Artificial intelligence is an entangled, more-than-human relational network, shaping and being shaped by the societal, cultural, and political structures in which it is embedded. This paper explores the role of artists as critical practitioners engaging with AI, to examine how AI-generated self-representations materialise identity and reinforce or counter well-known AI biases in gender, race, and embodiment. Drawing on feminist technoscience – particularly its focus on the entanglement of body, environment, and technology – and autotheory, the study treats generative AI as (...) an instrument of vision and voice. Using generative AI to create a partial digital twin, a self-portrait, is situated as an inherently embodied and relational practice. Through a combination of desk-based research and a practice-based, reflexive engagement with RunwayML, the paper documents the author’s attempt to create an identical-looking digital twin, revealing systemic biases embedded in AI-generated self-portraits. The paper uses embodiment as connective tissue linking theoretical and lived experience. Generative AI consistently misrepresented gender and age, defaulting to hyper-feminized aesthetics and youthful features while reliably reproducing Whiteness. The study also critically examines voice cloning and text-to-speech synthesis, highlighting how AI’s training data constrain language, accent, and vocal traits. By positioning AI-generated imagery and voice synthesis as material-discursive practices, the research extends debates on bias, agency, and self-representation in human–machine interactions. It argues that artists working with generative AI not only expose its epistemic limitations but also provide counter-narratives through creative, embodied interventions. The findings highlight the ways artists can help to meet the urgent need for more inclusive AI infrastructures, transparent dataset practices, and a reframing of digital self-representation beyond generative AI’s algorithmic defaults. (shrink)

A new and empowering perspective on the soul. Elizabeth Clare Prophet answers the perennial questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Includes revealing specifics about every soul's journey on earth, common aspects of the soul that all people. With personal stories as well as visualizations, affirmations and meditations. Reflective discussion questions and exercises enrich the reader's personal experience as well as a group experience in book discussion groups.

Within Buddhist scripture is Gautama Buddha's teaching that all beings have within them the Buddha-nature the essence, or seed, of Buddhahood. We have the seed of Buddhahood right inside of us. And because we have it, we have the potential to become a Buddha. from THE BUDDHIC ESSENCE In The Buddhic Essence: Ten Stages to Becoming a Buddha, author Elizabeth Clare Prophet gently traces the pathway that leads to Buddhahood. She does so in such a way that we can personally (...) relate to the different stages and also see within them steps that we can accomplish in the course of our daily lives. The journey to Buddhahood is a journey not measured in distance or time. Its markers are self-knowledge and a yearning for something within that beckons the soul to take the next step in her spiritual journey. (shrink)

We have all been here before...The word Karma had made it into the mainstream. But not everyone knows what it really means or how to deal with it. This insightful book will help you come to grips with karmic connections from past lives that have helped create the circumstances of your life today. You will discover how your actions in past lives -- good and bad -- affect which family you are born into, who you are attracted to, and why (...) some people put you on edge. You will learn about group karma, what we do between lives, and what the great lights of East and West, including Jesus, have to say about karma and reincarnation. Most of all, you will find out how to turn your karmic encounters into grand opportunities to shape the future you want. (shrink)

People prefer prototypical stimuli over atypical stimuli. The dominant explanation for this prototype preference effect is that prototypical stimuli are processed more fluently. However, a more recent account proposes that prototypes are more strongly associated with their category’s valence, leading to a reversed prototype preference effect for negative categories. One critical but untested assumption of this category-valence account is that no prototype preference should emerge for entirely neutral categories. We tested this prediction by conditioning categories of dot patterns positively, negatively, (...) or neutrally. In line with previous findings on the category-valence account, prototype preference reversed for negatively conditioned categories. However, prototype preference was similarly strong for positive and neutral categories. These findings imply that prototype preferences do not only reflect a transfer of category valence to exemplars. Instead, the results suggest that prototype preference is a multi-process phenomenon arising from the activated category valence and a fluency-based process. We discuss further implications for theories on fluency and prototype preference. (shrink)

