By: Rhonda Davis on November 1, 2018
Ethnographers study culture through the lens of individuals. Sarah Pink describes visual ethnography as a way to “offer ethnographers routes through which to come to understand the very things we cannot see.”[1] This is done through multiple mediums, but Pink’s focus in Doing Visual Ethnography is on photography, video and the web. I am fascinated…
By: Harry Edwards on November 1, 2018
Here’s a fun one. JTB is an acronym affectionately known among philosophers as Justified True Belief. It is a theory of knowledge that claims for anyone to know anything one must believe something as true and have good justification for it. For example, I have a belief that I am writing in English. Evaluating that…
By: Wallace Kamau on November 1, 2018
Growing up as a child in Nairobi city in a lower middle income neighborhood called Eastleigh did not prepare me adequately for my first visit to Mathare Slums in 1991 when we were on a mission to preach the Gospel from door to door as University students. That visit opened my eyes and heart to…
By: Digby Wilkinson on November 1, 2018
Disclaimer. Not my favourite book, nor subject. It was hard work. Doing Visual Ethnography by Sarah Pink is a book dedicated to assisting budding ethnographers collect and synthesise their material in a way that offers academic rigour to a style of research that has many potential pitfalls in terms of viewer interpretation. Her primary media…
By: John Muhanji on October 28, 2018
The moment of learning since Hong Kong is now with some books I thought may not be carrying much but they are the critical books I need all the time from now until I finish my dissertation. Learning how to study by Derek Rowntree and the current book of Critical Thinking by Richard Paul and…
By: Kyle Chalko on October 27, 2018
Silk Roads by Frank Dupaport is history book that is surprisingly easily digestible. Although rather sizeable, the chapters mostly divided by different roads of era, theme and topic make it consumable in self-contained chunks. Silk Roads has been received with great positivity through most industries. I was surprised to see that, beyond just the normal…
By: Jason Turbeville on October 27, 2018
I remember studying the Silk Road in high school. We took maybe one class to talk about it and that was about it. To be honest, I have never really given it much thought. Most of the study of Christianity I have undertaken was the Western branch because that is where my denomination comes from.…
By: Trisha Welstad on October 26, 2018
Last week I wrote about the limitation of the dominant Western perspective in William Dynrness’ book Visual Faith. Dyrness is a good example of this week’s text by Peter Frankopan. In The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Frankopan introduces the reader to world history from a non-Western center. Unlike Dyrness, who takes…
By: Greg on October 25, 2018
When you push that button on your phone to call an Uber (Didi in China) you are never sure what adventure you will have. Last Tuesday, I was on my way to a meeting in the downtown area at 6:00 in the evening. When calling this car, I knew the ride would be…
By: Karen Rouggly on October 25, 2018
I’ve struggled a lot with imposter syndrome. Imposter Syndrome, or imposter phenomenon, is generally defined as a very real and specific form of self-doubt.[1] My personal favorite definition is that it’s a “hotmess of harmfulness.”[2] In fact, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve felt it a lot in the last 8 weeks. As an Enneagram…
By: Harry Fritzenschaft on October 25, 2018
Obviously, before arriving in Hong Kong for the first Advance of LGP9, it was wise to read Jackie Pullinger’s Chasing the Dragon and Steven Tsang’s Modern History of Hong Kong. While I am unsure of the reasons of the order of the other subsequent texts of DMIN 717, Richard Paul and Linda Elder’s Critical Thinking:…
By: Nancy VanderRoest on October 25, 2018
As I sit here at Metro Hospital in Grand Rapids this afternoon with my Orthopedic Doctor son (who ironically just underwent orthopedic surgery earlier today for an old football injury that has continued to plague him), I’ve been critically thinking about critical thinking. I honestly believe that our perceptions in life direct our pathway through…
By: Dan Kreiss on October 25, 2018
It’s not always easy to accept that maybe what you have believed to be true, taught to you by your elders in your favorite history classes, only represents one possible scenario. The understanding of world events from a Euro-centric perspective fails to acknowledge the significant influences people in the East have had in regard to…
By: Shawn Hart on October 25, 2018
“The Silk Road, also called Silk Route, ancient trade route, linking China with the West, that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. Silk when westward, and wools, gold and silver went east.[1]” I believe as ministers, evangelists and missionary-minded individuals, we have often been captivated with not just…
By: Mary Mims on October 25, 2018
Recently, I taught on the story of David and Bathsheba, from the perspective of a Woman. Being a woman myself, this was not hard to do. In my preparation for the teaching, I not only prayed, but I also read many scholarly commentaries and journal articles on the interpretation of the story. Although I came…
By: Wallace Kamau on October 25, 2018
Is it possible that I have been making sub-optimal decisions that are egocentric and sociocentric, even the decision to take this doctorate and I should go back to the drawing board again? I’m convinced that I made a wise decision to add to my skills through this doctorate which, confirms that I have some…
By: Jay Forseth on October 25, 2018
(Map with China “at the center” which was discussed in our Hong Kong advance) I grimaced when I read the words “New History” in our book’s title this week. Do those two words even go together? I must admit my attitude was immediately skeptical towards The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by…
By: Chris Pritchett on October 25, 2018
What is “the axis on which the world spins?” What is the center of the world? This is really the driving question of Peter Frankopan’s monumental international bestseller: The Silk Roads: A New History of the World. Frankopan set out to write the history of the world from Antiquity to 2014—what an enormous feat to…
By: Mike on October 25, 2018
Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads is an old-world history book, told under modern contexts, about how East meets West and eventually became globalized. This post will attempt to connect Frankopan’s historical treatise with my dissertation research. I will look for associations that will help strengthen my research question that uses Biblical solutions to help prepare,…
By: Jean Ollis on October 25, 2018
Geopolitics: a study of the influence of such factors as geography, economics, and demography on the politics and especially the foreign policy of a state[1] Peter Frankopan admittedly was inspired to write his text based on the current state of geopolitics.[2] He aims to challenge the paradigm of “our” western view of history, specifically to challenge assumptions about…
