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Tempo Social
versão impressa ISSN 0103-2070
Tempo soc. v.4 n.se São Paulo 2008
Pathways of the sacred
Trajetórias do sagrado
Lísias Nogueira Negrão
Translated by Anthony Doyle
Translation from Tempo Social, São Paulo, v.20, n.2, p.115-132, Nov 2008.
The aim of this article is to analyze the current dynamic of the São Paulo religious field, seen not through the plurality of its religious organizations, nor through the positions adopted by ecclesiastical or group leaders. Instead, I focus on the individual religious agents and their attitudes in response to a growing religious pluralism and diversification. The work therefore looks at individuals who are 'religious mutants:' people who have changed their religious affiliation at least once during their lives, or who are religious in a two-fold or multi-fold way, participants of two or more symbolic-religious universes simultaneously. By studying people's religious trajectories, we can analyze their beliefs and religious practices irrespective of their affiliation to specific organized groups. With the single exception of the Protestants, still anchored in the conception of a transcendent God and a strong ecclesiolatry (though the Pentecostals diverge slightly through their incorporation of magic), we can perceive a trend towards a kind of religiosity that Troeltsch called mystic and which Campbell identifies as its Easternized. The followers of other religions, or the twofolders/multifolders, tend towards mystical religious ideas and magical practices lived out in private, willingly frequent a variety of religious groups and repudiate clerical authoritarianism. The old conflicts of traditional religious dualities (Catholicism/Spiritism; Catholicism/Afro-Brazilian Religions) have been amplified with new forms (Catholic/Protestant; Catholic/Other Religions) and with the emergence of multiplicity, reproducing in Brazilian style the same transformations experienced throughout the West for a long time.
Keywords: Religious Pluralism; Religious Trajectories; Religious Duality; Individual Religion.
O objetivo deste artigo é analisar a dinâmica atual do campo religioso paulistano, vista não por intermédio da pluralidade de suas organizações religiosas, nem dos posicionamentos de lideranças eclesiais ou grupais. Nele focamos os agentes religiosos individuais e suas atitudes diante do pluralismo religioso crescente, que culminou na formação de um campo altamente diversificado. Para isso selecionamos indivíduos que são mutantes religiosos, isto é, que mudaram de orientação religiosa ao menos uma vez em suas vidas, ou então que são dúplices ou multíplices religiosos, participantes de dois ou mais universos simbólico-religiosos simultaneamente. Por meio do levantamento de suas trajetórias religiosas analisaram-se suas crenças e práticas rituais, independentemente da pertença ou não a grupos organizados. Com a única exceção dos protestantes, tanto históricos quanto pentecostais estes um tanto diferenciados pela incorporação da magia , ainda ancorados na concepção de um Deus transcendente e numa forte eclesialidade, podem ser detectadas tendências em direção a uma religiosidade que Troeltsch chamou de mística, o que implicaria, segundo Campbell, em sua orientalização. Os adeptos de qualquer outra religião ou então os dúplices/multíplices aproximam-se de concepções religiosas místicas e práticas mágicas vividas na privacidade, admitem a freqüência a grupos religiosos diversos e repudiam o autoritarismo clerical. As velhas tramas das duplicidades religiosas tradicionais (catolicismo/espiritismo; catolicismo religiões afro-brasileiras) ampliam-se com novas formas (católica/protestante; católica/outras religiões) e com a emergência da multiplicidade, reproduzindo à brasileira as mesmas transformações vividas há muito em todo o Ocidente.
Palavras-chave: Pluralismo religioso; Trajetórias religiosas; Duplicidade religiosa; Religião individual.
The Origin of the Weft
In this article I aim to analyze some of the changing trends in the current Brazilian religious field that various researchers, myself included, have identified on the level of individual religiosity and twofold and multifold religious creeds. First off, however, I will revisit some analyses of the religious phenomenon in modernity made by an author who, despite the recognized importance of his work, is seldom mentioned and little known: Ernst Troeltsch, an eminent German historian of religion, though originally a theologian, and a contemporary and interlocutor of Max Weber. Other than some short excerpts from his better known titles, on the church and sects, published in collections and magazines, his works are not available in Portuguese translation1.
Nevertheless, I will avoid the debate on the institutional distinction between associative forms (church and sect) proposed by this author, and which he himself considered to be outmoded as a means of explaining the religious life of his time: ecclesiastical religiosity, in both of the abovementioned forms, were already in the throes of crisis at the beginning of the 20th Century, though Troeltsch did not entertain the possibility of their future disappearance. This crisis was sparked by a revolt against ecclesiastical authoritarianism in the modern Christian world, whether Catholic or Protestant, due primarily to foreglimpses of the immanent reality being ushered in by modernity and of the individualism and pluralism of ideas that reality implied. As he saw it, the modern world would be incompatible with religious absolutisms and monopolies, but before launching into a discussion of the extra-ecclesial religion that defined that contemporary world, Troeltsch dedicated a whole chapter to his concept of modernity2.
Curiously, for a self-professed theologian, the point of departure for his study of modernity did not lie in the religious, ideological or even ethical motivations behind action, given the instability and reciprocal inter-influence that made it impossible to isolate any one of these elements in a pure enough state for observation. Rather, in seeking to characterize this reality, he chose to start from what he considered to be most stable in it, namely the institutional forces - the social and economic structures - of the State and its immanent rationality, centred in mundane, secular power; the egalitarian or liberal political individualism capable of moderating state power; capitalism, with the radical transformations it worked in the material world and in the generation of class relations; and, lastly, the hyper-accelerated pace of work and the mind-boggling rise of consumerism. Contrary to Max Weber, Troeltsch argued that it was not so much ethico-economic rationalism than political individualism that had formed the basis for the elective affinity between Protestantism and capitalism, and that institutional and structural modifications introduced by modernity had simultaneously triggered the crisis in ecclesiastical religion and paved the way for its non-clerical, individualized counterpart.
In concentrating on the relationship between modernity and religion, Troeltsch was able to conduct what might well be his most relevant analyses on the latter by introducing its third type (the first two being 'church' and 'sect'), which he called "mysticism", i.e., an anti-institutional, radically non-rationalized (being mystical rather than acetic), but individualist religiosity with strong syncretic and pluralist tendencies and a disregard for church bounds. He considered this third strain to be the hallmark of the typical religion of modernity, with which it is entirely compatible. It would not be homogeneous, because, besides its Christian elements - namely an interiorized Christian faith anchored in the conviction of personalized Divine revelation -, it would also contain syncretized elements from spiritist, Oriental and esoteric traditions, as well as pantheistic and aesthetic content.
Unlike the adepts of a radically Enlightened secularization or the proclaimers of the death of God, Troeltsch did not believe that 20th-century transformations would signal the end of religions, even the ecclesiastic religions already in crisis. They would certainly go on changing, in-line with the already identified trends: rejection of clericalism; individualization; pluralism; syncretism. Nor did he discount the possibility of a religious revival, as history revealed a certain pendulum effect when it comes to high and low levels of religious fervour, and he even entertained the chance of there occurring a resurgence of ecclesiastic religion as a backlash against rising tides of religious individualization.
Troeltsch's analyses refer to the transition from the 19th to the 20th century and therefore deal with the presence and dilemmas of religion within modernity. So how did these issues develop over the course of the 1900s and how were they configured at the turn of the last century, already in the so-called post-modern period? Based on Troeltsch's ideas, Colin Campbell3 took it upon himself to answer this very question. For Campbell, there was a radicalization of the trends identified by the German historian, with the 1960s proving the historical tidemark of this transformation, which he interprets as Easternization: "Today, the West is undergoing a process of 'Easternization', characterized by a shift away from its traditional theodicy toward another that is essentially eastern in nature" (Campbell, 1997, p. 5). In other words, the traditional western theodicy, based on belief in a transcendent Godhead and an ascetic and salvationist religious bearing (Calvinism being the most complete historical example), is being replaced by an Eastern paradigm centred on conceptions of an immanent, impersonal God and mystic, non-salvationist attitudes of self-perfection or self-deification (the pristine example being Hindu Karmic law).
This does not so much imply a direct influence of eastern religiosity over its western counterpart as it does an internal process of transformation within the post-modern religious field, in which religious aspects hitherto present but secondary have grown in importance thanks to their greater compatibility with the directions society has taken. These religious conceptions, which will become hegemonic in the present millennium, as Troeltsch foresaw back in the closing decade of the 19th Century, are a monist response (postulating unity between man and nature, between the spiritual and physical, the mind and the body) to western dualism, implying "a vision that leads to the acceptance of a religious relativism toward all specific creeds and also to polymorphism, which recognizes the truth of all religions. As such, not only is there tolerance for visions fundamentally different to the central tenets of Christianity, but all forms of religion are seen as identical". Likewise, "there is an affinity with idealist and metaphysical philosophical systems" (Campbell, 1977, p. 12). While there will be some opposition to intra-mundane materialism and rationalism, this will not lead to a condemnation of the secular, which is adhered to selectively.
This new spirituality can accommodate the most diverse concrete religious expressions, ranging from Eastern Hindu and Buddhist influences to Neopaganism (Hellenic, Druidic, Nordic and Celtic paganisms) and even the belief systems of Amerindian populations (native indian tribes, Aztec and Mayan culture), where the archaic Western past is viewed as preferable to any Eastern influx. There is also room for modern references that show some affinity with progressivist and contemporary scientific elements, and even for environmentalist and ecological movements, such as the so-called New Age philosophy. Of course, added to these elements will be new influences based on reinterpretations of Christian traditions.
