Fall, 2018
Thomism, Law, and Grace in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor
Guest Edited by: Jerome C. Foss
In the summer of 2014, scholars from a variety of disciplines gathered at All Hollows College in Dublin, Ireland to discuss the fiction of Flannery O'Connor. The event attracted literature professors, but also theologians, philosophers, political scientists, and many others. Most were from the United States and Ireland, but participants came from other parts of Europe as well, such as Spain and the Czech Republic. And in addition to scholars, the conference also attracted lawyers, poets, and others. What is it about O'Connor's tales that maintains such a broad appeal a half a century after her untimely death?
The essays in this issue of Listening capture the broad appeal O'Connor's works continue to enjoy across America and beyond. Professor Edmondson was one of the organizers of the Dublin conference, and it was there that I met Kevin Jones and Telia Williams. I was impressed by both of their papers and am happy to see them in print in this volume. Henry Edmondson's essay was given as a talk at Saint Vincent College in 2017 at the invitation of the Center for the Political and Economic Thought, and I am likewise happy to see it in print. The goal here is not to hone in on a single theme of O'Connor's works, but to show the breadth of approaches that can be taken in reading her stories, and the depth afforded to each approach. Jones is a theologian, Edmondson a political scientist, and Williams a practicing attorney. Taken together, their essays demonstrate the riches that can be found in one of America's greatest authors.
Articles included:
Thomism, Law, and Grace in the Fiction of Flannery O'Connor
Guest Edited by: Jerome C. Foss
In the summer of 2014, scholars from a variety of disciplines gathered at All Hollows College in Dublin, Ireland to discuss the fiction of Flannery O'Connor. The event attracted literature professors, but also theologians, philosophers, political scientists, and many others. Most were from the United States and Ireland, but participants came from other parts of Europe as well, such as Spain and the Czech Republic. And in addition to scholars, the conference also attracted lawyers, poets, and others. What is it about O'Connor's tales that maintains such a broad appeal a half a century after her untimely death?
The essays in this issue of Listening capture the broad appeal O'Connor's works continue to enjoy across America and beyond. Professor Edmondson was one of the organizers of the Dublin conference, and it was there that I met Kevin Jones and Telia Williams. I was impressed by both of their papers and am happy to see them in print in this volume. Henry Edmondson's essay was given as a talk at Saint Vincent College in 2017 at the invitation of the Center for the Political and Economic Thought, and I am likewise happy to see it in print. The goal here is not to hone in on a single theme of O'Connor's works, but to show the breadth of approaches that can be taken in reading her stories, and the depth afforded to each approach. Jones is a theologian, Edmondson a political scientist, and Williams a practicing attorney. Taken together, their essays demonstrate the riches that can be found in one of America's greatest authors.
Articles included:
- God's Action in Flannery O'Connor: A Hillbilly Corrective to a Thomist Debate
- 'Tantum Ergo (Ridiculum) Sacramentum': Flannery O'Connor on The Meaning of Sacrament
- Flannery O'Connor and the Law
Spring, 2018
Listening through Catholic Media
Guest Edited by: Brian Gilchrist
The articles in this special issue of Listening announce various approaches to understanding Catholic Media, an interpretive lens through which media is grounded in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. We begin with "Transcendent Media: Sacramentals and the Roman Rite of Mass" by Anthony M. Wachs. He invites us to consider how Marshall McLuhan's media theories offer further analyses of the liturgy as meditations between God and humankind. Next, we turn to Brian Gilchrist's "John of Salisbury's Metalogicon: Articulating the Trivium as Social Communion." This article positions the medieval trivium, the verbal arts of grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric, as a system that gathers educators and students together in the pursuit of knowledge for the glory of God. Then, we turn to "Thinking Vertically, Writing Horizontally: A Trivium Framed First-Year Composition Course" by Galvin F. Hurley. He uses the trivium as an educational framework to construct a writing course for college students. Finally, we close with John J. Jasso's "A Simple Twist of Faith: Adopting Catholic Through to Popular Hierarchies." This article identifies dialectics and rhetoric as promising arts that could raise the profile of the Catholic imagination as a response to contemporary American secular culture.
Listening through Catholic Media
Guest Edited by: Brian Gilchrist
The articles in this special issue of Listening announce various approaches to understanding Catholic Media, an interpretive lens through which media is grounded in the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. We begin with "Transcendent Media: Sacramentals and the Roman Rite of Mass" by Anthony M. Wachs. He invites us to consider how Marshall McLuhan's media theories offer further analyses of the liturgy as meditations between God and humankind. Next, we turn to Brian Gilchrist's "John of Salisbury's Metalogicon: Articulating the Trivium as Social Communion." This article positions the medieval trivium, the verbal arts of grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric, as a system that gathers educators and students together in the pursuit of knowledge for the glory of God. Then, we turn to "Thinking Vertically, Writing Horizontally: A Trivium Framed First-Year Composition Course" by Galvin F. Hurley. He uses the trivium as an educational framework to construct a writing course for college students. Finally, we close with John J. Jasso's "A Simple Twist of Faith: Adopting Catholic Through to Popular Hierarchies." This article identifies dialectics and rhetoric as promising arts that could raise the profile of the Catholic imagination as a response to contemporary American secular culture.
