Showing papers on "Wonder published in 2013"

The Wonder of Data

Abstract: The article considers the productive capacity for wonder that resides and radiates in data, or rather in the entangled relation of data-and-researcher. Wonder is not necessarily a safe, comforting, or uncomplicatedly positive affect. It shades into curiosity, horror, fascination, disgust, and monstrosity. But the price paid for the ruin caused—to epistemic certainty or the comforts of a well-wrought coding scheme—is, after Massumi (2002, p. 19), the privilege of a headache. Not the answer to a question, but the astute crafting of a problem and a challenge: what next?

What do Pictures Want

Abstract: As I browsed the many publications on display in the Artbook bookstore, some provocative language began to jump out at me. Several titles posed questions or challenges about the nature of photography that reflect, if not a crisis, a restlessness, a collective reevaluation of what images are and what we should do with them. I was inspired to use those titles here to help punctuate my summation of this weekend's conversations. Because I had some perspective from moderating the first Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Photo-Bookworks Symposium in 2010, I couldn't help but reflect on the developments in the field in the two intervening years. What are we thinking about? What do pictures want us to do with them? The 2010 symposium was hardly the first time that a conversation about photobooks had taken place, especially at VSW. Scott McCarney reflected on his beginnings as a photobook artist in the early 1980s, when the photobook was the future of the medium; now we discuss the future of the photobook, not because it is threatened but rather because it is, in fact, increasingly essential, and we can't wait to see where it's headed. My sense from that first symposium was one of reaffirming the photo-bookwork as an integral, vital component of contemporary photographic practice. The artists and publishers who spoke then understood the history, as well as their roles in writing a new definition of what a photo-bookwork is. In my closing remarks two years ago, I wrote: The photobookwork, then, is a series of images--that is, a tightly knit, well-edited, organized group or set of images in a linear sequence presented in book form. Linearity is important because it gives the imagery its temporal quality. Events occur, stories unfold, things are shown and said; through the progression of the construct, we view the conditions of being in the world, the flow of time and experience. Now, I would say that definition has greatly expanded. As Valerio Spada mentioned, every contemporary photographer also shoots video; the technology facilitates it, and the pace of the internet demands it. At Rochester Institute of Technology, where I teach photography, we increasingly accommodate the push toward moving media--although, in private, we may wonder among ourselves: who is watching all of these videos? It is encouraging, therefore, for us still image aficionados, that all of the artists we've heard from this weekend are committed to the book object, although it is not without its complications, nor is it necessarily doing all the work itself. What emerged from these discussions was an intriguingly contemporary theme: "the photobook as performance." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In his witty and evocative presentation of his recent book The Amnesia Pavilions, Nicholas Muellner challenged us to visualize, as another recent title suggests, Words without Pictures (by Charlotte Cotton and Alex Klein). Muellner sees the work in multiple forms; his perfectly paced dance between images and text, sometimes overlapping, alternating silence or darkness, is mirrored by the deliberate rhythms of his book design, yet Muellner readily acknowledges what he calls the "compromise of both forms"--writing and imagemaking--in his work. Through "performing" his book, Muellner has found a way to deliberately exploit and subvert the limitations of each medium. We all know about and some of us may have even experienced--Nan Goldin's The Ballad of Sexual Dependency as a slide show set to love songs, but I never understood it as a codependency between the forms; they are separate. As if to underscore Muellner's complex presentation, John DeMerritt, a fine art bookbinder, shut it down, as the kids say, showing us a pretty spectacular book he fabricated with LED screens embedded in the pages--a book that has been, not exhibited, but "performed," in two venues. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Muellner's sketchy diagram for his presentation (beginning > pathos > gay > ending) is, I think, also a useful framework for several of the books we've seen--all highly personal works--including Myra Greene's book project My White Friends (2007-present). …

(Re)enchanting geography? The nature of being critical and the character of critique in human geography

Abstract: Enchantment is a term frequently used by human geographers to express delight, wonder or that which cannot be simply explained. However, it is a concept that has yet to be subject to sustained critique, specifically how it can be used to progress geographic thought and praxis. This paper makes sense of, and space for, the unintelligibility of enchantment in order to encourage a less repressed, more cheerful way of engaging with the geographies of the world. We track back through our disciplinary heritage to explore how geographers have employed enchantment as a force through which the world inspires affective attachment. We review the terrain of the debate surrounding recent geographical engagements with enchantment, focusing on the nature of being critical and the character of critique in human geography, offering a new ‘enchanted’ stance to our geographical endeavours. We argue that the moment of enchantment has not passed with the current challenging climate; if anything, it is more pressing.

