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Introduction: To protect public health, it is important that the population be vaccinated against COVID-19; however, certain factors can affect vaccine acceptance. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine whether religious fatalism and concern about new variants have a significant effect on the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines. Methodology: An explanatory study was conducted with 403 adults of legal age captured through non-probabilistic convenience sampling in vaccination centers in the 13 health networks of the Regional Health Directorate of Puno, Peru. Data were collected through a brief scale of religious fatalism, a scale of acceptance of vaccines against COVID-19 and a scale of concern about a new variant of COVID-19. Results: The proposed model obtained an adequate fit. There was a negative effect of religious fatalism on vaccine acceptance, a positive effect of fatalism on vaccine rejection, a positive effect of concern about new variants on the acceptance of vaccines, and a positive effect of concern about new variants on vaccine rejection. Conclusion: These findings provide evidence for the usefulness of considering both religious fatalism and concern about new variants affect the intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccine in adults in southern Peru. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Despite the benefits, the rate of genetic testing among first‐degree relatives (FDRs; parents, children, and siblings) remains low, and the barriers to undergoing testing among FDRs in China are not clear. We explored the reasons why FDRs refused genetic testing. Methods: Semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with 22 patients and 27 FDRs. Participants were recruited at an urban tertiary hospital in Guangzhou, South China. We used qualitative content analysis to analyse the transcripts of audio recordings and identify major themes and subthemes. Results: Three major themes emerged related to FDRs' low rate of participation in genetic testing. First, there is cognitive distance from genetic testing/cancer and a lack of knowledge of preventive medicine that deepens the 'fatalistic' attitude towards cancer among FDRs, which leads to an enormous gap between their knowledge and understanding of genetic testing. Second, medical consultation is not valued in Confucianism, and the view of cancer as 'bad news' and the risk of cancer as a curse makes cancer a metaphor, which leads to exhausting arguments when persuading FDRs to undergo genetic testing. Third, physical distance from the hospital, loss of privacy, possible discrimination in many social activities and genetic testing as a source of stress and anxiety lead FDRs to fear the disruption of their daily lives. Conclusions: There are many barriers to genetic testing among the FDRs of hereditary cancer patients originating from the national social and cultural context. Healthcare professionals should develop interventions rooted in culture and promote cancer risk communication between hereditary cancer patients and FDRs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practically unknown outside of China, the "endometrial determinism" theory was proposed to account for the apparent gap between the relatively low prevalence of endometriosis and nearly universal retrograde menstruation. Attracting uncritical advocacy, the theory culminates in a recent consensus by elite Chinese gynecologists in favor of "root treatment", intended to nip endometriosis in the bud. Correcting endometrial "defects" can gain further momentum by the presence of cancer-driver mutations such as KRAS mutations in the endometrium of women with endometriosis and the recent introduction of therapeutics aiming to rectify the effect of these mutations for cancer treatment. We provide a critical appraisal of evidence for endometrial aberrations in endometriosis and relevant experimental evidence. All available evidence of endometrial "defect" is invariably post hoc and may well be secondary to induced endometriosis. We propose that the theory of "endometrial determinism" needs to demonstrate a clear causal and a phylogenetic relationship between endometrial aberrations and endometriosis. We argue that while it is highly likely that endometriosis is a consequence of retrograde menstruation, the case that molecular aberrations as a sole or a necessary determinant remains to be proven. "Root treatment" is a worthy ambition but as of now it is close to a fanciful Utopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There cannot be any question that our minds determine our actions, behavior and, most certainly, our future. No one is forcing me to think this way, but I believe that we are responsible for our actions. We are the sum of what we think. Our thoughts shape us. Our thoughts determine our destiny. Others agree as well, especially the American motivational speaker, Earl Nightingale, who said: "We become what we think about". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuestiones de Sociologia: Revista de Estudios Sociales is the property of Universidad Nacional de La Plata and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article presents a review of the book "The Philosophy of Redemption" by Phillip Mainländer, which addresses topics such as cognitive faculty, physics, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Mainländer offers an immanent philosophy that seeks to understand ecological destruction and the immobility of countries in the face of scientific evidence. It highlights the importance of will as the authentic thing-in-itself in the immanent world and its focus on absolute death as an inevitable and desired destiny. The proximity of Mainländer's thinking to discoveries in evolutionary biology and the current ecological crisis is mentioned, and the need for an ontological analysis of our current situation is raised, assuming that ecodestruction is a form of self-destruction. [Extracted from the article]

