Search Results (101)

This paper examines Amitav Ghosh’s Gun Island through a Hindu eco-spiritual framework to explore how ancient cosmological concepts illuminate contemporary environmental crises. Building upon the legend of Bonduki Sadagar and Manasa Devi, Ghosh narrates the rupture of sacred human–nature relationships in both colonial and postcolonial contexts. This study employs a tripartite conceptual lens of karma, dharma, and ecosystem drawn from Hindu philosophy to analyze how the novel frames environmental degradation, human moral failure, and ecological interconnectedness. Karma, as the law of cause and effect, is used to depict the consequences of human exploitation through natural disasters, climate migration, and the collapse of ecosystems. Dharma emerges as a principle advocating ecological responsibility and symbiosis between humans and nonhuman life. This paper argues that Ghosh tactfully intertwines Hindu metaphysics with contemporary ecological science to critique capitalist modernity’s environmental violence. The novel’s depiction of floods, the sinking of Venice, and the global refugee crisis dramatizes karmic consequences, while its evocation of myth–science convergence offers a vision of sacred interdependence. Ultimately, this paper concludes that Gun Island provides an urgent eco-spiritual model for reimagining planetary ethics and responding to the Anthropocene through humility, relationality, and spiritual responsibility. Full article

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States have been experiencing a leadership turnover crisis, with 23 president and chancellor changes announced in 2022 and 41 in 2023. A survey of HBCU stakeholders at the 2023 White House Initiative on HBCUs was conducted to identify high-impact areas linked to this turnover, focusing on areas critical to the advancement and sustainment of HBCUs through the eyes of HBCU stakeholders. Additionally, it attempted to understand how campus dynamics and challenges can impact leaders using capital theory. The survey identified internal and external challenges, including engagement, morale, support, and retention across various stakeholders, suggesting that the turnover crisis needs to be viewed from the perspective of leaders’ turnover rather than leadership turnover. It was concluded that leaders’ forms of capital are compromised by misaligned campus dynamics, negatively impacting morale and engagement, leading to distrust, lack of support, pushback, and attrition. Therefore, leaders’ capitals can be depleted, leading to frustration, burnout, and ultimately voluntary resignation. The findings are crucial for institutions and leaders to understand and, most importantly, mitigate the impact of leader turnover on institutions, which demand stability. Full article

Introduction: The health emergency caused by the pandemic led to severe health issues in populations across many countries worldwide, including widespread morbidity and significant mortality. Nevertheless, several countries succeeded in keeping infection rates remarkably low before the approval of vaccines and the initiation of vaccinations in early 2021. We aim to identify the success factors of health policies in managing the impact of the health emergency across a selection of countries, focusing on how they protected their populations. Our study presents outcomes of sustainable health policy measures, along with health and social system challenges, and economic responses during the global health emergency. We sometimes found it difficult to define what counted as a success factor in some countries. Method: Our study draws upon a selection of reports and documents published by various ministries and economic, social, and health authorities, which we collected online. We structured our study into three phases to frame and contextualize the impact of health policy measures and countermeasures as follows: (i) observations and content analysis; (ii) empirical support through illustrative examples; and (iii) development of a health emergency toolkit of assessment. The documents were not always easy to compare because they differed in format and detail. Results: Our study outlines ten success factors for sustainable health policy measures and countermeasures: (i) preparedness; (ii) control; (iii) precaution; (iv) proactive decision-making; (v) synchronization; (vi) adequate legislation; (vii) goal fulfillment; (viii) digital health technology; (ix) empirical evidence; (x) ethical and moral virtues. Sometimes we struggled to separate what was ethical guidance from what was simply practical advice. Conclusion: We argue that the relevance of the health emergency toolkit of assessment outlined in our study demonstrates clearly that the success factors related to sustainable health policy measures and countermeasures can be applied and adapted to the societal conditions of individual countries. These factors may form a foundation for the development of a health emergency toolkit of assessment for future health emergencies. We also maintain that these factors may serve as a platform for establishing sustainable plans across health, social, and economic domains, with clear guidelines for implementation, management, and control. It is our hope that future health systems will make use of these findings before the next crisis emerges. Full article

