Motivation both the act of motivating and the psychological state of being motivated plays an important role in the education of children. This is a notion that a considerable number of medieval Muslim scholars addressed in their writings, albeit to varying degrees and through a variety of approaches (from literary to legal, and philosophical to psycho-spiritual). Although medieval Muslim scholars expressed notable ideas about motivation in elementary education, there has been limited research on how their views developed in context. Despite past and present Muslim scholars emphasizing the importance of elementary education as a platform for adult learning and proper conduct, this field has received sparse attention in works on the history, theory, and practice of Muslim education. How medieval Muslim scholars viewed elementary education in general is one of the neglected areas of Muslim history. This book provides a fresh, original insight into the theory, practice, and rhythms of elementary education in medieval Muslim societies over the course of six centuries. It expands our understanding of the history of Muslim education as well as Islam s intellectual and social history. Its interdisciplinary approach to examining elementary education in medieval Muslim societies is of great importance to scholars of various fields of Islamic studies. It contributes to our wider understanding of Muslim education because it fills a gap in our appreciation of the theories and practices of elementary education in medieval Muslim societies, especially the question of how children were motivated to learn and how their motivation was understood by scholars and their teachers. For the first time, the ideas and practices of medieval Muslim elementary education are linked to their socio-historical context. This book has paved the way to discussing how prevalent social, religious, cultural, linguistic, economic, and political factors in medieval Muslim societies impacted the theory and practice of elementary education. In this pioneering look at motivation in medieval Muslim elementary education, Eeqbal Hassim shows that the Muslim scholars ideas on the topic were mainly resistant to change. This finding correlates with limited progress in elementary educational practice and the faithful transmission of knowledge in medieval Islamic scholarship. Despite developments in the scholarly approaches to elementary education in line with scientific advancements in the medieval Muslim world, these did not have a significant impact on the essence of the Muslim scholars views. This book observes a high level of consistency between the Muslim scholarly literature and historical accounts on elementary education from 750 to 1400 CE. This observation points to the lack of a need to change the style of motivating and disciplining children that had worked for centuries in medieval Muslim education. There are also shades of idealistic thinking in medieval Muslim educational literature illuminated. The scholars who wrote on elementary education focused on ideals and expectations that were anomalous to educational practice as portrayed in some historical anecdotes. Accordingly, this book argues that this idealism and the centuries-old traditions in elementary education and motivation simply reflect the faith and zeal of a civilization that carried out the task of educating children with the obedience of God in mind. This is an important book for all Islamic studies collections, particularly in the areas of history, education, psychology, and Arabic literature.
The essays collected in this Reader represent some of Mahadevi Varma's most famous writings on the "woman question" in India. The collection also includes an introduction to her life, with biographical notes, an analysis of her importance in the field of Hindi letters, as well as a selection of her poems. The editor has included essays that reflect not only Mahadevi's ideas about the place of women in the home and the world during the nationalist period in India, but also articles that reveal her dreams and hopes for the future (and the past) of the Hindi-Urdu language. While many of these essays were written during the 1920s and 1930s when Mahadevi served as editor for the literary journal Chand, some of them appear to have been written much later, after India gained independence. The translators have tried to remain faithful to the Hindi, often keeping the syntax of the Hindi original.
"This is the best study of a single Chinese poet I have seen in decades. And the best study of Du Fu known to me. David Schneider goes beyond previous works in revealing what might be called the source of Du Fu's gravitas. What is especially refreshing is that the author, while making use of well-selected modern authorities to cast light on Du Fu's poetry, is equally careful never to embrace their "theories" fully, with the ancillary danger of anachronism which taints so much contemporary "humanities" scholarship. The combination of empathy and critical thinking here is exemplary. The author writes eloquently and clearly, and is a very fine translator indeed, and gives us some of the very finest translations of Du Fu we now possess." - Jonathan Chaves, George Washington University
Despite the wealth of information describing social movement activity, studies that focus attention on the intricacies of community relationships within the mobilization process are few. Attention is given in this context to the community struggle to determine parameters of health and safety in the face of environmental contamination. This focused effort draws on detailed analysis of community relationships with the media, science, government and community members themselves. Over the course of five years, the author, sociologist Erin Robinson, has uncovered the ways in which community members come to understand the environmental problems they face. This book offers an explanation for how communities faced with environmental contamination can begin to make sense of that reality. The story of this community serves as a case study for how complex efforts to understand a problem facing one's community can be. In this study, the complications of social movement mobilization are analyzed from a perspective that considers the nuances of the mobilization process. In doing so, this study offers a perspective to community mobilization that reflects on processes of negotiation, conflict, acceptance, and rejection of information frames that serve to explain a community environmental problem. This book both demonstrates the ways in which individuals engage in the mobilization process and serves to explain how mobilization occurs. Through a detailed qualitative analysis of in depth interviews, document analysis, and field research, Robinson traces the beginning of a community social movement throughout the life of the movement effort. Whereas many studies of mobilization are historical, this study offers a close analysis of mobilization efforts as they were occurring. The story of how changes in mobilization occur is demonstrated by how individuals gain information from different sources and frame the issues leading to mobilization activities. Overall the book not only contributes to an understanding of why community mobilization occurs, but helps explain that as well. This is an important read for students, researchers, and community groups alike. This book provides sociological context to environmental problems that would be useful in courses and library collections in sociology, social movements, community and environmental studies.
