Thomas Banchoff - Böcker

Religious pluralism is everywhere in today's politics. Increased immigration flows, the collapse of communism, and the globalization of communications technologies have all fostered a wider variety of religious beliefs, practices, and organizations within and across democratic societies. This is true in both the United States and Europe, where growing and diverse minority communities are transforming the political landscape. As a result, controversies over suchthings as headscarves and depictions of Mohammed are unsettling a largely secular Europe, while a Christian majority in the US faces familiar questions about church-state relations amidst unprecedentedreligious diversity. Far from receding into the background, religious language pervades arguments around established issues such as abortion and capital punishment, and new ones such as stem cell research and same-sex marriage. In Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism, leading scholars from multiple disciplines explore these dynamics and their implications for democratic theory and practice. What are the contours of this new religious pluralism? What are its implications for thetheory and practice of democracy? Does increasing religious pluralism erode the cultural and social foundations of democracy? To what extent do different religious communities embrace similar -- or at leastcompatible -- ethical and political commitments? By seeking answers to these questions and revealing religious pluralism as both a source of animosity and a potent force for peaceful engagement, this book offers a revealing look at the future of religion in democratic societies.

In this book, a group of leading scholars--including Peter Berger, John Esposito, Robert Wuthnow, Martha Nussbaum, Diana Eck, Stanley Hauerwas, and Miroslav Volf--examines the new religious pluralism and the challenges it poses for democratic societies on both sides of the Atlantic. What are the contours of this new religious pluralism? What are its implications for the theory and practice of democracy? Does increasing religious pluralism erode the cultural and social foundations of democracy? To what extent do different religious communities embrace similar -- or at least compatible -- ethical and political commitments? By seeking answers to these questions, this book offers a revealing look at the future of religion in democratic societies.

Religious pluralism is everywhere in today's politics. Increased immigration flows, the collapse of communism, and the globalization of communications technologies have all fostered a wider variety of religious beliefs, practices, and organizations within and across democratic societies. This is true in both the United States and Europe, where growing and diverse minority communities are transforming the political landscape. As a result, controversies over such things as headscarves and depictions of Mohammed are unsettling a largely secular Europe, while a Christian majority in the US faces familiar questions about church-state relations amidst unprecedented religious diversity. Far from receding into the background, religious language pervades arguments around established issues such as abortion and capital punishment, and new ones such as stem cell research and same-sex marriage. In Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism, leading scholars from multiple disciplines explore these dynamics and their implications for democratic theory and practice. What are the contours of this new religious pluralism? What are its implications for the theory and practice of democracy? Does increasing religious pluralism erode the cultural and social foundations of democracy? To what extent do different religious communities embrace similar -- or at least compatible -- ethical and political commitments? By seeking answers to these questions and revealing religious pluralism as both a source of animosity and a potent force for peaceful engagement, this book offers a revealing look at the future of religion in democratic societies.

Work on culture and globalization tends to focus on dynamics of reaction or resistance. Religion generally figures as a defensive response to economic and cultural globalization, a way to assert local identities against the international. The book will highlight another dimension of religion and globalization -- the reconstitution of religious communities as transnational actors. Over the past two decades, global migration patterns and modern communications technologies have spawned more active transnational religious communities, creating a powerful force in world politics. In the case of Islam, for example, Satellite TV, the Internet, and the post 9/11 international context have reinforced the idea of the umma, a transnational Muslim community. All three Abrahamic faiths have always had global identities anchored in faith in one God and universal truth claims. But globalization is driving them -- and other leading traditions, including Hinduism and Buddhism -- to rethink their world-roles in new ways. Yet the international dimensions of religious pluralism have been virtually ignored by scholars. This new religious pluralism is marked by both interreligious cooperation and conflict. Global religious identities have encouraged interreligious dialogue and greater religious engagement around questions including international development, conflict resolution, transitional justice, and bioethics. At the same time, more intense interreligious competition has contributed to controversy over the meaning and scope of religious freedom -- an international norm increasingly prominent in US foreign policy. The book will explore both these dimensions of the new religious pluralism in world politics from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Among the many distinguished contributors to the volume are Kwame Anthony Appiah, R. Scott Appleby, Robert Drinan, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John Voll, and John Witte. This volume should appeal to scholars and policymakers, as well as being useful for courses in religion and politics and international relations.