Winter, 2018
The Theology of the Body: Developing New Context
Guest Edited by: Susan Windley-Daoust
When I was on a recent college visit with my son at a nationally regarded liberal arts college, I saw a poster for a summer course: the philosophical anthropology of dance. I immediately wanted to stop the tour, find the professor, and take that course. (Or dance the samba in celebration of a great idea!) What a brilliant inspiration, I thought--get the dance students (this poster was in their theatre area) to consider the form, function, and meaning of the expressive body, what the body expresses in itself and what we intend it to express through the tradition and practice of dance. But, I rejoined the tour--pounding the pavement, pondering the poster--and mused, while the course would be fascinating, this is not a faith-affiliated college. What would be perfect would be a course on the Theology of Dance, joining the insights of the anthropology proposed by John Paul II's audiences with the common experience of dancing and watching dance there performed. What an exceptional set of possibilities there, to reach out and explore the communicative meaning of the human body!
This set of essays engages the broader possibilities within the Theology of the Body from a variety of other directions, both to challenge the audiences and explore the opportunities. We engage the audiences and/or their insights through a hermeneutic of friendship.
The first essay, by Susan Windley-Daoust, explores a primary theme in the audiences, human receptivity, through what it means for the human being to be a receiver of these writings (specifically, the art of reader-response criticism). The second essay, by Tim Muldoon, puts the insights of the Theology of the Body in dialogue with Pope Francis's integral ecology presented in Laudato Si'. In the third essay, Christine Falk Dalessio argues that prominent scholars in gender studies could benefit from an understanding of "the prophetism of the body," as those who appreciate the Theology of the Body could support certain insights from gender studies. In the final essay, Tim O'Malley brings his expertise in liturgical theology to reflect upon the embodied sign of the family.
This set of essays is meant to move beyond theological camps and impressions and instead provide grist for the mill, sparking different ways of thinking about the Theology of the Body audiences. For the question behind its work is a timeless one: How is God's creation of us as human, male and female, perceived, received, expressed, and lived in the wild expanse of the human life?
The Theology of the Body: Developing New Context
Guest Edited by: Susan Windley-Daoust
When I was on a recent college visit with my son at a nationally regarded liberal arts college, I saw a poster for a summer course: the philosophical anthropology of dance. I immediately wanted to stop the tour, find the professor, and take that course. (Or dance the samba in celebration of a great idea!) What a brilliant inspiration, I thought--get the dance students (this poster was in their theatre area) to consider the form, function, and meaning of the expressive body, what the body expresses in itself and what we intend it to express through the tradition and practice of dance. But, I rejoined the tour--pounding the pavement, pondering the poster--and mused, while the course would be fascinating, this is not a faith-affiliated college. What would be perfect would be a course on the Theology of Dance, joining the insights of the anthropology proposed by John Paul II's audiences with the common experience of dancing and watching dance there performed. What an exceptional set of possibilities there, to reach out and explore the communicative meaning of the human body!
This set of essays engages the broader possibilities within the Theology of the Body from a variety of other directions, both to challenge the audiences and explore the opportunities. We engage the audiences and/or their insights through a hermeneutic of friendship.
The first essay, by Susan Windley-Daoust, explores a primary theme in the audiences, human receptivity, through what it means for the human being to be a receiver of these writings (specifically, the art of reader-response criticism). The second essay, by Tim Muldoon, puts the insights of the Theology of the Body in dialogue with Pope Francis's integral ecology presented in Laudato Si'. In the third essay, Christine Falk Dalessio argues that prominent scholars in gender studies could benefit from an understanding of "the prophetism of the body," as those who appreciate the Theology of the Body could support certain insights from gender studies. In the final essay, Tim O'Malley brings his expertise in liturgical theology to reflect upon the embodied sign of the family.
This set of essays is meant to move beyond theological camps and impressions and instead provide grist for the mill, sparking different ways of thinking about the Theology of the Body audiences. For the question behind its work is a timeless one: How is God's creation of us as human, male and female, perceived, received, expressed, and lived in the wild expanse of the human life?
Fall, 2017
Listening to Our Monsters
Guest Edited by: Michael Paradiso-Michau
Welcome, courageous reader, to this special edition of Listening, devoted to "listening to our monsters." Since the mid-1990s, the multidisciplinary field of scholarship known as Monster Studies has emerged and proliferated on the academic scene. The issues, figures, and topics interrogated in this volume offer a contribution to this burgeoning field of study. As guest editor, I invited eleven authors to attune their critical senses to "listening" to their respective monster. What is it that the monster has to say? And to whom? Why is their message delivered in that particular way?
Each of our essayists was posed three questions to frame their remarks. First, "Identify, and provide appropriate background for, your selected monster. Why and how is this particular monster culturally and/or historically significant?" The essays that follow contextualize and historicize their objects of inquiry, adding helpful perspective and relevant folklore regarding the monster under consideration. Second, "Etymologically understood as a specific, foreboding form of communication--a warning sign, an omen, a portent--what is your selected monster saying? To whom? And how is this particular message being communicated?" Among scholars of Monster Studies, we are well aware of the etymology of the term "monster." Understood in its etymological context, a monster is a "warning sign," an "omen" or "portent." What is each monster warning its victim or community about? The next question to ask, of course, is this: since a monster is an ominous form of communication, what exactly or approximately are monsters saying? To whom? How are their messages being conveyed? The third question was, "How have 'listeners' (readers, viewers, survivors, etc.) responded to your selected monster? How should or could we respond to this monstrous message or prophecy?" A message is pointless--and the communicative event is rendered fruitless--unless it makes some sort of impact on, or elicits a specific response from, its intended recipient. The essays that follow address these three questions in their own ways.