Disarming the Prophets - ABSTRACT: Kinch Hoekstra takes up another question related to supposed revelatory experience, namely, the claim to prophesy, and, more particularly, why Hobbes’s concern with it grows during the decade after 1640, what varieties of it preoccupy him and what his responses are to them. Of central importance for Hobbes was his contemporaries’ concern with biblical prophecy, both radical and royalist. Trying to pluck its political sting, Hobbes argues that apocalyptic prophecy is a form of madness (...) but more broadly seeks to place the interpretation of scripture solidly within the purview of the sovereign. By blunting the belief in prophecy, Hobbes disarms the prophet. (shrink)

The topic of The Prophets' Languages has led to a broad interest due to the sacred status of the Prophets. It has been of interest to people of all religious and social orientations. Despite the complexity of this topic and the necessity of studying it from various aspects such as archaeology and the study of ancient calligraphy, we limited our study to Islamic sources and references only. We extrapolated what was mentioned in these books. Other than the Holy (...) Qur’ān, it will be concerned with books of interpretation, history, biography, hadith, its explanations, language books, etc. This study has been divided into three main points, an introduction, and a conclusion. The first point dealt with the origin of the languages spoken by the Prophets (peace be upon them) and their proximity to each other: Syriac, Coptic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. All of these languages belong to the Semitic language. In terms of their convergence and similarity with each other, some linguists considered it dialects of one language, the Semitic language of origin. It has branched out from it as a result of the expansion, development, and development of life. Looking at today, the dialects of the Arabs in Egypt, Morocco, Jazira, the Levant, and Iraq, each branched out and most of it emerged from the mother tongue Arabic. There is a discussion among researchers on which of the languages are closer to the Semitic language. Four languages are listed as possibilities: Hebrew, Babylonian, Assyrian, Syriac, and Arabic. The truth is that it is not easy to get to know the origin of the Semitic language, and everything that has been said is not outside the circle of speculation because of the loss of definitive evidence and the temporal dimension. As for the second point, this study investigated the linguistic geography that the Semitic language covered and spread in, by tracking the people who spoke the Semitic language, their places of residence, and their influence, as all of them settled in the Near East and its vicinity. If we look at the Semitic language, with its eastern and western branches, we see that it was concentrated in Babylon, Assyria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Yemen, the Levant, and Jerusalem regions, and among the most famous tribes and nations that settled in this region are Saba, Himyar, Ad, Thamud, Jirhm, Samaria, Nabat, the people of Palmyra and others. Mostly likely, the Arabian Peninsula is the cradle of the Semitic people, although some say that Abyssinia was the cradle of the first Semites. In the third point, the number of prophets and messengers mentioned in the Noble Qur’ān was enumerated in clear terms. Among the twenty-five prophets are the following: Adam, Idris, Noah, Hood, Saleh, Lot, Ibrahim, Ismail, Ishaq, Jacob, Yusef, Shuaib, Ayyub, Dhu al-Kifl, Yunus, Moses, Aaron, Elias, Al-Isa, David, Solomon, Zakaria, Yahya, Jesus, and Muhammad (peace be upon them). The study of this point came by following the inductive and deductive approach, whereby the first approach is based on extrapolating the life of each prophet in isolation from others in detail, tracing his life, place of living, and residence, whom he married etc. The deductive method relied on deducing the language that each of the prophets (peace be upon them) spoke. Some prophets mentioned the name of the language in which he spoke in the Islamic sources. This study concluded that of the prophets mentioned in the Noble Qur’ān, seven of them spoke the Syriac language, three of them spoke the ancient Egyptian language (Coptic), eighteen of them spoke the Hebrew language, three of them spoke the Aramaic language, and nine of them spoke in Arabic. Some of the prophets spoke one language while others spoke more than one language due to their numerous travels and the people they interacted with. This study is considered a preliminary study to open the field for in-depth studies for researchers in this field, and every part mentioned in this research is suitable for being an independent scientific study in its own right. (shrink)

