<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>Inter-Disciplinary.Net</title>
	<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries</link>
	<description>A Global Network for Dynamic Research and Publishing</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 18 May 2013 15:14:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language></language>
	<!-- generator="WordPress/491" -->

	<item>
		<title>Session 2: Literature</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>4th Global Conference</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/revengelogo.gif"><img title="revengelogo" alt="revengelogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/revengelogo.gif" width="351" height="80" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Sunday 14th July  – Tuesday 16th  July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Noh Revenge on Samson Agonistes (1671)</span>
Pin-han Li
National Taiwan University</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Whether the violent acts of Samson in Milton’s Samson Agonistes are a private rebellion, a suicide or a patriotic vengeance with divine permission has been considerably debated in the field. If he is a “national avenger” who is bestowed with divine power, and tries to diminish the tyrannical domination and the heretics, he is worthy of being praised and remembered. If he simply commits suicide, or slaughters the Philistines out of private excuses, he is not pardonable.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">In 2012, through Mr. Takahashi’s Noh adaptation (Tokyo), whose structure and staged design are mostly based on the ideas of Buddhism, Samson’s vengeance is reconsidered from the viewpoints of an oriental religion. Instead of being an Israelite hero and judge, Samson, in the Noh adaptation, is merely a ghost of a warrior whose agony needs to be purged off by retelling his story of slaughtering the Philistines, which demands Milton’s retelling in his poem. Instead of emphasizing the patriotic mission, the Noh Samson simply desiderates a private need, the purgation of his agony and entering the transmigration.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper explores the significance of this first eastern adaption of Samson, and examines how this Israelite hero’s vengeance is represented in the Noh Theater, how effectively the Buddhistic idea can complement the Christian understanding of Samson’s vengeful acts, how the transformation of Samson (shite character) from a Hebraic hero to a ghost of a warrior can help us to understand who Samson is in different cultures more, and how different the attitudes of Christianity and Buddhism are toward the idea of salvation and vengeance within this adaptation.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hanlirevpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Medea’s Revenge: Magic and Rhetoric in the French Medea Tragedies of the 16th and 17th Centuries</span>
Franziska Edler
French Literature</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Taking a close look at Jean de la Péruse’s, Pierre Corneille’s and Baron de Longepierre’s tragedies dealing with the ancient witch Medea, the readers find themselves faced with a woman who is led by the burning desire to avenge herself on her selfish husband Jason, his new wife Creusa and King Creon who is characterized as a coward rather than a king. Firstly, this paper discusses how exactly Medea’s plans of revenge are realized by analyzing specific rhetorical patterns that create magical effects: By evoking gods and cursing her victims she gets in contact with mythical monsters of the Underworld whose powers she concentrates through specific speech acts so that she can abuse them for her cruel revenge. Thus, Medea makes use of a specific language that is worth analyzing because it enables her to cause a terrifying scenario of fire and agony in which she tortures King Creon and Creusa to death.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Secondly, we will show to what extent Medea’s revenge is even justified in the three tragedies: although revenge is considered as a destructive passion, Medea is not the murderous and guilty woman in the first place, but rather a victim that is forced to take revenge by Jason who abandoned her because he is thirsty for power. The unscrupulous King Creon seeks to banish her in order to preserve Jason’s honour which, however, he has already lost. Focusing on the characterization of Jason and King Creon will illuminate the strategies of justifying Medea’s revenge who nevertheless does not completely achieve her aims: after the death of her rivals she is ever more an abandoned woman for whom there is no place where she is welcome.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/edlerrevpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy: Revenge as Platform for Performance</span>
Noora Shamsi Bahar