Based on this platform provided by eminent scholars of modern and post-modern religions, I will now funnel the discussion into the sphere of Brazilian society. In what way have the specificities of Brazil's historical formation moulded the national religious field? Is it going through the same processes as can be identified in modern and contemporary Europe and North America? And if so, to what extent? These are precisely the questions I aim to address in the following pages.
Historical formation of the Brazilian religious field: from colonial Catholic monopoly to lay republican pluralism
Under the yoke of the Portuguese crown, Catholicism was imposed upon Brazil since the very onset of colonization as the official religion of the Empire and its sacraments were the only ones allowed to be practiced publicly or domestically4. This alliance between the Portuguese royalty and the Vatican enabled the Portuguese Empire to legitimize its temporal interests and modus operandi under the pretext of saving souls and spreading the Christian faith and culture. During the colonial period there was what Hoornaert (1974, pp. 31-65) called a "warlike Catholicism" intimately bound up with the conquest and preservation of a new world and the colonial enterprise.
The control the Crown wielded over the colonial Church (collecting its tithes and appointing and paying the priests and bishops) meant the clergy, practically reduced to a wing of the civil service, was dependent upon royal power and divorced from the interests of Rome. The clergy operated as economic agents, got involved in political affairs, lacked theological training and even intellectual culture, married at will and raised families. Only members of the various orders, particularly the Jesuits, remained loyal to the institutional and spiritual interests of the Roman Church, but they were concentrated along the coast and in the future state capitals of the fledgling nation, where they exercised some influence and sought to preserve the orthodoxy of the Catholic mass and control over the lives of their flock. They also ventured into remote settlements in the backlands, where they strove to convert the natives. Throughout the rest of the colony, in the small villages and sparsely populated rural hamlets, the clergy could rarely count on the support of a parish structure. The priest dropped by every now and then, perhaps once a year, to carry out the necessary rites, baptizing the young, marrying couples, hearing confessions, praying and saying mass.
This configuration as an at once colonial and catechetic venture had its consequences, and they varied depending on the degree of presence or absence of the clergy and on their relative jurisdictions, leading, as Hoornaert (1974) points out, to the formation of three different types of Catholicism: one ritualistic and formal, another patriarchal and a third inherently vernacular.
Catholicism was obligatory during colonial rule in Brazil. Those born here accepted it as a presupposition of citizenship, with the exception of the Indians, who were either exterminated or forced to convert. Those not born here also had to adopt it, even if they could not understand it: African slaves were baptized at port, either before embarking or upon arrival. The Jews, under threat of dispossession or execution by the Inquisition, preferred to become "new Christians"5. So it was more important to appear Catholic than to actually be Catholic. One had to attend mass and pray publicly, observe the holy days and name one's businesses after the Catholic saints. In order to escape enslavement or avoid exile in the badlands, where they were hunted down by the Bandeirante gunmen, the Indians opted to settle in encampments, where they were christened and indoctrinated. The Negroes continued to worship their ancestral gods by identifying them with Christian saints and erecting altars for their rites, while the Jews attended mass and said all the right prayers. Hence there was a necessarily formal, outward show of religion that was never really internalized or adopted with personal conviction, something that persists to this day among many Brazilian Catholics.
The patriarchal Catholicism mentioned above was a form adapted to the patrimonial system that prevailed on the plantations, especially the sugar fields, but in other agricultural segments as well. On these plantations the priest served the local landowner, under whose orders he would not only celebrate mass publicly and domestically, but also teach the children of the house to read and write, promote harmony within the extended family and externally between the master and his slaves and servants, acting as the right-hand man and benevolent face of the landowner's control, who had taskmasters and henchmen waiting in the wings to deal with those who failed to heed the priest. Of course the Church's stance before social inequalities today is much more complex, but in some more conservative sectors of Catholicism there persists a tendency to legitimize social differences on religious grounds.
Lastly, we come to vernacular Catholicism. Without the watchful gaze of the clergy, the inhabitants of villages and small rural settlements scattered about the vast landscape of the nation were free to preserve their own beliefs and practices in very specific religious blends. There was even an urban vernacular Catholicism, with the formation of brotherhoods and lay orders, especially among the Negro population, though these were subject to more ecclesiastic control. Centred on the saints, principally the local patron saints, votive rites and novenas, and the traditional Catholic litany, vernacular Catholicism was generally a joyous cult, with festivals and dances to mark the feast days of the most important saints, though there were also occasional moments of contrition, with mortifications and penitence, but always accentuating solidarity among the participants and an underlying group identity (cf. Queiroz, 1973).
Describing their practices in their songs ("a lot of prayer, little mass; a lot of saints, few priests"), the vernacular Catholics expressed their distance from the Church and its clergy. They created their own religious roles, with specialist prayer masters, festivity organizers, who arranged the feast day celebrations, the blessers and the curers, the monk (in the south) or beato (devout man, in the northeast), both of whom were itinerant figures. When the priest was actually present, the tension was latent or sometimes even manifest in his condemnation of the allegedly profane aspects of this type of devotion, and attempts to force-fit them into orthodox Catholicism. This type of Catholicism occasionally attained high levels of autonomy from the Church and State, as during the period of transition from the Brazilian Monarchy to the First Republic, which saw a flurry of messianic and millenarian revolts, such as those of Canudos (cf. Galvão, 2001), which flared up in the Bahian badlands and was quashed by the military in 1897, and the Contestado (cf. Monteiro, 1974), between 1912 and 1916, on lands disputed by the states of Paraná and Santa Catarina, also put down by the republican armed forces.
After the arrival of the Portuguese Court in Brazil in 1808, fleeing before Napoleon's troops, and the opening of Brazilian ports to English traders, the monarch João VI permitted the practice of Protestantism within the national territory on condition that it was not done in temples and that no proselytising was conducted in its favour or against the official faith. Nevertheless, despite all this and the sympathies of the Brazilian emperors Pedro I and Pedro II toward Protestant groups, lifting the ban on Protestant church services for native Brazilians, the formation of Protestant colonies and the free activity of North-American missionaries, "at the beginning of the 20th Century, there was no trace of Protestantism in Brazil [ ] the Protestant practitioners who passed through here left no mark on the religious system of society" (Ribeiro, 1973, p. 15). Yet it was the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889 and the Constitution that soon followed it that laid down the conditions for the pluralist and lay society that developed over the course of the 20th Century, with the separation of the Republican State from the Catholic Church and the institution of the principle of religious freedom.
However, the Proclamation of the Republic did not result in any loss of Catholic hegemony or its influence over Brazilian cultural and political life. Catholicism continued to cooperate occasionally with the republican State, combat messianic heresies and impose its religious principles upon successive Constitutions, such as the prohibition of divorce and abortion. The Catholic Church availed of its newfound freedom to rebuild its ties with Vatican orthodoxy. Priests now received more serious seminary instruction, the bishopric was chosen from among the most dedicated and ultramontanist candidates, European religious orders were brought in to run the sanctuaries and other religious services, and efforts were made to instill a less magical and devotional, more Christocentric brand of Catholicism among the lower classes. Thus began the so-called Romanization (cf. Oliveira, 1976) of Brazilian Catholicism.
However, to an extent, the legacy of colonial and imperial Catholicism was preserved, despite the deep-set republican transformations. Regardless of the abolition of obligation, the vast majority of Brazilians continued to declare themselves Catholic, albeit only formally and superficially, never attending mass, averse to the sacraments and partial to saintly devotions and prayer. Furthermore, many descendants of the Negroes and Amerindians created syncretic cults in which Catholicism co-existed alongside otherwise incompatible creeds and practices, such as in Bahian Candomblé (and other similar Afro-Brazilian cults) and the Shamanisms of the Brazilian North and Northeast. As far back as the Empire, historical Protestant groups such as the Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Methodists had started to arrive, though not in large numbers, and they went on to garner some influence over the educational system during the republican period. Yet it was only from the end of the closing decade of the last century that the Pentecostal Protestants began to introduce themselves into the Brazilian religious panorama, which they then altered dramatically through their intense growth and presence, especially in metropolitan regions.
Data on changes in the Brazilian religious field throughout the 20th Century and its current configuration
In the mid 20th Century, the 1940s to be precise, Catholics still accounted for 95% of all those surveyed (cf. IBGE, 2000) against a mere 2.6% for Protestants and 1.9% for other religions. Over the course of the second half of the century Catholicism remained the religion with the highest number of adherents. Even in 1991, an IBGE (Brazilian census board) study put the share of Catholics at over 80%, 83% to be exact. At this stage almost the whole religious demographic was Christian, as the Protestant groups combined accounted for a further 9%. The remainder, including Kardecist Spiritists, practitioners of Afro-Brazilian cults and others not specified in the census, comprised a paltry 2.9% of the total. Even if we factor in the traditional twofold religiosity of Kardecists and adepts of Afro-Brazilian cults, who often also adhere to Catholicism and tend to declare themselves Catholic in official surveys, though their core beliefs and practices would suggest otherwise, the Catholic percentage of the population almost certainly never dropped below 80% prior to the second-last decade of the century.
