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‘The Voice of the People’ presents a series of essays on literary aspects of the European folk revival through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its approach is both topical and generic, addressing not just the question of what purposes the folk revival served but also its many forms and genres. It focuses on two practices of antiquarianism, namely the key role that collecting and editing played in the formation of ethnological study in the European academy, and the business of publishing and editing that produced many 'folkloric' texts of dubious authenticity. Collecting and editing went hand-in-hand with plagiarism and forgery in the practice of many: much English, Scottish and Irish folk-song is of late-eighteenth century literary origin. Across Europe, too, national literary identities were often based on origins supposedly discovered in the people, but which were frequently the stuff of fiction. As was the case with Russian and Czech folklore, an interest in the folkloric was often successfully hybridised, with, for example, a continuing emphasis on classical patterns instructing the creation of vernacular art forms. In Germany, debate about the folk served the purposes of a radical writing in a time of successive political upheavals.

In addition to exploring these tendencies, 'The Voice of the People' also presents readings of various genres: epic, song, tale and novel. It contributes to the study of several crucial European literary figures, from Macpherson and Percy, Herder and Burns, to Heine, Pushkin, Moore and Morris. But most of all it concerns the great anonymous authors of the European folk tradition – in narrative and lyric art – and their relation to the cultural movements and imagined identities of the peoples of the emerging nineteenth-century European nation.

'The Voice of the People' offers an original take on folklore revivals through its attempt to integrate British examples of the literary and antiquarian uses of folk art with a strong account of comparable movements in Europe.

‘The Voice of the People’ presents a series of essays on literary aspects of the European folk revival through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its approach is both topical and generic, addressing not just the question of what purposes the folk revival served but also its many forms and genres. It focuses on two practices of antiquarianism, namely the key role that collecting and editing played in the formation of ethnological study in the European academy, and the business of publishing and editing that produced many 'folkloric' texts of dubious authenticity. Collecting and editing went hand-in-hand with plagiarism and forgery in the practice of many: much English, Scottish and Irish folk-song is of late-eighteenth century literary origin. Across Europe, too, national literary identities were often based on origins supposedly discovered in the people, but which were frequently the stuff of fiction. As was the case with Russian and Czech folklore, an interest in the folkloric was often successfully hybridised, with, for example, a continuing emphasis on classical patterns instructing the creation of vernacular art forms. In Germany, debate about the folk served the purposes of a radical writing in a time of successive political upheavals.

In addition to exploring these tendencies, 'The Voice of the People' also presents readings of various genres: epic, song, tale and novel. It contributes to the study of several crucial European literary figures, from Macpherson and Percy, Herder and Burns, to Heine, Pushkin, Moore and Morris. But most of all it concerns the great anonymous authors of the European folk tradition – in narrative and lyric art – and their relation to the cultural movements and imagined identities of the peoples of the emerging nineteenth-century European nation.

'The Voice of the People' offers an original take on folklore revivals through its attempt to integrate British examples of the literary and antiquarian uses of folk art with a strong account of comparable movements in Europe.

The Coen Bros. have attracted a wide following and have been rewarded with Oscars and other honors. Some of their films such as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men are cult favorites and box office hits. Yet this team of filmmaking brothers remains misunderstood in some critical circles, partly because, like John Ford, they mischievously refuse to explain themselves to interviewers, preferring to let their work speak for itself. Ethan and Joel Coen also delight in unsettling cinematic conventions and confounding audiences while raising disturbing questions about human nature.

Mixing film genres and styles, playing with narrative in postmodernist ways, the Coens’ films display shocking tonal shifts as they blend comedy and drama and, most controversially, comedy and violence. This potent mélange of themes and stylistic approaches makes the Coens’ films adventurous, unpredictable probes into social anxieties and reflections on the omnipresence of evil in the modern world. In their trenchant satire, these brilliant writer-directors are heirs to Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder, and as satirists tend to do, the Coens sometimes provoke audience anger and incomprehension along with enjoyment of their penchant for black comedy. 

Film historian and critic Joseph McBride jousts with the Coens’ detractors while defining the filmmakers’ freshness and originality. The quirkily individualistic Coens are the kind of personal filmmakers the increasingly conglomerated American cinema rarely fosters anymore, a distinction partly attributable to their following in Europe and their partial financing by European sources. This critical study goes beyond the often-superficial and confused nature of Coen criticism to illuminate their artistic personalities and contributions to cinematic culture.

This book examines the literary author Ulla Isaksson’s work as a writer for the screen, with particular focus on her collaboration with director Ingmar Bergman from the 1950s to the 1980s.

During the Romantic period, Hannah Cowley (1743–1809) achieved fame both as a playwright and a poet, composing popular comedies and, as Anna Matilda, amorous Della Cruscan verse. But despite a recent surge of scholarly interest in her works, her controversial comedy The World as It Goes has never been published.This edition of The World as It Goes is based on the Larpent licensing holograph manuscript held by the Huntington Library (LA 548). The transcription of the play is supplemented with an introduction providing cultural, theatrical, historical and biographical contexts; contemporaneous reviews; and a note on the text.

The World as It Goes satirizes English tourists visiting a southern French resort and the scoundrels who prey on them. The play’s cast included some of the era’s most popular comic actors: John Edwin, John Quick, Charles Lee Lewes, William Thomas Lewis (aka “Gentleman Lewis”), Ralph Wewitzer (who specialized in stereotypical foreigners), Isabella Mattocks (who specialized in “vulgar” characters) and the famously rotund Lydia Webb. Elizabeth Younge, acclaimed for her portrayals of sentimental wives and daughters, played Lady Danvers, and the future novelist and playwright Elizabeth Inchbald appeared in the role of Sidney Grubb. 

Before the premiere of The World as It Goes at Covent Garden, Cowley’s comedies The Runaway (1776) and The Belle’s Stratagem (1780) and her farce Who’s the Dupe (1779) had been theatrical hits. But reviewers who admired her previous plays found The World as It Goes vulgar and morally offensive, and its sole performance on February 24, 1781, was disrupted by audience members who loudly objected to a ribald scene in a bedroom antechamber and repeatedly interrupted Younge as she attempted to deliver the epilogue, which contained a risqué reference to the transgender Chevalière D’Eon. Cowley heavily revised the play, but its second incarnation as Second Thoughts Are Best (performed March 24, 1781) was also a failure. The World as It Goes is Cowley’s most bawdy, multigeneric and socially subversive comedy and features a valet masquerading as his master and aspiring to take a seat at Westminster; French and German swindlers; a seductive countess; a lecherous, nouveau-riche London “Citizen”; an antiquarian bluestocking modeled after Lady Anna Miller; a fatuous aristocrat who neglects the wife he adores to be seen as fashionable; and a French monk who attempts to rape an Englishwoman. Among the contemporaneous issues and cultural products addressed in the play, its prologue and epilogue are English tourism on the continent; the pantomime Harlequin Free-Mason (1780); the January 1781 French raid on Jersey Island; the Chevalière d’Eon’s androgyny; the Gordon riots and Lord George Gordon’s acquittal in the ensuing treason trial; the recent performances by the French ballet dancer Gaëtano Appoline Balthazar Vestris at the King’s Theatre; anxieties about ambitious and oversexed male servants; bluestocking antiquarianism; the pretensions of the London merchant class; the pro-American revolution Bill of Rights Society and the London Association; James Graham’s Celestial Bed; and prison ships (“Hulks”). 

The comedy’s catastrophic failure influenced the manner in which Cowley handled controversial issues in her subsequent dramas and provides insights into late eighteenth-century anxieties and mores. Mortified by the damnation of The World as It Goes, she omitted it from her posthumous Works (1813), but she reworked some of its themes, situations and characters in her final play, The Town before You, which was staged in 1794. Although The Town before You, like The World as It Goes, portrays nefarious impostors, a philistine businessman, a spurious connoisseur and a wealthy female eccentric obsessed with classical art, it enjoyed a respectable run of nine nights.

The World of Wu Zhao is a carefully curated set of more than 120 translated stories—all annotated and contextualized—on a range of topics from Zhang Zhuo’s 張鷟 eighth century collection of miscellany, Collected Records of Court and Country (Chaoye qianzai 朝野僉載). The book provides English readers with a sense and feel for the empire during the reign of Wu Zhao 武曌 (624–705, also known as Empress Wu and Wu Zetian), China’s first and only female emperor. 

The World of Wu Zhao moves outward from the female sovereign’s personal and intimate domain of the inner palace. The text includes chapters on a number of different themes and topics: the female emperor’s male favorites, the culture of the court , cruel officials, as well as sections on flora and fauna, the common folk, artisans and craftsmen, Buddhist and Daoist monks, the military, spirits and the supernatural, the borderlands, and local officials. Chapters are introduced through “speaking artifacts” such as saddles, swords, bronze tallies, porcelain figurines of camels and grooms, official tallies, Buddhist cave paintings and funerary monuments—contemporary to the reign of the female emperor. This lively and fresh perspective on medieval China will amuse and shock readers, prompting them to recalibrate everything they think they know about medieval China.

The World of Wu Zhao is a carefully curated set of more than 120 translated stories—all annotated and contextualized—on a range of topics from Zhang Zhuo’s 張鷟 eighth century collection of miscellany, Collected Records of Court and Country (Chaoye qianzai 朝野僉載). The book provides English readers with a sense and feel for the empire during the reign of Wu Zhao 武曌 (624–705, also known as Empress Wu and Wu Zetian), China’s first and only female emperor. 

The World of Wu Zhao moves outward from the female sovereign’s personal and intimate domain of the inner palace. The text includes chapters on a number of different themes and topics: the female emperor’s male favorites, the culture of the court , cruel officials, as well as sections on flora and fauna, the common folk, artisans and craftsmen, Buddhist and Daoist monks, the military, spirits and the supernatural, the borderlands, and local officials. Chapters are introduced through “speaking artifacts” such as saddles, swords, bronze tallies, porcelain figurines of camels and grooms, official tallies, Buddhist cave paintings and funerary monuments—contemporary to the reign of the female emperor. This lively and fresh perspective on medieval China will amuse and shock readers, prompting them to recalibrate everything they think they know about medieval China.

‘The WTO and its Development Obligation: Prospects for Global Trade’ presents a sound argument in favour of the WTO adhering to its long-standing development obligation. Ezeani goes further than merely highlighting the problems of developing country integration, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the underlying factors that are preventing developing countries from making meaningful gains through participation in global trade. She assesses the effectiveness of current 'development-based' programmes of the WTO as well as the DSB, and stresses the importance for developing countries of recognising the potential benefits of global trade.

Through an account of the beginnings of organised global trade, Ezeani strengthens the case against treating developing countries differently by examining the fundamental constraints of applying early economic principles to the modern environment.

‘The WTO and its Development Obligation: Prospects for Global Trade’ presents a sound argument in favour of the WTO adhering to its long-standing development obligation. Ezeani goes further than merely highlighting the problems of developing country integration, and provides a comprehensive analysis of the underlying factors that are preventing developing countries from making meaningful gains through participation in global trade. She assesses the effectiveness of current 'development-based' programmes of the WTO as well as the DSB, and stresses the importance for developing countries of recognising the potential benefits of global trade.

Through an account of the beginnings of organised global trade, Ezeani strengthens the case against treating developing countries differently by examining the fundamental constraints of applying early economic principles to the modern environment.

Winner of numerous awards and the epicenter of multiple controversies, Danny Boyle’s 2008 film “Slumdog Millionaire” has fueled a series of debates regarding its depictions of India and the slum, its references to Bollywood, its global circulation and success, and its reception by critics and audiences. “The ‘Slumdog’ Phenomenon” is an edited collection that seeks to address all of these topics and, in the process, provide new and innovative ways of looking at this controversial film. Each of the book’s four sections considers a particular aspect of the film – such as its relation to the nation, to the slum and to Bollywood – along with its reception and theorization.

Collecting, for the first time ever, a wide range of critical essays exploring this film from a rich variety of disciplinary perspectives, “The Slumdog Phenomenon” will be of interest to readers across the academic spectrum. Rather than offering a book-length study of the film from one point of view, this collection presents a variety of shorter pieces that consider “Slumdog Millionaire” from several different angles. Featuring a dynamic combination of landmark essays by leading critics and theorists, as well as newer pieces by emerging scholars, this collection will provide readers with an assortment of critical perspectives on a film that continues to generate fascination, curiosity and controversy around the world.

Winner of numerous awards and the epicenter of multiple controversies, Danny Boyle’s 2008 film “Slumdog Millionaire” has fueled a series of debates regarding its depictions of India and the slum, its references to Bollywood, its global circulation and success, and its reception by critics and audiences. “The ‘Slumdog’ Phenomenon” is an edited collection that seeks to address all of these topics and, in the process, provide new and innovative ways of looking at this controversial film. Each of the book’s four sections considers a particular aspect of the film – such as its relation to the nation, to the slum and to Bollywood – along with its reception and theorization.

Collecting, for the first time ever, a wide range of critical essays exploring this film from a rich variety of disciplinary perspectives, “The Slumdog Phenomenon” will be of interest to readers across the academic spectrum. Rather than offering a book-length study of the film from one point of view, this collection presents a variety of shorter pieces that consider “Slumdog Millionaire” from several different angles. Featuring a dynamic combination of landmark essays by leading critics and theorists, as well as newer pieces by emerging scholars, this collection will provide readers with an assortment of critical perspectives on a film that continues to generate fascination, curiosity and controversy around the world.

The collected essays from noteworthy dramatists and scholars in this book represent new ways of understanding theater in the Middle East not as geographical but transcultural spaces of performance. What distinguishes this book from previous works is that it offers new analysis on a range of theatrical practices across a region, by and large, ignored for its history of traditions and cultures, and it does so by emphasizing diverse performances in changing contexts. Topics include Arab, Iranian, Israeli, diasporic theatres from pedagogical perspectives to reinvention of traditions, from translation practices to political resistance through various performances from the nineteenth century to the present. 

The book is, therefore, concerned with not just the theatrical content of specific or range of plays in a variety of mediums, from stage to the radio, but also political implications, changing imaginaries of home and exile, and practices of identity through a range of performances in both local and translocal settings. The book argues that there are indigenous performers, ranging from actors to producers and audiences, who (re)make theatre through the reinvention of traditions, pedagogy, media, and translation. The book also shows that while all theatre is performance what precisely “performance” means is contingent to the lived context of audiences and performers who make theatre in its diverse forms and also in response to conflict, war, occupation, patriarchy, home, and exile.

As is well known, the horror film generally presents a situation where normality is threatened by a monster. From this premise, this book argues that scary movies often create their terrifying effects stylistically and structurally through a radical break with the realism of normality in the form of monstrous theatricality. Theatricality in the horror film expresses itself in many ways. First and foremost, it comes across in the physical performance of monstrosity; the over-the-top performance of a chainsaw-wielding serial killer who performs his nefarious acts to terrify both his victims within the film and the audience in the cinema. Theatrical artifice can also appear as a stagy cemetery with broken-down tombstones and twisted, gnarly trees, or through the use of violently aberrant filmic techniques, or in the oppressive claustrophobia of a single-room setting reminiscent of classical drama. All these are examples of the cinematic theatricality of horror. Any performative element of a film that flaunts its ‘difference’ from what is deemed realistic or normal on screen might qualify as an instance of theatrical artifice, creating an intense affect in the audience. The artificiality of the frightening spectacle is at the heart of the dark pleasures of horror.

The ultimate goal of ‘Theatricality in the Horror Film’ is to suggest that the theatricality of horror cinema echoes the genre’s roots in ancient tragedy. Like Greek tragedy, horror cinema allows spectators to confront their deepest fears within the safe space of the auditorium, thus affording the audience a cathartic experience. In addition to catharsis, the horror film’s dichotomy between the stable status quo of normality and the shockingly disruptive moment of horror also rehearses tragedy’s genealogy famously articulated by Nietzsche: the terrifying carnal pleasures of Dionysian excess formalized through a dialectic confrontation with the static Apollonian principles of order, civility and normality. Tragic theatricality, this book contends, is the essence of horror cinema.

