /James K.A. Smith.  Smith examines politics through the lens of liturgy. What if, he asks, citizens are not only thinkers or believers but also lovers? Smith explores how our analysis of political institutions would look different if we viewed them as incubators of love-shaping practices–not merely governing us but forming what we love. How would our political engagement change if we weren’t simply looking for permission to express our “views” in the political sphere but actually hoped to shape the ethos of a nation, a state, or a municipality to foster a way of life that bends toward shalom?  This book offers a well-rounded public theology as an alternative to contemporary debates about politics. Smith explores the religious nature of politics and the political nature of Christian worship, sketching how the worship of the church propels us to be invested in forging the common good. This book creatively merges theological and philosophical reflection with illustrations from film, novels, and music and includes helpful exposition and contemporary commentary on key figures in political theology.

Islam, a challenge to faith [electronic resource]: studies on the Mohammedan religion and the needs and opportunities of the Mohammedan world from the standpoint of Christian missions /by Samuel M. Zwemer. Zwemer was known as the Apostle to Islam and was “one of the most celebrated Protestant missionaries of the twentieth century”. [His book on Islam remains as relevant today as when it was written in 1907.

The trial of Jesus [electronic resource]: illustrated from Talmud and Roman law /by Septimus Buss. In this fascinating little book Buss conducts a forensic analysis of the details of the trial of Jesus against their Jewish and Roman background. It would provide a good starting point for a deeper study of the subject.

 

New titles Tuesday, March 13

March 13, 2018 /

Here is a sample of the 14 items added to the collection in the past week. Click on a title for more information. TWU login may be required.

LITERATURE

Chinese poetry in times of mind, mayhem and money /by Maghiel van Crevel. Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem and Money is a groundbreaking study covering a range of contemporary authors and issues, from Haizi to Yin Lichuan and from poetic rhythm to exile-bashing. Its rigorous scholarship, literary sensitivity and lively style make it eminently fit for classroom use.

The faith of William Shakespeare /Graham Holderness. In this authoritative new study, Holderness takes us through the context of Shakespeare’s life, the times of religious and political turmoil, and looks at what we do know of Shakespeare the Anglican. But then he goes beyond that, and mines the plays themselves, not just for the words of the characters, but for the concepts, themes and languages which Shakespeare was himself steeped in–the language of the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer. Considering selected plays Holderness shows how the ideas of Catholicism come up against those of Luther and Calvin; how Christianity was woven deep into Shakespeare’s psyche, and how he brought it again and again to his art.

George MacDonald: divine carelessness and fairytale levity /Daniel Gabelman. Nineteenth century photographs of MacDonald present a forbidding visage, embodying Victorian-era solemnity. Yet behind the facade, as Gabelman writes, lived a whimsical and fantastical muse. Indeed, MacDonald imbued theological weight through childlike lightheartedness. Gabelman ably reveals in MacDonald’s writings a bridge between playfulness and seriousness in the modern imagination. George MacDonald delivers a balanced reading of its subject that ultimately lends a new theological and literary weight to whimsy.

The great Gatsby /Warner Bros. Pictures in association with Village Roadshow Pictures in association with A&E Television a Bazmark/Red Wagon Entertainment production; produced by Baz Luhrmann A would-be writer, Nick Carraway leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz, bootleg kings, and skyrocketing stocks. Chasing his own American dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby. It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves, and deceits.

A literary mirror: Balinese reflections on modernity and identity in the twentieth century /I Nyoman Darma Putra. A literary mirror is the first English-language work to comprehensively analyse Indonesian-language literature from Bali from a literary and cultural viewpoint. It covers the period from 1920 to 2000. This is an extremely rich field for research into the ways Balinese view their culture and how they respond to external cultural forces. This work complements the large number of existing studies of Bali and its history, anthropology, traditional literature, and the performing arts. A literary mirror is an invaluable resource for those researching twentieth-century Balinese authors who wrote in Indonesian. Until now, such writers have received very little attention in the existing literature.