The tendencies that had already been manifesting during the latter half of the 1900s a slight but constant decline in Catholicism and a commensurate rise in Protestant and other groups, and the formation and consolidation of a pluralist religious field intensified at the turn of the century. Between 1991 and 2000, Catholicism lost almost 10% of its following, slipping to 73.6% of the population. During the same period, Protestant numbers grew by a little over 6%, with its various denominations representing a combined 15.4%. Spiritism, Afro-Brazilian religions and other cults grew very little during the period (only 0.5%), practically stabilizing at 3.4%. Based on these figures we could say that the group that grew the most in the latter half of the 20th Century was Protestantism, growing eleven-fold from 1.4% in 1940 to 15.4% in 2000. Most surprisingly, the data shows that those largely responsible for driving this upswing were the Pentecostals, who accounted for a little over half of Protestants in 1991 (5.6% out of 9%) but just over two-thirds in 2000 (10.4% out of 15.4). Also important was that these recruits were not all defecting Catholics (though Catholicism was the main source), but also former adepts of Afro-Brazilian cults, such as Umbanda and Candomblé, which lost some of their contingents during the period in question (down to 0.3% from 0.4%).
More recently, a survey conducted by Datafolha (cf. Folha de S. Paulo, 2007), published on the eve of the Papal visit by Benedict VI, confirmed the trend of Catholic fall-off and growth among Protestants in general and the Pentecostals in particular. Even considering the methodological differences between this survey and the official census the newspaper poll was conducted with a population sample and to an age minimum of 16 -, the percentage of Catholics in 2007 stood at 64%, down almost 10% in only seven years. Evangelical Christians rose to 22% (6.6% more than in 2000), of which 17% was Pentecostal (up 6.6%).
Reinventing the old and weaving the new
In this closing segment I will analyze religious trajectories, the courses taken by religiously 'mutant' agents, between diverse denominations and symbolisms. I will also deal with manifold religious experience or ambivalence with regard to institutional belonging or religious tradition. We will see that the transformation in-course for at least a century within religiosity in the western world, as diagnosed by Troeltsch and Campbell, can also be detected in the present Brazilian reality.
By restricting the respondents to just one of the listed faiths that declared , whilst also assuming that the individuals accept the totality of the beliefs and practices that declared faith would involve, and to the exclusion of all others, the quantitative findings presented above presuppose a unicity of faith and belonging as the sole possibility for religious experience. As such, they overlook some of the most characteristic features of this field, namely the dual and even multifold nature of beliefs and adherence and the dynamicity of religious trajectories. These are precisely the phenomena will shall deal with here, focusing on a qualitative perspective that values subjectivity over institutional parameters. The main religious trunks, with their ecclesiastic institutions, continue to serve as the repositories of tradition and as a source of sacred capital, but they are in the throes of a severe crisis of authority in a plural and secularized modern world in which religion is becoming more and more subjectively relevant.
In what follows I will present some quantitative and qualitative data collated during surveys I conducted in the São Paulo capital over the course of recent years. Respondents aged 16 or over, from some five-hundred family units resident in houses, apartments, slums or room and board filled in questionnaires that enabled me to identify roughly 130 religiously mutant, twofold or multifold respondents. These people were then invited for a recorded interview, with the conversation duly transcribed. The findings showed that 399 out of the 1,064 people surveyed who claimed to be religious or 38% of the total said they had changed religion at least once during their lifetimes. As for non-exclusivity, 122 (11%) of those surveyed said they adhered to or cultivated beliefs from two or more religious groups of reference. In short, out of the total of 1,064 religious individuals identified by the survey, 399, or 38%, were mutants and/or non-exclusive. The fact that over a third of self-declared religious people in the sample could be thus described revealed the importance of subjecting such cases to deeper analysis.
One interesting aspect immediately comes to attention in relation to two-fold religiosities. In addition to those known since at least the beginning of the last century, or perhaps even before, such as the Catholic/Spiritist combination (forty cases, or 10% of the total) and the Catholic/Afro-Brazilian blends (nine cases, or 2%), there were other frankly unexpected combinations, such as Catholic/Protestant dualities, occurring at rates as high as, or even higher than, the traditional couplings (34 cases in all, or 9%), not to mention Oriental and esoteric binary or multifold combinations, also at a relatively high frequencies (31 cases, or 8% of the total). We could therefore say that religious combinations have not only remained stable, but actually increased and diversified.
The respondents' accounts are eloquent expressions of the dynamic singularity of the Brazilian religious field, in terms of the restricted institutional/sacramental participation of its agents, their intense circulation through different religious groups, access to old and new belief systems and practices, and, moreover, in relation to a growing individualization of religious agents, experienced through dualities or even multiplicities. However, over the course of their religious trajectories, some religious mutants found themselves returning to Catholicism (although cases in which this return was exclusive were rare) or assuming some other exclusive religion, especially within the spectrum of Protestantism. Among cases that implied 1) conversion and traditional memberships, and 2) religiosity built individually and without, or almost without, participation in organized religious groups, a whole gamut of situations could be found. The general trend is that there are neither quick nor definitive migrations to any given flock or to the symbolic repertoire around which it congregates.
Conversions tend to be gradual, but almost never definitive, laced with dual symbolic experiences and admitted attraction to - or intended incursions into - other religious spheres. The only exceptions would appear to be among converts to Protestantism. Whether direct, i.e., conversion from a bedrock Catholicism, as in most cases, or intermediated by one or more experiences with (an)other religion(s), conversion to Protestantism is usually quick, with little or no reticence. The new group and its symbolic universe tend to be adopted simultaneously and abruptly. There is no time for gradual assimilations: evidence of the power of the new faith and the vehemence of the pastor who serves as its vehicle forces a quick-fire decision. While evangelicals rarely change their religion in itself, they do admit to switches between different denominations within the sub-camp of Protestantism.
However, there are also the undecideds, even among Catholics and Protestants many of the interviewees, for example, found themselves struggling to choose between the Protestant Universal Church of the Kingdom of God and the charismatic Catholic movement. It would be a mistake to consider Catholic/Protestant binaries to be a slow but definitive process of conversion from the former to the latter. Though migrants moving down to São Paulo from the northeast may frequent - or have frequented - more Protestant than Catholic temples, they often justify this on the grounds of convenience: "Because it was closer to my house". Furthermore, these individuals are not always aware of the differences between the two. The interviewee quoted above went on to add: "it was the same thing anyway, they both talked about God".
There is also the totally undecided contingent, for whom all religions are good; alternative paths leading to the same God. These people generally do not have any fixed symbology, much less any institutional definition, only a vague belief in God. When they frequent any one group more assiduously than others, they usually do so for circumstantial reasons: the place of worship is closer to home, the prayers are pretty, they go there with friends or family, etc. There are also those who can't decide between Kardecism, esotericisms and Eastern religions, both old and new. These cases can indeed be part of a shift from one experience to another, a swing between symbolic universes, though there was nothing in the interviews to corroborate that assumption. What does emerge from the tapes and transcripts is ambiguity, incapacity to distinguish between diverse symbologies, and confusion before the vast number of alternatives within the global religious sphere. Confronted with the multiple and the obscure, they often seek refuge in what appears to be an evident common denominator: on the spiritual level, God, and perhaps other spiritual entities; on the moral level, doing good, and, collaterally, condemning evil; on the functional level, well-being, flanked by cure and the resolution of existential problems.
Catholicism continues to be the major religious reference in society, even if Brazilians have come to identify with it less and less in recent decades. My research sought to demonstrate how religious pluralism has expanded, effecting modifications within Catholicism itself. Not only is the number of Catholic adepts decreasing, but those who remain are changing qualitatively, developing dualisms that could be described as both traditional (Catholicism/Afro-Brazilian religions; Catholicism/Spiritism) and innovative (Catholicism/Protestantism; Catholicism/Other religions; and multifold combinations).
In general, those who backtrack are people raised in Catholicism who, despite their incursions into other terrains of the religious field, are reluctant to shed the beliefs and practices of their childhood, adolescence or even youth, perhaps out of a sense of family tradition. They no longer attend mass and do not accept the sacraments, except, perhaps, for the baptism of their children, through which they hope to keep the family religious tradition alive. And yet, they continue to pray to the saints, especially Our Lady, and to practice an essentially Christian, albeit streamlined morality. However, in the vast majority of cases where religious mutants declare themselves exclusively Catholic, their ties to beliefs and practices from religions other than that declared tend to be greater. Many of these respondents were more properly - in belief and/or practice - spiritists, adherents of Candomblé or Umbanda, or new Japanese religions and Protestant sects. This is not to mention those who follow their initial declaration with the line: "I make my own religion".
This brings us to what we consider to be, for all but the Protestants, the crucial point behind the current dynamic of the religious field: a shift away from ecclesial experience and sacraments toward an individualized and solitary religious experience. Curiously, those who present the highest degree of attachment to a denomination or church are the Protestants, amongst whom there is no "institutional grace". Distance is nothing new in the case of the Catholic Church. It was the formation of a truly pluralist religious field whose origins can be traced back to the first decades of the last century and which progressively consolidated until reaching its present apex that paved the way toward this frequent and generalized concomitant experience of beliefs and practices of two or more religions, or indeed of personal religiosities pieced together from fragments of various religious traditions. In the case of born-and-raised Catholics, there is now contact with decriminalized and somewhat legitimized Afro-Brazilian cults; with historical and Pentecostal Protestantism, the latter in all its successive offshoots; with spiritism; and with new and old strands of Oriental and esoteric thought. This contact tends to occur at an earlier stage in metropolitan regions and sizeable urban centres. Despite a strong Pentecostal presence in traditional rural areas and pioneering agricultural frontiers, rural Brazil and smaller urban centres have not been affected to the same degree.