Prelude : scientists as prophets and the rhetoric of prophecy -- The Delphic oracle and ancient prophetic ethos -- The natural magician and the prophet : Francis Bacon's ethical alchemy -- Confirming signs : the prophetic ethos of the early Royal Society -- Interlude : competing ethical models and a catch-22 -- J. Robert Oppenheimer : cultic prophet -- Rachel Carson, kairotic prophet -- Media, metaphor, and the "oracles of science" -- Climate change and the technologies of prophecy -- (...) Postlude : problems and solutions. (shrink)

In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With _Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism_, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans’s excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After the World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in (...) the concrete labyrinth—pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic—seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists, and thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Graves, and Hilda Doolittle. Assembling a brilliant, talented, and eccentric cast at a moment of tremendous intellectual vitality and wrenching change, Cathy Gere paints an unforgettable portrait of the age of concrete and the birth of modernism. (shrink)

Lives of the Prophets: The Illustrations to Hafiz-i Abru’s ‘Assembly of Chronicles’. By Mohamad Reza Ghiasian. Studies in Persian Cultural History, vol. 16. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xv + 343. $159, €132.

Against the backdrop of precarious global and local politics – a threat to democracy, global wars, xenophobic violence, oppressions of sexual minorities and a permanent youth precariat in South Africa – do academic theologies foster prophetic responses or succumb to imperial co-option? Departing from the Kairos Document’s threefold call to conversion, this article laments the lack of a Kairos consciousness today, with reference to five areas of concern. Contribution: This study explores what theological formation for prophetic communities might look like, (...) marked by Le Bruyns’ three elements of criticality, contextuality and change; participating in concrete sites of struggle and sustained by a ‘lived faith’. It imagines theological schools as ‘schools of prophets, servants and healers’, not only breaking the silence but also going beyond prophetic rhetoric through embodied theologising. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine Hermann Cohen's and Abraham Joshua Heschel's respective accounts of the classical prophets of the Hebrew Bible, which contend with the Protestant biblical criticism of their day. Their accounts of the prophets are of central significance for their philosophies of Judaism, which mirror and oppose each other. This Auseinandersetzung addresses the often neglected topic of Jewish responses to German-Protestant biblical criticism and stresses the cogency of Heschel's thought. Additionally, examining Cohen and Heschel together problematizes (...) the polarization between theocentrism and neo-humanism currently dominating the landscape of modern Jewish thought. (shrink)

The first in a series that collects the "Sermon Series" by renowned African American theologian Howard Thurman, this volume on "Man and the Moral Struggle" and "The Message of the Prophets.".

Traces of the Prophets: Relics and Sacred Spaces in Early Islam By BursiAdam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024. Advances in the Study of Islam), x + 276 pp. Price HB £85.00. EAN 978–1399522328.

This research article uses the theoretical framework of doctrine as believer's security to critique the theological framework behind the controversial activities reported amongst some South African neo-Pentecostal prophets, which include feeding congregants with grass, spraying them with insecticides and sexual violation of women congregants. The framework of the article falls within the discipline of systematic theology by raising the importance for South African Christians to develop a critical doctrinal framework for protecting themselves from controversial NPPs. The following main question (...) is answered by the article: from a systematic theological perspective, how can we evaluate the theological framework, which leads to the recent controversial activities reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa? Consequently, the article, firstly, describes the critical theological framework of the protective role of Christian doctrine. Secondly, it describes the South African NPPs and their controversial practices. Thirdly, this article analyses some of the theological problems in the current operative framework of NPPs. Fourthly, it argues for the need for doctrinally informed critical thinking as a safety measure against controversial NPPs. Finally, some steps that must be taken by NPPs to develop critical theological thinking in order to overcome doctrinally vacuous experientialism that promotes controversial religious activities are provided.CONTRIBUTION: From a systematic theological approach, this article attempts to demonstrate the importance of critical doctrinal thinking as a defence mechanism for protecting Christians from falling prey to harmful religious practices, such as those recently reported amongst some NPPs in South Africa. (shrink)

