Luther and Literacy

PMLA ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 91 (5) ◽  
pp. 816-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. G. Haile
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Change ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
The Individual

Luther studies have traditionally been confessionally oriented. Today, this author's significance is also secular, and it is most readily interpreted by disinterested literature teachers. Disputes about his writings radically increased European literacy rates. His songs and pamphlets engaged popular tradition in order to achieve broad, democratic appeal. Aside from the increase in readership after 1518, Luther as critic and interpreter brought about a more important qualitative change in literacy. In this way, he influenced writings of other lands and of later centuries. He treated the Bible as literature with great relevance to the individual life. Karl Holl and Heinrich Bornkamm give excellent accounts of his hermeneutics, but the literature student is most impressed by Luther's imaginative participation in the text. He took his contemporaries and countrymen into account, and their experiences, in order to achieve a meeting between their passions and those of the biblical authors.

Canons to the Left of Him: Brevard Childs, his Critics, and the Future of Old Testament Theology

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iain Provan
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Probable Origin ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

It is well known that the seeds from which the modern discipline of OT theology grew are already found in 17th and 18th century discussion of the relationship between Bible and Church, which tended to drive a wedge between the two, regarding canon in historical rather than theological terms; stressing the difference between what is transient and particular in the Bible and what is universal and of abiding significance; and placing the task of deciding which is which upon the shoulders of the individual reader rather than upon the church. Free investigation of the Bible, unfettered by church tradition and theology, was to be the way ahead. OT theology finds its roots more particularly in the 18th century discussion of the nature of and the relationship between Biblical Theology and Dogmatic Theology, and in particular in Gabler's classic theoreticalstatementof their nature and relationship. The first book which may strictly be called an OT theology appeared in 1796: an historical discussion of the ideas to be found in the OT, with an emphasis on their probable origin and the stages through which Hebrew religious thought had passed, compared and contrasted with the beliefs of other ancient peoples, and evaluated from the point of view of rationalistic religion. Here we find the unreserved acceptance of Gabler's principle that OT theology must in the first instance be a descriptive and historical discipline, freed from dogmatic constraints and resistant to the premature merging of OT and NT — a principle which in the succeeding century was accepted by writers across the whole theological spectrum, including those of orthodox and conservative inclination.

The dynamics of innovation: on the multiplicity of the new

1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helga Nowotny
Keyword(s):  
Science Policy ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
Relative Loss ◽  
The Individual

Innovation has become a leading slogan for world economies, politicians and science policy-makers alike. It is the driving force of Western consumer societies, which have come to expect the new to be replaced by the newest. However, in contrast to mere fads and fashions, the consequences of relentless innovation are real. They manifest themselves in changes in lifestyle, in the ways societies function and in profound changes in outlook and perception. This paper will ask how innovation became so central and which mechanisms sustain it in science and technology, art and individual life. One consequence to be further explored is the relative loss in importance of the individual creative act, with implications on how we view creativity, knowledge production and even the concept of the individual. Another question to be raised is that of the multiplicity of the new: despite the seeming diversity and multiplicity of option, is there also convergence or a process of synchronization at work?

The workshop and working-class writing

2018 ◽  
pp. 94-110
Author(s):  
Tom Woodin
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Social Experience ◽  
Bearing Witness ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
The Individual

The writing produced in workshops explored varied forms of expression including autobiography, short stories, dialect, drama, poetry and novels. Overall there were significant debates about the nature and meaning of working class writing and whether it had any distinctive features. Divisions between forms of writing were actively challenged and new forms of subjectivity and ways of representing experience were developed. However, there were also pressures to write within existing forms. New modes of expression could become tiring after a time when different approaches were required. Overall writing in the Fed was marked by the creative interpretation of experience and vernacular voice. It reveals tensions between bearing witness and creative interpretation and between representing a collective social experience and the individual life story.

scholarly journals Refugees, Identity, and the Limits to Inclusion: Revisiting Landlord-Stranger Reciprocity Relations in Contemporary Liberia

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 640-659
Author(s):  
Maarten Bedert
Keyword(s):  
Life Stories ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Individual Life ◽  
Sense Of Security ◽  
Reciprocity Relations ◽  
Local Patterns ◽  
Local Integration ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
The Individual

Abstract:Refugees in sub-Saharan Africa residing among host communities experience the need to articulate belonging in order to generate a greater sense of security. Based on the individual life stories of Ivorian refugees in Northeastern Liberia in 2011, Bedert finds that local patterns of integration between landlords and strangers are foregone by the bureaucratic identity of refugees as imposed by the international community. In addition, local integration is not self-evident, as it entails a degree of reciprocity and mutual recognition. In the eyes of landlords, strangers are evaluated based on what they can bring to the table.