"Extremely well-researched and coherently argued, this book presents top-quality research and draws appropriately on the existing knowledge in this area. The focus on fidelity across different kinds of relationship structures is very original and will prove an important contribution to the field of relationship research. A key strength of this study is that the analysis pays attention to both commonalities and diversity (which is rare, even in qualitative research). The analysis is also both clearly expressed and sophisticated." - Dr. Meg Barker, Open University "This is a fascinating investigation of the meaning of 'love, ' 'sex, ' and 'fidelity' for different kinds of couples. Kassia Wosick reports on a survey and in-depth conversations with couples that were straight and gay, monogamous and non-monogamous, traditional and polyamorous. 'Love' and 'being special' are enormously important in all of these groups. But she also finds startling differences. For some, sexual exclusiveness is critical. For others, being faithful means not loving anyone else, but sex with others is ok. For polyamorous couples, having explicit rules and being open and honest is the heart of fidelity and being special. And "having sex" can mean many different things. This book persuasively argues that we need more flexible, emotion-focused concepts of love, commitment and fidelity. The traditional focus on sexual exclusivity does not fit many contemporary relationships. This is a very valuable book for researchers and therapists, and for all of us who care about 'love, ' 'sex, ' and 'faithfulness'." - Professor Francesca Cancian, University of California, Irvine "Engaging, insightful, thoroughly researched, and well written, Sex, Love, and Fidelity: Study of Contemporary Romantic Relationships provides a compelling analysis of evolving relationships with a unique focus on levels of monogamy that surpasses previous studies to contribute refreshing insights into current meanings of sexuality and love. Wosick untangles the myriad cultural assumptions underlying the concept of fidelity and details the various ways in which fidelity expresses in a range of contemporary relationships, from dual fidelity and strict monogamy through veiled fidelity and almost monogamy to specified fidelity and non-monogamy and ending with agentic fidelity and polyamory. Now that few people in the US expect to be monogamous in the classical sense of marrying as a virgin and remaining in one, life-long, sexually exclusive relationship, Sex, Love, and Fidelity provides the information necessary for us to update our understandings of contemporary love and commitment." - Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, Sheff Consulting Group
With a paucity of authoritative firsthand information on North Korea available to the citizens of the world's democracies, discourse on the subject is impeded, and the democratic deficit regarding national policies towards the DPRK is necessarily broadened. Indeed, at no other time has the need for this information been more acute. The six-party talks regarding the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula made plain the DPRK's ambition (and ability) to play a larger role in world affairs, and its formal nuclear tests have exacerbated the tension and urgency of the situation. The death of Kim Jong Il and succession of his son Kim Jong Un, and recent reopening of bilateral discussions with the United States further increase the necessity of a nuanced understanding of contemporary society within the DPRK. If the world is to effectively deal with the reality of North Korea, reliable information is critical. This book, recommended by Alternative Nobel Prize winner Johan Galuting, is a response to this problem. It takes as its point of departure the notion that all leaders and governments, no matter how odd or dysfunctional their behavior may seem, act in a fundamentally rational matter-but that this rationality must be put into context in order to be properly understood. That is, their rationality is not independent of their historical experience, their culture, their value structure, or their institutional constraints, and all of these things must be considered in order to discover the rationality behind the decision making that appears on its surface to be so 'irrational' and/or 'dangerous.' Only by understanding this can these policy responses be rendered intelligible, perhaps even predictable. In this respect, the book speaks to broader and more timeless themes of theoretical import. As a test case, the book seeks to demystify the "intelligence black hole" that is North Korea. In so doing, it supplies the reader with much needed factual information garnered through firsthand experience by those who have actually visited and done research in North Korea. Each chapter consists of previously unpublished research by prominent experts in the field. The book is organized topically in order to make its information quickly accessible. This volume also differs from most in the breadth of its coverage: its goal is to provide a comprehensive overview of North Korean society rather than an in-depth treatment of any single characteristic of it. This book not only puts a face on the hermit kingdom, but it also provides the reader with the theoretical guidance necessary to actually understand it, placing the Kim family in the broader context of the society in which the family has propagated itself. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, North Korea Demystified represents the first edited volume on North Korea to address the succession of Kim Jong Un. North Korea Demystified is an important volume for all political science and history collections focused on the politics and cultures of East Asia. In addition to being an invaluable resource to a scholarly audience, the book will also be of interest to policy makers, journalists covering East Asia, businesspersons interested in North Korea as an emerging market, and students (both advanced undergraduate and graduate).
