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Disputing Christianity: The 400-Year-Old Debate over Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham Troki's Classic Arguments
Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham was a little-known scholar from the heretical Jewish group, the Karaites, who lived during the 16th century in Troki, a suburb of Vilnius, Lithuania In 1593, the last year of his life, he wrote an incisive cogent polemic against Christianity which, over the centuries, has had an impact in Christian and Jewish circles that far exceeds what might have been predicted based on its obscure origins. A kind of underground samizdat classic of religious criticism, his critique of Christianity has been translated into many languages and has influenced English deism, Reform Judaism, the beginnings if Higher Criticism and the quest for the historical Jesus, and even Christian evangelical outreach programmes that exist to this day. Now, historian and philosopher, Richard Popkin has edited a critique of Christianity. Originally published in 1813 by Harvard graduate George Bethune English, it includes the first publication in English of a central portion of Ben Abraham's text. The book was part of the discussion surrounding the founding of Unitarianism in New England. Popkin provides a fascinating commentary that notes many points of historical interest involving this unusual work. Anyone interested in philosophy of religion or the history of dialogue between Christians and Jews will find this work to be of great value..
Price: $32.99
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Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court (Chicago Series in Law and Society)
The title of Susan Hirsch's study of disputes involving Swahili Muslims in coastal Kenya reflects the image of gender relations most commonly associated with Islamic law. Men need only "pronounce" divorce to resolve marital conflicts, while embattled and embittered wives must persevere by silently enduring marital hardships. But Hirsch's observations of Islamic courts uncover how Muslim women actively use legal processes to transform their domestic lives, achieving victories on some fronts but reinforcing their image as subordinate to men through the speech they produce in court. Pronouncing and Persevering focuses closely on the language used in disputes, particularly how men and women narrate their claims and how their speech shapes and is shaped by gender hierarchy in postcolonial Swahili society. Based on field research and court testimony, Hirsch's book debunks the conventional view that women are powerless under Islamic law and challenges the dichotomies through which Islam and gender relations are currently understood. .
Price: $10.02
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Disputing the Subject of Sex: Sexuality and Public School Controversies (Curriculum, Cultures, and (Homo)Sexualities Series)
Sexuality remains a hotly debated subject, nowhere more so than in education This perceptive and balanced book shows that discussions of sexuality and schooling can be simultaneously polarizing and democratizing. Disputing the Subject of Sex examines controversies over sex, AIDS, and gay-inclusive multicultural education, which offer especially fruitful opportunities to explore instances when community membership, schooling, and sexuality have collided. Rather than choosing sides, this book uses case studies, interviews with queer youth, and analysis of curricular texts to help readers understand how power dynamics play out in educational controversies and how they can guide us to new ideas about students' abilities to learn and relate ethically to one another about the subject of sex..
Price: $23.45
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Law, Culture, and Ritual: Disputing Systems in Cross-Cultural Context
Disputing systems are products of the societies in which they operate - they originate and mutate in response to disputes that are particular to specific social, cultural, and political contexts. Disputing procedures, therefore, are an important medium through which fundamental beliefs, values, and symbols of culture are communicated, preserved, and sometimes altered. In Law, Culture, and Ritual, Oscar G. Chase uses interdisciplinary scholarship to examine the cultural contexts of legal institutions, and presents several case studies to demonstrate that the processes used for resolving disputes have a cultural origin and impact. Ranging from the dispute resolution practices of the Azande, a technologically simple, small-scale African society, to the rise of discretionary authority in civil litigation in America, Chase challenges the claims of some scholars that official dispute systems are more reflective of the interests and preferences of elite professionals than of the cultures in which they are embedded. .
Price: $21.00
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Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: DISPUTING U.S. POLEMICS
"Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood" is a much-needed response to the ethnocentric and arrogant Western perceptions surrounding female genital cutting (FGC), often referred to as either female genital mutilation or female circumcision, but including a variety of practices of varying history, severity, geographical distribution and consequences. In five provocative essays, the contributors to this timely volume challenge representations of FGC through a range of perspectives: history, human rights, law, missionary feminism, cultural relativism, anthropology, and the intersex movement. Balancing feminist ideals with culturally conscious approaches, they dispel sensationalized and widely accepted concepts that influence Western media, law, and feminist thought on FGC, including the ignorance and oversimplification of African history, cultures and religions, and an exaggeration of the extent and geographical distribution of the various procedures performed. The assumption that FGC does not occur presently in the United States is also considered. From Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar's documentary film "Warrior Marks" to mainstream media and prime time television, "Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood" critiques the sources that perpetuate the harmful myths that all African women have been mutilated and promote doing so to their children, that those who perform it are barbaric, and that families who allow it are abusive. With sensitivity and clarity, the contributors to "Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood" provide necessary and alternative suggestions for the eradication of the most harmful procedures--which they feel can only occur when the leadership of African women in the ongoing campaigns is acknowledged and supported, and when income generation for African women and education of the U.S. public, rather than criminalization, become primary strategies..
Price: $35.61
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