Robert H. Shaffer: The Quintessential “Do-Gooder”

Robert H. Shaffer, a pioneering administrator, faculty member, and professional association leader, was interviewed about the early days of AACD (formerly APGA) and his contributions to the student affairs field.     

“Higher” and “lower”: Comparative and categorical interpretations by children

Three-, four-, and five-year-old children's categorical and comparative understanding of high and low were examined in two experiments. Categorical knowledge was assessed by presenting subjects with a single object at varying heights (from 0 to five feet above the ground), and asking if the object was high or low. Comparative understanding of the terms was assessed by showing children two objects at a time and asking which was higher or lower. We observed two patterns of performance in children's categorical treatments: younger children in particular defined disjoint categories for high and low such that they only labelled the extreme heights as high or low, and maintained that middle heights were neither high nor low. Older children defined either-or categories such that all heights were labelled either high or low. We also found that children who defined either-or categories made correct comparative judgments across the entire range of variation whereas children who defined disjoint categories could only judge which of two objects was higher if the objects were not low (at 0 and 1 feet) and which of the objects was lower if the objects were not high (at 4 and 5 feet). The results were interpreted as reflecting a lack of appreciation that the terms are interdefined as negations of each other, and were discussed in terms of the similar semantic-congruity effects found in adults.     

“Double Trouble”: An Introduction

This piece sets the scene for the inaugural addresses by Rosi Braidotti and Selma Sevenhuijsen which follow and provides background information on the history of women's studies in the Netherlands.     

ECONOMY OF “INVISIBLE DEBT” AND ETHICS OF “RADICAL HOSPITALITY”: Toward a Paradigm Change of Hospitality from “Gift” to “Forgiveness”

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct a Christian theology of “hospitality” through a critical reading of Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche as well as through an in‐depth biblical and theological reflection on the ethics of hospitality. Out of this reconstructive investigation, I propose a new Christian ethics of hospitality as a radical kind. As a new paradigm, this radical hospitality is distinguished from other types in that it is no longer conceived on the model of “gift”. The new Christian ethics of hospitality is rather reconstructed on the model of “forgiveness” by critically appropriating the concept of “invisible debt” that lies between the hosting citizens and the migrants in the senses of “you owe us your presence” and “I owe you my security and success.” While the hospitality of the gift defines the relationship between the hosting citizens and the migrants as givers and givees, the new paradigm of hospitality identifies this relationship as between creditors and debtors. In this regard, a new Christian hospitality called for unto citizens of the hosting society is a radical kind that challenges them to transcend the creditor‐debtor consciousness.     

INVESTIGATING THE “SCIENCE” IN “EASTERN RELIGIONS”: A METHODOLOGICAL INQUIRY

This article explores some of the understandings of “science” that are often employed in the literature on “science and Eastern religions.” These understandings crucially shape the raging debates between the avid proponents and the keen detractors of the thesis that Eastern forms of spirituality are uniquely able to subsume the sciences into their metaphysical–axiological horizons. More specifically, the author discusses some of the proposed relations between “science” and “Eastern religions” by highlighting three themes: (a) the relation between science and metaphysics, (b) the relation between science and experience, and (c) the European origins of science. The analysis of these relations requires a methodological inquiry into some of the culturally freighted valences of “science,” “metaphysics,” and “experience.”     

Identifying components of type-A behaviour: “toxic” and “non-toxic” achieving

Measures of the Type-A behaviour pattern (TABP) have generally failed to distinguish between different components of the construct, some of which may not constitute risk factors at all. Based on the responses of a total of 632 subjects, the present paper reports on the development of student and working adult questionnaires which comprise discrete and unambiguous indices of “toxic” and “non-toxic” behaviour. Both components reflect high achievement motivation, but in the toxic scale this is compounded by hostile competitiveness and impatience. The scales were related in predictable ways to other relevant indices of personality, and while the toxic factor was significantly associated with deterioration in health status during adaptation, the non-toxic factor conferred a protective effect.     

“Tell me I'm sexy . . . and otherwise valuable”: Body valuation and relationship satisfaction

Although extant research demonstrates that body valuation by strangers has negative implications for women, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that body valuation by a committed male partner is positively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner also values them for their nonphysical qualities, but negatively associated with women's relationship satisfaction when that partner is not committed or does not value them for their nonphysical qualities. Study 3 demonstrates that body valuation by a committed female partner is negatively associated with men's relationship satisfaction when that partner does not also value them for their nonphysical qualities but unassociated with men's satisfaction otherwise. These findings join others demonstrating that fully understanding the implications of interpersonal processes requires considering the interpersonal context.     

V. M. BEKHTEREV IN RUSSIAN CHILD SCIENCE, 1900S–1920S: “OBJECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY”/“REFLEXOLOGY” AS A SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT

In the early 20^th century the child population became a major focus of scientific, professional and public interest. This led to the crystallization of a dynamic field of child science, encompassing developmental and educational psychology, child psychiatry and special education, school hygiene and mental testing, juvenile criminology and the anthropology of childhood. This article discusses the role played in child science by the eminent Russian neurologist and psychiatrist Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev. The latter's name is associated with a distinctive program for transforming the human sciences in general and psychology in particular that he in the 1900s labelled “objective psychology” and from the 1910s renamed “reflexology.” The article examines the equivocal place that Bekhterev's “objective psychology” and “reflexology” occupied in Russian/Soviet child science in the first three decades of the 20^th century. While Bekhterev's prominence in this field is beyond doubt, analysis shows that “objective psychology” and “reflexology” had much less success in mobilizing support within it than certain other movements in this arena (for example, “experimental pedagogy” in the pre‐revolutionary era); it also found it difficult to compete with the variety of rival programs that arose within Soviet “pedology” during the 1920s. However, this article also demonstrates that the study of child development played a pivotal role in Bekhterev's program for the transformation of the human sciences: it was especially important to his efforts to ground in empirical phenomena and in concrete research practices a new ontology of the psychological, which, the article argues, underpinned “objective psychology”/“reflexology” as a transformative scientific movement.     

Pedagogy and Theology in Cyberspace: “All That We Can’t Leave Behind. . .”

The questions raised by the integration of digital technologies into theology and pedagogy are broader than simple questions of how to use a particular tool. Instead, this integration raises cultural questions that require cultural interventions in response. Shweder's notion of “thinking through others” provides an evocative framework for envisioning more complex pedagogical responses. This essay is based on a presentation delivered to the first annual conference on Theology and Pedagogy in Cyberspace, held in Evanston, Illinois on 19–20 April 2001.     

FOLLOWING A TRAJECTORY: ON “TRACING A TRAJECTORY” AND “EXPLAINING AND VALUING,” BY JAMES M. GUSTAFSON

Abstract. The roots of religious faith–and the provenance of ethical thought–may be sought in the human sciences, the physical sciences, literature, religious traditions, and deep human intuitions. Gustafson's religious stance and the author's, while different on their face, in common reflect a mingling–and tangling–of skepticism, understanding, and transcendence. Let all of us hope and believe what we can.     

Derrida's Worldly Responsibility: The Opening between “Faith” and the “Sacred”

This article will theorize how Derrida's deconstruction signifies a fundamental ontological alterity. We will examine the use of both the tropes of “sacred” and “faith” as tropes to express this possibility. We will articulate how deconstruction, as a development of phenomenology, provides a theoretical nexus where the alterity of things and persons may be thought. We will arrive at the paradoxical formulation of “ontological alterity” as a key moment in deconstructive thinking. Essentially we will argue that deconstruction offers the resources to think the relation between other person and things in the world as motivated by a firm radicalization of Heideggerean worldliness and Levinasian alterity.