The context for the first part of this study is the community (sangha) of early Buddhism in India, as it is reflected in the religion's canon composed in the Pali language, which is preserved by the Theravada tradition as the only authentic record of the words of the Buddha and his disciples, as well as of events within that community. This book does not assert that the Pali Canon represents any sort of "original" Buddhism, but it maintains that it reflects issues and concerns of this religious community in the last centuries before the Common Era. The events focused on in part one of this study revolve around diversity and debate with respect to proper soteriology, which in earliest Buddhist communities entails what paths of practice successfully lead to the religion's final goal of nibbana (Sanskrit: nirvana). One of the main theses of this study is that some of the vocational and soteriological tensions and points of departure of the early community depicted in the Pali Canon have had a tendency to crop up in the ongoing Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, which forms the second part of the study. In particular, part two covers first a vocational bifurcation in the Sri Lankan that has existed at least from the last century of the Common Era to contemporary times, and second a modern debate held between two leading voices in Theravada Buddhism, on the subject of what constitutes the right meditative path to nibbana.With a few notable exceptions, both members of Theravada Buddhism and the scholars who have studied them have maintained that the Pali Canon, and the ongoing tradition that has grown out of it, has a singular soteriology. The aim of this study is to deconstruct tradition, in the simple sense of revealing the tradition's essential multiplicity. Prior to this study, past scholarship--which preferred to portray early Indian and Theravada Buddhsim as wholly rationalist systems--has shied away from giving ample treatment on the noble person who possesses supernormal powers. This book examines the dichotomy between two Theravada monastic vocations that have grown out of tensions discussed in part one. The bifurcation is between the town-dwelling scholar monk and the forest-dwelling meditator monk. Scholars have certainly recognized this split in the sangha before, but this is the first attempt to completely compare their historical roles side by side. This is an important book for collections in Asian studies, Buddhist studies, history, and religious studies.
Thomas Traherne (1637-1674) was one of the most original writers of the early modern period. The exciting discovery of his lost manuscripts at the beginning of the twentieth century aroused an intense interest among poetry lovers and scholars of seventeenth-century literature, which has continued to this day. The finding of other challenging Traherne manuscripts over the course of the century has furthered the study of this remarkable "radically optimistic" figure. The most important contribution of this book is to demonstrate that Felicity is not a simplistic or sentimental notion but is grounded in a cognitive experience, which has been the subject of considerable research in recent decades. The book is framed by an introductory chapter that shows Traherne's position in the early modern history of a science of cognition and a concluding chapter that relates his discovery of a holistic state of consciousness to twentieth-century theoretical and experimental developments. The second and third chapters concentrate on what are recognized to be Traherne's core texts on Felicity, the Centuries and the Dobell folio poem sequence. The analysis of these two works uncovers the deep structures of Traherne's thought and sets the stage for the examination of other texts relevant to his foremost subject, Felicity. The fourth chapter investigates the seminal part played by Felicity in other poetry and prose, including Traherne's Felicity-based ethical treatise Christian Ethicks and the encyclopedic Commentaries of Heaven, which combines poetry with prose. Also included in this investigation are poems which, in effect, constitute another sequence--albeit a sequence badly edited by Traherne's brother Philip after Traherne's death. The subsequent chapter explores the presence of Felicity in texts contained in the Lambeth manuscript, discovered at the end of the twentieth century. These texts confirm the intellectual depth and sublime artistry with which Traherne communicated his cognitive breakthrough. Thomas Traherne and the Felicities of the Mind is an important, timely addition to all literature and British cultural collections.
This book sets up the prospect of learning about one of social science's most important methods--fieldwork--by discussing its frequent failures and frustrations. While some books do take up related issues, most represent the research process in ideal and potentially abstract forms-a process rather void of human fallibility and separate from the everyday context in which academics conduct their work. The collection delivered here is much more acutely oriented to the problems of conducting fieldwork--a considerable contrast to the squeaky-clean depictions of fieldwork in standard undergraduate methods texts and occasional reflexive treatises in methodological journals. The contributors in this volume address a wide range of issues and obstacles that they have confronted at various stages in their respective research careers, and their real research examples are drawn from the authors' respective disciplines of anthropology, political science, historical archaeology, criminology, social psychology, and sociology. Topics range from power struggles with institutional review boards to conducting fieldwork in dangerous settings or in societies undergoing political transformation. In reflecting on their personal experiences, authors provide practical guidance on how to overcome the types of problems that typically confront academic researchers in their daily work. This book will be a valuable resource for all collections in the social sciences.
This work reveals the fraught nature of the relationship between the academy and the state in order to provide a more coherent framework for thinking about the way in which universities, and academic activities in general, are best organized and regulated. It uses extensive historical case analysis based on the emergence of the nation state and the academy in Europe, along with very focused case material examining events in Australia within the context of developments in international education, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. The study of higher education and the role of universities in society invariably falls among the disciplines of public policy, higher education, and philosophy, but these very different perspectives offer conflicting narratives and inadequate solutions to current problems. This work redefines the parameters of these historic debates and brings together, for the first time, trends in thinking about the changing role of the nation state with major developments within higher education around the globe. More importantly, it develops a very robust theoretical approach to the way in which higher learning is understood, offering important new insights into the legitimizing role of the academy. Drawing on a wealth of historical and current empirical evidence, this book presents a powerful argument that universities are foremost civil institutions, not unlike parliament or the judiciary. Their broad purpose, as the crucibles and legislatures of advancing human technology, cannot be understated. They make up a large part of the ballast that allows the democratic state to function properly. Unlike many other critiques of academic capitalism, this work does not wholly reject the use of the market to help organize universities; however, it does provide an overarching framework through which the role of the market and its influence on the state might be properly considered. As national governments and policy makers all around the world struggle to finance the massive demand in higher education, this work provides a timely and penetrating analysis.