In what follows, you will encounter a veritable smorgasbord of monstrous ideas, histories, provocations, and perspectives. Enjoy...if you dare.
Listening to Our Monsters
Guest Edited by: Michael Paradiso-Michau
Welcome, courageous reader, to this special edition of Listening, devoted to "listening to our monsters." Since the mid-1990s, the multidisciplinary field of scholarship known as Monster Studies has emerged and proliferated on the academic scene. The issues, figures, and topics interrogated in this volume offer a contribution to this burgeoning field of study. As guest editor, I invited eleven authors to attune their critical senses to "listening" to their respective monster. What is it that the monster has to say? And to whom? Why is their message delivered in that particular way?
Each of our essayists was posed three questions to frame their remarks. First, "Identify, and provide appropriate background for, your selected monster. Why and how is this particular monster culturally and/or historically significant?" The essays that follow contextualize and historicize their objects of inquiry, adding helpful perspective and relevant folklore regarding the monster under consideration. Second, "Etymologically understood as a specific, foreboding form of communication--a warning sign, an omen, a portent--what is your selected monster saying? To whom? And how is this particular message being communicated?" Among scholars of Monster Studies, we are well aware of the etymology of the term "monster." Understood in its etymological context, a monster is a "warning sign," an "omen" or "portent." What is each monster warning its victim or community about? The next question to ask, of course, is this: since a monster is an ominous form of communication, what exactly or approximately are monsters saying? To whom? How are their messages being conveyed? The third question was, "How have 'listeners' (readers, viewers, survivors, etc.) responded to your selected monster? How should or could we respond to this monstrous message or prophecy?" A message is pointless--and the communicative event is rendered fruitless--unless it makes some sort of impact on, or elicits a specific response from, its intended recipient. The essays that follow address these three questions in their own ways.
In what follows, you will encounter a veritable smorgasbord of monstrous ideas, histories, provocations, and perspectives. Enjoy...if you dare.
Spring, 2017
Reflections on Pedagogy: Philosophical and Applied Perspectives
This issue of Listening provides an opportunity to attend to reflections on pedagogy. The four contributions in this issue vary in length and focus, each offering insights to inform how we think about the task of teaching, how we find meaning in our tasks as instructors, and how listening to voices from past and present, including our own and the voices of diverse others, shapes our orientation to the contexts and content of our instruction. In the following pages, we will hear from persons in various stages of their professional journeys--some just beginning their academic lives, some seasoned and steeped in decades of experience. Each article brings something for us to listen to, for, and with. Linda Coleman asks us to consider the importance of listening to students entering an English-speaking educational context for whom English is a second language. McDowell Marinchak, DeIuliis, and Flinko apply listening as an element of professional civility to the business and professional communication classroom. E. James Baesler reminds us that life is a precious gift; our appreciation of that gift translates into our teaching. Jonathan Crist turns to the Catholic intellectual tradition to consider how attentiveness to the mission of a Spiritan university offers creative ways of responding to students who have transgressed codes of conduct in the classroom. Thank you for listening to this issue.
Reflections on Pedagogy: Philosophical and Applied Perspectives
This issue of Listening provides an opportunity to attend to reflections on pedagogy. The four contributions in this issue vary in length and focus, each offering insights to inform how we think about the task of teaching, how we find meaning in our tasks as instructors, and how listening to voices from past and present, including our own and the voices of diverse others, shapes our orientation to the contexts and content of our instruction. In the following pages, we will hear from persons in various stages of their professional journeys--some just beginning their academic lives, some seasoned and steeped in decades of experience. Each article brings something for us to listen to, for, and with. Linda Coleman asks us to consider the importance of listening to students entering an English-speaking educational context for whom English is a second language. McDowell Marinchak, DeIuliis, and Flinko apply listening as an element of professional civility to the business and professional communication classroom. E. James Baesler reminds us that life is a precious gift; our appreciation of that gift translates into our teaching. Jonathan Crist turns to the Catholic intellectual tradition to consider how attentiveness to the mission of a Spiritan university offers creative ways of responding to students who have transgressed codes of conduct in the classroom. Thank you for listening to this issue.
Winter, 2017
Imagination and Cooperation in the Care for our Common Home
Guest Edited by: Christopher J. Renz, OP
In his encyclical letter, "Laudato si: On care for our common home," Pope Francis invited all people to enter into dialogue on our shared responsibility to respect and care for this planet. On October 5, 2017, the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (DSPT) in Berkeley, California sponsored a conference designed to open up such a dialogue on the anthropology of the human person. By engaging leading experts from evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, and theology, along with members of our own school and those faculty and students of Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley, participants explored the role that human imagination can play in building a cooperative approach to the care for our common home. The goal was to "test" whether or not an interdisciplinary conversation, especially one between experts who do not "naturally" associate, could bear real fruit in the form of practical and tangible steps in a coordinated effort to care for our planet.
In this issue, we present to you the papers from the conference along with a summary essay that draws from the insights of the plenary session and the group discussions that followed. The summary essay points to new questions that arise as we continue to explore the possibilities for cooperation in the care for our common home. Finally, the summary essay identifies ways that the DSPT can continue researching the topic and engaging in conversations within the academy and society.
Fall, 2016
Listening to the Transcendent: Thomas Poole Pickett's The Offering
Editor Introduction by: Janie Harden Fritz, Ph.D.
