This book offers an in-depth analysis as to how and why women have been widely associated with madness since ancient times. The first part of the book comprises a historical survey of various perceptions of madness across the centuries, while the second part of the book covers a wide selection of literary works by American and English writers who dealt with this subject in their works. In this part of the book, the authors examine selected works of literature from a feminist perspective by also drawing on the works of influential theorists of feminist criticism. The authors further show how these writers, who have been influenced by various philosophers and theoreticians, critically examine women's madness in their fiction.

Understanding the challenges in research and practice of participation in the digital era, and the important role of local governance in achieving the sustainable development goals, Community Participation and Civic Engagement in the Digital Era unfolds the complex relationship of community participation, social capital and social networks. Singh presents an in-depth literature review alongside case studies from developing countries, showcasing the role of participation in sustainable development, and explaining how digital development creates technological tools and a virtual space for community engagement - increasing the complexity of community participation and civic engagement, and the potential for implementing the sustainable development goals at a local level. From the historic concept and forms of participation to describing and analysing the environmental and individual factors shaping practice of participation, community development interventions and local governance, the book culminates in a discussion of future work and challenges in the digital world. Delivering a careful review of the theoretical and practical problems of community participation in the digital age and featuring applied theories and cases which appeal to public policy makers and researchers, Community Participation and Civic Engagement in the Digital Era offers a rich theoretical perspective and detailed critical review of social capital and social networks that has profound application in the fields of political science, sociology and development economics.

With the nation reeling from the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s era, imaginings of the white South as a place of stability represented a bulwark against unsettling changes, from suburban blandness and empty consumerism to race riots and governmental deceit. A variety of individuals during and after the civil rights era, including writers, journalists, filmmakers, musicians, and politicians, imagined white southernness as a tradition-loving, communal, authentic--and often, but not always, rural or small-town-- abstraction that both represented a refuge from modern ills and contained the tools for combating them. The South of the Mind tells this story of how many Americans looked to the nation's most maligned region to save them during the 1960s and 1970s. This interdisciplinary work uses imaginings of the South to illuminate the recent American past. In it, Zachary J. Lechner bridges the fields of southern studies, southern history, and post- World War II American cultural and popular culture history in an effort to discern how conceptions of a tradition-bound, ""timeless"" South shaped Americans' views of themselves and their society and served as a fantasied refuge from the era's political and cultural fragmentations, namely, the perceived problems associated with ""rootlessness."" In its exploration of the source of these tropes and their influence, The South of the Mind demonstrates that we cannot hope to understand recent U.S. history without exploring how people have conceived the South, as well as what those conceptualizations have omitted.

This volume collects twelve new essays by leading moral philosophers on a vitally important topic: the ethics of eating meat. Some of the key questions examined include: Are animals harmed or benefited by our practice of raising and killing them for food? Do the realities of the marketplace entail that we have no power as individuals to improve the lives of any animals by becoming vegetarian, and if so, have we any reason to stop eating meat? Suppose it is morally wrong to eat meat-should we be blamed for doing so? If we should be vegetarians, what sort should we be?

This book is intended to provide the narratives and analytics of China's spatial (dis)integration. Indeed, the Chinese nation is far too large and spatially complicated and diversified to be misinterpreted. The only feasible approach to analyzing it is, therefore, to divide it into smaller geographical elements through which one can have a better insight into the spatial mechanisms and regional characteristics.

While technological developments are evolving at a rapid pace, employee workplace skills are falling behind. This rate of change will continue to accelerate, and it is the responsibility of businesses to provide their employees with a solid foundation for keeping pace with the technology surrounding them. Technology-Driven Productivity Improvements and the Future of Work: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides a comprehensive discussion of the latest strategies and methods for creating harmony between the workplace population and their technological environments. Featuring coverage on relevant topics such as STEM skills, economic complexities, and social programs, this is an informative resource for all business owners, professionals, practitioners, and researchers who are interested in discovering new methods that will enable humans and technology to work together.

This book is committed to women as writers and storytellers; all the selected novels are female-centric in that the main characters are women. The authors, also women, are from three diverse American ethnic groups from both the North and South. Through a close reading of several novels, Babakhani shows how the reinvention of cultural traditions serves these women writers as a political, decolonial, and feminist tool. Babakhani situates her readings in a critique of the concepts of realism and magical realism. Because magical realism sets realism against magic and implies binary oppositions, Babakhani proposes "cultural realism" as a revisionary concept that takes the cultural importance of rituals and beliefs seriously, without simply dismissing them as superstition.