The anthropology of ontology (religious science

Abstract: Through engagement with a range of recent publications, this article offers a mini-ethnography of wonder discourses in the anthropology of ontology, leading to a rethink of the concept of religion. It has sometimes been suggested that science and religion are antithetical orientations to the experience of wonder: whereas science seeks to banish wonder by replacing it with knowledge, religion remains open to wonder in the face of the unknowable. With this criterion of difference in view, this article identifies certain trends in the anthropology of ontology that appear to enjoin and pursue open-ended wonder in ways that might be read as constituting anthropology as religious science. This coincidence of supposed opposites recommends, I conclude, a relational account of religion.

How Are Curious People Viewed and How Do They Behave in Social Situations? From the Perspectives of Self, Friends, Parents, and Unacquainted Observers

Abstract: Curiosity is the predisposition to recognize and search for new knowledge and experiences (Berlyne, 1960; Izard, 1977; Spielberger & Starr, 1994; Tomkins, 1962). The psychological urge evoked by curiosity is accompanied by increased engagement with the world including exploratory behavior, meaning-making, and learning (Day, 1971; Kashdan & Steger, 2007; Panksepp, 2011). For decades, scientists have narrowly focused on how curiosity is relevant to achievement in school, work, and sports, and an appreciation of art (Silvia, 2006; Spielberger & Starr, 1994). Curiosity is neither an intrapersonal or interpersonal process by nature; it is relevant to any context where there is the potential for novelty, uncertainty, complexity, surprise, and conflict between the urges to approach or avoid stimuli (Berylne, 1960, 1967, 1971). Several scientists have argued that a family of individual difference variables that conceptually overlap with curiosity (i.e., novelty seeking, uncertainty orientation, need for structure, need for closure, need for cognition, openness to experience) are relevant to healthy social interactions and relationships (Kashdan & Fincham, 2004; McCrae, 1996; McCrae & Sutin, 2009). The present research extends this work about the relevance of curiosity to social functioning. Curious people are proposed to engage in behaviors that are particularly relevant for increasing the likelihood of positive social outcomes and healthy social relationships. To understand the potential benefits of being a curious person, consider how curiosity is activated. Bottom-up curiosity is driven by immediate experience and a history of reinforcement for exploratory behavior (Loewenstein, 1994). A novel, complex, unexpected, or uncertain event results in a sense of wonder and a desire to explore it. For instance, upon hearing a scratching sound against the bedroom window of a high-rise apartment building, a person turns to notice a Koala bear. Activated by novel stimulation in an unusual context, few individuals have to be prodded to feel a sense of wonder; the experience of curiosity is often rapid and reflexive (e.g., Litman, 2005; Silvia, 2001). What is often forgotten, especially when the scope of the analysis extends to social situations, is that curiosity can also be wielded intentionally in a top-down manner. Top-down curiosity involves the intentional search for novel and/or challenging stimuli. For instance, when meeting a new person, instead of asking uninspiring questions about their occupation or other mundane facts, one might ask for opinions on topics without expecting or pursuing any specific answer (e.g., what would you do if you were driving on an empty highway and passed an unburied, dead body?). This self-initiated search for novelty is part of a larger behavioral pattern that is reinforced by engagement in the search itself (Sansone & Thoman, 2005; Wilson & DuFrene, 2009). Although we are unaware of studies that have examined how curious people are viewed by partners interacting with them on multiple occasions (e.g., friends, parents), we suggest that the two different routes leading to curious exploration will account for a diverse range of social behavior. A common theme in discussing the relevance of curiosity to the social world is the management of anxious thoughts and feelings. Whether people are taking advantage of the growth potential of exploring interesting stimuli (top-down curiosity) or intentionally discovering and creating interesting situations (bottom-up curiosity), tension is experienced. Any model of curiosity has to explain why different people experience the same event differently. A “funny” story told at a party will cause some audience members to laugh, others to feel anxious, and others to reach for their smartphones out of boredom. An appraisal model offers a useful understanding of when curiosity is generated (momentary state) and the cognitive underpinnings of dispositional or trait curiosity. According to Silvia (2006), people respond to the environment with two automatic, rapid cognitive judgments (or appraisals). First, can the target of attention be described as novel, complex, or challenging (growth potential)? Second, can this novel, complex, or challenging object be managed (coping potential)? Curiosity will only arise if a person believes that there is new information to be acquired and sufficient belief that the search for this information is manageable. The likelihood of these appraisals appears to account for individual differences in trait curiosity. Curious people have been shown to be more likely to uncover novelty in their environment (novelty potential) and when they do, report greater confidence that they can handle unwanted emotions and thoughts elicited by these events (coping potential) (Silvia, 2006, 2008; Silvia, Henson, & Templin, 2009; Spielberger & Starr, 1994). An appraisal model has been useful in explaining why curious people are more likely to visually explore complex polygons, disturbing art, cognitively challenging books, unusual movies, and abstract poetry (Connelly, 2011; Silvia, 2005, 2006; Silvia & Berg, 2011; Turner & Silvia, 2006). Starting with distress tolerance, an appraisal perspective offers insight into the diversity of social behaviors that might be linked to curiosity. Tension is experienced when experiences are encountered that are inconsistent with existing conceptual frameworks about the self, other people, and the world (Loevinger, 1976; Piaget, 1952). Researchers have provided preliminary evidence that when novel stimuli are confronted (bottom-up) or purposely sought (top-down), curious people show less defensive reactions (Kashdan, Afram, Brown, Birnbeck, & Drvoshanov, 2011; Kashdan, DeWall, et al., 2011). Although novel or challenging social interactions often leave less curious individuals mentally exhausted, curious people believe they can cope and therefore are more energized prior to, during, and after social situations (Silvia, 2005: Silvia, 2008; Thoman, Smith, & Silvia, 2011). The flexibility of curious people offers a critical link to the social contexts that they chose, and the social behavior they enact in them. Curious people are psychologically flexible in that they are adept at committing effort toward interesting and deeply cherished goals despite the presence of pain/distress/tension (Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010; Silvia, 2008). The cognitive flexibility inherent to curious people is best illustrated by their preference for: growth over safety, complexity over simplicity, autonomy over obedience and rules, and openness over closure (Litman, 2005; Roberts & Robins, 2000; Vitterso, Soholt, Hetland, Thoresen, & Roysamb, 2010). Because of their preference for new information (Loewenstein, 1994), curious people are less likely to prematurely commit to initial ideas and perspectives (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996). In fact, there is evidence that the need for structure and cognitive closure are not only inversely related to curiosity (Litman, 2010), but reside at the other end of the continuum (Mussel, 2010).

