Bücher veröffentlicht von Cambria Press

Why a book on a research study using grounded theory, a methodology that is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary? Although the theory has now been in existence for many years, there has never been a book recounting its application through numerous interconnected studies, as it was originally intended to be used. This book represents the first book-length cohesive narrative on how this method was rediscovered by a researcher over the course of a new series of studies, redeveloped in the context of a topic previously undisturbed, applied, poked around, and problems generated (with solutions to these found or not). There has never been a narrative on how a researcher sat down and worked through data over decades in order to evolve his or her own grounded theory and methodology about a specific phenomenon. This study is also a response to the need for a book that mixes the three traditional genres of the literature on methodology many of which are cited and are themselves subjects and also adds to a debate on research about research methods, by developing a case study of what it is like to be the human subject that is called the researcher as well as a pursuant of empirical methodology. The purpose of this book is to break a number of the conventions of research texts by writing an academic text on methodology as a case study of building case studies, one that cites classic works in the field and contains autobiographical considerations throughout its account, one that narrates the conscious process of designing a framework from the range of philosophies that were involved in chronicling this topic. Most importantly, however, this book has developed to be the story of being a human enquirer, one with a research and professional trajectory to work towards. This study also offers a wholly different approach by describing the processes and evolutions that brought the author Simon Hayhoe to develop what he terms a grounded methodology.

It took two hundred years to implement democracy within the nation-state, from the emergence of democratic theories during the Enlightenment to the introduction of popular government after World War I. If the same process were to follow at the international level, and the treaty of Versailles was taken as the baseline for the calculation, a democratic world order could be expected to emerge by 2119 - hence the title of this book. The point is the long perspective. Most scholars in mainstream political science and international relations are skeptical of the prospect of global democracy and believe that in the short run the fight against corruption and abuse of power is a more pressing task. This is true and very much an important mission; as such, corruption is treated in a special chapter of the book. But in fulfilling this mission, the finite goal should not be forgotten. The present good must not be the enemy of the ultimate best. To promote short-time accountability in world politics, leading scholars suggest new, so called pragmatic methods instead of old-fashioned values such as political equality and electoral accountability. Critical analyses of how this pragmatism has already functioned in various international organizations are presented as well as a discussion of four models of global democracy: "federalism", "cosmopolitanism", "global corporatism" and "stakeholder democracy". The book is a bold, unique and provocative defense of classical democracy transferred to the global level. Today, students of international politics are learning that global democracy is not feasible. The future is said to belong to the nation-state. Still, in an era of globalization more and more decisions are made on the supranational level. Small social changes in one place have great consequences elsewhere. Rivers, winds, migration, financial operations, trade and travel do not stop at national borders. The question is not whether there exists a decision-making process above the nation-states but rather if these decisions should be made in a democratic fashion or in some other way. The reason for studying the book, then, is to obtain a critical view of the conventional wisdom today so that the goal of global democracy is not abandoned. 2119 - The Year Global Democracy Will Be Realized applies a comprehensive approach to globalization and democracy and presents new insights in the intriguing dialectics between these two phenomena. After the end of the Cold War, democratic theory has changed from "input-legitimization" in terms of voting, participation, and procedure to "output-legitimization" with an emphasis on welfare, consensus, and results. Again, Platös guardians are hailed as the people¿s true friend, whereas the possibilities to hold the collaborating governors to account by the voters are rendered more difficult. Anyone interested in this philosophical change should read the book. 2119 - The Year Global Democracy Will Be Realized is written in a clear and accessible manner, deliberately avoiding jargon, and will be especially useful for students and scholars in political science, international relations, and related fields as well as for journalists, moulders of public opinion, political decision-makers, and involved citizens.

Ousmane Sembène was a Senegalese film director, producer, and writer whom the Los Angeles Times considered one of the greatest authors of Africa. Often called the "father of African film," Sembène strongly believed that African films should be geared primarily toward educating the masses and making the philosophical quandaries and political issues contested by elites accessible to the poor and those with little to no formal education.Although Sembène's central aim was to reach African audiences and encourage a dialogue within Senegalese society, his films are also extraordinarily effective in introducing non-African audiences to many of the most intriguing cultural issues and social changes facing African people today. The films are not fast paced in the manner of many Hollywood films. Rather, they are deliberately unhurried and driven by the narrative. They show actual ways of life, social relations, and patterns of communication and consumption, and the joys and tribulations of West African people. For people who have never been to Africa, the films offer an accessible first gaze. For those who have visited or lived in an African culture, the films provide a way to explore African society and culture more profoundly. Sembène was an independent filmmaker, solely and totally responsible for the content of his films, which were inspired by the realities of daily life. This focus on microcosmic social relations and day-to-day politics is so central to Sembène art, his films breed provocative commentary on social, historical, political, economic, linguistic, religious, and gender issues relevant to Senegalese society. Because of his concern with daily Senegalese life, Sembène targeted the common people whose voices are seldom or never heard. In fact, depicting the struggles and concerns of average Senegalese people was a central preoccupation of his films, as he himself has articulated. This study examines the artistry of Sembène's films as well as the multitude of signifying elements Sembène uses in them to communicate in less direct ways with his audience. The book interprets the meaning conveyed by images through their placement and function within the films, and it contributes new insights into Sembène's interpretations of cultural practices and the meanings he ascribes to social behaviors. It examines how Sembène uses language, mise-en-scène, cinematography, and creative editing to evoke the emotions of his targeted audience. Several chapters in the volume also demonstrate how the many ironies and political economic tensions that are so characteristic of Sembène's work are best understood within the sociocultural context of each film's production. Hence, to make sense of Sembène's cinema, one must be willing to read beyond the denoted meaning of the storyline and to dig into the cultural significance of the carefully selected and manipulated codes and images.