POLITICAL STUDIES

Rebellion under the banner of Islam: the Darul Islam in Indonesia  / C. van Dijk. The Darul Islam rebellion, striving for the establishment of an Islamic State of Indonesia, broke out in several areas since 1949. The author describes each of these Darul Islam rebellions and identifies some of the factors which may help to explain their outbreak and persistence.

RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Christianity and the Asian revolution [electronic resource] /edited by Rajah B. Manikam. This is a collection of articles about the “Asian Revolution”, that is, the political, economic, social and ideological changes that took place in East Asia in the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

All we leave behind: a reporter’s journey into the lives of others /Carol Off. Tells the gripping story of a family’s desperate attempts to escape Afghan warlords, Taliban oppression, and the persecutions of refugee life, in hopes that both their sons and their daughters could dare to dream of peace and opportunity. In 2002, Carol Off and a CBC TV crew encountered an Afghan man with a story to tell. Asad Aryubwal became key to their documentary on the terrible power of thuggish warlords who were working arm in arm with Americans and NATO troops. When Asad publicly exposed the deeds of one particular warlord, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, it set off a chain of events from which there was no turning back. Asad, his wife, Mobina, and their five children had to flee their home. Their only chance for a peaceful life was to emigrate–yet year after year of agonizing limbo would ensue as they were thwarted by a Byzantine international bureaucracy and the decidedly unwelcoming policies of Stephen Harper’s government. Off’s powerful account traces not only one family’s journey and fraught attempts to immigrate to a safe place, it also illustrates what happens when a journalist becomes deeply involved with the people in her story and is unable to leave them behind.

Cleanliness and culture: Indonesian histories /edited by Kees van Dijk and Jean Gelman Taylor. In Cleanliness and culture attention shifts to Indonesia, in colonial times as well as in the present. Subjects range from the use of soap and the washing of clothes as a pretext to claim superiority of race and class to how references to being clean played a role in a campaign against European homosexuals in the Netherlands Indies at the end of the 1930s. Other topics are eerie skin diseases and the sanitary measures to eliminate them, and how misconceptions about lack of hygiene as the cause of illness hampered the finding of a cure. Attention is also drawn to differences in attitude towards performing personal body functions outdoors and retreating to the privacy of the bathroom, to traditional bathing ritual and to the modern tropical Spa culture as a manifestation of a New Asian lifestyle.

The end of development: a global history of poverty and prosperity /Andrew Brooks  In The End of Development, Brooks makes a provocative argument that inequality is rooted in the very nature of our approach to development itself. Tracing the long arc of human history, Brooks rejects popular environmental explanations for the divergence of nations, showing that the prosperity of the West and poverty of “the rest” stems not from environmental factors but from the dynamics of capitalism and colonialism, which enriched the powers of the global North at the expense of the South. Rather than address the root causes of this inequality, international development strategies have so far only served to exacerbate them, by imposing crippling debts and destructive policies on developing nations. Brooks suggests that this disastrous form of development is now coming to an end, as the emerging economies of Asia and Africa begin to assert themselves on the world stage. In The End of Development he urges that we must seize this opportunity to transform attitudes towards inequality and to develop radical new approaches to addressing global poverty.

Gender, ritual and social formation in West Papua: a configurational analysis comparing Kamoro and Asmat /Jan Pouwer. This study, based on a lifelong involvement with New Guinea, compares the culture of the Kamoro (18,000 people) with that of their eastern neighbours, the Asmat (40,000), both living on the south coast of West Papua, Indonesia. The comparison, showing substantial differences as well as striking similarities, contributes to a deeper understanding of both cultures. The comparison includes a cross-cultural, structural analysis of relevant myths.

New Titles Tuesday, March 6

March 6, 2018 /

Here is a small sample of the 10 books added to the collection in the past week. Click on a title for more information. TWU login may be required.