This article explores Greco-Roman mythology through the lens of ecocriticism, focusing on how sacred landscapes and natural elements were imagined as animate, divine, and morally instructive forces. In ancient Mediterranean cultures, nature was not merely a passive setting for human action but a dynamic presence—rivers that judged, groves that punished, and mountains that sheltered or revealed. Texts such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Virgil’s Georgics, and Homer’s epics present nature as both sacred and sentient, often intervening in human affairs through transformation, vengeance, or protection. Forests, springs, and coastlines functioned as thresholds between human and divine, civilization and wilderness, mortal and eternal. By analyzing these representations, this article reveals a rich tradition in which nature teaches, punishes, guides, and transforms, long before ecological consciousness became a formalized discipline. Drawing connections between classical literary landscapes and contemporary environmental concerns, the article argues that myth can inform today’s ecological imagination, offering an alternative to extractive, anthropocentric paradigms. Recovering the reverence and narrative agency once granted to nature in classical thought may help us rethink our ethical relationship with the environment in the age of climate crisis. Full article

In the twentieth century and into the present one, scholars working in the field of Christian pastoral care have concentrated their efforts in both well-established and emerging areas. Traditionally, thinking about pastoral care has been oriented to the person suffering from an existential, developmental, spiritual, or moral crisis (or a combination of these). With the emergence of the psychotherapeutic psychology of Freud, Jung, Erikson, Kohut, Berne, Perls, and others, a new focus on pastoral psychotherapy emerged. Taking things in a very different direction, a host of pastoral theologians issued a call to not only care for the individual, but also for the socio-political world that is oppressive and exclusionary for many. Still others promoted pastoral care and counseling as a ministry of the Christian Church. Finally, those animated by the ancient tradition of cura animarum accented pastoral care as spiritual formation. It is to these latter two themes that this article is addressed. What is proposed is a practical prompt card approach to spiritual formation in the congregation that is holistic and runs in the first instance over six to eight weeks. The four areas covered are spiritual practices, spiritual character (fruits of the Spirit), moral character, and positive psychology. Full article

This paper examines the historical relationship between Shi’i jurisprudence and the Islamic Republic of Iran’s reproductive biopolitics. Using archival methods, the paper looks into the similarities and differences between religious interpretations and Iranian law. It then analyzes the implications of the recent ‘Family Protection and Youthful Population’ law, enacted in 2021 in response to fears of a looming ‘population crisis,’ and how it further restricts women’s access to abortion (care). The paper argues that reproductive policies are influenced not only by religious authorities and pronatalist patriarchal rationales but also by specific anxieties about a population crisis and decline considered a threat to the country’s national security. Reproductive policies exist within a moral framework at the intersection of demographic anxieties, biopolitics, and religious discourses that push women toward unpaid maternal labor and traditional gender roles. Full article

The complex interwoven crises of climate disruption and biodiversity loss demand not only rapid technological innovation for sustainable development but also major shifts in consumption and behaviour, implying a need for responses rooted in ethical values and a reorientation of attitudes towards the more-than-human world. In this context, given the global significance of faith communities and institutions as motivators and moral authorities, it is important that faith leaders state the challenges for sustainable development and suggest pathways forward to protect the environment and people that live in it. Building on his landmark encyclical of 2015, Laudato Si’, Pope Francis issued Laudate Deum, an apostolic exhortation on the climate crisis, and followed this up with a message to COP 28 for leaders to show leadership in facing up to the climate challenge. We argue that the interventions of Pope Francis point to the crucial importance of an approach to sustainable development that can integrate faith perspectives on social and ecological ethics with the knowledge generated by the natural sciences and by environmental systems science. The interdependence revealed by the emerging scientific understanding of human, animal, and ecosystem life implies the bioethics of care and stewardship, which have the potential to bring people together across religious and disciplinary divides. Unlike other analyses, we argue that it is important to understand how life was created if we are to care for it effectively and sustainably. We also put forward the case for more sustainable land use and the production of more sustainable foods. This article is written from the perspective of the Catholic Church, including its approach to moral theology, but we argue that the implications of the analysis are relevant to all faith communities and religious institutions seeking to promote sustainable development. Full article

