-
Squaring the Circle in Descartes' Meditations: The Strong Validation of Reason
Stephen I. Wagner
Descartes' Meditations is one of the most thoroughly analyzed of all philosophical texts. Nevertheless, central issues in Descartes' thought remain unresolved, particularly the problem of the Cartesian Circle. Most attempts to deal with that problem have weakened the force of Descartes' own doubts or weakened the goals he was seeking. In this book, Stephen I. Wagner gives Descartes' doubts their strongest force and shows how he overcomes those doubts, establishing with metaphysical certainty the existence of a non-deceiving God and the truth of his clear and distinct perceptions. Wagner's innovative and thorough reading of the text clarifies a wide range of other issues that have been left unclear by previous commentaries, including the nature of the cogito discovery and the relationship between Descartes' proofs of God's existence. His book will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of Descartes, early modern philosophy and theology.
-
Challenging Women since 1913: The College of Saint Benedict
Annette Atkins
A history of the first one hundred years of the College of Saint Benedict, Saint Joseph, Minnesota, published in celebration of its centennial.
-
Ascension Theory: Poems
Christopher Bolin
“This meditation,” writes Christopher Bolin in Ascension Theory,“is about appearing without motes between us: / it is practice for presenting oneself to God.” Bolin’s stark and masterful debut collection records a deeply moving attempt to restore poetry to the possibilities of redemptive action. The physical and emotional landscapes of these poems, rendered with clear-eyed precision, are beyond the reaches of protection and consolation: tundra, frozen sea, barren woodlands, skies littered with satellite trash, fields marked by abandoned, makeshift shrines, sick rooms, vacant reaches that provide “nodes / in every direction // for sensing // the second coming.”
Bolin’s eye and mind are acutely tuned to the edges of broken objects and vistas, to the mysterious remnants out of which meaningful speech might be reconstituted. These poems unfold in a world of beautiful, crystalline absence, one that is nearly depopulated, as though encountered in the aftermath of an unnamed violence to the land and to the soul.
In poems of prodigious elegance and anxious control, Bolin evokes influences as various as Robert Frost, James Wright, Robert Hass, George Oppen, and Robert Creeley, while fashioning his own original and urgent idiom, one that both theorizes and tests the prospects of imaginative ascension, and finds “new locutions for referencing / sky.”
-
Knock Until the Dog Barks: An Adventure in Puerto Vallarta
D. E. Brobst
[Fiction.] Watch the sparks fly, as a Minneapolis mom and her daughter vacation in the sexy tourist hotspot Puerto Vallarta.
Some American vacationers find themselves entangled in Puerto Vallarta’s Romantic Zone, a place where tourists can find exceptional dining, exciting nightlife, and spectacular sunsets. When the mother and daughter arrive after a family wedding in Minneapolis, the daughter rebels against her over-protective mother. She wants to frolic in the Romantic Zone, where a local waiter falls for her. Adding to the scene, her brother’s college roommate also shows up, so he could avoid being best man at the wedding. And the happy couple? They were supposed to be honeymooning in Aruba.
See what happens when those spectacular sunsets culminate in moonlit nights. Lives and secrets unravel, as everyone who wasn’t supposed to be in Puerto Vallarta shows up. Knock until the Dog Barks is howling good fun! -
Modern Honor: A Philosophical Defense
Anthony Cunningham
This book examines the notion of honor with an eye to dissecting its intellectual demise and with the aim of making a case for honor’s rehabilitation. Western intellectuals acknowledge honor’s influence, but they lament its authority. For Western democratic societies to embrace honor, it must be compatible with social ideals like liberty, equality, and fraternity. Cunningham details a conception of honor that can do justice to these ideals. This vision revolves around three elements—character (being), relationships (relating), and activities and accomplishment (doing). Taken together, these elements articulate a shared aspiration for excellence. We can turn the tables on traditional ills of honor—serious problems of gender, race, and class—by forging a vision of honor that rejects lives predicated on power and oppression.
