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Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quijote, Part One (1605) purports to be an historical chronicle of the exploits of a mad Manchegan knight, a conceit which Don Quijote, Part Two (1615) develops by staging encounters between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and characters who have read the 'true history' of Part One. This structure culminates in the episodes involving the Duke and Duchess, assiduous readers of Part One who concoct elaborate pranks at Quixote's and Sancho's expense. Consumed by their merrymaking, the Duke and Duchess reveal themselves to be quixotic in a peculiarly literary way: they ape Quixote's madness by miming his exaggerated imitation of literature. In this way, Part One, like the books of knight errantry that drive Quixote insane, becomes the stimulus for extravagant behaviour. This identification simultaneously celebrates and satirizes the popular reception and power of Cervantes's own work, which itself achieves a bizarre capacity to drive sane individuals to behavioural extremes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1997, the results of an administrative ethics survey of senior Hong Kong public servants were reported in this journal. Using the same questionnaire in 2011, we assessed the ways in which values have changed in the intervening period. Despite major systemic reforms in the civil service, which has evolved from a classic Weberian to a neo-Weberian bureaucracy, organizational, rather than individual, values generally appear to have strengthened. The explanation seems to be that enhanced classical Weberian organizational values are not perceived to be incompatible with high standards of personal morality. Adherence to familiar Weberian bureaucratic principles also affords civil servants some protection in an environment in which their performance is increasingly subject to critical scrutiny by local politicians, the society, an ever-watchful media, and the Chinese government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Este artículo pretende leer La vida es sueño contra el trasfondo epistemológico de la cambiante percepción de la naturaleza física del universo y la cuestión de la legitimidad de la físicamatemática para describirla, que tanto debate provocaba en las primeras décadas del siglo XVII. La obra maestra de Calderón se construye en diálogo crítico con este contexto filosófico, pues Basilio es tanto astrólogo como matemático. El desengaño final del Rey demuestra que el nuevo determinismo científico que se extendía cada vez más en la época, exagera la capacidad del hombre para interpretar de manera matemática, es decir, empírica y conclusiva, tanto los grandes signos celestiales como las más cotidianas señales de identidad personal. De esta manera, La vida es sueño desarrolla una semiótica inestable y dependiente de múltiples variables en constante proceso de cambio, realzando así la necesidad de una filosofía moral basada en la recta razón escolástica y capaz de abarcar todas las peripecias de una vida caótica y contingente. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

John Wesley's upbringing as an Anglican and his subsequent 'evangelical conversion' as a young adult played significant roles in his mature theological formation. This duality and tension is no where more present than in his baptismal theology. The article traces in Wesley the development of this dialectic and the role of baptism as a means of grace. It then investigates his understanding of both infant baptism and believer's baptism, and how both apply, but in somewhat differing ways, to his 'evangelical Anglican' theology. The Anglican Wesley seemed to argue consistently for infant baptism and the divine effects transmitted through the rite. Conversely, the evangelical Wesley subsequently underwent his Aldersgate 'conversion' whereby he insisted that every person must experience the New Birth by receiving the Holy Spirit in maturity as the effects of infant baptism are eclipsed by adult iniquity. While rebaptism was wholeheartedly rejected by Wesley, adults who had not heretofore been baptized should do so following their individual, evangelical experiences. However, the benefits of adult baptism differ from Wesley's Anglican paedobaptism and require the baptizand's receptivity in faith and holiness. Thus, Wesley is left with an objective grace in paedobaptism and an adult baptism contingent upon the subjective human response. The Anglican foundation of Wesley's faith, then, does not completely adhere to his later evangelical experientialism, producing a dialectical baptismal theology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an examination between the Reformation theologies of Martin Luther and Balthasar Hubmaier, analyzing the influences and interactions shared between them at the beginning of the 16th-century. Hubmaier's reading of Luther's sacramental theology is particularly addressed, citing ways in which Hubmaier took up Luther's arguments against the theologian Johannes Eck. The author also suggests that Hubmaier either misread or intentionally over-extended Luther's views to a more radical position.

Collaborative working through public-private partnerships, though not new, has become more common. Strong partnerships are built and sustained by norms of reliability consistent with the high levels of systemic trust that the principles of good governance encourage. This article examines two public-private partnerships in Hong Kong in which government actions have severely undermined the trust necessary for the public-private partnership model to work effectively. In the first case, the trust established through a long-standing government/civil society partnership in the delivery of school-based education has been dissipated by acrimonious public wrangling over the autonomy of the service providers. The second case focuses on a large-scale infrastructure project to build an arts hub on redeveloped land. Policy inconsistencies by the Hong Kong government, together with deep suspicions about the extent to which large, well-connected businesses have influenced the project's development, have seriously undermined the trust of arts community stakeholders and the general public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary for historian and translator H. Wayne Walker Pipkin, known for his work on Anabaptist history and sources, is presented.