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The article presents conversations between feminists women about epistemic and physical harm, epistemic injustice, gendered-based violence and joy in academia. Topics discussed include plagiarism in academic research, academics capitalizing on the free labor of junior colleagues, curriculum on research methodologies that reproduce a patriarchal order in the academia, link between the production of knowledge and sexual power, bullying and institutional abuse, and mistrust in senior academics.

This paper explores how the corporate (re)naming of football stadia and their urban environs is negotiated through fans' toponymic discourses and associated commemoration. Critical toponymy research emphasises oppositional toponymic tensions between sovereign authorities and citizens, which can result in competing inscriptions of space. Adopting a quasi-ethnographic approach, we reveal a more complex picture by exploring the variegated toponymic discourses of football fans. The findings demonstrate intricate entanglements in how fans reluctantly accept a corporate stadium name, yet also actively resist it through counter-performative utterances, often imbued with commemorative intent. Alternatively, fans passively ignore a corporate stadium name, using a former toponym in quotidian and habitual speech. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for the influence of corporate power in urban toponymic inscription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using fiction, the story introduces the essential role of leisure to bridge the realities of life and death. Facing death of a friend or your own engenders questions about the purpose of one's life, addressing unresolved relationships, and how to live well while dying. Josef Pieper's conceptualization of leisure as contemplating one's place in the universe and celebrating or affirming one's place in the cosmos is relevant to understanding this intersection. The story revolves around a wake, a practice of sitting with the dead and mourning/celebrating that dates to ancient times to highlight leisure as a companion for dying, death, and life. The emergence of death doulas and community-based deathcare suggests an interest in creating new or alternative rituals and leisure practices that sustain people during these transitional spaces-times. The short story interlaces experience, research, and historical scholarship to highlight leisure as already present and essential for living and dying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many, the COVID-19 pandemic is the overwhelming, ever-present reality of dying—of loved ones, close family members, dear friends, colleagues, or patients. Fear, avoidance of or lack of time for essential conversations, physical separation during final moments, and lack of rituals for these contingencies leave individuals alone with loss, mourning, and grieving. How is leisure relevant during such realities? Historically, leisure has been present across diverse cultural dying and death practices: art, music, dance, theater, play, contemplation, rituals, and somatic practices. These connect individuals with life forces even as some are absent in the flesh. In truth, we are all experiencing dying-death-mourning-beginning again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Josef Pieper's (2017, 2016, 2011, 1999, 1988) philosophy hints of leisure as context for the meaning, purpose, and comfort in such trying times: contemplating one's place in a changing world/universe and celebrating or affirming that relationship in community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores a range of case studies from the plethora of events which took place in 2016 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. It examines commemorations of Shakespeare as “corpse” through presentations of his physical remains, including his will, final home and burial site and commemorations of Shakespeare as “corpus” through presentations of his plays and poems taken to represent perceptions of both the playwright’s lived experience and philosophies of death. It explores commemorative events focused on Shakespeare’s First Folio as the first memorial acknowledgement of Shakespeare’s death and act of artistic preservation. It also discusses events for which considerations of both “corpse” and “corpus” were combined to construct new narratives of Shakespeare’s life, works and legacy, consolidating the playwright as cultural icon in 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Seharane celebrations of the Jews of Kurdistan whose immigration to Israel is a case of ‘ethno-national homecoming’. The immigrants from Kurdistan express an Israeli identity in the public renewal of these celebrations. Their leaders demanded a right to ethnic otherness that is included in Israeli society, and attempted to position themselves anew within the national space. The syncretic dynamics that were created indicate that ethnic traditions continue to serve as a resource for minority groups of immigrants and their offspring, and that a liberal state must afford their customs public legitimisation and must recognise their leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What makes a simple wine, grown in a rather mediocre wine-growing region, one of the most famous and magical marketplace icons of today? How did champagne establish such a unique position, against all the odds, and become the global symbol of celebration? In seeking answers to these questions, thismarketplace iconcontribution elaborates on what 250 years of avant-garde champagne marketing can tell us about champagne’s ever-shifting image and role in consumer culture. I argue that the “imperishable fame” of champagne stems primarily from four epic myth-making moments that not only came to shape a national identity but also modern consumption ideologies in important ways. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In an era when it is proclaimed that, through globalization, the world has become flat, the unevenness of economic and social development is often overlooked or suppressed. This case study explores the conditions of uneven geographical development in the urban space of central Florida. Focusing primarily on the Reedy Creek Improvement District ( RCID), better known to much of the world as Walt Disney World, and on Celebration, the community developed by the Disney Corporation in the 1990s, the relationship between tourism, the defining economic sector in the region, and uneven geographical development is explored. This study shows that the theory of uneven geographical development applies well to a region that is heavily dependent upon the tourist sector for its economy, and thereby works to control the narrative of that space to continue attracting consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of being a Protestant Chaplain at the Newark State School in New York and a Chaplain and Coordinator of Religious Services at a Rochester, New York facility.