“The quickening of the unknown”: Epistemologies of surprise in anthropology (The Munro Lecture, 2013)

Abstract: My title is from an essay by Nigerian writer Ben Okri, which I draw on to address one aspect of classic empiricism in anthropology that I have found particularly important, namely the element of surprise, or “impression” (Hume), as an instigator to thought. Quickening is the moment when a being gives evidence of its own life and presence. An epistemology of surprise has been widely and frequently practiced in anthropology, as is illustrated from works across many fields and theoretical orientations. Variations in conventions of instigation and completion are traced back through skeptic and enlightenment practices; linked to artisanal, poetic, and artistic processes within the discipline across its history; compared in the imagery in classic works from Africa and Melanesia; and then explored in the recent “radical empiricism” of Michael Jackson and politically inflected works that focus on fragments, gaps, and absences rather than presences. Examples from my own work on political economic “quickenings”—a baffling confusion of referents for a number term in Cameroon, and an arresting Nigerian complaint that “there’s no money,” in a globally monetized world—conclude the lecture, showing the wide applicability of this mode of reasoning, which traces a genealogy from Hume and Greek skeptical empiricism.

The development of environmental awareness through school science: Problems and possibilities

Abstract: This paper focuses upon the problem of raising environmental awareness in the context of school science. By focusing, as it does, on the relationship between the self and the natural environment, the paper discusses the difficulties that exist, such as the students’ involvement with the natural world, as their object of study, the empirical treatment and the modeling of the natural world, and the purpose of learning science, as well as the possibilities for promoting the development of such relationship by keeping the natural world, as an object of study, in the foreground of the teachinglearning process. Such possibilities refer to the awareness of the personal and wider significance of science ideas and socio-scientific issues, the wonder evoked by science ideas and by natural forms and phenomena, the aesthetic appreciation of the natural world, and the ‘story of the universe’, as a story that addresses the interconnection of science and human life. The educational importance of ‘awareness’ is also discussed in the paper.

