Greenscreen teaching: Institutional instability and classroom innovation

“Greenscreen Teaching” explores how the stresses of institutional and social change impact teaching and learning, and the creative resourcefulness born out of instability. In precarious institutions and social contexts, relevant outcomes for theological learning include developing attentiveness, robust moral discernment, and courageous speech seasoned by maturing convictions and pastoral sensitivities. I utilize greenscreen acting as a suggestive metaphor for describing four creative teaching strategies targeting these outcomes. Subsections gather insights from:

• Etymology of disaster‐related words: Capitalize on the moment and “go big.”
• Creative method: Improvise and keep it sharp.
• Ritual theory: Creatively repurpose familiar but underutilized traditions.
• Service learning: Widen the networks of community connection.

Each subsection also revisits moments and learning activities from a graduate course in feminist theology. Navigating constant transition impacts every aspect of the classroom. Nevertheless, a teaching scholar can resource this precariousness as creative agency for voice, solidarity, and mutual learning.     

Was Il’enkov an Aesthetician?

E. V. Il’enkov proceeded from the classical philosophical notion of Beauty considered in organic unity with Truth and Good. Following Marx, he regarded the sense of Beauty, the supreme mental feeling, as a product of history. Il’enkov insisted on the universal character of this feeling, for its basis is an activity of imagination which also lies at the root of any creative work. His criticism of modern art rested on analysis of the process of disintegration of personality, its capabilities within industrial civilisation to break the natural tie between Truth, Good and Beauty.     

想象的真理--论想象与真理的关系

无论再现论还是表现论的文艺观念,都肯定文艺活动的想象性质,并试图在此基础上理解文艺活动的区别特征。而这也同时产生了论证想象活动的真理性的要求,只不过在西方形而上学思想传统和符合论真理观念的限制下,对想象理解还包含着许多内在的困难。本文试图说明这些困难,并指出由西方现当代人文主义哲学所提供的解决问题的可能方向。     

社会经济不平等对个体生命史策略的影响——国家发展水平的调节作用

经济不平等不仅是经济问题,也会对个体心理行为产生诸多影响。前人认为,经济不平等会强化个体阶层提升意愿。结合生命史理论,研究提出高不平等将使个体偏好后代质量而非数量,以实现阶层提升,且这一现象在高发展水平国家中更为明显。基于开源数据,通过国家/个人两个水平上的分析发现,在高发展水平国家,经济不平等降低了国家生育率,并使个体更关切后代教育。研究结果可为理解特定经济环境下的个体心理和行为提供参考。     

Reflections on the Process of Creating Paintings: Reclaiming the Sacred and the Future in a World That Seems to Be Dying

In this paper, I want to reflect on the process involved in being a pastoral theologian who is also a painter and creative artist. I hope that reflecting on the process of creating paintings might be helpful for thinking about God and God's role as Creator with the whole created order. I will leave the reader to make the specific connections.     

Narrative imagination and taking the perspective of others

Narrative imagination, as MarthaNussbaum (1996) discusses it, is ``the abilityto be an intelligent reader of another person'sstory', an ability tied to being a democraticand cultivated world citizen, one whounderstands the lives of others. Narrativeimagination does not only need knowledge andlogical reasoning but also love and compassion.This article argues that in order to be agenuine tool for democracy, narrativeimagination and consciously taking theperspective of others has to be based on anunderstanding of humans as basicallypluralistic, as homines aperti. Criticalexamination and reflection should be broughtcloser to the lives we live and confront ourhabits and implicit values in order tocultivate us as humans so that we are genuinelyaffected and touched.     

Technology and Human Becoming

Technology is a mirror that reflects human nature and intentions: (1) we want certain things done and we want tools to do those things; (2) we are finite, frail, and mortal; (3) we create technology in order to bring alternative worlds into being; (4) we do not know why we create or what values should guide us. Imagination is central to technology. Human nature and human freedom are brought into focus when we reflect on the central role of imagination in technology.     

Development and Validation of a Short Health Behaviors Index for Use with Low Socioeconomic Status (SES) Older Adults

This study reports on the development and validation of a health behavior index in predominantly low socioeconomic status (SES) older adults. In order to develop and validate the index for use in low SES older adults, the 24-item Health and Human Services HealthStyle Self-Test was used for item generation. It was reduced to a relatively brief instrument, the Short HealthStyle (SHS) Index with 13 items that measures four major content areas of lifestyle behaviors among low SES older adults. The SHS Index was administered to a sample of 350 low SES older individuals. Principal component model factor analysis indicated a four-factor structure. Items loading on the first factor appeared to assess fitness and leisure activities, whereas those loading on the second and third factor assessed nutrition practices and stress control, respectively. A fourth factor assessed drinking/eating behaviors. Discriminant validity of the SHS was confirmed using the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, and other health measures that indicated distinct constructs. Internal consistency for the SHS was .72 using Chronbach's alpha. Overall, the SHS Index displayed good psychometric properties in this sample, suggesting the appropriateness of using it to measure selected health behaviors with low SES older adults.