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This chapter uses the ritual economy approach to examine what can be called “liturgical” economic allocations, which are made by private individuals and can comprise a significant percentage of a society's total expenditures on public works. Such allocations are driven by tournaments of honor that emphasize highly visible acts and public evaluations of status, which turn on one's willingness to put at risk what is most highly valued in society. Unlike philanthropy, participation in these tournaments is necessary to achieve and maintain citizenship, but unlike taxation, where rates are imposed from above, what is given is determined by a complex social negotiation. The chapter argues that the relativity of honor gives such systems a particular dynamic, which is illustrated in several case studies.

‘As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard, as it were armour-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little, he could see his domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could hardly keep in position and was about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk, waved helplessly before his eyes’ (Kafka, The Metamorphosis, 1915, p. 19).

Kafka's The Metamorphosis (1915) appears in disability theory to aid explanation for those who experience acquired disability. This allegory offers a visceral picture of what a person can go through; there is a before and an after, a death and a life. I was able-bodied, capable, bursting with energy and then I woke up one morning utterly transformed. I no longer recognise myself; my consciousness mourns my previous existence, and I must come to terms with my reconstituted self.

It is that ‘other’ that I identify with now and, to discover what that means, I began composing a Requiem Mass. I have a long love affair with them; I have sung and conducted them and their ability to pierce the veil between life and death is of particular significance to me. This chapter examines the ways in which my acquired disability, this mystical death, impacts and informs my composition.

Addresses the notion of “phoria” in organizational change. Uses the device of the myth of the Erl König to explore the appropriation of emotion in organizations and considers the role of rhetoric, liturgy and ritual in the preparation for changes. Argues that organizations trivialize the significance of change via a range of techniques which attempt to alleviate the experience of the burden of change. Argues for greater discernment between enlightenment and levity.

In his apocalyptic book on the environment and public policy, Timothy C. Weiskel warned of the consequences of humanity's intrusion into the biological and geo‐chemical processes of the natural world. He said that our intrusions have been massive and thorough; that they now threaten to transform ecosystemic parameters; and that unless responsible public policy directs itself toward moderating our current destructive impact on the environment, we will face ecosystemic collapse and human catastrophe “on a vastly greater scale than has ever been recorded in human history.”

The compilation of a core collection for Jewish reference sources raises a number of questions which must be confronted and answered. Should a Jewish reference collection be a listing of sources for the study of Judaism primarily as a religion, or primarily as a cultural group? Should the sources be leaning toward Biblical and Rabbinic studies or towards history, art, and music? For the purposes of this bibliography, I have chosen to concentrate on the cultural aspects of Judaism and Jews as a group to be studied. As such I have elected, somewhat arbitrarily, to exclude the primary sources of the study of Judaism as a religion, these sources being a Jewish version of an English translation of the Bible, an English copy of the Talmud, liturgies, and all of the supplementary primary sources which would be necessary. It is hoped, instead, that those items would be found in the religion section of the reference collection. Nevertheless, this core collection will provide the tools for any interested person seeking to include such sources in their Judaic reference collection.

While the theme of death in the popular music subgenre of black metal has been written about descriptively, it is less frequent to find conceptual philosophical or theological analyses of death. In this piece, I aim to show how black metal's presentation of death lies in line with death as negation, instilled with strong links to Christianity's mystical apophatic theology. I will argue that this view on death shows it cannot be properly expressed in terms of affirmative language. Even where death is treated as a physical death, rather than metaphorical, it is a celebrated expression of negation. However, unlike the Christian apophatic tradition, black metal's death is not a renunciation of the physical; rather it is a complement to it. In a complex sense, even negating negations, black metal's expression of death is disturbing precisely because of its dual acceptance of death as metaphor and as physically fully realised.