Travel and Travelers

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Muldoon
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Canterbury Tales ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
China And India ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
English Society ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Village

There is a common belief that medieval men and women lived their lives within a narrow geographical and psychological space, the village and the neighboring fields for the most part. According to this opinion, it was not until the Renaissance and the voyages of Columbus and those who followed him that Europeans became aware of the wider world around them and shed the blinders that had constrained them for centuries. What makes this opinion so at odds with medieval reality is that one of the most famous and widely read pieces of medieval literature, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, deals with the travels of a group of medieval Christians who range from a crusading knight to farm laborers, individuals representing a cross section of the middling levels of 14th-century English society. Merchants, crusaders, missionaries, pilgrims, exiles, and others motivated by simple restless curiosity traveled around Europe, to the edges of the Christian world, and then all the way to China and India and, sailing westward, to North America. Travel and travel imagery also played an important role in Christian life. The Bible begins with the creation of the world, traces the course of God’s involvement with his people over time, and concludes with the end of the world, the ultimate goal of mankind as defined by the Creator. The life of the individual Christian is a pilgrimage within this context, the movement of the soul to union with God, a microcosm of this larger narrative. It is no coincidence that the most famous work of medieval literature, Dante’s Divine Comedy, was cast as a travel tale.

scholarly journals Doing Good or Avoiding Evil? An Explorative Study of Depositors’ Reasons for Choosing Social Banks in the Pre and Post Crisis Eras

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 10082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolas Höhnke
Keyword(s):  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Target Groups ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
Conventional Banks ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis is expected to be of great relevance for social banks’ growth of deposits. However, it is still unclear why depositors choose social banks in general, and how the global financial crisis has affected depositors’ choice of social banks. The present paper thus explores a comprehensive set of reasons for choosing social banks, the individual relevance of reasons, as well as differences before and after the global financial crisis. Data was collected through a survey of five social banks, interviews with nine industry experts, and an online survey with 108 social and 413 conventional depositors. Using content analysis, a multi-level system of reasons for choosing social banks was identified, which refers to the social banks’ “good” and conventional banks’ “evil” characteristics. Based on a frequency analysis of codings per category, reasons with potential superior relevance for depositors’ decision-making were explored. A comparison with reasons for choosing conventional banks imply that depositors’ reasons for choosing social banks differ from those for choosing conventional banks in general. The results also indicate that the global financial crisis might have helped social banks’ growth by attracting new customer target groups, who chose social banks because of conventional banks’ “evil” characteristics.

Divining Nuclear Intentions: A Review Essay

2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Potter ◽  
Gaukhar Mukhatzhanova
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The Political ◽  
Common Features ◽  
Great Relevance ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Level Of Analysis

Although projections of nuclear proliferation abound, they rarely are founded on empirical research or guided by theory. Even fewer studies are informed by a comparative perspective. The two books under review—The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy, by Jacques Hymans, and Nuclear Logics: Alternative Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, by Etel Solingen, are welcome exceptions to this general state of affairs, and represent the cutting edge of nonproliferation research. Both works challenge conventional conceptions of the sources of nuclear weapons decisions and offer new insights into why past predictions of rapid proliferation failed to materialize and why current prognoses about rampant proliferation are similarly flawed. While sharing a number of common features, including a focus on subsystemic determinants of national behavior, the books differ in their methodology, level of analysis, receptivity to multicausal explanations, and assumptions about decisionmaker rationality and the revolutionary nature of the decision. Where one author emphasizes the importance of the individual leader's national identity conception in determining a state's nuclear path, the other explains nuclear decisions primarily with regard to the political-economic orientation of the ruling coalition. Notwithstanding a tendency to overinterpret evidence, the books represent the best of contemporary social science research and provide compelling interpretations of nuclear proliferation dynamics of great relevance to scholars and policymakers alike.

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