As a famous reformer of late Qing China, Zheng Guanying was the earliest advocate of representative and participatory political system in the 1870s, the earliest to call for commercial warfare against Western economic imperialism, and one of the earliest to seriously study international law and its relevance to China s national identity and foreign relations. He was also one of the earliest Chinese to emphasize the combination of Western medicine and Chinese medicine. Unlike most of his contemporary reformers, Zheng was not a foreign educated diplomat or scholar; rather, he was the only merchant among all well-known late Qing reformers and had never traveled to the West. He worked for foreign enterprises in Shanghai and managed and cofounded Chinese government-sponsored enterprises such the China Merchants Steamship Company, which still exists today. In addition, Zheng Guanying was a staunch believer and practitioner of the indigenous Chinese Daoism. Although his life, career, and thought was very much influenced by his home town, which is adjacent to Macao and Hong Kong, it was the urban culture as well as the educational and job opportunities of Shanghai (to which he migrated when he was sixteen years old) that were the driving forces behind his life.In fact, the originality and sophistication of Zheng s thought was closely related to his identity as a member of a new type of professional intellectuals arising in treaty ports since the 1870s. In this first critical study of Zheng Guanying s career, cultural milieu, political and economic thoughts, as well as his spirituality, Guo Wu steers us into examining Zheng Guanying as a hybrid product of the late Qing treaty port culture, professionalism, and tradition, and he illuminates the contribution that this Chinese merchant made in the social and political transformation of China into an urban, commercial environment. This book is also valuable because there is an even greater dearth of research on the cultural environment of Zheng and his spirituality. First, he was a comprador merchant by profession and not a leader of political and intellectual movement, although it was the latter position that drew attention to him in past decades. Second, he was a committed modernizer but also avid practitioner of Daoism, which was then dismissed by researchers as conservative and superstitious. Third, he was more a moderate reformist than a political radical. In addition, the book covers the urbanization of China and the urban cultural space. It also reveals how Zheng s migration and sojourning between Guangdong and Shanghai shaped the formation of his reformist ideas in response to China s late-nineteenth century national crisis as well as how he upheld Daoism as his fundamental ideology to maintain national identity and pursue self-salvation. This book also examines the rise of late Qing Chinese print capitalism in Shanghai as well as the relationship between the Western founders, the Chinese editors, and Chinese contributors (which also involved Zheng because he was a representative). The author argues that late Qing Chinese intellectuals appropriated Western-founded Chinese language print media to articulate their own concerns about China s progress and reform. In addition, the book looks into the personal network of Zheng Guanying, specifically his relationships with other like-minded bureaucrats, journalists, and reformers. This comprehensive study of such a critical figure in China s political and social history is an important book for all collections in Chinese studies.
"This book covers Egyptian history from the Predynastic to the late Roman Period. It also introduces early contemporary literary references to ancient Egypt and uses a number of theoretical approaches to interrogate the archaeological and textual data. The book engages with wider trends from the humanities, which have found currency in archaeological studies, such as materiality, performativity, corporeality, embodiment, identity, and popular culture studies. Egyptian material is explored via these themes, to create nuanced and contextual interpretations of particular sites, events, artefacts and practices. It makes an important contribution to furthering the fields of Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology, as well as in the wider context of archaeological theory."--Provided by publisher.
Reassessing key intellectual and cultural traditions using an interdisciplinary approach, this book examines the legacy of the Baroque, the dynastic past in visual culture and the concurrence of different artistic styles in Germany during the eighteenth century, such as the Italianate, Francophile and Anglophile within the courtly sphere. The following arenas of enquiry represent organizing strands; courtly society and employment practices; court and artist, and print culture. The study addresses how elite patronage and Princely taste impacted the social formation of artistic culture at courts in northern and central Germany, Austria, and England. Contributions drawn from a variety of disciplinary perspectives in the arts and fine arts including visual culture, philosophy and comparative literature discuss the volume's theme in a series of focused case studies by experts in these distinctive fields. As such, the volume fills an important gap in English language scholarship on courtly Germany and Austria. Although previous publications have addressed patronage in the eighteenth-century Austro-German context, major questions relating to artistic influence, changing contexts of viewing and the employment of itinerant musicians and artists in eighteenth-century German courts still remain unaddressed. To address this, the book offers an interdisciplinary perspective, and gathers its conclusions from the interrelated fields of philosophy, visual culture, literature and print culture. Through its specific case-focused approach, the volume makes a departure from prior scholarship by identifying these as mutually exclusive fields. Topics discussed include discourses of luxury and sumptuary excess, changing contexts of viewing, the advent of universal collections, and the lure of the classical past. In literature, patron-author relationships were informed by contemporary ideas of 'genius' together with the reality of changing readerships. Connecting artistic forms to social formation in particular, case studies address the transmission of taste through aristocratic family networks, the creation of new audiences for art through print culture, and the permeation of courtly values into bourgeois cultural forms during the late eighteenth century. The book is aimed at a wide interdisciplinary audience, (history, philosophy, European studies, art history and comparative literature) and will also be of interest to specialist scholars, graduate students, and academic libraries.