Many historical books have been written about the Sand Creek massacre--some were sympathetic to the actions of Colonel Chivington while others acknowledged the injustice. The Sand Creek massacre is a complicated piece of Colorado history with very little consensus. In the mid 1990s, Arapaho and Cheyenne people started visiting the location where the massacre was believed to have occurred with the permission of some local landowners. They claimed that their communities continued to suffer from the collective memories of the event, and they wanted to begin to heal through spiritual cleansing rituals. This sparked a movement to establish a memorial at the Sand Creek location. After nearly ten years of extensive research financial negotiations and state and federal lobbying efforts, the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site was established as a national park by Congress. It opened to the public in April of 2007. The Sand Creek Memorial National Historic Monument stands out because it shows the US federal government not only acknowledging wrongdoing towards American Indian people but also attempting to memorialize that wrongdoing in an official capacity. This memorial has set a unique precedent in American history. Unlike other monuments, this one begins with an acknowledgment of the injustice and tragedy that occurred at the location. For this reason, the Sand Creek Massacre National Park and Monument presents a unique opportunity to examine cultural identity, history and national identity. While memorials that acknowledge tragedy have been examined by scholars, this is usually done after the completion of the design. The present study is therefore unique because it also examines the unfolding of the memorialization process prior to the completion of the memorial design. This unique site posed an opportunity to examine how the US dominant cultural interests would be able to manage such a tragic and unflattering narrative while maintaining a cohesive national identity in the face of such action. The site also presented an excellent opportunity to examine the collective memory and memorialization, in terms of the experience and cultural identity of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, which is detailed in thus book. Finally, this study also analyzes and interprets how a memorial can contribute to long term peace and reconciliation interests amongst ethnic groups formerly engaged in violent and intractable conflict. Many discussions of collective memory utilize a specific disciplinary perspective and methodology, but this unique book integrates ethnographic, critical, rhetorical, and historical methods of research. It also examines the performative and ritual aspects of collective memory and not just the physical, textual and historical artifacts of memory. As such, this study contributes to the theoretical discussion of how collective memorialization contributes to long term processes of peace and reconciliation. This book will be a valuable resource to cultural anthropologists, rhetoric and communication studies scholars, American Indian studies scholars, peace studies and conflict resolution scholars, historians, as well as critical theory and cultural studies theorists.

Nobel Laureate Gao Xingjian is amongst the most challenging writers of the present era. He has probed the dynamics of Chinese and European literature and developed unique strategies for the writing of seventeen plays, two novels, a collection of short stories and a collection of poems. He has also written two collections of criticism. The present collection takes the title Aesthetics and Creation from the name of the Chinese collection from which most of these essays are drawn, but it also includes some of Gao's most recent unpublished essays. University of Sydney academic Mabel Lee is the translator, and the book also includes her authoritative introductory essay that contextualizes Gao's significant position as an independent and uncompromising voice in the noisy hype of the globalized world of the present in which creative writers and artists are forced to conform with the demands of political and other group agendas, or with market forces, in order to survive. In incisive and cogently argued essays, he exposes the political dynamics of so-called "modernity" in Western literature and art, and how this has been enthusiastically embraced in China since the 1980s. In other essays he analyses traditional and modern European and Chinese notions of fiction, theatre and art, and elaborates on what aspects of writers and artists from both cultures have informed him in developing his own aesthetics in narration, performance and the visual arts. These essays testify to the extent of the cosmopolitanism of his aesthetics that both informs and are manifested in his literary and art creations. This book has importance and relevance to the general reader with an interest in literature and art as a creative human pursuit that is not demarcated by national or cultural boundaries. This book is both indispensable and inspiring reading for intellectuals and informed readers who regard themselves as citizen of the world. For academics, researchers and students engaged in the disciplines of literature and visual art studies, world literature studies, comparative literature studies, performance studies, theatre studies, cultural studies, narrative fiction studies, and studies in the history of literature and the visual arts in modern times, this book is essential and thought-provoking reading that will have many positive outcomes.This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series (General Editor: Victor H. Mair).

Ever since they were written in the fourteenth century, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin have been considered masterpieces of traditional Chinese fiction. People from different social strata have read them and remembered their stories and characters. Since the early twentieth century, Chinese critics have regarded them as part and parcel of their country's literary heritage, offering largely positive artistic assessments even as they criticize their feudal elements. In contemporary China the popularity of the two novels has made them logical choices for adaptation, resulting, for example, in a large number of films and TV dramas based on episodes in the two novels. Given their importance in traditional Chinese literature, these two classics have garnered a tremendous amount of critical attention from scholars. However, nearly all critics have treated them as literary works, failing to explore, in a concentrated manner, their cultural values even as they acknowledge their widespread social influence. This book is not a work of literary criticism in the conventional sense. Rather, it is a cultural/ideological critique. Liu Zaifu's interest lies not in the artistry of the two novels but in the cultural values they reflect and spread. In summing up the worship of violence as the ideal in The Water Margin and the worship of trickery as the ideal in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Zaifu uses the two novels as windows to look into certain unhealthy aspects of Chinese culture, linking the novels' enduring popularity and social impact to the Chinese national character. Liu also contrasts the two novels with other classics, such as The Classic of Mountains and Seas and The Dream of the Red Chamber, to demonstrate the multiplicity of Chinese culture. As he calls the two classics into question, he continues to carry the May Fourth critical spirit in contemporary China and expands the scope of cultural criticism. A Study of Two Classics is the first book that focuses exclusively on the cultural values of the two classics. In addition, Liu Zaifu examines how traditional commentators like Jin Shengtan and Li Zhi promoted the cultural values embedded in the two classics and how these harmful values are received and reinforced in contemporary China. He draws inspiration from May Fourth intellectuals, particularly Lu Xun, and from a wide range of works by Western scholars. For instance, he uses Oswald Spengler's notion of "pseudomorphosis" to explain the degeneration and falsification of certain values in Chinese culture. As he engages in cultural comparison either implicitly or explicitly he also asks questions about modernity and modernization. Liu's style is essayistic, which allows him to bring both erudition and personal observation into play. Originally written for a Chinese audience, this highly anticipated translated work will help English-speaking readers understand the issues a leading contemporary Chinese critic tries to address. This is a critical book for scholars and students in Asian studies and literature. This book is part of the Cambria Sinophone World Series (series editor: Victor H. Mair).

By examining case studies of tough times for the president, this book broadens the understanding of presidential power and both the limits and opportunities chief executives face as they govern from the Oval Office. It points to a new view of the sources of presidential power. This study of presidential adversity illuminates the fundamental sources of executive power-executive actions, foreign policy initiatives, organizational changes, going public, and unconventional actions-that form a foundation for the persuasive influence that many see as the epitome of presidential leadership. It also shows how presidents cope with the kinds of tough circumstances in which chief executives find themselves all too often. The case studies show American chief executives facing some of the toughest political situations of their presidencies, and illuminates important episodes in modern political history. The authors show Gerald Ford trying to govern without any of the traditional sources of political capital, Bill Clinton recovering from two near-death political experiences (the loss of Congress in 1994, then the Lewinsky scandal), and the unraveling of the George W. Bush presidency. The authors also use these insights to help build an alternative understanding of presidential power. The authors' cases of presidents in tough times leads to a new view of presidential power as situational leverage. They sketch an understanding of power as leverage that takes into account the resources that a president is able to apply in a particular situation, weighed against the risks and obstacles that threaten to undermine presidential goals and the opportunities that help to motivate the president. This approach presents a more accurate, realistic, and useful view of presidential power than Richard Neustadt's catchy but misleading "power to persuade." Moreover, viewing power as leverage helps to account for why recent presidents have devoted time and attention to employing and expanding their capacity for unilateral action. Tough Times for the President is a unique book because it provides a different perspective on America's most important office. Most books on the presidency focus on issues of presidential leadership, presidential greatness, or influence over policy, but none compares how presidents have responded to the political challenges confronting them. This book is appropriate for upper-division undergraduate students, graduate students

