We offer an undergraduate degree in Religion, Philosophy & Ethics (RPE) , and an online MA in Philosophy & Religious Thought.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Call me Dr X?
Or maybe not.
I am kind of used to 'You' and 'Dave' - but the comments via the link really vary: let me quote a couple:
Maybe I’m just cripplingly old-fashioned, but I cringe when I see some of my colleagues insist on having their undergraduate students call them by their first names.
and
I find anything other than first-name address really awkward, but I think British students tend to gravitate to this as the norm anyway. American visitors on JYA programs tend to be more formal, and even sometimes address me as “sir”, which feels very weird indeed
(our visiting American [BCA] students sometimes do this - I rather like the implication of respect - but they soon learn....]
and
I’m struck by the number saying they use last name only (if I read it right). In direct address, I find that exceptionally rude, unless the person using it is so close to me that I can take it as jocular. The only situation where I regard it as normal is among school-age boys.
Not sure it ever really feels awkward these days? If I refer to a colleague in a class - I am sure I use their first name. As in: don't ask me, but am sure Roy will know.....
Need a break?
Philosophy News reports that: Stanford researchers find that the “need” for study breaks has less to do with our biology and more to do with our beliefs. "If you think of willpower as something that's biologically limited, you're more likely to be tired when you perform a difficult task," said Veronika Job, the paper's lead author. "But if you think of willpower as something that is not easily depleted, you can go on and on." Of course if the mind just is the brain, then the distinction between biologically needing a break and believing that you need one becomes a false distinction. Isn't it?
Full story at http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/october/willpower-resource-study-101410.html
Thursday, December 09, 2010
d.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Coffins in Ghana
As http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-11879532 reports - a new exhibition of these has just opened in London at the Jack Bell gallery...
Thought this might interest some RPE students / blog readers!
d.
Friday, December 03, 2010
FCH Film Society
Monday, November 29, 2010
Lolcat Bible Translation Project
The peculiar text-msg influenced speech, and an emergent set of stock phrases (based on specific well-known lolcat images from http://icanhascheezburger.com/ - the main lolcat site), make lolcats seem rather intriguing anyway - but how to do the Bible? First have a Theistic notion (Ceiling Cat) - and go for it:
Boreded Ceiling Cat makinkgz Urf n stuffs
See the whole project at:
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=1_Corinthians_1 - they have done loads of work on this...
Esp like: http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Ecclesiastes
But: do the novelty translations reveal new meanings? Anything beyond the fun here?
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Philosophy at Play
One of the key aims is to promote an event on the philosphical aspects of play - details of that are at :
http://philosophyatplay.blogspot.com/p/philosophy-at-play-conference-details.html
Cheers,
Dave
Monday, November 15, 2010
Gloucestershire Philosophical Society Talk: Heidegger
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Christmas/Religion (not actually) banned from Stamps...
You can tell Christmas is coming - as I have seem my first 'Christmas banned by political correctness' story: even if it turns out to be wholly false...
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Death of the Emperor
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
New for Christmas: Religion?
Monday, October 25, 2010
The Athlete in a Future of Sport and Technology
Thursday, October 21, 2010
RPE208 Day-Trip to Oxford
For students on the Indian Religions module:
The plan...
We go to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford ( http://www.ashmolean.org/ ) on Friday November 5th.
We will meet on the museum steps, at 12:45.
You can get the bus from Cheltenham – the Swanbrook 853 Service leaves at 11am from Chelt (Royal Wells Bus Station) and gets in around 12.30.
It leaves Oxford to return at 6pm (the Museum shuts at 6 anyway) - from St Giles (Taylorian Institute) - where it drops off on the way in.... (near Ashmolean) Back to Chelt 7:35pm.
details: http://www.swanbrook.co.uk/busServicesOxford
A day return costs £10. The museum is free.
A couple of hours in the museum should leave you with time to explore Oxford / shop / eat...
You can of course drive – but I would advise using the park and ride – as Oxford seems to have no public parking left...
Students not on this module can come, but need to let me know..
Cheers,
Dave
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Problem of Evil DVD for schools
Plato and Love
Wed. Nov. 10th 7.30.p.m. FCH Room HC203. Dr.Angie Hobbs, Associate Professor, University of Warwick. 'Plato and Love'.
Dr. Hobbs is one of the country's leading classical philosophers, and has become the U.K's first Senior Fellow in the Public Understanding of Philosophy.
