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This book provides an in-depth examination of the Yungdrung Bon religion in light of globalization. In its global dimension, Bon has been attracting a growing number of Westerners, particularly to its Dzogchen teachings and meditation practices. In this expansion, Bon operates in a dynamic context where forces that create changes in the tradition coexist, sometimes in tension and sometimes in tandem, with other forces that aim to preserve it. In tracing the process through which Bon has become a global religion, this monograph narrates the story of the principal figures who initially facilitated this transmission, following their journey from Tibet to India and Nepal. The narrative then moves to explore the dynamics taking place in the transmission and reception of Yungdrung Bon in Western countries, opening up a new viewpoint on the expansion of Tibetan religious traditions into the West and painting a comprehensive picture of the modern history of the Yungdrung Bon religion as narrated by its participants. In so doing, it makes an invaluable contribution to the study of Tibetan traditions in the West as well as to the wider history of religions, social anthropology, psychology, and conversion studies.

Plato's Timaeus is unique in Greek Antiquity for presenting the creation of the world as the work of a divine demiurge. The maker bestows order on sensible things and imitates the world of the intellect by using the Forms as models. While the creation-myth of the Timaeus seems unparalleled, this book argues that it is not the first of Plato's dialogues to use artistic language to articulate the relationship of the objects of the material world to the world of the intellect. The book adopts an interpretative angle that is sensitive to the visual and art-historical developments of Classical Athens to argue that sculpture, revolutionized by the advent of the lost-wax technique for the production of bronze statues, lies at the heart of Plato's conception of the relation of the human soul and body to the Forms. It shows that, despite the severe criticism of mimēsis in the Republic, Plato's use of artistic language rests on a positive model of mimēsis. Plato was in fact engaged in a constructive dialogue with material culture and he found in the technical processes and the cultural semantics of sculpture and of the art of weaving a valuable way to conceptualise and communicate complex ideas about humans' relation to the Forms.

This volume of the series "Key Concepts in Interreligious Discourses" investigates the roots of the concept of "soul" in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The human soul fascinates not only believers in the three monotheistic faiths. Believing in an immortal entitiy, surpassing body, materia and their temporality and thus seeming to be closer to the creator that the mere body was and remains to be a vividly discussed theme in theological and practical debates. Even our secular, postreligious environment is unable to disengage from the key concept of the soul. Numerous proverbs, undefined concepts and hopes prove this fact. Asking for the soul means asking fundamental questions like life after death and therefor asking for one of the most fundamental and uniting hopes of human beings, be they secular or religious.The volume presents the concept of "soul" in its different aspects as anchored in the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It unfolds commonalities and differences between the three monotheistic religions as well as the manifold discourses about peace within these three traditions. The book offers fundamental knowledge about the specific understanding of the soul in each one of these traditions, their interdependencies and their relationship to secular world views.

This volume of the series "Key Concepts in Interreligious Discourses" investigates the roots of the concept of "body" in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.The Body and being a created being stands in the focus of all the thre major monotheistic faiths. It is not just by the christian idea of man's likeness to God that indicates that the human body is a central object of religious thinking, both culturally and theologically charged. Here, the body stands in the crossfire of terms like "pure" and "unpure", "sacred" and "profane", "male" and "femal". And besides the theological controversies, everyday experiences like sexuality, gender equality and how to dispose of the own body (and that of others) are undoubtly recent and highly contentious discussion points in the debate of a peaceful living together of different religions and cultures.The volume presents the concept of "body" in its different aspects as anchored in the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. It unfolds commonalities and differences between the three monotheistic religions as well as the manifold discourses about peace within these three traditions. The book offers fundamental knowledge about the specific understanding of the body in each one of these traditions, their interdependencies and their relationship to secular world views.

Is there a language of transcendence which does not fall under the well-worn categories of monism, theism, pantheism, biblical or pagan monotheism, personal or tripersonal God, or an impersonal absolute, conceived as immanent and/or transcendent? The present set of studies from different fields of research centers on the question whether it is possible to speak at all of transcendence or a divinity, and if it is, under what limitations does such speech proceed. In current discussion in theology and in philosophy of religion, there is a pervasive awareness that the inherited terms and alternatives, developed in the western tradition, no longer facilitate an adequate understanding of the divine. Increasing familiarity with the languages of 'immanence' and 'transcendence' (under erasure) in Hindu and Buddhist thought has further jumbled our coordinates, while holding out the promise of a more subtle and vital engagement with the matter itself of religious inquiry. A further long-established distinction, between 'personal' and 'impersonal, ' also takes on rich new hues in Asian contexts, where the very notion of 'person' may undergo unsettling critiques. Transgressing the categories of 'personal' and 'impersonal' points to the mystical depth of religious traditions, emphasizes their openness and reintegrates essential elements of both perspectives. Advancing with curiosity and caution, all the contributors take seriously the diversity of historical religious traditions, while nevertheless searching for a fresh language that may connect these traditions and provide a common ground of understanding.