In June 2015, at Duquense University's biennial Philosophy of Communication conference, hosted by the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, in order to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Listening/Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture (formerly Listening/Journal of Religion and Culture), Thomas Poole Pickett read selections from his poetic work, The Offering. This reading, which held all in attendance spellbound, followed a panel focused on philosophy of communication and poetry and marked, in performative fashion--indeed, ushered in--what I will identify as a "poetic turn" in philosophy of communication.
As the purpose of Listening/Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture is to be attentive to the presence of ideas and their work in the world within a given historical moment, calling forth their expression in a voice to which we may give ear, and because of the significance of this embodied performative event and its coincidence with the fiftieth anniversary of Listening, it seemed appropriate to present an issue of the journal dedicated to the complete text of Thomas Poole Pickett's remarkable poem, which speaks of a transcendent reality that lends its truth to what Russell Kirk terms "the permanent things."
It is my pleasure, therefore, as Editor-in-Chief of the journal, to host the first published appearance of The Offering, by Thomas Poole Pickett, in its entirety. It is, indeed, a worthy gift to the world.
Imagination and Cooperation in the Care for our Common Home
Guest Edited by: Christopher J. Renz, OP
In his encyclical letter, "Laudato si: On care for our common home," Pope Francis invited all people to enter into dialogue on our shared responsibility to respect and care for this planet. On October 5, 2017, the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (DSPT) in Berkeley, California sponsored a conference designed to open up such a dialogue on the anthropology of the human person. By engaging leading experts from evolutionary anthropology, philosophy, and theology, along with members of our own school and those faculty and students of Graduate Theological Union and UC Berkeley, participants explored the role that human imagination can play in building a cooperative approach to the care for our common home. The goal was to "test" whether or not an interdisciplinary conversation, especially one between experts who do not "naturally" associate, could bear real fruit in the form of practical and tangible steps in a coordinated effort to care for our planet.
In this issue, we present to you the papers from the conference along with a summary essay that draws from the insights of the plenary session and the group discussions that followed. The summary essay points to new questions that arise as we continue to explore the possibilities for cooperation in the care for our common home. Finally, the summary essay identifies ways that the DSPT can continue researching the topic and engaging in conversations within the academy and society.
Fall, 2016
Listening to the Transcendent: Thomas Poole Pickett's The Offering
Editor Introduction by: Janie Harden Fritz, Ph.D.
In June 2015, at Duquense University's biennial Philosophy of Communication conference, hosted by the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, in order to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Listening/Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture (formerly Listening/Journal of Religion and Culture), Thomas Poole Pickett read selections from his poetic work, The Offering. This reading, which held all in attendance spellbound, followed a panel focused on philosophy of communication and poetry and marked, in performative fashion--indeed, ushered in--what I will identify as a "poetic turn" in philosophy of communication.
As the purpose of Listening/Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture is to be attentive to the presence of ideas and their work in the world within a given historical moment, calling forth their expression in a voice to which we may give ear, and because of the significance of this embodied performative event and its coincidence with the fiftieth anniversary of Listening, it seemed appropriate to present an issue of the journal dedicated to the complete text of Thomas Poole Pickett's remarkable poem, which speaks of a transcendent reality that lends its truth to what Russell Kirk terms "the permanent things."
It is my pleasure, therefore, as Editor-in-Chief of the journal, to host the first published appearance of The Offering, by Thomas Poole Pickett, in its entirety. It is, indeed, a worthy gift to the world.
Spring, 2016
Reading for Good: Literature and Ethics
Guest Edited by: Mark McVann, F.S.C.
Reading for good? Literature and ethics? In an era when it seems that more and more (especially young) people feel "threatened" and "unsafe" after seeing the name "Trump" chalked on a sidewalk, as happened at Emory University, or need "trigger warnings" to steel themselves for hearing about suicide before reading Antigone, for example, or must flee to a "safe space" or 'recovery room' after being exposed to ideas that they disagree with at Brown University, it is clear that reading can cause discomfort. This is probably all to the good, especially if the places where such discomfort is engendered are college campuses.
There are, of course, tragic and real threats to people arising from hateful ideologies that can motivate hateful acts. But when ethics is reduced to making sure no one is "threatened" by hearing challenging ideas or reading about disagreeable topics, and when censorship is regarded as a virtue because it spares the feelings of the sensitive, ethics has been cheapened to meaningless, empty formalism. Informed, disciplined, and robust debate, open discourse, and challenging reading are banished as non-inclusive, divisive, and insensitive.
Readers of Listening, then, have before them four articles whose authors take life-changing story and literature very seriously. In his piece, "Dionysus: Stranger, God, Monster," Michael Paradiso-Michau deploys the relatively new, but rapidly growing, literary critical approach known as Monster Studies. Marilyn Nissim-Sabat's "Good Reading Does Not Read Out: Reading Radical Economics Out of Uncle Tom's Cabin" addresses the question how it is that a recently published interpretation of Uncle Tom's Cabin is blind to one of its most important and thematic features: "the economic radicalism which is manifestly there in it." William C. Graham's contribution, "Pages & Grace," reflects on the power of story to charm, illuminate, entertain, sustain, challenge, and heal. Mark McVann's "Reading A Different Drummer: Hope for a New Exodus" investigates the claim that this novel is a moving and hopeful book, as well as one profoundly influenced by the Bible.