Meeting re Field Trip to Spain - room/time/etc
Thursday 14th October at 12 noon, HC201 (FCH)
if you cannot make the meeting - just send me an email - dwebster@glos.ac.uk - and I will register your desire to come on the trip...
http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2010/04/rpe136-cordoba-trip-2010.html
http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2009/03/cordoba-field-trip.html
Sunday, October 10, 2010
There is no God
Some of you might have heard of the recent brouhaha surrounding Stephen Hawking's announcement that we don't need God any more. I am always surprised how what is taken to be novel and revolutionary has in fact been said before, and countless times before. Didn't Laplace once reply to Napoleon, many years ago, that God was a hypothesis that we no longer required? Has it taken this long to be heard by our newspapers?
Friday, October 08, 2010
Studying Religion, Philosophy & Ethics at University
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
A J Ayer on YouTube
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Ayodhya Decision...
A court in India has said that a disputed holy site in Ayodhya should be split between Hindus and Muslims, lawyers for the Hindu petitioners say.
However in a majority verdict, judges gave control of the main disputed section, where a mosque was torn down in 1992, to Hindus, lawyers said.
Other parts of the site will be controlled by Muslims and a Hindu sect.
You can read the Guardian's 10-year-ago feature on this - with some helpful background, at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/28/ayodhya-mosque-india-guardian-report
Also see: http://gu.com/p/2k36h
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
RPE Lecturers in Turin
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Examined Life
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Welcome!
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Philosophy in the city (and village)
Mocking?
I have reproduced the image here: is this really offensive?
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Flickr updates
Thursday, August 05, 2010
The Politics of Health Care
I read this article a few weeks ago now from the New Yorker and was both moved and impressed by it. Its content is very powerful, and if you are disturbed by stories of the dying, then I wouldn't suggest you read it, but if you do have the courage and the time (it isn't short), then I would really recommend you do.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Bullfighting banned in Catalonia...
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Philosophy Society - July
Shelley
Metal Madnness...
8 to 10 November 2010
Prague, Czech Republic
Wish I could go...
Would like to do something on NWOBHM, but not sure there's an audience for my paper on Tygers of Pan Tang...
See http://r-p-e.blogspot.com/2007/11/philosophy-and-popular-culture.html
for more on Philosophy and Popular Culture
d.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Exams and Cheating
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Severn Forum Annual Lecture
Emeritus Professor of Social Theology,
University of Birmingham
Main Lecture Theatre, The Park Campus,
University of Gloucestershire
£3 to the public. Free to members and students
Contact: Patricia Downes ( pdownes@glos.ac.uk )
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
The Philosophy Society
I have argued in a previous paper (Ryall 2008) that sport seems to provide an area whereby the nature of being is intensely illuminated; for we are always aware that it is something that is voluntarily engaged in and has no meaning beyond that which we give it. In addition to this, the nature of sport provides a stage upon which the free choices we make are wholly visible both to ourselves and to others, and the emotions of pride and shame, contempt and respect (of varying degrees) are common. Such emotions, according to Sartre, demonstrate the on-going battle between ourselves and others to be authentic and in good-faith, and not fall foul of self deception nor the reduction of oneself by another to a mere object. As such, this paper will attempt to apply some existentialist (mainly Sartrean)ideas regarding authenticity and good-faith to the world of sport, and will consider whether Sartre’s notion of ‘the look’ exposes the problem of these emotions and the way we view ourselves and others in sport.
For my previous, 2008, paper on the nature of being a substitute in sport see: HERE
For an earlier draft of the paper being presented see: HERE
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Research Seminar - Metaphysical Sporting Value
Research Seminar (all welcome)
Tuesday 1st June
11am-12pm
Oxstalls TC217
Metaphysical Sporting Value – Carl Thomen
Why do you play sport? Is it to compete and to win, or is there something more to it than that? Did you know that sport can:
(i) Be a source of self-affirmation?[1]
(ii) Reveal the extent to which humans can truly be said to be free and responsible?[2]
(iii) Be beautiful in its promotion of a greater harmony and balance in one’s life?[3]
[1] There will be no mention here of the type of self-motivating confidence speak you would see on a Tony Robbins Show (“You can do it! You are a special little flower ready to bloom blah blah blah”). This I promise.
2 Woohoo! You are not a slave to the deterministic force of physical causality! (This thought may cause you to want to get drunk in celebration. I am willing to overlook this cause and effect relationship)
3 No Buddhist monks (and probably only three of four hippies) will be hurt during this presentation
[1] There will be no mention here of the type of self-motivating confidence speak you would see on a Tony Robbins Show (“You can do it! You are a special little flower ready to bloom blah blah blah”). This I promise.
[2] Woohoo! You are not a slave to the deterministic force of physical causality! (This thought may cause you to want to get drunk in celebration. I am willing to overlook this cause and effect relationship)
[3] No Buddhist monks (and probably only three of four hippies) will be hurt during this presentation.
Friday, May 07, 2010
Gloucestershire Philosophical Society:
Wednesday, May 12th. 2010, 7.30.p.m. FCH, Room HC203.
(Cheltenham, University of Gloucestershire, Swindon Road)
Dr. Jane Monkton-Smith, University of Gloucestershire, will talk on:
"Narratives of Sex, Death and Gender".
Based on her recently published book, Jane applies the methodology of French philosopher Michel Foucault to better understand the practices of rape and murder.
All welcome.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Philosophy Society - May Meeting
Here is a description of the film:
"Code Inconnu takes the unknown and transforms it into the familiar. Just as in reality the characters exist and their personal story lines remain unfinished. In life we exist without permanent structure and our lives are only completed by death. Michael Haneke is telling us that 117 minutes can never encompass an entire life."
Let me know if you need some help finding the film. My email is: s0510427@connect.glos.ac.uk
Shelley
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Philosopher's Football Match
Friday, April 16, 2010
Philosophy for Children
PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN, or P4C for short, was the title Professor Matthew Lipman gave to his project of using the discipline of philosophy as a resource to help children become more intellectually energetic, curious, critical, creative and reasonable. He conceived the project in the late sixties when he was teaching philosophy at Columbia University, and, today, it is a worldwide educational movement. He decided to devote himself to making the resources of philosophy accessible to children through thoughtful dialogue stimulated by the sharing of literature. He was inspired by writers of dialogues such as Plato and Diderot (and by the Charlie Brown cartoons!) to create philosophical dialogues in which reasoning, questioning and conceptual exploration were revealed to be important in the lives of a group of pupils, friends and teachers. Now Philosophy for Children is practiced in more than thirty countries around the world using a wide variety of materials to instigate questioning and inquiry.
Though the materials vary, the basic model of the community of inquiry and the methods Lipman introduced have remained remarkably robust and popular with teachers and pupils alike.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Trouble in the Cordoba Mezquita
The report has the Catholic church noting, as it is keen to in the leaflet you get on entry, the pre-Muslim religious use of the site - although that building was on much smaller scale than the huge Mosque that was to come.
The Bishop repeated the standard line, which is given every year when Muslims write and ask to be allowed to pray in the building: "The shared use of the cathedral by Catholics and Muslims would not contribute to the peaceful coexistence of the two beliefs"
Thursday, April 01, 2010
RPE136 - Cordoba Trip 2010
After a more eventful journey than planned, we arrived at Los Patios once more – for a busier year than last time. We began with our usual orientation tour, and the Museo Vivo de Al-Andalus / Torre de la Calahorra. The wireless-headphone tour ends on the roof, and with a view of the Roman Bridge and Mezquita. After this we headed off for the walk to the Archaeological Museum – with its Roman and other materials – maybe by next year the English-language labels will finally be in place... The day ended with a quiet drink in the Plaza Corredera.
Friday
This was the day when we met up with Imma (our tour guide from last year), who showed us round the Jewish Quarter (and the only remaining synagogue) , the Old Town and Mezquita – with a commentary to contrast with the info you get from the Catholic Church leaflet that you are give on entry. In many ways, the Mezquita is the highlight of the trip – and at the end of the tour, students are left in the building to stay as long as they wish.
Saturday
We spent the morning at the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos in Cordoba – which has a history of the site, as well as spectacular formal gardens.
The afternoon was spent wandering the Old Town and (in an addition to last year) at the Museum of Jewish life ( http://www.casadesefarad.es/in/entrada.html ).
Sunday was a day off, and the staff investigated the Madinat al-Zahra site – as a possible addition for next year. This ruined Islamic city has a new museum, which we checked out – and which is very hi-tech, but also gives a fantastic introduction to the region.
Students explored – one rented a bike (we ran into him at Madinat al-Zahra), some went walking, and others pottered about the Old Town (there are loads of museums in Cordoba – so lots to explore).
Monday
This was the day-trip to Seville. After an early walk, the Avant train sped us to Seville.
Tuesday
Travel home... Down to Malaga by train this time – but all went smoothly – and we now just await the student assessments!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Philosophy Society
Friday, March 19, 2010
Religion, Philosophy and Ethics Research Seminar
Friday, February 19, 2010
Philosophers in the Movies
And see http://maxim-lebedev.livejournal.com/61855.html for yet more comments...
RPE Research Seminar on Thursday 25th February
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sufism in Britain - Conference
Tiered Lecture Theatre, FCH Campus,
Swindon Road, Cheltenham
Sufism is a movement in Islam that has contributed immensely to its expansion, especially in the non-Arab regions of the world. The mystical movement in Islam is noted for its diversity, its eclecticism, and its dynamism. This conference explores the nature of Sufism in the United Kingdom and its relationship with other Islamic strands and ideologies in this country.
Programme
10.15 – 10.45 Registration and Coffee
10.45 Welcome: Prof. Patricia Broadfoot, Vice Chancellor/Dr Shelley Saguaro, Head of Department of Humanities, University of Gloucestershire
10.50 – 11.35 Rt. Rev. Prof. Kenneth Cragg (Oxford), Factors in the Development of Islamic Sufism
11.40 – 12.25 Dr Muhammad Seddon (University of Chester)
Shaykh Abdullah Ali al-Hakimi, The Alawi Tariqah and British Yemenis
12.35 – 1.10 Sadek Hamid (University of Chester)),
The Rise of the Traditional Islam Scene; Neo-Sufism and British Muslim Youth
1.10 – 2.00 Lunch
2.05 – 2.50 Sariya Contractor (University of Gloucestershire)
Online Sufism – Young British Muslims, their internet ‘selves’ and virtual reality
OR
Dr Ian Draper (University of Birmingham)
Cyberspace as Tariqua space - Wird (Qur’anic verses) and Wazifas (Divine names and attributes) Online among the Haqqaniyya and the Qadiri-Budshishiyaa Sufi Orders.
3.00 – 3.45 Dr Theodore Gabriel (University of Gloucestershire)
Expressions of Spirituality in Islam - unity and diversity in Sufi thought and practice
3.45 Vote of thanks: Dr Theodore Gabriel / Tea
FEES: £16 (£8 for students and the unwaged; £5.00 for students of University of Gloucestershire). Tea/Coffee will be served morning and afternoon.
A sandwich lunch (to include sandwiches, crisps, cookies, fruit and coffee/tea) will be available if ordered when your booking is made. The cost for this is £5.50 and should be sent with your conference fee.
Speakers
Rt. Rev. Prof. Kenneth Cragg is Assistant Bishop of Oxford, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies, and an author who has published prodigiously on the theme of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations. He is the author of The Call of the Minaret; The Wisdom of the Sufis, Counsels in Contemporary Islam, and Muhammad and the Christian among numerous other volumes.
Dr Mohammad Siddique Seddon obtained his PhD in Religious Studies at University of Lancaster and is currently Director of the Centre for Applied Muslim Youth and Community Studies (CAMYCS), Lecturer in Muslim Studies and Honorary Research Fellow at the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Chester. His research interests are historical and contemporary issues relating to Islam and British Muslim communities. He has published a number of related works and books including, British Muslims: Loyalty and Belonging, (2003), British Muslims, Between Assimilation and Segregation: Historical, Legal & Social Realities, (2004), and, The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Islam (2009).
Sadek Hamid is Lecturer in Muslim Youth work in the University of Chester. His research interests are in young British Muslims and religious activism, exploring the contemporary impact of different Islamic youth movements who were at the forefront of efforts to promote religious revival upon second and third generation Muslim communities in the UK He is the author of “Islamic Political Radical Radicalism in Britain: The Case of Hizb-ut Tahrir” in Islamic Political Radicalism: A European Comparative, Edinburgh University Press, 2007. and "The Attraction of Authentic Islam: Salafism and British Muslim Youth” in Salafism: A Global Movement, Hurst. London. 2009.
Sariya Contractor is a doctoral student in the Department of Education, University of Gloucestershire, and author of Is humility the essence of greatness? an article on Prophet Muhammad, and Hijab Empowering Women. Her doctoral research is on ‘Muslim Women in Multicultural Britain: Exploring the Inter-play between Islam, Ethnic Culture and Integration’.
Dr Ian Draper is lecturer in Islam and Contemporary Religion at University of Birmingham. He has worked as a youth and community worker among Muslim communities in Birmingham and as principal researcher in a project on transnational Sufism. His research interests are in Sufism in cyber space and the use of talismans among Sufi pirs in the United Kingdom. He is the author of “Transnational Sufism: the Haqqaniyya” in Sufism in the West (London, 2006) and “From Celts to Kaaba: Sufism in Glastonbury' in Living Sufism in Europe and North America (London: Curzon RKP, 2004)
Dr Theodore Gabriel is an Honorary Research Fellow in Religious Studies in the Department of Humanities at the University of Goucestershire and was formerly Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education. He is the author of numerous volumes on Islam, the most recent being Christian Citizens in an Islamic State: The Pakistan Experience. He is Co-Editor of the forthcoming volume of essays Islam and the Veil, Continuum Books.
To attend, please contact:
Mrs P Downes, Department of Humanities, University of Gloucestershire
Francis Close Hall, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, GL50 4AZ
Enquiries: Telephone: 01242 714570 Fax: 01242 714826
Email: pdownes@glos.ac.uk or tgabriel@glos.ac.uk
Or book on line (Events) at www.ecommercegateway.co.uk/glos/store/