Visiting lives: ethics and methodology in life history

Abstract: The past decade has seen a ‘Small world’ renaissance of research based on life-history method.1 ‘Across academic disciplines and national boundaries scholars have increasingly found value in inspecting “a life”.’2 We wonder why?

Wonders with the Sea: Rachel Carson's Ecological Aesthetic and the Mid-Century Reader

Abstract: Recent scholarship on the work of the great nature writer, Rachel Carson, posits that her landmark book, Silent Spring (1962)—often credited with igniting the modern environmental movement—is best understood in the context of her earlier, extraordinarily popular publications on the natural history of the oceans, which helped establish her as a talented and trustworthy translator of scientific concepts into literary prose. This essay builds upon that idea, showing how Carson's The Sea Around Us (1951) and The Edge of the Sea (1955) not only shaped public understandings of ocean ecology, but also spurred a public passion for all things oceanographic, best embodied in a wave of "Carsonalia"—consumer items and experiences ranging from hats, to Book of the Month Club editions, to liner notes for the NBC Symphony's recording of Debussy's La Mer. While these items inspired and expressed the "sense of wonder" that was critical to Carson's ecological aesthetic, I argue, they also subsumed the new "frontier" of the world's oceans into the technological imperialism of the post-World War II United States. As new technologies allowed military and scientific researchers to see deeper into the oceanic depths than ever before, images of the open ocean were domesticated through consumer markets into viewable, readable, and even wearable forms. This commodification of the ocean, and of Carson's ecocentric message, both enabled and frustrated her attempts to promote ecological literacy. Yet they also reveal much about our contemporary relationship to the world's oceans, which remain sites of both enduring wonder and extraordinary exploitation. Silent Spring, Rachel Carson's ground-breaking literary expose about the dangers of synthetic pesticides, turns 51 this year. It is a work celebrated for many things: its deft blending of science and poetry, its trenchant analysis of the corporate-sponsored research that encouraged Americans to spray first and ask questions later, and the critical role it played in catalyzing the environmental movement in the United States. Its author, who was hailed in her time as everything from a modern-day Harriet Beecher Stowe to a dangerous communist threat, has been the subject of numerous biographies which have described her variously as a "witness for nature" (Linda Lear, 1997), a "gentle subversive" (Mark Lytle, 2007), and, most recently, an unlikely literary crusader caught up in a political earthquake of postwar politics (William Souder, 2012). 1 Lear's epithet seems particularly apt since, as she points out, Carson's entire

Neurophenomenology: an integrated approach to exploring awe and wonder

Abstract: Astronauts often report experiences of awe and wonder while traveling in space. This paper addresses the question of whether awe and wonder can be scientifically investigated in a simulated space travel scenario using a neurophenomenological method. To answer this question, we created a mixed-reality simulation similar to the environment of the International Space Station. Portals opened to display simulations of Earth or Deep Space. However, the challenge still remained of how to best capture the resulting experience of participants. We could use psycholog- ical methods, neuroscientific methods or philosophical methods. Each of these approaches offer many benefits, but each is also limited. Neurophenomenology capitalises on and integrates all three methods. We employed questionnaires from psychology, electroencephalography, electrocardiography, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy from neuroscience, and a phenomenological interview technique from philosophy. This neurophenomenological method enabled...

Wonder-full geomorphology: Sublime aesthetics and the place of art

Abstract: Though not yet readily apparent in articles and book chapters, there is a burgeoning series of ‘in the field’ collaborations between geomorphologists and artists focused around the mutual exploration of ‘inspirational landscapes’, and the harnessing of the emotive dimensions of such body/world encounters in the production and communication of geomorphological knowledge. Seemingly at odds with the discipline’s emphasis upon the production of fieldwork data (as opposed to sensed phenomena), as well as its disavowal of the subjective, this work nevertheless resonates with a complex and fascinating aesthetic tradition within geomorphology. Here, we ‘place’ these contemporary collaborations via: reference to Humboldtian science, and the crucial link between sensibility and precision; a reading of the Kantian sublime in the work of G.K. Gilbert; a sketching out of the evisceration of both the aesthetic and art in the second half of the 20th century; and, finally, a review of the current scope of art/geomorphology collaborations, and possible futures.