This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on emotional management and social exchanges in the hospitality industry, focusing on food and beverage workers in Tel Aviv and New Orleans. Through 66 in-depth interviews conducted between 2021 and 2022, we explore how workers navigated altered social dynamics, heightened emotional labor, and moral dilemmas. Our analysis, grounded in Social Exchange Theory, dramaturgical theory, and the sociology of emotions, reveals three key themes: social and emotional distancing, crisis-driven emotional management, and the reconceptualization of hospitality between altruism and pragmatism. Despite different cultural contexts, workers in both cities faced similar challenges, highlighting the globalized nature of the industry. The pandemic disrupted traditional reciprocal exchanges, forcing a reevaluation of hospitality practices. Finally, this study stresses how emotional and moral dilemmas became central to social exchanges during the pandemic. Full article

Since the 2022 death of Mahsa Jina Amini in custody of the Guidance Patrol or morality police in Tehran, Iran, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi can also function in the classroom as a comics touching point for human rights discourses around the world and in particular—though not exclusively—those that impact women. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who brought intersectionality to the forefront of cultural and political discourses in 1989, has used the phrase “say her name” to draw attention to the deaths of women and children, especially Black women and children, at the hands of law enforcement officers. Chants of “Say her name, Mahsa Amini”, rang among protesters outside Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar ahead of Iran’s first match of the World Cup 2022 against England. Now in 2025, cultural conversations around feminism and creativity as resistance can turn to the woman, life, freedom movement in Iran. Shervin Hajipour’s song “Baraye”, meaning “for” in Persian, which was inspired by tweets echoing protesters’ calls for change, became an anthem of the uprising and exists in comic art as well as song. The comics classroom can address the concerns and issues surrounding Amini’s death and the ongoing relevance of Persepolis as a coming-of-age text about living as a woman in Iran. In dialogue with the works of Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson, Hillary Chute, Sally Munt, and bell hooks, this piece addresses the pedagogy of human rights through comic art as crisis witnessing. With attention to comics material from two members of the Iranian diaspora, Shabnam Adiban and Farid Vahid, from the 2024 collection Woman, Life, Freedom, put together by Satrapi, this piece navigates potential Orientalism and Islamophobia in the Western classroom through engagement with intersectional feminism. Full article

This paper studies the impact of crisis management mechanisms (bailouts and bail-ins) on moral hazard. Through an econometric study of financial crises in emerging countries since 1993, the results indicate that recurrent bailouts exacerbate moral hazard, while bail-ins have only a minor impact due to their perceived lack of credibility. The results highlight the impact of crisis management measures on financial stability and the scale of the mobilised resources. Analysed in the context of efforts to support sustainable development, the study recommends reassessing the fundamentals of the bailout approach, developing a robust and sustainable bailout framework that aligns immediate interventions with sustainability objectives towards sustainable recovery strategies. Full article

This study explores the manifestation of implicit religion in climate change activism on social media, focusing on Extinction Rebellion (XR) in The Netherlands between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2023. A combination of content analysis and discourse analysis is used to examine how XR’s activism on X (Twitter) embodies quasi-religious elements such as shared beliefs, moral imperatives, and collective identity. Drawing on Edward Bailey’s concept of implicit religion and Meerten Ter Borg’s framework, the research reveals how XR’s activism blends secular environmental concerns with spiritual commitment, positioning climate activism as a moral duty. The study identifies six key themes in XR’s discourse: shared beliefs and values, transcendent purposes, commitment and devotion, community and collective identity, meaning and purpose, and hope and overcoming uncertainty. These themes are framed as sacred responsibilities, fostering a community united by transcendent purposes. This research contributes to the sociology of religion by highlighting how implicit religious elements permeate modern secular movements, particularly through digital platforms. It also provides insights into how climate activism mobilizes individuals through quasi-religious rhetoric and practices, shaping both individual and collective responses to the environmental crisis. Full article

The contemporary American university largely operates as an agent of domestication, tasked more with enforcing the social and economic order than with expanding the horizons of possibility. The dawn of the Anthropocene, however, demands that we reconceive of the humanities not as self-sufficient, hierarchical, or divided away from other modes of seeking knowledge but as core to what human being and responsibility ought to mean in the more-than-human world. The present essay makes a case for reworking—and rethinking—the American university along the lines of Mark C. Taylor’s prompt to reconceive of the academy as a multidisciplinary forum for the “comparative analysis of common problems”. I suggest that religious teachings—and religious traditions themselves—can offer models for the intertwining of the humanities (literature, poetry, philosophy, the expressive and applied arts), the social sciences (the study of governance, political thought, the study and formulation of law), and the natural sciences as well as mathematics and engineering. Further, I argue that when faced with radical and unprecedented changes in technological, social, economic, and environmental structures, we must, I believe, engage with these traditional texts in order to enrich and critique the liberal mindset that has neither the values nor the vocabulary to deal with the climate crisis. We must begin to sow new and expansive ways of thinking, and I am calling this work the “rewilding” of our universities. Parallel to the three Cs of rewilding as a conservation paradigm, I suggest the following three core principles for the rewilding of higher education: creativity, curriculum, and collaboration. Though I focus on the interface of religion, ecology, and the study of the environmental, social, and moral challenges of climate change, I suggest that these categories of activity should impact all domains of inquiry to which a university is home. Full article

