Search results for ""Author Michael O'Sullivan""

A sweeping account of three Gujarati Muslim trading communities, whose commercial success over nearly two centuries sheds new light on the history of capitalism, Islam, and empire in South Asia.During the nineteenth century, three Gujarati Muslim commercial castes—the Bohras, Khojas, and Memons—came to dominate Muslim business in South Asia. Although these communities constitute less than 1 percent of South Asia’s Muslim population, they are still disproportionately represented among the region’s leading Muslim-owned firms today. In No Birds of Passage, Michael O’Sullivan argues that the conditions enabling their success have never been understood, thanks to stereotypes—embraced equally by colonial administrators and Muslim commentators—that estrange them from their religious identity. Yet while long viewed as Hindus in all but name, or as “Westernized” Muslims who embraced colonial institutions, these groups in fact entwined economic prerogatives and religious belief in a distinctive form of Muslim capitalism.Following entrepreneurial firms from Gujarat to the Hijaz, Hong Kong, Mombasa, Rangoon, and beyond, O’Sullivan reveals the importance of kinship networks, private property, and religious obligation to their business endeavors. This paradigm of Muslim capitalism found its highest expression in the jamaats, the central caste institutions of each community, which combined South Asian, Islamicate, and European traditions of corporate life. The jamaats also played an essential role in negotiating the position of all three groups in relation to British authorities and Indian Muslim nationalists, as well as the often-sharp divisions within the castes themselves.O’Sullivan’s account sheds light on Gujarati Muslim economic life from the dawn of colonial hegemony in India to the crisis of the postcolonial state, and provides fascinating insights into the broader effects of capitalist enterprise on Muslim experience in modern South Asia.

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This is the first book-length study of the humanities and the Irish university. Ireland was a deeply religious country throughout the twentieth century but the colleges of its National University never established a religion or theology department. The official first language of Ireland is Irish but the vast majority of teaching in the arts and humanities is in English. These are two of the anomalies that long constrained humanities education in Ireland. This book charts a history of responses to humanities education in the Irish context. Reading the work of John Henry Newman, Padraig Pearse, Sean O Tuama, Denis Donoghue, Declan Kiberd, Richard Kearney and others, it looks for an Irish humanities ethos. It compares humanities models in the US, France and Asia with those in Ireland in light of work by Immanuel Kant, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida. It should appeal to those interested in Irish education and history.

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Disruptive Power examines a surprising revival of faith in Catholic miracles in Germany from the 1920s to the 1960s. The book follows the dramatic stigmata of Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth and her powerful circle of followers that included theologians, Cardinals, politicians, journalists, monarchists, anti-fascists, and everyday pilgrims. Disruptive Power explores how this and other similar groups negotiated the precariousness of the Weimar Republic, the repression of the Third Reich, and the dynamic early years of the Federal Republic. Analyzing a network of rebellious traditionalists, O’Sullivan illustrates the divisions that characterized the German Catholic minority as they endured the tumultuous era of the world wars. Analyzing material from archives in Germany and the United States, Michael E. O’Sullivan investigates the unsanctioned but very popular visions in several rural towns after World War II, providing micro-histories that illuminate the impact of mystical faith on religiosity, politics, and gender norms.

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This is the first book-length study of the humanities and the Irish university. Ireland was a deeply religious country throughout the twentieth century but the colleges of its National University never established a religion or theology department. The official first language of Ireland is Irish but the vast majority of teaching in the arts and humanities is in English. These are two of the anomalies that long constrained humanities education in Ireland. This book charts a history of responses to humanities education in the Irish context. Reading the work of John Henry Newman, Padraig Pearse, Sean O Tuama, Denis Donoghue, Declan Kiberd, Richard Kearney and others, it looks for an Irish humanities ethos. It compares humanities models in the US, France and Asia with those in Ireland in light of work by Immanuel Kant, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida. It should appeal to those interested in Irish education and history.

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The world is at a turning point. While globalization benefited many, it produced extremes with drastic wealth inequality, indebtedness, and political volatility among the most important. As the ground underneath globalization undergoes tectonic shifts, noisy, chaotic, and disorderly events--such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump--are the first harbingers of a world being turned upside down.In this book, Michael O'Sullivan shows the many ways the levelling of the twenty-first century will unfold: The levelling-out of wealth between rich and poor countries; of power between nations and regions; of political accountability and responsibility between political leaders and "the people"; and of institutional power--away from central banks and defunct twentieth-century institutions such as the WTO and IMF.The Levelling comes at a crucial time in the rise and fall of nations and has special importance for Americans as our place in the world undergoes radical change--the ebbing of our influence, profound questions over our economic model, the apparent decay in our society, and turmoil in our public life-- before our very eyes.

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Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy – not to mention one of the most challenging. Its topic is the nature of human knowledge, and the question of whether or not it is possible to have knowledge of the world at all. Over two centuries later, Kant’s treatise remains a subject of fierce debate among philosophers, who continue to offer new interpretations of his meaning. What is not in doubt is the work’s originality and brilliance – nor its mastery of creative thinking. Creative thinkers are able to bring a new perspective to questions and problems, look at things from a different angle, and show them in a fresh light. Kant achieved this by mediating between the two major schools of philosophical thought concerning knowledge – empiricism and rationalism – to create a complex third way. Where empiricists believed all knowledge is founded on experience, and rationalists believed true knowledge is founded on reason alone, Kant evaluated their arguments and proposed a third position – one incorporating elements of both, but within specific limits. As infamously dense as it is profound, Kant’s Critique shows creative thinking operating at a level few can aspire to reach.

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In 1903, Roger Casement, then a British consul, left his consular base on the Lower Congo River and made a journey through the regions of the Upper Congo to investigate at first hand reports of alleged atrocities. His subsequent report was a crucial instrument in the British government's efforts to bring about change in King Leopold's Congo Free State. This edition brings together Casement's report, together with his diary of that year, which have been carefully edited for publication. Names which were omitted from the original published report have been reinstated, and explanatory notes have been provided to report and diary. The editors' introduction addresses the scramble for Africa, the role of Leopold and the Congo Free State, Britain and the Congo question, Casement's career, publication of the report and the humanitarian campaign, 1904-13.

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Christian theology traditionally regards the sacramental as the polar opposite of the profane. The polarity is a memorial of contemporary desacralisation, profanisation, and sacralisation that stands as a portal to the story of modern reality. In our liminal space, we neither de-sacralise our environs nor re-sacralise the world. The lines are blurred and our perception of spirituality is neither immanent nor transcendent. While words fail to articulate the condition, stories are told and tales of experiences come together to form new theoretical nets, systems and categories. The conference volume, Sacrality and Materiality: Locating Intersections seeks to reply to the questions: Where does the sacred intersect with the material? What happens when they meet? First, however, does the sacral even exist? Would it be more productive to ignite sacramental discourse at the intersections of a new matrix? Historically, materiality is other than spirituality -- an intersection of the two is an intangible event of the intellect and spirit. We must engage a bipolar setting in the context of its own history in order to speak about the unspeakable. Despite that spirituality and materiality refuse to assume the categories assigned to the initial polarities of sacrality and profanity, the volume addresses the constrictions. Sacral materialism and sacral spiritualism both exist in their own right, and Christian theology has more to offer than polarities. The sacral is the meeting point for the fission of thought. Is the sacramental a topos for telling a postmodern story of spiritual experience? Is Evangelical sacramental theology relevant? Does theological talk about holy materiality belong in denominational and inter-religious dialogue?

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