South African universities’ use of digital technologies in learning has increased in recent years. Given that
social exposure, the context and pedagogic uses of technology influence learning expectations and
learner involvement, it is important to understand students’ experiences of the use of different
technological tools. This article emp…[Read more]

Globally, student support mechanisms focus almost exclusively on academically ‘under-performing’
students, especially as insofar as academic development practices are concerned. This article makes a
case for a shift in approach. Using the context of one country, South Africa, we sought to better
understand the strengths that academically…[Read more]

From 40 years of experience it is clear that spirituality has become entangled in abstractions: powers, perfection, supernatural, unreal, limitless knowledge, crystal ball perceptions, etc.
Dr Stephen Farra agreed with that – and went one better. Dr Farra stated “Our models are out reality. But our models are not reality. That coincides with the…[Read more]

Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 police procedural is, as its title suggests, intensely interested in the socioeconomic valences of spatial relationships, literalized in Yokohama’s affluent hills and its low-lying slums. The central conflict between inhabitants of these two spaces articulates this local topography into a global framework, in which con…[Read more]

This article explores the consequences of the environmental transformations of the Laurentian Valley on the timber trade uniting the Province of Canada and the industrialization of Great Britain during the nineteenth century. The notion of ghost acres used to describe the ecological footprint of resource consumption from abroad is extended to…[Read more]

This essay shares the author’s ideas, alluding to depth psychology, philosophy, and comparative culture, particularly East-West differences in the basic worldviews people can have, such as I-Thou, Us vs. Them or We-They, I-Nature or I-Universe, with Asian people tending to live more collectively in a social reality. The essay includes Zen insights…[Read more]

Genealogy necessitates historical records, the majority of which derive from government sources, despite families’ “private” lives. State records weren’t intended to service future family historians, but were a means to state-formation and power. Consequently, records used by family historians reflect statist concerns, not state subject…[Read more]

This journalistic essay can give Western readers insight into non-Western logic that the author has found in a long career in Japan. It is also informed by research on intercultural communication, bilingualism and biculturalism. The author teaches those subjects and has a Japanese family. This 2023 update includes the author’s photo taken in Osaka…[Read more]

The Cairo Genizah is famous as a source of manuscripts for the study of the medieval Mediterranean world, especially Jewish communities during the High Middle Ages. However, among the hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern manuscript fragments in Genizah collections are more than 12,000 moveable-type printed items, most of which come from Europe.…[Read more]

Historical Synergy: Mannheim holds that historical and political thought is determined by the socio-historical location of the thinker and the political aspirations and material ambitions of the group or groups to which he belongs.
2. Prehistoric Artic Hunter-Gatherer Synergy of Beliefs in Animal Spirits w/ Economic-Political Realities Erica Hill…[Read more]

The Hebrew word “ruach” – the word connected to the idea-symbol of “spirit” translates alternately as “wind,” “breathe,” or “spirit.” In Arabic, there are two words for the words: spirit, soul or self – namely, ruH (spirit, soul) & nafs (spirit, soul, self). Both of these Arabic words are also connected to the ideas of breath or wind (e.g. ruH is…[Read more]

This paper compares psychostasia and/or kerostasia concepts from Indo-European, Semitic and adjacent cultures, and relates them to Cognitive Metaphor Theory. In the context of metaphysical weighing, the religions of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome all associated lightness with goodness and/or a favourable outcome; Hinduism does likewise. The…[Read more]