This book articulates an African conception of dignity in light of the salient axiological category of personhood in African cultures. The idea of personhood embodies a moral system for evaluating human lives exuding with virtue or ones that are morally excellent. This book argu…
There are competing models through which a dementia diagnosis can be understood, but what dominates the assessment process for dementia diagnosis is the medical model, which neglects the social, cultural, and political aspects of the diagnosis. In a Western society where value i…
This thesis is an organisational ethnography that seeks to make an original contribution to anthropological knowledge through an iterative interrogation of neoliberalism and personhood.Endeavour (a pseudonym) is a gap year organisation based in the UK that runs trips abroad to C…
From the personal contemporary pastoral experience of caring for dying people, and with particular attention given to the psychospiritual anguish often associated with the perceived failure of death, I argue that suffering is primarily identified in the modern West as an insult …
In the classical Christian tradition, personhood is a concept employed to distinguish the members in the Trinity while simultaneously affirming their oneness of being. Yet, this is a term applied to both human beings and God. At minimum a person is a being that exists in defined…
The following examines the development of comparative psychology and the evidence, arguments, and epistemological challenges that have characterized its approach to the question of animal rationality. I distinguish between four modes of research that come to prominence at differ…
This dissertation focuses on two generically innovative texts that represent different forms of historical writing in Medieval Europe and the Middle East and situates them in their social, religious, and historical contexts. Where Salimbene's "chronicle" attempted to present the…
Medical experts claim that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder among United States military service personnel, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan has contributed to an "epidemic of suicide" in the U.S. However, veterans, military commanders, and mental health providers argue that feel…
This dissertation examines the socio-cultural and historical contours of musical expression and identity formation in postcolonial Bamako, Mali, a sprawling West African metropolis on the upper Niger River. Specifically, this work engages with a particular community of urban art…
Do Byzantine iconoclasts and modern artists have anything in common? Looking back at the Byzantine iconoclastic debates of the eighth and ninth century, I define iconoclasm not as a negative reaction to the visual image in general, but as a rejection of pictorial human represent…
Renewed excavations in 2003–2004 at Alalakh (Tell Atchana), a regional capital of ancient Syria during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1200 BCE), exposed the burials of at least 58 people. Along with published and unpublished data from burials excavated at Alalakh by Si…
In this dissertation, I explore how competing interpretations of Islam inform the construction of identity and the experience of everyday life among Mandinga in Guinea-Bissau and among Mandinga immigrants in the country's former colonizer, Portugal. This work is based on nearly …
This dissertation examines how the introduction of new technologies such as the railway, tramway, and telegraph generated in Egypt unique practices of timekeeping, personhood, and conviviality between the 1830s and 1930s. However, this project cannot be seen as an attempt to "pr…
"By showing us the human brain at work, PET (positron emission tomography) scans are subtly--and sometimes not so subtly--transforming how we think about our minds. This book follows this remarkable and expensive technology from the laboratory into the world and back. It examine…
"By showing us the human brain at work, PET (positron emission tomography) scans are subtly--and sometimes not so subtly--transforming how we think about our minds. This book follows this remarkable and expensive technology from the laboratory into the world and back. It examine…
Human dignity and assisted death
Assisted dying is still an extremely contested topic in Bioethics. Despite the strongly influential role human dignity plays in this debate, it still has not received the appropriate, multi-faceted treatment it deserves. Studies show that the notion of dignity already plays an i…
Human dignity and assisted death
Assisted dying is still an extremely contested topic in Bioethics. Despite the strongly influential role human dignity plays in this debate, it still has not received the appropriate, multi-faceted treatment it deserves. Studies show that the notion of dignity already plays an i…
Human dignity and assisted death
Assisted dying and human dignity are two extremely contested topics in Bioethics. This volume offers the first book-length attempt to bring both together. Its authors develop detailed philosophical analyses of dignity, and how it relates to assisted suicide and euthanasia.