My intention in this brief monograph is to stimulate a re-assessment of laïcité by philosophers and theologians, particularly within the Anglophone academic world. Often the term is understood by Anglophones not quite as accurately as its French advocates intend. The translated texts are copied from the official French Government website, as i…[Read more]

Laïcité: Some Catholic readers may be familiar with Giuseppe Alberigo’s understanding of the term as outlined in “Facteurs de laïcité au Concile Vatican II” in Revue des Sciences Religieuses, tome 74, fas. 2, 2000, in which he writes in a footnote: “Ce mot est utilisé dans le sens du processus de ‘déclericalisation’ à l’interieur de l’É…[Read more]

English abstract: ‘Verses of Love’, an Islamic film on the extended couple, features a melodramatic plot in which love triumphs after many difficulties, and the virtuous protagonists Fahri and Aisha are happy in their marriage, having shown the value of their Islamic faith amidst the trials of life—accepting these with sumbission, which is the s…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Comentarios sobre la guerra desde un punto de vista etológico y evolucionista, sugeridos por el libro de Javier Falgueras ‘Somos Hijos de la Guerra’. _________________________________________________________________________________ English abstract: Disquisitions on war from an ethological and evolutionary perspective, suggested…[Read more]

This essay explores Maimonides’ explanation of the Bible’s rationale behind the ritual sacrifices, namely to help wean the Jews away from idolatrous rites. After clearly elucidating Maimonides’ stance on the topic, this essay examines his view from different angles with various possible precedents in earlier rabbinic literature for such an under…[Read more]

This editorial discusses the articles published and the activities undertaken by The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship during 2021, and calls for research system-wide cultural changes and wider contextual awareness in order to make scholarly communication fairer and up to the challenges of our time.

This article probes the history of education and current pedagogical practices among Malayali physician-teachers, vaidya-gurus, of Ayurveda in central Kerala. Considering the sources vaidya-gurus cite as the bases of their teaching styles, especially a three-part method known as mukhāmukhaṃ (‘face-to-face’ instruction), I discuss the place, produc…[Read more]

A bibliographical listing, including audio, video, etc., from the perspective of critical and cultural studies, on the 2020-2021 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic scare (Coronavirus, COVID-19). From ‘A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism, and Philology’, 2021.

Spanish abstract: Los paleantropólogos de Atapuerca van descubriendo más datos sobre la alimentación de los Homo heidelbergensis y Homo antecessor que habitaron la Península Ibérica antes del Homo sapiens y de los neandertales. Aquí reflexionamos sobre el componente de canibalismo en la dieta de estos y otros humanos primitivos… así como de alg…[Read more]

Spanish Abstract: Proponemos, en contraposición a la noción de ideología corriente en la crítica cultural y ejemplificada aquí por el libro de Teun A. van Dijk “Ideología: Un enfoque multidisciplinario” (Gedisa, 1999), una noción de ideología más interaccional, más dialógica y más unida a las situaciones efectivas en las que la ideología s…[Read more]

In this article, I hitch the ever-present awareness of disease in my personal life and our shared world today to a pointed and academic reflection on the ways we consume and re-present information about disease from premodern South Asia that’s contained in texts.

This book is a compendium of book reviews reflecting my “Creed of Life.” The fact is that my Creed of Life has been fashioned through these authors, as well as others not mentioned here, whose works were personally important to me and significant to my intellectual development. This list is continually being lengthened as authors, living or dea…[Read more]

In this book I contemplate the possibility of posthuman philosophy within the religious and theological schools of thought. In doing this, I do not focus on the traditional philosophical humanism which characterizes the scholastic and neo-scholastic approach within Western philosophy. Rather, I focus on a dehellenized philosophical way of thinking…[Read more]

Es una desdicha vivir en el único país del mundo en el que el Virus ataca al paseante solitario en mitad de sus ensoñaciones campestres… Cuando el espacio público está ocupado por necios y regentado por pillos, el sarcasmo y la sátira son la respuesta más adecuada. Todo para enfatizar una cuestión muy simple que se ha perdido de vista: EL DERE…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Un comentario sobre la gestión de la opinión pública durante las protestas del 15-M en 2011. La choza los “Indignados” en la Puerta del Sol se promueve en los medios como el ombligo simbólico del país. Enfatizamos la importancia simbólica de los centros en el condicionamiento de la opinión pública. Aquí tenemos, pues, un monument…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Artículo sobre algunas implicaciones ideológicas de la película ‘Never Let Me Go’ (Mark Romanek, 2010), basada en la novela de Kazuo Ishiguro. Ofrece un retrato de la sociedad como un sistema educativo manipulador, que mantiene a los niños ignorantes de las cosas más importantes que se pueden saber sobre el poder y la expl…[Read more]

The article follows the contours of a conversation with Fulvio Aurora, Paolo Fierro and Edoardo Turri, three members of the Italian health activist organization Medicina Democratica, which will also function as the backbone of our account of the initial radical
impetus and the later demise of the Italian public health system, the Servizio…[Read more]

Spanish abstract: Una reflexión sobre la representación de la resistencia, la resiliencia, y las tácticas totalitarias para domeñar a los disidentes, tal y como se representan en la película polaca ‘El interrogatorio’ (‘Przesluchanie’, dir. Ryszard Bugajski, 1989). La construcción inconsistente de la personalidad de la heroína testifica las dificu…[Read more]

This research work is an investigation into the reception of anti-smoking advertisements
that make use of “fear appeals”. The objective of the research is to bring audience
perceptions, interpretations and making sense processes of such advertising campaigns to
the limelight. Instead of measuring effects or effectiveness of anti-smoking mes…[Read more]

This study examined the communication avenues for combating breast cancer in Orba, a rural community of Enugu State, Nigeria. To accomplish this goal, 200 women from the community were sampled. The results revealed that 87% of the respondents were aware of media messages on breast cancer; however, 74.5% and 65% respectively, claimed that they had…[Read more]