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  The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationship in a Robotic Age

  Noreen L. Herzfeld

  AI is becoming ubiquitous. Whatever its arrival portends for our future, whether riches or ruin, it cannot be avoided. The Artifice of Intelligence explores two questions at the heart of a theological response to AI. Is it possible for human beings to have authentic relationships with an AI? How does the increasing presence of AI change the way humans relate to one another? In pursuing answers to these questions, Herzfeld explores what it means to be created in the image of God and to create AI in our own image. It utilizes and expands Karl Barth's relational understanding of the imago Dei to examine humanity's relationship both with AI and, through it, with one another.

  Barth's injunctions--look the other in the eye (embodiment), speak to and hear the other (communication), aid the other (agency), and do it gladly (emotion)--provide the basis for the main chapters, each of which concludes with a case study of a current AI application that exemplifies the difficulties AI introduces into human relationality. The Artifice of Intelligence concludes with an examination of the incarnation, one that points toward the centrality of embodiment for full relationality. [from publisher's website]

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  Working across Lines: Resisting Extreme Energy Extraction

  Corrie Grosse

  How are communities uniting against fracking and tar sands to change our energy future? Working across Lines offers a detailed comparative analysis of climate justice coalitions in California and Idaho—two states with distinct fossil fuel histories, environmental contexts, and political cultures. Drawing on ethnographic evidence from 106 in-depth interviews and three years of participant observation, Corrie Grosse investigates the ways people build effective energy justice coalitions across differences in political views, race and ethnicity, age, and strategic preferences. This book argues for four practices that are critical for movement building: focusing on core values of justice, accountability, and integrity; identifying the roots of injustice; cultivating relationships among activists; and welcoming difference. In focusing on coalitions related to energy and climate justice, Grosse provides important models for bridging divides to reach common goals. These lessons are more relevant than ever.

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  A Hit of Hope (for when it gets really bad)

  Betsy Johnson

  In 2018, Betsy Johnson’s life went sideways. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, had to undergo chemo and radiation, and was asked for a divorce she didn’t want. Betsy knew there were all kinds of things she could do to numb the pain, but she wanted to get better, not worse. She decided to walk through this crucible with hope and grit, and thus began these meditations.

  To heal, we have to get real and name the mess, the fear, the pain. And we have to see a way forward. A way out. Or at least a way to sit while the storm crashes . . . because no storm in the history of the world has ever been able to hold the sky forever. Whatever you or someone you love are facing, these meditations can bring a hit of hope and help you not only to survive but to live light.

  Betsy Johnson hails from a small town in southwestern Minnesota, and her meditations have been downloaded over 100,000 times on the Insight Timer app. She is a writer, professor, and yoga teacher who talks to trees and believes the blue eggs from her local food coop are magic.

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  Interrupting a Gendered, Violent Church

  Anna Mercedes

  This project brings readers into conversation at the intersections of gender studies and Christian theology--particularly diverse feminist and queer theologies. Interrupting a Gendered, Violent Church develops over three parts to an extended essay that points to the real ways churches foster violence around gender. This volume discusses this violent reality while also exploring church as a nexus for resistance to gender-based violence and sketches the contours of a Christian theology mapped apart from patriarchal heteronormativity's hold on late modern Christian life.

  The goal of the Dispatches series is to offer a genuinely creative and disruptive theological-ethical ressourcement for church in the present moment. Volumes illuminate and explore, creatively and concisely, the implications and relevance of theology for the global crises of late modernity. Our authors have been invited to introduce succinct and provocative arguments intended to provoke dialogue and exchange of ideas, while setting in relief the implications of theology for political and moral life.

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  A Quick Review of Statistical Thinking (4th Edition)

  Richard M. Wielkiewicz

  A Quick Review of Statistical Thinking (4th Edition) is for those who need to become familiar with the content of a typical intro stats course prior to beginning an honors thesis or any research project, taking advanced statistics, reviewing for the MCAT, or starting graduate school. QRST covers effect sizes and confidence intervals for all tests typically covered in an undergraduate statistics course. SPSS also includes a very useful power analysis routine that is carefully explained in QRST.