Theology in the Early British and Irish Gothic, 1764–1832 seeks to explore the extent to which Early British Gothic writing, c.1760–1830, took distinctive shape in the particular theological and theo-political climate of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The project takes as its starting point the widely noted ‘anti-Catholicism’ of the Early British Gothic. While taking into account the existing work in this field, the thesis will move beyond a simplistic Protestant/Catholic binary found in works, such as Diane Long Hoeveler’s The Gothic Ideology (2014) and Maria Purves Gothic and Catholicism (2009), which investigate the Gothic as anti- or pro-Catholic respectively. The project also moves the almost exclusively Anglican focus of texts like Alison Millbank’s God and the Gothic (2018), instead placing the Gothic within the complex theo-political context of tolerance debates, focused not only on Anglican-Catholic relations but on the place and suppression of Protestant Dissent. Having established the contemporary context of a proliferation of Dissenting denominations, the lack of a unified Anglican positions, the rich field of theological debate in the period and the continuing importance of Christianity (in its various forms) as a lived religion in the period, the project seeks to investigate the way in which varied theologies underpin key tropes, aesthetics and debates within the Gothic.

Theology in the Early British and Irish Gothic, 1764–1832 seeks to explore works throughout the period of the efflorescence and decline of the Early British Gothic, mapping changing currents and trends in the theo-aesthetics of the genre and its depiction and engagement with various supernatural phenomena. It seeks to investigate not only major writers of the period, such as Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis, but a selection of writers from different denominational backgrounds in order to investigate the ways in which contemporary theological debates can be traced across Gothic texts of the period and the ways in which different theological positions manifest in these texts. 

This book is a wide-ranging collection of essays that makes the case for the humanities as central to our self-understanding, for theory as the latest incarnation of a perennial concern with the relation between words and things, and for the ancient as constitutive of the modern. Theory Does Not Exist: Comparative Ancient and Modern Explorations in Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction, and Rhetoric makes a strong argument for a comparative approach to what we term “theory” today. It argues that our disciplinary boundaries create artificial divisions between philosophy, rhetoric, and literature, which historically would not have been recognized and have come to function as conceptual straitjackets.

These essays contend that a concerted engagement with the crucial texts in these debates over the last 2500 years not only offers a better understanding of the issues involved but also provides the necessary political, ethical, and existential tools for fashioning a better and more inclusive life. They offer extended readings of Plato, Cicero, and Sophocles, as well as Derrida, Foucault, Irigaray, Kristeva, Žižek, and Lacan. Theory Does Not Exist offers a full-throated defense of the humanities and crucial counterarguments against the reduction of education to the vocational and the operational.

Categorization is an essential and unavoidable instrumentality for conceptually navigating a world—indeed for being able to conceptualize a world to be navigated. Classification is a pivotal instrument for scientific systemization, featured as a basis for the philosophical understanding of reality since Aristotle, but classificatory concepts of sorts, types and natural kinds inevitably pervade our understanding of ourselves and our position in the social as well as the natural world at all levels. The authors argue that the character, purpose, context and culturerelativity of categories and categorization have been widely misunderstood—that standard philosophical views are substantially correct in some respects but markedly mistaken in others.

The book offers a comprehensive survey of basic principles of classification and categorization, with a multitude of illustrative examples accompanied by instructive analysis of ways and means. Initial chapters include a critical examination of previous work on the nature of categories, a wide-ranging survey of the ways in which categories have been conceptualized in the history of philosophy and a survey of relevant empirical work and scientific theory regarding both perceptual categories and categorization in general. In later chapters, the authors argue that the long-seated misunderstandings of categories that they identify underlie paradoxes in logic regarding vagueness and identity, puzzles in philosophy of science regarding induction, essences, natural laws and natural kinds, and problems in social philosophy and our ethical lives as well. A more adequate grasp of the nature of categories and categorization offers a better understanding of a range of classical philosophical problematics and the promise of alternative approaches.

In this critical account of New Labour's economic and welfare policies in their first two terms in office, John Grieve Smith suggests that, far from pursuing any radical new agenda, they have been actively consolidating the Thatcherite Revolution. If Labour is to offer a genuine alternative to the Tories, and achieve its long standing objective of a fairer society, radical developments in policy are needed. John Grieve Smith discusses the policies needed to ensure expansion and full employment here and in the rest of the European Union. He examines the whittling away of pensions and other social security benefits, and the growing reliance on means testing, together with the need for higher and more progressive taxation if the quality of health and education services is to be improved. The greatest challenge of coming decades is to develop more effective global and regional international institutions in the economic and other fields. Here the author puts forward a programme of major reforms of the global financial system to make both developing and industrialized countries less vulnerable to the instability of financial markets. This new and updated edition of John Grieve Smith's lively and controversial book is a timely contribution to current political debate.

Why does the position of the threshold exert such a compelling hold on our imaginative lives? Why is it a resonant space, and so urgently the place of writing – the place where one may remain, avoid speaking or naming, yet speak from? Through a combination of case studies and theoretical investigations, this book addresses these questions and speaks to the imaginative power of the threshold as a productive space in literature and art.

The first volume to draw together a significant range of the applications of the ‘threshold’, the book is located naturally on the threshold between disciplines, and alive to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of education and scholarship. But its particular intervention is mainly literary, whether through an address of literary narratives, or through the use of literary critical analysis, or indeed through acts of criticism that become creative acts. Of this line of enquiry, ‘Thinking on Thresholds’ is a pioneering volume. Its broader remit is to examine the functions of transitive spaces in poetic language and mimesis. This includes ways in which narrative and mimetic art address the material and imaginative realities of such spaces; how they are drawn to threshold experience in life, society, and historical practice; and the affinity between the artistic process and the spatial idea of the threshold. Thus, it is cross-historical without being ahistorical, interdisciplinary but methodologically coherent. It also, unusually, muses on the methodologies that the threshold calls for in narrative as well as critical practice.

Why does the position of the threshold exert such a compelling hold on our imaginative lives? Why is it a resonant space, and so urgently the place of writing – the place where one may remain, avoid speaking or naming, yet speak from? Through a combination of case studies and theoretical investigations, this book addresses these questions and speaks to the imaginative power of the threshold as a productive space in literature and art.

The first volume to draw together a significant range of the applications of the ‘threshold’, the book is located naturally on the threshold between disciplines, and alive to the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of education and scholarship. But its particular intervention is mainly literary, whether through an address of literary narratives, or through the use of literary critical analysis, or indeed through acts of criticism that become creative acts. Of this line of enquiry, ‘Thinking on Thresholds’ is a pioneering volume. Its broader remit is to examine the functions of transitive spaces in poetic language and mimesis. This includes ways in which narrative and mimetic art address the material and imaginative realities of such spaces; how they are drawn to threshold experience in life, society, and historical practice; and the affinity between the artistic process and the spatial idea of the threshold. Thus, it is cross-historical without being ahistorical, interdisciplinary but methodologically coherent. It also, unusually, muses on the methodologies that the threshold calls for in narrative as well as critical practice.

In a little over twenty years, New York–-based fashion designer Thome Browne has decisively and permanently changed the fashion industry. Through his clothes that are rooted in America’s distinctive preppie style, he has challenged age-old conventions of tailoring by altering proportions and blurring gender boundaries. The cropped trouser, which has become a staple of people’s wardrobes around the world, owes much to Browne’s pioneering reinterpretation of the suit. Through highly choreographed catwalk shows, he has enlivened the presentation of fashion, creating soulful spectacles that variously critique and cherish common themes in human lives.
Browne’s influence within the fashion industry has been recognised through various awards. The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has named him ‘Menswear Designer of the Year’ on three occasions, in 2006, 2013, and 2016. Since 2023, Browne has served as the CFDA’s Chair. In May 2023, Browne dressed nine celebrities to honour Karl Lagerfeld at the annual gala hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
This book considers Browne’s position as a fashion auteur by focusing on four collections that enable detailed consideration of his innovative clothing designs and catwalk presentations, situating them within their historical and social context and drawing out what makes them distinctive and influential.

In a little over twenty years, New York–-based fashion designer Thome Browne has decisively and permanently changed the fashion industry. Through his clothes that are rooted in America’s distinctive preppie style, he has challenged age-old conventions of tailoring by altering proportions and blurring gender boundaries. The cropped trouser, which has become a staple of people’s wardrobes around the world, owes much to Browne’s pioneering reinterpretation of the suit. Through highly choreographed catwalk shows, he has enlivened the presentation of fashion, creating soulful spectacles that variously critique and cherish common themes in human lives.
Browne’s influence within the fashion industry has been recognised through various awards. The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has named him ‘Menswear Designer of the Year’ on three occasions, in 2006, 2013, and 2016. Since 2023, Browne has served as the CFDA’s Chair. In May 2023, Browne dressed nine celebrities to honour Karl Lagerfeld at the annual gala hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
This book considers Browne’s position as a fashion auteur by focusing on four collections that enable detailed consideration of his innovative clothing designs and catwalk presentations, situating them within their historical and social context and drawing out what makes them distinctive and influential.

Thomas Keneally is known as a best-selling novelist and public figure in his Australian homeland and has also managed a transnational career. He is, however, something of a conundrum in being regularly disparaged by critics and often failing to meet expectations of sales. ‘Thomas Keneally’s Career and the Literary Machine’ explains some of the reasons behind such disparities, focusing in part on his deliberate transition from high-style modernist to ‘journeyman’ entertainer while continuing to write across both modes. 

Reactions to this shift have been framed by critical and cultural investments, and by an idea of the literary career common to both high literary and popular taste. This study examines the complex network that is a career, considering personality traits, authorial agency, agents, editors and shifts in publishing from colonial control to multinational corporations. As such, the study moves across and beyond conventional literary biography and literary history, incorporating aspects of book history and celebrity studies.

In doing so, this book relies on Keneally’s extensive archive, much of it previously unexamined. It shows his ambition to earn his living from writing playing out across three markets, his work in other modes (writing for the stage and screen, travel writing, historical narratives) and the breadth and depth of expressions of his social conscience, including political protest, leading professional associations and work for constitutional reform, the Sydney Olympics, and so on. Keneally is seen as playing a long game across several events rather than honing one specialist skill, a strategy that has sustained for more than 50 years his keenness to live off writing.

After his death Thorstein Veblen was hailed as ‘America’s Darwin and Marx’ and is normally portrayed as the perennial iconoclast. He severely criticised traditional economics and attempted to create an alternative approach based on a much more complex view of human beings. He is one of the most celebrated economists of our age and has been the inspiration for many books; the predatory version of capitalism we now again experience, the phenomenon of studying cultures of consumption and the darker sides of gilded ages can be traced back to Veblen.

A conference in Veblen’s ancestral Norway marked the 150th anniversary of his birth. The aim of the conference was to consolidate Veblen scholarship and evaluate his relevance for the problems of today. This collection offers the results of that endeavour; it is a milestone of Vebleniana which assesses all the most salient aspects of his life and influence. Many of its contributors also push into uncharted territory, examining the man and his work from new and necessary perspectives hitherto ignored by scholarship.

After his death Thorstein Veblen was hailed as ‘America’s Darwin and Marx’ and is normally portrayed as the perennial iconoclast. He severely criticised traditional economics and attempted to create an alternative approach based on a much more complex view of human beings. He is one of the most celebrated economists of our age and has been the inspiration for many books; the predatory version of capitalism we now again experience, the phenomenon of studying cultures of consumption and the darker sides of gilded ages can be traced back to Veblen.

A conference in Veblen’s ancestral Norway marked the 150th anniversary of his birth. The aim of the conference was to consolidate Veblen scholarship and evaluate his relevance for the problems of today. This collection offers the results of that endeavour; it is a milestone of Vebleniana which assesses all the most salient aspects of his life and influence. Many of its contributors also push into uncharted territory, examining the man and his work from new and necessary perspectives hitherto ignored by scholarship.

Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys-Williams, a Congregationalist pastor turned labor organiser and journalist, offers readers a first-hand account of the exciting and confusing events of the Russian revolution from June 1917 to August 1918. Williams, a lifelong defender of the Soviet system, documented his first adventure in Russia at its most chaotic moments. There he formed a lasting impression of what he thought the Soviet system could offer to the world and dedicated the rest of his life to this cause. His account, while sympathetic, reveals to a modern audience the inner working of the Bolshevik Party, life in Petrograd and the countryside, and an optimistic vision of the revolutionary future. 

Through the Russian Revolution by Albert Rhys-Williams, a Congregationalist pastor turned labor organiser and journalist, offers readers a first-hand account of the exciting and confusing events of the Russian revolution from June 1917 to August 1918. Williams, a lifelong defender of the Soviet system, documented his first adventure in Russia at its most chaotic moments. There he formed a lasting impression of what he thought the Soviet system could offer to the world and dedicated the rest of his life to this cause. His account, while sympathetic, reveals to a modern audience the inner working of the Bolshevik Party, life in Petrograd and the countryside, and an optimistic vision of the revolutionary future. 

Examining today’s global politics by linking it to the meditations of a classical Greek philosopher may be counterintuitive to understanding a world in crisis. But for political analysts, policymakers, social media, bloggers, journalists, engaged students, the new influencers, and inquisitive citizens, Thucydides’ ancient wisdom may offer critical insights into detecting the endemic of political fear spreading across global borders. With his help and by applying his framework to six case studies, this book unearths the different facets of fear that define a world in crisis.

Fear is a pervasive term used to describe a group’s or individual’s sense of insecurity, threat, and angst. It identifies other subtle dimensions comprising suspicion, scepticism, wariness, dread, horror, stupefication, and moral panic. These events may arise in the very near future or affect society at some later point, as Thucydides discovered in his analysis. Disaggregating political fear makes us aware of its complexities as the classical Greek writer set out twenty-five centuries ago. Framing his study to today’s fears results in significant ramifications for democracy and rivalries between states. 

Thucydides’ meditations on fear is about six intriguing case studies structuring political fear: national fear which caused the Brexit outcome in the UK; a regional kind fomenting fear of foreigners in Germany’s Saxony state; an ethnic dimension emerging in a Russia fearful of too much in-migration; an individual case of a Japanese artist experiencing angst when caught between adversaries in World War II; fear of interstate relations shaping Australia’s troubled connections to China; and the precariousness of identity as the U.S. began to embrace tribal politics. In all this, can a rejuvenated liberal theory unpacking a heavy dose of tolerance overcome symbolic liberalism and slam the door on ever-mounting political fear?

Examining today’s global politics by linking it to the meditations of a classical Greek philosopher may be counterintuitive to understanding a world in crisis. But for political analysts, policymakers, social media, bloggers, journalists, engaged students, the new influencers, and inquisitive citizens, Thucydides’ ancient wisdom may offer critical insights into detecting the endemic of political fear spreading across global borders. With his help and by applying his framework to six case studies, this book unearths the different facets of fear that define a world in crisis.

Fear is a pervasive term used to describe a group’s or individual’s sense of insecurity, threat, and angst. It identifies other subtle dimensions comprising suspicion, scepticism, wariness, dread, horror, stupefication, and moral panic. These events may arise in the very near future or affect society at some later point, as Thucydides discovered in his analysis. Disaggregating political fear makes us aware of its complexities as the classical Greek writer set out twenty-five centuries ago. Framing his study to today’s fears results in significant ramifications for democracy and rivalries between states. 

Thucydides’ meditations on fear is about six intriguing case studies structuring political fear: national fear which caused the Brexit outcome in the UK; a regional kind fomenting fear of foreigners in Germany’s Saxony state; an ethnic dimension emerging in a Russia fearful of too much in-migration; an individual case of a Japanese artist experiencing angst when caught between adversaries in World War II; fear of interstate relations shaping Australia’s troubled connections to China; and the precariousness of identity as the U.S. began to embrace tribal politics. In all this, can a rejuvenated liberal theory unpacking a heavy dose of tolerance overcome symbolic liberalism and slam the door on ever-mounting political fear?