The "feeling of destiny" has marked history. However, the historiography of emotions has not devoted enough attention to it. In classical times it was considered for decision making. Later we find rich systematic reflections: Machiavelli, Montaigne, Smith, Tolstoy, Weber, Geertz, Adorno... After studying these testimonies, we analyze the case of Gandhi and his "inner voice". Revitalizing the discussion about the feeling of destiny contributes to understanding phenomena such as populism. It is not possible to do politics only with reasons: emotions must be taken into account; among them, the enthusiasm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netflix time-travel series Dark exhibits many motifs found in ancient Athenian tragedy, from themes to modes of presentation. These include the use of myth, emphasis on houses and family trauma, mirror scenes, and other techniques for showing parallel events across generations, acts of murder and incest, preoccupation with fate, and divine intervention in the form of deus-ex-machina appearances. Together these motifs encourage Dark to be viewed as a tragic enterprise for the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an analysis of the concept of karma and related concepts, such as rebirth, merit, and transfer of merit, along with a historical survey focusing on classical texts. The attractiveness of the belief in karma lies in two main reasons. The first is the moral ideal of getting one's just deserts on the basis of one's actions and omissions. The second reason involves the idea of rebirth. The belief in both karma and rebirth can bring consolation with the hope of life hereafter, where one's destiny is determined not by chance, but by the moral quality of one's actions in this or previous lives. The belief in karma also incorporates diverging elements, such as transfer of merit. The practice of transfer of merit serves to improve an individual's moral and religious status through rituals or other suitable means, while the doctrine of karma itself strongly speaks to the strict fulfilment of retributive justice. Both motives—fulfilling justice according to the law of karma and improving one's moral status through transfer of merit—are psychologically powerful and attractive, although their mutual compatibility is debatable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to draw attention to the existence of a common ground on which modern artist and modern thinker come close to each other in articulating a uniquely modern urgency, which gives shape to a new understanding of wisdom. Departing from the role often assigned to the poets/prose writers as the “stagnators of life” in the ages of turmoil, the article examines The Book of Disquiet, owned by Bernardo Soares, the semi-heteronym of Portuguese writer and poet Fernando Pessoa, as a collection of fragments that stage crucial moments of stagnation. After underlining how modernist literature has often been viewed as a separate realm from the devastating socio-political developments of the twentieth century, it exemplifies some experimenting gestures of the so-called “wise” artist through an analysis of The Book of Disquiet. The analysis focuses on the co-existence of poetry and prose, the exteriorization of interior experience via the notion of landscape, and the idea that life can best be observed from a distance after it is fully stopped. Drawing on literary readings of Walter Benjamin, Maurice Blanchot, and Paul de Man, the article aims to show that The Book of Disquiet, like the works of such poet/prose writers as Rilke and Kafka, illustrates how the destiny of modern artist, unlike that of modern world, was to break with the teleological concerns of daily life in favor of capturing life in its reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on existential thought this paper examines trauma as a lived experience. By focusing on how trauma reveals itself and how it behaves in our everyday, the discussion delivers viewpoints which existential psychotherapists could consider when exploring their clients' trauma or even their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: Within critical research broadly, scholars increasingly turn to stories and storytelling to pursue equity in educational contexts. Such scholarship does, however, primarily focus on the composition or creation of stories. Expanding the scope of storytelling research, this article turns to queer and trans knowledges to highlight a parallel set of storytelling practices—de-composing practices—and demonstrates their impact on historically marginalized community narratives and the pursuit of equity and justice in the field of education. Purpose/Objective/Research Question or Focus of Study: As critical calls for storying, counter-storytelling, and restorying increase within critical research in education, this article theorizes a parallel literacy practice, de-storying, as part of a set of de-composing practices. Defined as the habitual and often subconscious unimagining of community narratives in alignment with dominant narratives, de-storying shows how certain stories of marginalized communities come to be consistently unimagined. This article focuses particularly on queer community narratives and de-storying's impact in the form of unimagined ancestors, elders, guardians, and peers. Research Design: A narrative inquiry project, this research study shares data from an inquiry community of nine queer educators. Gathering together 13 times over the course of an academic year, these educators engaged in a structured restorying process and through speculative storytelling reimagined and rewrote narrativized experiences of queerphobia. In particular, small stories demonstrated how de-storying affected these educators' storytelling practices and, furthermore, revealed that three dominant community narratives (i.e., heteronormativity, queer fatalism, and