Are human rights universal or the product of specific cultures? Is democracy a necessary condition for the achievement of human rights in practice? And when, if ever, is it legitimate for external actors to impose their understandings of human rights upon particular countries? In the contemporary context of globalization, these questions have a salient religious dimension. Religion intersects with global human rights agendas in multiple ways, including: whether ''universal'' human rights are in fact an imposition of Christian understandings; whether democracy, the ''rule of the people,'' is compatible with God's law; and whether international efforts to enforce human rights including religious freedom amount to an illicit imperialism. This book brings together leading specialists across disciplines for the first major survey of the religious politics of human rights across the world's major regions, political systems, and faith traditions. The authors take a bottom-up approach and focus particularly on hot-button issues like human rights in Islam, Falun Gong in China, and religion in the former Soviet Union. Each essay examines the interaction of human rights and religion in practice and the challenges they pose for national and international policymakers.

Are human rights universal or the product of specific cultures? Is democracy a necessary condition for the achievement of human rights in practice? And when, if ever, is it legitimate for external actors to impose their understandings of human rights upon particular countries? In the contemporary context of globalization, these questions have a salient religious dimension. Religion intersects with global human rights agendas in multiple ways, including: whether ''universal'' human rights are in fact an imposition of Christian understandings; whether democracy, the ''rule of the people,'' is compatible with God's law; and whether international efforts to enforce human rights including religious freedom amount to an illicit imperialism. This book brings together leading specialists across disciplines for the first major survey of the religious politics of human rights across the world's major regions, political systems, and faith traditions. The authors take a bottom-up approach and focus particularly on hot-button issues like human rights in Islam, Falun Gong in China, and religion in the former Soviet Union. Each essay examines the interaction of human rights and religion in practice and the challenges they pose for national and international policymakers.

Linear Algebra Through Geometry introduces the concepts of linear algebra through the careful study of two and three-dimensional Euclidean geometry. This approach makes it possible to start with vectors, linear transformations, and matrices in the context of familiar plane geometry and to move directly to topics such as dot products, determinants, eigenvalues, and quadratic forms. The later chapters deal with n-dimensional Euclidean space and other finite-dimensional vector space. Topics include systems of linear equations in n variable, inner products, symmetric matrices, and quadratic forms. The final chapter treats application of linear algebra to differential systems, least square approximations and curvature of surfaces in three spaces. The only prerequisite for reading this book (with the exception of one section on systems of differential equations) are high school geometry, algebra, and introductory trigonometry.

Since the Maastricht ratification debate of the early 1990s, the legitimacy of the European Union has become a subject of controversy. With unprecedented force, Europeans have begun to question the need for deeper integration. Some fear threats to established national identities, while others perceive the emergence of a distant but powerful Brussels, beyond the reach of democratic control. Legitimacy and the European Union breaks with established approaches to the problem of the legitimacy of the European Union by focusing on the recent trend towards reconceptualization of the EU not as a superstate or an organization of states, but as a multi-level, contested polity without precedent. The book examines the implications of this reconceptualization for the problem of legitimacy. Individual chapters focus on policy areas, institutions and identity politics. Taken together, they reach two main conclusions. While Europeans do not strongly identify with the EU, they increasingly recognize it as a framework for politics alongside existing national and subnational structures. And while the EU lacks central democratic institutions, the integration process has spawned significant informal and pluralist forms of representation. Rethinking recognition and representation ouside the context of the nation state points to important, if little understood, actual and potential sources of EU legitimacy.

Since the Maastricht ratification debate of the early 1990s, the legitimacy of the European Union has become a subject of controversy. With unprecedented force, Europeans have begun to question the need for deeper integration. Some fear threats to established national identities, while others perceive the emergence of a distant but powerful Brussels, beyond the reach of democratic control. Legitimacy and the European Union breaks with established approaches to the problem of the legitimacy of the European Union by focusing on the recent trend towards reconceptualization of the EU not as a superstate or an organization of states, but as a multi-level, contested polity without precedent. The book examines the implications of this reconceptualization for the problem of legitimacy. Individual chapters focus on policy areas, institutions and identity politics. Taken together, they reach two main conclusions. While Europeans do not strongly identify with the EU, they increasingly recognize it as a framework for politics alongside existing national and subnational structures. And while the EU lacks central democratic institutions, the integration process has spawned significant informal and pluralist forms of representation. Rethinking recognition and representation ouside the context of the nation state points to important, if little understood, actual and potential sources of EU legitimacy.