-
Skyesong
Anthony Cunningham
[Fiction] Spanning more than one hundred years, Skyesong tells the story of the MacEacherns, fabled horsemen and sword makers in the Scottish Hebrides. Love, suffering, banishment, war, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness, healing—these are all vibrant threads in a compelling tale that begins with Bonnie Prince Charlie’s disastrous Battle of Culloden in 1746, makes its winding way through the American Civil War and distant Van Diemen’s Land, and finally comes home to the Isle of Skye. Skyesong features an unforgettable cast of characters—Calum and Coinneach MacEachern, the young twins who gain a fearsome reputation as the vengeful Horsemen of Culloden; Elspeth Shyrie, the mysterious woman who rescues the twins and forges a new life for them on Skye; Alasdair, the wayfaring adventurer who lives such a large and gallant life, only to meet such an inglorious end; Hector, the young scholar fresh from Edinburgh who leaves his beloved home for the sake of Sorcha MacLeod, daughter of Skye’s most powerful people, the MacLeods of Dunvegan; Cullodena MacPhee, the fiercely independent girl who carries on a correspondence with Hector for over twenty years, giving him the precious gift of Skye in her sketches and field notes; forlorn Rory, who saves a foolish boy from an unjust punishment on the other side of the world, only to pay his own heavy price for so doing; Titus Bingham, the disconsolate war hero spared from self-destruction by an odd child; Hannibal, the military savant who serves the real-life Joshua Chamberlain, the hero of Gettysburg, who relies so deeply on this extraordinary fellow to conduct war against a much bolder, wiser foe. From Skye’s Cuillin Mountains to the killing fields of Fredericksburg and Petersburg, Skyesong brings to life the profound ravages of chance, the limits of human endurance, and the healing graces of affection. 20% of the author royalties will be donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.
-
Survival Schools: The American Indian Movement and Community Education in the Twin Cities
Julie L. Davis
In the late 1960s, Indian families in Minneapolis and St. Paul were under siege. Clyde Bellecourt remembers, “We were losing our children during this time; juvenile courts were sweeping our children up, and they were fostering them out, and sometimes whole families were being broken up.” In 1972, motivated by prejudice in the child welfare system and hostility in the public schools, American Indian Movement (AIM) organizers and local Native parents came together to start their own community school. For Pat Bellanger, it was about cultural survival. Though established in a moment of crisis, the school fulfilled a goal that she had worked toward for years: to create an educational system that would enable Native children “never to forget who they were.”
While AIM is best known for its national protests and political demands, the survival schools foreground the movement’s local and regional engagement with issues of language, culture, spirituality, and identity. In telling of the evolution and impact of the Heart of the Earth school in Minneapolis and the Red School House in St. Paul, Julie L. Davis explains how the survival schools emerged out of AIM’s local activism in education, child welfare, and juvenile justice and its efforts to achieve self-determination over urban Indian institutions. The schools provided informal, supportive, culturally relevant learning environments for students who had struggled in the public schools. Survival school classes, for example, were often conducted with students and instructors seated together in a circle, which signified the concept of mutual human respect. Davis reveals how the survival schools contributed to the global movement for Indigenous decolonization as they helped Indian youth and their families to reclaim their cultural identities and build a distinctive Native community.
The story of these schools, unfolding here through the voices of activists, teachers, parents, and students, is also an in-depth history of AIM’s founding and early community organizing in the Twin Cities—and evidence of its long-term effect on Indian people’s lives.
-
Environmental Ethics: An Introduction to Environmental Philosophy (Fifth Edition)
Joseph R. DesJardins
Environmental Ethics offers brief yet wide-ranging introduction to issues of environmental ethics and major schools of thought in the field. A discussion of basic concepts in ethical theory in Part I is followed by an application of these thoughts across a variety of major environmental problems (such as pollution, population, animals) in Part II. Part III introduces students to the major theories of environmental ethics in particular (including biocentrism, ecofeminism, and the land ethic). The final chapter offers a pragmatic approach to reconciling philosophical perspectives as a means to making progress in solving environmental problems.
-
The Fabliaux: A New Verse Translation
Nathaniel E. Dubin
Bawdier than The Canterbury Tales, The Fabliaux is the first major English translation of the most scandalous and irreverent poetry in Western literature.
Composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, these virtually unknown erotic and satiric poems lie at the root of the Western comic tradition. Passed down by the anticlerical middle classes of medieval France, The Fabliaux depicts priapic priests, randy wives, and their cuckolded husbands in tales that are shocking even by today’s standards. Chaucer and Boccaccio borrowed heavily from these riotous tales, which were the wit of the common man rebelling against the aristocracy and Church in matters of food, money, and sex. Containing 69 poems with a parallel Old French text, The Fabliaux comes to life in a way that has never been done in nearly eight hundred years.