As the data shows, 38% of those interviewed in urban areas, Catholics in the majority, changed religion at least once in their lifetimes. One thing that is for certain is that most of those Catholics returning to the fold largely do so on non-exclusive terms. Some may believe in reincarnation and read works of spiritism, even if they do not actually frequent spiritist centres. Others might still return to such places of worship in times of need, in search of magical solutions. Others still marry Catholicism to esoteric and oriental modes of thought. Lastly, some mutants are also Protestants, or adjudge Protestantism to be superior to Catholicism, and nurture intentions to return to it someday. Furthermore, those who return tend to do so with less fidelity to orthodoxy, or perhaps no dogmatic or institutional links at all. They criticize aspects of church doctrine, seen as authoritarian and dogmatic, and some harbour a certain distrust of ecclesial agents, who are suspected of having vested interests, of concealing truths, of being bad preachers or perhaps even of being lascivious.
One way or another, a return to Catholicism, or its abandonment in favour of some other religious universe, generally occurs to the detriment of ecclesial and sacramental engagement. Mutants tend to refuse any definite membership and like to select the beliefs and practices that best suit their lifestyles. Spiritists, whether exclusive or in combination with Catholicism, often see no need to attend centres, or to continue to do so if this was once their wont. Reading books, especially those by Kardec, is usually sufficient for them, or perhaps some lighter form of literature, such as spiritist novels. Many will also be involved in charity work. The same occurs, with some exceptions in terms of percentages, among Afro-Brazilians, who resist close ties with religious centres and avoid "being brainwashed" by the pais-de-santo (spirit-fathers), unwilling to create restrictive bonds of commitment or dependency that might hamper their personal freedom.
With the sole exception of the Evangelicals, the main tendency is to disqualify the institutions and assert the inexistence of a religious habitus. Beliefs and practices are selected from assorted religious sources in accordance with criteria of personal convenience. The individual chooses whatever makes him or her feel good, addresses their doubts or suits their socio-economic conditions and educational level. This holds true for all, regardless of declared religion, but especially so for adepts of Oriental religions or esoteric systems. Buddhists, Hindus and adepts of new messianic Japanese religions (such as Seicho-noie and Perfect Liberty) are more advanced in terms of religious individualization through the selection of beliefs and rituals from a range of sources.
On the flipside of institutionalized, sacramental religion, constitutive of a religious habitus, with demands for regular participation in the moulds of the Catholic church, we find not churches of this or that creed, centre or place of worship, in which there remains a minimal presence of communitarian/associative life and hierarchy between the officiate and lay public. The logic opposite is in fact those individualized religions whose officiate is the layperson: "I make my own religion". This post-modern religious attitude also evokes a certain re-encounter with the primordial, a return to the DIY approach that, according to Bourdieu (1974), preceded the sacerdotal monopoly over salvation capital that took root along with the religious field. In this encounter between the post and pre-modern, one chooses what seems most plausible and practices whatever rituals one deems fit. This rejection of the institutional stems from a denial of the "ready-made" truths imposed by dogmatisms and exclusive religions. Religion is seen and valued as a constant search in which the individual delves ever deeper into what seems to make most sense. What we have here is an active, but individual religious attitude.
In some cases, people still sporadically frequent certain groups whose message and symbolism may have retained some influence, but do not constitute the individual's core beliefs. This tends to entail a certain pick-and-mix of prayers, sacred texts, mantras, incense sticks, wreathes, coloured stones, meditation. While a certain underlying Catholicism may be preserved, the individual prefers to go pray in the silence of an empty church. There will also be syncretic identifications, such as between Our Lady and the ancestral Great Mother. Magic is restored, as in WICCA rituals, where witches are repackaged as nature worshippers persecuted by a clergy to whom they refused to submit. Lastly, the equation finds completion with the introduction of a certain exaltation of the senses, by which man can attune to the cosmos, and of the aesthetics that speak to the emotions. The goal is health, harmony with nature and emotional equilibrium. It is, in a sense, a kind of self-help, a form of therapy designed to replenish our energies and assist in the struggle of life. In some cases, such religion is seen as an alternative or complement to psychoanalysis.
The religions mentioned above, which serve as sources for individual religiosity, are also those often presented by their adepts as sciences, occult or otherwise, and as philosophies geared towards people of all religions. It is the fact that they are pitched not as revealed and dogmatic truths, but as philosophical compasses for an individual behaviour that has rendered possible the emergence of both religious dualities and individualized religions. This sectarian absence of exclusivity paves the way for the construction of the most varied self-made systems as alternatives to institutionalized religions, whilst simultaneously, and paradoxically, legitimizing them with reference to their traditions. Though still present and numerically predominant, religions in Brazil are no longer restricted to churches, but rather follow the phenomenon identified a century ago by Troeltsch, and confirmed a decade ago by Campbell, as a general trend in the western world.
I believe it is the plural reality of religions itself that laid the groundwork for the development of religious dualisms, multiplicities and personalized hybrids. Today there are the most varied churches, centres, ritual grounds, and the like, through which religious mutants pass as they go about their religious development, aggregating beliefs and incorporating rituals. It is usually in the face of adversity or while wrangling with problems for which there would seem to be no solution within the institutionalized channels (assuming they have access to them in the first place) that people are taken to visit this or that local cult by relatives (parents, grandparents, uncles/aunts, siblings or spouses), partners, friends, neighbours or acquaintances. There were very few cases in which media influence had something to do with an interviewee's attraction to this or that religion or cult. Among the more educated segments of society, reading, particularly of books, serves as a point of contact with certain religions (Kardecisim, Oriental religions and esoteric systems). Most past or future religious mutants accept such invitations as something natural and quite willingly and optimistically go along to experiment with new groups and spiritual treatments. There is, therefore, a favourable disposition toward knowing, participating in and submitting to varied religious experiences, as all are viewed as equally positive and as alternative paths to the same God. I also believe that this receptiveness to invitations derives from a certain vernacular tradition of considering the various religions to be functional equivalents when it comes to conferring protection and behavioural orientation.
Bibliographical References
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1974), "Gênese e estrutura do campo religioso". In: _____. A economia das trocas simbólicas. São Paulo, Perspectiva, pp. 27-69.
Campbell, Colin. (1997), "A orientalização do Ocidente: reflexões sobre uma nova teodicéia para um novo milênio". Religião e Sociedade, 18 (1).
Folha de S. Paulo. (2007), Caderno Religião, 6/5.
Galvão, Walnice Nogueira. (2001), O império do Belo Monte: vida e morte de Canudos. São Paulo, Fundação Perseu Abramo.
Hoornaert, Eduardo. (1974), Formação do catolicismo brasileiro, 1550-1800. Petrópolis, Vozes.
_____ (org.). (1977), História da Igreja no Brasil, tomo 2. Petrópolis, Vozes.
IBGE. (1991), Censo demográfico brasileiro de 1991.
_____. (2000), "Tendências demográficas: uma análise com base nos resultados dos censos de 1940 e 2000". Estudos e Pesquisas, n. 20.
Monteiro, Duglas Teixeira. (1974), Os errantes do novo século: um estudo sobre o surto milenarista do Contestado. São Paulo, Duas Cidades.
Oliveira, Pedro Ribeiro de. (1976), "Catolicismo popular e romanização do catolicismo brasileiro". Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira, 36 (141).
Queiroz, Maria Isaura Pereira de. (1973), "O catolicismo rústico no Brasil". In: _____. O campesinato brasileiro: ensaios sobre civilização e grupos rústicos no Brasil. Petrópolis, Vozes.
Ribeiro, Boanerges. (1973), Protestantismo no Brasil monárquico. São Paulo, Pioneira.
Troeltsch, Ernst. (1958), Protestantism and progress: a historical study of the relation of Protestantism to the modern world. 1st edition, 1907. London, Beacon Press.
1. For example, "Church and sects". Religião e Sociedade, 14 (3), 1987. For our purposes, the title used was Protestantism and Progress: A Historical Study of the Relation of Protestantism to the Modern World (1958), originally published in 1907.
2. "The meaning of 'the modern world'", in op. cit., pp. 9-42.
3. "A orientalização do Ocidente: reflexões sobre uma nova teodicéia para um novo milênio". Religião e Sociedade (1997).
4. Worried about the Vatican's lack of resources with which to catechize the overseas colonies, in 1522 Pope Adrian granted João III the title of Grand master of the Order of Christ and, in 1551, Pope Julius III added the Orders of Saint James and Saint Bento, which gave the Portuguese kings spiritual power as well as total control of the management of Church affairs in colonial territories (cf. Hoornaert, 1977).
5. There were no Inquisitional Tribunals in colonial Brazil, but "visitors" from the Holy See did come here and accepted denunciations against "heretics", who were then referred to the tribunals in Porto.


text: WARNING: If you are squeamish around slimy, blood-sucking worms, you may not want to read further! Have you ever been swimming in a pond with leeches? I have…and it made me a little nervous. As refreshing as it was on a hot summer day, I did NOT want an uninvited guest to tag along on my body…Read More

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Titans Rishard Matthews Green Jersey It's an act of arrogance when normal people are having a hard time. He runs the show, even in the off-season, he ran it. Clearly, Russell's career got off to a bad start -- and only worsened.
Titans Derrick Morgan Black Jersey Anderson will be running behind a revamped offensive line, as the biggest additions were tackles Russell Okung and Donald Stephenson. This week, we turn our attention to the NFL's best wide receivers. The Cardinals missed out on joining the 1985 Broncos and the Matt Cassel-led 2008 Patriots as the only teams kept out of the playoffs with an 11-5 record. Titans Kevin Dodd Green Jersey Even without McDavid, Sam Bennett, Robby Fabbri, Jared McCann, Jake Virtanen and Aaron Ekblad, who are still junior-eligible but currently playing in the NHL, the team has more than enough offensive game-breakers at its disposal. For evening, a black dress was constructed out of panels stitched together loosely to allow skin to peek through, creating the effect of an ultra-modernist wedding cake.