The Dresden manuscript Ob.47 is a completely unknown, vernacular translation of the life of Alexander by Quintus Curtius Rufus, of which only one transmission exists. The text and manuscript were written in the mid-fifteenth century in Milan, with the historian Lodrisio Crivelli named as the translator. This volume provides a comprehensive philological analysis of the artifact, accompanied by an edition that is freely available online.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to chemical process engineering, linking the fundamental theory and concepts to the industrial day-to-day practice. It bridges the gap between chemical sciences and the practical chemical industry. It enables the reader to integrate fundamental knowledge of the basic disciplines, to understand the most important chemical processes, and to apply this knowledge to the practice in the industry.

The Earthly Paradise was a vibrant symbol at the heart of medieval Christian geographies of the cosmos. As humanity's primal home now lost through the sins of Adam of Eve, the Earthly Paradise figured prominently in Old French tales of lands beyond the mundane world. This study proposes a fresh look at the complex roles played by the Earthly Paradise in three medieval French poems: Marie de France's The Purgatory of St. Patrick, Benedeit's Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot, and Guillaume de Lorris's The Romance of the Rose. By examining the literary, cultural, and artistic components that informed each poem, this book advances the thesis that the exterior walls of the Earthly Paradise served evolving purposes as contemplative objects that implicitly engaged complex notions of economic solidarity and idealized community. These visions of the Earthly Paradise stand to provide a striking contribution to a historically informed response to the contemporary legacies of colonialism and the international refugee crisis.

This study proposes a new historical approach to Old Assyrian economic texts and archives - most especially the archive of PuSu-ken. Drawing on the work of Paul Ricoeur, it seeks to understand economic documents and interactions from within an historico-narrative framework. Rather than treating the data isolation, this study seeks to reconstruct the larger series of economic exchanges and relations in which their significance can be understood.

In many contemporary societies we encounter iconoclasm breaking out with renewed violence. Iconoclastic actions against objects of visual material culture and testimonials of history act as dynamite in the public sphere. They are expressions of political, religious, national, and identity conflicts. Even the freedom of art is threatened by censorship and cancel culture. Based on case studies from different world regions, contemporary iconoclasms in art, media, and cultural heritage are critically analyzed from both a global and an interdisciplinary perspective. Divided into three sections, the book discusses attacks on monuments and memorials, idol disputes in museums and the visual arts, and forms of mediated iconoclasm in contemporary art.

This book presents a groundbreaking journey into the world of Generative AI technology and offers an in-depth look at the prospect of AI achieving consciousness. The book navigates through various historical and modern perspectives on AI, from ancient myths to the Turing Test to the latest in technological advancements. It covers the theoretical an

La Inglaterra protestante del siglo XVIII vio nacer de la pluma de Joseph Addison y Richard Steele el género spectator, cuyo prototipo enseguida se difundió con gran éxito en Europa ¿especialmente en los países católicos del sur hablantes de lenguas románicas¿, logrando configurar en plena Ilustración una poderosa red transeuropea de textos que buscaban reformar moralmente las sociedades en las cuales circulaban. ¿Qué ocurre con las características estéticas y las funciones de los spectators cuando estos migran a contextos extraeuropeos y (post)coloniales? En Hispanoamérica y Brasil tuvo lugar una importante recepción del género durante el siglo XIX en el marco de los procesos emancipativos por parte de las élites criollas en que dichos textos se convirtieron de escritos morales en escritos políticos y representaron el medio ideal para diseñar modalidades de convivencia favorables a los intereses locales criollos. La presente monografía constituye el primer estudio panorámico sobre el estado de los spectators en América Latina, que amplía el conocimiento de lo que hasta ahora se sabía sobre el género en Europa. Identifica un corpus de textos, reflexiona sobre las configuraciones que la poética adquiere en suelo americano y, en el entendido de que el género ha cambiado en relación con su estado previo europeo, problematiza en qué medida son spectators latinoamericanos.

