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‘The holy space ablaze’: New understandings of spiritual reality through poetry and music
Get PDFIn this exploration of the spiritual significance of poetry and music, Dr Alison Jack reflects on the power that such media hold for the opening up of new possibilities, and indeed new realities, for those prepared to respond to such an invitation. Jack looks at the particular ways in which imagination can become an encounter with the divine as she considers Christine De Luca’s poem “Like a Flaring Thing” and Olivier Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Her consideration of the spiritual potential of art brings her into a dialogue with Paul Fiddes and Malcolm Guite, highlighting the role that creativity plays in the human response to God and God’s self-revelation, and the interpretive ministry of poets, composers, and other artists
Editorial Note
No full textWe are pleased to publish this special issue of Ethnographic Encounters on digital research methods. The idea of this theme arose as we noted how the Covid-19 pandemic shifted many aspects of our lives to online contexts, and we reflected upon what this shift has meant for research practices. For the first time in the history of the journal, we have opened our submissions to all the departments of the University of St Andrews and to both undergraduate and postgraduate students
Dundee Drag Goes Digital
Get PDFDuring a period of lockdown in the UK in 2021 I conducted Ethnographic Encounters project on the culture within the Dundee Drag community. Over the course of the virtual interviews I conducted with four members of the community I began to get to grips with the unique nature of Drag in Dundee. This community has undergone a series of transformations as a result of the hit BBC reality show ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race UK’ as well as the sudden shift from weekly physical performances to a solely inhabiting a digital space in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. This project considers how a performance-based culture may exist in a digital capacity
Recycling Destroyed Cities: Ruined Archives in Copy Art
Get PDFThis essay adopts a practice-based methodology to examine works that use copy machine as a tool of archiveology. Case studies are two of my animated films, collectively titled Recycled Series (2016-2017), and other examples of copy art, in which a series of (original and archival) images/films are degenerated with a black-and-white copy machine. I frame the degenerated images in these works as ruined images – anarchives that copy machines can produce for sensory experiences. I place these works in the context of archiveology (Russell 2018) to highlight two aspects in the ruined images: first, how the use of degeneration techniques in archiveology engenders urban imaginary; second, how archiveology as a mode of media art challenges the norms of authenticity and media specificity and unfolds the agency of recycling tools such as copiers. Using a copy machine to recycle film images, archiveology couples the practices of storytelling with the (re)discovery of the technologies of archives. 
Epistemic Injustice in the Age of AI
Get PDFArtificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionising our practices of distributing and producing knowledge. Though promising, these technologies also harbour the potential for corruption - a rising problem in this domain is that of injustice committed against women in the epistemic sphere. In our social framework, being regarded as a credible knower has become synonymous with the potential for self-actualisation: the realisation of one’s potential. As such, the gender bias perpetrated by some AI systems is harming women in this domain. Additionally, biased software is barring them from accessing hermeneutical resources relevant to the understanding of their lived experience. Though still in its infancy, the problem should be urgently addressed by conceptualising ways in which a fairer AI could be engineered. Egalitarian ideas, specifically focused on equality of opportunity, seem to be promising avenues for future research and thought
Mediation in Syria: a Comparative Analysis of the Astana and the Geneva Processes
Get PDFThis paper compares and contrasts the UN-led Geneva process and the Astana framework on three key dimensions: inclusivity, leverage and strategy. The Astana talks included more militarily relevant actors, both locally and regionally. In terms of strategy, it focused on conflict management. The hard power of the Astana trio provided the leverage to dictate the conditions on the battlefield which led to a frozen conflict situation. Contrastingly, the Geneva process initially excluded a key actor, Iran, and focused on regime change. Later, the UN mediators prioritized conflict settlement geared at positive peace. Without a clear mandate and external leverage, however, the UN-mediation has increasingly been side-lined by the Astana process. This paper argues that the UN needs to enhance its capability leverage in order to remain credible in conflict resolution. Moreover, on the dimension of inclusion, the UN has to define more precise conditions for involving the relevant actors
The Language of the Church: Westminster in Review
Get PDFThis paper reflects on the recent decision of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland to reconsider the role of the Westminster Confession as its subordinate standard. A number of objections to the Overture were raised at the Assembly citing church decline as a matter of greater importance than theological reflections on a 400-year-old document. The paper argues however that church decline is precisely the reason the Church ought to re-examine its doctrinal statements. It begins by reflecting on the use of the Book of Confessions in the PC(USA) and suggests that the framework justifying the development of creedal statements in the US Church is apropos in the Scottish context as well. Following on, it offers a more extended reflection on the purpose of doctrine by borrowing two of McGrath’s four categories (social demarcator and interpretation of experience) followed by a third category, sapience.Note: This paper was originally published in Theology in Scotland vol. 26, no. 1 (2019
Art and the religious imagination: A conversation with Rowan Williams
Get PDFDr Deborah Lewer introduces this conversation between herself and Dr Rowan Williams by reflecting on how word and image point to the risk and the promise involved in words about wordless works of art. As a theologian, poet, and former Archbishop of Canterbury, Williams highlights the ongoing, responsive, and dynamic relationship that human beings can develop with particular pieces of visual art. Such an interaction can be extended when a painting is responded to by another medium – for instance, that of a poem. It is in the transcendence and indeterminacy of a piece of art that Williams locates imagination’s link to faith
“The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right” by Hannah Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel
No full textReview ofHannah Strømmen and Ulrich Schmiedel, The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right (London: SCM, 2020), pp. 192, ISBN 978-0334059233. £19.9