Department of English, School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Independent University, Bangladesh.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper discusses how women’s bodies are used to satisfy the need for performance in Middleton’s (?) The Reveger’s Tragedy. Vindice (the protagonist) uses his betrothed lady’s skull – his “study’s ornament” (I.i.15), as a tool for performance. Therefore, is the point of Act III, Scene V, (when he poisons the Duke with Gloriana’s propped-up skull) about avenging Gloriana or is it about Vindice’s need for an ostentatious, Hamlet-like performance? Does Gloriana’s skull become Vindice’s fetish? Vindice always appears as a grandiose presenter; his love for verbal and dramatic extravagancy is evidenced in his soliloquies and zest for disguise. Vindice may be seen to be a flamboyant performer who has set out to get what he wants (i.e. his need to perform) in the name of revenge. For instance, when Vindice reveals his “bony lady” to Hippolito (in Act III, scene v, as he addresses the skull – “I’ll unmask you”), he receives just the kind of attention he wants (i.e. beguilement) – Hippolito: “Why brother, brother” (III.v.49) and goes on to give one of his necrophilic performatory speeches. Testing his mother (Gratiana) may be seen to be yet another site for Vindince’s performance. Vindice (disguised as Piato) plays the zealous tempter’s role and entices Gratiana to pimp out her daughter. Gratiana is easily persuaded, and this gives yet another opportunity for Vindice’s performatory aggrandizement – jolting his family back in to the balance he had disrupted in the first place. Vindice is willing to play all sorts of roles, wear disguises, masques, be stage-prompter, etc. – whichever comes his way. This further begs the question: Does Vindice use all bodies as mere props and see the world as his stage? Vindice’s delay (9 years) in seeking “revenge” may further prove that his intentions of avenging Gloriana were not strong enough to begin with. Vindice’s confession and consequent execution in the final scene portrays the height of Vindice’s melodrama, given that he probably couldn’t have competed with himself any further. His performances in the previous scenes were progressively more sensational; the plot had come to an end, he had no other performatory roles to play and therefore he put up the best for the last.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/baharrevpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/revenge/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/session-2-literaturee/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Session 1: Revenge in History, Popular Culture and Violence</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>4th Global Conference</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/revengelogo.gif"><img title="revengelogo" alt="revengelogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/revengelogo.gif" width="351" height="80" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Sunday 14th July  – Tuesday 16th  July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Provocation of Great Spirits: Honour, Violence, and Heroic Tragedy in the Burlesque of the 1730’s</span>
Maire MacNeill
Royal Holloway, University of London</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Violence had become an expected - and highly-scrutinised - staple of heroic tragedy by the early eighteenth century.  Ranging from the formal honour-duel, to impulsive swordfights between two characters, to impassioned group attacks on a single person or group of people, the pursuit of vengeance was commonly used to justify such displays; they were thus not unique to villainous characters.  Rather, they could also be appropriate behaviour for gallant and desirable heroes, as we can gather from Dryden's comment in his preface to The Conquest of Grenada: his aim was to show "what Men of great Spirits would certainly do when they were provok'd, not what they were oblig'd to do by the strict Rules of Moral Virtue."  Whether we are discussing the warlike Almanzor, or Oroonoko's bloody uprising, or the fight between Dumont and Hastings in "Jane Shore", the recurring suggestion is that vengeful violence is a justifiable mode of heroic behaviour.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">However, such a hero gradually fell victim to a range of criticisms as the eighteenth century progressed.  In my presentation I will discuss the dichotomy between heroic tragedy and the burlesque tragedies of the 1730s and compare the notion of "just violence" in the former with that found in the plays of Henry Fielding and Henry Carey.  I will begin by discussing how vengeful violence was used in heroic tragedies as an honourable and a socially useful custom.  I will then consider how burlesques queried assertions about 'proper' aristocratic manliness and justifications of violent revenge in heroic tragedy, in both their framing of particular scenes and their physical portrayal of heroes.  Finally, I will go on to suggest that through their responses to vengeful acts of violence in heroic tragedies, burlesques were also making assumptions about aristocratic manliness and proposing their own notions of what was honourable behaviour - or at least, what honourable behaviour was not.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/mcneillrevpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Revenge of/on Zombies</span>
Charles W. Nuckolls
Project Leader</p>

