Bloomsbury Academic UK

What stands out about racism is its ability to withstand efforts to legislate or educate it away. In The Racist Fantasy , Todd McGowan argues that its persistence is due to a massive unconscious investment in a fundamental racist fantasy. As long as this fantasy continues to underlie contemporary society, McGowan claims, racism will remain with us, no matter how strenuously we struggle to eliminate it. The racist fantasy, a fantasy in which the racial other is a figure who blocks the enjoyment of the racist, is a shared social structure. No one individual invented it, and no one individual is responsible for its perpetuation. While no one is guilty for the emergence of the racist fantasy, people are nonetheless responsible for keeping it alive and thus responsible for fighting against it. The Racist Fantasy examines how this fantasy provides the psychic basis for the racism that appears so conspicuously throughout modern history. The racist fantasy informs everything from lynchi

Adorno’s aesthetics is one of the most important philosophical analyses of the 20th century, but its development remains unclear. This book for the first time provides a detailed study of the way that Adorno’s thinking of aesthetics developed and involved different dimensions that came together to make it uniquely powerful. Principal among these dimensions is his intense interest in music and his concomitant materialist approach. However, by studying how Adorno's aesthetics arose through interactions with different thinkers, particularly Kracauer, Horkheimer, and Schoenberg, it becomes clear that his thought is changed in its relation to dialectics. As a result, Adorno’s thinking comes to broaden the understanding of aesthetics to include the sphere of sensuality, and in doing so transforms both aesthetics and dialectics through a notion of dissonance, which will in turn have substantial implications for the relation of his thinking to praxis.

Sin documentos is a landmark album in Spanish popular culture and continues to maintain considerable popularity more than two decades after its release. The characteristic guitar riff of the title song, a kind of rumba-rock, still occupies a place at every party in Spain. Los Rodriguez’s success came after a decade characterized by the rise and fall of local-language punk and new wave bands. By the time Sin Documentos appeared, however, most Spanish bands were singing in English and had turned to grunge and noise rock. How might we explain the significance of this band and its Spanish-language music with Latin-American influences in the decade of the 1990s, which was otherwise dominated by English-language indie and grunge music? This book evaluates the relationship between Spain and Argentina, and recognizes the major influence of Latin American pop-rock on the modernization of Spanish popular music beginning in the 1950s. Through interviews with members of the band and the album p

Dancing to the Drum Machine is a never-before-attempted history of what is perhaps the most controversial musical instrument ever invented: the drum machine. Here, author Dan LeRoy reveals the untold story of how their mechanical pulse became the new heartbeat of popular music. The pristine snap of the LinnDrum. The bottom-heavy beats of the Roland 808. The groundbreaking samples of the E-MUSP-1200. All these machines―and their weirder, wilder-sounding cousins―changed composition, recording, and performance habits forever. Their distinctive sounds and styles helped create new genres of music, like hip hop and EDM. But they altered every musical style, from mainstream pop to heavy metal to jazz. Dan LeRoy traces the drum machine from its low-tech beginnings in the Fifties and Sixties to its evolution in the Seventies and its ubiquity in the Eighties, when seemingly overnight, it infiltrated every genre of music. Drum machines put some drummers out of work, while keeping others on

This book explores an album of popular music with a remarkable significance to a violent wave of postcolonial tensions in the Netherlands in the 1970s. Several “actions” were claimed by a small number of first-generation descendants of ca. 12,500 reluctant migrants from the young independent state of Indonesia (former Dutch East Indies). Transferred in 1951, this culturally coherent group consisted of ex-Royal Dutch Colonial Army personnel and their families. Their ancient roots in the Moluccan archipelago and their protestant-christian faith defined their minority image. Their sojourn should have been temporary, but frustratingly turned out to be permanent. At the height of strained relations, Massada rose to the occasion. Astaganaga (1978) is a telling example of the will to negotiate a different diasporic Moluccan identity through uplifting contemporary sounds.