The book Shakespeare s Sonnets (1609) contains a famous major section which editors and other scholars long ago dubbed the Rival Poet sequence. In these poems, Shakespeare speaks anxiously of another pastoral sonneteer who is competing with him for the love of his male addressee. Some authorities have held the view that Shakespeare is not the autobiographical I of his sonnets, and therefore that this rival poet and the male beloved of both were not real people either. Other authorities have argued that these three may have been real, but that it does not matter to us now as readers as the question is of little or no critical importance. However, most authorities over the years have believed that they were indeed real people in the real world and that it is important who they were simply because one of them was Shakespeare. The trend in recent scholarly work has been toward establishing a reliable historical grounding for all works of art including poems in cases where such a ground has not been adequately established. Shakespeare s Sonnets is such a case and is perhaps the most famous one in Western culture. This book provides the best evidence yet brought forward for that grounding. Many other books and articles have taken the position that real historical persons are represented in Shakespeare s Sonnets and have attempted to identify them. But no previous study has considered the large amount of new evidence presented here (some of it historical and some of it textual), and none has made a logical case as powerful and persuasive regarding these identifications as the one constructed here. This book is the first to argue that the Rival Poet of Shakespeare s Sonnets is the well-known young Elizabethan writer Richard Barnfield (1574 1620), long suspected to have been one of Shakespeare s private friends (as they were termed by Francis Meres in 1598), with whom (as Meres also tells us) Shakespeare shared some of his sonnets. This is also the first book to argue that William Stanley (1561 1642), sixth earl of Derby, is the young man to whom they addressed their respective sonnets and other love poems in the period c. 1592 1595. In making these identifications, this is the first book to examine in detail the dialogue between Shakespeare s Sonnets and three of Barnfield s books of poetry (all published within a little more than one year) a dialogue only known to be discussed in a conference paper and one other book. William Shakespeare, Richard Barnfield, and the Sixth Earl of Derby will likely appeal to all readers interested in Shakespeare s life and love poetry, both specialist scholars and non-specialist enthusiasts alike.
This book presents thirteen essays that address the numerous ways in which Australian literature is postcolonial and can be read using postcolonial reading strategies. The collection addresses a wide variety of Australian texts produced from the colonial period to the present, including works by Henry Lawson, Miles Franklin, Patrick White, Xavier Herbert, David Malouf, Peter Carey, Rodney Hall, Andrew McGahan, Elizabeth Jolley, Judith Wright, Kate Grenville, Janette Turner Hospital, Melissa Lucashenko, Kim Scott, and Alexis Wright. The chapters focus on works by Indigenous authors and writers of European descent, and examine specifically postcolonial issues, including hybridity, first contact, resistance, appropriation, race relations, language usage, indigeneity, immigration/invasion, land rights and ownership, national identity, marginalization, mapping, naming, mimicry, the role of historical narratives, settler guilt and denial, and anxieties regarding belonging. The essays emphasize the postcolonial nature of Australian literature and utilize postcolonial theory to analyze Australian texts. This is an important book for all literature and Australasian collections. The collection is primarily aimed at students, teachers and scholars of Australian and postcolonial literature, including undergraduate and postgraduate students, faculty who teach courses in Australian and postcolonial literature, and scholars who conduct research on Australian and postcolonial literature. The book will be useful for courses on both Australian literature and postcolonial literature, especially postcolonial courses that include Australian texts. The collection includes contributions addressing the work of many internationally recognized leading contemporary Australian novelists, providing the collection with broad appeal to students and scholars around the world with an interest in prominent, award-wining authors and works.
