Modern Regression Methods that can Substantially Increase Power and Provide a more Accurate Understanding of Associations

During the last half century, hundreds of papers published in statistical journals have documented general conditions where reliance on least squares regression and Pearson's correlation can result in missing even strong associations between variables. Moreover, highly misleading conclusions can be made, even when the sample size is large. There are, in fact, several fundamental concerns related to non‐normality, outliers, heteroscedasticity, and curvature that can result in missing a strong association. Simultaneously, a vast array of new methods has been derived for effectively dealing with these concerns. The paper (i) reviews why least squares regression and classic inferential methods can fail, (ii) provides an overview of the many modern strategies for dealing with known problems, including some recent advances, and (iii) illustrates that modern robust methods can make a practical difference in our understanding of data. Included are some general recommendations regarding how modern methods might be used. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Discussing Racial Justice in Light of 2016: Black Lives Matter,a Trump Presidency,and the Continued Struggle for Justice

The broad fields of ethical reflection on racialization, racial justice, black liberation theology, and queer theology of color must come to terms with the year 2016, which can be framed on one side with the Black Lives Matter movement, and on the other side with a presidential election cycle in which racism and racial justice played particularly salient roles. Against this backdrop, this book discussion looks at recent literature on racial justice asking three questions. How does historical consciousness shape contemporary ethical thought on racial justice? In what ways do the intersectionalities of gender and sexuality, immigration and transnationality, class, and contemporary culture present particular challenges and new possibilities? And how do the ethical frameworks of religious traditions contribute to the development of public theology for racial justice? The conclusion considers how religious ethics concerned with racial justice does harm or contributes to religiously grounded responses to racial injustice. Reflection on these questions points to the need for ongoing engagement with the black experience—broadly construed and within the context of multiple intersections—in the United States and globally in ethical analysis. However, this in turn makes particular and critical demands on how it is that we are to both teach and read religious ethics and political theology at our institutions, as well as in the churches.     

Black magic and respecting persons—Some perplexities

Black magic (henceforth BM) is acting in an attempt to harm human beings through supernatural means. Examples include the employment of spells, the use of special curses, the burning of objects related to the purported victim, and the use of pins with voodoo dolls. For the sake of simplicity, we shall focus on attempts to kill through BM. The moral attitude towards BM has not been, as far as we know, significantly discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy. Yet the topic brings up interesting questions and poses challenges, occasionally even reaching the level of paradoxes. Ideas of respecting persons, in particular, will be seen to be challenged by this form of magic. The notion of respecting persons will be treated here broadly and pluralistically. Indeed part of the interest in the discussion will be the unfolding of the diverse ways in which this term should be understood, and the contrasts between its various uses. Often, as we shall see, respect for persons and disrespect for them, in different senses, will co-exist, and the dilemma will be one where avoiding some forms of disrespect will involve us in disrespect in other senses.     

BETTERED WOMEN,CULTURAL MYTHS,AND CLINICAL INTERVENTIONS

No abstract available for this article.     

White Picket Fences,White Innocence

Focusing on the cultural implications of the relationship between white segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond and his biracial daughter Essie Mae Washington‐Williams, this essay explores national narratives of whiteness, femininity, morality, and the institutionalization of sexual violence against black women.     

Touching on Fetish Black Box—A Haptic Performance

Abstract

Touching on the haptic/tactile performance artwork A Haptic Performance, this article unveils the installation Fetish Black Box as the artist’s safe space of possibilities, to explore the field of haptic art. The installation is examined from the perspective of fetish theory as suggested by Hartmut Böhme, which emphasizes the roles of subject and object in recognizing the qualities of desire in order to facilitate coexistence in a future society. Kroneis’ performance-installation challenges the limits of what is possible in socially accepted modes of conduct and puts a more inclusive future way of living together into practice.     

Letters, Notes, & Comments

Comment by Aaron L. Mackler on "'Through Her I Too Shall Bear a Child': Birth Surrogates in Jewish Law" by Elie Spitz
Reply by Elie Kaplan Spitz
Research Note by G. Scott Davis     

Pan-Africanism and African-American Liberation in a Postmodern World: A Review Essay

This review essay explores Josiah Young's project of developing a liberatory Pan-Africanism that is attuned to cultural diversity and Victor Anderson's advocacy of postmodern cultural criticism in African-American religious thought. After situating African-American religious thought as a branch of Africana thought, the author examines these two religious thinkers' work as an effort to forge a position on African-American religious thought—including its relation to theology—in an age where even theory is treated as a god that is about to die. At the conclusion, secularism emerges as a religious project that normatively undergirds the methodological dimensions of these works.