<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Hell Comes Home: Nietzsche, Tertullian, and Islamic Suicide Bombing</span>
Geoff Karabin
United States</p>
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/revenge/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/session-1-revenge-in-history-popular-culture-and-violence/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Conference Programme, Abstracts and Papers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>4th Global Conference</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/revengelogo.gif"><img title="revengelogo" alt="revengelogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/revengelogo.gif" width="351" height="80" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Sunday 14th July  – Tuesday 16th  July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">The programme for the conference is available below. Delegates are listed according to the session in which they appear. Clicking on the Session Title will take you to the abstracts (where available) for that session. Each delegate is listed according to their affiliation.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Final Conference Programme</strong></p>
&nbsp;

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Sunday 14th July 2013</strong></span>
From 12.30
<strong>Conference Registration</strong>

13.30
<strong>Welcome and Opening Remarks</strong>
Charles W. Nuckolls

14.00
<strong>Session 1: Revenge in History, Popular Culture and Violence</strong>
<em>Chair: Sheila Bibb</em>

The Provocation of Great Spirits: Honour, Violence, and Heroic Tragedy in the Burlesque of the 1730’s
Maire MacNeill

Revenge of/on Zombies
Charles W. Nuckolls

Hell Comes Home: Nietzsche, Tertullian, and Islamic Suicide Bombing
Geoff Karabin

15.30
Coffee

16.00
<strong>Session 2: Literature</strong>
<em>Chair: Geoff Karabin</em>

Noh Revenge on Samson Agonistes (1671)
Pin-han Li

Medea’s Revenge: Magic and Rhetoric in the French Medea Tragedies of the 16th and 17th Centuries
Franziska Edler

Thomas Middleton’s <em>The Revenger’s Tragedy</em>: Revenge as Platform for Performance
Noora Shamsi Bahar

&nbsp;

17:30
Notices and Announcements

18.00
Wine Reception

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Monday 15th July 2013</strong></span>
09.00
<strong>Session 3: Witchcraft, Epilepsy, and Violence</strong>
<em>Chair: Franziska Edler</em>

Vengeance and Witchcraft: Ghana and South Africa Compared
Sheila Bibb

Modes of Revenge among the Becheve People of Northern Cross River Nigeria: A Case Study of Thunder and Epilepsy
Ernest O Anyacho and Eugene Ibli

Rape and Forgiveness
Sandhya Nayar

10.30
Coffee

11.00
<strong>Session 4: The Orient</strong>
<em>Chair: Stephen Kane</em>

The Sense and Absence of the Revenging Woman in Mainstream Hindi Cinema
Nirmalya Samanta

From Vengeful Communities to Individual Revenge in Socio-Political Systems and Regional Literature in India
Vibha S. Chauhan

The Place of Revenge in Islamic Criminal Justice
Rahim Foroughi Nik

12.30
Lunch

14.00
<strong>Session 5: Culture and History</strong>
<em>Chair: Mario Gollwitzer</em>

Understanding Revenge Based on Memories of the 'Red Barrel' Incident, Phatthalung Province, Thailand
Jularat Damrongviteetham

Of Prodigals and Forgiveness: The Comic Law of Cause and Effect
Minnie Matheew

Banished from the Stands: Collective Punishment in Brazilian Sports Law
Noel Struchiner and Rodrigo de Souza Tavares

15.30
Coffee

16.00
<strong>Session 6: Open Discussion Question: What is the Relationship between Revenge and Forgiveness? </strong>
<em>Chairs:</em> <em>Charles W Nuckolls and Nancy Billias</em>

&nbsp;

&nbsp;

<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Tuesday 16th July 2013</strong></span>
09.30
<strong>Session 7: Law, Politics, and Crime</strong>
<em>Chair: Nirmalya Samanta</em>

Holocaust Literature as a Case Study
Lily Halpert Zamir

The Rhetoric of Sex Trafficking: Ending the Crime or Seeking Revenge
Jesse Bach and Jennifer Dohy