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  Kura: prophetic messenger

  Richard Bresnahan

  "In August 2020, Richard Bresnahan's Kura: Prophetic Messenger became the first permanent installation of the Jon Hassler Sculpture Garden on the grounds of Saint John's Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota. Richard is the founder and director of the Saint John's Pottery and for more than 40 years has served as artist-in-residence of Saint John's University and the College of Saint Benedict. The intention of this book is to describe the people, thought processes, materials, and stories that compose the sculpture Kura: Prophetic Messenger. But even this is not complete, because the stories will go farther and have traveled further than we know. Kura: Prophetic Messenger is a teaching sculpture, with a message for the present and a deep well of care for the future"--Jacket.

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  Women's empowerment and disempowerment in Brazil : the rise and fall of President Dilma Rousseff

  Pedro A. G. dos Santos and Farida Jalalazai

  "Women's Empowerment and Disempowerment in Brazil uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president, shaped women's political empowerment in her country and what the implications of these findings may be for women's executive leadership globally"-- Provided by publisher.

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  Inclusion in Higher Education: Research Initiatives on Campus

  Amanda M. Jantzer and Kyhl Lyndgaard

  Inclusion in Higher Education: Inquiry-Based Approaches to Change presents an inquiry-based approach to inclusion in higher education that embraces scholarly inquiry, collaborative efforts, and data-driven interventions to inform transformative institutional change. Contributors analyze inclusion initiatives that address the experiences of minoritized groups on college campuses and recommend tailored interventions for the needs of underrepresented students in varied fields of study.

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  Politics of Latin America: the Power Game

  Gary Prevost and Harry E. Vanden

  • "Politics of Latin America: The Power Game, Seventh Edition explores both the evolution and the current state of the political scene in Latin America. This text demonstrates a nuanced sensitivity to the use and abuse of power and the importance of social conditions, gender, race, globalization, and political economy throughout Latin America. Unique in the market, the text is divided into two parts-thematic chapters in the beginning of the text explore big picture issues and themes in the region; country by country chapters in the second half of the text provide in-depth discussions of those issues and themes, country by country. The thematic chapters outline the region's geographic setting, history, economics, society, gender, race, and religion, setting the stage for a more detailed analysis of the politics, democratization, political culture, political movements, and revolution in Latin America. The second part of the book consists of carefully constructed case studies of ten representative Latin American nations: Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. Each case study traces the historical and political development of key actors and institutions, analyzing contemporary power configurations"-- Provided by publisher.

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  The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latin American Politics

  Gary Prevost and Harry E. Vanden

  This encyclopedia reviews and interprets a broad array of research on Latin American politics, including topics related to political institutions, processes, and parties; social movements; political economy; racial and gender politics; and Latin America's international relations. Bringing together peer-reviewed contributions by leading researchers, this publication is the definitive resource for understanding contemporary politics in the region. It includes entries by CSB/SJU professors Gary Prevost and Pedro A. G. dos Santos.

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  Madres, mentoras, mediadoras. Reconciliando espiritualidad y feminismo en la narrativa de escritoras latinoamericanas del Siglo XX

  Elena Sanchez-Mora

  Este libro combina un interés profesional en las áreas de la crítica literaria y los Estudios Hispanos; específicamente, se enfoca en las conexiones entre la espiritualidad y el Feminismo en la literatura latinoamericana del siglo XX escrita por mujeres, reflejadas en un análisis de sus personajes femeninos.

  Dicho análisis se basa, por un lado, en estudios del misticismo medieval femenino en Europa; por otro lado, en estudios sobre escritoras que rompieron con los estereotipos de los alcances de la espiritualidad de las mujeres en el siglo XVI español y XVII de Nueva España. Estos se contrastan con los prototipos limitantes de personajes espirituales femeninos inspirados en la Biblia, y la historia y la literatura europeas del siglo XVIII y XIX, que subrayan la incapacidad de las mujeres para lograr autonomía espiritual.