homonormativity) compressed the potential small stories these educators told. Conclusions/Recommendations: Findings from this project illustrate how de-storying practices resulted in four unimagined community narratives across participants: missing queer ancestors, elders, guardians, and peers. De-storying occurred across various intersections of participants' identities. Findings from this study advance critical approaches to storytelling by revealing de-storying as one of many potential de-composing practices. This article concludes by inviting the theorization of additional de-composing practices in order to center the most marginalized stories within education—namely, those that are actively unimagined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to discuss a destiny for the feminine that does not go through phallocentric Freudian solutions. For this purpose, it recaptures Freud and Lacan's course about femininity and the feminine, respectively. It resorts, however, to an episode of James Joyce's Ulysses, namely Molly Bloom's monologue, to illustrate what a woman can astutely do with the know-how of feminine enjoyment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Dixit. Comunicación, Profesión, Conocimiento is the property of Universidad Catolica del Uruguay Damaso Antonio Larranaga and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The heroic myth is one of the most common literary tropes around the world. In different cultural circles, the plot of a myth may take a different form, but it always oscillates around the same events. Examples of the realization of the heroic myth are both the series about the witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski and the manga Berserk by Kentarō Miura. Geralt and Guts exhibit similar traits and behaviours on the way to understanding their identity and destiny. The article presents different attitudes of the protagonists who implement the aforementioned heroic myth. Comparative considerations have been enriched with the context of the concept of archetypes by Carl Gustav Jung [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Cuestiones Teológicas is the property of Cuestiones Teologicas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Contrary to the view that the Trojan Catalogue lacks artistry or sensitivity to the Iliad's larger drama, I argue that it interweaves motifs used of epic obituaries and raises the theme of the doomed Trojan leader to underscore Hector's fate at the end of the epic. Hector's doom is put into greater relief through the Trojan Catalogue's deliberate contrast to the preceding Catalogue of Ships, which alternatively presents the theme of the absent leader with a view towards Achilles' role. The juxtaposition of the two catalogues ultimately generates pathos for the tragic fates of the Trojans and their chief defender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part of a larger project interrogating the strategies of different 20th century Scandinavian writers of reaching themselves by exploring anthropologic and geographic alterity during their travels, my article looks into the way that Göran Tunström's Indian explorations, evoked in his travelogue "India - a winter journey"2, function as a catalyst of his personal destiny, reverberating in a singular form of artistic assumption. His inspiring explorations, at the same time geographical and interior, can even invite a phenomenological approach to alterity awareness, in which the portrait of the women from Alapsur plays an interesting role in reversing the functions of exotism and otherness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contains observations on the content of a hitherto unexplored Old Polish work of the late 17th century on religious and eschatological themes. Although its author, a Jesuit Stefan Wielowieyski, refers to 17th-century conventions of writing about hell and the final destiny of the human soul, he modifies these conventions considerably. The article demonstrates that the modification of writing about hell and the afterlife was influenced both by the teachings of eminent theologians (the Fathers of the Church, St Augustine and especially St Bernard of Clairvaux) and by new trends in Christian spirituality. Indeed, Polish mysticism was developing exuberantly in the Polish Nobles’ Republic at the end of the 17th century, and the new generation of the Counter-Reformation promoted ‘spiritual exercises’ in the monasteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Born in the Banat lands, Constantin Daicoviciu linked his name and destiny to the Romanian University of Cluj. In 1920, he became its student at the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, majoring in classical philology. He studied Latin and Greek with professors Vasile Bogrea and Ştefan Bezdechi and Nicolae Bănescu caught his interest in the Byzantinology course. His licensure exam consisted of two written tests and an oral test, the three members of the commission (Nicolae Bănescu, Vasile Bogrea, Ştefan Bezdechi) preparing at the end of each one a verbal process that also mentions the qualification received by the candidate. After the licensure exam in 1923, he was awarded the title of licentiate in classical philology He graduated the licensure exam with "magna cum laudae". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Colombiana de Educación is the property of Universidad Pedaggica Nacional and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The historiographical writings about Grigore Gafencu framed him as a patriot and a Europeanist. All of the initiatives he later stood for, after leaving the country and going into exile, were fundamentally tied to his diplomatic destiny. His positions as a journalist and the contacts he made afterward, in Geneva, both reflect a complex personality. In retrospect, it appeared that writing was his first major commitment; now, we would refer to him as a distinguished political figure. His translated and published writings from exile continue to serve as proof of this work. Grigore Gafencu maintained the ideals of his generation and through his initiative, being a militant of the European cause, made a political commitment to the improvement of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is dedicated to an unknown subject till now -- the attempt undertaken in 1951 for a dialogue between the philosopher D. Michalchev (1880-1967) with the prime minister and leader of the communist party V. Chervenkov (1900-1980). It is presented the immediate context and the motives for the writing of "Criticism and Self-defense" by Michalchev, which is used as a reason for addressing the state and party leader. Michalchev's philosophical and citizen's gesture is linked with the current mainstream as well as with the personal history of the philosopher, which reflects the destiny of prominent Bulgarian intellectuals surviving the political changes of 1944. Unpublished archive documents have been presented in the article. An interpretation has been developed there of revealing the right causes and mechanisms of Michalchev's ideological defeat in the early 1953. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Iluminuras is the property of Revista Iluminuras and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article scrutinizes the issue of inter-American destiny in the dramatic world of the Argentinian-born Guillermo Verdecchia (b. 1962), whose work was awarded with the prestigious Governor General's Literary Award (est. 1937) in Canada. Verdecchia deals with a subjective cultural history that shapes various destinies through an inter-American space and given time periods. The thespian plot in his Fronteras Americanas (1993) is an idiosyncratic story that does not count communal dates or anniversaries but, instead, focuses on the lived experience and the destiny of the individual. Verdecchia's play has a peculiar political relevance in being conceived as a subjective inter-American history lesson on the issue of Latin diaspora in North America and, as such, presents an idiosyncratic history of a Canadian Latinx, created as a monologue reminding one of an oral storytelling of a destiny that is bound in the history web of the Americas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) are non-convolutional neural models that learn 3D scene structure and color to produce novel images of a given scene from a new view point. NeRFs are closely related to such photogrammetric problems as camera pose estimation and bundle adjustment. NeRF takes a number of oriented cameras and photos as an input and learns a function that maps a 5D pose vector to an RGB color and volume destiny at point. The estimated function can be used to draw an image using a volume rendering pipeline. Still NeRF have a major limitation: they can not be used for dynamic scene synthesis. We propose a modified NeRF framework that can represent a dynamic scene as a superposition of two or more neural radiance fields. We consider a simple dynamic scene consisting of a static background scene and moving object with a static shape. We implemented our DoubleNeRF model using TensorFlow library. The results of evaluation are encouraging and demonstrate that our DoubleNeRF model achieves and surpasses the state of the art in the dynamic scene synthesis. Our framework includes two neural radiance fields for a background scene and dynamic objects. The evaluation of the model demonstrates that it can be effectively used for synthesis of photorealistic dynamic image sequence and videos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cult of Moirai/ Moerae, their iconography, and the popular faith concerning the goddesses of destiny in the Greek colonies on the western shore of the Pontus Euxinus make the subject of the present study. Our research is based on the study of epigraphic, literary, and archeaological (votive bas-reliefs) documents. The cult of the Moirai is certainly certificated in Naulochos (the modern Obzor, in Bulgaria) and at Istros where two dedications to the goddesses of destiny were found out. A votive aedicula in the temple of Aphrodite at Istros proves the relations between the Moirai and the cult of Aphrodite. The association of the Moirai with Aphrodite is confirmed by the two reliefs discovered at Panticapaion and Tyras, which present a similar composition with the one on the votive relief at Istros. The funeral epitaphs found out along the western shore of the Pontus Euxinus underline the Greeks'popular creeds related to the goddesses of destiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The future of technology is intertwined with the future of Christianity. According to Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino, science and religion have a common origin and proceed towards a common destiny. In the modern age, the biblical category of "promise" has been transformed into that of "scientific progress". What does it mean to speak of freedom now? We are in the age of provviscience. This neologism shows the atheistic and nihilistic character of Western philosophy because it entrusts the fate of humanity to scientific and technological progress. For many philosophers (Y. N. Harari, Natoli, Galimberti) it no longer makes sense to speak of human will and divine providence because technology already represents the fulfilment of the ideal of redemption announced by Christianity. Going back to the reflection on the ontology of freedom proposed by the Italian philosopher Luigi Pareyson, we can reposition the question of freedom as a central in the West philosophy and we can give back the primacy of human-divine mystery of freedom over the scientific algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Training is essential for accomplishing complete human potential, growing an equitable and society, and promoting country wide improvement. imparting standard get entry to quality education is the important thing to