- Table View
- List View
Standing Out, Standing Together: The Social and Political Impact of Gay-Straight Alliances
by Melinda MiceliJust a decade ago, requests by students to establish groups to support gay and lesbian students were rare and generally met with shock and confusion by school administrators and local communities. Today there are more than 1600 gay straight alliances (GSAs) across the country. Standing Out, Standing Together documents the emergence of gay straight alliances in public schools across America - from factors that have contributed to the relatively rapid spread of GSA to those that stirred controversy and posed roadblocks. Using over 10 years of interviews with students, teachers, administrators and political activists; case studies; and local and national media reports, Miceli explores the personal and political stakes involved in the battles over GSAs. Although the book acknowledges and documents the harassment, abuse and problems suffered by many gay, lesbian, transgendered, and bisexual students, its primary focus is on these students as political activists, rather than as passive victims, making it a unique contribution to sociologists, educators, political activists and LGBTreaders alike.
Levinas and Analytic Philosophy: Second-Person Normatvity and the Moral Life (Routledge Research in Phenomenology)
by Michael Fagenblat Melis ErdurThis volume examines the relevance of Emmanuel Levinas’s work to recent developments in analytic philosophy. Contemporary analytic philosophers working in metaethics, the philosophy of mind, and the metaphysic of personal identity have argued for views similar to those espoused by Levinas. Often disparately pursued, Levinas’s account of "ethics as first philosophy" affords a way of connecting these respective enterprises and showing how moral normativity enters into the structure of rationality and personal identity. In metaethics, the volume shows how Levinas’s moral phenomenology relates to recent work on the normativity of rationality and intentionality, and how it can illuminate a wide range of moral concepts including accountability, moral intuition, respect, conscience, attention, blame, indignity, shame, hatred, dependence, gratitude and guilt. The volume also tests Levinas’s innovative claim that ethical relations provide a way of accounting for the irreducibility of personal identity to psychological identity. The essays here contribute to ongoing discussions about the metaphysical significance and sustainability of a naturalistic but nonreductive account of personhood. Finally, the volume connects Levinas’s second-person standpoint with analogous developments in moral philosophy.
Life Lessons: The Case for a National Education Service
by Melissa BennA radical agenda to make our education system fit for the twenty-first centuryOur education system has been damaged by politicians who have arrogantly imposed a regime of market-driven reforms. It is time to reframe education as an essential public good, one arising from a hunger to find more engaging ways to learn and the powerful imperative to make our society genuinely equal.In this timely and provocative essay, Melissa Benn argues for a National Education Service. Like the NHS, the NES would provide the framework for a life-long entitlement to education: from early-years provision to apprenticeships, universities and adult education. It should be free at the point of delivery. It should nurture teachers and scholarship, moving beyond an obsession with exam results to create fully rounded, questioning citizens. Its eventual aim should be an integrated, comprehensive system available to all.
What Should We Tell Our Daughters?: The Pleasures and Pressures of Growing Up Female
by Melissa BennWe have reached a tricky crossroads in modern women's lives and our collective daughters are bearing the brunt of some intolerable pressures. Although feminism has made great strides forward since our mothers' and grandmothers' day, many of the key issues - equality of pay, equality in the home, representation at senior level in the private, public and political sectors - remain to be tackled. Casual sexism in the media and in everyday life is still rife and our daughters face a host of new difficulties as they are bombarded by images of unrealistically skinny airbrushed supermodels, celebrity role-models who depend on their looks and partners for status, and by competitive social media. The likes of Natasha Walter and Katie Roiphe deal with feminism from an adult point of view, but our daughters need to be prepared for stresses that are coming into play now as early as pre-school. This is a manifesto for every mother who has ever had to comfort a daughter who doesn't feel 'pretty', for every young woman who out-performs her male peers professionally and wonders why she is still not taken seriously, and for anyone interested in the world we are making for the next generation.
What Should We Tell Our Daughters?: The Pleasures and Pressures of Growing Up Female
by Melissa BennWe have reached a tricky crossroads in modern women's lives and our collective daughters are bearing the brunt of some intolerable pressures. Although feminism has made great strides forward since our mothers' and grandmothers' day, many of the key issues - equality of pay, equality in the home, representation at senior level in the private, public and political sectors - remain to be tackled. Casual sexism in the media and in everyday life is still rife and our daughters face a host of new difficulties as they are bombarded by images of unrealistically skinny airbrushed supermodels, celebrity role-models who depend on their looks and partners for status, and by competitive social media. The likes of Natasha Walter and Katie Roiphe deal with feminism from an adult point of view, but our daughters need to be prepared for stresses that are coming into play now as early as pre-school. This is a manifesto for every mother who has ever had to comfort a daughter who doesn't feel 'pretty', for every young woman who out-performs her male peers professionally and wonders why she is still not taken seriously, and for anyone interested in the world we are making for the next generation.
