"In contemporary American political culture, claims of American exceptionalism and anxieties over its prospects have resurged as an overarching theme in national political discourse. Yet never very fa
Climate change is becoming a major theme in the contemporary novel, as authors reflect concerns in wider society. Given the urgency and enormity of the problem, can literature (and the emotional response it provokes) play a role in answering the complex ethical issues that arise because of climate change? This book shows that conventional fictional techniques should not be disregarded as inadequate to the demands of climate change; rather, fiction has the potential to challenge us, emotionally and ethically, to reconsider our relationship to the future. Adeline Johns-Putra focuses on the dominant theme of intergenerational ethics in the contemporary novel: that is, the idea of our obligation to future generations as a basis for environmental action. Rather than simply framing parenthood and posterity in sentimental terms, the climate change novel uses their emotional appeal to critique their anthropocentricism and identity politics, offering radical alternatives instead.
How does a school of thought, in the area of philosophy, or indeed of religion, from roots that may be initially open-ended and largely informal, come to take on the features that later mark it out as distinctive, and even exclusive? That is the theme which is explored in this book in respect of the philosophical movement known as Platonism, stemming as it does from the essentially open-ended and informal atmosphere of Plato's Academy. John Dillon focuses on a number of key issues, such as monism versus dualism, the metaphysical underpinnings of ethical theory, the theory of Forms, and the reaction to the Sceptical 'deviation' represented by the so-called 'New Academy'. The book is written in the lively and accessible style of the lecture series in Beijing from which it originates.
In Blockchain Regulation and Governance in Europe, Michèle Finck examines the relationship between blockchain technology and EU law and introduces the theme of blockchain governance. The book provides a general introduction to blockchains as both a regulatable and a regulatory technology and outlines the interaction between distributed ledger technology and specific areas of EU law, such as the General Data Protection Regulation. It should be read by anyone interested in EU law, the relationship between law, innovation and technology, and technology governance.
This volume collects essays from prominent intellectuals and public figures based on talks given at the 2015 Darwin College Lectures on the theme of 'development'. The writers are world-renowned experts in such diverse fields as architecture, astronomy, biology, climate science, economy, psychology, sports and technology. Development includes contributions from developmental biologist and Nobel laureate John B. Gurdon, Olympic gold medallist Katherine Grainger, astronomer and cosmologist Richard Ellis, developmental psychologist Bruce Hood, former Met Office Chief Scientist Julia Slingo, architect Michael Pawlyn, development economist Ha-Joon Chang and serial entrepreneur Hermann Hauser. While their perspectives and interpretations of development vary widely, their essays are linked by a common desire to describe and understand how things change, usually in the direction of ever-increasing complexity. Written with the lay reader in mind, this interdisciplinary book is a must-read for a
Planning Armageddon provides the first detailed account of Britain's Command, Control, Intelligence and Communications infrastructure. A central theme of the book is the British-American atomic relati
This textbook provides a step-by-step introduction to the history of the English language (HEL), offering a fresh perspective on the process of language change. Aimed at undergraduate students, The Emergence and Development of English is accessibly written, and contains a wealth of pedagogical tools, including chapter openers, key terms, chapter summaries, end-of-chapter exercises and suggestions for further reading. A central theme of the book is 'emergence', the key term from the study of complex systems, which describes how massive numbers of random verbal interactions give rise to regularities that 'emerge' without specific causes. This unique approach encourages readers to incorporate complex systems into the mainstream coverage of HEL. Additional resources include examples of language from each period, as well as appendices on terminology, online resources and audio samples.