This commentary records, through notes taken by Hermias, Syrianus' seminar on Plato's Phaedrus , one of the world's most influential celebrations of erotic beauty and love. It is the only Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Phaedrus to have survived in its entirety. Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus' pupils - including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias' father, Ammonius. The second of two volumes of Hermias' commentary, the chapters translated here begin with a discussion of how the discarnate soul is visualised as a winged chariot team whose charioteer may gain some glimpse of beauty itself, which can explain subsequent erotic longing. This volume provides a translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, an introduction detailing the significance and context of the treatise and a scholarly apparatus including multiple indexes, glossaries and a bibliography.

Exploring the relationship between theory and practice in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this volume offers a state-of-the-art overview of Appliable Linguistics. Featuring both internationally-renowned scholars and rising stars from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Indonesia, New Zealand, Singapore and the USA, Appliable Linguistics and Social Semiotics examines the theoretical insights, questions, and developments that have emerged from the application of Systemic Functional theory to a range of fields. Beyond simply reporting on the application of SFL to particular sites of communication, both linguistic and semiotic, this volume demonstrates how SFL has critiqued, developed and transformed theory and practice and foregrounds the implications of application for Systemic Functional theory itself. Covering established fields for application, such as education, medicine and media, to relatively uncharted areas, such as software design and extremist prop

In recent years philosophers, botanists and mycologists have drawn our attention to the complexities of plant and fungal life. They have taught us why plants are better thought as colonies than individuals and how animal-centred ways of thinking fail to capture what is peculiar and perhaps admirable in vegetal life. They have taught us to appreciate the temporality and intricacy of vegetal existence and suggested how relations between plants might provide us with non-individualistic models of coexistence. But they have not, as yet, taught us much – if anything – about vegetal sex.This book introduces the reader to the exciting new field of plant philosophy and takes it in a new direction to ask: what does it mean to say that plants are sexed? Do ‘male’ and ‘female’ really mean the same when applied to humans, trees, mushrooms and algae? Are the zoological categories of sex really adequate for understanding the – uniquely ‘dibiontic’ – life cycle of plants? Vegetal Sex addresses these

Abortion remains one of the most politicized issues globally and whilst some countries such as the USA continue to experience restrictions to access to abortion, Northern Ireland stands out as having enacted historical positive change in abortion law, from an almost complete ban throughout the Twentieth Century to decriminalization achieved in 2019. This book documents and analyzes how this historical change was achieved. This, the second of two volumes, places emphasis on allies and support for abortion provision, illustrating how the movement has relied upon an intersectional network of social movement actors, NGOs and fundraisers to maintain momentum and inclusivity. It also focuses on the reality of abortion provision. Each chapter is written by those directly involved in the long-fought battle to change abortion law - including those with personal experience of seeking abortions, activists, academics, legal experts, political actors, NGOs, and volunteers. This interdisciplinary te

Male and Female Violence in Popular Media brings into focus the apparently symmetrical phenomena of men’s violence against women and women’s violence against men, explaining the profound differences in their actual features as well as in their representations, which over the last few years have been proliferating in a vast array of global media contents. Elisa Giomi and Sveva Magaraggia consider popular media including crime TV series such as The Killing (Denmark, 2007- 2012), The Fall (UK, 2013-2016) and True Detective (USA, 2015), factual entertainment such as Who the (bleep) Did I Marry? (Investigation Discovery, 2010-2015), and Italian pop music in order to examine popular culture’s depictions of men and women in their opposite, yet complementary, roles of perpetrators and victims. They reveal how TV shows, pop-songs, news and commercials that populate global audiences’ daily life fuel false beliefs about love and sexuality that either legitimate or stigmatise violence dep

Demonstrating the range of linguistic and semiotic practices which are deployed in the construction of war memory, The Burden of Traumascapes investigates the discourses of remembering that are enculturated in the everyday lives of the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Maida Kosatica explores how the memory and narratives of the Bosnian War (1992-5) convey and renegotiate historical acts of violence in quite ordinary, banal ways and extend the war into the present day. Reintroducing the concept of 'traumascapes', this book demonstrates that semiotic landscapes are marked by traumatic legacies of violence in which the sense of trauma establishes its meaning through the discourses of remembering. In this context, this book argues that discourses of remembering, whether constructed in physical or virtual spaces, stem simultaneously from personal and collective needs to follow moral orders and responsibility, as well as from political, pedagogical and economic demands.

