Passport to Duke

Editor’s Introduction The following text was prepared by Pierre Bourdieu for delivery at a conference on his work held at Duke University, April 21–23, 1995. Entitled “Pierre Bourdieu: Fieldwork in Culture,” the conference was sponsored by the Duke Graduate Program in Literature and included such well-known literary scholars as Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Jonathan Culler, and Fredric Jameson. Bourdieu, of course, was the invited guest of honor, but was uncertain as to whether he should make the effort of attending, particularly since he was recovering from a short period of poor health. As I too had been invited (and seemed more familiar with the American scene), Bourdieu discussed the question with me in Paris. He was rather concerned about wrongheaded, trendy applications of his theories by American literary scholars, who often misunderstand his work because they simply do not know the intellectual landscape to which it relates. Reading such conference paper titles as “Cross-Dressing for Success: The Scramble for Symbolic Power in Tabitha Sweeney’s Female Quixotism,” Bourdieu confessed his fear of being taken as simply the French intellectual flavor of the month, one whose theory is used simply as grist for the American academy’s industrious mills of literary interpretation. He ultimately decided to send the following text to be read at the conference in his absence. It treats, with polite frankness, his worries about being misinterpreted through importation into the American theoretical field with its peculiar conception of French philosophy; Bourdieu’s paper situates these particular worries within a more general account of “allodoxic”distortions caused by the international travel of theory; but it also tries to prevent further misunderstanding by offering a brief contextualization of his theory and a brief summary of his method of analysis through fields. The translation of Bourdieu’s text was prepared by Loïc Wacquant, and is presented here with only minor adjustments.     

Reviews

Russell,Robert John, Murphy, Nancey and Peacocke, Arthur R. (eds) Chaos and Complexity: Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action
Tigue, John W. The Transformation of Consciousness in Myth: Integrating the Thought of Jung and Campbell     

Minds and Bodies: Human and Divine

Does God have a mind? Western theism has traditionally construed God as an intentional agent who acts on creation and in relation to humankind. God loves, punishes, and redeems. God's intentionality has traditionally been construed in analogy to human intentionality, which in turn has often presumed a supernatural dualism. Developments in cognitive science, however, render supernatural dualism suspect for explaining the human mind. How, then, can we speak of the mind of God? Borrowing from Daniel Dennett's intentional stance, I suggest that analogical reasoning regarding the mind of God be abandoned in favor of an ontologically agnostic approach that treats God as an intentional system. In this approach, God's purposive action is an explanatory feature of the believer's universe, a real pattern that informs our values and beliefs about the world and our place in it.     

Two Books for Teachers

Murphy, Nancey and Ellis, George F. R. On the Moral Nature of the Universe: Theology, Cosmology, and Ethics
Haught, John F. Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation     

Cultural orientation and psychological well-being in Chinese Americans

Examined cultural orientation in the domains of language proficiency, cultural activity, and social relationship, and its relationship with psychological well-being in a group of 143 Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Four indicators of psychological well-being were utilized, two assessing the experience of distress (depression level and negative affect) and two assessing positive well-being (positive affect and life satisfaction). Domain-specific cultural orientations were found to hold differential relationships with psychological well-being. For instance, bicultural activity orientation predicted the best psychological well-being (regardless as to how it was assessed), but socially separatist individuals experienced less negative affect than assimilated and bicultural respondents. Findings were discussed in the context of the multicultural setting of San Francisco. It is suggested that future research retain separate assessments of domain-specific cultural orientation, examine the contribution of the community's ethnic/cultural composition to its members' cultural orientations (i.e., address the role of person-environment fit) and study their impact on psychological well-being. The data reported here were collected as part of the author's doctoral dissertation. Ricardo F. Munoz and Guillermo Bernal guided and supported the implementation of this study; Sunwoo Lee assisted with the data analysis; and Edison J. Trickett and the anonymous reviewers offered helpful suggestions.     

General education,cultural diversity,and identity

The issue of this paper is cultural plurality as a problem for public, general education and for (personal) identity. In order to examine this question, one needs to be clear about the meaning of the concepts of general education, on the one hand, and cultural diversity on the other. In the first section, we will fix the meaning of these concepts. A conceptual distinction between cultural diversity and cultural pluralism will be introduced. In the second section, it will be argued that open pluralism can only be maintained if there is a basic common culture apart from the cultural diversity that pluralism affirms. Therefore, there is yet an indispensable role for general education in an open, pluralistic society. In the third section we will look at two metaphors that give an opposite significance to the relation between identity and diversity: the conversational metaphor and the food metaphor mishmash. The final section expands on the conversational metaphor by way of an exposition of Ricoeur's hermeneutics of the self. It supplies us with a promising concept of identity that is not in complete opposition to diversity.     