The concept of boundaries has become a central theme in the study of journalism. In recent years, the decline of legacy news organizations and the rise of new interactive media tools have thrust such
This title reflects the general theme of the 2010 IACR annual conference that was held in Padova, Italy, the aim of which was to provide a fresh view on some cultural and structural changes involving
In this book, Sander Van der Leeuw examines how the modern world has been caught in a socio-economic dynamic that has generated the conundrum of sustainability. Combining the methods of social science and complex systems science, he explores how western, developed nations have globalized their world view and how that view has led to the sustainability challenges we are now facing. Its central theme is the co-evolution of cognition, demography, social organization, technology and environmental impact. Beginning with the earliest human societies, Van der Leeuw links the distant past with the present in order to demonstrate how the information and communications technology revolution is undermining many of the institutional pillars on which contemporary societies have been constructed. An original view of social evolution as the history of human information-processing, his book shows how the past offers insight into the present, and can help us deal with the future. This title is also ava
Anthony Green's idiosyncratic art is anchored in one central theme: family. It forms the core of his immediately recognisable work, revealing an intrinsic connection between his personal and artistic
Transforming Early English shows how historical pragmatics can offer a powerful explanatory framework for the changes medieval English and Older Scots texts undergo, as they are transmitted over time and space. The book argues that formal features such as spelling, script and font, and punctuation - often neglected in critical engagement with past texts - relate closely to dynamic, shifting socio-cultural processes, imperatives and functions. This theme is illustrated through numerous case-studies in textual recuperation, ranging from the reinvention of Old English poetry and prose in the later medieval and early modern periods, to the eighteenth-century 'vernacular revival' of literature in Older Scots.
How has the nature of ideas evolved over time? How have they been influenced and received by different social and cultural conditions?In a work that spans 2,800 years, these ambitious questions are addressed by 61 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. The volumes explore the development of ideas throughout Western society from a range of interdisciplinary angles, as well as their receptions and contexts. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole and, to make it easy to navigate, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the 6.The 6 volumes cover: 1. – Classical Antiquity (800 BCE - 500 CE); 2. – Medieval Age (500 - 1450); 3. – Renaissance (1450 - 1650) ; 4. – Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800); 5. – Age of Empire (1800 - 1920); 6. – Modern Age (1920 –
Material Imagination in Architecture draws on history and the visual arts, and contemporary architecture to explore this popular theme in architectural practice and education.In the context of a disci
The concept of boundaries has become a central theme in the study of journalism. In recent years, the decline of legacy news organizations and the rise of new interactive media tools have thrust such
This book is designed to be an introduction to the theories of measurement and meaningfulness, and not a comprehensive study of those topics. A major theme of this book is the psychophysical measureme
Tales of shipwreck have always fascinated audiences, and as result there is a rich literature of suffering at sea, and an equally rich tradition of visual art depicting this theme. Exploring the shift
The sublime - that elusive encounter with overwhelming height, power or limits - has been associated with music from the early-modern rise of interest in the Longinian sublime to its saturation of European culture in the later nineteenth century and beyond. This volume offers a historically situated study of the relationship between music, sound and the sublime. Together, the authors distinguish between the different aesthetics of production, representation and effect, while understanding these as often mutually reinforcing approaches. They demonstrate music's strength in playing out the sublime as transfer, transport and transmission of power, allied to the persistent theme of destruction, deaths and endings. The volume opens up two avenues for further research suggested by the adjective 'sonorous': a wider spectrum of sounds heard as sublime, and (especially for those outside musicology) a more multifaceted idea of music as a cultural practice that shares boundaries with other soundi
This Companion provides a guide to queer inquiry in literary and cultural studies. The essays represent new and emerging areas, including transgender studies, indigenous studies, disability studies, queer of color critique, performance studies, and studies of digital culture. Rather than being organized around a set of literary texts defined by a particular theme, literary movement, or demographic, this volume foregrounds a queer critical approach that moves across a wide array of literary traditions, genres, historical periods, national contexts, and media. This book traces the intellectual and political emergence of queer studies, addresses relevant critical debates in the field, provides an overview of queer approaches to genres, and explains how queer approaches have transformed understandings of key concepts in multiple fields.
Using the ‘learning landscape’ concept as an overarching theme, this book explores how space in schools, colleges and higher education can support changing learning and teaching strategies as well as
