University of Wales Trinity Saint David
Researching and learning together : inter-institutional collaboration as a strategy for capacity building. Reflections based on the evaluations of the Welsh Education Research Network. BERA symposium paper.
Get PDFTreescapes and Landscapes: The Myth of the Wildwood and its place in the British Past
Get PDFAn 18th century Glamorgan poet, antiquary and literary forger pored through the histories of the Welsh who were the inheritors of ancient Druidic practice. Iolo Morgannwg found precious little to fit his narrative so he invented the missing elements passing it them off as scholarly discovery (Hutton, 2008:253-4). He shaped and manipulated history, tradition and the notion of place and landscape in order to create a series of Druidic festivals to fit his narrative of antiquity. Eco’s (2013: 431) consideration of ‘place’ also tells us that legendary lands depend on “ancient legends whose origins are lost in the mists of time”. Odd then, that many pagan, environmental and neo-eco groups typically adopt an ahistorical view of the human relationship with nature (Letcher 2001:156). Where the past is acknowledged, it is in reference to a “‘golden age,’ of a time when humanity lived in a Rousseau-like state of innocence, in a harmonious relationship with a benevolent nature” (ibid.). This paper is about the rich and complex past of the British landscape and its woodlands. It seeks to act as a signpost for those that engage with treescapes, the wildwood and myth and place and space
Erosion and tourism infrastructure in the coastal zone: Problems, consequences and management
Get PDFThe importance of coastal zones to the tourism industry and the need to protect such resources is not only vital to the economy of nations but presents a growing dilemma for many localities and regions. Beaches have become synonymous with tourism and with current predictions of climate change and sea level rise; they are under significant threat of erosion worldwide. From an assessment of the effects of erosion, including evaluation of impacts on coastal destinations and tourism development, the consequences for global tourism business are projected. An analysis of hard and soft engineering responses showed that coastal protection measures should be linked to physical processes whilst management strategies included a case study proposal for beach nourishment, in response to the erosion of a tourist beach. Integrated Coastal Zone Management is justified as a tool for managing coastal resources and accommodating increasing pressures from tourism whilst strategies are recommended to ameliorate projected impacts
Mysticism and gender
Get PDFLene Sjørup considers the somewhat problematic construct of women's religious
experiences, more specifically, the mystical experience within women's lives. Mindful of
womanist, mujerista, and Asian feminist theologies challenges to white feminists that
feminist theology is often white and ethnocentric, she uses a qualitative sociological
approach. Sjørup begins with the hypothesis that the interviewees' religious experiences
would tend toward mystical experiences that she understands to be ineffable, noetic,
transient, and passive. This is not intended to limit the possibility for other forms of mystical
experience, however. Sjørup draws on the work of Charlene Spretnak, Carol Christ, and
Hallie Iglehart lo help provide methodological and theoretical foundations for her study. She
also explores the differences in the religious experiences of men and women and uses object
relations theory as a way to understand how research on mysticism has been influenced by
gender-specific attitudes. Finally, Sjørup questions the efficacy of continuing to follow
traditional theological paradigms to understand the mystical and how it functions in the lives
of women and men
Looking in and reaching out : a research project to identify ways forward to increase access to education and early years education for BME communities in South Wales. Full report conducted for Trinity College Carmarthen School of Early Years Education School of Education Studies and Social Inclusion.
Get PDFSpiritual experience that crosses religious divisions
Get PDF‘In Hinduism, in Neoplatonism, in Sufism, in Christian mysticism ... we find the same
recurring note, so that there is about mystical utterances an eternal unanimity’, wrote
William James in his The Varieties of Religious Experience, which was first published in 1902.
Many of the pioneers of the search for interfaith fellowship worked with this assumption
that there is a similar underlying experience of the Divine at the heart of every religion. They
hoped that members of different religions could go beyond the particular rituals and
doctrines which divided them and find a unity in the Spirit. This presupposition is sometimes
known as the philosophia perennis, which Aldous Huxley defined as ‘The metaphysic that
recognises a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds: the
psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality;
the ethic that places man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent
Ground of all being – the thing is immemorial and universal.’ In this paper I want to recollect some of
my experiences of ‘A presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts’. I would
regard them as ‘mystical’, but the definition of what constitutes a mystical experience is so
debated that my experiences would not fit everyone’s definition. Some of the experiences I
shall describe were in the context of sharing in prayer and worship with people of other
faiths. This has led me to ask whether a Christian can have a ‘Hindu religious experience’ or
has he or she merely had a ‘Christian religious experience’ but in a Hindu setting. Or is the
religious adjective irrelevant when applied to a religious experience
Terence Fisher and British Science Fiction Cinema
Get PDFTerence Fisher is a major figure in British cinema of the 1950s and 1960s whose work has been written about a number of film historians including David Pirie and Peter Hutchings. However, this academic work has largely concentrated on Fisher’s popular and influential Gothic horror films made for Hammer studios. His early work of the 1950s in the crime and science fiction genres has often been neglected as it does not fit in the horror category with which he is usually associated.
This essay is the first to consider the five science fiction films which Fisher made during this period. The focus is twofold. Firstly, the essay traces the authorial characteristics which typify his work and shows how these are manifest in the films under consideration. Secondly, in placing the films within the wider context of British science fiction of the post-war era, consideration can be given to political and historical discourses within the work. The latter allows for a detailed discussion of the impact of the Cold War on British culture as British science fiction, and Fisher’s work specifically responded directly to the public anxieties produced by the political situation of the period. A number of British science fiction film and novels provide evidence of this and the approach offers a fruitful way to examine Fisher’s films.
The essay appears in a relatively new journal but one which has already established itself as the leading publication on the genre in the UK, offering an alternative view to more established publications from the US. The essay contributes to recent attempts to revisit the existing science fiction cannon and explore previously neglected work, as well as adding to the broader discussion of the 1950s and 1960s as crucial periods of radical change in recent British cultural history
Negotiating Religious and Cultural Diversity in Tang China: An Analysis of the Cha jiu lun 茶酒論
Get PDFThe Tang dynasty was a religious and culturally diverse period which saw a range of ethnic and cultural issues, often expressed in the form of polemical literature (or interreligious court debates). This paper focuses on the analysis of the Cha jiu lun, a dialogically structured
debate between three beverages discovered in Dunhuang, to demonstrate that it functions as an allegorical and satirical performance piece in reaction to religious and
cultural diversity in Dunhuang and Tang China. This analysis is contextualised using other similar discourse and a range of prominent secondary literature. Primarily considered a contribution to tea culture, analysing the metaphorical function of the three beverages in the Cha jiu lun highlights its place in a more relevant area of study. The genre conventions of the Cha jiu lun are explored in-depth, demonstrating some difficulties with its typical classification as a transformation text (bianwen) due to its congruency with polemical debates in the Tang. This paper demonstrates the wider importance of the Cha jiu lun as an allegorical piece written in a location and period highly influenced by issues of cultural and religious amalgamation, and provides a comprehensive study into its purpose and function in light of these issues