Climate Change Politics offers a critical, yet hopeful examination of political vitality in the politics of climate change and discusses how people use various forms of communication to challenge existing power hierarchies. Because the meanings of climate change and of the numerous aspects of reality associated with it are constructed through communication, we offer an analysis of communication practices and structures as constitutive of climate change politics. A broad variety of case studies demonstrate how the choices made within various forms of public engagement result from social interaction based on communication. The editors of the volume follow Chantal Mouffe in describing "the political" as engagement with processes of debate and decision making on collective issues where different values, preferences, and ideals are played out and opposed. This book examines communication as a key component of climate change politics and shows how climate change communication has the potential to invigorate civic politics. It analyzes how citizens represent, construct, and circulate ideas about climate change and how these practices relate to decisions and public policies, as well as to political identities. Contributing authors explore how changes in the ways information is produced and consumed have contributed to new spaces for political engagement. They analyze a range of semiotic resources and practices within which the meanings of climate change are negotiated. By looking at the multiple ways people experience and communicate about climate change, the analysis extends beyond the cognitive to include emotional, aesthetic, and other epistemologies that shape political engagement with this issue. Individual chapters examine various forms of climate change communication, including artistic expression ranging from installations to cinema, on web-based spaces, and on other alternative media. Working from the premise that communicative practices provide the basis for broad public engagement, this book identifies and examines how the possibilities entailed in that engagement may yet contribute to a transformation of climate change politics that empowers both individual political subjects and their communities. Climate Change Politics is likely to be of interest to a variety of audiences including researchers and students of climate change politics, environmental communication, and social movements in disciplines such as communication, geography, political science, and sociology. The book is suitable as a textbook for both advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on climate change and society; environmental communication; and science, technology, and society.

"This highly original book shifts our attention away from the preoccupations of the U.S. to India and from conventional social science and area studies perspectives to civilizational sensibilities. In a series of searching essays by well-informed Indian scholars, China's rise appears in a fresh light. Rather than seeking to bend China's experience only to the impatient expectations of secular liberalism, this important book reminds us of the imagined affinities that a civilizational understanding of self and other creates in India for China and the empathetic patience it engenders. Our understanding of China is greatly enriched by new insights that this broader vision yields." - Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies, Cornell University

By concentrating on issues in postcolonial nations, the authors decenter western notions of public relations practice and embrace the cultures, economies, and political structures that have been profoundly influenced by the legacy of colonialism. Instead, the authors conceptualize public relations as a communicative and relationship-building practice that can bridge the political- and cultural-economic spheres of globalization, recasting practice as a central tenet of a global social justice agenda. The purpose of this study is to examine critically how public relations is shaping globalization efforts and practices in countries that have historically experienced western control. The study aims to document those practices to solidify a commitment to participatory public relations that alleviates serious social issues and inequities. This is an important book for public relations scholars and practitioners, along with those in the strategic communication, international communication, and international relations fields.

Canada has a complex health delivery system which is a conglomeration of 13 public plans--10 provincial and three territorial as well as a number of federally administered plans serving special populations such as Aboriginals and Veterans--all providing full coverage for most hospital and physician services as well as partial coverage for many services that vary among plans. The importance of this study is that it examines how the public/private sector relationship in health care delivery--particularly that of the for-profit sector--has developed both historically and in recent years, in three subnational provincial jurisdictions within a federal system. The case study provinces are Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta. The study examines both similarities and differences in this development. These provinces are highly distinct in their political culture and political history affecting health care delivery. Ontario and Quebec are Canada's most populous provinces and Alberta is an increasingly populous prairie state. Alberta is unique in its long-time governance of the Progressive Conservative party and its predecessor the Social Credit Party. Ontario has had a more variable political history with periods of Progressive Conservative, New Democratic Party and Liberal leadership and in recent years Quebec governance has shifted between the Parti Québecois and the Liberal Party. In this study, one dimension that the authors examine are political dispositions to act regarding public/private initiatives in health care delivery and how this affects health care delivery in these provinces. Provincial medical and hospital plans are constrained by the Canada Health Act of 1984. For necessary medical and hospital services, the provinces and territories must adhere to the five principles of the Act in order to receive federal funding. However for other extended health care and health care-related services, there are federal contributions that are not constrained by these principles--although subject to reporting obligations. Another factor providing some flexibility in provincial Medicare plans is that necessary hospital and medical services are not enumerated in the Canada Health Act. This has allowed some "delisting" of services which is discussed in the case studies. In the provincial case studies, the authors examine how the federal/provincial dynamic in the delivery of health care services has worked out in the three provinces, with respect to similarities and differences regarding the involvement of the for-profit sector both within and outside the respective Medicare systems. They also examine how the fiscal setting has affected both political and economic sustainability pressures with respect to inclusion of private commercial initiatives in these three provincial settings. The authors note that these initiatives occur both within and external to Canadian provincial Medicare systems and that there is a need to see that such initiatives are held publicly accountability to meet equity and access goals. The study utilizes government documents, press reports and personal interviews to draw a picture of health delivery developments within the Canadian federal context. This study adds to the comparative health policy literature by applying a comparative approach to subnational provincial cases. It is also noteworthy to note that globally, many nations' health insurance plans incorporate a mixed public and private health delivery system, albeit that the mixes of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations will vary with respect to the ideological, political, cultural and historical characteristics of various nations. This is an important book for collections in Canadian studies, political science, and public health.

The Classic of Changes (Yi jing) is one of the most ancient texts known to human civilization, always given pride of place in the Chinese classical tradition. And yet the powerful fascination exerted by the Classic of Changes has preserved the archaic text, widely attracting readers with a continuing interest in trying to understand it as a source of reflection and guide to ordinary circumstances of human life. Its monumental influence over Chinese thought makes the text an indispensable element in any informed approach to Chinese culture.Accordingly, the book focuses on the archaic core of the Classic of Changes and proposes a structural anthropological analysis for two main reasons. First, unlike many treatments of the Yi jing, there is a concern to place the text carefully in the context of the ancient culture which created it, allowing a fuller appreciation of its divinatory mission, a unique orientation towards writing and literature. Second, the approach differs from traditional exegesis which did not and ultimately could not address problems of textual understanding in a holistic sense. This book is not a translation of the Classic of Changes; it is a careful interpretation, or rather method of exploration, of the connectivities and topography of the text as a whole. By isolating the social forms of an individual life, against the background of the archaic cosmology, as the structural preconditions for each randomized divination, this analysis succeeds in illuminating dimensions of early Chinese life that would not otherwise be accessed through other historical or archaeological materials. This provides a penetrating anthropological view into the conditions of thought in an archaic society to a degree previously unavailable. This book is thus a bold and powerful attempt at modeling an ancient culture in a way never before conceived sociologically, a profound auto-ethnography teaching us about the philosophical anthropology of its makers and preparing the way for further understanding of later classical texts. It will be of interest to all those engaged in seeking philosophical anthropological understanding of culture and writing, and especially contributes to the study of cultures of antiquity and their modes of thought. Anyone interested in complex, formalized classification systems would want to consider this analysis.