Contemporary Indonesian film: spirits of reform and ghosts from the past /by Katinka van Heeren. This highly informative book explores the world of Post-Soeharto Indonesian audio-visual media in the exiting era of Reform. From a multidisciplinary approach it considers a wide variety of issues such as mainstream and alternative film practices, ceremonial and independent film festivals, film piracy, history and horror, documentary, television soaps, and Islamic films, as well as censorship from the state and street. This book gives a detailed insight into current issues of Indonesia’s social and political situation, where Islam, secular realities, and ghosts on and off screen, mingle or clash.

Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679): Dutch playwright in the golden age /edited by Jan Bloemendal, Frans-Willem Korsten. Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) was the most prolific poet and playwright of his age. During his long life, roughly coincinding with the Dutch Golden Age, he wrote over thirty tragedies. He was a famous figure in political and artistic circles of Amsterdam, a contemporary and acquaintance of Grotius and Rembrandt, but in general well acquainted with Latin humanists, Dutch scholars, authors and Amsterdam burgomasters. He fuelled literary, religious and political debates. His tragedy Gysbreght van Aemstel was to become the most famous play in Dutch history, and can probably boast holding the record for the longest tradition of annual performance in Europe. In general, Vondel’s texts are literary works in the full sense of the word, complex and inexhasutive; attracting attention throughout the centuries.

Nature as spiritual practice /Steven Chase. Chase offers insight into the spiritual side of nature along with exercises (called practices) that the reader can do to experience this relationship firsthand. The fairly easy practices can be done alone or in a group in a retreat setting. They include contemplative prayer, discernment, occasional scripture reading, and meditation on your relationship with nature. Most compelling is the concluding chapter, “The Green Beatitudes,” where Chase goes through the beatitudes one by one and offers an interpretation of each that relates it to nature. After each interpretation is a section that presents a way for the reader to relate with nature through that beatitude. Those focusing on green theology or these new kinds of spiritual and meditative exercises would especially benefit.

A subgrouping of nine Philippine languages /by Teodoro A. Llamzon ; preface by J.C. Anceaux. Since the appearance of Brugmann’s famous article on the relationships of the Indo-European languages in 1884, the subject of sub­ grouping of languages as a methodological problem has been raised only occasionally. For the Austronesian languages serious attemps to arrive at a lin­guistic classification started relatively late. Certain cases of closer relationships were obvious enough to be recognized very early.

Women in the Bible, Qumran, and early Rabbinic literature: their status and roles /by Peter Heger. Women in the Bible, Qumran and Early Rabbinic Literature explores the different attitudes toward the woman’s guilt for the expulsion from the Garden and human’s calamities and the legal ramifications of her lower social and legal status regarding independence, ownership and membership in the community.

A world of water: rain, rivers and seas in Southeast Asian histories /edited by Peter Boomgaard. This volume contains thirteen essays representing a broad range of approaches to the study of Southeast Asia with water as the central theme.

 

New Titles Tuesday, February 20

February 20, 2018 /

Here is a selection of the 72 books added to the collection in the past week.

This batch includes new BC Open Textbook titles. Our open textbooks are openly licensed using a Creative Commons license, and are offered in various e-book formats free of charge, or print on demand books available at cost. There are currently 228 titles in the collection which covers the top 40 first & second year subject areas in BC’s public post-secondary institutions.  Searching OneSearch with the corporate name “BCcampus”, or the collection name “BC Open Textbook”  or “BC Open Textbook Project” should bring up the entire set of titles.   The collection was funded by the BC Ministry of Advanced Education and managed by BCcampus.

Click on a title for more information; TWU login may be required.

BUSINESS

Principles of marketing  [electronic resource]. Principles of Marketing teaches the experience and process of actually doing marketing – not just the vocabulary. It carries five dominant themes throughout in order to expose students to marketing in today’s environment.

COMMUNICATION

Professional communications OER  [electronic resource]: Modules 1-4 : overiew /by the Olds College OER Development Team. “This is a series of modules intended for use in Higher Education courses or by independent learners. This resource is useful for instructors whose courses cover introductory communication skills, workplace communication, technical communication, or business writing. It contains four modules (Foundations, Writing, Presentations, and Interpersonal), each with its own lesson plans, assessments, and supporting materials.