Bloomsbury Semiotics offers a state-of-the-art overview of the entire field of semiotics from a wide range of disciplinary perspectives. With four volumes spanning theory, method and practice across the disciplines, this definitive reference work comprises:Volume 1: History and SemiosisVolume 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical SciencesVolume 3: Semiotics in the Arts and Social SciencesVolume 4: Semiotic MovementsUniting fragmented disciplines under the framework of semiotic theory, this set emphasizes and strengthens common bonds shared across intellectual cultures, and facilitates the discovery and recovery of meaning across fields. Providing comprehensive overviews of the history and status of semiotic inquiry across a diverse range of traditions and disciplines, chapters are written by leading international experts. Together, they highlight key contemporary developments and debates before casting a vision for future research priorities, identifying unanswered questions and

Interweaving academic theory, (auto)ethnography, and memoir-styled narrative, Christopher M. Driscoll explores what the “white devil” trope means for understanding and responding to tensions emerging from toxic white masculinity.The book provides a historical and philosophical account of the “white devil” as it appears in the stories and myths of various black religious and philosophical traditions, particularly as these traditions are expressed through the contemporary cultural expression of hip-hop. Driscoll argues that the trope of the white devil emerges from a self-hatred in many white men that is concealed (and revealed) through various defence mechanisms – principally, anger – and the book provides rich ground to discuss the relationship between perceptions of self (i.e. who we are), emotional regulation, and our behaviour towards others (i.e. how we act).

This book is a comprehensive and thorough introduction to children’s and young adult literature in English language education. Reading is promoted as central to language education in order to experience perspectives from around the world, and the book demonstrates the many opportunities for teaching with compelling story, encouraging an active and engaged community of second language readers through challenging picturebooks, motivating graphic novels, dynamic plays, enchanting verse novels and compelling young adult fiction. Using many examples of literary texts that are well suited to the primary or secondary classroom, the book focuses on the advantages of deep reading and the vital importance of in-depth learning. In-depth learning is an approach that involves the students as motivated participants, working collaboratively and with empathy while preparing for and confronting the challenges of the 21st century. Illustrating the approach with a Deep Reading Framework based in researc

What is 'translation'? Even as the scholarly viewpoint of translation studies has expanded over recent years, the notion of 'translation' has remained fixedly defined by its interlinguistic element. However, there are many different contexts and disciplines in which translation takes place for which this definition is entirely unsuitable.Exploring translational aspects in contexts in which scholars do not think about 'translation', this book considers the alternative uses of the term beyond the interlinguistic dimension. Taking our understanding of 'translation' back to its basic semiotic principles, leading experts outline the wide variety of alternative fields of study, practices, applications and contexts in which the term ‘translation’ is used. Chapters examine 11 different fields of study, exploring what the term ‘translation’ means, how it is used and what it could contribute to an enlarged understanding of ‘translation’ as a concept.In this way, the volume argues for a reimagini

This essential reference text on the life, thought and writings of Plato uses over 160 short, accessible articles to cover a complete range of topics for both the first-time student and seasoned scholar of Plato and ancient philosophy. It is organized into five parts illuminating Plato’s life, the whole of the Dialogues attributed to him, the Dialogues’ literary features, the concepts and themes explored within them and Plato’s reception via his influence on subsequent philosophers and the various interpretations of his work. This fully updated 2nd edition includes 19 newly commissioned entries on topics ranging across comedy, tragedy, Xenophon, metatheatre, gender, musical theory, animals, Orphism, political theory, religion, time, Hellenistic philosophy and post-Platonic ancient commentaries. It also features revisions to the majority of articles from the 1st edition, including 8 which have been completely re-written, and 12 which have had the references substantially revised. Refl

This book argues that Buddhism has spread due to globalized capitalism, and explores how capitalism is also impacting Buddhists and Buddhism today. Edited by two leading scholars in Buddhist studies, the book examines how capitalism and neo-liberalism have shaped global perceptions of Buddhism, as well as specific local practices and attitudes. It examines the institutional practices that sustained the spread of Buddhism for two and a half millennia, and the adaptation of Buddhist institutions in contemporary, global economic systems―particularly in Europe and the United States over the last century and half. These innovative essays on the interfaces between Buddhism and capitalism will prompt readers to rethink the connection between Buddhism and secular society. Case studies include digital capitalism, tourism, and monasticism, and are drawn from the USA, Tibet, China, Japan, and Thailand.