-
Christian Economic Ethics: History and Implications
Daniel K. Finn
What does the history of Christian views of economic life mean for economic life in the twenty-first century? Here Daniel Finn reviews the insights provided by a large number of texts, from the Bible and the early church, to the Middle Ages and the Protestant Reformation, to treatments of the subject in the last century. Relying on both social science and theology, Finn then turns to the implications of this history for economic life today.
-
A Time of Fulfillment: Spiritual Reflections for Advent and Christmas
Anselm Grün OSB and Mark Thamert OSB
Allow the mystery of Advent and Christmas to touch and transform you. In A Time of Fulfillment: Spiritual Reflections for Advent and Christmas, Anselm Grün brings fresh meaning to the traditional texts of the season and encourages you to experience the deep peace promised by this holy time of year.
Starting with the ancient images of the "O" antiphons, you will rediscover in Advent the profound joy of waiting for Christ's coming. Continuing with the Scriptures of Christmas, you will find new meaning in the mystery of the incarnation.
Make your celebration of Advent and Christmas a powerful time of growth and healing. The simple meditations and spiritual exercises in A Time of Fulfillment will help you remember the closeness of Christ in your heart and renew your faith.
Anselm Grün, OSB, is a monk of the Benedictine abbey of Münsterschwarzach, Germany, where he has been cellarer since 1977. He is the author of many books, lectures, and courses on themes of spiritual life.
-
Living, Loving, and Lasting as a Coach’s Wife: Insights From Football Coaches’ Wives
Janet Hope, Liddy Hope, and Sally Hope
Over 300 football coaches’ wives, ranging from new wives to veterans, give readers a glimpse into the roller coaster existence that is their life. This book is a must for football coaches and their wives, and for those contemplating employment as a football coach or marrying into the profession. Others will benefit from it as well—administrators, athletic directors, and their staffs will have a greater understanding of the lives of the coaches, their spouses, and their families. The book also contains information that will benefit members of the media as they write and broadcast about football and will give fans a new perspective on the game.
-
Race in Cuba: Essays on the Revolution and Racial Inequality
Esteban Morales Dominguez, Gary Prevost, and August H. Nimtz
As a young militant in the 26th of July Movement, Esteban Morales Domínguez participated in the overthrow of the Batista regime and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. The revolutionaries, he understood, sought to establish a more just and egalitarian society. But Morales Dominguez, an Afro-Cuban, knew that the complicated question of race could not be ignored, or simply willed away in a post-revolutionary context. Today, he is one of Cuba's most prominent Afro-Cuban intellectuals and its leading authority on the race question. Available for the first time in English, the essays collected here describe the problem of racial inequality in Cuba, provide evidence of its existence, constructively criticize efforts by the Cuban political leadership to end discrimination, and point to a possible way forward. Morales Dominguez surveys the major advancements in race relations that occurred as a result of the revolution, but does not ignore continuing signs of inequality and discrimination. Instead, he argues that the revolution must be an ongoing process and that to truly transform society it must continue to confront the question of race in Cuba.
-
Word and Image: The Hermeneutics and Application of the Saint John's Bible
Michael Patella OSB
In Word and Image, Michael Patella explores the principles, intentions, and aims of The Saint John's Bible - the first handwritten and hand-illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine abbey since the invention of the printing press. Patella focuses not on how it was made but on how it can be read, viewed, and interpreted in a way that respects biblical inspiration and Christian tradition in our postmodern context. It is a book that is sure to appeal to academics, pastors, teachers, and educated laypersons.
Patella considers this Bible in the context of the great Christian tradition of illuminated Bibles across the ages and also the fascinating ways The Saint John's Bible reflects third-millennium concerns. He seeks to rekindle interest in sacred art by allowing The Saint John's Bible to teach its readers and viewers how to work with text and image. As an accomplished Scripture scholar, a highly regarded teacher, a monk of Saint John's Abbey, and the chair of the Committee on Illumination and Text that provided the Vision to the artists who created it, Patella may be the only one who could write this book with such insight, expertise, and love.
-
The Art of the Saint John's Bible: The Complete Reader's Guide
Susan Sink
From the time that pages of The Saint John's Bible began touring in major exhibitions nearly a decade ago, people have been moved, captivated, and inspired by this stunning work of modern sacred art. But they often have questions about the illuminations that are scattered throughout the Bible, especially as they first become familiar with it. Why was a certain Scripture passage chosen for illumination rather than another? What materials and source imagery are behind the illuminations? The Art of The Saint John's Bible provides answers to these important questions and many others.