What are the political, gender, and theological implications at stake when associating Jesus with modern combat and righteous violence? Jesus is rendered in combative form across media—i.e., live-action films and shorts, animated television, sketch comedy, graphic novels, and video games. This rendition occurs at a confluence of meaning, most immediately for the sake of generating comedy through juxtaposition (in this case, rendering the meek with a sword) and/or reaffirming Jesus’ prominent cultural value through an association with other popularly mediatized entities. Beyond these initial layers of significance, however, I argue that Jesus becomes associated with violence and brutality for the sake of de/legitimizing politically conservative ideologies with respect to Christianity and American exceptionalism, redeeming the crisis of “domesticated masculinity” and fortifying traditional masculine norms, and theologically reinstituting popular paradigms of low Christology. Ideological “manhood” remains traced to one’s ability to perform traditional gender roles (i.e., family provider, community protector, and father/procreator). To capture the discrepancy that Jesus of Nazareth, as presented in canonical gospels, largely concerns none of these roles, I analyze the hypermasculine Christ, and the various weapons he employs, as part of a popular genealogy of Western value systems and discourse. Though in this article I reference some examples of non-American media, I reserve my analysis and commentary for the stakes and implications of what it means for U.S. Americans to produce and consume such content. In short, I submit that popular America idolizes itself in the form—one amidst many—of a naïve, combative, and boorish Christ: an arrogant and, at times, narcissistic man with delusional views of the world made dangerous through invasive power and authority. Western entertainment has deemed the United States (through its fictional stand-ins) as morally failing yet still chosen. Within this logic, American Christians need not reform their ways as long as they cultivate evidence of their exceptionalism. Full article

This study seeks to understand the political discourse of Javier Milei and to determine which concept of populism best captures his approach. Although perceived by many as a populist, Milei is unusual in that he sees himself as a liberal libertarian and defender of the West against collectivist policies. To this end, this study analyzes selected speeches by Milei from three different periods during and after the 2024 presidential election campaign and applies a deductive coding scheme designed to identify ideational populism, populist discursive framing, populism as strategy, and populism as crisis performance. The analysis confirms that Milei is at best a partial populist, as he fails to define the core populist concept of “the people”. It concludes that the concept of crisis performance emerges as the most apt theoretical framework to classify Milei’s type of populism. By rhetorically transforming the crisis not only into an existential economic issue but also into a moral tale of corruption and failure at the highest levels, he can appeal for radical change and offer himself as the national political savior. Milei’s discourse also illustrates that, unlike ideological populism or discursive populist framing, in the performative turn, the victims of the crisis, the people, often remain a vague signifier defined by their suffering at the hands of elites. Full article

In the modern era, we increasingly encounter threats and challenges caused by climate change, and as a result, “green” thinking has become a necessity in every person’s life. It is believed that environmentally focused thinking can be invigorated with the help of Homo Climaticus, who is defined as a rational person in a climate crisis. However, it must be recognized that to understand the essence of Homo Climaticus, it must be compared with other archetypes. Within the framework of this article, the authors have evaluated the interaction between Homo Climaticus and Homo Religiosus in the context of environmental management. The analysis of these archetypes outlines the synergies and conflicts that arise from the fundamental differences in the worldviews of these archetypes, although both are committed to preserving the environment. Homo Climaticus is fundamentally based on science and data related to environmental management, whereas Homo Religiosus is motivated by faith-based ethics and the moral necessity to protect the world created by God. Recognizing and utilizing the strengths of both these archetypes can create more effective environmental management. Such an interdisciplinary approach indicates that collaboration between scientific and religious communities can provide a comprehensive strategy for addressing global environmental issues. Full article