The book’s importance rests firmly on two strong contributions: Its content and its approach. Its content – delivered in the Judge’s own words – provides audiences with a unique view of many seminal moments in American twentieth-century legal history, including the Supreme Court under Earl Warren, the Watergate controversy, the growth of the Big Law firms, First Amendment litigation, and the Cameras in the Courtroom movement. It closely details the significant changes in law firm culture and the legal profession since the 1960s. It uniquely provides a rare behind-the-scenes account of the Senate Confirmation process for a Federal judicial nominee, at the process of judging on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, what life is like for a Federal judge, and how the court manages its docket. Taken individually, each of one of these insights is worthy of attention – but together in the same book, it is a one-of-a-kind volume.

Employing an innovative approach, the book sits at the crest of a brand new wave of US legal research, which focuses on the role of lower federal courts in shaping the “life” of US law. Biographies of Supreme Court Justices abound and regularly find large audiences for obvious and very good reasons. The personalities and decisions reached by that great institution have a clear impact on the functioning and structure of the United States. However, at the turn of the twenty-first century, legal historians have begun to turn away from the Supreme Court as the exclusive focus of their attention. The latest trends in legal history point to rapidly growing interest in lower court histories, their judges, and the process by which they adjudicate individual cases. While various biographies of lower court judges exist, few meet the breadth and importance of Dyk’s experiences, and none is delivered in the judge’s own words.

The book’s importance rests firmly on two strong contributions: Its content and its approach. Its content – delivered in the Judge’s own words – provides audiences with a unique view of many seminal moments in American twentieth-century legal history, including the Supreme Court under Earl Warren, the Watergate controversy, the growth of the Big Law firms, First Amendment litigation, and the Cameras in the Courtroom movement. It closely details the significant changes in law firm culture and the legal profession since the 1960s. It uniquely provides a rare behind-the-scenes account of the Senate Confirmation process for a Federal judicial nominee, at the process of judging on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, what life is like for a Federal judge, and how the court manages its docket. Taken individually, each of one of these insights is worthy of attention – but together in the same book, it is a one-of-a-kind volume.

Employing an innovative approach, the book sits at the crest of a brand new wave of US legal research, which focuses on the role of lower federal courts in shaping the “life” of US law. Biographies of Supreme Court Justices abound and regularly find large audiences for obvious and very good reasons. The personalities and decisions reached by that great institution have a clear impact on the functioning and structure of the United States. However, at the turn of the twenty-first century, legal historians have begun to turn away from the Supreme Court as the exclusive focus of their attention. The latest trends in legal history point to rapidly growing interest in lower court histories, their judges, and the process by which they adjudicate individual cases. While various biographies of lower court judges exist, few meet the breadth and importance of Dyk’s experiences, and none is delivered in the judge’s own words.

The bulk of the world’s tobacco is produced in low- and middle-income countries. In order to dissuade these countries from implementing policies aimed at curbing tobacco consumption (such as increased taxes, health warnings, advertising bans and smoke-free environments), the tobacco industry claims that tobacco farmers will be negatively affected and that no viable, sustainable alternatives exist. This book, based on original research from three continents, exposes the myths behind these claims.

Since there will be no major reduction in global demand for tobacco leaf in the short to medium term, manipulations of the tobacco industry are what really effect demand for tobacco leaf at the national level. Moreover, tobacco is not the most lucrative crop for small-scale farmers and it imposes serious negative socioeconomic, health and environmental impacts, and economically sustainable alternatives to tobacco exist.

This book counters the myths perpetuated by the industry by identifying the true drivers of demand for tobacco leaf, the sources of farmer vulnerability and dependency on tobacco production and the conditions needed for an economically sustainable transition.

This volume presents the work initiated and executed under the African Tobacco Situational Analyses (ATSA), a recent major public health initiative sponsored by the Canadian government’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Conceived to illuminate the factors that will facilitate the reform of Africa’s major public health policies, this program focused particularly (but not exclusively) on policies concerning tobacco. The results, presented in this book, are an important contribution to the literature on global public health and international development, and comprise the most comprehensive evidence-based analysis of tobacco policy in the African region.

The country-level analyses of this study examine topics such as smoking prevalence, the status of relevant smoking-related policies, and the politics of public health policy reform – as well as the role played by the tobacco industry in each of these key areas. Sitting above these case studies is an overarching conceptual framework, operating with the expressed goal of creating generalizable lessons for the continent as a whole. Thus, ultimately this book permits the reader not only to grasp the depth and complexity of the tobacco situation in each country, but also to draw meaningful conclusions regarding what sort of public health policy reforms have been broadly successful across Africa – and how these successes might be replicated in the future.

‘Tokyo Seven Roses’ is set in Japan during the waning months of WWII and the beginning of the Occupation. It is written as a diary kept from April 1945 to April 1946 by Shinsuke Yamanaka, a fifty-three-year-old fan-maker living in Nezu, part of Tokyo's shitamachi (old-town) district. After the war, Shinsuke learns by chance that the Occupation forces are plotting a nefarious scheme: in order to cut Japan off from its dreadful past, they intend to see that the language is written henceforth using the alphabet. To fight off this unheard-of threat to the integrity of Japanese culture, seven beautiful women – the Seven Roses – take a stand. They include Tomoe, whose husband perished in a B29 raid and whose stepfather has gone mad; Fumiko and Takeko, whose elder sister died in an air raid; Sen, another war widow; Tokiko, who lost her parents and older brother; and Kyoko and Fumiko, whose entire families were wiped out.

The seven, while resentful of Japan's leaders for having lured the country down the path to war and, painfully aware of their own responsibility in being so gullible, hate the United States. They set their sights on three powerful members of the education delegation who have come to finalize official policy regarding the Japanese language. The year portrayed was a bleak and painful time for Japan. Shinsuke's diary, however, is surprisingly cheerful, filled with a wealth of details of ordinary people's openhearted lives. The author draws a lively portrait of Japanese who, despite privation, find relief in laughter.

‘Tokyo Seven Roses’ is set in Japan during the waning months of WWII and the beginning of the Occupation. It is written as a diary kept from April 1945 to April 1946 by Shinsuke Yamanaka, a fifty-three-year-old fan-maker living in Nezu, part of Tokyo's shitamachi (old-town) district. After the war, Shinsuke learns by chance that the Occupation forces are plotting a nefarious scheme: in order to cut Japan off from its dreadful past, they intend to see that the language is written henceforth using the alphabet. To fight off this unheard-of threat to the integrity of Japanese culture, seven beautiful women – the Seven Roses – take a stand. They include Tomoe, whose husband perished in a B29 raid and whose stepfather has gone mad; Fumiko and Takeko, whose elder sister died in an air raid; Sen, another war widow; Tokiko, who lost her parents and older brother; and Kyoko and Fumiko, whose entire families were wiped out.

The seven, while resentful of Japan's leaders for having lured the country down the path to war and, painfully aware of their own responsibility in being so gullible, hate the United States. They set their sights on three powerful members of the education delegation who have come to finalize official policy regarding the Japanese language. The year portrayed was a bleak and painful time for Japan. Shinsuke's diary, however, is surprisingly cheerful, filled with a wealth of details of ordinary people's openhearted lives. The author draws a lively portrait of Japanese who, despite privation, find relief in laughter.

The historical schools of economics have been neglected within the arena of economic theory since the Second World War in favour of the now-dominant classical and neoclassical schools of economic thought. ‘Torkel Aschehoug and Norwegian Economic Thought’ offers a revaluation of the historical-empirical approach to economics that the Norwegian legal theorist and politician Aschehoug became renowned for during the last decades of the nineteenth century up to his death in 1909.

Fasting approaches Aschehoug’s economic thought in relation to his Norwegian colleagues, as well as the dominant international economists of the time. This comparison shows a theoretical affiliation with Gustav von Schmoller, in particular, through Aschehoug’s major work ‘Socialøkonomik’, as well as British economist Alfred Marshall’s marginal theory.

Fasting blends a historical account of the dominant economic models of the late 1800s with a review of contemporary theory through recent economic crises. This work argues that Aschehoug’s ‘Socialøkonomik’ is strikingly relevant to a present-day readership, revealing itself as a work which offers real insight into the reasons for economic collapse.  

The historical schools of economics have been neglected within the arena of economic theory since the Second World War in favour of the now-dominant classical and neoclassical schools of economic thought. ‘Torkel Aschehoug and Norwegian Economic Thought’ offers a revaluation of the historical-empirical approach to economics that the Norwegian legal theorist and politician Aschehoug became renowned for during the last decades of the nineteenth century up to his death in 1909.

Fasting approaches Aschehoug’s economic thought in relation to his Norwegian colleagues, as well as the dominant international economists of the time. This comparison shows a theoretical affiliation with Gustav von Schmoller, in particular, through Aschehoug’s major work ‘Socialøkonomik’, as well as British economist Alfred Marshall’s marginal theory.

Fasting blends a historical account of the dominant economic models of the late 1800s with a review of contemporary theory through recent economic crises. This work argues that Aschehoug’s ‘Socialøkonomik’ is strikingly relevant to a present-day readership, revealing itself as a work which offers real insight into the reasons for economic collapse.  

Love is often called a leap of faith. But can faith be described as a leap of love? In ‘Touching God: Hopkins and Love’, Duc Dau argues that the conversion of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Roman Catholicism was one of his most romantic acts.

‘Touching God’ is the first book devoted to love in the writings of Hopkins, illuminating our understanding of him as a romantic poet. Discussions of desire in Hopkins’ poetry have focused on his tortured and unrequited attraction to men. In contrast, Dau builds on existing queer and conventional readings of the poet’s work by turning to theories of mutual touch propounded by Luce Irigaray and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In the process, she uncovers the desire Hopkins actively cultivated and celebrated: his love for Christ. By analysing Hopkins’ writings alongside his literary, philosophical and theological influences, she demonstrates that this love is what he called ‘eros’ or ‘amor’.

Dau argues that descriptions of the body and its acts of tenderness – notably touching – played a vital role in the poet’s depictions of spiritual eroticism. By forging a new way of reading desire and the body in Hopkins’ writings, this work offers fresh interpretations of his poetry, and contributes to contemporary interest surrounding the relationship between love, sexuality and spirituality.

Love is often called a leap of faith. But can faith be described as a leap of love? In ‘Touching God: Hopkins and Love’, Duc Dau argues that the conversion of Gerard Manley Hopkins to Roman Catholicism was one of his most romantic acts.

‘Touching God’ is the first book devoted to love in the writings of Hopkins, illuminating our understanding of him as a romantic poet. Discussions of desire in Hopkins’ poetry have focused on his tortured and unrequited attraction to men. In contrast, Dau builds on existing queer and conventional readings of the poet’s work by turning to theories of mutual touch propounded by Luce Irigaray and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In the process, she uncovers the desire Hopkins actively cultivated and celebrated: his love for Christ. By analysing Hopkins’ writings alongside his literary, philosophical and theological influences, she demonstrates that this love is what he called ‘eros’ or ‘amor’.

Dau argues that descriptions of the body and its acts of tenderness – notably touching – played a vital role in the poet’s depictions of spiritual eroticism. By forging a new way of reading desire and the body in Hopkins’ writings, this work offers fresh interpretations of his poetry, and contributes to contemporary interest surrounding the relationship between love, sexuality and spirituality.

Boundaries, borders and margins are related concepts and realities, and each of these can be conceptualized and organized in closed or open ways—with degrees of closure or openness. The logics of statis and closure, as well as cults of exclusivist and exclusionary sovereignty, are reflected and embodied in the closed xenophobic conceptualization and organization of boundaries, borders and margins. But, an open conceptualization of the borderlands, where mixing and hybridity take place at a rapid, even dizzying, pace, gives rise to Creolization—at the threshold of sovereignties, as something that can also be imagined.

At present, our border zones are spaces of anxiety-ridden security arrangements, violence and death. The existing politics of boundary maintenance is wedded to a cult of sovereignty at various levels, which produces bare lives, bodies and lands. We need the new art of border-crossing to bedefined by the notion of camaraderie and shared sovereignties and non-sovereignties. Border zones can also be zones of meetings, communication, transcendence and festive celebration of the limits of our identities. Thus, we need a new art and politics of boundary transmutation, transformation and transcendence, in the broadest possible sense, that entails the production of spatial, scalar, somatic, cognitive, affective and spiritual transitions.

Crossing Borders is a powerful theme and metaphor for all of us in the midst of COVID-19 (since 2020) and the current geopolitics of war that is hovering over Eurasia. We need these modes of knowing and being that shun violence; ontologies that are fluid and seeking instead of aggressive, self-certain, arrogant and violent. Amidst this chaos, we need new modes of knowing, or epistemologies, where knowing of, or about, the other is also a festive and artistic process of knowing with the other. We need an artistic ontological-epistemology of participation for a new art of border-crossing where the boundary between ontology and epistemology is continually redrawn with emergent negotiation and creativity.

This book works at the intersection of two related yet different fields. One is the heterogeneous feminist effort to question universal forms of knowing. The expression 'embodiment of knowledge' deploys the notions of time (as history), space (as location) and politics (as partiality of perspective or standpoint) to interrogate the purported universality of knowing. Embodiment is one important concept through which feminist philosophies try to perceive the attempt of questioning the universal. The second field follows from mind/body dichotomy. Embodiment is traditionally understood to involve an act of simple inversion – valorizing the (material) body in place of the mind. However, if meanings are seen to produce the body as 'a system of signification', embodiment gets reduced to another form of the significatory mechanism. The book explored the dynamics of the production of the 'body' with a focus on the 'others' (death, sexual and colonial differences) that fracture and define the notion of the body. An ethical responsibility to the 'others' consonant with this ontologically differentiated body distinguishes this notion of embodiment from standard versions of 'third world feminism'. The development of this notion requires an elaboration of the ways in which power and scientific rationality work (epistemically) in a postcolonial setting. Finally, the book presents the notion of embodied knowledges as inseparable from a deconstructive politics of the (im)possible.

This book works at the intersection of two related yet different fields. One is the heterogeneous feminist effort to question universal forms of knowing. The expression 'embodiment of knowledge' deploys the notions of time (as history), space (as location) and politics (as partiality of perspective or standpoint) to interrogate the purported universality of knowing. Embodiment is one important concept through which feminist philosophies try to perceive the attempt of questioning the universal. The second field follows from mind/body dichotomy. Embodiment is traditionally understood to involve an act of simple inversion – valorizing the (material) body in place of the mind. However, if meanings are seen to produce the body as 'a system of signification', embodiment gets reduced to another form of the significatory mechanism. The book explored the dynamics of the production of the 'body' with a focus on the 'others' (death, sexual and colonial differences) that fracture and define the notion of the body. An ethical responsibility to the 'others' consonant with this ontologically differentiated body distinguishes this notion of embodiment from standard versions of 'third world feminism'. The development of this notion requires an elaboration of the ways in which power and scientific rationality work (epistemically) in a postcolonial setting. Finally, the book presents the notion of embodied knowledges as inseparable from a deconstructive politics of the (im)possible.

In today’s liberal democracies, does the political process focus on the people, or on the political leaders representing them? In ‘Toward Leader Democracy’, Jan Pakulski and András Körösényi argue that there is a trend toward an increasingly pronounced focus on political leaders, or ‘leader democracy’, which is reinforced by the prominence of electronic media, the decline of major parties, the centrality of electoral competitions, and the frequently aggressive actions taken by our political elites. This trend is compatible with predictions made by elite theorists such as Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter, and contradicts the notion of a change towards a democracy that is more ‘direct’, ‘participatory’ and ‘deliberative’. In spite of the concerns voiced by some critics, the model of ‘leader democracy’ is fulfilling the key normative criteria and expectations of democratic rule.

‘Toward Leader Democracy’ explains the shape and the workings of this new form of political action – that is, how it is motivated by the political will, determination and commitment of top politicians, and how it is exercised through mass elite persuasion that actively shapes the preferences of voters so as to give meaning to political processes. Competitive mass-mediated elections are the key elements of this process, providing voters with a sense of dignity by giving them the status of ‘final arbiter’ in leadership contests. As the text reveals, this marks a definite evolution within the world’s ‘advanced democracies’: democratic representation is today realized increasingly through active political leadership, as opposed to the former practices of statistically ‘mirroring’ constituencies, or the deliberative self-adjustment of the executive in accordance with citizen preferences.