Das Verhältnis von Lebenswelt und Wissenschaft befindet sich mit ungewissem Ausgang in stetiger Bewegung. In diesem Prozess ist das treibende Element die Wissenschaft, die Technisierungen ermöglicht und mit ihren Erkenntnissen die Welt überzieht. Trotz der fortschreitenden Verwissenschaftlichung hat sich die Lebenswelt jedoch ihre Eigenständigkeit bewahrt. Die vorliegenden Studien tragen zur Aufklärung dieses erstaunlichen Phänomens bei. Sie weisen Strukturdifferenzen der beiden Erfahrungsweisen auf und zeigen, wie sie mit- und gegeneinander existieren. Zugleich wird deutlich, dass ein Ende der lebensweltlichen Eigenständigkeit einen fundamentalen Wandel für die gesellschaftliche Stellung nichtwissenschaftlicher Erfahrung bedeuten würde. Die Untersuchungen sind begrifflich, wissenschaftstheoretisch und phänomenologisch orientiert. Sie gehen von einem weitgefassten Wissenschaftsbegriff aus, der auch Technikwissenschaften sowie wissenschaftliche Anwendungen umfasst. In den Fallbeispielen kommt den Naturwissenschaften und dem Naturbegriff eine besondere Aufmerksamkeit zu. Der Lebensweltbegriff schließt in kritischer Distanz an die Sozialphänomenologie von Alfred Schütz und die Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls an.

In den Jahren 1973¿1993 wurden im Rahmen der Stadtgrabung in der Wohnstadt Pergamons auch rund 5.400 Terrakottafragmente ausgegraben, die in der Mehrzahl vermutlich als Hausinventar gedient haben und überwiegend aus der hellenistischen Epoche und der römischen Kaiserzeit stammen. 1030 thematisch äußerst vielfältige Stücke wurden für den Katalog dieser Arbeit ausgewählt. Für die Einordnung der nun komplett und ausführlich vorgelegten Stadtgrabungsterrakotten wurden viele ältere und neuere Terrakotten aus anderen Grabungen in Pergamon in die Betrachtungen einbezogen. Der Band erhält so eine Übersicht über die Themen und Kontexte der bekannten pergamenischen Terrakotten. Die in der Stadtgrabung gefundenen Terrakotten sind Ausdruck einer regen städtischen Produktion und Nachfrage. Die Göttermutter (Kybele) ist die am häufigsten abgebildete Gottheit, gefolgt von Aphrodite- und Erosdarstellungen und Bildern des dionysischen Themenkreises. Wichtige Gottheiten wie Asklepios und Athena, denen die größten und bedeutendsten Heiligtümer in der Stadt geweiht waren, waren in der wohnstädtischen Koroplastik ein auffällig nachrangiges Thema. Für die Terrakotten der Stadtgrabung konnte eine Reihe von Vergleichsstücken aus anderen Regionen ermittelt werden, von Myrina über Athen bis Unteritalien. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt in diesem Buch auf den überaus engen Verbindungen zur Sepulkralkoroplastik Myrinas.

Mit dieser Entscheidungssammlung wird die Rechtsprechung der beteiligten Landesverfassungsgerichte übersichtlich und geschlossen zugänglich gemacht. In den Entscheidungen der Landesverfassungsgerichte spiegelt sich das Wechselspiel zwischen Grundgesetz und bundesrechtlicher Ordnung auf der einen und Länderverfassungen auf der anderen Seite wider. Sie dokumentieren einen wesentlichen Aspekt des deutschen Föderalismus.

GESCHICHTE DER ALTHOCH- UND ALTNIEDERDEUTSCHEN LITERATUR

Humans and human wellbeing depend on the natural resources provided by Planet Earth, and they depend on the solidarity between human beings. That is, on the social resources provided by society. Both types of resources are available to everyone: they are public goods. The book approaches the topic from various angles, including the often-neglected dimension of measuring. It offers a holistic conception that covers the macro- and the micro-economic, the political and the developmental aspects. It shows which range of action is available at different levels of decision-making and which outcomes these may provide. And it emphasizes that a philosophical base is needed for understanding and managing the topic, and that wellbeing can only be improved and the common good can only be maintained if the public and the private sectors cooperate. With the advent of the United Nations' sustainable development goals, this cooperation has received momentum in all its facets and for all levels - from the local to the global. The book is aimed both at scholars and students as well as practitioners in businesses and in public service. In academia, it may serve as a companion to textbooks on, e.g., public finance, sustainable development, social affairs, and public-private partnerships, both in undergraduate and graduate levels. For professionals in businesses and in public service, the book offers an insight into the topic that does not recur to an academic language. There is always a need for books that appeal both to readers who are managers as well as to scholars who wish to glance beyond their adopted profession.