Call for Papers: “The Spirituality of the Heidelberg Catechism”

June 21-22th 2013, an international conference will take place in Apeldoorn on The Spirituality of the Heidelberg Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism has a characteristic spirituality, which will be explored from historical and theological perspectives, as part of memoration of the 450th anniversary of this Catechism.

Call for Papers: “Scientiae 2013: Disciplines of Knowing in the Early Modern World”

University of Warwick (UK), 18th-20th April 2013. The premise of this conference is that the Scientific Revolution can be considered an interdisciplinary process involving Biblical exegesis, art theory, and literary humanism, as well as natural philosophy, alchemy, occult practices, and trade knowledge. As such, Scientiae will bring together scholars working in the diverse fields associated with early modern knowledge, all taking early-modern science as mon intellectual object. The conference will offer a forum both for the sharing of research and the sparking of new interdisciplinary investigations, and is open to scholars of all levels.

Article: “Nature is Prior to Us: Applying Catholic Social Thought and Anabaptist-Mennonite Theology to the Ethics of Stakeholder Prioritization for the Natural Environment”

Cathy A. Driscoll, Elden Wiebe, and Bruno Dyck, Journal of Religion & Business Ethics

We develop a spiritual and ethical based understanding of stakeholder theory that treats the natural environment as a primary stakeholder. We consider how Catholic social thought and Anabaptist-Mennonite theology can be seen as important resources for stakeholder thought and management, especially as they pertain to the natural environment as a primary stakeholder. We provide a discussion and implications for academics and practitioners in terms of dignifying both ecology and humanity, and creating solidarity between them. We also discuss how managers can e more attuned to the environment as a primary stakeholder through the development of relationships with the land munities.

Book Review: “Remedying Overstated Assumptions about Governance in the Developing World”

Thomas Risse, ed. Governance without a State? Policies and Politics in Areas of Limited Statehood. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Reviewed by Bridget Coggins (Dartmouth College)

Today, effective governance is not the sole provenance of the state. Indeed, it may never have been. From governments unable to provide a stable macroeconomic environment to those that fail to provide the most rudimentary human security to those whose healthcare systems are supplemented by foreign nongovernmental organizations during natural disasters, most people live in areas of “limited statehood” where the state’s domestic sovereignty is circumscribed in some way (pp. 4-5).

Fellowship: “Robert M. Kingdon Fellowship”

Robert M. Kingdon Fellowship, Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through a generous bequest from Robert M. Kingdon, a distinguished historian of early modern Europe, the Institute offers 1-2 external, academic-year Kingdon Fellowship(s) to scholars outside the University of Wisconsin-Madison working in historical, literary, and philosophical studies of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and its role in society from antiquity to the present. Projects may focus on any period from antiquity to the present, on any part of the world, and in any field(s) in the humanities; can range widely or focus on a particular issue; and can explore various forms of Jewish and/or Christian traditions; the interaction of one or both of these religious traditions with other religious traditions; and/or the relationship of one or both of these religious traditions to other aspects of society such as power, politics, culture, experience, and creativity.