  Así mismo, se incluye una perspectiva histórica que abarca las tres olas del feminismo, que han enfatizado diferentes aspectos de la lucha por la igualdad social y política de las mujeres. Otro elemento fundamental del desarrollo espiritual son las funciones de Madre, Mentora y Mediadora, que enfatizan el papel de proveedoras de apoyo emocional, educadoras y enlaces entre diversos grupos sociales. A la vez, se incluyen diferentes tradiciones religiosas de raíces indígenas, europeas y africanas y cristianas; a estas se aúnan ideologías basadas en la lucha por la justicia social fundamentadas en la interacción entre el medio rural tradicional y el medio urbano moderno.

  En resumen, mediante la convergencia de espiritualidad y feminismo, los prototipos literarios que habían limitado el desarrollo espiritual de las mujeres a lo largo del siglo XIX y la primera mitad del XX, abren paso a otros centrados en la búsqueda de equilibrio personal y conexión con una comunidad.

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  Thinking Algebraically: An Introduction to Abstract Algebra

  Thomas Q. Sibley

  Thinking Algebraically presents the insights of abstract algebra in a welcoming and accessible way. It succeeds in combining the advantages of rings\-first and groups\-first approaches while avoiding the disadvantages. After an historical overview, the first chapter studies familiar examples and elementary properties of groups and rings simultaneously to motivate the modern understanding of algebra. The text builds intuition for abstract algebra starting from high school algebra. In addition to the standard number systems, polynomials, vectors, and matrices, the first chapter introduces modular arithmetic and dihedral groups. The second chapter builds on these basic examples and properties, enabling students to learn structural ideas common to rings and groups: isomorphism, homomorphism, and direct product. The third chapter investigates introductory group theory. Later chapters delve more deeply into groups, rings, and fields, including Galois theory, and they also introduce other topics, such as lattices. The exposition is clear and conversational throughout.\n\nThe book has numerous exercises in each section as well as supplemental exercises and projects for each chapter. Many examples and well over 100 figures provide support for learning. Short biographies introduce the mathematicians who proved many of the results. The book presents a pathway to algebraic thinking in a semester\- or year\-long algebra course.

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  Shia Islam and Politics : Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon

  Jon Armajani

  This book argues that ever since Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, which established a Shia Islamic government in Iran, that country’s religious and political leaders have used Shia Islam as a crucial way of expanding Iran’s objectives in the Middle East and beyond. Since 1979, Iran’s religious and political leaders have been concerned about Iran’s security in the face of the hostility and expansionism of the United States and other western countries, and the threats from powerful neighboring Sunni leaders and countries. While Iran’s government has attempted to align itself with Shia Muslims in various countries, such as Iraq and Lebanon, against American and Sunni expansionism, the Iranian government has attempted to religiously nourish and politically mobilize those Shias as a matter of principle, not only because of the Iranian government’s desires to protect Iran from external threats. The book analyzes Shia Islam and politics in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon which have among the largest proportional Shia populations in the Middle East and are vibrant centers of Shia intellectual life. The book's clear and jargon-free approach make it especially accessible for students and general readers who would like an introduction to the book's topics. (--Publisher's website)

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  Glorify the Lord by Your Life: Catholic Social Teaching and the Liturgy

  Bernard F. Evans

  This resource provides a unique approach for understanding the important connection between the liturgy and the seven primary themes of Catholic social teaching. -- Publisher's website

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  Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace: The Origins of War in the Ancient Middle East

  Jason M. Schlude

  This volume offers an informed survey of the problematic relationship between the ancient empires of Rome and Parthia from c.96/95 BCE to 224 CE. Schlude explores the rhythms of this relationship and invites its readers to reconsider the past and our relationship with it. Some have looked to this confrontation to help explain the roots of the long-lived conflict between the West and Middle East. It is a reading symptomatic of most scholarship on the subject, which emphasizes fundamental incompatibility and bellicosity in Roman-Parthian relations. Rather than focusing on the relationship as a series of conflicts, Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace responds to this common misconception by highlighting instead the more cooperative elements in the relationship and shows how a reconciliation of these two perspectives is possible. There was in fact a cyclical pattern in the Roman-Parthian interaction, where a reality of peace and collaboration became overshadowed by images of aggressive posturing projected by powerful Roman statesmen and emperors for a domestic population conditioned to expect conflict. The result was the eventual realization of these images by later Roman opportunists who, unsatisfied with imagined war, sought active conflict with Parthia. Rome, Parthia, and the Politics of Peace is a fascinating new study of these two superpowers that will be of interest not only students of Rome and the Near East, but also to anyone with an interest in diplomatic relations and conflict in the ancient world, and today. -- Provided by publisher

