Free Download The Laity in the Life of the Counsels: The Church's Mission in the World By Hans Urs von Balthasar
2004 | 200 Pages | ISBN: 089870572X | EPUB | 1 MB
Overcoming the dualism between the Church and the world requires a decisive engagement: the yeast must disappear into the dough in order to become bread, but this bread must in turn be consecrated to God. With his characteristic theological depth and historical breadth, von Balthasar discusses the development of secular institutes-groups of lay people who live the life of the counsels, poverty, chastity, and obedience, in the world-as a response to the problems of our time. In the process, he sketches the outlines of a theology of states of life in the Church, presents a fascinating account of the development of vows and the religious life in the history of the Church, and compares the new secular institutes with other lay movements in today's Church. This book, which is a collection of essays von Balthasar wrote over a period of forty years, makes apparent like no other the historical and theological significance of secular institutes, and their fruitful potential.
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Free Download Seth Abramson, "The Insider's Guide to Graduate Degrees in Creative Writing"
English | ISBN: 135000040X | 2018 | 328 pages | PDF | 2 MB
There are so many different graduate creative writing programs out there! How do I find the right one for me?
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Free Download The Indian Parliament and Democratic Transformation By Ajay K. Mehra (editor)
2017 | 396 Pages | ISBN: 1138243833 | PDF | 3 MB
This book traces the trajectory of the Indian Parliament from its formation to present day. The essays presented here explore parliamentary democracy through the formative years and highlight the Parliament's function as a representative and accountable institution, its procedures and responsibility, its connection with the other arms of the state, its relationship with grassroots democracy and the press, and its critical role in framing foreign policy and national security. The volume frames major debates surrounding the Parliament through historical, conceptual and contemporary political perspectives. It also looks at how politics in practice is being continuously changed and challenged by new social media and further views the transformation of India's apex legislative institution in terms of democratizing processes, constitutional values and changing mores. The book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Indian politics, history, comparative politics, political science and modern India.
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Free Download The Impact of Culture on Organizational Decision-Making: Theory and Practice in Higher Education By William G. Tierney
2008 | 190 Pages | ISBN: 1579222870 | PDF | 7 MB
"At a time when institutions recognize the need for change but may be unsure of how to make that change happen, I found [this book] a must-read. I would recommend it to business officers and other leaders engaging their campuses in improvement and prioritization processes."―Business Officer Magazine"Overall, this collection enables a fresh look at a set of theoretically rich articles, all of which have maintained their currency in how we might think about and study postsecondary organizations. And while the chapters may not present any easy answers to those who work within higher education, the clear prose and cogent explanations certainly clarify how one's theory of organizational culture matters."―Journal of College Student Retention"A wake-up call to college and university administrators who wish to lead their organizations to success and excellence in the 21st century."―Jim Mello, Assistant Provost for Financial Planning, University of HartfordThe message of this book is that understanding organizational culture is critical for those who recognize that academe must change, but are unsure how to make that change happen. An organization's culture is reflected in what is done, how it is done, and who is involved in doing it. It concerns decisions, actions, and communication on an instrumental and symbolic level. This book considers various facets of academic culture, discusses how to study it, how to analyze it, and how to improve it in order to move colleges and universities aggressively into the future while maintaining core academic values.
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Free Download Lewis A. Coser, "The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton"
English | 2012 | pages: 560 | ISBN: 1412847419, 0155405489 | PDF | 36,8 mb
Written and compiled by friends and former students, The Idea of Social Structure honors Robert K. Merton, considered one of the premier sociologists of the twentieth century. Along with Talcott Parsons and Marion J. Levy, Merton was emphatic in his use of the term "social structure"―however different they were in defining and refining the term. The chapters in this volume address many of Merton's diverse sociological theories and, in turn, his theories' impact upon a very large sociological territory.
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Free Download The Hope of the Family: A Dialogue with Cardinal Gerhard Müller By Gerhard L. Müller; Carlos Granados; Michael J. Miller
2014 | 90 Pages | ISBN: 1621640027 | EPUB | 1 MB
"Today, the family is in crisis--it is in crisis worldwide," Pope Francis has said. "Young people don't want to get married, they don't get married, or they live together. Marriage is in crisis, and so the family is in crisis." The main problem with the family in the Church today, contends Cardinal Gerhard MUller, is not the small number of civilly remarried divorced Catholics who want to received Holy Communion. It is the large number of Catholics who live together before marriage, who marry civilly, or who do not even bother with marriage, as if these choices were sound options for Catholic living. It is also a failure of many who marry "in the Church" to understand marriage as part of their Christian discipleship.In this engaging conversation, Cardinal MUller, one of Pope Francis' top advisers in the Vatican, addresses the challenges facing marriage and family life today. The loss of faith in many traditionally Christian societies has led to a crisis. In turn, cohabitation, civil marriage, and divorce and civil remarriage, further undermine faith because they harm the family as the "domestic Church" and the place of initial evangelization. The solution: the Church must undertake a robust new evangelization of the family: sharing the fullness of truth about marriage and family in Christ, encouraging families to worship and pray together, and helping them witness by their lives to the joy of the gospel.Cardinal MUller stresses mercy and compassion in pastoral minstry with struggling Catholics, but he does so without contradicting the teaching of Jesus about divorce and remarriage and minimizing the power of grace to transform lives. In this way he proclaims hope for the family rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Free Download The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom that Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot By Jay W. Richards; Jonathan Witt
2014 | 211 Pages | ISBN: 1586178237 | EPUB | 1 MB
Anyone who has read "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" can gather that their author hated tyranny, but few know that the novelist who once described himself as a hobbit in all but size was even by hobbit standards a zealous proponent of economic freedom and small government. There is a growing concern among many that the West is sliding into political, economic, and moral bankruptcy. In his beloved novels of Middle-Earth, J.R.R. Tolkien has drawn us a map to freedom.Scholar Joseph Pearce, who himself has written articles and chapters on the political significance of Tolkien s work, testified in his book "Literary Giants, Literary Catholics," If much has been written on the religious significance of "The Lord of the Rings," less has been written on its political significance and the little that has been written is often erroneous in its conclusions and ignorant of Tolkien s intentions . Much more work is needed in this area, not least because Tolkien stated, implicitly at least, that the political significance of the work was second only to the religious in its importance.Several books ably explore how Tolkien's Catholic faith informed his fiction. None until now have centered on how his passion for liberty and limited government also shaped his work, or how this passion grew directly from his theological vision of man and creation. "The Hobbit Party" fills this void.The few existing pieces that do focus on the subject are mostly written by scholars with little or no formal training in literary analysis, and even less training in political economy. Witt and Richards bring to "The Hobbit Party" a combined expertise in literary studies, political theory, economics, philosophy, and theology."
