25 research outputs found
Trollinger, Susan L. ; Trollinger, William Vance Jr. : Righting America at the Creation Museum. Baltimore, Maryland, 2016
No full textRighting America at the Creation Museum
No full textOn May 28, 2007, the Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. Aimed at scientifically demonstrating that the universe was created less than ten thousand years ago by a Judeo-Christian god, the museum is hugely popular, attracting millions of visitors over the past eight years. Surrounded by themed topiary gardens and a petting zoo with camel rides, the site conjures up images of a religious Disneyland. Inside, visitors are met by dinosaurs at every turn and by a replica of the Garden of Eden that features the Tree of Life, the serpent, and Adam and Eve.
In Righting America at the Creation Museum, Susan L. Trollinger and William Vance Trollinger, Jr., take readers on a fascinating tour of the museum. The Trollingers vividly describe and analyze its vast array of exhibits, placards, dioramas, and videos, from the Culture in Crisis Room, where videos depict sinful characters watching pornography or considering abortion, to the Natural Selection Room, where placards argue that natural selection doesn’t lead to evolution. The book also traces the rise of creationism and the history of fundamentalism in America.
This compelling book reveals that the Creation Museum is a remarkably complex phenomenon, at once a “natural history” museum at odds with contemporary science, an extended brief for the Bible as the literally true and errorless word of God, and a powerful and unflinching argument on behalf of the Christian right
Rhetorical Discourse and the Constitution of the Subject: Prodicus\u27 \u27The Choice of Heracles\u27
No full textThe author begins with a critical dilemma: as a major figure in the sophistic movement, Prodicus is generally considered one of the proponents of a rhetoric that challenged the traditional morality of his time; however, the lengthiest composition attributed to him, The Choice of Heracles, has mostly been read as an affirmation of mainstream ethics. The author argues that Prodicus\u27 text challenges traditional morality by reshaping the narrative form characterizing the epic tradition and by articulating a notion of human subjectivity appreciably different from the one specified by the epic tradition. The author concludes that despite its similarities to myths preceding it The Choice of Heracles registers a resistance to pre-sophistic morality
Review of Kathleen Hall Jamieson\u27s \u27Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership\u27
No full textAs someone who came of age during the decade that opened with the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment (1982) and closed with the handing down of the Webster decision (1989), I was surprised when Susan Faludi\u27s Backlash, then Naomi Wolfs The Beauty Myth, and then Gloria Steinem\u27s Revolution From Within became best sellers in the early 1990s. As someone who had studied the work of Herbert Wichelns, Marie Hochmuth Nichols, and Forbes Hill, I could not help wondering whether the popularity of these books indicated that the American women\u27s movement was producing a promising rhetorical shift. Four years since the first of these books was published and some time after my surprise had subsided, I was nonetheless delighted to see Kathleen Hall Jamieson\u27s Beyond the Double Bind lining the shelves of my local Barnes and Noble. In anticipation that this book, written by a Communication scholar yet addressed to a popular audience, would assess popular feminism\u27s persuasive potential and make its own rhetorical intervention, I bought it on the spot. I was not to be disappointed
The Bible and Creationism
No full textCharles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) marked a significant challenge to traditional understandings of the Bible and Christian theology. Darwin’s theory of organic evolution stood in sharp contrast with the Genesis account of creation, with its six days, separate creations of life forms, and special creation of human beings. More than this, Darwin’s ideas raised enormous theological questions about God’s role in creation (e.g., is there a role for God in organic evolution?) and about the nature of human beings (e.g., what does it mean to talk about original sin without a historic Adam and Eve?)
