Theorizing Modernities Archives | Page 28 of 31

The Human Person and the Human Brain: Some Implications of New Science

Charles Camosy
February 13, 2013August 5, 2019

The gradual shift toward identifying the human person with capacities of the individual brain raises a number of difficult problems. New scientific discoveries have challenged existing conceptions of the human person and have important implications for bioethics.

Science and the Human Person

Thomas Banchoff and Abdulaziz Sachedina
January 29, 2013August 5, 2019

Rapid advances in science and technology are raising fundamental questions about human life, flourishing, suffering, and death.

Defining Feminisms, Upholding Equality

Margot Badran
November 27, 2012August 5, 2019

Paola Bernardini rightly points out that one must be wary of the term “Western feminism.” Likewise, “Islamic feminism” is often taken by observers to mean any gender thinking and practice advocated by Muslim women — who are blithely labeled “Islamic feminists.” But such so-called “Islamic feminism” typically represents a patriarchal version of Islam, albeit mainly a “soft patriarchy” in which complementarity overrides equality. Read the full article »

The Theistic Meaning of Morality

Angus Ritchie
November 8, 2012August 5, 2019

An exciting feature of the Contending Modernities project is the way it links the academic with the deeply practical. In east London, the project has enabled us to develop new resources for Muslim engagement in public life — something I blogged about back in August. And we are currently conducting wider research on the way faiths work together to discern and promote the common good. It is also helping us to look at some apparently very abstract issues — including the relationship between morality and metaphysics — and show their relevance to the debates around faith in public life. Read the full article »

Woman and Her Complementary Relationship to Man

Mauro Meruzzi
November 1, 2012August 5, 2019

In response to the stirring invitation issued by Paola Bernardini to offer a theological account of the complementarity of women and men “without jeopardizing their equality,” I would like to take a close look at both the complementary relationship and equality of the sexes from a biblical perspective. To do so, I would like to begin at the beginning, as it were, with the Genesis account of the creation of man and woman.

Contending Conceptions of Democracy

Paula Bernardini
October 3, 2012August 5, 2019

The recent wave of violent reactions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to the online video mocking the Prophet Muhammad may be taken as the most recent example of a clash between “contending modernities.” The US-based moviemaker is sometimes taken to represent the values of “Western democracy” and “free speech,” while the protesters in places such as Libya and Pakistan are taken to represent “extremism” and “illiberalism.” Arguably, though, they represent not a clash of “democracy” vs. “extremism” but a clash between rival conceptions of democracy.

The Tyranny of Practice

Sam Rocha
September 19, 2012August 5, 2019

It is characteristic of Western modernity that in discussions of schooling and business and politics there is a common truism: “theory into practice.” At the very least, the underlying assumption of this truism can readily be found there. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in schools of education, teacher education programs, and the institutional teaching and learning efforts of higher education. This saying yields a soft hammer, a gentle reminder that the theory must always be “grounded in practice” in order to be worthwhile — and profitable.

Aliens and the Longings of Late Modernity: Reflections on “Independence Day”

Sam Rocha
July 6, 2012February 1, 2024

My youngest son celebrated his golden birthday on the Fourth of July. After the birthday festivities, I decided to watch Independence Day. Afterwards, I realized that almost every depiction of “aliens” I have ever seen or heard of is a projection of our love of science and technology, a sustaining narrative that fuels our inability to change the ways we live in late modernity. There are no Amish aliens. No Wendell Berry-types who fall from the sky and only want to garden and make a small life for themselves. Our “aliens” are what we would be by now if modernity got things right the first time.

Cooperating Modernities in Tunisia?

Michael Driessen
June 15, 2012August 5, 2019

In April, Columbia political scientist Alfred Stepan came out with an article in the Journal of Democracy on “Tunisia’s Transition and the Twin Tolerations.” If the article is right, Tunisia’s secularists and Islamists are participating in an encouraging pattern of political cooperation that bodes well for the country’s democratic development. There is good reason to be hopeful about the relevance of an emerging “Tunisian model” of secular-Islamist negotiation, not only for Tunisia’s future but for all those countries affected by the Arab Spring. Yet there is also reason for caution.

After Science?

Sam Rocha
June 9, 2012August 5, 2019

Philosopher and social critic Slavoj Žižek has remarked that we can imagine the end of the world but we cannot imagine the end of capitalism. The world whose end I want to contemplate is the world that has been created by modern science and its progeny, modern technology. If, or when, science brings an end to the modern world it has helped to create, is a world after science possible? Can a new world emerge after the quintessentially modern scientific worldview has worn and weathered?

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