精神性与物质性的尴尬——关于“今楷”创作思潮的探讨

“今楷”创作思想,是以旭宇先生为首的中国书协楷书专业委员会于2007年石家庄全国楷书创作会议上提出的,在当代书坛影响很大,已经形成一种思潮。本着“百家争鸣”的态度参与这一思潮的讨论,就书法创作中形式技巧的运用与审美诉求的关系,对“今楷”的打造在物质性和精神性两方面的合理性加以论证,是十分必要的。     

Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace: Honoring Religious Diversity and Modeling Respect for Faiths Through Children’s Literature

Understanding and respecting young children’s religious background is an important way of respecting diversity. Due to the traditional separation of church and state, many professionals tend to ignore the significant influence of religious belief and training during the early childhood years. Sharing high-quality picture books simultaneously enables adults and peers to expand their understandings of different faiths and to communicate their respect for and interest in young children’s religious education. This editorial concludes with a selective list of picture book titles that focus on different faiths that are suitable for children in the primary grades.     

何顿:资本神话时代写作的标本或范型

何顿的小说展示了社会转型时期物欲对人的控制，同时也显示出对市场经济体制下人类精神状态的关怀。从小说内容到写作行为本身，何顿都称得上这个时代写作的一种范型。     

On spirituality and education

It is a mistake to ignore the scientific study of spirituality. Research examining the structure and function of concepts such as “spirit” and “spirituality” is likely to reveal new insights into the relationship between a functional spirituality and other thinking skills, including creativity. The study of spirituality should not stand alone as a discrete, somewhat eccentric, focus of enquiry. There should, instead, be an effort at synthesis with mainstream psychological science and basic and applied research in the field of education. There should be some effort made to examine the functional significance of a functional spirituality. Educational researchers should feel free to consider spirituality as a focus for dialogue and exchange with colleagues and students alike. The students in my class, and some of my colleagues, may have at first recoiled slightly when I began asking them for their thoughts on spirituality, but the dialogue has been truly stimulating, interesting, and enlightening.     

一座太长太远的桥?——对圣保罗与孔夫子的比较性思考

本文旨在反思基于沟通中国与欧洲不同思维方式的一个学术生命的信仰基础。借助思考两位伟大的导师——圣保罗和孔夫子的生命及其智慧,探索了两个不同文明的根源。文章反思了他们如何准备其生命的终点,也就是一种他们的使命似乎未能最终实现,自己也无从预料会留下长远遗产的境遇。文章并进一步比较了两位先哲核心理念之异同,作者认为,正是这些核心理念激发了他们各自富于社会责任和进步的学术追求。     

Living Our Mission: A Study of University Mission Building

At the same time that organizational communication and management scholars are focusing attention on trends of spirituality in the workplace, faith-based organizations are taking up the question of how they might maintain a distinct spiritual identity. For these institutions, communicating mission becomes the defining feature of institutional identity. Explicitly religious organizations provide a venue for understanding the implications of incorporating spirituality in organizational discourse. This empirical study explores a mission-building conference and examines the ways in which communicating a spiritual mission simultaneously enriches and constrains both the individual members and the organizations as a whole.     

Exploring student midwives creative expression of the meaning of birth

This paper presents a study which explored creative pieces made by student midwives during an educational session on spirituality in relation to midwifery.

Background

Exploration of methods of teaching relating to midwifery has been limited, specifically relating to effective learning about spirituality. There is a current expectation in the UK that student midwives will be able to meet spiritual needs as part of a holistic approach to care. However, there has been limited exploration in the literature of ways to facilitate this learning. Creative art has been suggested to be a way of exploring personal spirituality; therefore we have introduced this option in an attempt to enable exploration of the concepts of spirituality.

Method

A group of 16 midwifery students in their second year were initially present in the session. Retrospective exploration of five creative pieces the students made showing their personal meaning of birth was carried out using a framework devised from visual methodology in addition with a questionnaire.

Findings

The experience of creating birth art and the teaching session as a whole was viewed as valuable in raising issues of spirituality and meaning in relation to birth. The creative pieces explored demonstrated students views of the principles of new life, the universality of birth, connection to the world outside the family, and the inclusion of love in the process.

Conclusion

The students’ artistic creations in this study illustrated their beliefs and values about birth at that moment in time. Their creations demonstrated their views of birth being symbolic of new life and growth; that it has a universal effect, not only the family, but outwardly on the social community and beyond; and that it is linked with the value of love. We interpret this to be relating to the elements of spirituality within birth. We suggest that approaching the meaning of birth through creativity and the concepts of spirituality may be a valuable component of creating holistic midwives and will need to be explored by further research.     

On the Spot: Seeking Acceptance and Expressing Resistance through the Bindi

Abstract

Originally indicative of adherence to Hindu spirituality, the bindi is gaining popularity beyond Indian shores as a trendy fashion accessory. This paper attempts a discursive analysis of the bindi as a performative indicator of acquiescence to the Indian way of life, and as a symbol of resistance to assert individuality and femininity in the pursuit of larger sociopolitical action. Research findings indicate that although it was once considered a quintessential symbol of Indian womanhood, the bindi as a performative identifier has evolved beyond religious significance to include Indo chic, political affiliation, pseudo spiritual identification, as well as feminism and social activism.     

Theoretical Resource

Teacher professional development at second level in Irish schools has become an important issue for those of us concerned about ensuring quality teaching and learning in the classroom. In-service providers are aware that the models of provision that have been used in the past are no longer adequate to meet the professional needs of a modern teaching force. This article explores the nature of action research as a possible vehicle to provide opportunities for quality professional development for teachers. The article examines how the newly formed Second Level Support Service and the School Development Planning initiative might provide the impetus for a change in policy and a context for an action research approach to facilitating quality teacher professional development.     

Framing the Work of Art: Spirituality and Career Discourse in the Nonprofit Arts Sector

Based on qualitative data from participant interviews, this study explores how nonprofit arts managers construct the notion of career, and more specifically, how they frame the nature of their work and career choices. Findings revealed that participants employed a spiritual framework of calling, service, sacrifice, and personal rewards to socially construct, understand, and legitimate their nonprofit careers. These framing devices provided the language for participants to make sense of their career decisions and to define their career successes in terms of their own values instead of traditional measures of extrinsic rewards. As contemporary workers place increasing importance on meaningful work, spiritually centered discourse has implications for career theory and organizational practices in both for-profit and nonprofit sectors.