Titans Austin Johnson Navy Blue Jersey Brandon Jacobs, signed Tuesday at age 31, had just five carries in two game appearances with the San Francisco 49ers last season before the team cut him in December. Following the procedure, Reid said he was holding out hope that the 27-year-old would be able to play at some point in 2016. Cunningham can look to a fellow Gamecock for inspiration in matters of relevance. We are going to make the most of our opportunities going forward, and this change gives us a better possibility to achieve our goals.
Titans T.J. Graham Navy Blue Jersey Titans Light Blue Jersey Against the Packers on Friday, he produced just 40 yards on 17 throws. When he hits people they stop right there," one scout told McGinn, with another adding: "Great (expletive) kid. Most playbooks are very broad," Pettine said over the phone from Hawaii, where he's (attempting to go) on vacation. There's never been a quarterback who combines Wilson's size, uncanny scrambling ability, accuracy, intelligence, leadership and deep-ball prowess.
Expect plenty of Eagles players to touch the ball. Titans Coty Sensabaugh Light Blue Jersey Right now, anything that he does . I won't be satisfied with all this until it's all over," Lynch said. It starts up front where Denver must import linemen who fit into Kubiak's zone-blocking system, which requires more athletic bodies who can open lanes for one-cut runners.


text:
Sep 04, 2012 | ISBN 9780307451309
Aug 09, 2011 | 480 Minutes
"Out of the wild blue yonder comes this pleasing tale of obsession and mystery. Geoffrey Gray has essentially parachuted into the early 1970s and found a nearly forgotten episode that elucidates a swath of our cultural history. The result is a clean, smart whodunit full of quirky characters, imaginative sleuthing, and thrilling surprises."
—Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail
"Here is writing and storytelling that is vivid and fresh—a delectable adventure from a talented new author."
—Gay Talese
"With verve and assurance worthy of his protagonist, Geoffrey Gray pulls readers along on a kaleidoscopic chase through the cult of Cooper. Both a masterful re-creation of the paranoid 1970s, and an exhilarating firsthand account of an erosive obsession, Skyjack takes us down the rabbit hole with Gray—and what a journey it is."
—James Swanson, author of Manhunt and Bloody Crimes
"Who was D.B. Cooper? In SKYJACK, Geoffrey Gray lures in the reader with this iconic unsolved mystery, and for the next 290 pages explores a story as attention-grabbing as a bag of hot money. D.B. Cooper emerges as the great McGuffin of 1970s America, a prism through which Gray exploits to the fullest with his propulsive writing style, mad commitment to detail, and explores everything from the early years of gender reassignment surgery to the birth of airline security culture to the ghostly legends of the Pacific Northwest's Dark Divide."
—Evan Wright, New York Times bestselling author of Generation Kill
"SKYJACK tells the legendary story of D.B. Cooper in a way that's as inventive and as engaging as the subject itself. Only a writer as talented as Geoffrey Gray could knit together the many strands of this mystery and the extraordinary characters who have dedicated, and in some cases destroyed, their lives in pursuit of the truth. Just as Gray finds himself sucked into the tale, readers will leap into the void alongside him, landing on their feet and smiling at the shared adventure."
—Mitchell Zuckoff, author of Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II
"Easily one of the most delightful books I've read in a long, long time. In his obsessive search for answers in the legendary case, Gray becomes a little unhinged himself as well as encountering an array of characters I haven't seen the likes of since Mark Twain sent Huck down the Mississippi. His style fits the case, and Gray can be compared with Tom Wolfe and Evelyn Waugh in his talent for unearthing the eccentrics of the world and the bizarreness of life."
—John Bowers, Associate Professor of Writing, Columbia University, author of The Colony and Love in Tennessee
"…An exciting journey into the byways of popular culture. This is hardly the first book about Cooper, but it may be the first to treat his story for what it has become: an ongoing phenomenon, like the search for Bigfoot, with a remarkable ability to consume the imaginations and lives of generations of searchers."
—Booklist, Starred
"Gray organizes this, his first book, like a Tarantino film, cutting chronology into strips, then reassembling them in a sequence that readers may consider (pick one) eccentric, confusing, artistic, random, maddening, fun, revelatory. It's all of the above."–Cleveland Plain Dealer


text:
Whitney Houston's Daughter Bobbi Kristina Thinks Her Family Is Using Her
Poor Bobbi Kristina! She doesn't know who to trust and who's just using her in a bitter family feud with Bobby Brown and more, Hollywoodlife.com has learned exclusively.
As if losing her mother wasn't hard enough, Bobbi Kristina now feels like she's being used as a bargaining chip in her family's ongoing feud, a source tells HollywoodLife.com exclusively. Whitney Houston's 18-year-old daughter "doesn't really have any close friends her age for any type of outlet. She could really only trust her mom."
And as tensions continue to flare between her dad, Bobby Brown, and the rest of Whitney's family, Bobbi Kristina "feels she is being used as a tool to get family members to take sides."
Needless to say, talk of Bobbi Kristina entering rehab is now "going in one ear and out the other, because she really is having some major trust issues."
We feel so awful for Bobbi Kristina right now. She looked devastated at her mother's funeral this weekend, and we can only hope she finds the strength to pick up the pieces. Hopefully she'll also regain some trust within her family, since she'll need their support in the future.
— Reporting by Russ Weakland
More Whitney Houston News:


text:
As many of you probably heard, Dr. George Tiller, a doctor that performed late-term abortions was murdered at his church this past Sunday.
Any death is tragic, and this one also serves as a reminder of the "special" legal hurdles faced by animal rights activists. The man that shot and killed the doctor was not called a terrorist by the government or by the media, even though the action he carried out was based on his religious and philosophical views. The man is an extremist. He is part of a group that fights in behalf of the voiceless and the anti-abortionist movement as a whole professes to value all human life.
Animal rights activists are often compared to anti-abortion activists , and we do have many similarities to the Anti-Abortionist movement. We both proclaim to value life, we both conduct protests and we have been known to label members of the opposition "murderers". It is worth noting however, that 4 people have been killed by anti-abortion activists, while zero people have been killed by animal rights activists.
The government however, treats us differently. If an animal rights activists commits an action in the name of Animal Liberation, we are automatically labelled terrorists. Anti-abortionists are not. They are only prosecuted based on their crime, not on their ethical, religious or philosophical views. The man that murdered Dr. Tiller will be charged with murder, not terrorism. He will not be tried in Federal Court, and it is unlikely that he will receive a special sentence.
This double-standard treatment is unfair, but this should be nothing new to us. Animal rights activists are fighting against unequal standards every day. Dogs are given more protection that pigs, cows more protection that chickens. Any cute animal has more advocates that the less visually appealing. We should not let the injustice that we face at the hands of the legal system deter us.
We must keep fighting on behalf of the voiceless, for the obstacles that we face, are nothing compared to the injustices faced by the animals.


text:
Attention all puzzlesandprizes members!
The place to enter our puzzles and prizes has changed.
New address, Easier entry!
Your puzzlesandprizes account which you use to enter your weekly Chat and Pick Me Up! magazine puzzle answers has now closed. You can now enter your answers in the same place as our great online competitions which you may enter already through the Chat and Pick Me Up! comp clubs.
To enter your puzzle answers, you simply need to join the Chat and Pick Me Up! comp clubs separately if you are not already a member of these. You can register with the same email address and password to both comp clubs.
Simply click on the logos below and once on the website, login if you are already a member (Please use the email address and password for your Chat or Pick Me Up! comp club account, not your puzzlesandprizes account) or click the 'join now' button on the top right of the screen.
Don't worry, all your puzzle entries for previous weeks have been received and still count.
Enjoy and good luck!


text:
Saturday, March 01, 2014
Sports News
"Well, I sure didn't see that coming. I'm
willing to bet,
neither did Springfield Lanphier."
By Jeff Benjamin
Send a link to a friend
[March 01, 2014]
After Friday night's battle between the top two teams in the state in
Class 3A, a number of fans, media, and coaches were heard echoing the
same sentiment of "well, I sure didn't see that coming."
I'm willing to bet, neither did Springfield Lanphier.
In a packed-to-the-rafters Roy S. Anderson Gymnasium, the number two
Lincoln Railers, dominating in almost every facet of the game,
handed the top-ranked Springfield Lanphier Lions their first loss of
the season, an impressive 57-34 win. The victory not only kept the
Lions from finishing off an unbeaten regular season, it allowed the
Railers to share the conference championship with the Lions. On
Senior Night, it was a junior, Gavin Block, that stole the show as
he dropped a career best 30 points on Lanphier, besting his previous
high of 28, a mark he set in the first matchup between the teams in
A stifling Railer defense, seemingly fueled by the energy in the
gym, forced Lanphier into 24 turnovers which Lincoln converted into
28 points. Except for brief periods in the second and third
quarters, Lanphier could never find any rhythm or flow to their
offense, all thanks to the Lincoln defense. "Our guys played an
outstanding game tonight," a very pleased Coach Neil Alexander said
after the game. "That's a great basketball team over there in
Lanphier and if we played ten times we may only win one, but tonight
was our night."