COMPUTING

Beginning Excel  [electronic resource] /Noreen Brown, Barbara Lave, Julie Romey, Mary Schatz, Diane Shingledecker. This textbook was written for a community college introductory course in spreadsheets utilizing Microsoft Excel. While the figures shown utilize Excel 2016, the textbook was written to be applicable to other versions of Excel as well. The book introduces new users to the basics of spreadsheets and is appropriate for students in any major who have not used Excel before.

EDUCATION

B.C. open textbook print on demand guide  [electronic resource] /Lauri Aesoph. The BC Open Textbook Print on Demand Guide is an in-progress (open creation) practical manual on the what, why, and how of creating your own hard copy textbook of any openly licensed textbook found in the B.C. Open Textbook Collection. However, these same steps can be used to create a print-on-demand textbook from other collections providing you have access to the correct file types. This guide will be updated as new information, practices and processes are developed”.

BC open textbook authoring guide  [electronic resource]: a guide to authoring & adapting open textbooks /Lauri Aesoph and Amanda Coolidge. This book is a practical guide to adapting or creating open textbooks using the PressBooks platform. It is continually evolving as new information, practices and processes are developed. The primary audience for this book are faculty who are participating in the B.C. Open Textbook project. However, there may be content within this book that is useful to others working on similar Open Educational Resource initiatives.

Web literacy for student fact-checkers  [electronic resource] /by Mike Caulfield. This is an unabashedly practical guide for the student fact-checker. It supplements generic information literacy with the specific web-based techniques that can get you closer to the truth on the web more quickly. We will show you how to use date filters to find the source of viral content, how to assess the reputation of a scientific journal in less than five seconds, and how to see if a tweet is really from the famous person you think it is or from an impostor. We’ll show you how to find pages that have been deleted, figure out who paid for the web site you’re looking at, and whether the weather portrayed in that viral video actual matches the weather in that location on that day. We’ll show you how to check a Wikipedia page for recent vandalism, and how to search the text of almost any printed book to verify a quote. We’ll teach you to parse URLs and scan search result blurbs so that you are more likely to get to the right result on the first click. And we’ll show you how to avoid baking confirmation bias into your search terms. In other words, we’ll teach you web literacy by showing you the unique opportunities and pitfalls of searching for truth on the web. Crazy, right?

FILM STUDIES

Exploring movie construction and production  [electronic resource]: what’s so exciting about movies? /John Reich. Exploring Movie Construction and Production covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students’ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

FINE ARTS

Complete works of Giotto /Luciano Bellosi.

GEOGRAPHY

World regional geography  [electronic resource] /Caitlin Finlayson. World Regional Geography presents an overview of the discipline by introducing students to key themes and concepts in the discipline of geography through a study of the world’s regions. This text emphasizes depth over breadth by arranging each chapter around a central theme and then exploring that theme in detail as it applies to the particular region.The theme of globalization and inequality unites all of the regions discussed. This core focus enables students to draw connections between regions and to better understand the interconnectedness of our world.

HEALTH SCIENCES

Health case studies  [electronic resource]: toward closing the healthcare communication gap /Glynda Rees, Rob Kruger, Janet Morrison. Health Case Studies is composed of eight separate health case studies that align with the open textbooks Clinical Procedures for Safer Patient Care and Anatomy and Physiology: OpenStax. Each case study includes the patient narrative or story that models the best practice (at the time of publishing) in healthcare settings. Associated with each case is a set of specific learning objectives to support learning and facilitate educational strategies and evaluation. The case studies can be used online in a learning management system, in a classroom discussion, in a printed course pack or as part of a textbook created by the instructor. This flexibility is intentional and allows the educator to choose how best to convey the concepts presented in each case to the learner. Because these case studies were primarily developed for an electronic healthcare system, they are based predominantly in an acute healthcare setting.

