Volume 2018 No. 4

Yitzhak Katzenelson’s Theology of Despair

Moshe Shner, Oranim College of Education, Israel

The Contribution of Byzantine Scholars to the Renaissance Process in Florence in the First Half of the 15th Century

Pleșcău Ionuț Alexandru, University of Bucharest, Romania

Sacred Landscape: Memory and Re-Appropriating Historicity through Political Discourses

Parul La Gaur, Ram Lal Anand College, India

A Visual Journey: Enhancing the Learning Experience

Ilaria Brancatelli, I&B Research and University Centre St Helens, UK

India’s Waste Disposal: A Major Threat To The Lives Of Dalit Women

Sanchi Jain, The University of Oxford, UK

Yitzhak Katzenelson’s Theology of Despair

Moshe Shner, Oranim College of Education, Israel

Monotheistic religions have created long traditions of theodicy, which reconcile the basic premises of Monotheism and the hardships of historical reality. If God is just and omnipotent and if everything, is part of a God-guided history, then why is there so much pain in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? If there is God, why are there concentration camps, gulags, and mass killing sites?
The Holocaust of the Jewish people during World War II, an unprecedented manifestation of evil in modern history, threatens to be such a case, a scandal that tradition can no longer explain away. It stretches theodicy to its limits.
This paper represents the end of Jewish theodicy in the Holocaust year’s writings of Yitzhak Katzenelson
Schner_M.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [458.1 KB]

The Contribution of Byzantine Scholars to the Renaissance Process in Florence in the First Half of the 15th Century

Pleșcău Ionuț Alexandru, University of Bucharest, Romania

This paper shows the importance that the Byzantine culture had in the early Italian Renaissance genesis in Florence. During the Medici quattrocento period, there developed a major exile of Constantinople`s intellectuals to Western Europe due to the unfavorable circumstances in their country. In the 15th century, Manuel Chrysoloras, Cardinal Bessarion, John Argyropoulos, and others popularised Greek in Florence and throughout Italy. The Platonic Academy of Florence (led by Marsilio Ficino and sponsored by Cosmo de Medici) had thousands of manuscripts previously brought by the Greek scholars. In their writings, the representatives of this Academy often agreed, in one form or another, on the Byzantine culture`s contribution to the Renaissance.
Pleascau_I.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [346.7 KB]

Sacred Landscape: Memory and Re-Appropriating Historicity through Political Discourses

Parul La Gaur, Ram Lal Anand College, India

Recent Scholarship has noted the importance of understanding the relations between identity, memory, and landscape of people in the past. This paper attempts to apply this approach to a pan- Hindu sacred center in India which although located in the periphery, not in a detrimental sense but in terms of geography, may remain quiescent in one historical epoch but was demarcated by certain rejuvenating aspects which help regain its religious significance under altered historical and political contingencies. The antiquity of the sacred center with its sacred landscape formed the basis of its memory and it is imperative to take into cognizance the dynamic role of historical memory in reappropriating the past of a sacred center and its implications in the formulation and articulation of state id
Lagaur_P.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [540.5 KB]

A Visual Journey: Enhancing the Learning Experience

Ilaria Brancatelli, I&B Research and University Centre St Helens, UK

The author’s objective is the evaluation of the effectiveness of the use of the visual means as a conveyor of an intensified learning experience. This research seeks to identify a more comprehensive and inclusive educational approach by exploring the potential of visual agency as an instrument of amplified natural learning outcomes. Ethnography is the chosen method of enquiry and the conclusions corroborated by existing psychological data.
The findings overwhelmingly support the inference that the introduction of a range of visual channels to the teaching delivery is beneficial and that, consequently, its application offers an appealing route to learners. The visual devise results as a valid addition to the general teaching strategy array and its usage facilitate an immediate, immersive
Brancatelli_I.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [354.9 KB]

India’s Waste Disposal: A Major Threat To The Lives Of Dalit Women

Sanchi Jain, The University of Oxford, UK

India’s waste generation is one of the fastest in the whole world. Hundreds of waste workers are required to manage the waste produced, and these workers come from the most economically and socially backward communities of the country. The poorest risk their lives in achieving aesthetic appeal of the cities by working in dump yards, railway tracks, rag picking, and manual scavenging. Waste disposal is seen as a natural occupation of the low caste, tribes, and Dalits, which is passed on from one generation to another. The lower caste group is seen to be coterminous with dirt, filth, and pollution. Therefore, ‘caste’ and ‘waste’ have a “cultural relationship” based on the notions of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ (Doron and Jeffrey 2018).
Sarfaraz (2017) estimates that “ou
Jain_S.pdf
Adobe Acrobat document [306.5 KB]

Volume 2018 No. 4

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