From the outset, the buzz in the building was off the charts. Even
though it took a few minutes for either team to score, Railer Nation
got the first shot of the night in after Block put Lincoln on the
board. Max Cook stretched the lead to 3-0 with a free throw. In a
game that was called very closely by the officials, both teams
almost reaching the bonus in the first quarter, the Railers suffered
the first casualty of those calls when Edward Bowlby had to head to
the bench with two fouls at the 3:47 mark. Lanphier quickly took
advantage when their man in the middle Scottie Wallace scored on a
shot off the glass to make it 3-2.
Block would score again to start a run for the Railers (28-2, 15-1)
that would eventually stretch out to a 26-6 outburst. Block
continued his hot start with the night's first three, made possible
after Payton Ebelherr battled for an offensive rebound. Ebelherr
then was rewarded on a drive to the basket and layup, while Joey
Olden turned a steal into points and the Lincoln lead was up to
12-2. The ten point advantage may not seem like much, but in all but
two games this season, the Railers have enjoyed at least a double
digit lead at some point of the contest. The only two they didn't;
the losses to Lanphier and Champaign Central.
Lanphier's Larry Austin, Jr. made his first mark of the night when a
Lincoln turnover turned into a two hand jam for the Tennesse-bound
senior. The Railers did not allow this dunk to swing the momentum
the way Austin's fourth quarter dunk shifted the game in
mid-January. Block scored on a spin move reverse layup while Olden
ended the quarter with a three from the left side and those cheering
for the Railers rose to their feet to applaud Lincoln's 17-4 lead
after one.
A great deal of credit should go to the Lincoln bench for their
early performance. With Bowlby, Max Cook, and Adam Conrady all
picking up two early fouls, the bench players, including Austin
Krusz, Will Cook, Ebelherr, and Conrady helped to not only maintain
the lead but help in making it grow.
Olden's three-point show continued as he hit Lincoln's first two
shots from behind the three-point line to start the second quarter
and extend the margin to 25-6. A jumper and lay-in from Will Cook
gave the Railers the lead at 27-8, while Block ended the run with a
pair of free throws. The charity stripe was a place Block would
become familiar with during the game as he hit 15 of 18 from the
The Lions (25-1, 15-1) finally started showing some life and went on
a 9-0 run, led by the offensive rebounding of Wallace, who finished
with 12 rebounds including 7 on the offensive glass. When sophomore
Xaiver Bishop hit his only three of the night, the Lincoln lead had
been cut to 29-17. Lincoln answered back with a 7-2 spurt of their
own with Block hitting four of six free throws, while Max Cook
delivered a three pointer to help send the Railers into the locker
room with a 36-21 lead.
Even though Lincoln had made a few mistakes, it sure felt as though
they had played as well as they have all season in getting the 15
point lead, holding the Lions to just 32 percent from the floor
while connecting on 55 percent (12 of 22). But there was still 16
minutes left and the number one team in the state is going to be
looking to make a statement as to why they are in the top spot.
After Lanphier scored to open the third quarter to cut the margin to
13, the Railers knew it would not take much in the way of momentum
to put Lanphier back in the game. The Railers went away from what
had been their formula of success over the past few games and
started driving to the basket. For the last six games, Lincoln had
made 10 or more three pointers and with five already in the first
half, it seemed a sure thing that they would reach at least ten. OK,
Railer fans, if I told you before the game that Lincoln did not make
a three pointer in the second half, how would you have felt about
the outcome?
[to top of second column]
Lincoln took only three from long range in the second half, instead
using ball movement, great cuts, and great interior passing to make
their mark going to the hole. After a pair of free throws from
Block, the junior scored two baskets in a row, the second coming on
a feed from Bowlby who had the ball underneath but found Block
cutting to the basket for the lay-in. Bowlby ended the run with a
layup of his own to put the Railers up 21 at 44-23. After a three
from Lanphier, the unending noise in Roy S. Anderson suddenly
stopped as Block was fouled hard on a drive and did not immediately
get off the court. Getting up with a little hitch in his giddyup,
Block walked off the pain and proceeded to hit a pair of free throws
to put Lincoln on top 46-26.
Lanphier's final gasp came at the start of the fourth quarter as
they turned up the pressure as high as it had been all night. Austin
scored during a 6-0 run to shave the lead to 14 at 46-32. Austin
finished with only eight points before fouling out, the fifth foul
coming on a double technical between him and Max Cook. Block's free
throws stopped the run and, after a Lincoln timeout, Olden scored a
layup on a back door play that has worked for the Railers for a long
time. After Olden's basket, Block scored again, this time Lincoln's
final field goal of the night, as Block and Max Cook finished out
the scoring from the free throw line to give Lincoln the win 57-34.
Even with the way Lincoln has been playing, the win is not a
surprise, the margin, however, no one saw coming.
"You know I'm always looking for perfection and there were a couple
of areas that need some work," Alexander said after the game. "I was
concerned about the dribble drive and again, the offensive
rebounding, but our defense is going to give up rebounds. We have
things we can work on."
Block's 30 almost bested Lanphier by himself. He was joined in
double figures by Olden with 13. Max Cook finished with six, while
his brother Will added four. Bowlby and Ebelherr each chipped in
with two.
So, when the newest poll comes out on Tuesday, does this mean we
will be cheering on the #1 team in the state? Well, common logic
tells you the answer is yes. However, as highly as the Railers have
been ranked all season, they have yet to receive a first place vote
in the polls. It is possible a team below them may pick up some top
votes and leap frog them. However, if anyone that casts a vote was
in the gym tonight, there is no question which team deserves that
top spot. They've earned it and Tuesday night, they should get the
chance to start defending their ranking.
Of course, from Coach Alexander's perspective that top billing may
be just another distraction that will provide other teams a reason
"to put a thumping on us." If the Railers continue to play this way,
those other teams may not want what they ask for.
By the time you read this starting Saturday morning, the Railers and
the rest of the teams in 3A will all be starting from scratch as the
regionals begin on Monday. Lincoln has the opportunity to take
advantage of home cooking as they are hosting a regional. Monday's
matchup pits fourth seeded Mt. Zion against number five seed Decatur
Eisenhower. The winner of that contest will take on the top seeded
Railers on Tuesday night at 7:00pm. Wednesday's game has Normal
U-High, the second seed and ranked seventh in the state squaring off
with Decatur MacArthur. The regional final will take place at 7:00pm
on Friday night.
Before I go, a special mention to all the seniors that were
recognized Friday night before the game. Whether it be pep band
member, cheerleader, pom squad member, or basketball player, Railer
Nation appreciates your contributions and hopes you realize what it
means to be a Railer and represent Lincoln and the Railer Nation.
This senior class has won 97 varsity basketball games, good to tie
for 11th most in school history. I'm up for seven more, how 'bout
Block 7-12 15-18 30, Olden 5-8 0-0 13, M.Cook 1-4 3-5 6, W.Cook 2-3
0-0 4, Bowlby 1-4 0-0 2, Ebelherr 1-4 0-0 2, Horchem 0-1 0-0 0,
Conrady 0-1 0-0 0, Krusz 0-0 0-0 0, Perry 0-0 0-0 0, Dunovsky 0-1
0-2 0. TEAM 17-38 18-25 57. 3-point field goals 5-16 (Olden 3-4,
Block 1-5, M.Cook 1-1, Horchem 0-1, W.Cook 0-1, Ebelherr 0-2, Bowlby
Wallace 10, Bishop 9, Austin 8, Thames 3, Millican 2, Tribbet 2.
TEAM 13 6-8 34. 3-poinf field goals 2 (Bishop, Thames).
[By JEFF BENJAMIN]
< Sports index
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text: Preparing dinner may be the last thing you want to do after a long day. Eating out may not be a viable option if you're saving money. We compiled a veggie cooking cheat sheet to help you save the cash, use less brain power and still get your nutrition in.


text:
Read the SAS Scalable Performance Data Server fact sheet.
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text:
Intellectually Victorious, but Politically Defeated
A wave of hope carried the reformist Mohammed Khatami into the office of president. But since then resignation has spread among the Iranian people as well as among critical religious leaders. An inside report from Ghom by Navid Kermani
Mohammed Mojtahed Shabestari is careful when he speaks or writes: although he knows precisely what the political implications of his work are, he's not a public intellectual like many other religious reformist thinkers in Iran. His manner and his way of thinking are those of a man learned in texts who restricts himself to research and exegesis.
Even those who disagree with Shabestari can't describe him as a theological lightweight. There's scarcely another scholar who can dig so deep into the sources of Islam and Shiism, and reveal their darker sides and their taboos.
Religious modernists are now regarded as backward
If one asks him in which direction religious reform will move from here, now that it has in many ways become part of the consensus, Shebastari responds that the situation is currently quite remarkable. Just a few years ago, reformist theories would have caused uproar in Iran, and especially among the spiritual leadership. Now the "religious modernists" are regarded as almost backward.
They are criticised and described as irrelevant by younger, strictly laicistic writers. That's a remarkable victory for the modernist approach, a victory which is a defeat. They've won intellectually, but their ideas have remained without political consequences. Yes, democracy, human rights, secular law have been shown to be reconcilable with Islam and the Shiite tradition – but evidently not with the Islamic Republic. So what is the point of reforming the religion when the state appears to be incapable of reform: that's what a lot of Shabestari's students asked him.
Perhaps he's standing at a crossroads, says Shabestari. Either he'll become a political activist and fight for the implementation of his research, or he'll stop thinking about the social effects of his research altogether and withdraw into a purely theological debate.
The lonely rebel
Within Shiite religious circles, the welayat-e faqih — the Islamic Republic's doctrine which puts state power in the hands of the theologians — has always been the view of a minority. During the last century, there were individual scholars who repeatedly called for the leadership of the community to be entrusted to the clerics.