Making Sense of Evil
by Melissa DeareyWhen it comes to crime, everyone seems to take evil seriously as an explanatory concept - except criminologists. This book asks why, and why not, through exploring a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to evil from the perspectives of theology, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, and the social sciences.
Happy Lies: How a Movement You (Probably) Never Heard Of Shaped Our Self-Obsessed World
by Melissa DoughertyIn this groundbreaking book, popular apologist Melissa Dougherty helps us understand how our society got to be so toxically subjective, why endless positivity is inherently destructive, and how we can live with faithful truth and genuine love in these self-obsessed times.Melissa Dougherty skillfully diagnoses the issue and provides the cure: the authentic and life-giving truth of the Christian worldview. - Wesley HuffHave you ever wondered how we ended up in a world where personal feelings could become the authority for reality? Or why so many of us are on a relentless pursuit for happiness yet somehow feel more exhausted and sadder than ever? You're not alone.Melissa deftly traces the roots of today's social chaos back to a little-known (but very influential) 1800s philosophy known as New Thought. A former follower of its teachings, Melissa provides clarity and compassion mixed with a dash of loving snark as she exposes New Thought's deceptions and its many concerning tendrils within the church and our "self-help" culture.You'll be shocked, grieved, and encouraged as you learn:How you can experience true freedom, hope, and peace instead of the world's counterfeitsHow an anti-God ideology so easily hijacked Christian-sounding ideasWhy thinking positively is entirely different from the unbiblical and burdensome "positive thought" movementWhy fake "authenticity" short-circuits real redemptionHow understanding the New Thought mindset can help us share our faith more effectively Uncover a dangerous ideology that nearly everyone has met, yet few of us can name, in order to better understand our culture and joyfully live faithful to the gospel that is so much better than our world's Happy Lies.
Radical Hospitality: From Thought to Action (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
by Richard Kearney Melissa FitzpatrickRadical Hospitality addresses a timely and challenging subject for contemporary philosophy: the ethical responsibility of opening borders, psychic and physical, to the stranger. Kearney and Fitzpatrick show how radical hospitality happens by opening oneself in narrative exchange to someone or something other than ourselves—by crossing borders, whether literal or figurative. Against the fears, dogmas, and demands for certainty and security that push us toward hostility, we also desire to wager with the unknown, leap into the unanticipated, and celebrate the new, a desire this book seeks to recognize and cultivate. The book contends that hospitality means chancing one’s hand, one’s arm, one’s very self, thereby opening a vital space for new voices to be heard, shedding old skins, and welcoming new understandings.Radical Hospitality engages with urgent moral conversations concerning identity, nationality, immigration, commemoration, and justice, moving between theory and praxis and on to the formative life of the classroom. Building on key critical debates on the question of hospitality ranging from phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction to neo-Kantian moral critique and Anglo-American virtue ethics, the book explores novel possibilities for an ethics of hospitality in our contemporary world of border anxiety, refugee crises, and ecological catastrophe.
Love Italian Style: The Secrets of My Hot and Happy Marriage
by Melissa GorgaReal Housewives of New Jersey star Melissa Gorga shows you how to love your man and keep him happy, satisfied, faithful, and devoted to you. What you see is what you get with Melissa Gorga. On Real Housewives of New Jersey, she's that beautiful, ambitious woman with a successful career who puts her family first. In fact, her stable yet sexy marriage to lovable Joe is a welcome antidote to the constant fighting and backbiting on the show. Despite the pressure of life in the spotlight, she makes marriage look easy. How does she do it? Melissa's overriding principle: Treat your husband like a king! And in return, you'll be treated like a queen! In Love Italian Style, Melissa shares her (and his) secrets to relationship success-generations-tested old-fashioned values served up with a modern, sexy twist. To her, the four tenets to a happy marriage are respect, honesty, loyalty, and passion (underscore passion). By sharing her and Joe's life together-from the story of their first date to how they still keep it hot in the bedroom a decade later-Melissa admits that, yes, marriage has been a lot of work, but the rewards are ten-fold. With her time-tested strategies, you can "Gorganize" your own relationship, strengthen your bond, and amp up the passion for lifelong bliss. Some of Melissa's how-to's:· Dress to impress your man. Flirt with your hubby. ·Cook Italian style. Fight right. Keep the romance alive and the home fires burning. Raise little princes and princesses.This playful guidebook promises to make any marriage better-the Gorga way!
