Amelia Boomershine | United Academy (original) (raw)

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Papers by Amelia Boomershine

Australian Journal of Political Science, 2016

Epistemological, philosophical and methodological debates are never far from the surface of polit... more Epistemological, philosophical and methodological debates are never far from the surface of political science. They cut across and intensify differences in regional and national styles across the discipline. The British tradition of institutional analysis, description and interpretation stands in contrast to the ‘American science of politics’, as Crick (1959) critically portrayed it more than half a century ago. Within the English-speaking world, Canadian political scientists are closer to the model associated with the USA, with those of us in the Irish, Australian and New Zealand professions more likely to be following the British line. Within Europe and the rest of the world, the influences are harder to discern, although the global influence of the US model has probably been the stronger, with national exceptions. Within US political science, recent interventions have widened and deepened the debates. King et al. (1994) challenged qualitative researchers to adopt more systematic and robust methods. Brady, Collier and their various collaborators (2004; 2012) threw back a challenge to quantitative researchers to be more sceptical about their methods and more mindful of the difficulties of making causal inferences. A shift towards the greater use of experimental methods has taken place in parallel with these debates. Within British ‘political studies’, a succession of texts has examined different epistemological and methodological traditions by way of ‘Cook’s tours’ across them (for example, Marsh and Stoker 2010). By contrast, scanning the wide variety of US texts, one finds they focus most on methods. ‘Theory and methods’ are the keywords: discussion of philosophy and epistemology is relatively rare. But it is worth noting a US text, from a partnership between a political theorist and a behaviour specialist that attempts to ‘bridge the gap’, is now in its 11th edition (Hoover and Donovan 2014). Aimed at senior undergraduates, graduate research students and indeed political scientists in general, Keith Dowding’s new book blows through this literature like a breath of fresh air. It is a book on the philosophy of political science, examining methodologies through their philosophical foundations. It is based on a philosophical training that Dowding has kept updated during his career as a political scientist. He complains that much discussion of philosophical issues by political scientists is not up to date, andmuch discussion of methodology by philosophers lacks understanding of the practice of empirical research. Dowding provides a strong defence of ‘mainstream empirical analysis’ in political science. He comes to the debate from a British background, and is now based in Australia. But one can see his book as an attempt, largely successful, to draw the best from the British and US models of political science. It takes a pluralistic and nonsectarian approach,

Oral History Journal of South Africa

We live in a time when a paradigm shift is occurring from the study of the Bible as a series of t... more We live in a time when a paradigm shift is occurring from the study of the Bible as a series of texts read in silence by readers, to the study of the Bible as a set of compositions performed for audiences. Biblical performance criticism is the emerging paradigm. It begins by recognising the essential nature of the biblical tradition as oral events, where transformative meaning is created in the interplay of story, storyteller, telling, and audience. Experiential exegesis is a proposed new methodology for the study of particular compositions as performance literature. This approach to biblical study enables the re-creation of a meaningful resemblance of the original performance experience for a contemporary audience. In this article, the processes of experiential exegesis are applied to the story of the Dry Bones, recorded in Ezekiel 37:1–14. The study of the Dry Bones as a story performed for audiences reveals that the interaction between the storyteller and the audience occasions a...

Australian Journal of Political Science, 2016

Epistemological, philosophical and methodological debates are never far from the surface of polit... more Epistemological, philosophical and methodological debates are never far from the surface of political science. They cut across and intensify differences in regional and national styles across the discipline. The British tradition of institutional analysis, description and interpretation stands in contrast to the ‘American science of politics’, as Crick (1959) critically portrayed it more than half a century ago. Within the English-speaking world, Canadian political scientists are closer to the model associated with the USA, with those of us in the Irish, Australian and New Zealand professions more likely to be following the British line. Within Europe and the rest of the world, the influences are harder to discern, although the global influence of the US model has probably been the stronger, with national exceptions. Within US political science, recent interventions have widened and deepened the debates. King et al. (1994) challenged qualitative researchers to adopt more systematic and robust methods. Brady, Collier and their various collaborators (2004; 2012) threw back a challenge to quantitative researchers to be more sceptical about their methods and more mindful of the difficulties of making causal inferences. A shift towards the greater use of experimental methods has taken place in parallel with these debates. Within British ‘political studies’, a succession of texts has examined different epistemological and methodological traditions by way of ‘Cook’s tours’ across them (for example, Marsh and Stoker 2010). By contrast, scanning the wide variety of US texts, one finds they focus most on methods. ‘Theory and methods’ are the keywords: discussion of philosophy and epistemology is relatively rare. But it is worth noting a US text, from a partnership between a political theorist and a behaviour specialist that attempts to ‘bridge the gap’, is now in its 11th edition (Hoover and Donovan 2014). Aimed at senior undergraduates, graduate research students and indeed political scientists in general, Keith Dowding’s new book blows through this literature like a breath of fresh air. It is a book on the philosophy of political science, examining methodologies through their philosophical foundations. It is based on a philosophical training that Dowding has kept updated during his career as a political scientist. He complains that much discussion of philosophical issues by political scientists is not up to date, andmuch discussion of methodology by philosophers lacks understanding of the practice of empirical research. Dowding provides a strong defence of ‘mainstream empirical analysis’ in political science. He comes to the debate from a British background, and is now based in Australia. But one can see his book as an attempt, largely successful, to draw the best from the British and US models of political science. It takes a pluralistic and nonsectarian approach,

Oral History Journal of South Africa

We live in a time when a paradigm shift is occurring from the study of the Bible as a series of t... more We live in a time when a paradigm shift is occurring from the study of the Bible as a series of texts read in silence by readers, to the study of the Bible as a set of compositions performed for audiences. Biblical performance criticism is the emerging paradigm. It begins by recognising the essential nature of the biblical tradition as oral events, where transformative meaning is created in the interplay of story, storyteller, telling, and audience. Experiential exegesis is a proposed new methodology for the study of particular compositions as performance literature. This approach to biblical study enables the re-creation of a meaningful resemblance of the original performance experience for a contemporary audience. In this article, the processes of experiential exegesis are applied to the story of the Dry Bones, recorded in Ezekiel 37:1–14. The study of the Dry Bones as a story performed for audiences reveals that the interaction between the storyteller and the audience occasions a...