In today’s liberal democracies, does the political process focus on the people, or on the political leaders representing them? In ‘Toward Leader Democracy’, Jan Pakulski and András Körösényi argue that there is a trend toward an increasingly pronounced focus on political leaders, or ‘leader democracy’, which is reinforced by the prominence of electronic media, the decline of major parties, the centrality of electoral competitions, and the frequently aggressive actions taken by our political elites. This trend is compatible with predictions made by elite theorists such as Max Weber and Joseph Schumpeter, and contradicts the notion of a change towards a democracy that is more ‘direct’, ‘participatory’ and ‘deliberative’. In spite of the concerns voiced by some critics, the model of ‘leader democracy’ is fulfilling the key normative criteria and expectations of democratic rule.

‘Toward Leader Democracy’ explains the shape and the workings of this new form of political action – that is, how it is motivated by the political will, determination and commitment of top politicians, and how it is exercised through mass elite persuasion that actively shapes the preferences of voters so as to give meaning to political processes. Competitive mass-mediated elections are the key elements of this process, providing voters with a sense of dignity by giving them the status of ‘final arbiter’ in leadership contests. As the text reveals, this marks a definite evolution within the world’s ‘advanced democracies’: democratic representation is today realized increasingly through active political leadership, as opposed to the former practices of statistically ‘mirroring’ constituencies, or the deliberative self-adjustment of the executive in accordance with citizen preferences.

Learning, and hence education, are in turmoil. Traditional learning techniques are challenged by powerful new approaches and insights while students and employers alike put new demands on education. The new insights come from quite different areas of science.

This book aims to provide a future-oriented picture of the various developments culminating in an educated speculation on learning and education in the near future. It has been written for leaders in education, scholars as well as practitioners and policymakers.

Learning will be a central issue in the decades to come. In the words of the recently deceased cultural anthropologist Catherine Bateson: “We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.”

This renewed edition of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, exactly a century after Wittgenstein’s release, presents the text in a hierarchical manner, “which is the way in which the book was composed and in which Wittgenstein arranged (selected and supplemented) the best of the philosophical remarks that he had been writing since 1913” (Peter Hacker). That tree-like reading is recommended by Wittgenstein himself in the sole footnote of his book, in which he suggests that the inner logical structure of the text is set by the decimal numbers of its propositions. “They alone – the Author will add – give the book perspicuity and clearness, and without this numbering it would be an incomprehensible jumble”. Indeed, the compact and intricate sequence of the traditional presentation is only a rigorous logical bet, but only a logical machine or a robot can unravel the tangle: for an ordinary human understanding that does not exploit its numbering, the book remains “an incomprehensible jumble”.

In the present disposition, instead, all horizontal and vertical references become directly manifest and any reader can enjoy the fine architecture and the elegant reasoning of Wittgenstein's work. Every page is an actual reading unit, perfectly coherent and complete. The Tractatus becomes comprehensible also to unskilled readers, of course at more or less deep levels, while a scholar or a more practised reader can detect suggestions and meanings that had remained, until now, completely hidden. A historical note shows in which manner the new structural perspective sheds new light also in the compositional manuscript we have, which “writing units” are very similar, actually, to the pages of the present edition. Besides, this allows to rebuild the list of “Supplements” (here in the Appendix) that Wittgenstein gathered after he roughly finished his manuscript, but that he used very little in the final book.

Printing the Tractatus following Wittgenstein's decimal prescriptions required meticulous philological care and some discretional conventions: for instance, at the top of each page the commented-upon proposition is printed again, to make the sight complete and self-sufficient. On the other hand, some forcing of the text by the translators in their sequential reading could be eliminated, restoring a more literal translation. Also the famous and intriguing picture of the eye and its visual field (5.6331) has been restored as Wittgenstein drafted it, making the entire page perfectly understandable and coherent. This documented and editorial work on one of the most referenced books of the last century was conceived to obtain, and in fact gained, a perspicuous and crystal clear text, philologically faithful and relaxingly readable at the same time.

This renewed edition of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, exactly a century after Wittgenstein’s release, presents the text in a hierarchical manner, “which is the way in which the book was composed and in which Wittgenstein arranged (selected and supplemented) the best of the philosophical remarks that he had been writing since 1913” (Peter Hacker). That tree-like reading is recommended by Wittgenstein himself in the sole footnote of his book, in which he suggests that the inner logical structure of the text is set by the decimal numbers of its propositions. “They alone – the Author will add – give the book perspicuity and clearness, and without this numbering it would be an incomprehensible jumble”. Indeed, the compact and intricate sequence of the traditional presentation is only a rigorous logical bet, but only a logical machine or a robot can unravel the tangle: for an ordinary human understanding that does not exploit its numbering, the book remains “an incomprehensible jumble”.

In the present disposition, instead, all horizontal and vertical references become directly manifest and any reader can enjoy the fine architecture and the elegant reasoning of Wittgenstein's work. Every page is an actual reading unit, perfectly coherent and complete. The Tractatus becomes comprehensible also to unskilled readers, of course at more or less deep levels, while a scholar or a more practised reader can detect suggestions and meanings that had remained, until now, completely hidden. A historical note shows in which manner the new structural perspective sheds new light also in the compositional manuscript we have, which “writing units” are very similar, actually, to the pages of the present edition. Besides, this allows to rebuild the list of “Supplements” (here in the Appendix) that Wittgenstein gathered after he roughly finished his manuscript, but that he used very little in the final book.

Printing the Tractatus following Wittgenstein's decimal prescriptions required meticulous philological care and some discretional conventions: for instance, at the top of each page the commented-upon proposition is printed again, to make the sight complete and self-sufficient. On the other hand, some forcing of the text by the translators in their sequential reading could be eliminated, restoring a more literal translation. Also the famous and intriguing picture of the eye and its visual field (5.6331) has been restored as Wittgenstein drafted it, making the entire page perfectly understandable and coherent. This documented and editorial work on one of the most referenced books of the last century was conceived to obtain, and in fact gained, a perspicuous and crystal clear text, philologically faithful and relaxingly readable at the same time.

Transition in international relations means moving from war to peace, dealing with an economic crisis or changing from one system of government to another. One of the key means by which this occurs is the diplomatic process of bargaining, compromising, settlement or trading. There is, however, a danger that in order to secure political objectives or preferences, negotiators or decision-makers may ‘trade away’ the interests of vulnerable or emerging social forces, sometimes knowingly, more often without due appreciation of the interests at threat.

Trading Women's Rights in Transitions is about how women’s rights are traded away by negotiators directly in exchange for immediate political or other settlements, and indirectly in terms of being left off the international agenda with long-term consequences.

The book provides a heterodox and critical view of the gender politics of transitions, focused on conflict-affected states. Susan Rimmer examines the link between negotiation processes around the globe and outcomes for social groups who struggle to gain access to power, focussing on the rights of women and girls. The struggle between actors in reformist groups can also trade away women’s rights before the agenda with international actors is agreed. The aim of this book is to assess ideas and discourse about the ‘tradeability’ of a group’s rights in states experiencing a seismic transition, such as in Afghanistan or Myanmar. What does diplomacy look like ‘from below’ in these situations?

The essays presented in this volume constitute a progression from general considerations related to the ‘etic’ (in the geertzian sense of the word) approach to South Asian cultural productions, to peculiar and detailed investigations of them. Such a sequence is meant to develop a renovated and systemic approach, through which these specific cultural materials should be interpreted: materials not to be read in isolation, nor with an overemphasised concern for cultural relativity. Rather, they should be viewed as meaningful examples of sophisticated intellectual and cultural procedures to be included into a broader comparative discussion, also in order to increase the quality and the depth of such debate. The studies gathered in this volume are therefore arranged to fit specific South Asian materials into larger analytical frameworks.

Traditional Bone Setting (TBS) has long held prominent sway in African healthcare, particularly in the more remote and pastoral expanses of Africa. This unique interdisciplinary religious, human rights, and sociological study of medicine manuscript is an examination of not only generationally inherited ethnobotanical, pharmacognosy TBS traditions – but also direct observations on how current surgical orthopedic medicine and modern-day social mechanisms clash with traditional healthcare approaches in contemporaneous and inexorable ways.

Trailblazing women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945-1975 offers a compelling new perspective of Australian radio and television history. It chronicles how a group of female producers defied the odds and forged remarkable careers in the traditionally male domain of public-affairs production at the ABC in the post-war decades. Kay Kinane, Catherine King, Therése Denny and Joyce Belfrage were ambitious and resourceful producers, part of the vanguard of Australian broadcasters who used mass media as a vehicle for their social and political activism. Fiercely dedicated to their audiences, they wrote, directed and produced ground-breaking documentaries and current affairs programs that celebrated Australian life, while also challenging its cultural complacency, its racism and sexism. They immersed themselves in the ABC’s many networks of collaboration and initiated a range of strategies to expand their agency and authority. With vivid descriptions of life at the ABC, it traces their careers as they crossed borders and crossed mediums, following them as they worked on location shoots and in production offices, in television studios, control rooms and radio booths. In doing so it highlights the barriers, both official and unofficial, that confronted so many women working in broadcasting after World War II.

Trailblazing women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945-1975 offers a compelling new perspective of Australian radio and television history. It chronicles how a group of female producers defied the odds and forged remarkable careers in the traditionally male domain of public-affairs production at the ABC in the post-war decades. Kay Kinane, Catherine King, Therése Denny and Joyce Belfrage were ambitious and resourceful producers, part of the vanguard of Australian broadcasters who used mass media as a vehicle for their social and political activism. Fiercely dedicated to their audiences, they wrote, directed and produced ground-breaking documentaries and current affairs programs that celebrated Australian life, while also challenging its cultural complacency, its racism and sexism. They immersed themselves in the ABC’s many networks of collaboration and initiated a range of strategies to expand their agency and authority. With vivid descriptions of life at the ABC, it traces their careers as they crossed borders and crossed mediums, following them as they worked on location shoots and in production offices, in television studios, control rooms and radio booths. In doing so it highlights the barriers, both official and unofficial, that confronted so many women working in broadcasting after World War II.

This is a book about the adaptation of Indigenous groups in North America (Mexico, USA, Canada) and their interrelatedness to each other and outside influences over time.

At the end of the 1970s, China was a poor country with a huge population, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. The domestic economy was organized through direct administrative instructions and was isolated from the international economy. After a quarter of a century, China has been transformed beyond imagination. In the course of this transformation, China's policymakers have faced enormous challenges.

The essays in this book address different aspects of those challenges. The 'development' challenge involved devising policies that would raise the mass of the Chinese people out of poverty and avoid the disasters that had, in the worst cases, caused millions of deaths through famine. The 'transition' challenge involved, firstly, resolving the relationship between changes in the economic and political systems; and secondly, finding the correct sequence and nature of reforms necessary to improve economic performance. The 'globalization' challenge involved identifying the best way in which to integrate China’s economic system with the international economy at a time of revolutionary change in the global business system. These essays seek both to enhance understanding of China's immense success in meeting these challenges in the past and to provide an indication of the challenges that still lie ahead. China's system reforms have been described as 'groping for stones to cross the river'. The journey across the river is far from over, and the other bank is only dimly visible.

At the end of the 1970s, China was a poor country with a huge population, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. The domestic economy was organized through direct administrative instructions and was isolated from the international economy. After a quarter of a century, China has been transformed beyond imagination. In the course of this transformation, China's policymakers have faced enormous challenges.

The essays in this book address different aspects of those challenges. The 'development' challenge involved devising policies that would raise the mass of the Chinese people out of poverty and avoid the disasters that had, in the worst cases, caused millions of deaths through famine. The 'transition' challenge involved, firstly, resolving the relationship between changes in the economic and political systems; and secondly, finding the correct sequence and nature of reforms necessary to improve economic performance. The 'globalization' challenge involved identifying the best way in which to integrate China’s economic system with the international economy at a time of revolutionary change in the global business system. These essays seek both to enhance understanding of China's immense success in meeting these challenges in the past and to provide an indication of the challenges that still lie ahead. China's system reforms have been described as 'groping for stones to cross the river'. The journey across the river is far from over, and the other bank is only dimly visible.

Transforming the Politics of Mobility and Migration in Aotearoa New Zealand is an edited collection that explores avenues for transformational epistemologies and practices leading to a more just and ethical politics of mobility and migration. At a time of heightened securitization, rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and populism as well as increasingly exclusionary migration regimes internationally, this book presents a timely intervention. It takes a national case-based approach, focusing on Aotearoa New Zealand, where, over the past two decades, migration policy settings have created a raft of inequities and differential rights between citizens, non- and sub-citizens as well as among immigrants. The Covid-19 pandemic response has both exposed and exacerbated these issues, providing an opportune moment to appraise current policy settings and encourage transformative change.

The collection brings together leading and early career scholars, whose chapters are based on original state of the art research, and insights from practitioners in the migration sector who advocate for migrant rights. The contributors to the book critically analyse how migration management regimes (re-)produce inequities and precarities for and within migrant populations as a starting point for formulating alternative paradigms for the politics of mobility and migration. Collectively, the contributions seek to combine discussions of macro-level political processes with empirically rich insights into the intersections between migration regimes and migrant lives, aspirations and capabilities.

The multidisciplinary contributions to each part engage with the book’s central remit from particular angles (including research on a range of particular migrant populations), lending both breadth and depth to the discussion. While focused on Aotearoa New Zealand, all authors consider their insights in relation to international developments, especially in the Asia Pacific region, settler societies and other Western nations.

The collection aims to advance conceptual knowledge in migration studies and fills a gap in the sparse literature on the politics of migration in Aotearoa New Zealand. While theoretically engaged and of value to the research community, the book also follows recent calls to better communicate the complexities of migration to the public and policy makers with accessible chapters that address a range of issues that will speak to a wide audience.

Do translation theorists observe what translators do and develop theories based on that? Do translators gain ideas and tools from studying theories? Or does it go both ways? Or is it neither, and translation scholars are completely separated from practising translators?

In my own translation practice, academic work, and teaching, I find that translation theories, far from being scary and distant from what I do as a translator on a day-to-day basis, actually provide beneficial concepts and strategies that can help me make translatorial decisions. The work of translators like me, in turn, comes to influence the way academics understand and write about what translators do.

I summarise a wide range of translation theories, from across different time periods and parts of the world, and I then follow this by suggesting ideas that stem from these theoretical concepts and that can be of practical use to translators.

This book contends that the struggle and perseverance of transnational communities occur within and through at least three interrelated dynamic socio-political processes. The first is the pattern in which transnational communities mobilize to access public opportunities. This occurs when communities deal with cross-border and cross-national trajectories. The second relates to transnational community civic mobilization in relation to the prevailing, as well as emerging, socio-political conditions and situations within host and homeland societies, including community encounters and connections with like-minded civic communities. The third concerns immediate local community mobilizations in response, as well as an extension, to existing and emerging local socio-political encounters and connections. Therefore, this work proposes that transnational local, national, and transnational mobilization takes place within the dynamic horizontal processes of mobilizing communities in simultaneously expanding community horizons while preserving community well-being in multiple interrelated contexts.

More significantly, current studies drawing on transnational political sociological frames, as well as public sociopolitical scholarly debates, often consider the relationship between the state and society as inherently hierarchical and oppositional. Such relational and hierarchical conceptions of state–society interactions insist on the idea that formal state structures dominate and often subordinate informal community-oriented socio-political platforms. These top-down institutional priorities and actions limit the horizontal dynamics of transnational communities, including community attempts to balance local, national, and transnational encounters and connections, while avoiding state–society as well as local, national, and transnational extremes. Modern scholarship, thereby, departs from an overemphasis on class distinctions of society, as well as potential class-based interest group mobilizations, as the basis for diverse struggles and perseverance within the dynamics of state–society relations.

Transnational Coupling in the Age of Nation Making during the 19th and 20th Centuries deals with courtships and marriages that transcended national, cultural and linguistic boundaries. It deals with the formation of transnational families and transnational spaces. And, finally, because the historical concept of transnational marriage provides a unique prism through which to view the interconnectedness of societies at their most intimate cultural intersections, it deals with the longstanding, complex cultural relations between France and the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries.