economic boom, social justice and exceptional, scientific advancement, country wide integration and cultural protection; and for India’s endured ascent, progress, and management on the worldwide degree. India will have the best youth populace within the global over the next decade, and our potential to offer instructional possibilities to them will shape the destiny of our country. the arena is undergoing rapid adjustments within the expertise panorama. With the upward push of big information, system mastering, and artificial intelligence, many unskilled jobs international can be taken over by machines, while the want for skilled labour, in particular regarding mathematics, laptop technological know-how and facts technology, alongside multi-disciplinary capabilities throughout the sciences, social sciences and arts, might be in rapidly growing call for. With climate trade and fast depletion of natural assets, there may be a giant shift in how we meet the sector’s energy, water, and sanitation needs, once more ensuing in the want for brand spanking new skilled labour, particularly in biology, chemistry, physics, and climate science. There may be a growing call for humanities and artwork, as India movements in the direction of turning into evolved united states and many of the three largest economies in the global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía (0185-3481) is the property of Universidad Iberoamericana Cuidad de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía (0185-3481) is the property of Universidad Iberoamericana Cuidad de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Colloquium Helveticum is the property of Aisthesis Verlag Gmbh & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent culture wars, as fueled by right-wing extremists and warmongers over an identitarian and biologistic understanding of culture, require philosophy of culture to contradict and articulate its self-understanding. The article is structured along four theses that contest widespread assumptions, unfold their problematics and outline perspectives of cultural philosophy: 1. culture is not a being; 2. critique is not enmity; 3. technology is not a doom; 4. history is not destiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the numerous studies focused on the sociopsychological factors involved in seismic preparedness, we have limited knowledge of the impact pathways from fatalism belief and optimism orientation to preparedness. This study proposed a theoretical model to examine the intertwined relationships among fatalism belief, optimism orientation, and risk perception regarding public seismic preparedness based on a survey in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China. The results indicate that fatalism belief can directly reduce an individual's seismic preparedness intention. In addition, such beliefs negatively moderate the positive relationship between the probability perception of earthquakes and skill preparedness. Moreover, optimism orientation has dual effects. On the one hand, it directly enhances the public's intention to prepare. On the other hand, it makes people underestimate their perceptions of the consequences of earthquakes, which indirectly reduces their willingness to materially prepare. Furthermore, we found that fatalism belief can negatively moderate the positive relationship between optimism orientation and material preparedness. These findings contribute to safety education for earthquake disaster risk reduction (EDRR) strategies, especially those used where fatalist culture is prevalent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It might appear as though all the dire warnings regarding end times would only yield despair, nihilism, resignation and the paralysis of panic. This would certainly be the case if the world we live in now were the best of all possible worlds, and if the ‘we’ of the Anthropocene were an unavoidable point of view generated by the common calamity of the future. There is, however, another virtual ‘we’ that is made possible by the dire warnings of ‘our’ end. Rather than one’s possible non-being amounting to the determinism of a death sentence, freedom emerges and is made possible by imagining life beyond the point of view of what has come to call itself ‘the human’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout his life, British composer Sir Arthur Bliss (1891–1975) placed great importance on the value of music. He saw it as something that could bring peace and healing and as an 'art that reaches beyond the world.' In his artistic creed, set out in 1934, Bliss speaks of music as inherently linked with emotion in its form as a crucial mode of human expression, both in listening and in its composition. His philosophies on these are fairly well documented; he spoke publicly on contemporary composition and wrote extensively on his own experiences with music, not least in his autobiography, As I Remember. Equally, he and his wife both write of his music as an embodiment of the 'private' Arthur Bliss, one in which we might find something of the man hidden from the general public. With this in mind, and given Bliss's view of music as something with spiritual value, this article aims to examine his previously neglected philosophies on composition, exploring themes of emotion, identity, and destiny through an exegesis of his writings, lectures, and broadcasts, and by probing the composition and context of A Colour Symphony, Meditations on a Theme by John Blow, and Shield of Faith. Using a lens of Douglas Davies' idea-value-belief series supported by Davies' theory of cultural intensification it argues that, for Bliss, music can be seen as more than an idea—it was a value, a belief, and perhaps even a religious belief. In its conclusion, this article suggests that we can uncover a form of spirituality in Bliss's attitude to music and view this attitude as something which acts 'against death'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of