10.30
Coffee

11.00
<strong>Session 8 Philosophy and Psychology</strong>
<em>Chair: Rahim Foroughi Nik</em>

Title: Individual and Social Functions of Revenge: A Justice-Based Approach
Mario Gollwitzer

An Examination of Anxious Attachment, Cognitive Distortions, and Vengeance: Introducing a Schema Focused Model of Marital Therapy for Forgiveness and Resolution
Stephen Kane

Understanding Parties’ Responses to Resentment
Justin Malhoun

12.30
Lunch

14.00
Development meeting and closing remarks

14.30
Conference Ends

&nbsp;

<strong>Please Note:</strong> Only delegates attending the conference are listed in the programme.

&nbsp;]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/revenge/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Session 9: Esteem, Abuse, and Psychology</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>6th Global Conference</strong></p>

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg"><img title="Forgivenesslogo" alt="Forgivenesslogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg" width="520" height="130" /></a></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Saturday 6th July – Monday 8th July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Effect of ‘Forgiveness Therapy’ on Depression and Low Self-Esteem for a Victim of Abuse: A Case Study</span>
Tagreed Malik Jeledan
Department of educational psychology, Taibah University, Saudi Arabia</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">It has been said before that “No one forgives with more grace and love than a child”.  And also no one can compete the child with his outstanding memory which can’t forget deep injuries during childhood, especially when these multiple abuses come from his/her parents and other relatives. Being physically abused, emotionally abused, and neglected from her biological parents combined with sexually abused from one of her relatives, this 22 years old female, who is a student in the university, suffers from severe depression and very low level of self-esteem.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">As Lightner Witmer  defined "clinical psychology," as "the study of individuals, by observation or experimentation, with the intention of promoting change” , thus, the current research aims at decreasing the client’s depression and improving her self-esteem through case study techniques, assessing her needs, fears, deep feelings and behaviour using a variety of methods, including projective tests, life history, interviews and direct observation of her behaviour.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The researcher will attempt to help this female using the techniques of the “Forgiveness Therapy” which is described by a number of clinicians and researchers as a promising approach to anger-reduction, depression healing and the restoration of general emotional and mental health.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/jforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Role of Forgiveness in Developing and Maintaining Mental Well-Being Amongst Different Relgious and Spiritual Groups: A Mixed Methods Study</span>
Sadaf Akhtar
University of Warwick</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The aim of the present study is to examine the role forgiveness (of others and self) plays in developing and maintaining mental well-being amongst different religious and spiritual groups.  Further, this study aims to investigate how forgiveness is practiced and experienced with a particular emphasis on factors that may facilitate or obstruct this process.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">This study uses a mixed methods design.   