Folk tales of Burma (now known as Myanmar) have been preserved for centuries as part of a long folk tradition reflecting Burmese humor, romance, and wisdom. This book provides the first in-depth overview of the narrative structures in Burmese folk tales. Earlier studies of Burmese folk tales have focused on the narrative motifs or contents and the ethnic or geographical areas, but have left out the study of the structural patterns that make up the storylines in different types of tales. Much of the literature on tales is based on the narrative motifs or contents of the stories (e.g., animal tales, fairy tales, etc.), and such thematic categorizations, on the basis of a tale s subject matter or content, can lead to some problems due to the inconsistency in the choice of criterion. It can be argued that the theme of an animal tale can be the same as that of a fairy tale, and that animals can be taking the narrative roles in a wonder tale. This study, therefore, focuses on narrative structures and sets out to identify the different structural patterns in the folk tales of Burma. Through a clear analysis and examples of various types of tales, this study shows how the story structure can be an alternative criterion in categorizing tales, as well as a means of gaining insight into the cultural determination of the narrative motifs or contents within possibly transcultural forms. The discussion of the structural study of tales is done with consideration of Vladimir Propp s analysis of Russian folk tales in his book Morphology of the Folk Tale. Propp claimed that all tales had an identical sequence of functions or functional events and the same basic structure, despite their differences in the dramatis personae. In this book, besides identifying the functional events in Burmese folk tales, how these events are linked into various plot structures resulting in different types of tales is examined. The functional events identified in the tales are classified into different models, such as reward/punishment, interdiction/violation, problem/solution, trickster tales, and fairy tales. The degree of linearity in terms of the temporal and/or causal relations between functional events of a tale is also examined. Drawing on the concept of sequential meaning, this study aims to explain how a linear coherent storyline is developed for a well-organized narrative structure, even though the sequence of events in a tale may not be identical to that of the other. In cases where a sequence of events does not follow a familiar trajectory, the analysis in this book explains how special effects, such as humor, are created. The possibilities of using a structural analysis of folk tales as a means of understanding the commonalities as well as the uniqueness in the structural patterns, narrative contents, and social purposes of folk tales from different cultures are also explored in this book. A comparison between the two prominent structural patterns identified in the analysis of Burmese folk tales and those proposed by the studies of folk tales from other cultures shows how tales with similar social purposes (e.g., a didactic moral purpose) contain similar structural patterns (e.g., a contrastive narrative structure). It suggests that certain structural patterns are used commonly (if not universally) by various cultures for similar social purpose of storytelling, while the narrative contents (e.g., elements taking up the narrative roles) will remain culture-specific. This observation points to several interesting issues, such as the (im)possibilities of finding a universal grammar of folk tales and the viability of claims about commonalities among folk tales. This book contributes not only to the appreciation of Burmese folk tales and the Burmese culture, but it also aids in the understanding of the relationship between the form (narrative structure), function (social purpose), and field (narrative content) of folk tales with oral storytelling in general. It also highlights a structural analysis of folk tales as a means, rather than an end, by identifying the areas in which further research can be done. Narrative Structures in Burmese Folk Tales is an important and useful reference for anyone working in the fields of narrative studies, classification of tales, folklore, and oral storytelling.
In this book, Ana Lucia Araujo argues that despite the rupture provoked by the Atlantic slave trade, the Atlantic Ocean was never a physical barrier that prevented the exchanges between the two sides; it was instead a corridor that allowed the production of continuous relations. Araujo shows that the memorialization of slavery in Brazil and Benin was not only the result of survivals from the period of the Atlantic slave trade but also the outcome of a transnational movement that was accompanied by the continuous intervention of institutions and individuals who promoted the relations between Brazil and Benin. Araujo insists that the circulation of images was, and still is, crucial to the development of reciprocal cultural, religious, and economic exchanges and to defining what is African in Brazil and what is Brazilian in Africa. In this context, the South Atlantic is conceived as a large zone in which the populations of African descent undertake exchanges and modulate identities, a zone where the European and the Amerindian identities were also appropriated in order to build its own nature. This book shows that the public memory of slavery and the Atlantic slave trade in the South Atlantic is plural; it is conveyed not only by the descendants of the victims but also by the descendants of perpetrators. Although the slave past is a critical issue in societies that largely relied on slave labor and where the heritage of slavery is still present, the memories of this past remain very often restricted to the private space. This book shows how in Brazil and Benin social actors appropriated the slave past to build new identities, fight against social injustice, and in some cases obtain political prestige. The book illuminates how the public memory of slavery in Brazil and Benin contributes to the rise of the South Atlantic as an autonomous zone of claim for recognition for those peoples and cultures that were cruelly broken, dispersed, and depreciated by the Atlantic slave trade. Public Memory of Slavery is an important book for collections in slavery studies, memory studies, Brazilian and Latin American studies, ethnic studies, cultural anthropology, African studies and African Diaspora. Araujo sheds light on the paradoxical understandings of the slave trade in southern Benin and the unintended results of some international efforts to recognise the history of slavery and the slave trade. [...] makes a useful addition to the literature because the reader is only reminded how much Africans and descen- dants of Africans have shaped this vast Atlantic world territory through divergent processes of exchange and recreation, occurring both within and beyond the gaze of Western dis- course. (Itinerario, November 2011) The book is broad ranging and provides an introduction to numerous subjects (...) Recommended. (Choice, June 2011)
"Many citizens, politicians, and pundits routinely complain about the health of the political system, but few attempt a systematic diagnosis and even fewer recommend treatments. In this highly readable book, Anthony Gierzynski identifies many of the shortcomings in U.S. politics and offers some provocative prescriptions to address them." - Paul S. Herrnson, University of Maryland "For those anxious about the health of American democracy, they can do no better than read Gierzynski's book, which offers a sane and informed approach to making our political institutions work better. And like a good doctor, Gierzynski wisely avoids recommending many of the conventional remedies that might do more harm than good." - Ray La Raja, University of Massachusetts "Unlike myopic specialists who are prone to treat only a specific part of the body, Dr. Gierzynski offers scholars, students, and laymen a holistic and rich understanding of what ails us and what we can do to make things better. This is a readable and important book for anyone who cares about the health of our democracy." - David T. Z. Mindich, Saint Michael's College