Popular and scientific literature is still permeated with male aggression as a product of long evolution. The fact that violent aggression appears in the archeological records less than half as long ago as artistic expression should give pause to any student of human behavior. Humans are nothing like apes--chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans which developed their mating systems independently from humans, and from each other. Chimpanzees have a promiscuous mating system, bonobos are completely hedonistic, gorillas have a harem system, and orangutans are essentially solitary. In those species, males may compete with each other, so aggression can occur. Gibbons would be a better model for human behavior because they live in nuclear families (several ages of dependant offspring living with adults for many years) and are never aggressive toward each other. Nuclear families are intimately tied to peaceful living because, once established, there is no need for aggression, except for defence of territory against outsiders. Although male aggression is a sad fact of modern society, factors other than genetic heritage should be examined to explain this. This book reviews the recent advances in the knowledge of human evolution that have greatly changed our conceptions. It has been uncovered that humans are nothing like chimpanzees, and far less like baboons. Early humans never knuckle-walked, left the jungle for the savannah where they roamed widely in dispersed populations, and for more than four million years lived in small groups or relatively peaceable societies with fathers raising children and joining with other adult males for community projects. Human Evolution and Male Aggression dispels misconceptions based on flawed interpretations of biology and behavior. It tells the compelling story of the human male's peaceful past. It summarizes recent advances in understanding of bones, brains, hormones, and genetics that reveals humans for who they are. In reviewing the behavior of other primate males and their relationship to females and infants, it sets the stage for a new paradigm of male behaviour--one in which aggression, though possible, is suppressed most of the time in favor of affiliative behaviors that benefit females, infants, and society as a whole. Encompassing topics relevant to biological and social sciences, this book will be of interest to students of primatology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and human behaviour.

Traditionally, freedom of speech has been justified as necessary for democratic government and as an essential individual right. This study departs from traditional legal and philosophical theories and breaks new ground by demonstrating that well-established and contemporary social theory explains the essential role of speech in highly differentiated modern societies. Utilizing some of Emile Durkheim s well-established classical concepts relating to the division of labor in society, the book builds on the consequences of division of labor such as increased individuation and diminution of shared beliefs to demonstrate that as division of labor increases, so does the social requirement of increased freedom of expression. As shared beliefs diminish, economic, social and political decisions cannot be made by a society without increased freedom of expression. As Durkheim focused on division of labor, contemporary sociologist Jurgen Habermas builds on this and specifically recognizes the need for consensus building among individuals in modern highly differentiated societies. Consensus, in turn, is built through freedom of expression listening as well as speaking. By combining the work of Durkheim and Habermas, a comprehensive blueprint and theoretical model for freedom of speech is established independent of existing legal or philosophical theory. Having developed a sociological basis for freedom of expression, Freedom of Speech and Society proceeds to justify use of the theory by presenting empirical evidence that supports the continued relevance of Durkheim s classical theories. Durkheim predicted that as division of labor increased, there would be a trend toward civil as compared to criminal remedies for the same type of offensive conduct. He based this conclusion on the fact that criminal law reflected violation of community values while private remedies were more directed toward conduct that injured the individual as opposed to society as a whole. As division of labor increased, commonly held beliefs would, in turn, diminish and public crimes would more likely be treated as private offenses. Again, breaking new ground, this study demonstrates the validity of this theory in the context of speech law through application of empirical evidence showing the decrease of criminal defamation and growth of private defamation remedies. This chronology tracks the evolution of modern societies and the ever-increasing division of labor. Freedom of expression in the age of the internet communication without borders is a frequent subject of debate both on a political and legal level. However, the theoretical underpinnings have generally been confined to legal and philosophical analysis. These existing theories are not entirely satisfying because they cannot explain freedom of speech beyond the individual. Freedom of Speech and Society presents arguments that freedom of expression in the twenty-first century can be approached as a social phenomenon through the application of sociological theory. Existing approaches are either confined to political communication or focus on individual wellbeing. In this book, sociological arguments for freedom of expression are derived from both Emile Durkheim s classical social theory and the contemporary theories of Jurgen Habermas. Application of these theories demonstrates that freedom of speech is essential from a societal point of view. This book is the first attempt to bring sociological theory into the free speech debate. Almost always viewed as an individual right, this study, using classical sociological theory, argues that freedom of expression is essential as a group right and that without an expansive freedom of expression, modern society simply cannot efficiently operate. Viewed through the lens of sociological theory, freedom of expression is seen to be not only desirable as an individual privilege but also essential as a societal right. To validate the use of classical sociological theory, the author demonstrates that empirical evidence concerning the demise of criminal libel is predicted by Durkheim s theory and that recent archeological evidence supports the continuing vitality of classical sociology. To bring sociological theory into the 21st Century, the contributions of contemporary German sociologist Jurgen Habermas are also employed. This modern theory also validates the classical theory. Once viewed through the lens of social theory, freedom of expression as justified by traditional legal and philosophical is explored and then the two approaches are compared. While sociology and philosophy are not at odds, they are not perfectly congruent because one focuses on societal needs while the other is based on the individual. When combined, a more comprehensive perspective can be constructed and, perhaps, a more accurate need for freedom of expression is established. Freedom of Speech and Society is an important and ground-breaking book for political, media, and legal studies.