Most however followed the view of the eleventh-century Sheikh Tusis, who used theological arguments to show that theologians should be politically abstinent.
The idea of a Shiite theocracy was first adumbrated in the nineteenth century. But it was only in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century that the future revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeiny drew up the welayat-e faqih or "rule of the scholars," which has formed the basis of the state since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
But even now, only one of the roughly 20 Grand Ayatollahs of the Shiite world champions a firmly political view of Islam, and he is Hossein Ali Montazeri, who is himself a prominent critic of the dominant theologians.
From Khomeiny's designated successor to dissident
Once Khomeiny's designated successor, he was removed from power in 1989 shortly before Khomeiny's death after he criticised Iranian human rights abuses in public. Montazeri was put under house arrest in Ghom and many of his followers were arrested or executed.
Montazeri is now eighty-one years old and has been released from house arrest because of ill-health. He continues to live in his modest home in Ghom, draws up legal opinions, receives visitors and administers the money which his millions of followers pay him as a religious tax.
Montazeri doesn't mince words when he talks about his former students who are now state theologians in Teheran, and who were the ones who kept him imprisoned for decades. But he also complains about colleagues in Ghom, the Ayatollahs and Grand Ayatollahs who have cowered before the regime, even though they knew what a disaster it had brought on the people and on Islam.
He says he's now too old and isolated to do more than occasionally raise his voice. How else can he take part in the struggle? The freedom he has officially is the freedom to telephone, to receive visitors, to visit the doctor; to be politically active is forbidden to him and all other opposition figures in Iran.
Corrupt clerics
Montazeri's conversation is witty and sharp, and totally without personal vanity, even though a little vanity might be justified in Iran's most senior theologian and long-time political prisoner. At the same time the pessimism with which he talks about his country, even though he himself is now at liberty, is alarming. No enforced domination can last any more in this world, he says.
The question remains, though, in what condition will the country be in when it finally is able to determine its own future? Will the Iranians succeed in bringing about a peaceful transition and shape the country themselves.
A few houses from Montazeri is the home of Grand Ayatollah Yussof Sanéi. He was one of the few major theologians in Ghom who publicly protested against Montazeri's house arrest.
The clerics have become one with the power of the state
I ask him why so few other Grand Ayatollahs in Ghom have objected against the violence carried out in the name of their religion, against the repression in Iran or against the terrorist acts of Muslim extremists throughout the world. Sanéi answers: because the clerics—not just in Iran — have become one with the power in the state.
"They can no longer speak with a different tongue than that of the ruling power," he says. Naturally, most theologians are worried about the situation, but few are prepared to raise their voice — for fear of persecution, out of laziness, or because they themselves profit from the rule of the theologians.
"The spiritual leadership has lost its holiness because it's become part of the power elite," says Sanéi. "I've realised how power corrupts. The unity between power and religion does great damage. Power is always linked with lies, theft, oppression and betrayal. Religious leadership however is holy. And for that reason religious leaders can't say: I will lead the people to prayer, I will show them the good … and at the same time be part of the government. Government requires boxing people's ears, deceiving them. The world of government is a world of oppression."
It's hard to believe one's ears: in the eighties, Sanéi was a glowing supporter of Khomeiny and a radical Islamist, but now he expresses the classical orthodox Shiite position that the religious leadership must distance itself from power to avoid being dirtied by it.
His neighbour Montazeri, who attacks the regime much more openly but continues to believe in a political version of Islam, wouldn't go as far. He can understand, says Sanéi, that young people are moving away from Islam when they see the daily repression, hypocrisy and corruption of Muslim officials. He can understand that people in the West might lose their respect for Islam when state theologians in Iran and elsewhere support violence.
No justification for terror
Sanéi considers it reprehensible that Iranian state television does not call the suicide attacks in Israel terrorism, but describes them as acts of resistance. Don't Shiites commemorate every year a malicious attack, the murder of their leader, the leader of the Muslims, Imam Ali? Someone who's a faithful Shiite, and one of whose most important rituals is the mournful commemoration of an act of terror, can scarcely approve of terrorism.
But the dominant theologians are not even able to distance themselves from violence against civilians; worse than that, terrorism is tacitly approved of, as if Israelis were no civilians. "This is not in God's interest," says Sanéi. "The one side kills and the other side kills, violence breeds violence, and the Palestinians lose and lose and lose again. Whom does it help? Not the Israelis, and the Palestinians even less."
And what about himself? Why are the voices of those clerics who condemn the terror so little heard in the world? "Which medium do I have here in Iran which I can use to distance myself?" says Sanéi. "Which television station would broadcast me? When I'm abroad, it's not much better. I can say what I like, but when I get back to Iran, I will have to suffer serious consequences. Including prison. That doesn't mean I don't have a clear opinion. Terror and murder are explicitly forbidden by Islam."
Navid Kermani
© Qantara.de 2005
Translation from German: Michael Lawton
This article was previously published by the Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
Pleae see also the Qantara.de portrait of Mohammad Shabestari: Faith, Freedom, and Reason by Roman Seidel and our Dossier Reformist Islam.


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July 22–September 11, 2011
This student-organized exhibition consists of ten works by 20th-century artists that investigate the physical relationship between water and its surroundings. The focused selection of paintings, prints, and sculpture –mainly by American artists – invites the viewer to carefully explore each work on display.
Several of the objects deal explicitly with the rhythm and texture of water's surface, finding new ways to elaborate on modern modes of representation. Some transform common perceptions of the substance in order explore its architectural qualities or its surprisingly solid appearance. Others obscure water's perceivable characteristics or treat it as an invisible, environmental force. Together, these pieces actively avoid contextualizing and symbolizing water, unsettling one's impulse to create narrative. Instead they challenge the viewer to look carefully and critically – exploring the uneasy space between naturalism and total abstraction.
Students in SIAMS 2011 wish to acknowledge the following individuals and funders:
Suzannah Fabing, founding director Marion Goethals, director; Katy Kline, associate director; Betsy Athens and Jason Vrooman, teaching assistants; and Margi Caplan, David Dempsey, Aprile Gallant, Kelly Holbert, Linda Muehlig, and Ann Musser, SCMA mentors, as well as Jessica Nicoll and the entire staff of SCMA, for their endless support throughout the program and exhibition process.
Smith College is grateful to The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, The Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and private donors for their generous contributions.
Image Credit: Susan Heideman (born 1950). Sand Channels, 1985 Oil on canvas. Gift of the family and friends of Mimi Norcross Fisher in her memory, class of 1959. SC 1986:1


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PAREXEL International Announces Date Of First Quarter Earnings Release And Conference Call
BOSTON, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- PAREXEL International Corporation will release First Quarter Fiscal Year 2007 financial results on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 after the close of the stock market. The announcement will be available on PAREXEL's website at www.parexel.com and on the PR Newswire website at www.prnewswire.com.
PAREXEL will host a conference call and live webcast at 10:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, October 26, 2006 to discuss the results. To access the webcast, visit PAREXEL's website at www.parexel.com, click on the Investor Relations menu and select "Webcasts". Double-click the microphone labeled "First Quarter Earnings Conference Call" to begin. This webcast will continue to be accessible for one year following the live broadcast. To participate via telephone, dial 612-288-0318 and ask to join PAREXEL's First Quarter conference call.
PAREXEL is one of the largest biopharmaceutical outsourcing organizations in the world, providing a broad range of knowledge-based contract research, medical marketing and consulting services to the worldwide pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. With a commitment to providing solutions that expedite time-to-market and peak market penetration, PAREXEL has developed significant expertise in clinical trials management, data management, biostatistical analysis, medical marketing, clinical pharmacology, regulatory and medical consulting, industry training and publishing and other drug development consulting services. Its information technology subsidiary, Perceptive Informatics, Inc., develops and offers a portfolio of innovative technology-based products and services that facilitate clinical drug development and are designed to decrease time to peak sales. The technology portfolio includes web-based portal solutions and tracking tools, Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS), Clinical Trial Management Systems (CTMS), electronic diary and investigator database solutions. Perceptive also offers advanced medical diagnostics services to assess rapidly and objectively the safety and efficacy of new drugs, biologics, and medical devices in clinical trials. PAREXEL's integrated services, therapeutic area depth and sophisticated information technology, along with its experience in global drug development and product launch services, represent key competitive strengths. Headquartered near Boston, MA, PAREXEL operates in 51 locations throughout 40 countries around the world, and has 5,600 full-time employees.
PAREXEL is a registered trademark of PAREXEL International Corporation, and Perceptive Informatics is a trademark of Perceptive Informatics, Inc. All other names or marks may be registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged.
Contact: Jill Baker, Vice President of Investor Relations (781) 434-4118PAREXEL
CONTACT: Jill Baker, Vice President of Investor Relations, of PAREXEL,+1-781-434-4118


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BENEFITTI necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 45 diseños de 16 diseñadores freelance.
I am a 58 years old woman that had to get back to work after getting divorced. The new life status made me see and realize how important is for a human being to be able to make a living with his or hers own hands and, in my case, it became a litteral reality, because the recovery of my creativity and handcraf hability helped me to start up the business and bring me back to life.
I do my business attending small fairs or events where I set my own booth and spread the products, hand made table sheets, bed linens and other like articles. My clients are basically meadle and high class meadle age women that are looking for a mixture of exclusivity with simplicity, fanciness, with originality and all of it in a good price bag or, if we prefer, a excelent cost-benefit relationship, not to say an ocasional bargain.