In the first phase, qualitative interviews were conducted to explore, in detail, religious/spiritual people’s understandings and experiences of forgiveness and mental well-being in the context of daily relationships such as with parents, romantic partners and work colleagues and factors that may have helped to facilitate/obstruct the process of forgiveness.  Preliminary findings highlight a number of themes that have emerged such as the interrelationship between forgiveness of other and self; descriptions of well-being as including both hedonic and eudaimonic perspectives, forgiveness as a process of letting go but also the importance of developing positive emotions towards a transgressor and the use of meditative prayer and meditation in facilitating the practice of forgiveness.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The qualitative interviews have helped with the design of the second, quantitative, phase of the study which will use structural equation modeling to examine the relationships among meditation, prayer, forgiveness and mental well-being in a larger sample.  To date, much of the research on forgiveness has focused on the reduction of negative states with few studies exploring whether forgiveness may promote positive mental health and if this relationship may be mediated by factors such as meditation or prayer.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper aims to help address the significance of forgiveness in people’s lives, the outcomes of practicing forgiveness and the mechanisms which may help to promote forgiveness.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/akhtarforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Unfinished Forgiveness: The Joint Meaning of Forgiveness in Intimate Partner Violence</span>
Aviva Zrihan—Weistzman and Eli Buchbinder
Israel</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Recent years have seen increased awareness of the need to understand forgiveness in the context of intimate partner violence (IPV). The present qualitative study focused on how male's batterers and female's victim perceived forgiveness in their relationships. The study was based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 couples; 30 men and women aged 31 to 61, who had been married between 5 and 30 years and who were still living together. Recruitment of study participants was via social workers in centers for treatment and prevention of family violence in Israel.
The study findings show that the male batterers saw forgiveness out of their dual self-perception as both perpetrator and victim. This dual perception blurred the perpetrator and victim roles, creating complexities regarding forgiveness. This situation was manifest in the batterers as they moved between the positions of the perpetrator who grants forgiveness and the victim who grants forgiveness. The male batterers perceived their own remorse to mean the right to demand their partners’ forgiveness. The women’s decision to grant forgiveness was made in accordance with their preconceived idea of the relationship and its future. Thus, forgiveness preserved the status quo in the relationship and legitimized the men’s self-perception as victims and as therefore entitled to accuse the women of being partially responsible for the violence. The blurring of this distinction between requesting and granting forgiveness was paradoxical. On the one hand, it fed the desire to continue the relationship and on the other hand, reinforced the men’s sense of perpetual vulnerability.</p>
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/forgiveness/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/session-9-esteem-abuse-and-psychology/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Session 8: Intimate Relationships</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>6th Global Conference</strong></p>

