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‘What makes you think Theology is a subject?’
Trevor Williams
Journal for the Study of Religion·2018
This article focuses on a topic, that is captured in a question that Richard Dawkins raised in 1993: ‘What makes you think Theology is a subject?’ My view is that this question is a symptom of how Theology is under attack from many quarters today – from the fearful believers who see it as a threat to their faith, to the secularists who see it as a threat to truth. Foremost among the opponents is Richard Dawkins. Outraged by a donation to Cambridge for the study of theology, he contrasts the usefulness of science with the uselessness of Theology. The question though, is: What is Theology? In this chapter, I draw a distinction between Confessional Theology and Critical Theology. By Confessional Theology I mean the affirmation of an exclusive point of reference by which all other claims to authority and knowledge are judged. Thus Christians ‘confess Jesus Christ is Lord’, and Confessional Theology is the rational articulation of the Christian Faith from within the circle of Faith – the convictions, experiences, and hopes grounded in the story of Jesus and characterized by commitment and involvement. However, there are ways in which both scientists and theologians, and the two types of Theology, can go wrong.
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View paper →Learning under Concept Drift: A Review
Jie Lu, Anjin Liu, Fan Dong, Feng Gu, Joao Gama, Guangquan Zhang
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering·2018·697 citations
No abstract available
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View paper →Rebetiko Encountering Comic Book
Chrysi Kyratsou, Χρυση Κυρατσου
Music in Art·2018
The music and culture of Greek rebetiko inspired David Prudhomme to produce his comic book Rébétiko: La mauvaise herbe, published in 2009. It is a fictional story about rebetiko in the life of its four emblematic figures, set in a single day in 1936 (Markos Vamvakaris/Μάρκος Βαμβακάρης, Giorgos Batis/Γιώργος Μπάτης, Anestos Delias/Ανέστος Δελλιάς, also known as Artemis/Αρτέμης, and Stavros, whose figure is inspired by Giannis Papaioannou/Γιάννης Παπαϊωάννου). The specific example constitutes an interesting case, where the popular music genre encounters a hybrid medium of visual culture that combines text and image, both of which have been passionately despised and adored. The comic book has a plethora of representations of music and dance, as well as the people who created them, immortalizing certain aspects of the culture and history of rebetiko. At the same time, the comic book is a modern creation that narrates the story of rebetiko mediated by the creator’s own culture and conscience. Aspects regarding the information for the genre, as well as about why the specific aspects were represented in the specific way are discussed: What do the specific representations of rebetiko music and dance inform us of the genre? What do the specific representations tell us of the creator’s culture and conscience? How does the comic book echo myth, and contribute to its making? How do the visual elements represent the sound of the performance? How does the lyrical content of the songs emerge from the pictures? How does the specific comic book form a dialogue with visual representations synchronous of the rebetiko culture?
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