If our theology about the human condition correctly underscores our brokenness, and our understanding of the world as being fallen indeed reflects reality, then our poetry of worship should express that brokenness as well as our longing for healing. However, the Church in North America neglects laments because we have essentially lost the art and practice of grieving in the West, the Church silently condones some bad theology about Christian living, and we lack a robust philosophy of language in Christian (...) practices and disciplines. As this article explores, Job's curse and the lament of Psalm 22 offer healthy correctives to these and other missteps. The article emphasizes the important place of lament in Christian community, particularly as it functions in worship. (shrink)

In the near future, robots will function in social roles and attempt to influence the user’s behavior and / or thinking. The current contribution analyses how to influence robot influence: Persuasive robots can be personalized to make them more effective. We present an overview of (1) the user characteristics to which persuasive robots can be personalized, (2) considering the specific current situation of a user; and (3) the robot characteristics that can be personalized. Thereby, we give an overview of how (...) the persuasive robot’s physical appearance, behavior, (perceived) cognition and affect can be influenced to characteristics of the user (personalized) in order to make the robot more persuasive and thereby to understand better how the persuasive power of an embodied artificial social entity can be influenced. (shrink)

By exploring various cultural implications of the dildo in relation to representations of lesbian sexuality, this article seeks to examine the influences of psychoanalysis on our cultural understanding of ‘dildonics’. This examination, moreover, seeks to reread the dildo through the lens of an alternative interpretive model that relies on Donna Haraway's ‘Informatics of Domination’, or ‘the translation of the world into a problem of coding’. By shifting our attention to information theory, which emphasizes pattern and randomness over absence and presence, (...) this article shows how the dildo operates as a technological extension which mutates its lesbian user and rearticulates dildonics in post-gender terms. Such a transformation is capable of disrupting any sense that the dildo operates as a simulacral penis or as indicative of a lesbian's repressed desire for a male lover. (shrink)

Background:Several studies have investigated the experiences of first-generation immigrant nurses in new workplaces. Yet, little is known about how native nurses and newcomers collaborate in their care for aging residents in European nursing homes.Objective:To gain a deeper understanding of interactions between first-generation immigrant nurses and native nurses in their care for aging residents in a Dutch nursing home.Methods:Ethnography, including 105 h of shadowing immigrant and native nurses, 8 semi-structured interviews with 4 immigrant and 4 established nurses, and 2 focus group (...) discussions with 8 immigrant and 6 established nurses in a Dutch nursing home. Data were analyzed by a post-positivist grounded theory coding approach.Ethical consideration:The Medical Ethical Review Committee of the Leiden University Medical Center approved this study.Results:The interactions between established staff and newcomers were influenced by norms, rules and regulations, policies and protocols. In daily practice and institutional structure, we observed both opportunities and challenges. The strict time schedules and the requisite standards of care were opportunities related to nurses’ expectations. Residents’ needs were sometimes challenging and inhibited newcomers’ active participation. However, sometimes new practices were developed where nurses created common ground, tinkered, and formed an inclusive playing field to enact good care.Conclusion/ discussion:This study shows that despite obstacles, there was room to make small changes in the rules of the game of nursing. These moments of tinkering may be sufficient to establish a stable, inclusive workforce for first-generation immigrants and give room to the evolvement of hybrid professional identities.Implications:The findings of this Dutch study are relevant for nursing ethics related to “good care” and nurses in other cultural contexts on how the integration of immigrant nurses in European countries in general could be facilitated. (shrink)