Winter, 2016
The Ethics of Language Development
Guest Edited by: Elizabeth S. Parks
Language is intimately tied to people's identities and cultural expression. Yet, social norms and behaviors endanger the health of language and social ecosystems around the globe, leading many language advocates to assert that if the existing global language situation continues in its current course, thousands of languages in use today will become extinct by the end of the century. This issue of Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture offers a cross-disciplinary look at the ethics of communicating in and about language in different cultural contexts.
In the first essay, Larin Adams offers a brief overview of the language development process and ethical issues that arise over the course of language revitalization in "Dissonance in Participatory Language Development." In the second essay, J. Albert Bickford considers how language identification processes have been pursued, and he reflects on more ethical ways to move forward in "The Ethics of Language Identification and ISO 639-3." In "Language Standardization and Language Endangerment," Ken Decker discusses the ethics of language standardization and the potential for language endangerment through the process. In the fourth essay, "Data Curation: Ethical Communication through Purposeful Action," Shun-Sho Fong considers how ethical handling of data is comprised of not only the use and application of research findings but also the method in which data is cared for throughout its entire lifecycle. In the final essay, "Language Witnessing: Exploring an Intergenerational Cosmopolitan Ethic of Care for Endangered Languages," Elizabeth Parks reminds readers that language death is often closely associated with personal losses felt by individuals and costs to communities that reflect swooping social injustice performed globally.
It is the hope that these essays will lead us to think more critically about the ethical values that are often taken for granted in the endangered language and language development movements.
The Ethics of Language Development
Guest Edited by: Elizabeth S. Parks
Language is intimately tied to people's identities and cultural expression. Yet, social norms and behaviors endanger the health of language and social ecosystems around the globe, leading many language advocates to assert that if the existing global language situation continues in its current course, thousands of languages in use today will become extinct by the end of the century. This issue of Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture offers a cross-disciplinary look at the ethics of communicating in and about language in different cultural contexts.
In the first essay, Larin Adams offers a brief overview of the language development process and ethical issues that arise over the course of language revitalization in "Dissonance in Participatory Language Development." In the second essay, J. Albert Bickford considers how language identification processes have been pursued, and he reflects on more ethical ways to move forward in "The Ethics of Language Identification and ISO 639-3." In "Language Standardization and Language Endangerment," Ken Decker discusses the ethics of language standardization and the potential for language endangerment through the process. In the fourth essay, "Data Curation: Ethical Communication through Purposeful Action," Shun-Sho Fong considers how ethical handling of data is comprised of not only the use and application of research findings but also the method in which data is cared for throughout its entire lifecycle. In the final essay, "Language Witnessing: Exploring an Intergenerational Cosmopolitan Ethic of Care for Endangered Languages," Elizabeth Parks reminds readers that language death is often closely associated with personal losses felt by individuals and costs to communities that reflect swooping social injustice performed globally.
It is the hope that these essays will lead us to think more critically about the ethical values that are often taken for granted in the endangered language and language development movements.
Fall, 2015
Swallowed by the Analytic/Continental Divide: Connecting the Thought of the Inklings to Philosophy of Communication
Guest Edited by: Anthony M. Wachs
C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien are widely known for their literary works of fiction, and Lewis, in particular, for his Christian apologetics. However, less widely known is the literary group, the Inklings, to which they belonged. The Inklings was an early 20th century groups associated with Oxford University that was primarily concerned with the production, reading, and criticism of literature. The fact that they are overlooked is easily understandable since they were non-analytic English intellectuals who brought philology, literature, and history to bear on the philosophy of language and communication, but they were working at the same time as analytic thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Ayer, and Austin on the one side and phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty on the other. Consequently, their potential contribution to philosophy of communication gets swallowed up by the analytic/Continental divide. The philosophical works of the Inklings, however, can be useful for bridging the divide between these two philosophical traditions. Although the thought of the Inklings was largely passed over, the authors of this issue of Listening demonstrate that the Inklings are still relevant to the philosophy of communication in the 21st century. To this end, the authors of this issue analyze various Inklings with regard to the value of their works to philosophy and communication.
Swallowed by the Analytic/Continental Divide: Connecting the Thought of the Inklings to Philosophy of Communication
Guest Edited by: Anthony M. Wachs
C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien are widely known for their literary works of fiction, and Lewis, in particular, for his Christian apologetics. However, less widely known is the literary group, the Inklings, to which they belonged. The Inklings was an early 20th century groups associated with Oxford University that was primarily concerned with the production, reading, and criticism of literature. The fact that they are overlooked is easily understandable since they were non-analytic English intellectuals who brought philology, literature, and history to bear on the philosophy of language and communication, but they were working at the same time as analytic thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Ayer, and Austin on the one side and phenomenologists like Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty on the other. Consequently, their potential contribution to philosophy of communication gets swallowed up by the analytic/Continental divide. The philosophical works of the Inklings, however, can be useful for bridging the divide between these two philosophical traditions. Although the thought of the Inklings was largely passed over, the authors of this issue of Listening demonstrate that the Inklings are still relevant to the philosophy of communication in the 21st century. To this end, the authors of this issue analyze various Inklings with regard to the value of their works to philosophy and communication.
