Suchergebnisse

"Jeff took a deep breath to calm down. He was about to stand in front of the employees of the Happy Face Toy Company's faltering Cleveland factory. As the new CEO, he'd been advised to close this factory as soon as possible, but he wanted to see it first. "How hard could this be?" he wondered, gathering the courage to ask them about their jobs. He had no idea what he was in for. When was the last time you told your colleagues how much you value them? It sounds like a trivial thing in the middle of a busy work day. But as David Novak discovered during his years as a hard charging executive, there's nothing trivial about recognition. It can make a life-or-death difference to any organization, when people see that someone important really notices and appreciates their contributions. Rather than explain the power of recognition in a typical business book, Novak decided to write a fun story that draws on his real-world experiences at Pepsi and Yum! Brands, as well as his personal life. The story opens when Jeff Johnson becomes the third-generation CEO of his family business, after the sudden death of his father. The Happy Face Toy Company had many hits in the 1950s and 60s, including Crazy Paste, but its results have been declining for more than a decade. The board has given Jeff just one year to turn the business around, or else they'll have to sell it to the highest bidder. As Jeff races to save his family's legacy by getting the company back on track, he meets downtrodden factory workers and an uninspired executive team. Then a birthday gift from his own grandson gives Jeff an important insight into why Happy Face lost its old culture of innovation and excitement, along with its profitability. Jeff comes up with an idea that seems crazy

This book is a Festschrift offered by twelve Catholic theologians and philosophers to the great Jewish theologian David Novak. Each of the twelve essays is followed by a response by David Novak, and it thereby represents a significant addition to his oeuvre. The book includes an introduction by Matthew Levering surveying Novak's many contributions to Jewish-Christian dialogue, as well as a transcribed conversation between Robert George and David Novak that encapsulates Novak's sense of the present situation for Jews and Christians. Among the topics treated by the authors are religious engagement in a pluralist and secular culture, the question of whether Jews and Christians worship the same God, the morality of suicide, the role of divine commandments in Catholic moral theology, the question of whether classical versions of natural-law doctrine are susceptible to the critiques proffered by Novak, the pedagogical impact of Dabru Emet, religious freedom, the recent debate about Pope Pius IX and Edgardo Mortara, the nature of justice, the relationship of reason and revelation, the sanctity of human life and the death penalty, and supersessionism

This book critically and constructively explores the resources offered for natural law doctrine by classical thinkers from three traditions: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Three scholars each offer a programmatic essay on natural law doctrine in their particular religious tradition and then respond to the other two essays.

The Jewish Social Contract begins by asking how a traditional Jew can participate politically and socially and in good faith in a modern democratic society, and ends by proposing a broad, inclusive notion of secularity. David Novak takes issue with the view--held by the late philosopher John Rawls and his followers--that citizens of a liberal state must, in effect, check their religion at the door when discussing politics in a public forum. Novak argues that in a "liberal democratic state, members of faith-based communities--such as tradition-minded Jews and Christians--ought to be able to adhere to the broad political framework wholly in terms of their own religious tradition and convictions, and without setting their religion aside in the public sphere.Novak shows how social contracts emerged, rooted in biblical notions of covenant, and how they developed in the rabbinic, medieval, and "modern periods. He offers suggestions as to how Jews today can best negotiate the modern social contract while calling upon non-Jewish allies to aid them in the process. The Jewish Social Contract will prove an enlightening and innovative contribution to the ongoing debate about the role of religion in liberal democracies.

Abstract
ORGANIZATIONAL DISCOURSE: COMMUNICATION AND CONSTITUTION, FRANÇOIS COOREN (JANUARY 2015) 1st ed., Malden, MA: Polity, 224 pp., ISBN: 9780745654218, h/bk, $64.95, ISBN: 9780745654225, p/bk, $22.95
WHAT MIDDLETOWN READ: PRINT CULTURE IN AN AMERICAN SMALL CITY, FRANK FELSENSTEIN AND JAMES J. CONNOLLY (JUNE 2015) 1st ed., Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 344 pp., ISBN: 9781625341419, p/bk, $28.95
CULTURES OF OPTIMISM: THE INSTITUTIONAL PROMOTION OF HOPE, OLIVER BENNETT (JANUARY 2015) 1st ed., London: Palgrave Macmillan, 248 pp., ISBN: 9781137484802, h/bk, $95.00

A disciple of Husserl and Heidegger, a contemporary of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Levinas entirely renewed the way of thinking ethics in our times. In contrast to the whole tradition of Western philosophy, he considered ethics neither as an aspiration to individual perfection, nor as the highest branch in the Cartesian tree of knowledge, but as first philosophy. He initiated a new understanding of time, freedom and language. This book is a collection of papers given at the International Conference Levinas in Jerusalem held at the Hebrew University in May 2002. It gives an overview of the most fecund areas of research in Levinas scholarship and brings together historians of philosophy, phenomenologists, specialists in Jewish thought and Talmud, as well as in politics and aesthetics. Coverage relates to Levinas's work as a whole and focuses on the many interactions between Levinas's philosophical writings and his Jewish-Talmudic ones. The authors, world renowned scholars and young promising ones, investigate Levinas's relationship to Bergson, Husserl and Heidegger, his conception of Justice and the State, and his view of Aesthetics, Eros and the Feminine.

Conventional wisdom suggests that theology is necessarily unfriendly to the liberal state, but neither philosophical analysis nor empirical argument has convincingly established that conclusion. Examining the problem from a variety of perspectives, including law, philosophy, history, political theory, and religious studies, the essays in Theology and the Soul of the Liberal State suggest the possibilities for and limits on what theological reflection might contribute to liberal polities across the globe