The provision of leisure and sport for persons with disabilities is an integral part of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006, article 30), and in turn, these activities can positively contribute to the physical, emotional and spiritual lives of those with physical and/or intellectual disabilities (Heintzman, this issue; Patterson & Pegg, 2009). Based on this premise, we argue that the activities of leisure and sport (especially the Special Olympics) offer those with disabilities in L'Arche communities--an international federation of communities founded in the mid-1960s by the French Canadian, Jean Vanier--a vehicle for spiritual expression through "celebration. "By way of interdisciplinary discussion, we explore the diverse and rich meanings of celebration within the context of leisure and sport, with specific reference to embodied experiences, such as fun, joy, belonging, festivity, laughter and play, as understood in the writings of the founder of L'Arche, Jean Vanier, the Catholic philosopher, Joseph Pieper, and scholars from a range of disciplines. In conclusion, we suggest that the experience of celebration through leisure and sport participation (especially via the Special Olympics) is an invaluable and understated source of meaning and hope for those with disabilities within L'Arche communities, and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africans express themselves at various occasions through songs. The Akan of Ghana use songs and dance to express emotions including thankfulness, seek explanations and convey messages of condolences to the bereaved family. They spend time and huge sums of money to perform funerals. The seriousness of funeral ceremonies among the Akan is expressed in the following proverb: “Abusua do funu”, literally meaning “the family loves the dead”. During funerals, different songs are sung irrespective of the type of music, be it Hi-Life, Adowa, Sikyi, Bosoe or Christian. At the various stages of the funeral, different songs are sung to convey different messages directed at different audiences or issues. The messages may be directed to God, the dead person, the bereaved family or to death itself. The stages can be when the person is laid in state, moving towards the graveyard, saying the final goodbye, after the burial, at the thanksgiving service or during the final funeral rites. This article argues that songs sung during Akan funerals celebrations provide special insight into what death is and how to handle those left behind by the dead. The article concludes that funeral songs that are sung at funerals teach both the young and old about death as an inevitable phenomenon and the need for each member of the community to join forces to assist wherever it occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The claim that ‘festivals suspend the everyday’ is challenged in this article, which deals with how two South African arts festivals – the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival in Oudtshoorn and Aardklop in Potchefstroom – are constructed. This article examines how the ‘setting apart’ of festivals, which is assumed as self-evident in the festival literature, occurs. The notion of liminality (the process by which the ordinary is rendered extra-ordinary during festivals) is therefore central to the analysis. Six conditions of liminality are distinguished: extensive planning and preparation, different senses of time, the alteration of everyday routines, re-discovery and re-appropriation of private and public spaces, the activation of festival spaces; and the reworking of rules. These six factors considered collectively are the most important conditions of liminality within the context of the arts festivals; in other words, they make these festivals into constructed liminal events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Jane Darke, artist and filmmaker, lives on a beach. She collects and records debris that wash in. She also paints them, letting thus chance influence her work. She also paints the beach, a 'pale world' she insists, defined by 'transience' and 'interconnectedness'. She writes and makes films about the beach and understands her work as 'celebration', seeking a balance between the subject of the work and her own meaning-creating emphasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the more recent annual cultural highlights in Auckland and Wellington, New Zealand, is the public celebration of Diwali, the Hindu 'Festival of Lights'. Since 2002, Diwali has been presented to a wider New Zealand public as a particularly visible performance event. The festival is showcased as a way of celebrating New Zealand's various South Asian communities, and has been placed into a spatial terrain that has performance at its core. Drawing on ethnographic field research at Diwali celebrations in New Zealand over the past few years, as well from interviews with key informants, this article addresses insiders' perceptions of the public Diwali festival in Wellington in terms of its significance in New Zealand's contemporary multicultural setting. The study draws on theoretical ideas from ethnomusicology and cultural studies, and shows how contemporary global processes and modes of cultural representation are played out in a public festival as a result of organizational intervention from outside the local South Asian community. It is argued that a study of this particular performance event, which provides an ethnomusicological case study in the dialectics of tradition and its transformation, creates a new spatiality that contributes to the analysis and understanding of diaspora in the New Zealand context, especially with regard to how identity is shaped and constructed through and as a result of performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a contribution to the theory and practice of educational action research by introducing two theoretical and methodological resources as part of