Spring, 2015
Levinas, Interreligious Dialogue, and Ethics
Guest Edited by: David Seltzer
The following is a selection of papers from the 8th annual conference of the North American Levinas Society, held at Duquesne University in July 2013. The topic of the conference was Levinas and Interreligious Dialogue, and it was striking that many of the papers chose to address this theme by questioning the conference topic itself. What exactly constitutes a religion? Is religion defined by a confessional faith, or a set of practices, or a response to the other, and can one conception of religion actually interfere with another? Are Eastern forms of thought--Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto--religions, or philosophies, or do they simply not fit into any Western category? Can atheism be considered a religion? How are we to understand the idea of a Judeo-Christian tradition which, as Drew Dalton pointed out, exists only for Christians and not for Jews? Is Judaism a religion or, as Levinas suggests, a certain way of living? Can one be Jewish without believing in or obeying God?
Levinas, Interreligious Dialogue, and Ethics
Guest Edited by: David Seltzer
The following is a selection of papers from the 8th annual conference of the North American Levinas Society, held at Duquesne University in July 2013. The topic of the conference was Levinas and Interreligious Dialogue, and it was striking that many of the papers chose to address this theme by questioning the conference topic itself. What exactly constitutes a religion? Is religion defined by a confessional faith, or a set of practices, or a response to the other, and can one conception of religion actually interfere with another? Are Eastern forms of thought--Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shinto--religions, or philosophies, or do they simply not fit into any Western category? Can atheism be considered a religion? How are we to understand the idea of a Judeo-Christian tradition which, as Drew Dalton pointed out, exists only for Christians and not for Jews? Is Judaism a religion or, as Levinas suggests, a certain way of living? Can one be Jewish without believing in or obeying God?
Winter, 2015
Listening to Frantz Fanon on Postcolonial Humanism & Ethics
Guest Edited by: Douglas Ficek
Nigel Gibson, after winning the Frantz Fanon Prize at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2009, observed that one of the most common questions about Frantz Fanon these days is whether or not he is still relevant, whether or not he is still worthy of serious theoretical and/or practical attention. Fanon is interesting, it is argued, but not particularly important - especially given the uniqueness of our historical moment. In his acceptance speech, Gibson flatly rejected this dismissive argument and the initial question itself. He said that the question isn't whether or not Fanon is relevant today - spoiler alert: he absolutely is - but rather whether or not we are relevant to Fanon. What did he mean by this? Quite simply, he meant that Fanon left us a legacy of libratory thought and action, and that we should examine ourselves in terms of its normative content, asking how (and to what extent) we have committed our minds and bodies to the ongoing struggle against neocolonial exploitation, oppression, and dehumanization, asking how (and to what extent) we have contributed to the Fanonian project of creating a more human world.
The four essays in this special issue of Listening address different questions, but they clearly share something: a deep commitment to the Fanonian project of creating a more human world. Perhaps in some small way they can contribute to that ambitious, unabashedly normative goal.
Listening to Frantz Fanon on Postcolonial Humanism & Ethics
Guest Edited by: Douglas Ficek
Nigel Gibson, after winning the Frantz Fanon Prize at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2009, observed that one of the most common questions about Frantz Fanon these days is whether or not he is still relevant, whether or not he is still worthy of serious theoretical and/or practical attention. Fanon is interesting, it is argued, but not particularly important - especially given the uniqueness of our historical moment. In his acceptance speech, Gibson flatly rejected this dismissive argument and the initial question itself. He said that the question isn't whether or not Fanon is relevant today - spoiler alert: he absolutely is - but rather whether or not we are relevant to Fanon. What did he mean by this? Quite simply, he meant that Fanon left us a legacy of libratory thought and action, and that we should examine ourselves in terms of its normative content, asking how (and to what extent) we have committed our minds and bodies to the ongoing struggle against neocolonial exploitation, oppression, and dehumanization, asking how (and to what extent) we have contributed to the Fanonian project of creating a more human world.
The four essays in this special issue of Listening address different questions, but they clearly share something: a deep commitment to the Fanonian project of creating a more human world. Perhaps in some small way they can contribute to that ambitious, unabashedly normative goal.
Fall, 2014
Human Rights as Social Constructions
Guest Edited by: Thomas E. Wren
Today rights talk is everywhere. It is spoken by social activists, politicians and policy wonks, practicing lawyers and legal theorists, victims of structural injustices such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and of course by moral philosophers and educators.
In this issue, the article "Human Rights as Social Constructions" is most directly focused on the socially constructed character of the concept of rights, especially the contemporary notion of human rights. The second article, "Educating for Human Rights Consciousness," is a remarkable ethnographic study of the reception by Guatemalan school children and young adults of a human rights educational program that was set up in the aftermath of their country's horrific 36-year civil war. In the article "Human Rights and the Rest of Us," human rights theory is focused on through tools of contemporary analytical philosophy rather than real-life narratives and case studies. The final article, "From Rightness to Rights: A Case Study of Moral Discourse," provides a useful historical context within which the essentially constructed character of rights discourse can be understood.
Human Rights as Social Constructions
Guest Edited by: Thomas E. Wren
Today rights talk is everywhere. It is spoken by social activists, politicians and policy wonks, practicing lawyers and legal theorists, victims of structural injustices such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and of course by moral philosophers and educators.
In this issue, the article "Human Rights as Social Constructions" is most directly focused on the socially constructed character of the concept of rights, especially the contemporary notion of human rights. The second article, "Educating for Human Rights Consciousness," is a remarkable ethnographic study of the reception by Guatemalan school children and young adults of a human rights educational program that was set up in the aftermath of their country's horrific 36-year civil war. In the article "Human Rights and the Rest of Us," human rights theory is focused on through tools of contemporary analytical philosophy rather than real-life narratives and case studies. The final article, "From Rightness to Rights: A Case Study of Moral Discourse," provides a useful historical context within which the essentially constructed character of rights discourse can be understood.