Biblical prophetic writings display an unexplained interweaving of anti-idolatry themes with social justice themes. This article offers a link between these ethical foci by appealing to Thorstein Veblen's philosophical economics. Veblen and his more recent followers such as Fred Hirsch argue that upper classes glorify valueless expenditures and activities (conspicuous consumption and leisure) as a means of signaling predatory status. Veblen further theorizes that this process can manifest itself in religious practices and language, appearing when a deity is honored through (...) pointless aesthetics or through portrayal as a predatory entity. This article argues that such a depiction of the deity as predatory, or as worshipped through positional (wasteful) goods, is integral to idolatry, at least as the prophets framed it. Because the hallmark of social injustice is predation by an elite group upon another group, Veblen's paradigm provides a conceptual pathway between the prophet's opposition to idol worship and their disgust with powerful oppressors. Selected texts from Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah provide examples of this connection. (shrink)

The post-pandemic economy in South Africa has exacerbated significant economic challenges, due to increasing unemployment, political corruption, inflation, and rising poverty, which have worsened the struggles of many (see Francis & Webster 2019:789–791; Arndt et al. 2020:16–22; van Papendorp, Packirisamy & Masike 2024:1-4). However, amid this turmoil, Christian megachurches (especially those promoting prosperity theology), have continued to flourish. Prominent South African pastors continue to espouse that financial success is a sign of divine favour, encouraging congregants to tithe faithfully, in exchange (...) for promised wealth (Barron 2022:88-94). Such doctrine aligns with broader religious narratives that intertwine material prosperity with inter alia spiritual blessings. Despite its increasing prevalence in the global South, most scholarly engagements with prosperity theology in South Africa have explored the topic through decolonial Afrocentric theological and ecclesiological lenses; often neglecting the socio-economic impact of whiteness in these post-colonial religious manifestations (Niemandt 2017:204-206; Andrew 2021:13-17; Adamo 2021:1-10; Barron 2022:88-100; Resane 2022:1-9; Khanyile 2023:101-125; Mkhize 2024:1-9). In contrast, this paper therefore adopts a critical religious studies perspective examining how mega-churches vis-à-vis “Big Religion,” through their commercialisation of the Bible, contribute to economic disparities in South Africa. This explores prosperity theology as a problematic religious ideology that reinforces economic inequity through promoting uncritical worldviews. By investigating case studies of influential South African mega-churches, this paper critiques the ways in which religion has become commodified: positioning ‘celebrity pastors’ as both spiritual, political, and financial influences. In addition to how the rise of 'big religion'—defined as the fusion of religion with commercial enterprise—poses significant challenges to extant socio-economic inequalities within the country, as it reinforces the theological legitimisation of wealth accumulation and a monopoly over status functions, at the expense of the working class. -/- . (shrink)

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In _Anarchist Prophets_ James R. Martel juxtaposes anarchism with what he calls archism in order to theorize the potential for a radical democratic politics. He shows how archism—a centralized and hierarchical political form that is a secularization of ancient Greek and Hebrew prophetic traditions—dominates contemporary politics through a prophet’s promises of peace and prosperity or the threat of violence. Archism is met by anarchism, in which a community shares a collective form of judgment and vision. Martel focuses on the figure (...) of the anarchist prophet, who leads efforts to regain the authority for the community that archism has stolen. The goal of anarchist prophets is to render themselves obsolete and to cede power back to the collective so as to not become archist themselves. Martel locates anarchist prophets in a range of philosophical, literary, and historical examples, from Hobbes and Nietzsche to Mary Shelley and Octavia Butler to Kurdish resistance in Syria and the Spanish Revolution. In so doing, Martel highlights how anarchist forms of collective vision and action can provide the means to overthrow archist authority. (shrink)

In this monologue the dying Jeito comes out as a prophet and shares things revealed to him.

