How can we effectively aggregate disparate pieces of information that are spread among many different individuals? In other words, how does one best access the ‘wisdom of the crowd’? Prediction market
Why do twins remain uncanny to those born alone―in other words, most of us? Even with the rise of IVF and an increase in multiple births, why do we still do “a double take” when we encounter twins? Why has this been a near-universal response throughout human history, and how has it played out in religion and myth? Through the work of leading scholars in religion, folklore and mythology, history, anthropology, and archaeology, Gemini and the Sacred explores how twinship has long been imagined, especially in the complex relationship of sacred twin traditions to “twins on the ground” in biology and lived experience. The book considers the multiple ways in which the “doubling” of a human being may be interpreted as auspicious and powerful―or suppressed as unstable and dangerous. Why has this been so and how does it affect living twins today? Treating both famous and lesser-known twins―including supernatural animal twins―in the ancient Near Eastern and classical Mediterranean worlds;
Are compounds words or phrases - or are they neither or both? How should we classify compounds? How can we deal with the fact that the relationship between the elements of sugar pill ('pill made of sugar') is different from that in sea-sickness pill ('pill to prevent sea-sickness')? Are compounds a linguistic universal? How much do languages vary in the way their compounds work? Why do we need compounds, when there are other ways of creating the same meanings? Are so-called neoclassical compounds like photograph really compounds? Based on more than forty years' research, this controversial new book sets out to answer these and many other questions.
Robert Langlands formulated his celebrated conjectures, initiating the Langlands Program, at the age of 31, profoundly changing the landscape of mathematics. Langlands, recipient of the Abel Prize, is famous for his insight in discovering links among seemingly dissimilar objects, leading to astounding results. This book is uniquely designed to serve a wide range of mathematicians and advanced students, showcasing Langlands' unique creativity and guiding readers through the areas of Langlands' work that are generally regarded as technical and difficult to penetrate. Part 1 features non-technical personal reflections, including Langlands' own words describing how and why he was led to formulate his conjectures. Part 2 includes survey articles of Langlands' early work that led to his conjectures, and centers on his principle of functoriality and foundational work on the Eisenstein series, and is accessible to mathematicians from other fields. Part 3 describes some of Langlands' contributi
Shortlisted for the UK Literacy Association's Academic Book Award 2021 The Bloomsbury Handbook of Reading Perspectives and Practices focuses on the experiences of reading from a young age to maturity and the different ways reading is encountered: in other words, the processes involved as well as the outcomes. The international group of experts, within both teaching and academia, focuses on reading in school: how is it taught? What is taught? How is it assessed? Controversial issues are explored: the acquisition of phonics; teaching the canon, including or ignoring digital texts; the advent of standards-based tests. The contributions also consider people’s biographies of reading, their memories of reading in school and their current views on literature. Together, this well-edited volume provides a more complete view of reading than is currently on offer, exploring all aspects of what it means to be literate and how we define being literate.
Comparing amulets over time and space, this volume focuses on the function of written words on these fascinating artefacts. Ranging from Roman Egypt to the Middle Ages and the Modern period, this book provides an overview on these artefacts in the Mediterranean world and beyond, including Europe, Iran, and Turkey. A deep analysis of the textuality of amulets provides comparative information on themes and structures of the religious traditions examined. A strong emphasis is placed on the material features of the amulets and their connections to ritual purposes. The textual content, as well as other characteristics, is examined systematically, in order to establish patterns of influence and diffusion. The question of production, which includes the relationships that linked professional magicians, artists and craftsmen to their clientele, is also discussed, as well as the sacred and cultural economies involved.
In this interdisciplinary work, philosophers from different specialisms connect with the notion of the wild today and interrogate how it is mediated through the culture of the Anthropocene. They make use of empirical material like specific artworks, films and other cultural works related to the term ‘wild’ to consider the aesthetic experience of nature, focusing on the untamed, the boundless, the unwieldy, or the unpredictable; in other words, aspects of nature that are mediated by culture. This book maps out the wide range of ways in which we experience the wildness of nature aesthetically, relating both to immediate experience as well as to experience mediated through cultural expression. A variety of subjects are relevant in this context, including aesthetics, art history, theology, human geography, film studies, and architecture. A theme that is pursued throughout the book is the wild in connection with ecology and its experience of nature as both a constructive and destructive for
Recent Anglophone scholarship has successfully shown that Nietzsche's thought makes important contributions to a wide range of contemporary philosophical debates. In so doing, however, scholarship has lost sight of another important feature of Nietzsche's project, namely his desire to challenge the very conception of philosophy that has been used to assess his merits as a philosopher. In other words, contemporary scholarship has overlooked Nietzsche's contributions to metaphilosophy, i.e. debates around the nature, methods, and aims of philosophy. This important new collection of essays brings together an international group of distinguished scholars to explore and discuss these contributions and debates. It will appeal to anyone interested in metaphilosophy, Nietzsche studies, German studies, or intellectual history.
A Few First Words. Ergonomics Applied to Offices. Relating with People in the Office. Office Design. Chairs and other Furniture. Keyboarding and other Manual Tasks. Feeling Good at Work. Seeing and Li
A substantial proportion of our everyday language is 'formulaic', that is, it consists of oft-repeated chunks. From pause fillers such as you know, to phrases such as Many thanks!, Is this seat taken? or strong tea, they form a phenomenon central in language. This important new book investigates formulaic language from the point of view of language change. Employing a novel quantitative and data-led approach, it traces and analyses change in phraseology across 20th Century German as used in Switzerland. Drawing on nearly 20 million words of textual evidence, it shows that social and cultural change in the speech community is the predominant motivator of change, though other factors are also at play. The book demonstrates a close link between language change and the culture of the speech community, arguing that this has repercussions for the study of language in general, as well as the study of society and history.
The Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan is one of the major figures of contemporary music, with a world-wide reputation for his modernist engagement with religious images and stories. Beginning with a substantial foreword from the composer himself, this collection of scholarly essays offers analytical, musicological, and theological perspectives on a selection of MacMillan's musical works. The volume includes a study of embodiment in MacMillan's music; a theological study of his St Luke Passion; an examination of the importance of lament in a selection of his works; a chapter on the centrality of musical borrowing to MacMillan's practice; a discussion of his liturgical music; and detailed analyses of other works including The World's Ransoming and the seminal Seven Last Words from the Cross. The chapters provide fresh insights on MacMillan's musical world, his compositional practice, and his relationship to modernity.
Direct, interpersonal violence is a pervasive, yet often mundane feature of our day-to-day lives; paradoxically, violence is both ordinary and extraordinary. Violence, in other words, is often hidden
Direct, interpersonal violence is a pervasive, yet often mundane feature of our day-to-day lives; paradoxically, violence is both ordinary and extraordinary. Violence, in other words, is often hidden
Some of today’s top legal thinkers consider the ways that legal thinking has bolstered―rather than corrected―injustice.Bringing together some of today’s top legal thinkers, this volume reimagines law in the twenty-first century, zeroing in on the most vibrant debates among legal scholars today. Going beyond constitutional jurisprudence as conventionally understood, contributors show the ways in which legal thinking has bolstered rather than corrected injustice. If conservative approaches have been well served by court-centered change, contributors to Rethinking Law consider how progressive ones might rely on movement-centered, legislative, and institutional change. In other words, they believe that the problems we face today are vastly bigger than can be addressed by litigation. The courts still matter, of course, but they should be less central to questions about social justice. Contributors describe how constitutional law supported a system of economic inequality; how we might reth