Jerusalem Story (www. jerusalemstory.com), a website created by Qatar’s Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, doubles as a measured critique of philosophical, historical, and existential affects including fatalism, teleology, and pathos. The website project may have arisen out of the once and future unification of Palestinian resistance around Shaykh Jarrah in 2021, which encapsulated the overarching centrality of Jerusalem to Palestine’s past, present, and future. Heacock notes that while the site has multiple entrance points and is brilliantly illustrated, the question remains whether the population studied is sufficiently inclusive. Certain issues are skirted, probably due to the multiplicity of themes it already evokes. The review compares Jerusalem Story to two notable existing websites, the Institute for Palestine Studies/Palestinian Museum’s “Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question” – Palquest, and Palestine Remembered, and places it alongside other sources, written, oral, and pictorial. The reviewer sees in the website a tendency to evaluate essential milestones (Jordan’s severance of ties in 1988, the Oslo accords, the apartheid wall) teleologically as cynical, failed, or sadistic decisions from the start. Such interpretations are treated as axioms, rather than hypotheses requiring sober analysis. Absent are Jerusalemites’ issues involving each other in addition to their colonial oppressor. Despite the site’s discursive tendency to treat their condition as one of sheer suffering bereft of that dynamic agency which has kept them firmly resilient and fiercely resistant, the review concludes that the site adds a great deal to our knowledge and empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This dialogue begins with the question of "concrete Marxism," which is at the foundations of "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics." The concrete is analysed in terms of Marx's dialectic between freedom and necessity, as also in Marx's early work on Epicurean materialism and in Engels's "Dialectics of Nature" and "Anti-Dühring." We include a discussion of Hegel's dialectic between the actual and the rational. Subsequently, we move to the relationship of socialist construction to the (non-socialist) past and a socialist future. We adduce examples from Marx's "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte," as well as the Chinese concept of mingyun (destiny/future) and explore the implications of Lenin's critique of "left wing" impatience with the past. The issue here is the mistake of a "leftist" effort to make the leap—through sheer voluntary effort—into communism as an over-compensation for practical deficiencies and, on the other hand, the possibility for revolutionary socialism of appropriating and transforming the positive advances of bourgeois culture and civilisation. We conclude with some preliminary observations on the communist prospect, emphasising the concrete form of the dialectic of productive forces and relations of production and the reasons why this form highlights the importance of the former as a motive force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present research, we examined the links among relative financial scarcity, thinking style, fatalism, and well‐being and their roles in predicting protective behaviors against COVID‐19. Study 1 (N = 120) revealed that after an experimental manipulation to induce the perception of relative financial scarcity (versus financial abundance), people who perceived higher relative financial scarcity changed their thinking style to a more concrete mindset. In Study 2 (N = 873), the relative financial abundance–scarcity situation was measured, and the results showed that the greater the perceived relative financial scarcity was, the more concrete the mindset and the lower the sense of well‐being. Importantly, we found that individuals who felt poorer but maintained an abstract thinking style reported higher well‐being. Study 3 (N = 501) examined the influence of a concrete thinking style in people who perceived that their economic situation had worsened with the pandemic. The results showed that when this vulnerable population presented a more concrete mindset, they reported lower well‐being, higher fatalism, and lower protective behavior against COVID‐19. Thus, maintaining an abstract mindset promotes higher well‐being, lower fatalism, and greater protective behaviors against COVID‐19, even under economic difficulties. Because thinking style can be modified, our results encourage the development of new social intervention programs to promote an abstract mindset when people face important challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Turkey Journal of Theological Studies is the property of Turkey Journal of Theological Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North dramatizes the violence of colonialism and patriarchy and their impact on the African psyche. This article shifts from the prevailing scholarship on Mustafa, the main protagonist, to locate hope in what one does, not merely as an abstract concept. The unnamed narrator exemplifies Salih's vision of a postcolonial subject that recognizes the perils of binary thinking and aspires instead toward an ethic acceptance of vulnerability and difference. Invoking Tia DeNora's conception of hope as "an orientation to action" and "a space for possibility," I show how the narrator's embrace of hope is linked to and complicated by the effects of colonialism and patriarchy in his Sudanese village. Overall, the aim of this article is threefold: first, to examine Salih's critique of female negation and male hegemony; second, to highlight Salih's rejection of passivity and fatalism--how both undermine individual and collective agency and reinforce female negation in society; and, lastly, to consider Salih's postcolonial utopianism and privileging of autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]