Across time and place, pregnancy and childbirth rank among the most transformative physical and psychological events in women s lives. Women s childbearing experiences depend not only on their own biology and psyche but also on the nature and quality of care they receive. The nature of the prevailing obstetric care model in the early 21st-century United States has been described as high-tech, low touch, highlighting its emphasis on using medical technology, as opposed to non-technological care and support, to control unproblematic physical processes on the argument that this approach improves maternal safety and comfort. However, it should be noted that reasonably reliable national data fail to show significant maternal or newborn health gains corresponding to recent, dramatic rises in hospital obstetric procedures such as labor induction, labor acceleration, and cesarean delivery. In this context where medical intervention, necessary or not, assumes an increasingly central role in the childbearing equation, questions of what mothers expect to happen in labor and delivery and how their subsequent birth experiences meet those expectations become paramount. Global numeric indicators cannot capture the quality of women s reactions to childbirth itself, particularly as maternal care shifts in response to consumer interests it presupposes, offering options for comfort, care, and even the possibility of foregoing the labor process altogether. This work reflects the critical need to document early 21st-century U.S. mothers own words on what they expected to happen in childbirth and later, how labor and delivery went and how it met their expectations. Among this book s most important contributions is its inclusion of extensive interview material drawn from 75 diverse women who spoke freely on their childbirth expectations and subsequent experiences. By itself, the interview material lends an important, though at times unsettling, insider perspective on how labor and delivery can unfold. The narratives also provide a maternal view on how those charged with their care respond during this physically and emotionally demanding transition. In addition, the book provides a timely analysis of scientific data on contemporary maternal care procedures, making plain why so many refer to 21st-century mainstream obstetric care as technocratic. The scientific data serve as an excellent backdrop for more extensive coverage of the maternal interviews, organized around the distinctions mothers made related to the childbirth pathway on which they anticipated traveling such as natural childbirth in a hospital, planned cesarean delivery, or planned vaginal birth after cesarean. The pathways are in turn discussed in terms of their relationship to an underlying technocratic, humanistic, or holistic maternal care philosophy. Historically, it has been assumed that maternal biological forces are the primary drivers of what ultimately becomes a woman s childbirth experience. However, this book s unique approach to explaining birth experiences as a function of an anticipated childbirth pathway with a distinct, underlying care philosophy indicates that biological forces only partly explain how and why maternal expectations of childbirth may align with or stray far from what they originally anticipated. A final integrative chapter offers critical commentary and recommendations tied to what, from women s perspective, they believed they could really expect compared to the reality of childbirth in the early 21st century United States. The book is targeted towards an academic readership, including scholars and medical professionals with interest in women s health, women s and maternal mental health, women s reproductive health, reproductive technology, medical humanities, medical anthropology, narrative studies, pregnancy, and childbirth.

Charles Dupin was a multifaceted figure in the history of France, where his life spanned several regimes. He produced an enormous number of publications in mathematics, engineering, economics, and education. Long neglected by historians, he is at last beginning to receive attention. In his youth, he championed many causes, including the education of women, perhaps because of the influence of his dynamic and learned mother. He was already very ambitious as a youth and left behind the usual youthful desires in pursuit of his goals.Dupin began as a brilliant mathematician as a student at the Ecole polytechnique in Paris and proceeded to become a fine naval engineer, that is until visits to Britain inspired him to change his course of direction. As the French industry was undergoing expansion, Dupin saw in Britain that workers were more efficient and healthier if they were educated. He greatly admired the freedom he witnessed in Britain, and this did not endear him to the French government of the Restoration. Indeed, the high honours to which he so much aspired eluded him for a considerable time. He saw the British savings banks and regular saving by workers within industry as a system to be introduced in France and one that should be propagated.As an economist, he considered the welfare of French workers as vital to an efficient industry. He was particularly concerned with the protection of children in work and the education of workers. In fact, he might be considered the father of workers'' education in France. This was a subject very close to his heart and, from his early years, he devoted himself to making public lectures available to all, including women.However, Dupin''s popularity declined as the importance of a thriving economy began to take precedence over the workers'' needs, with the workers focusing mainly on having a living wage.This is the first published study of Charles Dupin and his entire life''s work. It illuminates his work and contribution in so many spheres, as well as his contacts with other scientists and educators. His mathematics have long interested scholars in the field, and he would have been an outstanding naval engineer. He was a linguist and highly cultured; with his aesthetic sense he might well have rivaled Sané, but because of his driving ambition he was a great man manqué. Against a background of tremendous changes in France, he made important contributions in many areas, as evidenced by the bibliography in this book.This work will be of interest to mathematicians, historians of science, sociologists, economists, engineers, and educators.

"The papers in this book originated from a conference that examined the Nigeria-Biafra War (1967-70) focusing primarily on the Biafran side of that war organized at Marquette University in 2009"--Acknowledgements.

Until the mid 1950s, the Jews of Egypt lived in a multicultural and diverse society, which constituted a model of conviviality and tolerance, using French as its lingua franca. The Jews constituted a respected and well-integrated urban community of about 80 to 100,000, and made an impressive contribution to the socioeconomic modernization of the country. Together with the rise of Arab nationalism and the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the escalating Arab-Israeli conflict brought about the rapid demise of Egyptian Jewry. Like the other Jewish communities of Arab lands, these people were either expelled or forced into exile in the aftermath of the 1948, 1956, and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars. As a consequence, close to half of the Jewish population of Egypt found refuge in Israel while the rest dispersed throughout the Western world, mainly in France, Brazil, and the United States. This book focuses on a group of about two thousand who settled in Australia, the "Edge of the Diaspora." It also examines the migration experience of Egyptian Jews who settled in France, in order to compare and contrast their integration in a non Anglo-Celtic environment. Although the Jews of Egypt, like most refugees, suffered the trauma of dispossession, expulsion, and dislocation, their particular experience did not attract the attention of Australian sociologists or historians. Even within the context of Australian Jewry, their story was largely unknown even though there has been much discussion about the postwar migration of European Jews. The author Racheline Barda believes that it is important to give them a voice, to tell their stories, and delve into their past history, thereby discovering the richness of their cultural heritage which ultimately gave them the tools for a successful integration in Australian society. One of the crucial concerns of this work was the preservation and transmission of the rich and dynamic history of this unique group to successive generations, through the oral testimonies of first-hand witnesses of a vanished world. This book makes an important contribution to the study of contemporary Australian society as well as diaspora studies. It deals with a topic that has rarely been reported on or studied in Australia--the migration experience of a small and unique ethnoreligious population such as the Jews of Egypt. It is the first comprehensive research on their immigration and integration into Australian society. Traditionally, sociohistorians have mostly concentrated on the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe or on the long established local Jewish community, which was historically of British and German origin. The Jews of Egypt constitute one of the largest Jewish communities to settle in Australia from outside European societies, in response to the rise of Arab nationalism and hostility to Israel. Based on a series of comprehensive interviews conducted mainly in Australia and France, this study reconstructs the history of a Jewish community and the circumstances of its demise. It takes the innovative approach of systematically analyzing the ethnic, religious, and cultural characteristics of both sample groups, highlighting the diversity that is inherent to the group as a whole. By specifically targeting the issue of identity, it provides an insight into the dynamics of a multilayered identity, which performs as a vehicle of integration and acculturation for a migrant group in any host society. Apart from individuals studying the particular history of Egyptian Jews wherever they settled after their forced emigration from Egypt, the book would be of interest to scholars specializing in diaspora studies, ethnic and immigrant studies, and social history.