In an effort to address not only why Franco-American marriages occurred but also how and why the dynamics that produced them changed over time, this work examines and compares two transnational marriage patterns in different historical contexts: the first, when wealthy American heiresses married French aristocrats during the second half of the 19th century—a period marked by relatively free transatlantic circulation and mobility—and the second, when borders were far more solidified—during the world wars when French women entered into matrimonial contracts with American soldiers.

The purpose of this work is twofold. In an effort to provide new categories of analysis that place the human experience into broader, more global perspectives, the first is to show how concepts of transnational marriage and courtship allow the historian to move further beyond the analytical frameworks of national histories by forcing the researcher to reconsider the ways in which one thinks about family formation and the permeability of national borders during these different stages of the national project. The second is to challenge underlying assumptions in existing historiographical explanations that those who crossed national borders to couple or to marry did so for purely socio-economic reasons. Nicole Leopoldie contends that such rationalizations are simply too narrow and that at the intersection of cross-cultural encounter and transnational coupling stood a profoundly emotional experience. Therefore, greater analytical considerations need to include both cultural and emotional motivations that were always in the background.

Because the social practices of courtship and marriage became mechanisms through which borders were crossed and new cultural spaces were created, they represent important elements of transnational entanglements. Therefore, rather than examining marriage motivation from the perspective of one society or another, this work seeks to examine instead the ways in which patterns of transnational marriage emerged out of social spaces of cross-cultural encounter between the two societies. In order to identify, map and analyze the transnational spaces that produced marriage during the 19th and 20th centuries, this work draws on descriptions of social events found in the French and American press, travel literature, personal accounts and guest lists. By examining where and how couples met and courted one another, these sources provide an important glimpse into not only transnational social networks and cultural rituals but also the ways in which marriage participants perceived, experienced and interpreted these spaces. In this spatial examination, emotions are employed as a category of analysis rather than a narrative device in order to show how complex cultural meanings within transnational spaces were experienced on personal levels among transnational-marriage participants. Because a variety of emotions manifested in both encounter and representations of the “other,” Leopoldie proposes that othering be further considered as not simply a cultural process, but an emotional one. By drawing on French and American literary works, travel literature and personal accounts found in unpublished and published memoirs, letters and interviews collected by contemporary journalists and oral historians, she argues that even though marriage participants from each of the two patterns conceived of the national and cultural boundaries that separated them in very different ways, attraction to notions of difference provoked important emotional responses and largely remained the driving force of marriage and coupling processes in both historical contexts. By participating in a transnational marriage, participants bound themselves not only to their spouse but also to the culture of that spouse. Motivations for transnational marriage were, therefore, still strategic but were largely based on preconceived notions of what they believed the other culture to be.

Transnational Coupling in the Age of Nation Making during the 19th and 20th Centuries deals with courtships and marriages that transcended national, cultural and linguistic boundaries. It deals with the formation of transnational families and transnational spaces. And, finally, because the historical concept of transnational marriage provides a unique prism through which to view the interconnectedness of societies at their most intimate cultural intersections, it deals with the longstanding, complex cultural relations between France and the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries.

In an effort to address not only why Franco-American marriages occurred but also how and why the dynamics that produced them changed over time, this work examines and compares two transnational marriage patterns in different historical contexts: the first, when wealthy American heiresses married French aristocrats during the second half of the 19th century—a period marked by relatively free transatlantic circulation and mobility—and the second, when borders were far more solidified—during the world wars when French women entered into matrimonial contracts with American soldiers.

The purpose of this work is twofold. In an effort to provide new categories of analysis that place the human experience into broader, more global perspectives, the first is to show how concepts of transnational marriage and courtship allow the historian to move further beyond the analytical frameworks of national histories by forcing the researcher to reconsider the ways in which one thinks about family formation and the permeability of national borders during these different stages of the national project. The second is to challenge underlying assumptions in existing historiographical explanations that those who crossed national borders to couple or to marry did so for purely socio-economic reasons. Nicole Leopoldie contends that such rationalizations are simply too narrow and that at the intersection of cross-cultural encounter and transnational coupling stood a profoundly emotional experience. Therefore, greater analytical considerations need to include both cultural and emotional motivations that were always in the background.

Because the social practices of courtship and marriage became mechanisms through which borders were crossed and new cultural spaces were created, they represent important elements of transnational entanglements. Therefore, rather than examining marriage motivation from the perspective of one society or another, this work seeks to examine instead the ways in which patterns of transnational marriage emerged out of social spaces of cross-cultural encounter between the two societies. In order to identify, map and analyze the transnational spaces that produced marriage during the 19th and 20th centuries, this work draws on descriptions of social events found in the French and American press, travel literature, personal accounts and guest lists. By examining where and how couples met and courted one another, these sources provide an important glimpse into not only transnational social networks and cultural rituals but also the ways in which marriage participants perceived, experienced and interpreted these spaces. In this spatial examination, emotions are employed as a category of analysis rather than a narrative device in order to show how complex cultural meanings within transnational spaces were experienced on personal levels among transnational-marriage participants. Because a variety of emotions manifested in both encounter and representations of the “other,” Leopoldie proposes that othering be further considered as not simply a cultural process, but an emotional one. By drawing on French and American literary works, travel literature and personal accounts found in unpublished and published memoirs, letters and interviews collected by contemporary journalists and oral historians, she argues that even though marriage participants from each of the two patterns conceived of the national and cultural boundaries that separated them in very different ways, attraction to notions of difference provoked important emotional responses and largely remained the driving force of marriage and coupling processes in both historical contexts. By participating in a transnational marriage, participants bound themselves not only to their spouse but also to the culture of that spouse. Motivations for transnational marriage were, therefore, still strategic but were largely based on preconceived notions of what they believed the other culture to be.

’Transnational Crimes in the Americas’ emphasizes the importance of working within public, international organizations to combat transnational crimes. It documents the role of international institutions within the Americas to form a united effort against the proliferation of illicit drugs, human trafficking, weapons trafficking, money laundering and terrorism. Selected nation-states and regions in the Western Hemisphere are highlighted to illustrate how individual countries have tried a domestic policy of interdiction and failed to curtail transnational organized crime. Whether a nation is struggling to maintain public confidence in its institutions, or has substantial resources to combat crime beyond its jurisdiction, transnational crimes present a formidable challenge in the region.

Marshall Lloyd argues in ‘Transnational Crimes in the Americas’ that a regional response is the most viable means to combat transnational crimes. First, he demonstrates that the current Organization of American States (OAS) has led the way to orchestrate a united front against transnational crimes, adapting, modifying and expanding the mission of its existing organs. Moreover, the OAS has achieved some success by incorporating a sustainability model to combat illicit drugs among rural farmers. The analysis indicates that despite financial and institutional obstacles, the organization’s stainability programmes show promise in the global effort to combat drug trafficking in the Americas. 

Finally, Lloyd suggests the formation of a regional criminal court to prosecute the more egregious criminal organizations. Establishing an Inter-American Court of Criminal Justice requires some intrusion upon the sovereign powers of OAS members. Unlike the International Court of Criminal Justice, the jurisdiction of a regional tribunal is well established by existing agreements (both international and regional) that have defined transnational crimes discussed in the book. His ideas are timely, thought-provoking ideas that will have a compelling impact on legal and policy decisions about the role of the OAS and other regional organizations to combat what legal scholars have acknowledged is a crisis among all nation-states.

Explores how nationalist projects in the modern Mediterranean absorbed, reshaped or erased shared intercultural identities, offering five historical case studies from Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Libya

The study of modern Mediterranean history, society and international relations has long featured debates over whether and which of the values, norms and perspectives found in the region are site-specific or cross-cultural. In the past few decades, scholars have offered new understandings of the Mediterranean’s nationalist era in the 19th and 20th centuries by exploring the tension between national and transnational identities. Recent advances by far-right and authoritarian forces in a wide array of Mediterranean states prove that this tension remains of present-day significance and urgency.
Transnational Nationalism in the Mediterranean Sea: Origins and Aftermaths provides a timely, innovative and concise contribution to these ongoing debates. As it is indisputable that numerous Mediterranean sub-regions entered the nationalist era expressing intercultural characteristics, many questions remain to be answered about, first, the repurposing of pre-nationalist shared identities for nation-building causes and, second, attempts by nationalist forces to divide and erase those same shared identities. In the face of these questions, Schumacher argues that methodologies predicated on critiquing crude dyads like East versus West, North versus South, and Europe versus non-Europe are outmoded and present very little utility in policy-minded spaces.
Schumacher proposes that a case-studies approach has better potential to provide both new insights for scholars and actionable information for policymakers. He provides five historical case studies, centred on the national experiences of Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Libya. First, he investigates how Italian nation-building was affected by the Italian peninsula’s pre-unification relations with other Mediterranean locales. Second, he explores the nature of Greekness in the Ottoman world after the emergence of an independent Greek state. Third, he offers a view on how the rise of Turkish nationalism affected the Ottoman role in the Mediterranean Sea. Fourth, he looks at how Lebanon’s colonial and post-colonial history reflects the limits of transnational narratives in nation-building and asserting state sovereignty. Fifth, he examines Libyan nationalists’ attempts to reconcile their country’s desert versus maritime and local versus international identities. The book closes by suggesting that the ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean should lead scholars to question the instrumentality of their work.

In the past years, in a general context featured by anti-migration discourses in immigration countries, sustained economic growth in countries of origin and mobility between migrants’ countries of origin and destination, research on return migration started flourishing.

Return has long been considered the end of a migration cycle. Today, returnees’ continued transnational ties, practices and resources have become increasingly visible. ‘Transnational Return and Social Change’ joins what is now a growing field of research and suggests new ways to understand the dynamics of return migration and the social changes that come along. It pays tribute to the meso-level impacts that follow the practices and resources migrant returnees mobilize across borders. It argues for the need to study the dynamics and impact of return migration by involving also more mundane forms of change, arguing that everyday processes and small-scale changes are as important as the macro-transformations for understanding the societal impact of migration.

This volume thus inquires about the consequences of return for local communities, organizations, social networks and groups, focussing on the changes in social hierarchies, collective identities and cultural capital, norms and knowledge. It presents case studies of migration flows that connect Germany to Turkey, Romania and Ghana, the United Kingdom to Poland, multiple Western countries to Latvia as well as inner-African movements. Against this background, the book contributes new insights into the transnational dynamics of return migration and their societal impact in pluralized societies.

This book addresses several important questions in the fields of modern, comparative, and world literatures. At a time in which “weak theory” and transnationalism are becoming increasingly pressing topics, the volume considers the utility of philosophical logic, literary worlds, and analytic Asian Philosophy to understand world literature. In doing so, it investigates the ways in which Chinese, English, French, and Japanese writers eager to tackle the challenges of modernity gazed both across the Eurasian landmass and back in time to their own traditions.

Transnationalism and Translation in Modern Chinese, English French, and Japanese Literatures contends that world literature consists of many smaller literary worlds that are founded upon and made to conform with the deep-level ontological assumptions of their native tradition. The translation of texts across times and cultures introduces new logical possibilities to literary traditions and the writers who sustain them. Yet each translation also amounts to the creation of a new literary world, in which the ontological assumptions of the original are made to cohere according to the possibilities afforded by the culture into which the text is translated. This clash of ontologies, often overlooked in world literary studies, forms the basis of modern translational literature.

This book presents four comparative case studies. It begins with Ted Hughes’ and Chou-wen Chung’s attempt to make the Bardo Thödol express the desires of an expatriate American-Chinese composer and a rising English poet in the 1950s; passes by Paul Claudel’s and Mishima Yukio’s mid-century adaptations of medieval Nō theatre; looks at Claudel’s and Kuki Shūzō’s efforts to make the poetry of the Kokin Wakashū and premodern Japan accord with the experience of being an expatriate in 1920s Tokyo and Paris; and finishes with Hughes’ and Bei Dao’s endeavours to place themselves as heirs to the traditions of both China and Europe. It is these fortuitous but often ignored points of contact between East and West, ancient and modern, that exemplify the challenges and possibilities of transnationalism, allowing for an innovative new way of comprehending the multidirectional flow of world literature.

This book addresses several important questions in the fields of modern, comparative, and world literatures. At a time in which “weak theory” and transnationalism are becoming increasingly pressing topics, the volume considers the utility of philosophical logic, literary worlds, and analytic Asian Philosophy to understand world literature. In doing so, it investigates the ways in which Chinese, English, French, and Japanese writers eager to tackle the challenges of modernity gazed both across the Eurasian landmass and back in time to their own traditions.

Transnationalism and Translation in Modern Chinese, English French, and Japanese Literatures contends that world literature consists of many smaller literary worlds that are founded upon and made to conform with the deep-level ontological assumptions of their native tradition. The translation of texts across times and cultures introduces new logical possibilities to literary traditions and the writers who sustain them. Yet each translation also amounts to the creation of a new literary world, in which the ontological assumptions of the original are made to cohere according to the possibilities afforded by the culture into which the text is translated. This clash of ontologies, often overlooked in world literary studies, forms the basis of modern translational literature.

This book presents four comparative case studies. It begins with Ted Hughes’ and Chou-wen Chung’s attempt to make the Bardo Thödol express the desires of an expatriate American-Chinese composer and a rising English poet in the 1950s; passes by Paul Claudel’s and Mishima Yukio’s mid-century adaptations of medieval Nō theatre; looks at Claudel’s and Kuki Shūzō’s efforts to make the poetry of the Kokin Wakashū and premodern Japan accord with the experience of being an expatriate in 1920s Tokyo and Paris; and finishes with Hughes’ and Bei Dao’s endeavours to place themselves as heirs to the traditions of both China and Europe. It is these fortuitous but often ignored points of contact between East and West, ancient and modern, that exemplify the challenges and possibilities of transnationalism, allowing for an innovative new way of comprehending the multidirectional flow of world literature.

Transpacific Connections: Literary and Cultural Production by and about Latin American Nikkeijin is a cross-cultural work combining Latin American and Japanese studies. It contains original research on social and cultural relations between Japan and Latin America, ranging from Japanese inspirations in one of the Mexican most renowned poets, Brazilian dekasegi (temporary workers in Japan) described in a variety of testimonials, Japanese community in Brazil and its literary production and a Mexican telenovela, inspired by the Japanese culture to European inspirations in a Nikkei Peruvian writer, Higa Oshiro.

This book is an intellectual, artistic and social journey through Japan, Latin America and Europe, brought by both experienced and promising researchers who have conducted studies, projects and research all over the globe and have worked in multicultural and multilinguistic environments.

Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine is an anthology of travel accounts, by a diverse range of writers and academics. Challenging conventional academic ‘authority’, each contributor writes, from memory during the Covid-19 lockdown, about a place they have previously visited, ‘accompanied’ by an historical traveller who published an account of the same place. As immobility is forced upon us, at least for the immediate future, we have the chance to reflect. Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine presents opportunities to approach a text as a scholar differently. We break with the traditional academic ‘rules’ by inserting ourselves into the narrative and foregrounding the personal, subjective elements of literary scholarship. Each contributor critiques an historical description of a place about which, simultaneously, they write a personal account. 

The travel writer, Philip Marsden, posits a fundamental difference between traditional ‘academic’ writing and travel writing in that travel narratives do not, or ought not anyway, begin by assuming a scholarly authoritative understanding of the places they describe. Instead, they attempt to say what they found and how they felt about it. The very good point we think Marsden makes, and the one this book tries to demonstrate, is that, as a matter of form, the first-person narrative has the ability to expose the research process: to allow the reader to see when and how a scholarly transformation takes place; to give the scholar the opportunity to openly foreground their own subjectivity and say ‘this is the personal journey that led me to my conclusions’; to problematize the unchallenged authority of the scholar. 

Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine challenges the idea of scholarly authority by embracing the subjective nature of research and the first-person element. We address a problematic distance between travel writing practice and travel writing scholarship, in which the latter talks about the former without ever really talking to it. Defining travel writing as a genre has often proved more difficult than it might seem, but Peter Hulme has suggested that it is ethically necessary for the writer to have visited the place described. Hulme asserts that ‘travel writing is certainly literature, but it is never fiction’. If this seems obvious, Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine asks the reader to consider the idea that if visiting the place described is necessary for the writer to claim they have produced a travel account, might it also be necessary, or at least advantageous and valuable, for the writer of a scholarly critique of that account to have done the same.

Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine is an anthology of travel accounts, by a diverse range of writers and academics. Challenging conventional academic ‘authority’, each contributor writes, from memory during the Covid-19 lockdown, about a place they have previously visited, ‘accompanied’ by an historical traveller who published an account of the same place. As immobility is forced upon us, at least for the immediate future, we have the chance to reflect. Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine presents opportunities to approach a text as a scholar differently. We break with the traditional academic ‘rules’ by inserting ourselves into the narrative and foregrounding the personal, subjective elements of literary scholarship. Each contributor critiques an historical description of a place about which, simultaneously, they write a personal account. 

The travel writer, Philip Marsden, posits a fundamental difference between traditional ‘academic’ writing and travel writing in that travel narratives do not, or ought not anyway, begin by assuming a scholarly authoritative understanding of the places they describe. Instead, they attempt to say what they found and how they felt about it. The very good point we think Marsden makes, and the one this book tries to demonstrate, is that, as a matter of form, the first-person narrative has the ability to expose the research process: to allow the reader to see when and how a scholarly transformation takes place; to give the scholar the opportunity to openly foreground their own subjectivity and say ‘this is the personal journey that led me to my conclusions’; to problematize the unchallenged authority of the scholar. 

Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine challenges the idea of scholarly authority by embracing the subjective nature of research and the first-person element. We address a problematic distance between travel writing practice and travel writing scholarship, in which the latter talks about the former without ever really talking to it. Defining travel writing as a genre has often proved more difficult than it might seem, but Peter Hulme has suggested that it is ethically necessary for the writer to have visited the place described. Hulme asserts that ‘travel writing is certainly literature, but it is never fiction’. If this seems obvious, Travel Writing in an Age of Global Quarantine asks the reader to consider the idea that if visiting the place described is necessary for the writer to claim they have produced a travel account, might it also be necessary, or at least advantageous and valuable, for the writer of a scholarly critique of that account to have done the same.

Long popular with a general readership, travel writing has, in the past three decades or so, become firmly established as an object of serious and multi-disciplinary academic inquiry. Few of the scholarly and popular publications that have focused on the nineteenth century have regarded the century as a whole. This broad volume examines the cultural and social aspects of travel writing on Africa, Asia, America, the Balkans and Australasia. An additional key feature of the volume will be its inclusion of different types of traveller. Several types of travellers and travel texts are considered in the collection. The volume includes studies of explorers, missionaries, artists and writers, Romantics and socialists, colonialists and indigenes. It covers, therefore, a range of travels, travellers, and travellers' texts, and aims to establish some of the contexts in which travel took place. This volume is as much about departure points as it is about destinations, revealing the prejudices and precepts of the nineteenth-century traveller.

‘Travellers to the Middle East from Burkhardt to Thesiger’ is a compendious anthology of travellers' writings produced during the high tide of Britain’s involvement in the Middle East. The anthology contains extracts from many of the canonical travel texts of the period, including passages by T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and Robert Byron, as well as many more extracts from both female and male writers. The anthology is also enlivened by the broad geographical span covered, including descriptions of territories in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Arabia and Persia.

Geoffrey Nash’s introduction, notes and background material provide specialist historical analysis and biographical information informed by critical and theoretical perspectives relevant to the genre of travel writing. This anthology will satisfy the growing interest in the study of travel writing, in addition to offering the general reader valuable insights into British perceptions of the Middle East.

‘Travellers to the Middle East from Burkhardt to Thesiger’ is a compendious anthology of travellers' writings produced during the high tide of Britain’s involvement in the Middle East. The anthology contains extracts from many of the canonical travel texts of the period, including passages by T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and Robert Byron, as well as many more extracts from both female and male writers. The anthology is also enlivened by the broad geographical span covered, including descriptions of territories in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Arabia and Persia.

Geoffrey Nash’s introduction, notes and background material provide specialist historical analysis and biographical information informed by critical and theoretical perspectives relevant to the genre of travel writing. This anthology will satisfy the growing interest in the study of travel writing, in addition to offering the general reader valuable insights into British perceptions of the Middle East.

'Travelling Home' provides a detailed analysis of the contribution that the mid twentieth-century 'Walkabout' magazine made to Australia’s cultural history.  Spanning five central decades of the twentieth century (1934-1974), 'Walkabout' was integral to Australia’s sense of itself as a nation. By advocating travel—both vicarious and actual—'Walkabout' encouraged settler Australians to broaden their image of the nation and its place in the Pacific region. In this way, 'Walkabout' explicitly aimed to make its readers feel at home in their country, as well as including a diverse picture of Aboriginal and Pacific cultures. Like National Geographic in the United States, Walkabout presented a cornucopia of images and information that was accessible to a broad readership.

Given its wide availability and distribution, together with its accessible and entertaining content, 'Walkabout' changed how Australia was perceived, and the magazine is recalled with nostalgic fondness by most if not all of its former readers. Many urban readers learnt about Indigenous peoples and cultures through the many articles on these topics, and although these representations now seem dated and at times discriminatory, they provide a lens through which to see how contemporary attitudes about race and difference were defined and negotiated.

Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, 'Travelling Home' engages with key questions in literary, cultural, and Australian studies about national identity and modernity. The book’s diverse topics demonstrate how 'Walkabout' canvassed subtle and shifting fields of representation. Grounded in the archival history of the magazine’s production, the book addresses questions key to Australian cultural history. These include an investigation of middle-brow print culture and the writers who contributed to Walkabout, and the role of 'Walkabout' in presenting diverse and often conflicting information about Indigenous and other non-white cultures. Other chapters examine how popular natural history enabled scientists and readers alike to define an unique Australian landscape, and to debate how a modernising nation could preserve its bush while advocating industrial and agricultural development. While the nation is central to 'Walkabout' magazine’s imagined world, Australia is always understood to be part of the Pacific region in complex ways that included neo-colonialism, and Pacific content was prominent in the magazine. Through complex and nuanced readings of Australian literary and cultural history, 'Travelling Home' reveals how vernacular understandings of key issues in Australia’s cultural history were developed and debated in this accessible and entertaining magazine.

'Travelling Home' provides a detailed analysis of the contribution that the mid twentieth-century 'Walkabout' magazine made to Australia’s cultural history.  Spanning five central decades of the twentieth century (1934-1974), 'Walkabout' was integral to Australia’s sense of itself as a nation. By advocating travel—both vicarious and actual—'Walkabout' encouraged settler Australians to broaden their image of the nation and its place in the Pacific region. In this way, 'Walkabout' explicitly aimed to make its readers feel at home in their country, as well as including a diverse picture of Aboriginal and Pacific cultures. Like National Geographic in the United States, Walkabout presented a cornucopia of images and information that was accessible to a broad readership.

Given its wide availability and distribution, together with its accessible and entertaining content, 'Walkabout' changed how Australia was perceived, and the magazine is recalled with nostalgic fondness by most if not all of its former readers. Many urban readers learnt about Indigenous peoples and cultures through the many articles on these topics, and although these representations now seem dated and at times discriminatory, they provide a lens through which to see how contemporary attitudes about race and difference were defined and negotiated.

Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship, 'Travelling Home' engages with key questions in literary, cultural, and Australian studies about national identity and modernity. The book’s diverse topics demonstrate how 'Walkabout' canvassed subtle and shifting fields of representation. Grounded in the archival history of the magazine’s production, the book addresses questions key to Australian cultural history. These include an investigation of middle-brow print culture and the writers who contributed to Walkabout, and the role of 'Walkabout' in presenting diverse and often conflicting information about Indigenous and other non-white cultures. Other chapters examine how popular natural history enabled scientists and readers alike to define an unique Australian landscape, and to debate how a modernising nation could preserve its bush while advocating industrial and agricultural development. While the nation is central to 'Walkabout' magazine’s imagined world, Australia is always understood to be part of the Pacific region in complex ways that included neo-colonialism, and Pacific content was prominent in the magazine. Through complex and nuanced readings of Australian literary and cultural history, 'Travelling Home' reveals how vernacular understandings of key issues in Australia’s cultural history were developed and debated in this accessible and entertaining magazine.

The book fills a gap since there is no quick reference in comparative law and economics at the moment. The book can be seen as a short introduction to comparative law and economics, a helpful guide to additional reading and a textbook for a short course or seminar. Comparative law and economics is a growing field in the interaction between law, economics and comparative political science. It includes both strands of the traditional literature, namely the role of legal families and microeconomic analysis of legal rules in a comparative perspective.

The book opens with a short introduction about the method and the standard discussion between common law and civil law. It brings in the debate over the legal origins’ theory and its consequences in terms of economic growth. It presents the study of courts at the global level and the importance of comparative judicial politics to stimulate a better understanding of comparative law and economics. The book also covers microeconomic analysis of legal rules with a few applications (titling of property, cost-shifting rules, plea-bargaining) and additional reading recommendations to the reader (for additional examples). The book then focuses on lawyering, with an emphasis on varying regulation of the legal profession around the world. The book concludes with a short summary of possible research developments in the next few years, namely behavioral and empirical advancements.

The book fills a gap since there is no quick reference in comparative law and economics at the moment. The book can be seen as a short introduction to comparative law and economics, a helpful guide to additional reading and a textbook for a short course or seminar. Comparative law and economics is a growing field in the interaction between law, economics and comparative political science. It includes both strands of the traditional literature, namely the role of legal families and microeconomic analysis of legal rules in a comparative perspective.

The book opens with a short introduction about the method and the standard discussion between common law and civil law. It brings in the debate over the legal origins’ theory and its consequences in terms of economic growth. It presents the study of courts at the global level and the importance of comparative judicial politics to stimulate a better understanding of comparative law and economics. The book also covers microeconomic analysis of legal rules with a few applications (titling of property, cost-shifting rules, plea-bargaining) and additional reading recommendations to the reader (for additional examples). The book then focuses on lawyering, with an emphasis on varying regulation of the legal profession around the world. The book concludes with a short summary of possible research developments in the next few years, namely behavioral and empirical advancements.

This book deals with a new set of triangular orthogonal functions, which evolved from the set of well-known block pulse functions (BPF), a major member of the piecewise constant orthogonal function (PCOF) family. Unlike PCOF, providing staircase solutions, this new set of triangular functions provides piecewise linear solution with less mean integral squared error (MISE).

After introducing the rich background of PCOF family, which includes Walsh, block pulse and other related functions, fundamentals of the newly proposed set – such as basic properties, function approximation, integral operational metrics, etc. – are presented. This set has been used for integration of functions, analysis and synthesis of dynamic systems and solution of integral equations. The study ends with microprocessor based simulation of SISO control systems using sample-and-hold functions and Dirac delta functions.

Vladimir Voinovich’s Tribunal: A Courtly Comedy in Three Acts is a wildly satiric send-up of the 1960s/1970s Soviet show-trials by one of the most famous Soviet dissidents, who was also sometimes called 20th Century Russia’s ‘greatest living satirist.’ Based upon his reaction to the Sinyavski/Daniel trial in 1966, which caused him to begin to write scathingly critical letters to Premier Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet Writer’s Union and finally resulted in his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1981, Voinovich’s Tribunal is a monument to the Soviet dissidents of the Cold War period and a sardonic critique of the censorship and persecution of dissident writers everywhere. Following in the classical tradition of the theatre of the absurd that stretches from Aristophanes to Sartre, Frisch, and Havel, Voinovich’s comedy describes the black humoresque high jinks and wildly outrageous shenanigans that dizzily unfold when an unsuspecting couple of Soviet citizens, Senya and Larissa Suspectnikoff, clutching their free tickets in their innocent hands, walk into a crowded theatre, expecting to watch a Chekhovian comedy, only to become caught up in the sinister machinations of this Soviet criminal tribunal and its madcap version of the Moscow show trials. 

When The Suspectnikoffs arrive at the theater, they are surprised to find that the stage-sets for this curious theatrical production strangely resemble the precincts of a Soviet criminal justice tribunal, complete with tables and benches for The Prosecutor and The Public Defender and a wild beast-cage for The Defendant. There is also a Greek statue of The Goddess of Justice, Themis, who holds in her outstretched hand the wavering scales of Soviet justice, with on one pan, a hammer-&-sickle, and on the other, a Kalashnikoff. After a few uneasy moments while the stagehands put the props in place, The Bard strolls on stage and strums a few tunes on his guitar, in the futile attempt to set the audience at ease. But from outside the theater come the frightening sounds of screaming police-sirens and the flashing red-and-blue lights of an automobile cortege rushing past at great speeds; and when the hysterical rush of the speeding automobiles has passed, The Tribunal Members (The Chairman, The Secretary, and The Prosecutor, et al.) appear from the wings, strutting onstage in a burlesque chorus-line to the accompaniment of thunderous canned applause. And after this chorus-line of Communist Party bureaucrats has taken their places in the theater, the spectators are chilled to watch as black-clad security-police with submachine-guns appear at the theater-doors, blocking all the exits; and they discover, to their dismay, that they have become the captive audience in a mock-up version of a Stalinist show-trial. And so the third wall falls on this courtly theater, blurring the distinction between fiction and fact, falsehood and truth, nightmare and reality, as Voinovich describes the plight of Soviet citizens held hostage in the strange atmosphere of delirium and unreality that was characteristic of the declining and falling Soviet Union during stagnant chill of the 1970s Brezhnev years.

After a few more uneasy moments, Larissa stands up and whispers: “Senya, I don’t understand what’s going on here! Why are there so many people with guns?” To which Senya replies: “Oh, calm down, Lara! Why are you so nervous? It’s just a show!” The Suspectnikoffs do not realize that by questioning this sinister tribunal, they are destined to become the defendants in a Soviet show-trial. But the show-trial must go on! And as The Chairman says, “Where there’s a show-trial, you know, we need somebody to try!” Senya protests his innocence and attempts to get away. But protestations of innocence have no bearing on these proceedings. And by the end of Act I Scene 1, Senya has been arrested and placed in the defendant’s cage, while his faithful wife, Larissa, still stands behind her man, pleading for his release without quite believing in either his guilt or his innocence. And so Vladimir Voinovich’s Tribunal: A Courtly Comedy in Three Acts also goes on, wavering dizzily between the extremes of sardonic comic bathos and seriocomic tragedy, until Suspectnikoff finally becomes a world-famous dissident, calling upon the world’s leaders of to rise to his defense and inspiring protest movements in the Western democracies. But is Suspectnikoff to be admired for his heroic posturing? Or has he simply submitted to the pressures of the Western media to play the stereotyped role of The Soviet Dissident, who then becomes a pawn in the sinister spy-games of the Cold War superpower standoff between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R? The staggering climax of this absurdist melodrama leaves these difficult questions suspended in doubt as Suspectnikoff is dragged offstage and the stage-curtain falls on the whole cast of characters and the no-longer-innocent spectators of Tribunal: A Courtly Comedy in Three Acts.

Vladimir Voinovich’s Tribunal: A Courtly Comedy in Three Acts is a wildly satiric send-up of the 1960s/1970s Soviet show-trials by one of the most famous Soviet dissidents, who was also sometimes called 20th Century Russia’s ‘greatest living satirist.’ Based upon his reaction to the Sinyavski/Daniel trial in 1966, which caused him to begin to write scathingly critical letters to Premier Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet Writer’s Union and finally resulted in his expulsion from the Soviet Union in 1981, Voinovich’s Tribunal is a monument to the Soviet dissidents of the Cold War period and a sardonic critique of the censorship and persecution of dissident writers everywhere. Following in the classical tradition of the theatre of the absurd that stretches from Aristophanes to Sartre, Frisch, and Havel, Voinovich’s comedy describes the black humoresque high jinks and wildly outrageous shenanigans that dizzily unfold when an unsuspecting couple of Soviet citizens, Senya and Larissa Suspectnikoff, clutching their free tickets in their innocent hands, walk into a crowded theatre, expecting to watch a Chekhovian comedy, only to become caught up in the sinister machinations of this Soviet criminal tribunal and its madcap version of the Moscow show trials. 