Of course, what really made Darwin so challenging was that by the late nineteenth century his theory of organic evolution was the scientific consensus. That is to say, American Protestants had no choice but to reckon with Darwinism. For many Protestant intellectuals, clergy, and laypersons, this was not an enormous obstacle. That is, and in keeping with previous Christian responses to scientific developments, many Protestants adjusted their understanding of the Bible and their theology to accommodate Darwin’s ideas
Selling the Amish: The Tourism of Nostalgia
No full textIn this book, I address these and related question. Although I talk about the Amish, my primary goal is not to describe them. Many others have offered excellent accounts of the Amish, and references to their books and articles can be found in this book\u27s bibliography. Instead, my purpose is to understand Amish Country tourism and, specifically, how it attracts and sustains the interest of millions of visitors each year. The purveyors of Amish Country tourism use a variety of strategies to draw tourists in and give them pleasure during their stay, and I explore those techniques. I focus especially on the role the Amish play, wittingly or unwittingly, in providing visitors with satisfying experiences
A Genealogy of the Confession of Faith in Mennonite Perspective
No full textThis essay offers a genealogy, in the Foucauldian sense, of the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Thus, it provides an account of the origins of the document and its uses over time with attention given to the politics of both. The essay argues that the Confession was critical for the merger of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church especially as it took on the function of the teaching position of the church. By way of a case study, the essay explores recent uses to which the Confession has been put. The essay concludes by discussing an inherent tension in Anabaptist confessions between the desire to fix a set of common beliefs and convictions, on the one hand, and the necessity for a discursive shift both in meaning and use amid a changing context, on the other
Feminist Criticism of Classical Rhetoric Texts: A Case Study of Gorgias\u27 Helen
No full textDespite the diversity of claims feminist scholars of antiquity advance, they share at least one preoccupation: the critique of patriarchy. That is, they challenge the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women (Lerner 239) enacted in primary and secondary texts. The particular methods by which they make their critiques of women\u27s subjugation vary as much as their claims, but most can be classified into one of two categories according to their broad interests in woman as a reader or as a writer of classical texts. Using Elaine Showalter\u27s classifications, for example, we can group most of this scholarship under one of two headings: feminist criticism or gynocritics (128). Essays that concern themselves with woman as the consumer of male-produced literature, and with the way in which the hypothesis of a female reader changes our apprehension of a given text, awakening us to the significance of sexual codes (128) could fall under feminist criticism. On the other hand, studies that pertain to woman as the producer of textual meaning, with the history, themes, genres, and structures of literature by women (128) better fit in the category of gynocriticism. Both types of scholarship help to dismantle patriarchy\u27s hold on us, the former by showing how primary texts produced or perpetuated domination by men, the latter by recovering the significant contributions women made to ancient societies. Yet neither type of criticism suffices to critique patriarchy from within the Western rhetorical tradition
Fundamental Gaffes
No full textAccording to certain political analysts, George W. Bush won a second term because he built a faith coalition that featured Protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals, 78 percent of whom voted for him. Not surprisingly, Democrats have since been trying to figure out how to get some religion. Of course, despite the formal separation between church and state, religion has played an important role in American politics from the beginning. Still, as political sages from both sides of the aisle have pointed out, the especially active role among conservative Christians is unprecedented. For John Danforth, what is new is how Republicans have transformed [the] party into the political arm of conservative Christians. For Jimmy Carter, what is new is the fundamentalist character of the religious voices in politics. Leaders among politically active conservative Christians are thrilled with the political clout that comes with this sort of analysis. Moreover, they are prepared to use it, as did James Dobson, fundamentalist and founder of Focus on Family, when he warned Republicans that if they did not deliver a ban on same-sex marriage, an end to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, and a strictly constructionist Supreme Court, the party would pay a price in four years
Rhetoric, Possibility, and Women\u27s Status in Ancient Athens: Gorgias\u27 and Isocrates\u27 Encomiums of Helen
No full textOver the last fifteen years or so, scholars in the fields of anthropology, history, and classics have paid considerable attention to the status of women in Hellenic antiquity. They point out that Athenian women were not permitted to participate in the social, cultural, economic, and political arenas of the Athenian life in the same ways or to the same degree that their male counterparts did. Whereas men were invited to move about the public sphere, women were confined largely to the private sphere. The segregation of women to the domestic arena is evidenced, these scholars argue, by the fact that Athenian women were defined in the terms of their ability to reproduce Athenians. Unlike Athenian men, they were primarily responsible for the production of legitimate heirs to the oikoi, or families (Pomeroy 60). In conjunction with this responsibility, women alone bore the burdens of childbearing, nursing, and cooking (Pomeroy 72). Although some women worked outside as well as inside the home as washerwomen, woolworkers, vendors, nurses, and midwives, all women were prohibited from buying and selling land, or making contracts of a significant value (Pomeroy 73). Moreover, the laws of the polis excluded women from the political population: Direct participation in the affairs of government-including holding public office, voting, and serving as jurors and soldiers-were possible for only the male citizens (Pomeroy 74). As a rule, scholars agree that the protocols of participation in the public and private life were established along the lines of gender