Schooling is one of the core experiences of most young people in the Western world. This study examines the ways that students inhabit subjectivities defined in their relationship to some normalised good student. The idea that schools exist to produce students who become good citizens is one of the basic tenets of modernist educational philosophies that dominate the contemporary education world. The school has become a political site where policy, curriculum orientations, expectations and philosophies of education contest for the 'right' way to school and be schooled. For many people, schools and schooling only make sense if they resonate with past experiences. The good student is framed within these aspects of cultural understanding. However, this commonsense attitude is based on a hegemonic understanding of the good, rather than the good student as a contingent multiplicity that is produced by an infinite set of discourses and experiences. In this book, author Greg Thompson argues that this understanding of subjectivities and power is crucial if schools are to meet the needs of a rapidly changing and challenging world. As a high school teacher for many years, Thompson often wondered how students responded to complex articulations on how to be a good student. How a student can be considered good is itself an articulation of powerful discourses that compete within the school. Rather than assuming a moral or ethical citizen, this study turns that logic on it on its head to ask students in what ways they can be good within the school. Visions of the good student deployed in various ways in schools act to produce various ways of knowing the self as certain types of subjects. Developing the postmodern theories of Foucault and Deleuze, this study argues that schools act to teach students to know themselves in certain idealised ways through which they are located, and locate themselves, in hierarchical rationales of the good student. Problematising the good student in high schools engages those institutional discourses with the philosophy, history and sociology of education. Asking students how they negotiate or perform their selves within schools challenges the narrow and limiting ways that the good is often understood. By pushing the ontological understandings of the self beyond the modernist philosophies that currently dominate schools and schooling, this study problematises the tendency to see students as fixed, measurable identities (beings) rather than dynamic, evolving performances (becomings). This book suggests that there is more to becoming good than sitting quietly in class and doing well on tests. Students are daily involved in complex negotiations between competing expectations of the good and continually try to navigate what is a very complex terrain. These negotiations impact on their engagement with, and expectations of, schooling. It informs their behaviour, their relationships with each other and with authority figures. Through asking students their experiences and understandings of what constitutes a good student, a vastly different education terrain opens up than what is often understood. This book offers unique insights on high school students in the new millennia. For those studying teaching and for those working with student teachers in university contexts it offers a different perspective on how school students understand school and their interactions with teachers. It argues that through uncovering these student voices a more subtle and nuanced pedagogy can evolve. Who is the Good High School Student? is an important book for scholars conducting research on high school education, as well as student-teachers, teacher educators and practicing teachers alike.

American education is at a critical juncture because the traditional skills taught in schools and universities might no longer be valid to prepare students for a global economy. This is a prevailing argument in the education reform debate. Corporations are now being turned to for the solution. Regarding western educational discourse, transitional periods in education extend as far back as the Middle Ages in Europe. In America, since the turn of the century there has been an underpinning influence on education: the role of business. Yet, how often do we hold businesses accountable for their contributions to education? Business and education alliances can greatly benefit the system on both the K-12 and university levels. However, if the work that education is supposed to accomplish is underestimated and the plight of education is handed blindly over to a corporate paradigm, there might be more harm done than good. For some, it might seem unsavory that education has turned into a profitable business. For others, it is a dream come true. Although several scholars have analyzed the correspondence between education and the economy, few have examined it using a British pedagogical framework combined with an economic typology of power. The goal of this book is to explore the existence of certain capitalist realities in the American education system to find a balance between the distinct ideologies of education and business. This book is a theory-building exercise that centers on a descriptive multiple-case study of two senior high schools: a private, Jesuit school with a mission to educate students for university disciplines and a public charter school designed for career preparation, both located in Washington, D.C. A combination of survey, dialogic, observational, and documentary techniques was employed in a multi-methodological approach. This enterprise draws on Basil Bernstein's pedagogical theory of symbolic educational knowledge codes while attempting to fill a gap in its theoretical apparatus. The endeavor highlights some effects of alliances between business and education, while exploring concepts of power, critical thinking, and knowledge. A realist theoretical lens is a key component in this study where business norms are conceptualized as a social entity ontologically effectual to educational processes. Traditional forms of education are revealed to be in competition with alternative forms of education, where the high-technology age is perceived as a contributor to educational change. One of the unique analyses drawn from the research fieldwork elucidates differences between a religious paradigm and a careerist pedagogical approach. Ultimately, three contextual themes emerge from the data: entrepreneur ethics, social skills, and technology; all of these are indications of how business mores are apparent in education. The salient theme in this endeavor is the control of knowledge by institutions and/or individuals. The Imprint of Business Norms on American Education is an important book for social entrepreneurs, education reformers, education and sociological studies.

Many Evangelicals want to believe in a God who is merciful to the multitudes that never hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but lack the theological categories to support that aspiration. This book addresses these areas of evangelical theology by drawing on a well-known figure in the evangelical tradition-Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758)-and a contemporary Roman Catholic theologian-David Coffey (1934-). Though they may seem theological worlds apart, their use of a common trinitarian theology-the Augustinian mutual love model-led them to similar conclusions on Christology, pneumatology, and the theology of grace. Their common trinitarian vision provides resources to develop a transformational and relational vision of redemption and an inclusivist theology of religions within the evangelical tradition. The book brings Jonathan Edwards' and David Coffey's trinitarian understanding of God and redemption into ecumenical and constructive dialogue. The Trinity plays a systemic role in their theology and leads them to similar Spirit Christologies and pneumatological concepts of grace. Their use of the Augustinian mutual love model of the Trinity and their integration of it with Christology and pneumatology provide the resources to develop a transformational and relational vision of redemption and inclusivist theology of religions. To achieve its historical, ecumenical, and constructive program, the book moves through three steps. The first describes the Augustinian mutual love model of the Trinity in light of two of its major historical representatives-St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas-and situates Edwards' and Coffey's thought in continuity with that tradition. The second section demonstrates that Edwards and Coffey's shared trinitarian theology led them to similar Spirit Christologies and pneumatological concepts of grace. Based on the historical and comparative work in the first two sections, the third section makes two constructive proposals. First, it presents a relational and transformational understanding of redemption in place of the traditional Protestant evangelical legal doctrine of justification and formulaic approach to spiritual formation. Second, it proposes an inclusive theology of religions that includes a positive theological attitude toward the universal human religious quest and its manifestation in various religious traditions of the world. Intended for students and scholars working in evangelical, ecumenical, and trinitarian theology, this project seeks to make a constructive contribution to contemporary evangelical theology.The book will appeal to multiple audiences. First, it is important for Edwards scholars and to readers with a general interest in Edwards since there are few book-length treatments of his trinitarianism. Moreover, and accenting its appeal, the book presents an alternative interpretation of his trinitarian theology relative to the previous books. Second, it should attract the attention of evangelical theologians interested in the doctrine of the Trinity, ecumenical theology, revising traditional evangelical views on Christ and the Holy Spirit, and developing an evangelical theology of religions. Finally, the book will be valuable to Catholic theologians interested in ecumenical theology and especially that related to Evangelicalism.