a personal review of sustained professional experience: 'appreciative inquiry' and the 'enneagram'. It is more than a theoretical exercise, however, because it also constitutes an action-oriented reflection on the transitional nature of the author's professional situation, moving from work as a school-based primary school teacher and head teacher to work as a consultant. It is thus a distillation of past experience and a vision of how professional learning might be supported in the future. In the first part, appreciative inquiry is introduced as an associated form of action research methodology that follows four successive stages of discovery, dream, design and destiny around an affirmative topic choice. The author then explains his choice of the enneagram as a useful life-affirming tool for self-understanding in personal and professional development and how it might be used to stimulate reflexive awareness of the inner work of teaching. Thirdly, in the discovery stage, the author uses the enneagram to engage in a sequence of nine short mediations that seek to appreciate the positive core of teaching from the inside and celebrate the intimate experience of teaching according to nine distinct modes of consciousness. Fourthly, the author builds on the range of teaching strengths revealed by the enneagram by engaging in the dream stage of appreciative inquiry that evokes an imaginative envisioning of the kind of reflective practice the world is calling for from teachers. Finally, the author concludes by looking ahead to the design and destiny stages, reflecting on the need to explore the implications of the inquiry for systematic forms of practitioner research and appropriate kinds of tutorial support for professional learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors designed this study to evaluate the prevalence and magnitude of heavy drinking among college students in celebrating their 21st birthdays and the impact of a birthday card suggesting moderation. The authors randomly assigned subjects to receive or not receive the card approximately 1 week prior to their birthday. Approximately 1 week after turning 21, the authors sent surveys to all subjects. Results based on 164 returned surveys indicated that 90% consumed alcohol, 75% went to a bar, 61% reached a blood alcohol content (BAC) above the legal driving limit, and 23% reached a BAC above .25. Results were similar for men and women. Although subjects generally liked the birthday card, it had no impact on their drinking or celebration plans. Findings suggest the need for additional attention focusing on specific alcohol-related events and further development of prevention approaches that are event specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically analyzes the political elements of the new town planning trend, New Urbanism, through a study of the Disney Company's development of Celebration, Florida. Celebration, as both a high-profile example of the New Urbanism and as a product of Disney's skill at "Imagineering," provides an important example of utopian thinking and planning within the context of the political economy of consumption. Through interviews and archival research, this paper looks at the political and social implications of commodity utopianism as planned communities and the ethic of consumption continue to occupy prominent places within the popular American psyche. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper concerns the fictionalisation of the phenomenon of the "middle passage" within Atlantic cultures. Scholarly construction of the middle passage has tended to be grounded in the analysis of abuse, guilt and suffering. The ground rules for this set of cultural emphases were laid down in England in the late eighteenth century, and then seeped through the Americas. Yet much may be gained by moving away from this inheritance, by looking at the rhetoric that, in different ways, celebrates the processes of the middle passage. The majority of celebratory rhetoric was written by slavery apologists for a pro-slavery readership. Isaac Teale's strange poem " The Voyage of the Sable Venus ," written in 1765 and published in 1793, together with an accompanying engraving by the celebrated artist Thomas Stothard, is used as a test case to think through some ironies and paradoxes thrown up by art which injects sexualised humour into the contemplation of the middle passage. The tendency to ironise, and even joke about, the processes of sexuality and suffering embodied within the experience of the middle passage, is then taken out from eighteenth-century England and into contemporary Brazil. The discussion moves on to meditate upon the meanings of the sea-Goddess Iemanjá within the cult religions of Salvador Bahia. The piece ends by speculating on what it means when the icon of American subject womanhood, the Barbie doll, is taken over to Brazil and transformed into the African sea-Venus, and protector of slaves, Iemanjá. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We live in a rapidly changing culture, often with a loss of identity, community, and meaning. Rituals can give us a foundation, that sense of stability we need as we tackle the challenges and opportunities that confront us on a daily basis. Rituals must be grounded in understanding developed through particular attention to the meaning of the aging process in the context of the life span. The purpose of this article is to discuss the meanings of rituals and to present a simple method for creating rituals that can add meaning to the lives of older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Anja Vogelzang, a Chaplain at De Hartenberg, a residential facility in the Netherlands, describes the rationale and process for a worship service conducted with people with severe mental disabilities and multiple disabilities. She focuses on ways to build celebration and community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]