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Search tags: exclusion
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url 2016-08-06 21:07
World Fantasy Con Programming Mess (again)

If you ain't male, white and preferably paying homage to Lovecraft ... *sigh* the fix is not to double down and make it worse.

Source: www.jimchines.com/2016/08/world-fantasy-con-programming-mess
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text 2016-07-19 12:35
Reading progress update: I've read 133 out of 234 pages.
Exclusion Zone - J.M. Hewitt

I wish the story was as great as the cover...

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text 2016-07-17 22:34
Reading progress update: I've read 37 out of 234 pages.
Exclusion Zone - J.M. Hewitt

Gah!  I'm conflicted!  This book feels like it was written for me.   If for no other reason than it's set (mostly) in Pripyat which is the town that housed the Chernobyl workers.  It's a dual timeline story that covers the day of the disaster in 1986 and also crimes taking place there in 2015.   I have something of an obsession with Pripyat and was all over this like a rash when I saw it advertised on BritCrime.  I hit that buy button within 5 seconds of reading the blurb.

 

But - and it's a BIG 'but' - it's written in first person present tense.  I hate that. 

 

Oh man, I'm vexed.  I'll probably keep going with it but it's bugging me that I can't get into the story properly because I'm focusing on how much I hate the tense used...

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review 2007-10-28 00:00
Affirmative Exclusion: Cultural Pluralism and the Rule of Custom in France
Affirmative Exclusion: Cultural Pluralism and the Rule of Custom in France - Jean-Loup Amselle,Jane Marie Todd Interesting so far, we'll see how it goes. Amselle draws on France's long history of ethnic confrontation (in Egypt, Algeria, Senegal) to argue that that French style multiculturalism creates AFFIRMATIVE EXCLUSION (!) by singling target groups out - yet those who prefer assimilationist (republican universalism) are unable to cope with the modern and ever-shifting dualities of public and private as well as secular and religious. Oh no what is France going to do!? I guess I'll have to finish the book and find out!!
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review 2000-01-01 00:00
Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation - Miroslav Volf I love this book and include it in the top 10 books that have influenced my life. Living in the fault zone between Muslim and Christian civilizations, and having gone through religious riots and killings in our town, the book's message is especially relevant. Reconciliation is something still being worked on.

The book is loaded with insights and nuances that cannot be boiled down to a simple message. However, it is definitely not for everyone. Much of it is extremely academic and as a doctor I could only understand it because I had been doing some reading about postmodern culture, criticism and thinking. As an outsider to Volf's academic discipline, I had the feeling I was reading a message of vital importance encased in something that the academy might accept. If so, I think it was 100% appropriate and hopefully successful. Unfortunately it also limits the audience. It's not a book I can easily get my colleagues to read. I would dearly love to see a rewrite for non-specialists, and have even started editing a readable version for friends here.

Finally, I think that there is something to Rev. Thomas Scarborough's criticism (review on Amazon). I do not agree that the book is in any way shallow, but it does not deal satisfactorily with the difficult problem of what to do when "the other" apparently wants nothing except your own destruction, and where "justice" might seem to require the destruction or at least constraint of "the other." This can be a problem, for example, in extremely abusive family relationships, and appears to be true in some political and religious conflicts. Volf addressed this after September 11 in an interview with Christianity Today, and doubtless in other writings and addresses, but I did not get much understanding of this from the book.
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