The life and work of Albert Camus provides insight into how to navigate through an absurd historical moment. Camus's role as a journalist, playwright, actor, essayist, philosopher, and novelist allowed him to engage a complex world in a variety of capacities and offer an array of interpretations of his time. Albert Camus provides insight into how one can benefit from listening to relevant voices from previous generations. It is important to allow the time to become familiar with those who sought answers to similar questions that are being asked. For Camus, this meant discovering how others engaged an absurd historical moment. For those seeking anwers, this means listening to the voice of Albert Camus, as he represents the closest historical perspective on how to make sense of a world that has radically changed since both World Wars of the twentieth century. This is an intentional choice and only comes through an investment of time and energy in the ideas of others. Similar to Albert Camus's time, this is an age of absurdity; an age defined by contradiction and loss of faith in the social practices of the past. When living in such a time, one can be greatly informed by seeking out those passionate voices who have found a way despite similar circumstances. Many voices from such moments in human history provide first-hand insights into how to navigate such a time. Camus provides an example of a person working from a constructive perspective, as he was willing to draw upon the thought of many contemporaries and great thinkers from the past while engaging his own time in history. As the first book-length study of Camus to situate his work within the study of communication ethics and philosophy of communication, Brent C. Sleasman helps readers reinterpret Camus' work for the twenty-first century. Within the introduction, Camus' exploration of absurdity is situated as a metaphor for the postmodern age. The first chapter then explores the communicative problem that Camus announced with the publication of The Fall--a problem that still resonates over 50 years after its initial publication. In the chapters that follow other metaphors that emerge from Camus' work are reframed in an effort to assist the reader in responding to the problems that emerge while living in their own age of absurdity. Each metaphor is rooted in the contemporary scholarship of the communication discipline. Through this study it becomes clear that Camus was an implicit philosopher of communication with deep ethical commitments. Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication: Making Sense in an Age of Absurdity is an important book for anyone interested in understanding the communicative implications of Camus' work, specifically upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty.

This highly praised book undertakes an in-depth case study of contemporary protests to illustrate not only the challenges to building civil society in Jamaica but also the requirement for the current scholarship to reconcile its moral and thematic ambivalence. It is an important book for collections in political science, sociology, anthropology, and media studies/communications, especially given the increasing interest in understanding popular protests, violent social movements, resistance cultures as well as radical political culture, democracy and civil society across the developing and developed world. The book will also hold wide appeal among policy makers, political actors, activists, civil society practitioners, and specialists in international development as a result of its strong focus on civil society. This will also be an excellent text for undergraduate students and above, particular those studying international relations.

Despite the proliferation of marketplace advocacy campaigns, there has been little professional or academic research published evaluating the potential outcomes of this form of communication on audiences. Ostensibly the last book devoted to advocacy advertising was published in 1977. While the political and social changes of the 1970s are often credited with the rise of advocacy campaigns among many industries, surging public and media criticism regarding issues such as the environment and energy in recent years have made marketplace advocacy campaigns commonplace in today's advertising landscape. Given the political nature of marketplace advocacy and the potential ramifications on public policy, a quantitative assessment of stakeholder perceptions of marketplace advocacy is important for both professional and academic researchers interested in understanding the persuasive potential of marketplace advocacy. This book develops a model of marketplace advocacy influence based on relevant literature in advertising, marketing, social psychology, public relations, and political communication, and evaluates the model using a case study and statistical analyses. While this form of advocacy is relatively specialized, it represents an increasingly important and prevalent form of advocacy. It is important for both scholars and practitioners to understand how these campaigns may influence overall trust in the sponsoring industry as well as public acceptance of an industry's agenda. The model developed and tested in this book provides credence for the idea that these campaigns may be effective at accomplishing both of these objectives and demonstrates how industry approval, the overall goal of marketplace advocacy, might be achieved. By incorporating environmental concern as a measure of statistical control in both the model testing and follow-up analyses, the model also provides evidence of the moderating influence of heightened levels of environmental concern on marketplace advocacy outcomes. The book also provides an historical account of marketplace advocacy and describes several campaign case studies for context. This is an important book for researchers in the areas of corporate social responsibility, environmental advocacy, issue advertising, and public opinion. This book may also be appropriate for advanced advertising and public opinion classes.

Although there is a significant literature on the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, there are few analyses that address the deconstructive critique of phenomenology as it simultaneously plays across range of cultural productions including literature, painting, cinema, new media, and the structure of the university. Using the critical figures of ghost and shadow and initiating a vocabulary of phantomenology this book traces the implications of Derridean spectrality on the understanding of contemporary thought, culture, and experience. This study examines the interconnections of philosophy, art in its many forms, and the hauntology of Jacques Derrida. Exposure is explored primarily as exposure to the elemental weather (with culture serving as a lean-to); exposure in a photographic sense; being over-exposed to light; exposure to the certitude of death; and being exposed to all the possibilities of the world. Exposure, in sum, is a kind of necessary, dangerous, and affirmative openness. The book weaves together three threads in order to format an image of the contemporary exposure: 1) a critique of the philosophy of appearances, with phenomenology and its vexed relationship to idealism as the primary representative of this enterprise; 2) an analysis of cultural formations literature, cinema, painting, the university, new media that highlights the enigmatic necessity for learning to read a spectrality that, since the two cannot be separated, is both hauntological and historical; and 3) a questioning of the role of art as semblance, reflection, and remains that occurs within and alongside the space of philosophy and of the all the posts- in which people find themselves. Art is understood fundamentally as a spectral aesthetics, as a site that projects from an exposed place toward an exposed, and therefore open, future, from a workplace that testifies to the blast wind of obliteration, but also in that very testimony gives a place for ghosts to gather, to speak with each other and with humankind. Art, which installs itself in the very heart of the ancient dream of philosophy as its necessary companion, ensures that each phenomenon is always a phantasm and thus we can be assured that the apparitions will continue to speak in what Michel Serres s has called the grotto of miracles. This book, then, enacts the slowness of a reading of spectrality that unfolds in the chiaroscuro of truth and illusion, philosophy and art, light and darkness. Scholars, students, and professional associations in philosophy (especially of the work of Derrida, Husserl, Heidegger, and Kant), literature, painting, cinema, new media, psychoanalysis, modernity, theories of the university, and interdisciplinary studies.