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  The Everyday Life of Urban Inequality : Ethnographic Case Studies of Global Cities

  Megan Sheehan, Angela Storey, and Jessica Bodoh-Creed

  The Everyday Life of Urban Inequality explores how steadily increasing inequality and the spectacular pace of urbanization frame everyday life for city residents around the world. With case studies from five continents, this volume explores what it means to live within cities marked by entrenched inequalities, situating daily life at the intersection between global processes and local histories. Drawing from ethnographic research, scholars in varied social science disciplines examine the reproduction of poverty and stratification, the creation of political and social marginality, and the destruction—and resilience—of communities. (publisher's description)

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  Infected Kin: Orphan Care and AIDS in Lesotho

  Ellen Block and Will McGrath

  AIDS has devastated communities across southern Africa. In Lesotho, where a quarter of adults are infected, the wide-ranging implications of the disease have been felt in every family, disrupting key aspects of social life. In Infected Kin, Ellen Block and Will McGrath argue that AIDS is fundamentally a kinship disease, examining the ways it transcends infected individuals and seeps into kin relations and networks of care. While much AIDS scholarship has turned away from the difficult daily realities of those affected by the disease, Infected Kin uses both ethnographic scholarship and creative nonfiction to bring to life the joys and struggles of the Basotho people at the heart of the AIDS pandemic. The result is a book accessible to wide readership, yet built upon scholarship and theoretical contributions that ensure Infected Kin will remain relevant to anyone interested in anthropology, kinship, global health, and care.

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  Forty years on : Richard Bresnahan and artists of the Saint John's Pottery

  Richard Bresnahan and Ryan Kutter

  Richard Bresnahan, his apprentices, and volunteers built the largest wood-fired kiln in North America at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota. The Johanna Kiln accommodates 12,000 works of pottery and sculpture and is fired in the autumn. The fire is stoked for ten days and then the kiln cools for two weeks before opening. The Saint John's Pottery has embodied the Benedictine values of community, hospitality and self-sufficiency as well as the University's commitment to the integration of art and life; the preservation of the environment; the linkage between work and worship; and the celebration of diverse cultures. (Westminster Presbyterian Church website, 2019)

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  Fictions of Containment in the Spanish Female Picaresque: Architectural Space and Prostitution in the Early Modern Mediterranean

  Emily Kuffner

  This study examines the interdependence of gender, sexuality and space in the early modern period, which saw the inception of architecture as a discipline and gave rise to the first custodial institutions for women, including convents for reformed prostitutes. Meanwhile, conduct manuals established prescriptive mandates for female use of space, concentrating especially on the liminal spaces of the home. This work traces literary prostitution in the Spanish Mediterranean through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, from the rise of courtesan culture in several key areas through the shift from tolerance of prostitution toward repression. Kuffner’s analysis pairs canonical and noncanonical works of fiction with didactic writing, architectural treatises, and legal mandates, tying the literary practice of prostitution to increasing control over female sexuality during the Counter Reformation. By tracing erotic negotiations in the female picaresque novel from its origins through later manifestations, she demonstrates that even as societal attitudes towards prostitution shifted dramatically, a countervailing tendency to view prostitution as an essential part of the social fabric undergirds many representations of literary prostitutes. Kuffner’s analysis reveals that the semblance of domestic enclosure figures as a primary erotic strategy in female picaresque fiction, allowing readers to assess the variety of strategies used by authors to comment on the relationship between unruly female sexuality and social order.

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  Espacios De Encuentro E Identidad: Actas del XXXV Congreso Internacional de ALDEEU

  Marina Martin

  Papers presented at the ADLEEU conference in Segovia, Spain, July 2015.