The growing interest in fragmentalism is one of the most exciting trends in philosophy of time and is gradually reshaping the contemporary debate. Providing an extensive interpretation of this view, Samuele Iaquinto and Giuliano Torrengo articulate a novel theory of the passage of time and argue that it is the most effective in vindicating the inherent dynamism of reality. Iaquinto and Torrengo offer the first full-range application of fragmentalism to a number of metaphysical topics, including the open future, causation, the A-theoretic interpretation of special relativity and time travel. The resulting picture, they argue, conveys the potential of a radically new understanding of time.

Infectious disease, wounded and dying soldiers, and a shortage of supplies were the daily realities faced by the nuns who nursed with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War. This study documents their involvement in the conflict and how the nuns bore witness to the effects of carnage and official indifference, in many cases traumatized as a result. This book reflects on the initiative and courage shown by the nuns and how their actions can be viewed as part of a wider movement among women in the mid-19th century to find fulfilment and assert control in their own lives. Nightingale’s Nuns and the Crimean War also sheds light on how critics at the time accused many of the nuns of being secret agents of the Catholic Church who preyed on vulnerable soldier patients; there was a campaign in parliament to regulate and control convents. Terry Tastard shows how the nuns attempted to neutralize this anti-Catholicism, as well as charting the participation of Anglican nuns who had just begun a

This innovative and unique textbook describes change as a socially constructed process, reinforced by the interactions of employees at all levels. Including video and audio resources, it emphasises the fact that change is an on-going phenomenon: not an event that will soon be over once the consultants have left, but a permanent feature of an adaptable organisation.This novel theoretical perspective makes it the first and only text to focus on the central role of conversations and storytelling in managing change. Strengthening the business focus of the text, this new 3rd edition includes provision of practical tools and techniques for managing change, increased coverage of sustaining change and a greater number of international examples and case studies. Managing Organizational Change is suitable for change management modules at all levels of undergraduate and postgraduate study.

How do markets function? Who creates, shapes and organizes them? And what do they mean for the relationship between labor and capital? Marketization examines how the state and capital use markets to discipline the working class. Ian Greer and Charles Umney provide a comprehensive overview of the European political economy, from the European Commission to the workplace, to show how neoliberal principles translate into market mechanisms and reshape the lives of workers. Drawing on dozens of conversations with policymakers, administrators, businesses, workers, and trade unionists across many European countries, Greer and Umney unpack marketization. They go beyond liberal theories that see markets as natural forms of economic organization and broad-brush left critiques of neoliberalism, looking behind the scenes in the current European political economy to examine the practicalities of how markets are created and manipulated by employers, policymakers and bureaucrats in pursuit of g

How do markets function? Who creates, shapes and organizes them? And what do they mean for the relationship between labor and capital? Marketization examines how the state and capital use markets to discipline the working class. Ian Greer and Charles Umney provide a comprehensive overview of the European political economy, from the European Commission to the workplace, to show how neoliberal principles translate into market mechanisms and reshape the lives of workers. Drawing on dozens of conversations with policymakers, administrators, businesses, workers, and trade unionists across many European countries, Greer and Umney unpack marketization. They go beyond liberal theories that see markets as natural forms of economic organization and broad-brush left critiques of neoliberalism, looking behind the scenes in the current European political economy to examine the practicalities of how markets are created and manipulated by employers, policymakers and bureaucrats in pursuit of g

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;

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.How did the skateboard go from a menacing fad to an Olympic sport? Writer and skateboarder Jonathan Russell Clark answers this question by going straight to the sources: the skaters, photographers, commentators, and industry insiders who made such an unlikely rise to worldwide juggernaut possible. Skateboarders are their own historians, which means the real history of skating exists not in archives or texts but in a hodgepodge of random and iconic videos, tattered photographs, and, mostly, in the blurry memories of the people who lived through it all. From California beaches to Tokyo 2020, the skateboard has outlasted its critics to form a global community of creativity, camaraderie, and unceasing progression.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic .

How do Christians make relationships with land central to their faith? How have the realities of materiality, geography, and ecology shaped Christian territories of belonging and theologies of territory? What social-economic-political conditions surround exchanges between religion and nature?This book explores how Christianity intersects with nature to create unique religious landscapes. Case studies range from the Mormon Trail across the USA completed by thousands every year, to the Catholic devotional cult of and shrine to St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. Contributors examine the entangled forms of agency between nature and culture that are at work as Christians produce, consume, experience, imagine, inhabit, manage, and struggle over formations of land. Focusing on Christian engagements with land forms in the early 21st century, this book advances the spatial turn in the study of religion, contributes to the anthropology of religion and the study of global Christianities, as well as ou

The city of Manila is uniquely significant to Philippine, Southeast Asian and world history. It played a key role in the rise of Western colonial mercantilism in Asia, the extinction of the Spanish Empire and the ascendancy of the USA to global imperial hegemony, amongst other events. This book examines British and American writing on the city, situating these representations within scholarship on empire, orientalism and US, Asian and European political history. Through analysis of novels, memoirs, travelogues and journalism written about Manila by Westerners since the early eighteenth century, Tom Sykes builds a picture of Western attitudes towards the city and the wider Philippines, and the mechanics by which these came to dominate the discourse. This study uncovers to what extent Western literary tropes and representational models have informed understandings of the Philippines, in the West and elsewhere, and the types of counter-narrative which have emerged in the Philippines in

A wide-ranging introductory guide for readers making their first steps into the world of manga, this book helps readers move beyond manga available in translation to more fully explore the incredible diversity of Japanese comics styles, forms and traditions from its earliest texts to the internationally popular comics of the 21st century. In an accessible and easy-to-navigate format, the book covers: · A history of Japanese comics, from their emergence within modern print culture, through their astounding growth as an industry and diversification in form in the second half of the 20th century, and on to the present · Case studies of texts reflecting the range of themes, genres, forms and creators, including Osamu Tezuka, Machiko Hasegawa and Katsuhiro Otomo · Key themes and contexts – from gender and sexuality, to history and censorship · Critical approaches to manga, including definitions, biography and reception and global publishing contexts The book includes a bibliography of e

This book argues that we have been mistaken about the fundamental assumption that Christianity is the key to understanding the “Christian” martyr. Examining martyrdom in early Christian history, Matt Recla argues that the violent deaths of martyrs, real and imagined, were appropriated for Christian institutional life. Through deconstructing martyrdom and appreciating the complexity of the martyr, we recognize martyrdom not as a socio-historical phenomenon inherent to particular ideologies, and not as a religious “identity” but as the institutional co-optation of violence. The Christian apologist Tertullian argued that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church, but while the seed may be the key to martyrdom, the blood is the key to the martyr.The book shows how martyrs exceed the bounds of institutional narrative. Centering analysis of martyrdom first around the martyr’s existential difference and the complex biological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors that lead to w

This book examines the relation between bodies and political economies at micro and macro levels. It stands in the space between ends and beginnings – some long-desired, such as the end of capitalism and racism, and others long-dreaded, such as the climate catastrophe – and reimagines what the world can be like instead. It offers an original investigation into the relation between performance, dance, and political economy, looking at the points where politics, economics, ethics, and culture intersect. Arising from live conversations and exchanges among the contributors, this book is written in an interdisciplinary and dialogical manner by leading scholars and artists in the fields of Performance Studies, Dance, Political Theory, Economics, and Social Theory: Marc Arthur, Melissa Blanco Borelli, Anita Gonzalez, Alexandrina Hemsley, Jamila Johnson-Small, Elena Loizidou, Tavia Nyong'o, Katerina Paramana, Nina Power, and Usva Seregina. Their critical and creative examinations of the relati