The presence of Jews in Quebec dates back four centuries. Quebec Jewry, in Montreal in particular, has evolved over time, thanks to successive waves of migration from different regions of the world. The Jews of Quebec belong to a unique society in North America, which they have worked to fashion. The dedication with which they have defended their rights and their extensive achievements in multiple sectors of activity have helped foster diversity in Quebec. This work recounts the different contributions Jews have made over the years, along with the cultural context that encouraged the emergence in Montreal of a Jewish community like no other in North America. This is the first overview of a history that began during the French Regime and continued, through many twists and turns, up to the turn of the twenty-first century.

This book investigates the interplay between media, politics, religion, and culture in shaping Arabs' quest for more stable and democratic governance models in the aftermath of the "Arab Spring" uprisings. It focuses on online mediated public debates, specifically user comments on online Arab news sites, and their potential to re-engage citizens in politics. Contributors systematically explore and critique these online communities and spaces in the context of the Arab uprisings, with case studies, largely centered on Egypt, covering micro-bloggers, Islamic discourse online, Libyan nationalism on Facebook, and a computational assessment of online engagement, among other topics.

This book advances North Atlantic Treaty Organization (henceforth, NATO) burden analysis through a decomposition of the political, financial, social, and defense burdens members take on for the institution. The overemphasis of committing a minimum of 2% of member state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defense spending, as a proxy indicator of alliance commitment does not properly reflect how commitments reduce risks should Article V be invoked through attack (i.e., 2% is a political & symbolic target adopted by Defense Ministers in 2006 at Riga). Considering defense burdens multi-dimensionally explains why some members overcontribute, as well as, why burden sharing negotiations cause friction among 30 diverse members with differing threats and risks. In creating a comprehensive institutional burden management model and focusing on risks to members, the book explores the weaknesses of major theories on the study and division of collective burdens and institutional assets. It argues that member risks and threats are essential to understanding how burdens are distributed across a set of overlapping institutions within NATO's structure providing its central goods. The importance of the USA, as a defense underwriter for some, affects negotiations despite its absence from research empirically; new data permit testing the argument (Kavanaugh 2014). This book contributes conceptual innovation and theoretical analysis to advance student, researcher, and policymaker understanding of burden management, strategic bargaining, and defense cooperation. The contribution is a generalizable risk management model of IO burden sharing using NATO as the case for scientific study due to its prominence.

Bare Architecture: a schizoanalysis, is a poststructural exploration of the interface between architecture and the body. Chris L. Smith skilfully introduces and explains numerous concepts drawn from poststructural philosophy to explore the manner by which the architecture/body relation may be rethought in the 21st century. Multiple well-known figures in the discourses of poststructuralism are invoked: Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Roland Barthes, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot, Jorges Luis Borges and Michel Serres. These figures bring into view the philosophical frame in which the body is formulated. Alongside the philosophy, the architecture that Smith comes to refer to as 'bare architecture' is explored. Smith considers architecture as a complex construction and the book draws upon literature, art and music, to provide a critique of the limits, extents and opportunities for architecture itself. The book considers key works from the architects Douglas Darden, Georges Pingusson, Lacatan and Vassal, Carlo Scarpa, Peter Zumthor, Marco Casagrande and Sami Rintala and Raumlabor. Such works are engaged for their capacities to foster a rethinking of the relation between architecture and the body.

Academics' International Teaching Journeys provides personal narratives of nine international social science academics in foreign countries as they adapt and develop their teaching. The team of international contributors provide an invaluable resource for other academics who may be exposed to similar situations and may find these narratives useful in negotiating their own conflicts and challenges that they may encounter in being an international academic. The narratives provide a fascinating reference point and a wide range of perspectives of teaching experiences from across the world, including Europe, Australia, North America and the Caribbean. The book offers a timely spotlight on contemporary issues of globalisation that many higher education institutions around the world may encounter. It contributes to the originality of constructing new knowledge in the field of transnational higher education - a modern phenomenon which will be increasingly prominent in the current and next generation in the globalised higher education contexts.