When The Suspectnikoffs arrive at the theater, they are surprised to find that the stage-sets for this curious theatrical production strangely resemble the precincts of a Soviet criminal justice tribunal, complete with tables and benches for The Prosecutor and The Public Defender and a wild beast-cage for The Defendant. There is also a Greek statue of The Goddess of Justice, Themis, who holds in her outstretched hand the wavering scales of Soviet justice, with on one pan, a hammer-&-sickle, and on the other, a Kalashnikoff. After a few uneasy moments while the stagehands put the props in place, The Bard strolls on stage and strums a few tunes on his guitar, in the futile attempt to set the audience at ease. But from outside the theater come the frightening sounds of screaming police-sirens and the flashing red-and-blue lights of an automobile cortege rushing past at great speeds; and when the hysterical rush of the speeding automobiles has passed, The Tribunal Members (The Chairman, The Secretary, and The Prosecutor, et al.) appear from the wings, strutting onstage in a burlesque chorus-line to the accompaniment of thunderous canned applause. And after this chorus-line of Communist Party bureaucrats has taken their places in the theater, the spectators are chilled to watch as black-clad security-police with submachine-guns appear at the theater-doors, blocking all the exits; and they discover, to their dismay, that they have become the captive audience in a mock-up version of a Stalinist show-trial. And so the third wall falls on this courtly theater, blurring the distinction between fiction and fact, falsehood and truth, nightmare and reality, as Voinovich describes the plight of Soviet citizens held hostage in the strange atmosphere of delirium and unreality that was characteristic of the declining and falling Soviet Union during stagnant chill of the 1970s Brezhnev years.

After a few more uneasy moments, Larissa stands up and whispers: “Senya, I don’t understand what’s going on here! Why are there so many people with guns?” To which Senya replies: “Oh, calm down, Lara! Why are you so nervous? It’s just a show!” The Suspectnikoffs do not realize that by questioning this sinister tribunal, they are destined to become the defendants in a Soviet show-trial. But the show-trial must go on! And as The Chairman says, “Where there’s a show-trial, you know, we need somebody to try!” Senya protests his innocence and attempts to get away. But protestations of innocence have no bearing on these proceedings. And by the end of Act I Scene 1, Senya has been arrested and placed in the defendant’s cage, while his faithful wife, Larissa, still stands behind her man, pleading for his release without quite believing in either his guilt or his innocence. And so Vladimir Voinovich’s Tribunal: A Courtly Comedy in Three Acts also goes on, wavering dizzily between the extremes of sardonic comic bathos and seriocomic tragedy, until Suspectnikoff finally becomes a world-famous dissident, calling upon the world’s leaders of to rise to his defense and inspiring protest movements in the Western democracies. But is Suspectnikoff to be admired for his heroic posturing? Or has he simply submitted to the pressures of the Western media to play the stereotyped role of The Soviet Dissident, who then becomes a pawn in the sinister spy-games of the Cold War superpower standoff between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R? The staggering climax of this absurdist melodrama leaves these difficult questions suspended in doubt as Suspectnikoff is dragged offstage and the stage-curtain falls on the whole cast of characters and the no-longer-innocent spectators of Tribunal: A Courtly Comedy in Three Acts.

There are many books on screenwriting that suggest to writers there are “secrets of Hollywood” and guaranteed formulas for success. The implication is that with the right recipe and a little luck any student can whip out the script that will provide that triumphant red carpet walk toward financial success and global appreciation. It is rare for a book to tell aspiring writers that they may already know the secret of great stories nestled in their own experience: the people they encounter in life, their observations of events, and their personal reactions to them. The intentions of this book is to provide for the creativity writers already have, to help them see the stories waiting to be recognized, recovered, and shaped into the scripts of visual narrative. While the emphasis of this book is on creating scripts intended for production of moving image media, the guide can be adapted to the creativity of various types of storytellers working in a variety of media. One of the needs for art is the mirror, a reflection of human existence and what is glorious, tragic, wonderful, and funny about life. In an age of “post-truth,” where derivative and grotesquely bogus stories are abundant, globally networked, and digitally streamed, this book examines what it means to both artists and audiences when the mirror is consistently distorted, inaccurate, and biased. The book offers a guide for finding authenticity in fictional narrative, regardless of genre or form. The book is intended as a compass for writers to better understand and confront the truths they want to reveal through narrative stories and how to find legitimacy in the fictional characters and situations they create. One element that sets this book apart from others is the use of storyboarding to explain ideas. There are many books that teach fundamentals of writing and producing for the screen, promising the reader great success through formula. This book is a guide for writers in finding their own creative voice.

There are many books on screenwriting that suggest to writers there are “secrets of Hollywood” and guaranteed formulas for success. The implication is that with the right recipe and a little luck any student can whip out the script that will provide that triumphant red carpet walk toward financial success and global appreciation. It is rare for a book to tell aspiring writers that they may already know the secret of great stories nestled in their own experience: the people they encounter in life, their observations of events, and their personal reactions to them. The intentions of this book is to provide for the creativity writers already have, to help them see the stories waiting to be recognized, recovered, and shaped into the scripts of visual narrative. While the emphasis of this book is on creating scripts intended for production of moving image media, the guide can be adapted to the creativity of various types of storytellers working in a variety of media. One of the needs for art is the mirror, a reflection of human existence and what is glorious, tragic, wonderful, and funny about life. In an age of “post-truth,” where derivative and grotesquely bogus stories are abundant, globally networked, and digitally streamed, this book examines what it means to both artists and audiences when the mirror is consistently distorted, inaccurate, and biased. The book offers a guide for finding authenticity in fictional narrative, regardless of genre or form. The book is intended as a compass for writers to better understand and confront the truths they want to reveal through narrative stories and how to find legitimacy in the fictional characters and situations they create. One element that sets this book apart from others is the use of storyboarding to explain ideas. There are many books that teach fundamentals of writing and producing for the screen, promising the reader great success through formula. This book is a guide for writers in finding their own creative voice.

This volume addresses the current configuration of democratic politics in South Asia from a cross-disciplinary perspective. The essays seek to examine the larger questions of how democratic values are embedded in social and political institutions, and how localised and everyday political values inform the multiple ways in which democracy is understood and practised. One of the strengths of this collection is the fact that it does not seek to provide answers to these questions from within one academic discipline only, but rather brings together scholars with backgrounds in a variety of social science disciplines and the humanities.

A number of allied questions and engaging debates emerge throughout the book. How may we distinguish between democracy’s formal and less-than-formal dimensions in the context of South Asia? How do notions of kinship, kingship and community tie in with larger processes of democratic politics and deepening political mobilisation? How do people construe the political in a context where the sphere of the religious seemingly seamlessly overlaps with the political, where the political cannot be separated from the social, and where the boundaries between state and society are blurred? How do people practically engage with the political and with democratic processes at a local level – and what might democracy mean in the vernacular?

What place does Turkey occupy in the world today? Is it a bridge between Asia and Europe, or a bridgehead? Is Turkey part of Europe? In spite of the fine sentiments of Brussels and the desire displayed by all Turkish administrations for the past 15 years to become part of the EU, a game of bluff seems to be unfolding, marked by postponements, hesitations and unspoken agenda. But this bureaucratic approach masks other pressing issues such as the question of military power, Islam, the Kurdish questions, Cyprus and immigration. In the context of these issues, the Turkish question serves to cast the spotlight on new challenges for Europe: where should the frontiers of Europe be drawn? What is the place of Islam in it? What is the best way to deal with minorities? The spectrum of authoritative analyses in this vital new book demonstrates that Turkey presents, to an enlarged Europe, the image of its own contradictions, but also its ambitions.

What place does Turkey occupy in the world today? Is it a bridge between Asia and Europe, or a bridgehead? Is Turkey part of Europe? In spite of the fine sentiments of Brussels and the desire displayed by all Turkish administrations for the past 15 years to become part of the EU, a game of bluff seems to be unfolding, marked by postponements, hesitations and unspoken agenda. But this bureaucratic approach masks other pressing issues such as the question of military power, Islam, the Kurdish questions, Cyprus and immigration. In the context of these issues, the Turkish question serves to cast the spotlight on new challenges for Europe: where should the frontiers of Europe be drawn? What is the place of Islam in it? What is the best way to deal with minorities? The spectrum of authoritative analyses in this vital new book demonstrates that Turkey presents, to an enlarged Europe, the image of its own contradictions, but also its ambitions.

‘Turkey’s Water Diplomacy’ first delineates the institutional and legal foundations of transboundary water policy-making in Turkey. In doing so, major actors of water diplomacy at national, regional and international levels are identified and scrutinized. Specific attention is paid to the evolution of transboundary water politics in the Euphrates–Tigris river basin since Turkish water diplomacy and its basic principles have been largely shaped through practices in this strategically important river basin. Situated at the crossroads of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Europe as the country is, Turkey’s transboundary water policy has also been shaped by geographical determinants. Interestingly, Turkey has reflected her experience in one region (i.e., Europe) on practices in other regions. ‘Turkey’s Water Diplomacy’ analyses how Turkey’s harmonization with the European Union has impacted the transboundary water policy discourses and practices, and how these changes have been reflected in its relations with its Middle Eastern neighbours. A historical account of transboundary water relations in the ET basin is enriched with the analysis of the current state of affairs in the region, such as the Syrian civil war and its repercussions on water issues.

It is striking that Turkey was one of the three countries that rejected the UN Watercourses Convention in 1997. The book elaborates on the reasons why Turkey voted against the UN Watercourses Convention. Yet, since the voting of the convention in 1997, there have been changes in Turkey’s stance vis-à-vis international water law, which the book examines and focuses on.

Turkey’s water diplomacy embodies complex water management problems, which can be best understood as a product of competition, feedback and interconnection among natural and societal variables in a political context. Hence, the book adopts the Water Diplomacy Framework with its key elements in making policy-relevant recommendations specifically for Turkey’s water diplomacy.

‘Turkey’s Water Diplomacy’ first delineates the institutional and legal foundations of transboundary water policy-making in Turkey. In doing so, major actors of water diplomacy at national, regional and international levels are identified and scrutinized. Specific attention is paid to the evolution of transboundary water politics in the Euphrates–Tigris river basin since Turkish water diplomacy and its basic principles have been largely shaped through practices in this strategically important river basin. Situated at the crossroads of the Middle East, the Caucasus and Europe as the country is, Turkey’s transboundary water policy has also been shaped by geographical determinants. Interestingly, Turkey has reflected her experience in one region (i.e., Europe) on practices in other regions. ‘Turkey’s Water Diplomacy’ analyses how Turkey’s harmonization with the European Union has impacted the transboundary water policy discourses and practices, and how these changes have been reflected in its relations with its Middle Eastern neighbours. A historical account of transboundary water relations in the ET basin is enriched with the analysis of the current state of affairs in the region, such as the Syrian civil war and its repercussions on water issues.

It is striking that Turkey was one of the three countries that rejected the UN Watercourses Convention in 1997. The book elaborates on the reasons why Turkey voted against the UN Watercourses Convention. Yet, since the voting of the convention in 1997, there have been changes in Turkey’s stance vis-à-vis international water law, which the book examines and focuses on.

Turkey’s water diplomacy embodies complex water management problems, which can be best understood as a product of competition, feedback and interconnection among natural and societal variables in a political context. Hence, the book adopts the Water Diplomacy Framework with its key elements in making policy-relevant recommendations specifically for Turkey’s water diplomacy.

Have neoliberal policies truly yielded beneficial effects for India? ‘Two Decades of Market Reform in India’ presents a collection of essays that challenge the conventional wisdom of Indian market reforms, examining the effects of neoliberal policies enacted by the Indian government and exploding the myths that surround them.

The volume addresses three key areas. Firstly, it investigates how the high growth rate of the Indian economy has made it uneven, vulnerable and liable to poor employment generation and agrarian crises. The text refutes the hypothesis that growth in India has been driven by domestic factors, and argues against the notion that the Indian economy has remained unaffected by the global economic meltdown. The volume also investigates the reduced demand for food grain during the reform period, questioning whether it was indeed a result of increased income, as suggested by the government, or rather a consequence of increasing poverty and agrarian crisis. [NP]Secondly, the text counters the neoliberal myth that a fiscal deficit is essentially bad, and examines how the government’s focus on preventing a deficit caused a large-scale decline in development expenditures, which in turn had a negative impact on the well-being of the poor. Finally, the volume also argues that there is no evidence that supports denationalization as an effective way to reduce fiscal deficit, as the public sector, it argues, is not necessarily less efficient than the private sector.

Striving to hold India’s market reforms – and those responsible for their implementation – to account, ‘Two Decades of Market Reform in India’ bravely shines a light on the true implications of India’s neoliberal governmental policies. With its rich and insightful analysis, it provides a revealing indication of how policy reform since 1991 has, at times, detrimentally affected the Indian populace, and will serve as an invaluable resource for students, professionals, activists and policymakers interested in the socioeconomic future of the country. 

Have neoliberal policies truly yielded beneficial effects for India? ‘Two Decades of Market Reform in India’ presents a collection of essays that challenge the conventional wisdom of Indian market reforms, examining the effects of neoliberal policies enacted by the Indian government and exploding the myths that surround them.

The volume addresses three key areas. Firstly, it investigates how the high growth rate of the Indian economy has made it uneven, vulnerable and liable to poor employment generation and agrarian crises. The text refutes the hypothesis that growth in India has been driven by domestic factors, and argues against the notion that the Indian economy has remained unaffected by the global economic meltdown. The volume also investigates the reduced demand for food grain during the reform period, questioning whether it was indeed a result of increased income, as suggested by the government, or rather a consequence of increasing poverty and agrarian crisis. [NP]Secondly, the text counters the neoliberal myth that a fiscal deficit is essentially bad, and examines how the government’s focus on preventing a deficit caused a large-scale decline in development expenditures, which in turn had a negative impact on the well-being of the poor. Finally, the volume also argues that there is no evidence that supports denationalization as an effective way to reduce fiscal deficit, as the public sector, it argues, is not necessarily less efficient than the private sector.

Striving to hold India’s market reforms – and those responsible for their implementation – to account, ‘Two Decades of Market Reform in India’ bravely shines a light on the true implications of India’s neoliberal governmental policies. With its rich and insightful analysis, it provides a revealing indication of how policy reform since 1991 has, at times, detrimentally affected the Indian populace, and will serve as an invaluable resource for students, professionals, activists and policymakers interested in the socioeconomic future of the country. 

This book explores the philosophy of economic forecasting under uncertainty. In economics the extreme events are difficult and often impossible to predict, especially when leaning upon the past only. Events can be approximately evaluated, as they may be sudden and erratic. The presentation of programs for years ahead is of little value because the uncertainty intervals expand when economic volatility increases, forming uncertainty bands. This book presents the effect of an expanding uncertainty band.

This book reasons that the economic system has sensitivity thresholds - critical states of economic processes at which they significantly alter their characteristics. In those critical states, economic phase transitions may occur. A slowdown in economic growth, especially a tangible recession, can result in negative qualitative changes in the economy, which can have a long-term impact. As in medicine, in economics, the diagnosis must not be rigid and permanent. Vital indicators could and will change throughout therapy. A rigid forecast resulting in an attempt to ensure the rigid stability of indicators is dangerous and fraught with irreparable economic losses.

To solve the issue of inflexible programs, this book presents the minimal uncertainty interval. This method is to open a logical path from the predicament of explaining its quantitatively precise indefinability of the indicators. The aim is to contribute to the flexible and realistic concept about possible dynamics of economic processes with interval forecasts and probabilistic evaluations of those events’ outcomes. It is indicated that exiting the allowable intervals of regulatory indicators contributes to the emergence of economic diseases. This book tries to explore and systematize economic diseases, presents the factors that affect forecast efficiency, and makes the forecast satisfactory. Based on the systematization of the conducted research, this book formulates the ten principles of forecasting, which are necessary for forecasting the economic processes and decision-making under uncertainty.

Charles Edward Russell was a major intellectual and political figure of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century United States. As a very well-known American radical, he published many books on the US economy, the condition of workers, social issues, and other subjects. He was an active member of the American socialist movement before 1917, but when the US entered the war in 1917 he moved to support the US war effort, something many radicals had still opposed. When President Woodrow Wilson was preparing a special delegation to Russia in the summer of 1917, he added Russell to the delegation in an effort to include a radical at a time when the Russian Provisional Government was increasingly socialist.

Russell was the only delegation member to write an account of his trip, and he hurried to get it published by early 1918. He managed to communicate the complexity of the situation in 1917 Russia and inform readers about some of the leaders who were not well recognized abroad. He provided an optimistic view of the revolution, Russia’s future, and how it might have a significant positive effect on change in the United States."

Charles Edward Russell was a major intellectual and political figure of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century United States. As a very well-known American radical, he published many books on the US economy, the condition of workers, social issues, and other subjects. He was an active member of the American socialist movement before 1917, but when the US entered the war in 1917 he moved to support the US war effort, something many radicals had still opposed. When President Woodrow Wilson was preparing a special delegation to Russia in the summer of 1917, he added Russell to the delegation in an effort to include a radical at a time when the Russian Provisional Government was increasingly socialist.

Russell was the only delegation member to write an account of his trip, and he hurried to get it published by early 1918. He managed to communicate the complexity of the situation in 1917 Russia and inform readers about some of the leaders who were not well recognized abroad. He provided an optimistic view of the revolution, Russia’s future, and how it might have a significant positive effect on change in the United States."

Undisciplined is concerned with questions of the transformative effects of crisis in architecture as a discipline. This concern is addressed through the critical examination of a hybrid body of practice-based work, which, although founded on the discipline of architecture, results from its contingent amalgamation with other fields, including contemporary art, politics, and theory. The book reflects on projects developed in contexts of profound sociopolitical instability (i.e., corruption, violence, poverty, and exile), including informal settlements in Venezuela that provide the background to the discussion of projects undertaken elsewhere. In this process, the book interrogates the volatility of the crisis refrain, articulating a framework to propose an undisciplined form of architectural and spatial practice. 

This framework not only advocates for working across different fields, but also, for practicing rebelliously and nomadically. To practice rebelliously is to exercise the practice of architecture as an act of resistance. In other words, it is to engage with the problem of space from a skeptical point of view, defying architecture’s entrenched structures of power and questioning its notions of authority, expertise, and specialization. Likewise, to practice nomadically suggests the condition of being constantly on the move, not only physically but also intellectually. It is the quality of practicing architecture as anything but as an architectural expert, drawing from experience working in overlooked social and cultural contexts, and infiltrating disciplinary fields located in its periphery. 

As such, Undisciplined questions pre-established disciplinary categories and develops unorthodox methodologies that facilitate the construction of new and increasingly necessary architectural narratives. The book provides examples of such narratives, including speculative and realized projects that illustrate this claim. These examples also provide evidence of how an undisciplined approach is necessary, especially in times when the precepts established by architecture’s intelligentsia and some of its associated structures of disciplinary control need to be questioned and challenged. 

Unfinished Austen is a scholarly monograph which examines four texts left incomplete by Jane Austen: Catharine, or the Bower (1792–-3), Lady Susan (1795?), The Watsons (1803–-4?) and Sanditon (1817). None was published till well after her death. They have never received nearly as much attention as the six novels that appeared between 1811 and 1817, and this is the first study to examine them in detail, and in relation to each other.

These unfinished texts are fascinating for several reasons. Since very little in manuscript form survives from the six famous novels, these four manuscript texts offer insight into the novelist in the process of creation. All of them feature alterations that show Jane Austen refining her language and demonstrating the orientation of her thinking. The unfinished works also problematize the romance plot salient in the published novels by presenting this in a nebulous or incipient state that underlines its artificiality. In doing so, these texts sometimes draw attention to how the romance plot is inflected by the financial condition in which young marriageable women can find themselves. 

Notable as well is the four texts’ handling of place and setting, which become especially prominent in The Watsons and Sanditon. The Watsons creates superbly the life of a small-town family at the edges of gentility, while Sanditon portrays a small seaside town being developed into a tourist resort—a new trend in Austen’s day. Moreover, the stories (other than Catharine) have aroused the interest of many later writers—including writers for theatre and screen—who are eager to complete or to amplify them. Developments on screen include Whit Stillman’s Love and Friendship (which is actually based on Austen’s Lady Susan), and Andrew Davies’s recent continuation of Sanditon. Completions may develop the stories to some kind of dénouement. Perhaps more intriguingly, however, these texts induce some writers to question the very enterprise of concluding an unfinished text.

“Unhomely Cinema” explores how the unhomely nature of contemporary film narrative provides an insight into what it means to dwell in today’s global societies. Drawing from Freud’s concept of the uncanny – that frightful and inexplicable experience of the home as foreign and strange – the unhomely speaks to the spatial dislocation, transience, homelessness and disempowerment symptomatic of contemporary global societies.

While uncanny homes are traditionally associated with the science fiction and horror genres, “Unhomely Cinema” shows how an array of film genres – from Michel Gondry’s comedy “Be Kind Rewind” to Laurent Cantet’s eerie suspense thriller “Time Out” – use the figure of the precarious home to engage with some of the most pertinent social and cultural issues involved in the question of “making home.”

Encounters with the unhomely often result in the painful loss of home, but the unhomely can also offer an ethics of dwelling, whereby the impossibility of narrative closure represents new and more hopeful ways of dwelling in the world.

Universality and Utopia explores the intersection between philosophical universalism and revolutionary politics in twentieth-century Peruvian indigenista literature. It traces a tradition of thought whose basic tenets originate in the philosophical works of José Carlos Mariátegui and are subsequently elaborated in the literary works of César Vallejo and José MaríaArguedas. My central thesis is that, more than a “regionalist” or “provincialist” literature that describes the social reality and historic oppression of the rural Indian since colonial times, the socialist indigenismo is continuous with the invention of a utopian imaginary for a project of alternative modernity, through which urban intellectuals, artists and activists conceived of a national future beyond that of capitalist modernization. Above all, such a future would traverse the prescient division between the urban mestizo and the Indian, and finally the lingering disparity between the nation’s Western and native heritage. In doing so, indigenista writers did not only adapt the tenets of socialist philosophy and avant-garde aesthetics to describe their unique social realities and thinking of the possibility of an emancipatory political practice; they also interrogated the foundations of European Marxism, expressing various figurations of the emancipatory process to come, and different models for the new revolutionary subjectivity that would aid this transition. 

Rejecting assimilation into Western modernization within the urban milieu (“acculturation”) under liberal capitalism imagined by liberal writers—such as Manuel González Prada and ClorindaMatto de Turner, in the late nineteenth century—I argue that the twentieth-century socialist indigenista tradition anticipated a bilateral process of appropriation and mediation between the rural Indian and mestizo, integrating indigenous as well as Western cultural and economic forms. In the first chapter, I assess Mariátegui’s heterodox “Peruvian socialism,” tracing the articulation of a nascentindigenista aesthetics to an emancipatory politics as part of an “active philosophy” driven by what the author names “creative antagonism.” In the second chapter, I explore how César Vallejo’s “materialist poetics” progressively extend the nationalist destiny and social realist aesthetic avowed by Mariátegui onto an internationalist and geopolitical horizon, as part of an “aesthetics of transmutation” that coincides with a plea for humanity as a whole. In the third chapter, I trace how José MaríaArguedas’ novels attempt to reconcile what he named “the magical and rational conceptions of the world,” extending the ideal of a transcultural mediation between the rural Indian and urban mestizo to conceive of a new collectivist and cooperativist ethics of “labor for-itself,” informed by his anthropological and ethnographic research. In the fourth chapter, I propose a general retrospective of the aims and limitations of the ideals guiding this tradition, considering the development of Peruvian indigenista literature after Arguedas, interrogating the legacy and prospects of emancipatory politics in response to the limits of neoliberal capitalism and the crisis of democracy in Latin America today.

Universality and Utopia explores the intersection between philosophical universalism and revolutionary politics in twentieth-century Peruvian indigenista literature. It traces a tradition of thought whose basic tenets originate in the philosophical works of José Carlos Mariátegui and are subsequently elaborated in the literary works of César Vallejo and José MaríaArguedas. My central thesis is that, more than a “regionalist” or “provincialist” literature that describes the social reality and historic oppression of the rural Indian since colonial times, the socialist indigenismo is continuous with the invention of a utopian imaginary for a project of alternative modernity, through which urban intellectuals, artists and activists conceived of a national future beyond that of capitalist modernization. Above all, such a future would traverse the prescient division between the urban mestizo and the Indian, and finally the lingering disparity between the nation’s Western and native heritage. In doing so, indigenista writers did not only adapt the tenets of socialist philosophy and avant-garde aesthetics to describe their unique social realities and thinking of the possibility of an emancipatory political practice; they also interrogated the foundations of European Marxism, expressing various figurations of the emancipatory process to come, and different models for the new revolutionary subjectivity that would aid this transition. 

Rejecting assimilation into Western modernization within the urban milieu (“acculturation”) under liberal capitalism imagined by liberal writers—such as Manuel González Prada and ClorindaMatto de Turner, in the late nineteenth century—I argue that the twentieth-century socialist indigenista tradition anticipated a bilateral process of appropriation and mediation between the rural Indian and mestizo, integrating indigenous as well as Western cultural and economic forms. In the first chapter, I assess Mariátegui’s heterodox “Peruvian socialism,” tracing the articulation of a nascentindigenista aesthetics to an emancipatory politics as part of an “active philosophy” driven by what the author names “creative antagonism.” In the second chapter, I explore how César Vallejo’s “materialist poetics” progressively extend the nationalist destiny and social realist aesthetic avowed by Mariátegui onto an internationalist and geopolitical horizon, as part of an “aesthetics of transmutation” that coincides with a plea for humanity as a whole. In the third chapter, I trace how José MaríaArguedas’ novels attempt to reconcile what he named “the magical and rational conceptions of the world,” extending the ideal of a transcultural mediation between the rural Indian and urban mestizo to conceive of a new collectivist and cooperativist ethics of “labor for-itself,” informed by his anthropological and ethnographic research. In the fourth chapter, I propose a general retrospective of the aims and limitations of the ideals guiding this tradition, considering the development of Peruvian indigenista literature after Arguedas, interrogating the legacy and prospects of emancipatory politics in response to the limits of neoliberal capitalism and the crisis of democracy in Latin America today.

In the field of literary and cultural studies, interest in nineteenth-century biology has been substantial for the last 20 years, yet the focus has been almost exclusively on evolutionary theory, neglecting other branches of nineteenth-century biology. This collection corrects that imbalance, shedding light on other discoveries in cell biology, physiology, neurology and virology. It examines the issue of authority in science, demonstrating the social 'embeddedness' of the natural sciences, and gender issues. It also shows how scientists and creative writers drew on a common imagination as well as narrative techniques and stylistic devices; indeed, often inspired by the same subjects. This important new book, including contributions from some of the most distinguished experts in the field, demonstrates that the relation between literature, culture and biology in the nineteenth century is far more complex than habitual references to Darwin would have us believe.

In the field of literary and cultural studies, interest in nineteenth-century biology has been substantial for the last 20 years, yet the focus has been almost exclusively on evolutionary theory, neglecting other branches of nineteenth-century biology. This collection corrects that imbalance, shedding light on other discoveries in cell biology, physiology, neurology and virology. It examines the issue of authority in science, demonstrating the social 'embeddedness' of the natural sciences, and gender issues. It also shows how scientists and creative writers drew on a common imagination as well as narrative techniques and stylistic devices; indeed, often inspired by the same subjects. This important new book, including contributions from some of the most distinguished experts in the field, demonstrates that the relation between literature, culture and biology in the nineteenth century is far more complex than habitual references to Darwin would have us believe.

Simon J. James examines how Gissing's work reveals an unhappy accommodation with money's underwriting of human existence and culture, and how daily life in all its forms – moral, intellectual, familial and erotic – is transcended or made irrelevant by its commodification. Novels such as 'New Grub Street' expose high culture's dependence on the ruthless Darwinism of late Victorian capitalism: literary and personal success can only be achieved by understanding and adapting to the immanent and irresistible nature of a market hostile to the development of human self-betterment. Situated against nineteenth-century analyses of monetary relations by thinkers such as Ruskin, Mill, Marx and Carlyle, and novels by Dickens, Eliot and Hardy, 'Unsettled Accounts' demonstrates how Gissing's work is engagedly modern, dealing as it does with changes in the nature of the literary market, advertising, imperialism, the New Woman and the condition of the working classes. This groundbreaking new study, published 100 years after Gissing's death, will be of considerable interest to students, researchers and scholars. A valuable introduction to Gissing's work, it claims a prominent place for him in fin-de-siècle Victorian literature.

Simon J. James examines how Gissing's work reveals an unhappy accommodation with money's underwriting of human existence and culture, and how daily life in all its forms – moral, intellectual, familial and erotic – is transcended or made irrelevant by its commodification. Novels such as 'New Grub Street' expose high culture's dependence on the ruthless Darwinism of late Victorian capitalism: literary and personal success can only be achieved by understanding and adapting to the immanent and irresistible nature of a market hostile to the development of human self-betterment. Situated against nineteenth-century analyses of monetary relations by thinkers such as Ruskin, Mill, Marx and Carlyle, and novels by Dickens, Eliot and Hardy, 'Unsettled Accounts' demonstrates how Gissing's work is engagedly modern, dealing as it does with changes in the nature of the literary market, advertising, imperialism, the New Woman and the condition of the working classes. This groundbreaking new study, published 100 years after Gissing's death, will be of considerable interest to students, researchers and scholars. A valuable introduction to Gissing's work, it claims a prominent place for him in fin-de-siècle Victorian literature.

The sumptuous Topkapı Palace in eighteenth century Istanbul is a place of breathtaking splendour where human foibles, love, lust and above all greed reign supreme in the lives of a sultan, a painter, a grand vizier and some of the world’s most beautiful women. [NP] Imperial favour has raised a graceful blossom to the symbol of a time that history would later name the Tulip Era. Sultan Ahmed III reigns over a still vast empire as his close companion and Chief Imperial Painter Levnî creates exquisite works of art. But real power lies with his trusted Grand Vizier İbrahim Pasha. In the background, the radiant denizens of the imperial harem fight for supremacy in their cloistered universe. [NP] How will history record Sultan Ahmed III? Hedonist, aesthete or reformer? What will happen to his descendants? [NP] Levnî barely remembers his own Christian family before he was selected as a child tribute and raised into high office by the mighty Ottoman Empire. But who is he really? [NP] Will the Grand Vizier’s quest for ultimate power yield results? [NP] How does an imperial wife justify her own wickedness? [NP] And conversely, what makes another so loyal for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer? [NP] For whose shadow will the tulip gardens long when their world comes crashing down? [NP] 'Unto the Tulip Gardens: My Shadow' is a novel founded on historical fact woven by the silken yarn of imagination. 

The book offers a step-by-step blueprint of radical proposals for the U.S.-Mexican border that go far beyond traditional initiatives to ease restrictions on immigration. The book argues that the border with Mexico should be completely open for Mexicans wishing to travel north. Up Against the Wall provides the background to understanding how the border has become a fraud, resulting in nothing more than the criminalization of Mexican and other migrants, the bloating of the mismanaged U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the deterioration of living standards along the frontier, and the enrichment of American employers. Placing the border in a historical perspective, Laufer shows how circumstances have deteriorated to the present Trump-exacerbated crisis, and why the region and the migration through it cannot be ignored. Over the last several years he has interviewed dozens of authorities and men and women in the street while reporting from Mexico, along the border, and in the United States. He demonstrates that the security of America's southern border is a fallacy; offers vivid examples to illustrate how the chain of misery and lawbreaking for migrants heading north is initiated by U.S. employers, traces many of the border problems to the Guatemalan-Mexican border, and explores the abuses of the Border Patrol and the growing presence of vigilantes on the American side. Up Against the Wall is sure to provoke a lively debate over the future of Mexican immigration and global migration crises.