Spring, 2014
Listening to Calvin O. Schrag: Communicative Praxis in Application
Guest Edited by: Susan Mancino
This special issue of Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture contains graduate student papers engaging the study and application of philosophy of communication through the work of Calvin O. Schrag. The origin of these essays lies in a Masters level philosophy of communication course taught by Pat Arneson at Duquesne University. The course and the papers in this special issue recognize Schrag as an exemplary scholar of philosophy of communication and his scholarship as an exemplary point of engagement with the "why" behind human communication.
Listening to Calvin O. Schrag: Communicative Praxis in Application
Guest Edited by: Susan Mancino
This special issue of Listening: Journal of Communication Ethics, Religion, and Culture contains graduate student papers engaging the study and application of philosophy of communication through the work of Calvin O. Schrag. The origin of these essays lies in a Masters level philosophy of communication course taught by Pat Arneson at Duquesne University. The course and the papers in this special issue recognize Schrag as an exemplary scholar of philosophy of communication and his scholarship as an exemplary point of engagement with the "why" behind human communication.
Winter, 2014
Contemplative Ways of Knowing in Higher Education
Guest Edited by: Ozum Ucok-Sayrak
The main questions that bring together the essays in this issue include: What goes missing when our educational institutions focus their goals on rearing "current men" and, "elevat[ing] information acquisition to the goal of education"? Is it possible that the sole transmission of information can guide action without the cultivation of "fully developed human beings" whose expert knowledge and analytical skills are joined with their capacities for compassion, connectedness, and country - what the Dalai Lama calls the "ethics of the heart"? Aren't we failing our students if what we teach neglects to offer some kind of a connection to a sense of meaning and direction in/for their lives, and to a well-lived life?
The essays in this issue are concerned with attending to the "full range of human capacities for knowing, teaching and learning" by extending the more conventional, rational-empirical-critical ways of knowing in the classroom to include contemplative knowing that invites attention to and exploration of one's own internal experience of the subject matter along with the subject matter itself.
Contemplative Ways of Knowing in Higher Education
Guest Edited by: Ozum Ucok-Sayrak
The main questions that bring together the essays in this issue include: What goes missing when our educational institutions focus their goals on rearing "current men" and, "elevat[ing] information acquisition to the goal of education"? Is it possible that the sole transmission of information can guide action without the cultivation of "fully developed human beings" whose expert knowledge and analytical skills are joined with their capacities for compassion, connectedness, and country - what the Dalai Lama calls the "ethics of the heart"? Aren't we failing our students if what we teach neglects to offer some kind of a connection to a sense of meaning and direction in/for their lives, and to a well-lived life?
The essays in this issue are concerned with attending to the "full range of human capacities for knowing, teaching and learning" by extending the more conventional, rational-empirical-critical ways of knowing in the classroom to include contemplative knowing that invites attention to and exploration of one's own internal experience of the subject matter along with the subject matter itself.
Fall, 2013
Semiotics and the Sacred
Guest Edited by: Deborah Eicher-Catt
The articles included in this issue all seek to explore the complex signifying relation - between our experience and understanding of the profane or mundane aspects of existence and their distinction from what we identify as the "other worldly" or the sacred.
Semiotics and the Sacred
Guest Edited by: Deborah Eicher-Catt
The articles included in this issue all seek to explore the complex signifying relation - between our experience and understanding of the profane or mundane aspects of existence and their distinction from what we identify as the "other worldly" or the sacred.
Spring, 2013
Communicology and Culture
Guest Edited by: Isaac E. Catt
The articles included in this special issue on Communicology and Culture are intended as an introduction to a new way of thinking about human communication. Culture consists of verbal and nonverbal codes that organize signs into systems of discourse. Discursive formations impose implicit and explicit rules on our experiences and behavior. Thus, the articles published here exemplify theoretical and applied work at the intersection of culture and communication.
Communicology and Culture
Guest Edited by: Isaac E. Catt
The articles included in this special issue on Communicology and Culture are intended as an introduction to a new way of thinking about human communication. Culture consists of verbal and nonverbal codes that organize signs into systems of discourse. Discursive formations impose implicit and explicit rules on our experiences and behavior. Thus, the articles published here exemplify theoretical and applied work at the intersection of culture and communication.
Winter, 2013
Crossing Boundaries: Christians and Muslims in Study and Dialogue
Edited by: Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC
These essays illustrate how listening and learning across religious borders provides critical resources for the academy and society. They point to that fact that a deeper understanding of the teachings and practices of the world's religions can foster good scholarship and relations among believers.
Crossing Boundaries: Christians and Muslims in Study and Dialogue
Edited by: Sr. Marianne Farina, CSC
These essays illustrate how listening and learning across religious borders provides critical resources for the academy and society. They point to that fact that a deeper understanding of the teachings and practices of the world's religions can foster good scholarship and relations among believers.
Fall, 2012
Listening to Mark: Reflections on the Second Gospel
Edited by: Mark McVann, F.S.C.
The work on the Second Gospel presented here represents some of the major contemporary currents of scholarly approaches to the gospel. Both challenging and rewarding, this issue of Listening Journal will, we hope, illustrate some of the wide-ranging and creative methods and approaches used by today's biblical scholars. More important, of course, we hope that the issue will encourage our readers to turn again with new questions, fresh insights, and a deepened appreciation for the challenging and inspired, difficult and beautiful Gospel of Mark.
