From Halsey, New Jersey to Blakesville Brooklyn, New York, the streets pound the concrete with reflections of a night that Tariq will never forget. When his back's against the wall, Tariq witnesses the cold hands of deceit and betrayal confront trust and loyalty with a series of events that almost cost him everything-including his life! In the face of drugs, sex, violence and crime, everybody's a suspect in this gritty, raw tale of urban drama- and the suspense of Tariq's next move through each chapter, with each character is intense. Flashbacks of Tariq's past adds realistic elements of complexity along with plot twists of how street life can stir the echoes of the most prominent question-"Who can he trust?" And for Tariq, the answer is as serious as LIFE OR DEATH

"This book has been written for the artist, for the theologian, and for the philosopher, each of whom must be concerned with the question, "What does it mean to be human?" But at a deeper level, it is written for any reader who knows what it means to be fragmented, and who is willing to undertake a quest for wholeness in experiential and reflective terms." — from the Preface The Quest for Wholeness is a philosophic odyssey into humankind's feelings of fragmentation, and the search for unity born of those feelings. It blends the concreteness of art and religion with the discipline of philosophy to illuminate those places in experience and reflection where fragmentation is encountered and the meaning of wholeness is first discovered. Carl Vaught discusses the problems of fragmentation and unity, beginning with the aesthetic concreteness represented by the quest in Herman Melville's Moby Dick; moving through the religious dimension represented by the biblical stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses; passing on to the reflective discourse in Plato's Euthyphro; and ending in a confrontation with Hegel that unites the concrete particularity of religious and communal life with the dialectic of Socrates' normative reasoning. This book is written with the conviction that the professional philosopher should not address a merely professional audience, but the larger world as well, and that in the end he must come to terms with himself and with the most pressing questions that confront the human spirit.

These fifty-two spiritual reflections cover a variety of topics that will be of interest to the spiritually curious who want to know more about Christ, the Black Church, Urban America, and even, the late rapper, poet, and actor, Tupac Shakur. Some entries are autobiographical testimonies; others are short theological essays. Most offer the reader ways to apply biblical truth to life’s situations; and more than a few include a social critique of the worst elements of American culture, coupled with references to noteworthy people and events in African American history. Each entry will provide food for the mind, heart, and soul. The title of this book was inspired by the powerful metaphor depicted in Shakur’s famous poem about a rose that resiliently grows up above unyielding forces—forces meant to suppress its potential. These essays originally were crafted through the author’s weekly discipline of preparing spiritual reflections for publication in his congregation’s Sunday morning worship bulletin. What is presented here are expanded or modified versions of these weekly entries. Though none were, or are sermons, together, they are presented in the chronology and thematic focus that Pastor Bryant normally lifts up during the cycle of a year of preaching. The themes reflect those liturgical celebrations that are recognized in many African American mainline congregations from January to December: Epiphany, Black History Month, Lent, Easter, Mother’s Day, Pentecost, Father’s Day, Women’s Day, Ordinary Time, Youth Sunday, Stewardship Month, Senior’s Day, Friends and Family Sunday, Men’s Day, Advent, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Watch Night. It is the author’s hope that these pastoral essays, each one like a rose ascending and pushing upward, will exalt the beauty of Christ, the strength of faith, the power of the Word of God, and the fascinating story of what God has done and is doing in the world, especially through the lives of those who have been, in the words of the Negro Spiritual, “buked and scorned...and talked about as sure as you were born.”

This book is based on the assumption that the development of science has to be understood both as a social and as an intellectual process. The division between internal and external history, between history of ideas and sociology of science, has been harmful not only to our understanding of scientific rationality but also to our understanding of the social processes of scientific development. Just as philosophy of science must be informed by its history, so also must sociology of science be both historically and philosophically informed. Proceeding on this assumption, I examine in detail the contents of linguistic ideas and the changes they underwent, as well as the institutional processes of disciplinary development and school formation. The development of linguistics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has provided me with a convenient locus for a study of the processes of cognitive change and continuity in the context of modern academically institutionalized science. This book examines first the idea system and the institutionalization of historical and comparative linguistics in the first half of the nineteenth century, and then focusses on the for mation and development of three schools of thought: the Neogrammarians, the Neo-Idealists, and the Geneva School of Ferdinand de Saussure.

Collaborative research embraces a multiplicity of practices in which social actors are invited to participate in the research process as co-producers of knowledge. But what is actually meant by “co-production” in collaborative research? Knowledge and Power in Collaborative Research presents a range of critical, reflexive strategies for understanding and tackling the challenges emanating from the tensions that arise in the meeting between different participants, knowledge forms and knowledge interests. The chapters anchor discussion of ethical, epistemological and methodological questions in sustained empirical analyses of cases of collaborative knowledge production. The book covers diverse theoretical approaches such as dialogic communication theory, actor network theory, poststructuralist writing as inquiry, institutional ethnography, dialogic action research, and pragmatic action research. The empirical cases span a broad spectrum of empirical fields of social practice: health services, organisational change, research, science communication, environmental communication in intermediary NGOs, participatory governance in relation to urban planning, and digital communication and virtual worlds.

This volume explores dynamic conversations through history between individuals and communities over questions about religion and state. Divided into two sections, our authors begin with considerations on the separation of religion and state, as well as Roger Williams’ concept of religious freedom. Authors in the first half consider nuanced debates centered on emerging narratives, with particular emphasis on Native America, Early Americans, and experiences in American immigration after Independence. The first half of the volume examines voices in American History as they publicly engage with notions of secular ideology. Discussions then shift as the volume broadens to world perspectives on religion-state relations. Authors consider critical questions of nation, religious identity and transnational narratives. The intent of this volume is to privilege new narratives about religion-state relations. Decentering discussions away from national narratives allows for emerging voices at the individual and community levels. This volume offers readers new openings through which to understand critical but overlooked interactions between individuals and groups of people with the state over questions about religion.