The Business Research Consortium (BRC) of Western New York was founded in 2006. The BRC hosts an annual conference and publishes the proceedings from this conference. The BRC also publishes five journals (including The BRC Journal of Advances in Education) to support pioneering research in business and education. In addition, the BRC hosts a working papers series to encourage collaboration in research across member colleges and schools of business. The BRC Board of Directors consists of one representative from each college or school that hosts the annual conference. For more information on the BRC, please visit its Web site at http://www.businessresearchconsortium.org (Online) ISSN 2152-8667 (Print) ISSN 2152-8616
The Business Research Consortium (BRC) of Western New York was founded in 2006. The BRC hosts an annual conference and publishes the proceedings from this conference. The BRC also publishes five journals (including The BRC Journal of Advances in Education) to support pioneering research in business and education. In addition, the BRC hosts a working papers series to encourage collaboration in research across member colleges and schools of business. The BRC Board of Directors consists of one representative from each college or school that hosts the annual conference. For more information on the BRC, please visit its Web site at http://www.businessresearchconsortium.org(Online) ISSN 2152-8829(Print) ISSN 2152-8810
The Business Research Consortium (BRC) of Western New York was founded in 2006. The BRC hosts an annual conference and publishes the proceedings from this conference. The BRC also publishes five journals (including The BRC Journal of Advances in Education) to support pioneering research in business and education. In addition, the BRC hosts a working papers series to encourage collaboration in research across member colleges and schools of business. The BRC Board of Directors consists of one representative from each college or school that hosts the annual conference. For more information on the BRC, please visit its Web site at http://www.businessresearchconsortium.org (Online) ISSN 2152-8780 (Print) ISSN 2152-8756
The Business Research Consortium (BRC) of Western New York was founded in 2006. The BRC hosts an annual conference and publishes the proceedings from this conference. The BRC also publishes five journals to support pioneering research in business and education. In addition, the BRC hosts a working papers series to encourage collaboration in research across member colleges and schools of business. The BRC Board of Directors consists of one representative from each college or school that hosts the annual conference. For more information on the BRC, please visit its Web site at http://www.businessresearchconsortium.org
Emerging African Voices is an excellent compendium of literary scholarship offering an assessment of the literary endeavors of the latest generation of select African writers. There exists an abundance of deft scholarship and critical analyses, even in the most recent publications by African and Western theorists, of the works of recognized African authors. However, it is sometimes difficult to access a variety of criticism for some more recent writers, those born just before, at, or just after the independence of many African nations. It seems that either almost all of the recent monographs continue to focus almost entirely on the well-established writers or they focus on one newer writer exclusively. This volume offers insightful general analysis and critical evaluation of new writers' works in order to showcase their contributions to the body of African literature. It examines nine contemporary writers whose works (written almost entirely in the colonial languages of English and French) in some way update and refocus African literature for the new century. The writers whose works are under discussion tackle some of the long-standing difficulties of the colonial project-assimilation, Manicheanism, and othering-in new ways while exposing the challenges and dysfunctions of a locale affected by globalization. During the last 60 years, African literature has been dynamically shaped by African history, especially the colonial exploits of Western nations. A clear and irrefutable raison d'être for this volume is to probe the aims and intentions of these new voices. Seven chapters are devoted to writers of Nigerian descent with the balance dedicated to writers from Senegal and South Africa. Because of the multiplicity of experiences in their geographic locations in Africa and across the Diaspora as well as their encounters and capabilities related to their place in the contemporary world, these writers continue to break new ground in African literature. Their work reflects the times and places where they live and interact, and it is for this reason that their work will permanently occupy at key place in the evolution of African literature here at the beginning of a new century almost fifty years after independence.
Given the dearth of training in archival research, the editors envisioned a book that addresses the "how to" of archival research by involving the perspective of archivists. The editors identified chapter authors who demonstrate in their research-oriented essays how archival research influences and improves empirical political science research. They weave their scholarly contributions together with their practical experiences and "boots on the ground" advice to ease readers toward their first foray into the archives. Because archives were largely abandoned by political scientists in the 1950s, archivists' understanding of their collections and their archival practices is heavily influenced by the habits and methodological concerns of historians. The essays in this volume help archivists better understand the somewhat unique perspectives and habits political scientists bring to archival collections. This volume challenges archivists to think "outside the box" of the conventions of history and reconsider their collections from the perspective of the political scientist. This first-of-its-kind book-traversing political science and library and information science-challenges political scientists' reliance on "easy data" promising in return "better data." The editors propose that the archival record is replete with data that are often superior to current, available public data, both quantitative and qualitative. Substantive chapters in Doing Archival Research in Political Science illustrate how archival data improve understanding across the array of subfields in American politics. It also challenges archivists to rethink their collections through the prism of political science. Doing Archival Research in Political Science holds tremendous cross-disciplinary appeal. Students and faculty in political science are exposed to a fertile but underutilized source of empirical data. Political scientists will benefit from the methodological perspectives, the practical advice about doing archival work, and the concrete examples of archives-based research across the subfields in American politics (e.g., congressional studies, presidential studies, public opinion, national security, interest groups, and public policy). Students and faculty in library and archival studies will benefit greatly from the candid discussion of the unique theoretical and methodological concerns inherent in political science, improving their ability to reach out and promote their collections to political scientists. Examples of archives-based political science research will help library faculty better understand how their collections are being utilized by users.