Listening to Mark: Reflections on the Second Gospel
Edited by: Mark McVann, F.S.C.
The work on the Second Gospel presented here represents some of the major contemporary currents of scholarly approaches to the gospel. Both challenging and rewarding, this issue of Listening Journal will, we hope, illustrate some of the wide-ranging and creative methods and approaches used by today's biblical scholars. More important, of course, we hope that the issue will encourage our readers to turn again with new questions, fresh insights, and a deepened appreciation for the challenging and inspired, difficult and beautiful Gospel of Mark.
Spring, 2012
Catholicism and the Court
Edited by: Jerome C. Foss, Ph.D.
This issue aims at providing a beginning to the conversation addressing the question "in what ways, if any, can the Catholic intellectual tradition inform American judicial philosophy and practice?" Whatever the answer to this question, it stands to reason that Catholics will always disagree on particular applications of law. The discussion does not aim at revealing a single, doctrinal Catholic interpretation of the constitution, but rather how judges can approach the Constitution informed by this tradition and committed to faithful discharge of their duties in accord with the law.
Catholicism and the Court
Edited by: Jerome C. Foss, Ph.D.
This issue aims at providing a beginning to the conversation addressing the question "in what ways, if any, can the Catholic intellectual tradition inform American judicial philosophy and practice?" Whatever the answer to this question, it stands to reason that Catholics will always disagree on particular applications of law. The discussion does not aim at revealing a single, doctrinal Catholic interpretation of the constitution, but rather how judges can approach the Constitution informed by this tradition and committed to faithful discharge of their duties in accord with the law.
Winter, 2012
A Catholic Engagement with Liberalism in the Twenty-first Century
Edited by: Janie Harden Fritz, Ph.D.
This issue seeks to answer the questions:
(1) How can the Church listen to a new historical moment and to tradition, to changing practices in public and private life and to enduring convictions about what it means to flourish as a human being, to the strident voice of an age in which the New Atheism demands a hearing even as varied fundamentalists advocate competing visions of the (common) good?
(2) What philosophical resources can the Church bring to bear from her store of riches to offer wisdom to an increasingly secularized world?
(3) How do Catholics participate in a pluralistic public sphere in ways that honor the "local soil" of a democratic society and remain faithful to a Catholic teaching?
A Catholic Engagement with Liberalism in the Twenty-first Century
Edited by: Janie Harden Fritz, Ph.D.
This issue seeks to answer the questions:
(1) How can the Church listen to a new historical moment and to tradition, to changing practices in public and private life and to enduring convictions about what it means to flourish as a human being, to the strident voice of an age in which the New Atheism demands a hearing even as varied fundamentalists advocate competing visions of the (common) good?
(2) What philosophical resources can the Church bring to bear from her store of riches to offer wisdom to an increasingly secularized world?
(3) How do Catholics participate in a pluralistic public sphere in ways that honor the "local soil" of a democratic society and remain faithful to a Catholic teaching?
Fall, 2011
Rethinking the Secular
Edited by: Ada S. Jaarsma, Ph.D.
The essays in this issue are to invite readers to contemplate her or his own existential hopes. Who do we become, in and through the embodied and relational hopes that animate our lives?
Rethinking the Secular
Edited by: Ada S. Jaarsma, Ph.D.
The essays in this issue are to invite readers to contemplate her or his own existential hopes. Who do we become, in and through the embodied and relational hopes that animate our lives?
Spring, 2011
Intellectual Priests Across the Ages
Edited by: Janie Harden Fritz, Duquesne University
Examines Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Walter Ong, and Henry Koren as intellectual priests responding to questions
of a given historical moment.
Intellectual Priests Across the Ages
Edited by: Janie Harden Fritz, Duquesne University
Examines Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Erasmus, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Walter Ong, and Henry Koren as intellectual priests responding to questions
of a given historical moment.
Winter, 2011
Listening to Leisure
Edited by: Annette Holba, Plymouth State University
Offers reflection on the philosophical intersections between leisure and human communication that will be meaningful in an age of fast paced
communication and information overload.
Listening to Leisure
Edited by: Annette Holba, Plymouth State University
Offers reflection on the philosophical intersections between leisure and human communication that will be meaningful in an age of fast paced
communication and information overload.
Fall, 2010
Human rights Discourse Across Religious Traditions
Edited by: Marianne Farina, C.S.C., Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley
Explores how consideration of religion in a human rights context and human rights in a religious context can guide us, reflecting on the type of human rights
thinking that enables us to speak of "the right to religion" and "the right to human rights."
Human rights Discourse Across Religious Traditions
Edited by: Marianne Farina, C.S.C., Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley
Explores how consideration of religion in a human rights context and human rights in a religious context can guide us, reflecting on the type of human rights
thinking that enables us to speak of "the right to religion" and "the right to human rights."
Spring, 2010
World Religions
Increasingly the presence of Sikhs, Hindus, Korean Presbyterians, Muslims, and members of other religions in growing numbers is a new force in
contemporary America.
World Religions
Increasingly the presence of Sikhs, Hindus, Korean Presbyterians, Muslims, and members of other religions in growing numbers is a new force in
contemporary America.
Winter, 2010
The Liberal Arts in Catholic Higher Education
Edited by: Professor William Hodap, College of Saint Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota
The Liberal Arts in Catholic Higher Education
Edited by: Professor William Hodap, College of Saint Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota