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg"><img title="Forgivenesslogo" alt="Forgivenesslogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg" width="520" height="130" /></a></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Saturday 6th July – Monday 8th July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Measures of Forgiveness: What, How, Who is Measured?</span>
Chaya Koren and Zvi Eisikovits
The School of Social work and the Center for the Study of Society, University of Haifa, Israel</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Forgiveness has become a well-known concept studied within personal relationships in psychology during recent decades. As the concept developed, several efforts to measure its various aspects can be identified. The complexity of the concept is reflected in the diversity found in definitional aspects, and accordingly in the various measurement tools. The aims of this article are to explore systematically and critically the complexities involved in the various existing measures of forgiveness and discuss their weakness particularly concerning content validity.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">16 Measures of forgiveness in personal and interpersonal relationships were identified by searching APApsycNET. All instruments presented good to excellent psychometric properties. The measures were further examined for content validity. Three major themes were identified: (1) State and trait: how distinct are they? (2) Conceptual problems: (a) Forgiveness is forgiving: Using the concept to explain the concept; (b) Non-specific, over-inclusive, or collateral measures of forgiveness; (c) the complexity of forgiveness as a concept. (3) Theory-related issues.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Conclusions suggest that the problems raised through content validity may be related to the degree of complexity and multidimensionality of the concept. Given this state of affairs, we suggest an approach grounded in qualitative methodology for developing constructs of forgiveness based on a diverse sample of participants relating to a wide range of offences and transgressions in personal and interpersonal relationships.  In addition, we suggested the need to develop instruments, which are able to measure  the dynamic movement between victim and transgressor and address the multidimensionality of the concept.</p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Conceptualizing Forgiveness in Intimate Relationships: Toward an Integrative Theoretical Model</span>
Zvi Eisikovits, Chaya Koren and Guy Becker
University of Haifa</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">For centuries forgiveness has been associated with religion as a recommended commandment for improving relationship with God and with others. More recently it has become increasingly used as a concept within psychology theoretically and empirically studied and even used in therapy. The aim of this paper is to present a critical review of definitions, process and dynamics of forgiveness, to review existing theoretical forgiveness models and suggest a new theoretical model.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Themes discussed will include: Commonalities and differences among definitions of forgiveness; lay-persons’ and researchers’ perspectives; the process of forgiveness in intimate relationships; between the intrapersonal and the interpersonal; victim and perpetrator interchangeability; cross cultural and religious differences; motivations to forgive; moral cognitive developmental forgiveness; forgiveness and personality traits.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The uniqueness of the suggested model is the interactive component between the roles of victim and transgressor. While most forgiveness models have been developed through the eyes of the victim, the present one is based on the assumption that the roles of victim and transgressor should not be dichotomized, that there is some of both in each, and therefore one can forgive and/or be forgiven.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Implications may be derived from the model regarding the bilateral nature of acts such as betrayal and forgiveness for the dyad. The real-life events that trigger the violation-forgiveness process are mutual, but they may be conceived differently by each member of the dyad. This differential perception has implications for the processes described in the model and calls for future research in order to explore the differential effects of symmetry on the outcomes of the forgiveness process.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/korenforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">It’s Better to Forgive: Forgiveness of Battered Women</span>
Aviva Weitzman and Zvi Eisdikovits
Tel-Hai College and University of Haifa</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The purpose of this paper was to describe and analyze forgiveness by battered women towards their perpetrators. This is part of a larger study examining forgiveness and revenge among partners involved in intimate partner violence. The study used an analytic-phenomenological perspective and interviewed in depth 15 couples (30 interviews). They were a theoretical sample drawn from clients of Centers for Treatment of Intimate Violence. They experienced violence and chose to remain in the relationship. For the present article 15 interviews with the women were chosen. Women described two kinds of forgiveness: One taken for granted, that we called "adaptive", meant to maintain the relationship and overcome the injury; the other which was contingent on change either by individual members of the couple or both and we named it "conditional forgiveness". There was a movement between these kinds on a time dimension. A spiral model describing this movement is presented and illustrated. Implications for the theory and practice of forgiveness are suggested.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/weitzmanforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/forgiveness/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/session-8-intimate-relationships/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Session 7: Forgiveness, Politics, and Society</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>6th Global Conference</strong></p>