Commemorating the 150th anniversary of one of the most beloved classics of children's literature, this illustrated edition presents Alice like you've never seen her before. In 1865, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician and Anglican deacon, published a story about a little girl who tumbles down a rabbit hole. Thus was the world first introduced to Alice and her pseudonymous creator, Lewis Carroll. This beautiful new edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland features rarely seen illustrations by Salvador Dali that illuminate the surreal yet curiously logical and mathematical realm into which Alice famously falls. In an informative and wide-ranging introduction, Carroll expert Mark Burstein discusses Dali's connections with Carroll, his treatment of the symbolic figure of Alice, and the mathematical nature of Wonderland. In addition, mathematician Thomas Banchoff reflects on the friendship he shared with Dali and explores the mathematical undercurrents in Dali's work.

Since the first fertilization of a human egg in the laboratory in 1968, scientific and technological breakthroughs have raised ethical dilemmas and generated policy controversies on both sides of the Atlantic. Embryo, stem cell, and cloning research have provoked impassioned political debate about their religious, moral, legal, and practical implications. National governments make rules that govern the creation, destruction, and use of embryos in the laboratory—but they do so in profoundly different ways.In Embryo Politics, Thomas Banchoff provides a comprehensive overview of political struggles about embryo research during four decades in four countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Banchoff's book, the first of its kind, demonstrates the impact of particular national histories and institutions on very different patterns of national governance. Over time, he argues, partisan debate and religious-secular polarization have come to overshadow ethical reflection and political deliberation on the moral status of the embryo and the promise of biomedical research. Only by recovering a robust and public ethical debate will we be able to govern revolutionary life-science technologies effectively and responsibly into the future.

Since the first fertilization of a human egg in the laboratory in 1968, scientific and technological breakthroughs have raised ethical dilemmas and generated policy controversies on both sides of the Atlantic. Embryo, stem cell, and cloning research have provoked impassioned political debate about their religious, moral, legal, and practical implications. National governments make rules that govern the creation, destruction, and use of embryos in the laboratory—but they do so in profoundly different ways.In Embryo Politics, Thomas Banchoff provides a comprehensive overview of political struggles about embryo research during four decades in four countries—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Banchoff's book, the first of its kind, demonstrates the impact of particular national histories and institutions on very different patterns of national governance. Over time, he argues, partisan debate and religious-secular polarization have come to overshadow ethical reflection and political deliberation on the moral status of the embryo and the promise of biomedical research. Only by recovering a robust and public ethical debate will we be able to govern revolutionary life-science technologies effectively and responsibly into the future.

Linear Algebra Through Geometry introduces the concepts of linear algebra through the careful study of two and three-dimensional Euclidean geometry. This approach makes it possible to start with vectors, linear transformations, and matrices in the context of familiar plane geometry and to move directly to topics such as dot products, determinants, eigenvalues, and quadratic forms. The later chapters deal with n-dimensional Euclidean space and other finite-dimensional vector space. Topics include systems of linear equations in n variable, inner products, symmetric matrices, and quadratic forms. The final chapter treats application of linear algebra to differential systems, least square approximations and curvature of surfaces in three spaces. The only prerequisite for reading this book (with the exception of one section on systems of differential equations) are high school geometry, algebra, and introductory trigonometry.

The Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, is the most successful and enduring global missionary enterprise in history. Founded by Ignatius Loyola in 1540, the Jesuit order has preached the Gospel, managed a vast educational network, and shaped the Catholic Church, society, and politics in all corners of the earth. Rather than offering a a global history of the Jesuits or a linear narrative of globalization, Thomas Banchoff and Jose Casanova have assembled a multidisciplinary group of leading experts to explore what we can learn from the historical and contemporary experience of the Society of Jesus -- what do the Jesuits tell us about globalization and what can globalization tell us about the Jesuits? Contributors include comparative theologian Francis X. Clooney, SJ, historian John W. O'Malley, SJ, Brazilian theologian Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, and ethicist David Hollenbach, SJ. They focus on three critical themes -- global mission, education, and justice -- to examine the historical legacies and contemporary challenges.Their insights contribute to a more critical and reflexive understanding of both the Jesuits' history and of our contemporary human global condition.