The combined experience of authors throughout the ages offers a wealth of valuable information about the practice of creative writing. However, such lore can also be problematic for students and practitioners as it can be inherently additive, making it difficult to abandon processes that do not work. This adherence to lore also tends to be a US-centric endeavor. In order to take a nuanced approach to the uses and limitations of lore, The Place and the Writer offers a global perspective on creative writing pedagogy that has yet to be fully explored. Featuring a diverse array of cultural viewpoints from Brazil to Hong Kong, Finland to South Africa, this book explores the ongoing international debate about the best approaches for teaching and practicing creative writing. Marshall Moore and Sam Meekings challenge areas of perceived wisdom that persist in the field of creative writing, including aesthetics and politics in institutionalized creative writing; the process of workshopping; tuit

Understanding religion from a material and corporeal angle, this open access book addresses the ways in which refugees practice their religions and convert or develop new faiths. It also evaluates how secular institutions in Europe frame and determine what is classified as religion according to the law, and delineate the limits of religious authority, religious practice, and religious speech. The question of nationalism and migration has been shaping the political landscape in Europe for more than a decade, resulting in a nationalist upsurge. This volume places the current trajectories of people from Asia and Africa who flee from conditions such as oppression and conflict, and who are seeking refuge in Europe in a broader historical and comparative perspective. In so doing, it addresses past experiences in Europe with the role of religion in both producing and accommodating refugees, in the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia, World War II, and in the context of the Cold War.

In this novel academic study, Aled Thomas analyses modern issues surrounding boundaries and fluidity in contemporary Scientology. By using the Scientologist practice of ‘auditing’ as a case study, this book explores the ways in which new types of ‘Scientologies’ can emerge. The notion of Free Zone Scientology is characterised by its horizontal structure, in contrast to the vertical-hierarchy of the institutional Church of Scientology. With this in mind, Thomas explores the Free Zone as an example of a developing and fluid religion, directly addressing questions concerning authority, leadership and material objects.This book, by maintaining a double-focus on the top-down hierarchy of the Church of Scientology and the horizontal-fluid nature of the Free Zone, breaks away from previous research on new religions, with have tended to focus either on new religions as indices of broad social processes, such as secularization or globalization, or as exemplars of exotic processes, such as chari

This volume makes a powerful argument for epitome (combining textual dismemberment and re-composition ) as a broad hermeneutic field encompassing multifarious historical, conceptual and aesthetical concerns. The contributors gather from across the globe to present case studies of the 'summing up' of cultural artefacts, literary and artistic, in epitomic writing, and as a collective they demonstrate the importance of this genre that has been largely overlooked by scholars.The volume is divided into five sections: the first showcases the broad range of fields from which epitomic analysis can be made, from classics to postmodernism to cultural memory studies; the second focuses in on epitome as dismemberment in writing from late antiquity to the modern day; the third considers a 'productive negativity' of epitomic writings and how they are useful tools for investigating the very borders and paradoxes of language; the fourth brings this to bear on materiality; the fifth considers re-c

Is poetry still relevant today, or is it merely a dwindling historical art? How have poets of the recent past dealt with challenges to poetics?Seeking to chart the poetic act in a period not so much hostile as indifferent to poetry, Language at the Boundaries outlines spaces where poetry and poetics emerge in migration, translation, world literature, canon formation, and the history of science and technology. One can only come so close to fully possessing or explaining everything about the poetic act, and this book grapples with these limits by perusing, analyzing, deconstructing, and reconstructing creativity, implementing different approaches in doing so. Peter Carravetta consolidates historical epistemological positions that have accrued over the last several decades, some spurred by the modernism/postmodernism debate, and unpacks their differences--juxtaposing Vico with Heidegger and applying the approaches of translation studies, decolonization, indigeneity, committed literature

Reading Poetry with College and University Students aims to help faculty foster students’ intellectual and aesthetic engagement with poems while enabling them to sharpen critical and creative thinking skills. Reading authors across history and the globe--such as Julia Alvarez, Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Mahmoud Darwish, John Donne, Paolo Javier, Yusef Komunyakaa, Audre Lorde, and Wislawa Szymborska--Thomas Fink zeroes in on how learners can surmount and even enjoy tackling the most difficult aspects of poetry. By exploring students’ emotional identification with speakers and characters of poems as well as poets themselves, Fink shows how an instructor can motivate students to produce effective and empathic interpretations. Through divergent readings of selected poems, the book addresses the influence of various theoretical paradigms, ranging from ecological, psychological, feminist, and queer theory to deconstructive, postcolonial, and surface reading orientations. Instructors re