"Robert Alexander convincingly argues that presidential electors--long considered by many as inconsequential, if not benign--are a serious danger to the health of our representative democracy. In one of the first systematic studies of its kind, Alexander presents a theory of elector behavior that explains why electors will continue to plague the system unless we institute reform. This book is indispensable for a deeper understanding of the presidential electoral process." - Gary E. Bugh, Texas A&M University "Presidential Electors and the Electoral College is an eye opener. Robert Alexander's exhaustive research has revealed some surprising results about the arcane and, as some maintain, undemocratic Electoral College. The fact that many electors are lobbied to change their votes after the presidential election should serve as a warning that the Electoral College is a disaster waiting to happen--again." - Michael A. Genovese, Loyola Marymount University "Robert Alexander's Presidential Electors and the Electoral College is a valuable and much-needed examination of a long-neglected constitutional challenge. His analytical research is a serious contribution to our understanding of the Electoral College and its problems." - Thomas Cronin, Colorado College "Dr. Alexander has brought this very important history to life in a way that can help all of us look more carefully into the future. With lots of current public debate about the future of the Electoral College, this book provides a comprehensive and much-needed examination of one of the challenges that we have faced since the founding of our nation." - Mark Ritchie, Minnesota Secretary of State

In the 1880s and 1890s, the Victorian poet Robert Browning was the "lion" of the day in the United States, particularly in Rochester. Browning's work was widely read and discussed. Even today, there are still many in America who consider themselves Browningites, and many of them belong to Browning clubs and societies. This book, the fruit of thorough and patient archival digging, brings together various fragmentary local sources and quaint memorabilia, hitherto unknown to scholars. It vividly recovers the spirit of the fascination with Browningmania, and more broadly Victoriana, that Rochesterians and Americans in general evinced in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century.Browning's popularity, undeserved many thought, remains nonetheless a unique phenomenon in literary and cultural history, well worthy of study and comprehension. Although several books and articles were devoted to this subject, none offers a sustained explanation of how and why Browning became such an iconic figure. This book fills a gap in the scholarship and critical reception of Browning. This study offers Browning scholars and Victorianists in general a new perspective on some long-neglected but crucial material. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars in Reception and American studies as well as cultural and literary historians. Because it brings together many local anecdotes and memorabilia, this book will also find appreciative readers among the general public, especially in upstate New York region, particularly Rochester.

The grotesque has provided both laymen and scholars with extreme delights for centuries: from the ornamental combining of rare motifs in antiquity to a hybridisation of structural genres in recent times; from fantastical fusions of humans and beasts to comic exaggerations of bodily aberrations and prosthetic postmodern visions. Eluding clear classification at all times, the notion has often been identified with ideas of contradiction and conflation and observed in relation to principles and categories such as estrangement (Wolfgang Kayser) and carnival (Mikhail Bakhtin), the sublime (Victor Hugo) and Victorian Gothic imagination (John Ruskin). In this context, the present volume appears as a synthesis and radical questioning of existing historical developments. The book contributes to current discussions on the grotesque in contemporary literary and cultural theory from the perspective of one specific motif: the unnatural. Quite like the grotesque, observing the unnatural (and unnaturalness) reveals a resilient strain in critical thought, and the significance of this history gradually unfolds as the volume charts the progress of its main themes from the Renaissance to the present day. While in much current talk about theory and criticism certain related notions are still posited for and against each other--what is seen as normal or natural and what is not, and what should be seen as normal or natural and what should not--the discussions in The Grotesque and the Unnatural go a long way toward founding a new vista from which to observe this beguiling opposition. The book presents a new perspective on the grotesque by considering it as a phenomenon which comes into being only through a negation of sorts, yet refusing to place it in a simple, normative pattern as nature's antithesis or expressive gesture. As the articles demonstrate, the grotesque is always in the process of subverting or surpassing something, always not being ideal or sufficient to either nature or a social rule, and this very negation affects its status as a tool of transformation or emancipation from norm: the grotesque figure does not represent any particular stage of development or natural state of being. As such, the grotesque hints at and hinges on something that exceeds habitual spheres of culture and communication but, as the book aims to show, this elusiveness of meaning gives no cause for analytic despair. By tracing the involutions of the grotesque with the unnatural in specific literary cases, the book evokes centuries of Western cultural history and ultimately focuses on two questions: How and why does the grotesque tend to negate nature, and how does it affect our understanding of what we see? The diverse materials and historical scope of The Grotesque and the Unnatural make the book, in its exceptional thematic unity, a valuable addition to the fields of literary and cultural studies.

Movies began during the Victorian age. Through even the earliest years of filmmaking, Victorian literature provided a ready stock of familiar stories about colorful characters caught up in mystery, fantasy, adventure, sensation, and domestic conflict. Among the earliest films are adaptations of works by Victorian writers like Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy, and even Alfred, Lord Tennyson. With the proliferation of volumes on adaptation, work is needed that provides theoretical and practical approaches for those who think about literature together with film adaptations whether as scholarship, part of classroom study, or general enjoyment. By bringing together many different approaches to the topic of adaptation, this book provides an important overview of the subject of the adaptation of nineteenth-century British literature, as well as an examination of the constructive and creative use of film adaptations in the classroom. Although a wide range of critical approaches are included, the primary emphasis is on what specific adaptations reveal about the ways in which nineteenth-century British texts are understood, responded to, and analyzed based on particular cultural contexts. This book provides a basis for rethinking adaptation and a template for future discussions and academic courses. They orient the reader within a popular field of study that is currently in need of both greater focus and of practical direction.

In 1984, famous political scientist Charles Doran argued in his landmark book Forgotten Partnership that Canada-US relations were at a crossroads. Structural asymmetries, divergent interests, and both strategic and tactical missteps by Ottawa and Washington risked undermining the postwar comity and cooperation between the two countries. Back in 1984, Doran lamented the deterioration of "partnership" in Canada-U.S. relations. A major premise of this book is that Doran's analysis is worth revisiting in a contemporary setting. Following Doran's original analytical framework, Forgotten Partnership Redux is organized around the same three "dimensions" of Canada-U.S. relations-political-strategic, trade-commercial, and psychocultural. The foremost authorities have been selected to contribute to this volume for their specific areas of expertise, with the aim of revisiting these specific dimensions in a contemporary setting. What sets Forgotten Partnership Redux apart is how the world's leading experts on Canada-U.S. relations revisit Doran's Forgotten Partnership, one of the most important works ever produced in the field. Their insights augment the scholarly debate initiated over two decades ago and cast significant light on the present and the future of the two nations and their global impact. For those who have not read Forgotten Partnership, this volume will serve as an important introduction to many of the same themes, but set in contemporary scholarly and policy debates.