Initially published in a series of three volumes, each book has now been revised by the author and included together in this helpful single volume. Since The Saint John's Bible is now complete, Susan Sink makes connections between recurring images and motifs throughout the work and reflects on the images with a view to the whole. Her book promises to intensify and expand the experience of all who come in contact with The Saint John's Bible.
-
Modern Islamist Movements : History, Religion, and Politics
Jon Armajani
"Modern Islamist Movements provides a clear and accessible examination of the history, beliefs and rationale of Islamist Groups and their grievances with the West and governments within the majority-Muslim world, while examining some of these groups' visions for a global Islamic empire. A clear and accessible text that examines the history, beliefs and rationale for violence emerging from Islamist movements, while examining some of these groups' visions for a global Islamic empire. Examines Islamist grievances against the West and modern governments in the majority Muslim world, while providing an overview of Islam's relations with the West from the period of the Crusades to the modern age. Discusses the historic development of Islamism in Egypt, the West Bank and Gaza, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Explains classic Islamic understandings of jihad and Bin Laden's, al-Qaida's, and other Islamists interpretations of this concept. Offers an historical account of the formative relationship between al-Qaida, other Islamists, and Islamic intellectual trends beginning in the eighteenth century. Appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as interested general readers."--Publisher's website
-
Public Religion and the Urban Environment : Constructing a River Town
Richard Bohannon
"Nature and the city have most often functioned as opposites within Western culture, a dichotomy that has been reinforced (and sometimes challenged) by religious images. Bohannon argues here that cities and natural environments, however, are both connected and continually affected by one another. He shows how such connections become overt during natural disasters, which disrupt the narratives people use to make sense of the world,
including especially religious narratives, and make them more visible.
This book offers both a theoretical exploration of the intersection of the city, nature, and religion, as well as a sociological analysis of the 1997 flood in Grand Forks, ND, USA. This case study shows how religious factors have influenced how the relationship between nature and the city is perceived, and in particular have helped to justify the urban control of nature. The narratives found in Grand Forks also reveal a broader understanding of the nature of Western cities, highlighting the potent and ethically-rich intersections between religion, cities and nature." -
In the Name of the Church: Vocation and Authorization of Lay Ecclesial Ministry
William John Cahoy
In the Name of the Church: Vocation and Authorization in Lay Ecclesial Ministry presents insights generated in the 2011 Collegeville National Symposium on Lay Ecclesial Ministry, a gathering designed to prioritize the theological foundations for vocation and authorization in lay ecclesial ministry, and make recommendations to advance excellence in this expanding ministry. The essays presented by seven theologians at the Symposium are included, along with thoughtful input drawn from the experiences of lay and ordained ministers who gathered to “amplify the voice and strengthen the national will to promote effective ecclesial leadership practices identified within Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord.”
-
The Moral Dynamics of Economic Life: An Extension and Critique of Caritas in Veritate
Daniel K. Finn
Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth) is the ''social'' encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI, one of many papal encyclicals over the last 120 years that address economic life. This volume, based on discussions at a symposium co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, analyzes the situation of the Church and the theological basis for Benedict's thinking about the person, community, and the globalized economy.
The Moral Dynamics of Economic Life engages Benedict's analysis of ''relation,'' the characteristics of contemporary social and economic relationships and the implications of a relational, Trinitarian God for daily human life. Crucial here is the Pope's notion of ''reciprocity,'' an economic relationship characterized by help freely given, but which forms an expectation that the recipient will ''reciprocate,'' either to the donor or, often, to someone else. This ''logic of gift,'' Benedict argues, should influence daily economic life, especially within what he calls ''hybrid'' firms, which make a profit and invest a share of that profit in service to needs outside the firm. Similarly, development - whether of an individual or of a nation - must be integral, neither simply economic nor personal nor psychological nor spiritual, but a comprehensive development that engages all dimensions of a flourishing human life.
The essays, written by social scientists, theologians, policy analysts and others, engage, extend, and critique Benedict's views on these issues, as well as his call for deeper dialogue and a morally based transformation of social and economic structures. -
Families with Futures: Family Studies into the 21st Century (Second Edition)
Janet R. Grochowski and Meg Wilkes Karraker
Noted for its interdisciplinary approach to family studies, Families with Futures provides an engaging, contemporary look at the discipline's theories, methods, essential topics, and career opportunities. Featuring strong coverage of theories and methods, readers explore family concepts and processes through a positive prism. Concepts are brought to life through striking examples from everyday family life and cutting-edge scholarship. Throughout, families are viewed as challenged but resilient.
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.