Spatial relations are central to geometrical thinking. With respect to the classical elementary geometry of Euclid’s Elements, a distinction between co-exact, or qualitative, and exact, or metric, spatial relations has recently been advanced as fundamental. We tested the universality of intuitions of these relations in a group of Senegalese and Dutch participants. Participants performed an odd-one-out task with stimuli that in all but one case display a particular spatial relation between geometric objects. As the exact/co-exact distinction is closely related to (...) Kosslyn’s categorical/coordinate distinction, a set of stimuli for testing all four types was used. Results suggest that intuitions of all spatial relations tested are universal. Yet, culture has an important effect on performance: Dutch participants outperformed Senegalese participants and stimulus layouts affect the categorical and coordinate processing in different ways for the two groups. Differences in level of education within the Senegalese participants did not affect performance. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Confucian Rituals and the Technology of the Self:A Foucaultian InterpretationHahm ChaibongIntroductionModern political theory is "liberation" theory. Liberalism pivots on the idea of individual liberty, defined largely as freedom from government interference in private lives. All major versions of it, from the Lockian social-contract theory to the Rawlsian theory of justice, focus on protecting the rights of the individual. Marxism and other leftist political theories revolve around the notion of (...) recovering and liberating the original freedom of humanity that has been corrupted or otherwise twisted out of recognition by modern society and its institutions. Rousseau, Marx, and Freud all long for the "total revolution" that will free humanity from the decadence of modern society, capitalism, and even civilization itself.1 In marked contrast to modern Western political theories, Confucianism emphasizes harmony in interpersonal relationships and affirms the role of the family, the community, and the state as essential components of a just and humane society. Civilization is considered both the means and the end of human flourishing, not something to be limited, abolished, or otherwise overcome. In terms of its "micro-theory," Confucianism emphasizes self-discipline, ritual propriety, and moral uprightness, not individual freedom and liberation.At first sight, the disciplined, proper, and moralistic Confucian might seem a far cry from the free, independent, and spontaneous individual of liberalism. The strong emphasis placed on human-relatedness and social harmony, enforced by elaborate codes of ritual conduct, would seem to encourage "rational adjustment to the world," not revolutionary incitement to change it. Confucianism is thus often regarded as the premodern political theory par excellence by modern political theorists. From the May Fourth Movement through the Great Cultural Revolution to the Asian Values debate, Confucianism has always stood as the symbol of feudalism and as the single greatest obstacle to modernity, hindering the development of a scientific outlook, class consciousness, and liberal democratic values.In what follows, however, I argue that the Confucian practices of self-discipline and ritual propriety are quite suitable for a democratic society. Indeed, not only is Confucianism suitable for democracy, but it also fills an important lacuna in modern democratic theory. In a liberal-democratic society, citizens are given ever more freedom to exercise their rights. However, theories of negative freedom and other "primacy-of-rights" theories have privileged individual liberty and rights to such an extent that citizens in a modern democracy have little basis for mutual consultation, deliberation, and agreement. As a result, there is very little in liberal theory, or in [End Page 315] theories of the left, for that matter, that deals with concrete ways in which freedom can be exercised. Confucian theories and practices of self-discipline and ritual propriety can fill this gap in liberal theory.In making this point, I enlist the help of Michel Foucault. Foucault's investigations of ancient Greek and Roman technologies of the self in his later works show that the practices of self-cultivation, self-discipline, and ritual conduct do not necessarily inhibit freedom.2 In fact, such practices are indispensable for the proper practice of freedom. Moreover, Foucault's now-famous investigation of the logic of power, discipline, truth, and knowledge provides a profound insight into the nature of freedom and its practice that is not to be found in currently dominant liberal theories. It provides an important antidote to the common misconception that selfdiscipline and ritual propriety are contrary to individual freedom. Foucault thus provides us with a new perspective from which to investigate and affirm the democratic potential of Confucianism.The Scrutable Body and LiIn the Western philosophical tradition, the metaphysical, the transcendental, or the purely rational has always been the "real." The Platonic eidos, the Christian soul, the Cartesian cogito, and the Kantian noumena all emphasize the priority and the primacy of the metaphysical over the physical as the repository of truth, beauty, and reality. The physical body, on the other hand, has been viewed as the corrupted shadow of the ideal form, the prison of the soul, a mere physical extension or a passing phenomenon. Modern psychology, Freudian or otherwise, emphasizes the conscious/unconscious as the realm that determines our being and character. In contrast... (shrink)

At first, the disciplined, proper, and moralistic Confucian might seem a far cry from the free, independent, and spontaneous individual of liberalism. However, Confucian self-discipline and ritual propriety are quite suitable for a democratic society. Liberal political theories privilege individual freedom, but there is little in them that deals with concrete ways in which this freedom can be exercised. Confucian theories of self-discipline and ritual propriety can fill this gap in liberal theory. Michel Foucault's investigations of Ancient Greek and Roman (...) technologies of the self show that self-cultivation, self-discipline, and ritual conduct are indispensable for the proper practice of freedom. Thus, Foucault provides us with a new perspective from which to investigate and affirm the democratic potential of Confucianism. (shrink)

Despite widespread discussion of the impact of corporate social responsibility activities on consumer perceptions, little research has examined how consumers cope with CSR-based crisis response messages as a bolstering strategy. To fill this gap, we propose a framework integrating situational crisis communication theory with the persuasion knowledge model, applying the model to an experiment with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design. In Study 1, we found interaction effects between CSR motives and crisis type on word-of-mouth intention and (...) purchase intention. In addition, inferences about CSR motives interacted with perceptions about CSR history on purchase intention. In Study 2, we replicated study 1 and found that crisis responsibility mediated the main effect of crisis type on behavioral intentions, but neither the main effect of CSR motives and CSR history nor the interactions effects among those variables were mediated by crisis responsibility. Our results indicate that consumer inferences from a company’s CSR-based crisis communications play a significant role in increasing consumer behavioral intentions in two situations: when a crisis is accidental and when a CSR history is short. Ethical and theoretical implications are discussed. (shrink)