The Dynamic Cosmos


Book Description

This edited volume applies the analytic notions of paradox and play to the ethnographic manifestation of spirits, angels, and demons in different locations around the world. The 10 case studies conceptualize the co-presence of humans and entities with terms that do not exclude spiritual reasoning on the one hand, and social explanations on the other. Through in-depth descriptions of localized possession cosmologies, the different chapters collectively propose path-breaking methodological directions in this field, which incorporate ethnographic theories of simultaneity into anthropological theories of religion, kinship, and ritual. Framed by an introduction written by the editors and an afterword by Michael Lambek, a leading authority in possessions studies, the volume contains cutting edge analyses that will provide readers with new tools to evaluate previously unstudied aspects of spirit possession; all of which stem from the fantastic forms of human movement that accompany the phenomenality of paradoxes in mundane reality.




Awakened Cosmos


Book Description

A deep and radically original exploration of Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist wisdom through the lens of the life and work of Tu Fu, widely considered China's greatest classical poet. What is consciousness but the Cosmos awakened to itself? This question is fundamental to the Taoist and Ch'an (Zen) Buddhist worldview that shapes classical Chinese poetry. A uniquely conceived biography, Awakened Cosmos illuminates that worldview through the life and work of Tu Fu (712-770 C.E.), China's greatest classical poet. Tu Fu's writing traces his life from periods of relative normalcy to years spent as an impoverished refugee amid the devastation of civil war. Exploring key poems to guide the reader through Tu Fu's dramatic life, Awakened Cosmos reveals Taoist/Ch'an insight deeply lived across the full range of human experience. Each chapter presents a poem in three stages: first, the original Chinese; then, an English translation in Hinton's masterful style; and finally, a lyrical essay that discusses the untranslatable philosophical dimensions of the poem. The result is nothing short of remarkable: a biography of the Cosmos awakened to itself in the form of a magisterial poet alive in T'ang Dynasty China. Thirty years ago, David Hinton published America's first full-length translation of Tu Fu's work. Awakened Cosmos is published simultaneously with a newly translated and substantially expanded version of that landmark translation: The Selected Poems of Tu Fu: Expanded and Newly Translated (New Directions).




Sublime Cosmos in Graeco-Roman Literature and its Reception


Book Description

The essays collected in this volume examine manifestations of our sublime cosmos in ancient literature and its reception. Individual themes include religious mystery; calendrical and cyclical thinking as ordering principles of human experience; divine birth and the manifold nature of divinity (both awesome and terrifying); contemplation of the sky and meteorological (ir)regularity; fears associated with overpowering natural and anthropogenic events; and the aspirations and limitations of human expression. In texts ranging from Homer to Keats, the volume's chapters apply diverse critical methods and approaches that engage with sublimity in various aesthetic, agential and metaphysical aspects. The ancient texts – epic, dramatic, historiographic and lyric – treated here are rooted in a remote world where, within a framework of (perceived) celestial order, literature, myth and science still communicated profoundly, a tradition that continued in literary receptions of these ancient works. This volume honours the intellectual legacy of Thomas D. Worthen, a scholar whose expertise and insights cut across multiple disciplines, and who influenced and inspired students and colleagues at the University of Arizona, USA, for over three decades. Beyond clarifying temporally and culturally distant contemplations of the human universe, these essays aim to inform the continuing sense of wonder and horror at the sublime heights and depths of our ever-changing cosmos.