Performance and culture in Plato's Laws

Abstract: 1. Introduction Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi Part I. Geopolitics of Performance: 2. Cretan harmonies and universal morals: early music and migrations of wisdom in Plato's Laws Mark Griffith 3. Strictly ballroom: Egyptian mousike and Plato's comparative poetics Ian Rutherford Part II. Conceptualising Chorality: 4. Choral practices in Plato's Laws: itineraries of initiation? Claude Calame 5. The chorus of Dionysus: alcohol and old age in the Laws Oswyn Murray 6. Imagining chorality: wonder, Plato's puppets and moving statutes Leslie Kurke 7. Broken rhythms in Plato's Laws: materializing social time in the khoros Barbara Kowalzig 8. Choral anti-aesthetics Anastasia-Erasmia Peponi Part III. Redefining Genre: 9. The orphaned word: the pharmakon of forgetfulness in Plato's Laws Andrea Nightingale 10. Praise and performance in Plato's Laws Kathryn Morgan 11. Paides malakon mouson: tragedy in Plato's Laws Penelope Murray 12. The rhetoric of rhapsody in Plato's Laws Richard Martin 13. The unideal genres of the ideal city: comedy, threnody, and the making of citizens in Plato's Laws Marcus Folch Part IV. Poetry and Music in the Afterlife of the Laws: 14. Deregulating poetry: Callimachus' response to Plato's Laws Susan Stephens 15. The Laws and Aristoxenus on the criteria of musical judgement Andrew Barker.

On Partitioning the Fundamental Attribution Error: Dispositionalism and the Correspondence Bias

Abstract: We often speculate about why things happen. Suppose we learn that a prestigious law firm hired a new attorney and within 3 years he is a partner in the firm. We might wonder why he was promoted so quickly. Is he incredibly talented? Is he the favorite nephew of the senior partner? Suppose we hear of an airplane crash. We might wonder about the cause. Did the engines fail? Was it the pilot’s fault? Suppose we meet a colleague in another department and he seems grumpy. We might wonder why he acted that way. Is he a grumpy person? Is he just having a bad day?

Science as Sacred Myth? Ecospirituality in the Anthropocene Age

Abstract: This chapter focuses on Universe Story/Epic of Evolution/Big History movements, forms of science-based ecospirituality that have emerged in recent decades. One of my central claims is that these narratives tend to encourage awe and wonder at scientific information and expert knowledge as that which is most ‘real’, over and above direct encounters with the natural world. As such, I question whether these new myths are likely to engender the environmental values they seek to cultivate. Everyday experiences and encounters with the natural world—encounters not filtered through scientific analysis and explanation—are likely to be devalued in this worldview. This tendency is particularly pronounced in iterations that are inspired by the work of E.O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins, both of whom promote a mythopoeic rendering of scientific information as a robust and superior rival to religion. Espousing a religion based on scientific reality, some proponents of these narratives express attitudes of intolerance toward religious and cultural traditions that do not derive meaning and value directly from science, even though these traditions may embrace green values on their own terms. As a whole these movements discourage sensory, experience-infused forms of engagement with nature that are less dependent upon and mediated by expert knowledge.

Europe: From Emancipation to Empowerment

Abstract: Marx is dead. But so is Hayek. With neoliberalism crumbling, Europeans are beginning to wonder what it is that is really wrong with the current European Union. The paper proposes the following answer: To this day, European integration has not been a process of emancipation. This shortcoming, however, is not written on the Union’s face. It requires, pursuant to best psychological traditions, a careful analysis of symptoms. One indication of the absence of emancipation is, indeed, the Union’s rhetorical embrace of empowerment.

The Dryden-Davenant Tempest, Wonder Production, and the State of Natural Philosophy in 1667