God's point of view to the people and the powers at a time when injustice, deceit, malfeasance, and crushing the poor and the oppressed was prominent--much like today! The prophets spoke courageously and emphatically about God's profound and unrelenting concern and compassion for human beings. Much influenced by the theology of prophecy developed by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, this book discusses the nature, meaning, and relevance of ethical prophecy at a time when democracy--in the United States of America and (...) elsewhere--is under vicious assault from the religious and secular right and authoritarian politicians who openly flirt with and support murderous dictators, sexism, homophobia, racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred of Muslims both in word and practice. An examination of the contributions of eight powerful personalities from the period of American slavery through the post-civil rights era--Angelina Grimké, Ida B. Wells, Abraham J. Heschel, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Óscar Romero, and Alice Walker--offers a recipe for addressing this state of affairs. (shrink)

Colin Koopman’s Pragmatism as Transition offers a new insight into how to understand pragmatism, particularly by connecting pragmatism’s melioristic approach to problems with a Foucauldian genealogical analysis of the very problems that pragmatism hope to solve. Peculiarly absent from Koopman’s presentation is a consideration of Cornel West’s prophetic pragmatism, which itself combined the melioristic problem-solving of pragmatism and the Foucauldian analysis proposed by Koopman. This absence is not malicious, of course, but it does bring to mind how West’s prophetic pragmatism (...) has been generally disregarded by mainstream pragmatism scholarship. (shrink)

This article explores the life and legacy of Andile Madodomzi Mbete, a revered minister of religion in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa (MCSA), through the lens of prophetic witness at the margins of society. Framed by the biblical motif of the ‘prophet on the periphery’ – in contrast to the court prophet of the Old Testament – and the MCSA’s enduring call for the formation of an alternative community, the study positions Mbete as a contemporary embodiment of prophetic resistance. (...) Firstly, the article examines the theological and historical role of prophets on the periphery in the Hebrew Bible, highlighting their critique of political and religious power. Secondly, it engages the MCSA’s vision of an ecclesial alternative grounded in justice, inclusivity and transformation. Finally, it situates Mbete’s ministry within the socio-political and ecclesiastical contexts of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, drawing attention to his contributions to faith, justice and communal liberation. The article argues that Mbete’s legacy offers a compelling model for prophetic leadership today – one that speaks from the margins yet calls for a radical reimagining of both church and society. On a methodological level, the article draws from a combination of theological reflection, contextual analysis and qualitative inquiry, most important focusing on the sermons, autobiographical materials and Mbete’s own theological reflections. Contribution: The article contributes to HTS Theological Studies by offering a critical and contextual exploration of a marginal yet prophetic voice in South African theology. It deepens the journal’s commitment to public theology, postcolonial analysis and African contextual theologies and stimulates discourse around alternative ecclesial visions rooted in justice, memory and liberation. (shrink)

In this nationwide study of American and Canadian journalists, I found that their moral and ethical values are solidly connected to the Judeo-Christian tradition, even among those who do not claim to be religiously oriented. This study shows that religious values are imbedded deeply, if not always consciously, in the moral and ethical values of journalists and that journalists of varying religious orientations tend to endorse a core group of moral and ethical principles at the heart of the religious heritage (...) of the United States and Canada. However, journalists have expanded their definition of what religion coverage means in an increasingly diverse and secular society, and few want to connect their professional values only with Christian teaching. (shrink)