We All Have Different Abilities
by Melissa HigginsWhat can you do? Tie your shoes? Play piano? Everyone has different talents and abilities. Let's share and celebrate our many talents
Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living (Peter Lang Ltd Ser. #23)
by Melissa LaneAncient lessons for sustainable citizenshipAn ecologically sustainable society cannot be achieved without citizens who possess the virtues and values that will foster it, and who believe that individual actions can indeed make a difference. Eco-Republic draws on ancient Greek thought—and Plato's Republic in particular—to put forward a new vision of citizenship that can make such a society a reality. Melissa Lane develops a model of a society whose health and sustainability depend on all its citizens recognizing a shared standard of value and shaping their personal goals and habits accordingly. Bringing together the moral and political ideas of the ancients with the latest social and psychological theory, Lane illuminates the individual's vital role in social change, and articulates new ways of understanding what is harmful and what is valuable, what is a benefit and what is a cost, and what the relationship between public and private well-being ought to be.Eco-Republic reveals why we must rethink our political imagination if we are to meet the challenges of climate change and other urgent environmental concerns. Offering a unique reflection on the ethics and politics of sustainability, the book goes beyond standard approaches to virtue ethics in philosophy and current debates about happiness in economics and psychology. Eco-Republic explains why health is a better standard than happiness for capturing the important links between individual action and social good, and diagnoses the reasons why the ancient concept of virtue has been sorely neglected yet is more relevant today than ever.
Of Rule and Office: Plato's Ideas of the Political
by Melissa LaneA constitutionalist reading of Plato&’s political thoughtPlato famously defends the rule of knowledge. Knowledge, for him, is of the good. But what is rule? In this study, Melissa Lane reveals how political office and rule were woven together in Greek vocabulary and practices that both connected and distinguished between rule in general and office as a constitutionally limited kind of rule in particular. In doing so, Lane shows Plato to have been deeply concerned with the roles and relationships between rulers and ruled. Adopting a longstanding Greek expectation that a ruler should serve the good of the ruled, Plato&’s major political dialogues—the Republic, the Statesman, and Laws—explore how different kinds of rule might best serve that good. With this book, Lane offers the first account of the clearly marked vocabulary of offices at the heart of all three of these dialogues, explaining how such offices fit within the broader organization and theorizing of rule.Lane argues that taking Plato&’s interest in rule and office seriously reveals tyranny as ultimately a kind of anarchy, lacking the order as well as the purpose of rule. When we think of tyranny in this way, we see how Plato invokes rule and office as underpinning freedom and friendship as political values, and how Greek slavery shaped Plato&’s account of freedom. Reading Plato both in the Greek context and in dialogue with contemporary thinkers, Lane argues that rule and office belong at the center of Platonic, Greek, and contemporary political thought.
Politeia in Greek and Roman philosophy
by Melissa Lane Verity HarteThis is the first exploration of how ideas of politeia (constitution) structure both political and extra-political relations throughout the entirety of Greek and Roman philosophy, ranging from Presocratic to classical, Hellenistic, and Neoplatonic thought. A highly distinguished international team of scholars investigate topics such as the Athenian, Spartan and Platonic visions of politeia, the reshaping of Greek and Latin vocabularies of politics, the practice of politics in Plato and Proclus, the politics of value in Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, and the extension of constitutional order to discussions of animals, gods and the cosmos. The volume is dedicated to Professor Malcolm Schofield, one of the world's leading scholars of ancient philosophy.