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  American Evangelists and Tuberculosis in Modern Japan

  Elisheva Perelman

  Tuberculosis ran rampant in Japan during the late Meiji and Taisho years (1880s–1920s). Many of the victims of the then incurable disease were young female workers from the rural areas, who were trying to support their families by working in the new textile factories. The Japanese government of the time, however, seemed unprepared to tackle the epidemic. Elisheva A. Perelman argues that pragmatism and utilitarianism dominated the thinking of the administration, which saw little point in providing health services to a group of politically insignificant patients.

  This created a space for American evangelical organizations to offer their services. Perelman sees the relationship between the Japanese government and the evangelists as one of moral entrepreneurship on both sides. All the parties involved were trying to occupy the moral high ground. In the end, an uneasy but mutually beneficial arrangement was reached: the government accepted the evangelists’ assistance in providing relief to some tuberculosis patients, and the evangelists gained an opportunity to spread Christianity further in the country. Nonetheless, the patients remained a marginalized group as they possessed little agency over how they were treated.

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  A Future With Hope: Praying With Youth, Preparing for Confirmation: Complete Leader's Guide

  Matthew Reichert and Zack Stachowski

  Strengthen your confirmation preparation program by helping your young people enter into the liturgical prayer of the Church. Following a strong liturgical model and using liturgical texts, but framed around their experiences preparing for the sacrament, these powerful prayer services will help them grow in their relationship with God and one another.
  
  This Leader’s Guide includes eight complete prayer scripts, each with an introductory prayer overview, full text of prayers, psalms, and Scripture, suggested points for reflection, and recommendations for music. Also included are special preparation guides to help the young people in your parish community serve as presider, lector, or music minister.

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  Guide for Celebrating the Liturgy of the Hours

  Anthony Ruff OSB

  Throughout the history of the Church, Christians have consecrated time by pausing at various moments throughout the day to pray the Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office. Day after day, hour after hour, Christians unite their hearts with Christ and his Church as they pray the Divine Office. This book will assist parish communities and groups of Christians who wish to gather to pray the Liturgy of the Hours.

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  College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics: The Lives and Longings of Emerging Adults

  Jennifer Beste

  What happens at college parties? Why do students dress and behave the way they do? Who has power, and what kind? And are college students happy overall with party and hookup culture? In response to undergraduates’ skepticism of researchers’ accounts of hookup culture, the author engaged 126 college students as ethnographers to observe and analyze this complex social reality at parties. Part I presents their results, revealing a disillusionment with contemporary sexual and relational norms that challenges benevolent or even neutral views of hookup culture. Part II brings students into conversation with Christianity’s narrative of what it means to become fully human and experience genuine joy and fulfillment. The spokesperson for this vision is theologian Johann Metz, whose portrait of Jesus struggling to become fully human by embracing poverty of spirit resonates with today’s college students. Comparing Jesus’s way of being in the world with their college culture’s status quo, many undergraduates discover in Metz’s Poverty of Spirit a countercultural path to authenticity, happiness, and fulfillment. Part III culminates in a call to action: with understanding of contemporary norms gained in part I, and poverty of spirit as explored in part II, these chapters explore obstacles to sexual justice on college campuses, identify key commitments necessary for change, and envision how undergraduates can work to create the college culture they truly desire and deserve.

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  Form from Form

  Christopher Bolin

  “Was it a crater or a sinkhole?” asks a voice in one of the mysterious, wonderstruck poems in Christopher Bolin’s Form from Form, whose cadences modulate with the energies of form-making, deformation, and elusive reformation. Natural forms and forms of human manufacture, forms of absence and those of urgent desire construct and deconstruct each other in Bolin’s singular music, which blends unnerving plainness and obliqueness, the childlike and the alien.

  As their sites drift from workers’ camps to city squares, isolated coasts to windswept plains, the poems in Form from Form trace a map of a fragmented ecology, dense with physical detail of altered landscapes and displaced populations. In tones of austere beauty and harsh discordance, these poems provide a “field guide to luminescent things,” a visionary fretwork of the possibilities and impossibilities of faith in the present moment.