This article addresses in the first place the use made by Emmanuel Levinas of the contrast between the Bible and Greece. The author attempts to place this contrast in the context of the historical division between Athens and Jerusalem, the Hellenic and the Hebraic, etc. It is argued that one of the main motivations for the presence of this contrast in Levinas s thought is his attempt to address Martin Heidegger's appeal to the relation between the Greeks and the Germans. (...) However, the article claims that it remains the case that Levinas never entirely succeeds in integrating an adequate account of ethnic identities into his ethics of alterity. /// O presente artigo tem por objectivo principal proceder a um estudo do uso feito por Emmanuel Levinas do contraste entre a Bíblia e a Grécia. Trata-se, pois, de uma tentativa de colocar este contraste no contexto da divisão histórica entre Atenas e Jerusalém, entre o mundo helénico e o mundo hebraico, etc. O autor argumenta que uma das principais motivações para a presença deste contraste no pensamento de Levinas é a sua tentativa de responder à associação estabelecida por Martin Heidegger entre a Grécia e a Alemanha. Por outro lado, contudo, o artigo também reclama que Levinas não foi completamente bem sucedido na sua tentativa de integrar de forma adequada as identidades étnicas na sua ética da alteridade. (shrink)

The relationship between the United States and Israel presents a structural anomaly that conventional political analysis has failed to adequately explain. Material asymmetry runs in one direction; deference runs in the other. Standard explanations — lobbying resources, shared values, strategic alignment — correctly identify proximate mechanisms but leave the deeper grammar of the relationship unaddressed. Why does asymmetric obligation persist across administrations, political cycles, and shifting strategic environments? Why does American alignment with Israeli preferences feel, to observers across the political (...) spectrum, less like alliance management and more like a constitutive condition of political legitimacy? This essay argues that these questions cannot be answered within the categories of interest-based analysis. They require a political-theological framework. Specifically, the essay examines whether the biblical dispositif of prophetic authority over royal power — as articulated in the First Book of Samuel — provides a structural template that illuminates what secular frameworks consistently miss: the nature of the legitimating claim that organizes this relationship at a level deeper than interest, strategy, or lobbying. The analysis does not evaluate the theological validity of this framework nor the political desirability of the relationship it describes. It asks a prior question: what kind of relationship is this, structurally speaking — and does political theology recover explanatory power that political science has lost? (shrink)

During Leibniz's lifetime, interest in the interpretation of the Bible and biblical prophecy became central to the theological and political concerns of Protestant Europe. Leibniz's treatment of this phenomenon will be examined in the light of his views on the nature of revelation and its role in his defence of Christianity. It will be argued that Leibniz's defence of the miracle of revelation (and its vehicle, biblical prophecy) – unlike his arguments on behalf of the core Christian mysteries of the (...) Trinity and Incarnation – is demonstrable by purely natural and scientific means, especially the verification of history. (shrink)

This book focuses on Isaac Albalag's perspective on the relationship between religion and philosophy. In Sefer Tiqqun ha-De'ot, a Hebrew translation with a commentary of al-Gazali's Arabic philosophical encyclopedia Maqasid al-Falasifah, Albalag indicates his adherence to what is known in scholarship as the double-truth doctrine. By analysing the Tiqqun against its philosophical background and its critical engagement with the Maqasid, this book demonstrates Albalag's unyielding commitment to Aristotelianism, as known to him through Averroes's lens, concluding that his apparent embrace of (...) the double-truth doctrine is merely a strategic tool to carve out a distinct space for philosophy, independent of religious beliefs. (shrink)

In Hip-Hop in Africa, Msia Kibona Clark examines some of Africa's biggest hip-hop scenes and shows how hip-hop helps us understand specifically African narratives of social, political, and economic realities. Clark looks at the use of hip-hop in protest, both as a means of articulating social problems and as a tool for mobilizing listeners around those problems. She also details the spread of hip-hop culture in Africa following its emergence in the United States, assessing the impact of urbanization and demographics (...) on the spread of hip-hop culture. Hip-Hop in Africa is a tribute to a genre and its artists as well as a timely examination that pushes the study of music and diaspora in critical new directions. (shrink)