Winter 2009

Featured

Ways of ‘Knowing’ Cancer

For an academic who has been living with cancer since 1996, reflecting on the ways we think and make value judgments about serious illness cannot help but be an existential endeavor. By Mark U. Edwards, Jr.

Glimpsing a Land beyond Limits

Why do a Catholic laywomen decide to study theology when there are so many roadblocks and so little institutional support? By Barbara R. Bodengraven

The Resurgence of Imagination

The traditional Freudian suspicion of the spiritual should not stop psychoanalysts from borrowing from Eastern meditative disciplines. By Sudhir Kakar

Dialogue

Unfinished Business

Well before this historic election season, religion and race have been factors in presidential elections. By Peter J. Paris

New Paternalisms

Elements of the new Russia seem to be modeled on the old, imperials state. By Stanisław Obirek

Populism and Politicking

‘Affinity politics’ was taken to a new, disconcerting level in 2008. By David Lamberth

The Greening of Jesus

Increasingly, the fundamentalist view of climate change is losing force as it is challenged by scientists who are equally devout. By Mark I. Pinsky

In Review

Television

Perfect Machines, Avenging Angels

The New Sci Fi: Battlestar Galactica and The Sarah Connor Chronicles. By Brett Grainger

Books

The Hard Stuff Is the Good News

An interview with Peter J. Gomes. By Daniel Smith

Shelf Life

Bynum’s Appetite for Full Humanity

Caroline Walker Bynum’s Holy Feast and Holy Fast. By R. Marie Griffith

Books

Enlightenment Apologist

Susan Neiman’s Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists. By Sharon Goldman

Poetry

Two Poems

Yellow Wings

Terrestrial Music

By Charles Wright

Three Poems

Prayer to Falling

Prayer to Lighting Dinner Candles

Prayer to Wreckage

By Victoria Bosch Murray