The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter
by Melissa LaneIn The Birth of Politics, Melissa Lane introduces the reader to the foundations of Western political thought, from the Greeks, who invented democracy, to the Romans, who created a republic and then transformed it into an empire. Tracing the origins of our political concepts from Socrates to Plutarch to Cicero, Lane reminds us that the birth of politics was a story as much of individuals as ideas. Scouring the speeches of lawyers alongside the speculations of philosophers, and the reflections of ex-slaves next to the popular comedies and tragedies of the Greek and Roman stages, this book brings ancient ideas to life in unexpected ways. Lane shows how the Greeks and Romans defined politics with distinctive concepts, vocabulary, and practices—all of which continue to influence politics and political aspirations around the world today. She focuses on eight political ideas from the Greco-Roman world that are especially influential today: justice, virtue, constitution, democracy, citizenship, cosmopolitanism, republic, and sovereignty. Lane also describes how the ancient formulations of these ideas often challenge widely held modern assumptions—for example, that it is possible to have political equality despite great economic inequality, or that political regimes can be indifferent to the moral character of their citizens. A stimulating introduction to the origins of our political ideas and ideals, The Birth of Politics demonstrates how much we still have to learn from the political genius of the Greeks and Romans.
The Birth of Politics: Eight Greek and Roman Political Ideas and Why They Matter
by Melissa LaneIn The Birth of Politics, Melissa Lane introduces the reader to the foundations of Western political thought, from the Greeks, who invented democracy, to the Romans, who created a republic and then transformed it into an empire. Tracing the origins of our political concepts from Socrates to Plutarch to Cicero, Lane reminds us that the birth of politics was a story as much of individuals as ideas. Scouring the speeches of lawyers alongside the speculations of philosophers, and the reflections of ex-slaves next to the popular comedies and tragedies of the Greek and Roman stages, this book brings ancient ideas to life in unexpected ways. Lane shows how the Greeks and Romans defined politics with distinctive concepts, vocabulary, and practices--all of which continue to influence politics and political aspirations around the world today. She focuses on eight political ideas from the Greco-Roman world that are especially influential today: justice, virtue, constitution, democracy, citizenship, cosmopolitanism, republic, and sovereignty. Lane also describes how the ancient formulations of these ideas often challenge widely held modern assumptions--for example, that it is possible to have political equality despite great economic inequality, or that political regimes can be indifferent to the moral character of their citizens. A stimulating introduction to the origins of our political ideas and ideals, The Birth of Politics demonstrates how much we still have to learn from the political genius of the Greeks and Romans.
Skepticism’s Pictures: Figuring Descartes’s Natural Philosophy
by Melissa LoIn seventeenth-century northern Europe, as the Aristotelian foundations of scientia were rocked by observation, experiment, confessional strife, and political pressure, natural philosophers came to rely on the printed image to fortify their epistemologies—and none more so than René Descartes. In Skepticism’s Pictures, historian of science Melissa Lo chronicles the visual idioms that made, sustained, revised, and resisted Descartes’s new philosophy.Drawing on moon maps, political cartoons, student notebooks, treatises on practical mathematics, and other sources, Lo argues that Descartes transformed natural philosophy with the introduction of a new graphic language that inspired a wide range of pictorial responses shaped by religious affiliation, political commitment, and cultural convention. She begins by historicizing the graphic vocabularies of Descartes’s Essais and Principia philosophiae and goes on to analyze the religious and civic volatility of Descartes’s thought, which compelled defenders (such as Jacques Rohault and Wolferd Senguerd) to reconfigure his pictures according to their local visual cultures—and stimulated enemies (such as Gabriel Daniel) to unravel Descartes’s visual logic with devastating irony. In the epilogue, Lo explains why nineteenth-century French philosophers divorced Descartes’s thought from his pictures, creating a modern image of reason and a version of philosophy absent visuality.Engaging and accessible, Skepticism’s Pictures presents an exciting new approach to Descartes and the visual reception of seventeenth-century physics. It will appeal to historians of early modern European science, philosophy, art, and culture and to art historians interested in histories that give images their argumentative power.
When Sorrow Comes: The Power of Sermons from Pearl Harbor to Black Lives Matter
by Melissa M. MatthesSince World War II, Protestant sermons have been an influential tool for defining American citizenship in the wake of national crises. In the aftermath of national tragedies, Americans often turn to churches for solace. Because even secular citizens attend these services, they are also significant opportunities for the Protestant religious majority to define and redefine national identity and, in the process, to invest the nation-state with divinity. The sermons delivered in the wake of crises become integral to historical and communal memory—it matters greatly who is mourned and who is overlooked. Melissa M. Matthes conceives of these sermons as theo-political texts. In When Sorrow Comes, she explores the continuities and discontinuities they reveal in the balance of state power and divine authority following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the assassinations of JFK and MLK, the Rodney King verdict, the Oklahoma City bombing, the September 11 attacks, the Newtown shootings, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She argues that Protestant preachers use these moments to address questions about Christianity and citizenship and about the responsibilities of the Church and the State to respond to a national crisis. She also shows how post-crisis sermons have codified whiteness in ritual narratives of American history, excluding others from the collective account. These civic liturgies therefore illustrate the evolution of modern American politics and society. Despite perceptions of the decline of religious authority in the twentieth century, the pulpit retains power after national tragedies. Sermons preached in such intense times of mourning and reckoning serve as a form of civic education with consequences for how Americans understand who belongs to the nation and how to imagine its future.