A Developer's Guide to .NET in Azure


Book Description

Develop cloud-native applications using serverless technologies, Azure services, and .NET with the help of this reference guide Key Features Create cloud-native .NET applications using cutting-edge technologies Design, develop, and deploy scalable, manageable, and resilient apps with various Azure services Explore serverless architecture and optimize application scalability through efficient design Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook Book DescriptionA Developer’s Guide to .NET in Azure helps you embark on a transformative journey through Microsoft Azure that is tailored to .NET developers. This book is a curated compendium that’ll enable you to master the creation of resilient, scalable, and highly available applications. The book is divided into four parts, with Part 1 demystifying Azure for you and emphasizing the portal's utility and seamless integration. The chapters in this section help you configure your workspace for optimal Azure synergy. You’ll then move on to Part 2, where you’ll explore serverless computing, microservices, containerization, Dapr, and Azure Kubernetes Service for scalability, and build pragmatic, cost-effective applications using Azure Functions and Container apps. Part 3 delves into data and storage, showing you how to utilize Azure Blob Storage for unstructured data, Azure SQL Database for structured data, and Azure Cosmos DB for document-oriented data. The final part teaches you about messaging and security, utilizing Azure App Configuration, Event Hubs, Service Bus, Key Vault, and Azure AD B2C for robust, secure applications. By the end of this book, you’ll have mastered Azure's responsive infrastructure for exceptional applications.What you will learn Discover how to create serverless apps and services Design microservices with Azure Kubernetes service Get to grips with different Azure databases and storage services Find out how to use secret and configuration management Familiarize yourself with event-driven architecture Understand how to leverage Azure Service Bus and Azure Event Hubs Find out how to protect APIs and apps using Azure B2C Who this book is forThis book is for .NET developers and architects who are eager to master the art of creating and deploying robust applications using .NET and Azure. A foundational understanding of .NET and Azure will enable you to enhance your skills with this resourceful guide. Developers aspiring to explore the realms of microservices and serverless applications within the .NET and Azure landscapes will find this book invaluable.




The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace


Book Description

Tracing the combined story of physical and spiritual space from the Middle Ages to the present, Wertheim reveals the appeal of cyberspace and its ultimate failure to satisfy one's spiritual needs.




The Wondrous Universe


Book Description

The world as it is viewed from modern physics and cosmology has many strange and unexpected features. Often these are in stark contrast with our everyday experience or our preconceptions, such as the concept of space and time as finite and changeable. Nevertheless it is this strange world which is the fundamental basis of our existence. Therefore modern science also has a few things to say about the age-old questions: Who are we? – Where do we come from? – Where are we going? The author, an experienced scientist and teacher, presents the knowledge that we have about our world for non-experts. He takes us on a journey through cosmology and the quantum world of elementary particles. And he sketches the impact of the insights gained into philosophical assumptions and religious beliefs in these disciplines. In the end he asks the speculative question whether there is something beyond the limits of the natural sciences.




The Philosophical Review


Book Description

An international journal of general philosophy.




Embracing the Ivory Tower and Stained Glass Windows


Book Description

This book brings together contributions from scholars from Europe and the United States to honor the theological work of Antje Jackelén, the first female Archbishop of the Church of Sweden. In Archbishop Antje Jackelén’s installation homily, she identifies the strength of the Church as a “global network of prayer threads.” This book is an honorary and celebratory volume providing a “global network of prayerful essays” by contributors from a variety of academic disciplines to creatively engage, reflect, and illuminate the theological work of Archbishop Jackelén. Prior to her tenure in the Church of Sweden as Bishop of the Diocese of Lund and now the Archbishop of the Church of Sweden, Jackelén served as professor of Systematic Theology, Director of the Zygon Center and President of European Society for the Study of Science and Religion (ESSSAT). While each essay intentionally embraces the theological and ministerial work of Jackelén during her academic tenure, they also venture into areas as diverse as climate change, media studies, human uniqueness, hermeneutics, time, ethics, Christian theological tradition and history, traumatology, politics and society. As the first diverse explication of the theological thinking of Archbishop Jackelén by her theological colleagues, this text provides scholars with an expansion of the scope of Archbishop Jackelén’s theological thinking and initiates laity into the impact of Jackelén thinking that combines with grace and precision the traditions of the Church, the challenges and gifts of the sciences, and the needs and longings of society and the world.




Other Worlds, Other Bodies


Book Description

When approaching the multiplicity of the spiritual experiences of healing, ethnographers are often presented with ideas of the existence of “other” worlds that may intersect with the so-called “material” or “physical” worlds. This book proposes a sensory ethnography of healing with a focus on ethnographic knowing as embedded in an embodied epistemology of healing. Epistemological embodiment signals that personal scholarly experience of the “unknown”—be it in the form of trance, or as the embodiment of an “other”—shapes the concepts of healing, body, trance, self, and matter by which ethnographers craft out analysis.




Philosophy and Salvation


Book Description

The idea of "salvation" tends to be interpreted as an exclusively religious category. The author of this essay believes that philosophy, the quintessence of human thinking, possesses a salvific power, as it offers the possibility of broadening the horizons of humanity, leading us out of the oppressive limits of our "hic et nunc." However, philosophical salvation needs to be found in time and space. The edification of a society based upon the ideal of solidarity, in which history may be meaningful for everyone, is its preeminent manifestation.