"While there is much discussion on Africa-China relations, the focus tends to lean more on the Chinese presence in Africa than on the African presence in China. This book focuses on analyzing this new Diaspora and is the first book-length study of the process of Africans travelling to China and forming communities there. Based on innovative intermingling of qualitative and quantitative research methods involving prolonged interaction with approximately 800 Africans across six main Chinese cities--Guangzhou, Yiwu, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau--sociolinguistic and sociocultural profiles are constructed to depict the everyday life of Africans in China. The study provides insights into understanding issues such as why Africans go to China, what they do there, how they communicate with their Chinese hosts, what opportunities and problems they encounter in their China sojourn, and how they are received by the Chinese state. Beyond these methodological and empirical contributions, the book also makes a theoretical contribution by proposing a crosscultural bridge theory of migrant-indigene relations, arguing that Africans in China act as sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural bridges linking Africa to China. This approach to the analysis of Diaspora communities has consequences for crosscultural and crosslinguistic studies in an era of globalization."--Publisher's description.
In the United States alone, burns are the third leading cause of death among children 0 to 14 years of age. In addition, each year greater than 125,000 children suffer serious burn injuries, with a disturbing percentage of those through abuse. Yet the number of specialized burn centers in the U.S. is not near enough to be in proximity or even accessible to the majority of these patients. The situation is even worse in most other regions of the world. Therefore, it is critical that the information in this book reaches as many caregivers as possible because treatment of burn injuries has undergone dramatic changes over time in every area, from surgical procedures to respiratory and fluid resuscitation and even nourishment and metabolic support. The ability to recognize and react appropriately to pediatric injury can greatly affect the outcome and prognosis, up to and including the patient's future quality of life. It is in this context that this comprehensive guide for the diagnosis, treatment and follow up of the burned child from Time Zero through Long-term Rehabilitation was put together. This book is essential for the medical professional involved in attaining the most positive outcome possible for their patients and their families.
The Business Research Consortium (BRC) of Western New York was founded in 2006. The BRC hosts an annual conference and publishes the proceedings from this conference. The BRC also publishes five journals to support pioneering research in business and education. In addition, the BRC hosts a working papers series to encourage collaboration in research across member colleges and schools of business. The BRC Board of Directors consists of one representative from each college or school that hosts the annual conference. For more information on the BRC, please visit its Web site at http://www.businessresearchconsortium.org
In Shakespeare and the Dawn of Modern Science, renowned astronomy expert Peter Usher expands upon his allegorical interpretation of Hamlet and analyzes four more plays, Love's Labour's Lost, Cymbeline, The Merchant of Venice, and The Winter's Tale. With painstaking thoroughness, he dissects the plays and reveals that, contrary to current belief, Shakespeare was well aware of the scientific revolutions of his time. Moreover, Shakespeare imbeds in the allegorical subtext information on the appearances of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars that he could not have known without telescopic aid, yet these plays appeared coeval with or prior to the commonly accepted date of 1610 for the invention and first use of the astronomical telescope. Dr. Usher argues that an early telescope, the so-called perspective glass, was the likely means for the acquisition of these data. This device was invented by the mathematician Leonard Digges, whose grandson of the same name contributed poems to the First and Second Folio editions of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare and the Dawn of Modern Science is an important addition to literature, history, and science collections as well as to personal libraries.
America's first Green president, Theodore Roosevelt's credentials as both naturalist and writer are as impressive as they are deep, emblematic of the twenty-sixth President's unprecedented breadth and energy. While Roosevelt authored policies that grew the public domain by a remarkable 230 million acres, he likewise penned over thirty-five books and an estimated 150,000 letters, many concerning the natural world. In between drafts both personal and political, scientific and sentimental, he quadrupled existing forest reserves while creating the nation's first fifty wildlife refuges and eighteen national monuments, among them the Grand Canyon, and five national parks, headlined by Yosemite. And Roosevelt was far more than a policy wonk and political do-gooder. John Muir, by his own admission, "fairly fell in love with him." John Burroughs wrote that Roosevelt "probably knew tenfold more natural history than all the presidents who preceded him." And the Smithsonian's Edmund Heller dubbed him the "foremost field naturalist of our time." In addition to creating more than 150,000 new acres of national forest, Roosevelt made a new vogue of sportsmanship, famously refusing to shoot a lame bear in Mississippi and inspiring, thereof, an American icon and ecological fetish all at once: the Teddy Bear. Indeed, Roosevelt's Green undertakings produced a truly living legacy-one whose everlasting qualities he took robust pleasure in. Naturalist William Finley once suggested to TR that the President's environmental prescience would serve as "one of the greatest memorials to [his] farsightedness," to which Roosevelt replied, "Bully. I had rather have it than a hundred stone monuments." In fact, Roosevelt would have both-a lasting reputation for environmental protection and timeless stone monuments at Mount Rushmore and elsewhere built to honor his dramatic public policy initiatives. This book will be a critical resource for all those in American history (particularly presidential history), environmental history, environmental studies, nature studies, place studies, Agrarian studies, conservation studies, fish and wildlife biology/management, and ecology.
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