I need something that
1- calls people's attention, by the form, by the colour, by both, by the originality of the idea. Colours, if present must mean elegance and must be subtle, not agressive, avoiding as much as possible deliver tacky perception
2- that could, by its letters or words, remind people about what it advertises,
3- that could by its elegance, meaningfulness lead people's mind to the products it represents
4- that could, by any and all its caracteristics bee absolutely stricking and could be, as the time pass by, become sinonymous of what it represents
5- Colours, if present must mean elegance and must be subtle
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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DetailsDate: TBD
8:00am - 12:00pm
Registration fee includes course materials, campus parking and catered breakfast.
This class is part of the Communication Certificate and the Marketing & Strategy Certificate Programs.
"In business, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate."
—Chester L. Karrass, author and Howard Hughes Doctoral Fellowship Award recipient
About the Program
We are in negotiation almost constantly — in our careers and in daily life. The outcome depends greatly on our understanding of the negotiation and communication process.
As life becomes more complex and the world more diverse, your ability to use negotiation skills becomes more important. Negotiation requires time and patience. By using the negotiation strategies and skills suggested in this course, you can make conflict resolution a regular part of your approach to managing relationships at home, at work and in the community. Negotiation can serve not only to preserve relationships, but to continually strengthen and improve them.
Negotiation is most successful when both sides:
- Recognize the value of a relationship and have a mutual desire to continue it.
- Participate actively in the process.
- Show consideration and acceptance of each other's perspectives, values, beliefs and goals.
- Separate personality from the issue involved.
- Work together to develop a solution everyone can accept.
The objectives of this course are to develop negotiation skills experientially and to learn useful analytical frameworks for understanding negotiations. Emphasis is placed on realistic negotiation exercises and role playing. The exercises serve as catalysts for the evaluation and discussion of different types of negotiation situations.
- Know when to cooperate and when to compete in negotiations
- Realize better outcomes and close stronger deals
- Utilize essential analytical elements to focus your efforts and prepare successfully
- Gain a new sense of confidence when negotiating
This course is appropriate for executives and company representatives at any corporate level who desire a sharper edge in the art of negotiating. This course teaches the theory and basics of negotiation and is not intended for highly experienced negotiators of complex agreements.
Dr. David Schkade is associate dean and holds the Jerome Katzin Chair at the Rady School of Management. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Texas at Austin, Princeton University, Duke University and the University of Chicago. He received a B.A. in mathematics and an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.S. and Ph.D. in organizational psychology from Carnegie Mellon University.
His work includes two books and over 50 papers, with a primary focus on how people form and express their preferences and how their decision making can be improved. He teaches the psychology of decision making, negotiation, decision analysis, organizational behavior and research methods.
Dr. Schkade won both the top research (1999) and MBA teaching (2003) awards from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas and was selected to Who's Who in Economics 1990-2000. His research on punitive damages has been cited in numerous court cases, including opinions by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals and the California State Supreme Court.
His editorials, quotations and references to his work have appeared in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Financial Times, L.A. Times, Time Magazine, CNN, UPI, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NPR and BBC.
"The negotiation exercise was extremely helpful. It forced you to think about both sides' needs as well as how it applied to real world negotiations."
"Professor Schkade is a dynamic presenter with great examples."
"I can apply this to many areas of life."
*The Rady School of Management Center for Executive Development (CED) may change, postpone or cancel a class at any time. We do not provide refunds for any fees related to travel, including but not limited to gas, bus fare, train tickets, airline tickets, etc. Certificate requirements may also change. We will provide as much notice as possible should this occur.


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Clinton's Bosnia: Lies, Lies, Lies And More Lies
If everyone in the world could "misspeak� there would be no liars on this earth. In other words, President George Bush could argue that he had "misspoken� when he declared that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Presumably that would exonerate him for "misspeaking� the United States into a costly war
[Black Star News Editorial]
Yes. Hillary Clinton will be ready on Day One in the White House.
Ready to continue the Clintonesque politics of lies and deception that caused the Herculean gridlock with Republicans during her husband's term in office when they dismissed Republican criticisms of their conduct as a "vast right wing conspiracy."
Now Senator Clinton has been exposed by CBS news as a liar after she concocted the story about being greeted with sniper fire when her entourage visited Bosnia in 1996 when she was First Lady. She now claims to The Philadelphia Daily News that she "misspoke."
If everyone in the world could "misspeak" there would be no liars on this earth.
In other words, President George Bush could argue that he had "misspoken" when he declared that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Presumably that would exonerate him for "misspeaking" the United States into a costly war that's so far claimed the lives of 4,000 soldiers and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis while draining billions of dollars from the economy----money that could have been used to shore up the U.S. economy.
Bush could also "misspeak" us into a new war----this time with Iran.
Recently Clinton was informed that one person who had been on the Bosnia trip, funny man Sinbad, told media that there is no way he would have gone to a war zone. The musician Sheryl Crowe had also been on the trip. Sinbad said the only danger they faced was deciding where to eat. Clinton's tart response: "Sinbad is a comedian."
This is how Senator "Indiana Jones" Clinton described the Bosnia trip last week, as reported in today's New York Times: "I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia," she said, in remarks that aides described Monday as not being part of her prepared speech. "I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
She's insisted all along that this was the type of "experience" in foreign affairs that made her a more suitable candidate for the White House than Senator Barack Obama.
It turns out that the comedian Sinbad has more credibility than this presidential candidate. He's certainly having the last laugh. Maybe he should also enter the presidential race.
What makes Clinton's lie –or "misspeak" to use her preferred term—even more egregious is that when she recently described the visit, she actually used her hand to indiccate how she ran across the tarmac at the airport with her head lowered to avoid the sniper fire. It turns out that they were invisible bullets.
Not only were there no sniper shots, Clinton and her entourage actually were greeted with petals of flowers. An eight year old girl also read a poem. The war was over.
Clinton's daughter Chelsea had also accompanied her on the Bosnia trip. Forget about the fact that Clinton wants to become president and Misspeaker-In-Chief of the United States and the one to answer the "red phone" at 3 AM.
What kind of mother concocts such a big lie when her own daughter was there, putting the young lady in such an unpalatable position of knowing that mom was lying to the world?
This is a very disconcerting thought.
But then again it depends of what "is" is.
To comment, to subscribe to or advertise in New York's leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to email@example.com
Also visit out sister publications Harlem Business News www.harlembusinessnews.com publications and The Groove Music magazine www.thegroovemag.com
"Speaking Truth To Power."
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Note: This page may contain terms or definitions that are offensive or inappropriate for some readers.
1. slang To organize one's belongings. Dude, get your shit together—I trip over something of yours at least once a day! Get your shit together—we have to leave in five minutes and you don't want to forget anything!
2. slang To work to become stable or to start to make progress in one's life. A: " Did you hear that Drew plans to go to college in the fall?" B: "Wow, he's really gotten his shit together since being arrested last year!" I really need to get my shit together before I'm old and gray with no accomplishments to my name.
get one's shit togetherand get one's stuff together
1. Fig. to get one's possessions organized. (Shit is usually taboo.) Let me get my shit together, and I'll be right with you. I'll get my shit together and be right with you. Will you all please get your stuff together so we can get going?
2. Fig. to get oneself mentally organized. (Shit is usually taboo.) As soon as I get my shit together, I can be of more help. When you have your shit together you can start living independently again.
get your shit togetherorganize yourself so as to be able to deal with or achieve something.
2003 SEE Magazine (Canada) Take Katie herself, doing just a really piss-poor job of getting her shit together to create a turkey dinner for her family.
To get organized; put one's affairs or possessions in order.


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Career Services
Please refer students to us for assistance in preparing a resume or CV, help with interviewing for graduate school, a job or internship, or help making connections between their interests and potential careers. Students can drop by for a quick conversation during our drop-in advising hours (go/cciqqs for the drop-in schedule), or by making an appointment.
Below are some other ways we can help you explore career connections with your students:
Career Conversations
We can help you identify alumni and practitioners in your disciplines and set up a career panel or Career Conversations with guest speakers. Midd2Midd, our alumni career advisory database, houses over 3,000 alumni volunteers interested in sharing their career experiences with students. We'll assist you and your department in helping to identify these alumni and getting them here to campus to chat with your students. And if you are bringing guest speakers to campus, we can arrange a Career Conversation in conjunction with their talk. Contact Tracy Himmel Isham at 443-5102 for more information.
Workshops and class presentations
We offer career-related skill-building workshops in your classroom (e.g., job search strategies, interviewing techniques, resume writing) or we can share opportunities—internships, jobs, and fellowships—that may be relevant for your discipline or course.
Advising about majors and careers
In the liberal arts, choosing a major is typically not aligned with a specific career path. Just a glance at the career paths of our alumni or even our graduating class illustrates that point. But there are specialized professional paths—such as medicine or engineering—where it is essential students take certain kinds of courses to meet admissions requirements. Specific graduate programs, too, may require a minimum amount of content in relevant areas. Other graduate programs, such as law, do not have a required content for admission, though courses in logic and political science may be helpful, and experience in legal settings may help students probe their interest further. We work with students from all majors in helping them make connections between their passion for history, languages, math, or any discipline and potential career paths.
What do Middlebury graduates do after graduation?
Each May, we ask our graduating seniors about their postgraduate plans. Recent results can be found here. In addition, we continually update our list of organizations that typically recruit Middlebury students to demonstrate the diversity of industries─public and private, for-profit and not-for-profit─interested in hiring Middlebury grads.