Abstract: Modern critics do not smile upon the adaptation of The Tempest that premiered in the fall of 1667. The revised play is excoriated for its loss of William Shakespeare's rich poetry and enchanted plotting. According to Eckhard Auberlen, for example, "instead of Shakespeare's deep-searching and painful investigation into man's capacity for good and evil and the possibility of a rejuvenation, we have... a comical conflict between social custom and natural impulse."1 For John Bishop "the chief feature of the adaptation is that unlike The Tempest... it describes a static universe, one in which conflicts are not so much resolved as neutralized before they can take shape as conflicts at all."2 Another critic identifies a change in tone from "pastoral innocence" to "prurient ingnorance."3 In the most suggestive reading of the play in recent years, Derek Hughes argues that the adaptation enfolds on a politically cynical island without magic books and, consequently, while Shakespeare's Tempest is full of regenerative and sympathetic magic, the Restoration adaptation portrays ultimately only "the nature of Hobbes."4 The new Prospero is less a magician than a conventional heavy father; Ferdinand and Miranda's betrothal masque is entirely absent; the Restoration Tempest, in short, portrays not Shakespeare's magical island of invisible sounds and sweet airs, but the disenchanted nature of Rene Descartes and the new science. And yet cynical Hobbesianism seems not to be what Restoration audiences experienced, but instead-like modern audiences-an emotionally moving drama of enchantment. Indeed, the adapted Tempest was the most performed play of the Restoration, and constituted a tenth of all live performances on both stages in its first season.5 Charles II and the court attended the play's premiere at Lincoln's Inn Fields, "the house mighty full," Samuel Pepys recorded, with "a great many great ones."6 The revised Tempest was an immediate hit, and apparently because it did in fact have (stage) magic. Pepys celebrated the "variety" of the play's high-tech stagecraft, being particularly impressed with the revised play's echo songs and extravagant combined use of music and machinery. He also called the performance "the most innocent play that ever I saw," a notable response about which I will have more to say below.7 Within a few years the adapted Tempest was re-modeled once again by Thomas Shadwell, who augmented the John Dryden-William Davenant plot with additional music to create an operatic Tempest. Within months of that premiere in the fall of 1674, enough interest remained in the story that Thomas Duffett could mount for the rival King's Company his raucous Mock-Tempest, or the Enchanted Castle.8This essay will argue that the logic governing the adaptation and early popularity of the revised Tempest stems in large part from the way that the play exemplified natural philosophical ideas and projects associated with the Royal Society. I will show that the Dryden-Davenant Tempest resembles the new science in its form as well as its content, and that its co-authors staged it to be, among other things, a contribution to the ongoing work of the virtuosi. To demonstrate this, in what follows I will examine two major subjects of experimentation in the play: the origin and nature of language use, especially in its role as a mediator of the passions, and the nature of political obligation. The Tempest revision, I argue, embodied the cautious and multi-perspectival methodological protocols of the new science while simultaneously proposing a means to manage memories of the previous two decades' political strife. A document of the same season as Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society (1667) and John Milton's ten-book Paradise Lost (1667), the revised Tempest was in the winter of 1667/8 like them both a partisan history and novel experiment in political and epistemological settlement.9 Creative examinations of innocence and experience were in the air. …

Numbers Do Not Replace Thinking

Abstract: The article is organised around three themes, each one illuminating half a century of historical life: (i) the first theme relates to the second half of the nineteenth century, analysing the role of statistics in the formation of state education systems; (ii) the second theme concentrates on the first half of the twentieth century and the importance of tests, examinations and surveys in the development of 'pedagogical modernity'; (iii) the third theme looks at the historical period of the second half of the twentieth century, and how databases began to be used as an important tool in the formulation of educational policies. To conclude, the article underlines how comparison is becoming one of the main instruments of governance in contemporary societies - in other words, how power tends increasingly to be exercised through policies that claim to be 'obvious', 'natural', 'evidence- based', instead of being grounded on ideological and political options. Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. (Robert Kennedy, 1968)

Evaluating Empire and Confronting Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain: “A Fabric at Once the Dread and Wonder of the World”

Abstract: 1. 'The principal cornucopia of Great Britain's wealth': the languages of commerce, liberty, security, and maritime supremacy and the celebration of empire 2. Outposts of 'loose vagrant people': the language of alterity in the evaluation of empire 3. 'A fabric at once the dread and wonder of the world': the languages of imperial grandeur, liberty, commerce, humanity, and justice and the American challenge to empire 4. Arenas of 'Asiatic plunder': the languages of humanity and justice and the excesses of empire in India 5. Sites of Creolean despotism: the languages of humanity and justice and the critique of colonial slavery and the African slave trade 6. 'A fruitless, bloody, wasting war': the languages of imperial grandeur. Liberty, humanity, and commerce in the American conflict 7. 'This voraginous gulph of Hibernian dependence': the languages of oppression, corruption, justice, liberty, and humanity and the identification of imperial excesses in Ireland 8. A 'shadow of our former glory'?: The discussion of empire in the wake of American secession 9. Epilogue: 'against every principle of justice, humanity, and whatever is allowed to be right among mankind': standards of humanity and the evaluation of empire.