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg"><img title="Forgivenesslogo" alt="Forgivenesslogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg" width="520" height="130" /></a></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Saturday 6th July – Monday 8th July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Does Self-Respect Require Withholding Forgiveness</span>
Miguel Bravo
The University of Bristol</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Critics of the view that forgiveness is a moral requirement maintain that such a response to your wrongdoer is, in certain instances, contrary to your self-respect. Since respecting yourself is a basic moral requirement, it would follow that forgiveness is, at times, morally impermissible. This paper challenges such critics by undermining the conception of respect implicit in their argument, showing that, properly understood, a refusal to forgive entails either a lack of self-respect, or respect for others. Roughly, their view of respect mistakenly bases the worth of persons on the quality of their moral character, thereby reducing the respect for a person’s worth to a mere appraisal of their moral excellence. Once the notion of worth is correctly separated from that of moral character, it becomes clear that the moral demands of self-respect are unaffected by others’ wrongful conduct toward you, since this is indicative only of their incorrect conception of your worth and hence of a deficiency in their moral character, not of your actual worth. Therefore, forgiveness, construed as the letting go of the low estimation of your wrongdoer following his wrongful treatment of you, cannot be contrary to the moral demands of your self-respect since this would entail that such demands are affected by others’ wrongful conduct toward you after all. Importantly, believing the contrary betrays a misguided appreciation of the moral authority of your own worth and hence a lack of self-respect. Further, refusing to forgive on any other grounds than self-respect is equally unjustified as the wrongdoer’s worth is also unaffected by his wrongful act so that to view him as less valuable is disrespectful.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/bravoforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Love, Loss, and Forgiveness in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club</span>
Chuen-shin Tai
Shih Chien University</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club is filled with compelling stories of four Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-born daughters. Tan presents how the healing power of forgiveness is what saved the troubled relationship between the Chinese mother and American daughter. Forgiveness is found when the daughter sees the world through the mother’s eye. That is to say, forgiveness is a choice to release feeling victimized from the traumatic past. Nevertheless, the generational and intercultural differences cause the American daughter’s inability to value her mother’s Chinese story that carries love and hope. Moreover, such kind of devastating relationship leads to only more fights and alienation. In a sense, the mother and daughter lose faith in each other. Thus, when the daughter Jing-mei replaces her mother’s corner at the mah jong table, she then can genuinely appreciate her mother’s devotion and action by seeing things from her mother’s perspective. Likewise, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird explains how one can never understand a person until one consider things from his point of view or climb in his skin and walk around in it. Hence, Jing-mei must open her heart and mind to really understand her mother’s suffering and loss from the past. As a result, walking in her mother’s shoes, Jing-mei reconciles and forgives painful misunderstanding with her dead mother by finding unconditional love among them. In all, forgiveness brings understanding, and understanding brings compassion.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/taiforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Forgiveness and Forgiving According To Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son (c. 1668)</span>
Constantinos V. Proimos
Hellenic Open University</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Rembrandt’s Return of the Prodigal Son (c. 1668) is a famous life-sized oil painting by the artist in the collection of State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is a history painting, belonging to the last phase of Rembrandt’s artistic production and crowning his evolution. The artist illustrates in his own unique way the well known biblical parable of the prodigal son from the Gospel of St Luke (Luke 22: 54-57) working with a palette knife with thick and broad layers of rough impasto, exploiting rich color and the bright-dark factor in order to increase the dramatic intensity of the event. Critics of the painting have pinpointed the popularity of the subject in 16th and 17th century Netherlands, Rembrandt’s debt to a woodcut by Maerten van Heemskerck and his relation to theological disputes between Catholics and Protestants that involved the interpretation of this specific parable. My task in this paper is to investigate the extent to which the problem of forgiveness and forgiving, having to do with Rembrandt’s life and career, preoccupied the artist in a way that reflected in the actual architectural arrangement of the painted scene. The set of secondary figures for whose identification there is no agreement among Rembrandt’s critics, functions as an auxiliary for the artist’s extensive meditation on forgiveness within the horizon of the unforgivable. Rembrandt portrays the meeting of father and son off center to give considerable space to a standing figure looking disapprovingly at the whole event whom Christian Tümpel identifies as the older brother. The prodigal son’s father spontaneously forgives his son without any terms and conditions under the eyes of his older son who rather seems to be unforgiving. I would like to argue that such coupling of forgiveness and the unforgivable by Rembrandt allows a powerful and introspective insight into one of the perennial issues of human existence. I also argue that philosophy of art which informs my approach to Rembrandt’s painting combines philosophy and art history and may illuminate painting from an angle that enhances its value and contribution to contemporary culture.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/proimosforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/forgiveness/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/session-7-forgiveness-politics-and-society/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Session 6: Forgiveness in India, Nigeria, and El Salvador</title>
		<description><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>6th Global Conference</strong></p>