The Sublime (Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant)
by Melissa McBay MerrittThis Element considers Kant's account of the sublime in the context of his predecessors both in the Anglophone and German rationalist traditions. Since Kant says with evident endorsement that 'we call sublime that which is absolutely great' (Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5:248) and nothing in nature can in fact be absolutely great (it can only figure as such, in certain presentations), Kant concludes that strictly speaking what is sublime can only be the human calling (Bestimmung) to perfect our rational capacity according to the standard of virtue that is thought through the moral law. The Element takes account of the difference between respect and admiration as the two main varieties of sublime feeling, and concludes by considering the role of Stoicism in Kant's account of the sublime, particularly through the channel of Seneca.
Kant on Reflection and Virtue
by Melissa MerrittThere can be no doubt that Kant thought we should be reflective: we ought to care to make up our own minds about how things are and what is worth doing. Philosophical objections to the Kantian reflective ideal have centred on concerns about the excessive control that the reflective person is supposed to exert over their own mental life, and Kantians who feel the force of these objections have recently drawn attention to Kant's conception of moral virtue as it is developed in his later work, chiefly the Metaphysics of Morals. <P><P>Melissa Merritt's book is a distinctive contribution to this recent turn to virtue in Kant scholarship. Merritt argues that we need a clearer, and textually more comprehensive, account of what reflection is, in order not only to understand Kant's account of virtue, but also to appreciate how it effectively rebuts long-standing objections to the Kantian reflective ideal.<P> Provides a new, and textually more comprehensive, account of Kant's notion of 'reflection'.<P> Spans Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy, and draws connections between areas of Kant's thought that are often explored in isolation.<P> Adds a novel perspective to a recent body of work on Kant's conception of virtue.
Deparochializing Political Theory
by Melissa S. WilliamsIn a world no longer centered on the West, what should political theory become? Although Western intellectual traditions continue to dominate academic journals and course syllabi in political theory, up-and-coming contributions of 'comparative political theory' are rapidly transforming the field. Deparochializing Political Theory creates a space for conversation amongst leading scholars who differ widely in their approaches to political theory. These scholars converge on the belief that we bear a collective responsibility to engage and support the transformation of political theory. In these exchanges, 'deparochializing' political theory emerges as an intellectual, educational and political practice that cuts across methodological approaches. Because it is also an intergenerational project, this book presses us to re-imagine our teaching and curriculum design. Bearing the marks of its beginnings in East Asia, Deparochializing Political Theory seeks to de-center Western thought and explore the evolving tasks of political theory in an age of global modernity.
Moral Universalism and Pluralism: NOMOS XLIX (NOMOS - American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy #9)
by Melissa S. WilliamsMoral universalism, or the idea that some system of ethics applies to all people regardless of race, color, nationality, religion, or culture, must have a plurality over which to range—a plurality of diverse persons, nations, jurisdictions, or localities over which morality asserts a universal authority. The contributors to Moral Universalism and Pluralism, the latest volume in the NOMOS series, investigate the idea that, far from denying the existence of such pluralities, moral universalism presupposes it. At the same time, the search for universally valid principles of morality is deeply challenged by diversity. The fact of pluralism presses us to explore how universalist principles interact with ethical, political, and social particularisms. These important essays refuse the answer that particularisms should simply be made to conform to universal principles, as if morality were a mold into which the diverse matter of human society and culture could be pressed. Rather, the authors bring philosophical, legal and political perspectives to bear on the core questions: Which forms of pluralism are conceptually compatible with moral universalism, and which ones can be accommodated in a politically stable way? Can pluralism generate innovations in understandings of moral duty? How is convergence on the validity of legal and moral authority possible in circumstances of pluralism? As the contributors to the book demonstrate in a wide variety of ways, these normative, conceptual, and political questions deeply intertwine.Contributors: Kenneth Baynes, William A. Galston, Barbara Herman, F. M. Kamm, Benedict Kingsbury, Frank I. Michelman, William E. Scheuerman, Gopal Sreenivasan, Daniel Weinstock, and Robin West.