Dancing a Curriculum of Hope: Cultivating passion as an embodied inquiry

Abstract: This poetic essay explores embodied knowing within the academy and its relationship between a vibrant place of scholarship and connection to cultivating passion within ways of living and articulating knowledge. The practice of dance is a container for the depths to be drawn out, and poetic inquiry and embodied forms of inquiry are integrated as a place of discovery. The author proposes the presence of the body could be a site for hope, where cultural and ideological differences, break down and invite students into a pedagogy, which honors body, mind, spirit. She asks, what can the body teach us in rediscovering a curriculum of hope? The limitations and wonder of being human can transcend past cultural constraints to find a place where dance can be a place of play and discovery. Could hope reside in the belly? Or could unfiltered joy or lament be in the tissues or skin?

Using the notion of 'wonder' to develop positive conceptions of science with future primary teachers

Abstract: A common challenge for many primary pre-service teacher educa- tors is to rekindle interest in science content with future teachers who often ex- press a lifetime of negative associations with school science. This pilot study in- vestigated if the notion of wonder could be utilized with preservice teachers as a vehicle to develop more positive conceptions of science as an answer to our cur- rent 'crisis of interest' as described by Tytler (2007). Findings suggested the use of a wonder framework generated an increased interest and more positive views regarding science content. Key student cases demonstrated a shift in desire to learn science content that they had claimed to detest before engaging in the expe- riences related to the study. In all, the results of utilizing a wonder framework with adult students offered promising results. This study further argues that we may need to conceptualize school science as not just a way to understand the world but also to clearly demonstrate that it is a field of inquiry that is sustained by mystery, beauty and wonder.

Europe: From emancipation to empowerment

Abstract: Marx is dead. But so is Hayek. With neoliberalism crumbling, Europeans are beginning to wonder what it is that is really wrong with the current European Union. The paper proposes the following answer: To this day, European integration has not been a process of emancipation. This shortcoming, however, is not written on the Union’s face. It requires, pursuant to best psychological traditions, a careful analysis of symptoms. One indication of the absence of emancipation is, indeed, the Union’s rhetorical embrace of empowerment.

Scholastic Temptations in the Philosophy of Biology

Abstract: Socrates is generally regarded as the father of western philosophy. His student Plato created the Academy. Diogenes (of Sinope, now in Turkey, but really the first, self-proclaimed ‘‘cosmopolitan’’) is most remembered for living naked and sleeping in a jar (Fig. 1). He lived ascetically, as recommended by Antisthenes, another Socrates student, and abhorred the conventions of knowledge and its relations with power. When Plato was praised for giving Socrates’ definition of man as ‘‘featherless bipeds,’’ Diogenes brought a plucked chicken into the Academy and said, ‘‘Behold! I’ve brought you a man’’—upon which ‘‘with broad, flat nails’’ was added to the definition. Small wonder that Plato thought of Diogenes as a ‘‘Socrates gone mad.’’ Marina Garces, a professor of contemporary philosophy at the University of Zaragoza and social activist, has recently argued that philosophy today more than ever faces the challenge of keeping alive the ‘‘irresolvable tension’’ between Plato’s and Diogenes’ radically opposed stances:

The romance of wonder in organization studies

Abstract: Wonder is the romance of all human study – a two-in-oneness of beautiful mystery and a rational inquiring mind. To wonder is to be open to mysteries beyond the known; it is to engage the largest questions of life; and above all, it is to come into being as a human person by reaching to the humanity of all peoples that resides in the transcendent. In this essay, we describe the wonder of organizational studies as literally a romance; a marriage of distinctive forms of human reasoning that, while they may show up in one and the same person, are essentially male and female. We look for wonder in a collection of stories about qualitative research in organizations in which organizational scholars at their best unite male and female aspects of human reasoning in wonder. In their stories, we find the soulful mystery and romance that delights and enchants the study of persons and organizations.

Sport and children’s spirituality: an Australian perspective

Abstract: The benefits of sport and physical activity are endorsed by a number of professionals as a means of improving children’s health and their sense of well-being, and their unity with the natural world, other people and the Transcendent. For children, sport is a spiritual source of joy and wonder. Using Champagne’s ‘spiritual modes of being’, my recent study of Victorian children demonstrated their heightened sensory awareness, enriched relationships and robust sense of personal identity, arising from active and passive participation in sport. The children in the study seemed to benefit in each of these areas from Australian culture’s high value of sporting participation and achievement.