The Mainline Sidelined: The Sociology of Religion Unbound

This paper examines an expanding focus in the content of what members of SSSR study and show how this change is reflected in the publications in the journal. I offer four factors that might effect what we study: changes in the world, changes in who we are, changes in funding sources, and changes in the theoretical frames. I discuss the “cultural turn” as new theoretical frame, which has had important implications for the study of religion. 1 then return to the question of changes in the world. I end with my expectation that we will see greater yet inclusiveness in the future.     

Finding a “Lower,Deeper Power” for Women in Recovery

For decades people have accommodated and adjusted to the direction prescribed by recovery programs. The dominant admonition of recovery programs to find a “higher power” may be appropriate and helpful to many people, but some are beginning to question this direction for their own individuation processes. Through the use of the ancient Greek myths of Persephone, Psyche, Orpheus/Eurydice, and the ancient Mesopotamian myth of Inanna, readers will be taken in the direction of the underworld to experience an alternative heroic journey motif in search of a “lower, deeper power.”     

Toward an Interpersonal Model of Codependence and Contradependence

Codependence is used increasingly to describe various dysfunctional relationships. This article differentiates codependent from contradependent behavior and defines both in an interpersonal context. A model is proposed to address gender issues, diagnosis, and treatment from an emotional health perspective.     

Violence and the Politics of Explanation: Kampuchea revisited[1]

ABSTRACT The criteria for adequate explanation have been the subject of intense debate in the philosophy of social science. This paper examines a variety of explanations of a decade of violence in Kampuchea in order to clarify the dimensions of the Kampuchean tragedy and to challenge both the hypothetico-deductive and the Verstehen models of explanation central to contemporary debates in the philosophy of social science. Using the Kampuchean case as an example, I suggest that the analyst's propensity to assimilate new information into a tacit, pre-supposition-laden conceptual framework contributes to an oversimplification or caricature of the event to be explained. For this reason, no individual explanation of an event can be definitive. An adequate explanation can emerge only from the juxtaposition of and extrapolation from multiple, non-privileged interpretations representing different methodological and ideological perspectives on the socio-political event to be explained.