Fragile Conviction

Download or read book Fragile Conviction written by Mathijs Pelkmans and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do specific secular and religious ideologies—such as nationalism, neoliberalism, atheism, Pentecostalism, Tablighi Islam, and shamanism—gain popularity and when do they lose traction? To answer these questions, Mathijs Pelkmans critically examines the trajectories of a range of ideologies as they move into the post-Soviet frontier in Central Asia. Ethnographically rooted in the everyday life of a former mining town in southern Kyrgyzstan, Fragile Conviction shows how residents have dealt with the existential and epistemic crises that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Residents became enchanted by the truths of Muslim and Christian missionaries, embraced the teachings of neoliberal and nationalist ideologues, and were riveted by the visions of shamanic healers. But no matter how much enthusiasm and hope these ideas first engendered, the commitment to any of them rarely lasted very long.Pelkmans finds that there is an inverse relationship between the tenacity and the effervescence of collective ideas, between their strength to persist and their ability to trigger committed action. Introducing the concept of pulsation, he argues in Fragile Conviction that ideational power must be understood in relation to three aspects: the voicing of the idea, its tension with everyday reality, and its reverberation within groups of listeners. The conclusion that the power of conviction is rooted in the instability of sociocultural contexts is a message that has relevance far beyond urban Central Asia.

Download or read book Weak Links written by Stewart Patrick and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-23 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional wisdom among policymakers in both the US and Europe holds that weak and failing states are the source of the world's most pressing security threats today. However, as this book shows, our assumptions about the threats posed by failed and failing states are based on false premises.

Download or read book Fragile Innocence written by James Reston, Jr. and published by Three Rivers Press (CA). This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A personal memoir by the author of Warriors of God describes his own daughter Hillary's courageous battle with a devastating chronic illness, its impact on the entire family, and the daunting medical and social implications of such controversial issues as stem cell research, animal organ transplants, and reproductive and therapeutic cloning. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.

Download or read book Conviction written by Oliver Rollins and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exposing ethical dilemmas of neuroscientific research on violence, this book warns against a dystopian future in which behavior is narrowly defined in relation to our biological makeup. Biological explanations for violence have existed for centuries, as has criticism of this kind of deterministic science, haunted by a long history of horrific abuse. Yet, this program has endured because of, and not despite, its notorious legacy. Today's scientists are well beyond the nature versus nurture debate. Instead, they contend that scientific progress has led to a nature and nurture, biological and social, stance that allows it to avoid the pitfalls of the past. In Conviction Oliver Rollins cautions against this optimism, arguing that the way these categories are imagined belies a dangerous continuity between past and present. The late 1980s ushered in a wave of techno-scientific advancements in the genetic and brain sciences. Rollins focuses on an often-ignored strand of research, the neuroscience of violence, which he argues became a key player in the larger conversation about the biological origins of criminal, violent behavior. Using powerful technologies, neuroscientists have rationalized an idea of the violent brain—or a brain that bears the marks of predisposition toward "dangerousness." Drawing on extensive analysis of neurobiological research, interviews with neuroscientists, and participant observation, Rollins finds that this construct of the brain is ill-equipped to deal with the complexities and contradictions of the social world, much less the ethical implications of informing treatment based on such simplified definitions. Rollins warns of the potentially devastating effects of a science that promises to "predict" criminals before the crime is committed, in a world that already understands violence largely through a politic of inequality.

Download or read book Fragile written by Lisa Unger and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-08-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling novel from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger about the hunt for a missing girl and one community’s intricate yet fragile bonds. “[A] nail-biting nuanced whodunit.”—People Everybody knows everybody in The Hollows, a quaint, charming town outside of New York City. It’s a place where neighbors keep an eye on one another’s kids, where people say hello in the grocery store, and where high school cliques and antics are never quite forgotten. As a child, Maggie found living under the microscope of small-town life stifling. But as a wife and mother, she has happily returned to The Hollows’s insular embrace. As a psychologist, her knowledge of family histories provides powerful insights into her patients’ lives. So when the girlfriend of her teenage son, Rick, disappears, Maggie’s intuitive gift proves useful to the case—and also dangerous. Eerie parallels soon emerge between Charlene’s disappearance and the abduction of another local girl that shook the community years ago when Maggie was a teenager. The investigation has her husband, Jones, the lead detective on the case, acting strangely. Rick, already a brooding teenager, becomes even more withdrawn. In a town where the past is always present, nobody is above suspicion, not even a son in the eyes of his father. As she tries to reassure him that Rick embodies his father in all of the important ways, Maggie realizes this might be exactly what Jones fears most. Determined to uncover the truth, Maggie pursues her own leads into Charlene’s disappearance and exposes a long-buried town secret—one that could destroy everything she holds dear.

Download or read book A Fragile Union written by Joan Nestle and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays and narratives by a lesbian-feminist activist

Download or read book The Fragile Mind written by Jarik Conrad and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2016-01-18 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Fragile Mind, Dr. Conrad not only provides insight into what daily life is like for African Americans and individuals who are poor, he offers as innovative approach to overcoming these challenges based on what scientists have uncovered about the human brain - its brilliance, as well as its fragility. He demonstrates how conscious and subconscious actions taken by Whites have maintained their social, political, and economic dominance, while conscious and subconscious actions taken by African Americans and poor people have contributed to the perpetuation of their subordinate status in America.