Voice, Trust, and Memory: Marginalized Groups and the Failings of Liberal Representation
by Melissa S. WilliamsDoes fair political representation for historically disadvantaged groups require their presence in legislative bodies? The intuition that women are best represented by women, and African-Americans by other African-Americans, has deep historical roots. Yet the conception of fair representation that prevails in American political culture and jurisprudence--what Melissa Williams calls "liberal representation"--concludes that the social identity of legislative representatives does not bear on their quality as representatives. Liberal representation's slogan, "one person, one vote," concludes that the outcome of the electoral and legislative process is fair, whatever it happens to be, so long as no voter is systematically excluded. Challenging this notion, Williams maintains that fair representation is powerfully affected by the identity of legislators and whether some of them are actually members of the historically marginalized groups that are most in need of protection in our society.Williams argues first that the distinctive voice of these groups should be audible within the legislative process. Second, she holds that the self-representation of these groups is necessary to sustain their trust in democratic institutions. The memory of state-sponsored discrimination against these groups, together with ongoing patterns of inequality along group lines, provides both a reason to recognize group claims and a way of distinguishing stronger from weaker claims. The book closes by proposing institutions that can secure fair representation for marginalized groups without compromising principles of democratic freedom and equality.
Global Norms in Local Contexts: Examining Cases of Environmental Governance in France (SpringerBriefs in Political Science)
by Melissa SchnyderThis Brief discusses the translation of global environmental norms across local contexts in France. It provides a snapshot of how global-level environmental norms travel vertically across levels of governance, from the global to the local, and asks how global environmental norms are (re)interpreted by local-level actors and translated to a particular local context. Chapters focus on three in-depth case studies, each involving multi-stakeholder environmental governance: (1) the Cerbère-Banyuls Marine Nature Reserve, (2) the Thau Fisheries Local Action Group (FLAG), and (3) the Biovallée biodistrict. In each of these cases, the author assesses how twilight norms are used to frame, promote, and generally develop a local discourse that centers on environmental conservation and sustainability. By combining concepts from the literature on norm localization with processes from the literature on norm-based institutional change, this Brief will generate new insights on the dynamic aspects of norm translation. As such, it will be of interest to researchers studying environmental politics, comparative policy, governance, and norms.
Privatization: NOMOS LX (NOMOS - American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy #29)
by Melissa SchwartzbergA distinguished group of scholars explore the moral values and political consequences of privatization The 21st century has seen a proliferation of privatization across industries in the United States, from security and the military to public transportation and infrastructure. In shifting control from the state to private actors, do we weaken or strengthen structures of governance? Do state-owned enterprises promise to be more equal and fair than their privately-owned rivals? What role can accountability measures play in mediating the effects of privatization; and what role does coercion play in the state governance and control? In this latest installment from the NOMOS series, an interdisciplinary group of distinguished scholars in political science, law, and philosophy examine the moral and political consequences of transferring state-provided or state-owned goods and services to the private sector. The essays consider how we should evaluate the decision to privatize, both with respect to the quality of outcomes that might be produced, and in terms of the effects of privatization on the core values underlying democratic decision-making. Privatization also affects the structure of governance in a variety of important ways, and these essays evaluate the consequences of privatization on the state. Privatization sheds new light on these highly salient questions of contemporary political life and institutional design.
Magical States of Consciousness: Pathworking on the Tree of Life
by Melita DenningAvailable Once Again—the Groundbreaking Guide to Qabalistic PathworkingPathworking is one of the most powerful techniques employed in the practical Qabalah, the core of the Western Esoteric Tradition. Llewellyn is pleased to bring back—by popular demand—Magical States of Consciousness, the classic text by renowned magicians Osborne Phillips and the late Melita Denning that first made the practice of pathworking widely available.Revealed here are the methods by which deep dimensions of the human psyche may be reached—dimensions that give you access to profound knowledge and the power of creation. Ascend the Tree of Life to enter the Sphere of Tiphareth, the seat of the Higher Self. Train your mind and imagination, enhance your physical and emotional health, gain knowledge and spiritual initiation, experience adventure and self-empowerment—all through Qabalistic pathworking.Designed for both the beginner and the established mage, this sought-after book includes the complete narrative texts for the inward journeys of classic pathworking. Plus, mandalas are included that serve as gateways to altered states of consciousness and magical images of the Sephirothic archetypes—the sources of mystical power which exist not only cosmically but in the depths of each person's own being.