Our species long lived on the edge of starvation. Now we produce enough food for all 7 billion of us to eat nearly 3,000 calories every day. This is such an astonishing thing in the history of life as to verge on the miraculous. "The Big Ratchet" is the story of how it happened, of the ratchets--the technologies and innovations, big and small--that propelled our species from hunters and gatherers on the savannahs of Africa to shoppers in the aisles of the supermarket.
The Big Ratchet itself came in the twentieth century, when a range of technologies--from fossil fuels to scientific plant breeding to nitrogen fertilizers--combined to nearly quadruple our population in a century, and to grow our food supply even faster. To some, these technologies are a sign of our greatness; to others, of our hubris. MacArthur fellow and Columbia University professor Ruth DeFries argues that the debate is the wrong one to have. Limits do exist, but every limit that has confronted us, we have surpassed. That cycle of crisis and growth is the story of our history; indeed, it is the essence of "The Big Ratchet." Understanding it will reveal not just how we reached this point in our history, but how we might survive it.

Though conflict is normal and can never fully be prevented in the international arena, such conflicts should not lead to loss of innocent life. Tourism can offer a bottom-up approach in the mediation process and contribute to the transformation of conflicts by allowing a way to contradict official barriers motivated by religious, political, or ethnic division. Tourism has both the means and the motivation to ensure the long-term success of prevention efforts. Role and Impact of Tourism in Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation is an essential reference source that provides an approach to peace through tourism by presenting a theoretical framework of tourism dynamics in international relations, as well as a set of peacebuilding case studies that illustrate the role of tourism in violent or critical scenarios of conflict. Featuring research on topics such as cultural diversity, multicultural interaction, and international relations, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, government officials, international relations experts, academicians, students, and researchers.

Ideal for students and general readers, this single-volume work serves as a ready-reference guide to pop culture in countries in North Africa and the Middle East, covering subjects ranging from the latest young adult book craze in Egypt to the hottest movies in Saudi Arabia. Part of the new Pop Culture around the World series, this volume focuses on countries in North Africa and the Middle East, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and more. The book enables students to examine the stars, idols, and fads of other countries and provides them with an understanding of the globalization of pop culture. An introduction provides readers with important contextual information about pop culture in North Africa and the Middle East, such as how the United States has influenced movies, music, and the Internet; how Islamic traditions may clash with certain aspects of pop culture; and how pop culture has come to be over the years. Readers will learn about a breadth of topics, including music, contemporary literature, movies, television and radio, the Internet, sports, video games, and fashion. There are also entries examining topics like key musicians, songs, books, actors and actresses, movies and television shows, popular websites, top athletes, games, and clothing fads and designers, allowing readers to gain a broad understanding of each topic, supported by specific examples. An ideal resource for students, the book provides Further Readings at the end of each entry; sidebars that appear throughout the text, providing additional anecdotal information; appendices of Top Tens that look at the top-10 songs, movies, books, and much more in the region; and a bibliography. Allows readers to make cross-cultural comparisons by relating pop culture in the Islamic world to pop culture in the United States Supplies highly relatable content for young adult readers that is presented in a fun and engaging way Provides information that students can use in daily life, such as renting a popular or acclaimed Middle Eastern film or watching a YouTube video of Egyptian music Enables students to better understand the uneasy paradox that is pop culture in the Islamic world

As the global populace continues to boom, especially in developing countries, it has become essential to find ways to effectively handle this population increase through various urbanization methods. However, these techniques have posed potential issues, as well as opportunities for improvement. Population Growth and Rapid Urbanization in the Developing World emphasizes the trends, challenges, issues, and strategies developing countries evaluate when facing a population upsurge and expeditious development of urban environments. Exploring the use of different governance techniques, trending patterns in urbanization and population growth, as well as tools and the appropriate allocation of resources used to address these issues, this book is a comprehensive reference for academicians, researchers, students, practitioners, professionals, managers, urban planners, technicians, and government officials.

Advancing our understanding of one of the most influential 20th-century philosophers, Robert Vinten brings together an international line up of scholars to consider the relevance of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas to the cognitive science of religion. Wittgenstein's claims ranged from the rejection of the idea that psychology is a 'young science' in comparison to physics to challenges to scientistic and intellectualist accounts of religion in the work of past anthropologists. Chapters explore whether these remarks about psychology and religion undermine the frameworks and practices of cognitive scientists of religion. Employing philosophical tools as well as drawing on case studies, contributions not only illuminate psychological experiments, anthropological observations and neurophysiological research relevant to understanding religious phenomena, they allow cognitive scientists to either heed or clarify their position in relation to Wittgenstein’s objections. By developing and responding to his criticisms, Wittgenstein and the Cognitive Science of Religion offers novel perspectives on his philosophy in relation to religion, human nature, and the mind.