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Free Download Derek Ryan, "The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group"
English | ISBN: 1350014915 | 2018 | 328 pages | PDF | 34 MB
The Handbook to the Bloomsbury Group is the most comprehensive available survey of contemporary scholarship on the Bloomsbury Group - the set of influential writers, artists and thinkers whose members included Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf, E.M. Forster, John Maynard Keynes, Vanessa Bell, Clive Bell, Duncan Grant and David Garnett. With chapters written by world leading scholars in the field, the book explores novel avenues of thinking about these pivotal figures and their works opened up by the new modernist studies. It brings together overview essays with detailed illustrative case studies, and covers topics as diverse as feminism, sexuality, empire, philosophy, class, nature and the arts. Setting the agenda for future study of Bloomsbury, this is an essential resource for scholars of 20th-century modernist culture.
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Free Download The Gospel of the Family: Going Beyond Cardinal Kasper's Proposal in the Debate on Marriage, Civil Re-Marriage and Communion in the Church By J.J. Perez-Soba; S. Kampowski; George Cardinal Pell
2014 | 254 Pages | ISBN: 1586179942 | EPUB | 1 MB
Entering into the Bishop's Synod on marriage and the family started by Pope Francis, and welcoming his invitation to have a frank discussion, this volume endeavors to present a proposal which, as the sub-title indicates, will spell out well-founded critical reservations about the line of argument suggested by Cardinal Walter Kasper, while admiring some of its elements.This book, however, is intended above all as a positive contribution that describes an alternative merciful pastoral approach inspired by the Magisterium and by the testimony of Saint John Paul II, whom Pope Francis has held up to the whole Church as "the Pope of the Family." It is an approach that tries not just to please, but truly to "heal the wounds," and therefore to promote a true conversion, thus closely uniting doctrinal and pastoral considerations, truth and mercy, fidelity to the words of Jesus and attention to the specific person.Taking then as a point of reference for this subject are the controversial words by Cardinal Kasper, which the authors think contains important reflections, but significant inaccuracies and erroneous proposals also and, above all, gross oversimplifications because of an objective that concentrates excessively on a single argument, which causes him to see everything else from that perspective. This volume strives to develops his positive points, help clarify the ambiguous ones, express the reasons why some statements seem to be seriously erroneous but, above all, go farther than Kasper and show in a simple, accessible way the extent to which his words were incapable of putting the Gospel of the Family at the center of its reflections.The authors begin by addressing the cultural challenge as the fundamental key to understanding the role of the family in the dialogue between the Church and the world: a pivotal point if we are to avoid the many inadequate misunderstandings of Kasper s words. Next, they identify the centrality of the family in the Christian proclamation, adopting the perspective of a God who reveals himself as mercy, an approach that we will complete with a brief review of some patristic texts that teach the way in which the primitive Church experienced the question. Then they analyze the matter from the more contemporary moral perspective, considering therefore the construction of the moral subject by means of his actions, and we will conclude by outlining what could be "adequate pastoral care," given the challenges of our time."
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Free Download The Geometry of Cubic Hypersurfaces
English | 2023 | ISBN: 1009280007 | 461 Pages | PDF | 3 MB
Cubic hypersurfaces are described by almost the simplest possible polynomial equations, yet their behaviour is rich enough to demonstrate many of the central challenges in algebraic geometry. With exercises and detailed references to the wider literature, this thorough text introduces cubic hypersurfaces and all the techniques needed to study them. The book starts by laying the foundations for the study of cubic hypersurfaces and of many other algebraic varieties, covering cohomology and Hodge theory of hypersurfaces, moduli spaces of those and Fano varieties of linear subspaces contained in hypersurfaces. The next three chapters examine the general machinery applied to cubic hypersurfaces of dimension two, three, and four. Finally, the author looks at cubic hypersurfaces from a categorical point of view and describes motivic features. Based on the author's lecture courses, this is an ideal text for graduate students as well as an invaluable reference for researchers in algebraic geometry.
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