King Farouk of Egypt was known for his extravagant lifestyle and colourful private life, immortalised in the newspaper gossip columns, comedy sketches, song lyrics and novels of post-war Britain. Stories of his excessive life captivated the British imperial officials entangled in the era of decolonization and the wider British public became intrigued by this larger-than-life character. This book explores the narratives and representations of King Farouk found in British official and popular culture which transcended the distinction between politics and celebrity, ‘Orient’ and Europe, imperial and post-imperial worlds. Exploring Farouk as both a political and cultural figure, Francis considers diplomatic history in tandem with histories of popular culture and celebrity to study British culture during the era of decolonization in a more holistic way. Through Farouk, Francis reveals that the varied cultural and social features of post-war Britain and the reconstitution of British identity

The Brahma-sutra , attributed to Badaraya (ca. 400 CE), is the canonical book of Vedanta, the philosophical tradition which became the doctrinal backbone of modern Hinduism. As an explanation of the Upanishads , it is principally concerned with the ideas of Brahman, the great ground of Being, and of the highest good. The Philosophy of the Brahma-sutra is the first introduction to concentrate on the text and its ideas, rather than its reception and interpretation in the different schools of Vedanta. Covering the epistemology, ontology, theory of causality and psychology of the Brahma-sutra, and its characteristic theodicy, it also:· Provides a comprehensive account of its doctrine of meditation· Elaborates on its nature and attainment, while carefully considering the wider religious context of Ancient India in which the work is situated· Draws the contours of Brahma-sutra’s intellectual biography and reception history. By contextualizing the Brahma-sutra’s teachi

This anthropological work thoroughly illustrates the novel synthesis of Christian religion and New Age spirituality in Greece. It challenges the single-faith approach that traditionally ties southern European countries to Christianity and focuses on how processes of globalization influence and transform vernacular religiosity. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork in Greece, this book demonstrates how the popular belief in the ‘evil eye’ produces a creative affinity between religion and spirituality in everyday practice. The author analyses a variety of significant research themes, including lived and vernacular religion, alternative spirituality and healing, ritual performance and religious material culture. The book offers an innovative social scientific interpretation of contemporary religiosity, while engaging with a multiplicity of theoretical, analytic and empirical directions. It contributes to current key debates in social sciences with regard to globalization and se

Colby Dickinson proposes a new political theology rooted in the intersections between continental philosophy, heterodox theology, and orthodox theology. Moving beyond the idea that there is an irresolvable tension at the heart of theological discourse, the conflict between the two poles of theology is made intelligible. Dickinson discusses the opposing poles simply as manifestations of reform and revolution, characteristics intrinsic to the nature of theological discourse itself. Outlining the illuminating space of theology, Theological Poverty in Continental Philosophy breaks new ground for critical theology and continental philosophy.Within the theology of poverty, the believer renounces the worldly for the divine. Through this focus on the poverty intrinsic to religious calling, the potential for cross-pollination between the theological and the secular is highlighted. Ultimately situating the virtue of theological poverty within a poststructuralist, postmodern world, Dickinson is

To interrupt, both on stage and off, is to wrest power. From the Ghost’s appearance in Hamlet to Celia’s frightful speech in Volpone , interruptions are an overlooked linguistic and dramatic form that delineates the balance of power within a scene. This book analyses interruptions as a specific form in dramatic literature, arguing that these everyday occurrences, when transformed into aesthetic phenomena, reveal illuminating connections: between characters, between actor and audience, and between text and reader. Focusing on the works of William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and John Fletcher, Michael M. Wagoner examines interruptions that occur through the use of punctuation and stage directions, as well as through larger forms, such as conventions and dramaturgy. He demonstrates how studying interruptions may indicate aspects of authorial style – emphasizing a playwright’s use and control of a text – and how exploring relative power dynamics pushes readers and audiences to reconsider