Culturally Sensitive AIDS Educational Videos for African American Audiences: Effects of Source, Message, Receiver, and Context

The importance of using culturally sensitive educational materials in HIV-related interventions with racial and ethnic minority groups is widely recognized. However, little empirical research has been conducted to assess the relative effectiveness of different techniques for creating culturally sensitive AIDS educational videos. Two field experiments with three samples of African American adults (N = 174, 173, and 143) were conducted to assess how source characteristics (race of communicator), message characteristics (multicultural message vs. culturally specific message), and audience characteristics (racial distrust and AIDS-related distrust) influence proximate (perceptions of the message's credibility and attractiveness) and distal (AIDS-related attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral intentions) output variables for AIDS educational videos. In Study 1, an AIDS video with a culturally specific message was rated as more credible, more attractive, and of higher quality than was a video with a multicultural message. The multicultural message was rated less favorably when delivered by a White announcer than when the announcer was Black. In Study 2, the same pattern was replicated with a second community sample and a campus-based sample. Study 2 also indicated that a multicultural message might be more effective if delivered in a culturally specific context, namely, after audience members watch a culturally specific video. Minimal changes were observed in distal outcome variables. It is argued that influencing proximate output variables is necessary, though not sufficient, for effecting long-term change in AIDS-related attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.     

Preparing the Way: A Qualitative Study of High-Achieving African American Males and the Role of the Family

Employed qualitative methods to examine the role of the family in the academic success of very high-achieving African American males. Findings revealed a complex tapestry of family processes and contexts involved in each youth's journey to outstanding academic achievement. Specifically, the combined importance of parental-determined academic engagement, strict discipline, nurturance, and community connectedness appeared to counteract potentially negative contextual influences of neighborhood, peers, schools, and society. The qualitative findings tell a multifaceted, rich, and compelling story of the pathways to academic success for Black males, and highlight the need for culture-specific and ecologically based conceptualization, research, and intervention approaches.     

RESPONSE TO CRITIQUES OF ETHICS IN AN AGE OF TECHNOLOGY

Abstract. Both Roger Shinn and Robert Stivers ask whether technology has a momentum of its own that is difficult if not impossible to control (“autonomous technology” or “technological inevitability”). I reply that the difficulty in controlling technology is a product of economic and political institutions (such as corporate lobbying and campaign contributions) rather than of any inherent characteristics of technology. Against Stivers's assertion that the ecosystem should be the center of value in environmental ethics, I defend the process view that all beings are valuable, but they are not equally valuable in their richness of experience or their contribution to the experience of others. I also consider his caveats about ambiguities in the concept of sustainability. Two questions raised by Mary Gerhart are taken up: the difficulties of interdisciplinary writing and the role of theological ethics in discussions of public policy. In dialogue with Frederick Ferre I explore the role of alternative visions of the good life as a source of social change. In the face of diminished concern about social justice and environmental sustainability among citizens and in Congress since the book was written, I express long-range hope, but not optimism about the short-term prospects for change.     

Cultural specificity of support sources,correlates and contexts: Three studies of African-American and Caucasian youth

Levels and correlates of parental support, peer support, partner support, and/or spiritual support among African American and Caucasian youth were examined in three contexts: adolescent pregnancy (Study 1), first year of college (Study 2), and adolescence and young adulthood (ages 15–29; Study 3). Partially consistent with a cultural specificity perspective, in different contexts different support sources were higher in level and/or more strongly related to adjustment for one ethnic group than the other. Among pregnant adolescents, levels of spiritual support were higher for African Americans than Caucasians; additionally, peer support was positively related to well-being only for African Americans whereas partner support was positively related to well-being only for Caucasians. Among college freshmen, family support was more strongly related to institutional and goal commitment for African Americans than Caucasians; conversely, peer support was more strongly related to institutional and goal commitment among Caucasians. Among 15 to 29-year-olds, levels of parental support and spiritual support were higher among African Americans than Caucasians; additionally, spiritual support was positively related to self-esteem for African Americans but not for Caucasians. Implications and limitations of the research are discussed. The third study was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant RO1 MH40963. We thank Monica Greene, Shea Lyda, Wendy Stevenson, and the many undergraduate students who contributed to the three research projects. We also acknowledge the very thoughtful and helpful comments of the anonymous reviewers and the editor, Edison Trickett.