In A New Moral Vision, Andrea L. Turpin explores how the entrance of women into U.S. colleges and universities shaped changing ideas about the moral and religious purposes of higher education in unexpected ways, and in turn profoundly shaped American culture. In the decades before the Civil War, evangelical Protestantism provided the main impetus for opening the highest levels of American education to women. Between the Civil War and World War I, however, shifting theological beliefs, a growing cultural pluralism, and a new emphasis on university research led educators to reevaluate how colleges should inculcate an ethical outlook in students—just as the proportion of female collegians swelled. In this environment, Turpin argues, educational leaders articulated a new moral vision for their institutions by positioning them within the new landscape of competing men's, women's, and coeducational colleges and universities. In place of fostering evangelical conversion, religiously liberal educators sought to foster in students a surprisingly more gendered ideal of character and service than had earlier evangelical educators. Because of this moral reorientation, the widespread entrance of women into higher education did not shift the social order in as egalitarian a direction as we might expect. Instead, college graduates—who formed a disproportionate number of the leaders and reformers of the Progressive Era—contributed to the creation of separate male and female cultures within Progressive Era public life and beyond. Drawing on extensive archival research at ten trend-setting men's, women's, and coeducational colleges and universities, A New Moral Vision illuminates the historical intersection of gender ideals, religious beliefs, educational theories, and social change in ways that offer insight into the nature—and cultural consequences—of the moral messages communicated by institutions of higher education today.

A leading expert in New Testament ethics discovers in the biblical witness a unified ethical vision -- centered in the themes of community, cross and new creation -- that has profound relevance in today's world. Richard Hays shows how the New Testament provides moral guidance on the most troubling ethical issues of our time, including violence, divorce, homosexuality and abortion. "Hays' passionately written book, with its bold agenda, has neither peer nor rival." --Leander E. Keck, Winkley Professor of Biblical Theology, Yale Divinity School "There are few people I would rather read for the actual exposition of the New Testament than Richard Hays. This book is filled with wonderful readings that not only inform us about how to think better about the so-called 'problem of the relation between the New Testament and ethics' but, even more, speak of how our lives should be lived in the light of Christ's cross. -Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Studies, Duke University Divinity School "Richard Hays has succeeded brilliantly in bringing New Testament studies, contemporary theology, and ethics into a deeply reflective conversation... Hays' point is that the New Testament norms the Christian life, and, with the help of imagination and metaphor, can address the moral conflicts of our time." --Ellen T. Charry, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University "This book isn't just a breath of fresh air. It's a hurricane, blowing away the fog of half-understood pseudo-morality and fashionable compromise, and revealing instead the early Christian vision of true humanness and genuine holiness. If this isn't a book for our time, I don't know what is." --N. T. Wright, author of The New Testament and the People of God

On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln gave his Second Inaugural Address, the final great speech of his three- decades public career. Delivered a little more than a month before the end of the Civil War and forty-one days before he was assassinated, the speech reveals Lincoln coming to terms with vital moral and political issues with which he had grappled during his political life. This book traces how the speech addresses three critical issues that obsessed him: slavery, race, and religion. Although in early life Lincoln developed a personal distaste for slavery, he never embraced the abolitionist cause. Before his presidency, he endorsed a "middle position" on slavery, arguing that it could remain legal in the South where it was entrenched, but not be allowed to spread to new territories. On the matter of race Lincoln was a man shaped by the prejudices of his time and place. Before the Civil War he advocated no civil rights for blacks and often asserted that whites should hold a superior position in American society. In religious perspective Lincoln was a skeptic, even accused by one political opponent of being an infidel. But during the political turbulence of the 1850s and during Lincoln's presidency, his positions on these three burning issues shifted dramatically. The profound changes in Lincoln's thinking are evident in the Second Inaugural Address, in which he condemns slavery as a grievous national sin that prompted a just God to deliver upon the United States a fierce punishment in the form of a devastating civil war. This book argues that the Second Inaugural Address was Lincoln's resolution of the moral and political issues of his time and is the key document in Lincoln's entire literary canon. James Tackach, a professor of English at Roger Williams University, is the editor of Slave Narratives and The Battle of Gettysburg and the author of books for young adults, including The Trial of John Brown: Radical Abolitionist and The Emancipation Proclamation: Abolishing Slavery in the South.

Pangle reexamines the moral philosophy of the Founding Fathers and finds that at the heart of the Framers' republicanism was a dramatically new vision of civic virtue, religious faith, and intellectual life, rooted in an unprecendented commitment to private and economic liberties, and that this commitment represented a departure from both the classical and biblical traditions. He challenges those who explain 18th century political thought exclusively in terms of historical circumstances, Calvinistic faith, or economic and social ideology. He develops a new interpretation of John Locke's moral and political philosophy, arguing that Locke's greatest political and rhetorical achievement was in transforming the God of the Bible into the God of reason and nature; and shows Locke's influence on the Framers' thought. ISBN 0-226-64540-1: $22.50.

From the Driller Killer - a victim of the original video nasty' panic - to Bad Lieutenant, Ferrara's films have attracted both controversy for their extreme subject matter and admiration for their fine acting: Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken, Madonna, Lili Taylor and Willem Dafoe all gave their finest performances under Ferrara's direction. Now Brad Stevens has subjected Ferrara's output to exhaustive analysis and uncovers a tender heart beating beneath the excessive imagery.'

Moral Thinking is critical of mainstream academic ethics for being pretty nearly stuck on Kant and Mill, for neglecting nonviolence (Gandhi and King), for nearly neglecting the women's movement (it is not yet central to most ethics texts and courses), for largely neglecting the anti-racism movement (also marginal in academic ethics), and for almost totally neglecting the anti-imperialism movement. Moral Vision suggests an integrated approach that includes these often-neglected elements and also recognizes aesthetic and experiential dimensions of ethical reflection. This book will be of interest to anyone wondering what philosophy may contribute to our contemporary struggle with conflicting values and value collisions, personal as well as cultural.