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg"><img title="Forgivenesslogo" alt="Forgivenesslogo" src="http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/Forgivenesslogo.jpg" width="520" height="130" /></a></div>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><strong>Saturday 6th July – Monday 8th July 2013</strong>
Mansfield College, Oxford</strong></p>


<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Forgiveness in Indian Historical Tradition: Early Epigraphic Evidence</span>
Ravindra Kumar
School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Forgiveness as a virtuous attribute of mankind finds very early mention in Indian religious literature. Manusmriti lists forbearance among ten characteristics of dharma- the ideals of morality. The Shantiparva of Mahabharat elaborates the features of eternal morality and counts forgiveness as an essential merit of mankind. And numerous such instances can be cited from various religious traditions of India. This long tradition of the encryption of forgiveness finds a unique epideictic manifestation in third century BC in the epigraphs of Ashoka. Engraved on rocks and specially crafted stone pillars, the edicts of Ashoka were placed in almost all regions of the country at important public places along trade and pilgrimage routes. They, neither in their nature nor in form, were anywhere near imperial inscriptions establishing the authority of the monarch. These epigraphs extolled the nobleness of good actions and resorted to persuasion for people to traverse the path of right conduct. The use of language and script was carefully chosen to address a very wide populace providing unhindered access, particularly to the common-folk who were considered the target audience of the edicts. Some epigraphs pronounce disarmingly forthright penitence on the part of the monarch for the Kalinga war, the futility of the weapon induced submission, and approbation of Dhamma-vijaya- victory through the adaptation of the moral ways of life. Use of epigraphs for proclaiming and also disseminating forbearance and other moral tenets in public, at such an early period is an unparalleled instance in Indian history. This paper probes the historical roots and circumstances of this act. It also examines, to whatever extent possible, the impact of these edicts on the general conduct of the people. It keeps the public pronouncement of forgiveness in these epigraphs in focus.</p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Forgiveness in Biblical and Quranic Perspectives with Reference to Nigerian Yoruba Traditions: A Panacea to World Terrorist Acts</span>
S.K. Adekunle & A. O. Oloyede
TAI SOLARIN COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, OMU-IJEBU, OGUN STATE, NIGERIA</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">The abyss of moral decadence being recorded on a daily basis globally is becoming worrisome. The manifestation of its resultant effect in terms of social vices include, drug trafficking, armed robbery, vandalization of government properties, militancy, kidnapping for money even rituals, political killings, rebellion against incumbent governments, and above all a well pronounced terrorist acts. This great act has informed instability in governance in many nations of the world today which culminated into pulling down of existing structures, examples are Syria, Egypt in recent years, Lybia, Afghanistan, Cuba, even in northern part of Nigeria where Boko Haram has been operating, reported to have been traceable to Al-Queda terrorizing the world.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">As much as there are political, religious, ethnic even family and community offences not well addressed, terrorism could not be ruled out, the researchers deeply thought over some factors that could bring peace and tranquility to the universe across the globe because, the world is now a global village which has availed opportunities for nations to enjoy one another in their areas of comparative advantages. One of the antidote factors against terrorism in the world has been traced to be act of forgiveness from Biblical and Quranic perspectives with reference to Nigerian Yoruba traditions. Paradoxically, Jesus Christ advocated for peace instead of violence as inherent in John 16:33, 20:21, that is, “I have said this to you, that in me you have peace… Jesus said to them again” Peace be with you, as the father has sent me, even so I send you (RSV).</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">Muslims believe to receive forgiveness at the instance of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) through Allah shown to them by the Prophet. All these could be likened to Nigerian Yoruba traditions which give cognizance to the act of forgiveness before eventual actions against the culprits if offence persists.</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper intends to demystify the functional role nature and practice of forgiveness from the perspectives of religions for conflict resolution, how and why we do forgive to prevent retaliation even aggression in the face of trouble, two wrongs cannot make a right.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/oluseforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>

<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Forgiveness and Revolution: The Case of the Sandinistas</span>
Karen Bettez Halnon
Pennsylvania State University Abington (USA)</p>

<p style="text-align: justify;">This paper explores meanings of forgiveness and reconciliation vis-a-vis the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. It begins with introductory sections that bring the reader closer to Nicaragua, three Sandinista priests, liberation theology, and Nicaragua's historical struggle against US imperialism. After describing sundry crimes committed against Nicaraguans and humanity, the paper moves to a discussion of meanings attached to forgiveness and reconciliation, including Minister of Interior Tomas Borge’s parable-like forgiveness, President Ortega’s Reconciliation/Amnesty campaign and President Chamorro’s similarly complicated reconciliation platform, which was taken up at a 1993 US Congressional Hearing. While commenting on changes in the thorny religious-political landscape over the past 20 years, the paper concludes with a reflection on forgiving, forgetting and Nicaragua.</p>

<p style="text-align: right;"><a href="/probing-the-boundaries/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/halnonforpaper.pdf" target="_blank"><strong>Download Draft Conference Paper (pdf)</strong></a></p>
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/forgiveness/conference-programme-abstracts-and-papers/session-6-forgiveness-in-india-nigeria-and-el-salvador/</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>