HISTORY

Power and status in the Roman Empire, AD 193-284 /by Inge Mennen. Based on epigraphic, literary and legal materials, the author deals with issues such as the third-century development of emperorship, the shift in power of the senatorial elite and the developing position of senior military officers and other high equestrians. By analyzing the various senior power-holders involved in Roman imperial administration by social rank, this book presents new insights into the diachronic development of imperial administration, appointment policies and socio-political hierarchies between the second and fourth centuries AD.

LITERATURE

Peace shall destroy many /Rudy Henry Wiebe ; introduction, J.M. Robinson ; general editor, Malcolm Ross. Rudy Wiebe’s celebrated first novel about religious intolerance, Peace Shall Destroy Many takes place in a Mennonite community, its elements are universal, delineating the way young idealism rebels against staid tradition, as a son clashes with his father. In the face of violent confrontations between beliefs all over the world, the novel remains as compelling now as it was nearly forty years ago.

PHILOSOPHY

A concise introduction to logic  [electronic resource] /Craig DeLancey. Concise Introduction to Logic is an introduction to formal logic suitable for undergraduates taking a general education course in logic or critical thinking, and is accessible and useful to any interested in gaining a basic understanding of logic. This text takes the unique approach of teaching logic through intellectual history; the author uses examples from important and celebrated arguments in philosophy to illustrate logical principles. The text also includes a basic introduction to findings of advanced logic. As indicators of where the student could go next with logic, the book closes with an overview of advanced topics, such as the axiomatic method, set theory, Peano arithmetic, and modal logic. Throughout, the text uses brief, concise chapters that readers will find easy to read and to review.

RELIGIOUS STUDIES

The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide /Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz ; [translated by John Bowden from the German].  After surveying the quest for the historical Jesus, it assesses the sources, non-Christian and Christian, for Jesus. Then it examines the historical, chronological, geographical and social setting of his activity and some of his major characteristics-as charismatic, prophet, healer, poet, and teacher. All this leads on to studies of the passion and resurrection and the beginnings of Christology. Each section discusses a specific topic in the clearest possible terms, using tables and diagrams where relevant. The main results of scholarly research are given with explanations of how they relate to a wider whole.

SCIENCES

Environmental biology  [electronic resource] /Matthew R. Fisher, editor ; OpenStax, Kamala Dorsner, Alexandra Geddes, Tom Theis, Jonathan Tomkin. Environmental Biology enables students to develop a nuanced understanding of today’s most pressing environmental issues. This text helps students grasp the scientific foundation of these issues so that they can better understand the world around them and their impact upon it. This open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues, from a biological perspective. The text is designed for an introductory-level college science course. Topics include the fundamentals of ecology, biodiversity, pollution, climate change, food production, and human population growth.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Global women’s issues  [electronic resource]: women in the world today /Bureau of International Information Programs, United States Department of State ; Dr. Janni Aragon, Dr. Mariel Miller. This book is based on the twelve critical areas of concern identified in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.  This extended version of Global Women’s Issues: Women in the World Today includes, for each chapter, a summary, key words, multiple choice questions, discussion questions, essay questions, and a list of additional resources.

My decade at Old Sun, my lifetime in hell /Arthur Bear Chief. My Decade at Old Sun, My Lifetime of Hell is a simple and outspoken account of the sexual and psychological abuse that Arthur Bear Chief suffered during his time at Old Sun Residential school in Gleichen on the Siksika Nation. In a series of chronological vignettes, Bear Chief depicts the punishment, cruelty, abuse, and injustice that he endured at Old Sun and then later relived in the traumatic process of retelling his story at an examination for discovery in connection with a lawsuit brought against the federal government. Although the terrific adversity Bear Chief faced in his childhood made an indelible mark on his life, his unyielding spirit is evident throughout his story.

“Speaking my truth”: reflections on reconciliation & residential school /selected by Shelagh Rogers, Mike DeGagné, Jonathan Dewar, Glen Lowry. Following the success of an earlier edition, this volume has been revised and re-edited for scholastic and academic purposes. These essays, which shed light on the lived and living experiences and legacies of Residential Schools, are offered in the sincere hope that your reading and discussion of them will become part of a much needed dialogue on reconciliation in Canada.

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