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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies
The "Hizmet" ("Service") Movement of Fethullah Gulen is Turkey's most influential Islamic identity community. Widely praised throughout the early 2000s as a mild and moderate variation on Islamic political identity, the Gulen Movement has long been a topic of both adulation and conspiracy in Turkey. In Gulen, Joshua D. Hendrick suggests that the Gulen Movement should be given credit for playing a significant role in Turkey's rise to global prominence. Hendrick draws on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turkey and the U.S. for his study. He argues that the movement's growth and impact both inside and outside Turkey position both its leader and its followers as indicative of a "post political" turn in twenty-first century Islamic political identity in general, and as illustrative of Turkey's political, economic, and cultural transformation in particular.
The much-anticipated definitive account of China's Great
Famine An estimated thirty-six million Chinese men, women, and children starved to death during China's Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and early '60s. One of the greatest tragedies of the twentieth century, the famine is poorly understood, and in China is still euphemistically referred to as "the three years of natural disaster." As a journalist with privileged access to official and unofficial sources, Yang Jisheng spent twenty years piecing together the events that led to mass nationwide starvation, including the death of his own father. Finding no natural causes, Yang attributes responsibility for the deaths to China's totalitarian system and the refusal of officials at every level to value human life over ideology and self-interest. "Tombstone" is a testament to inhumanity and occasional heroism that pits collective memory against the historical amnesia imposed by those in power. Stunning in scale and arresting in its detailed account of the staggering human cost of this tragedy, "Tombstone" is written both as a memorial to the lives lost--an enduring tombstone in memory of the dead--and in hopeful anticipation of the final demise of the totalitarian system. Ian Johnson, writing in "The New York Review of Books," called the Chinese edition of "Tombstone ""groundbreaking . . . One of the most important books to come out of China in recent years."
Product of a Post-doctoral research done at the University of Washington, (Seattle), USA, the present work is an attempt to conceptualise and analyse the postulates underlying India's Foreign Policy from its formative years in the early fifties to its maturation in the early eighties of the last century. It subjects the management of foreign relations by India to a full scale theoretical examination from the political economy angle-an exercise few scholars then or now have undertaken .Notions of security, national interest, diplomatic leverage, decision making process and so on have, in this work, been revisited in the decisive context of a domestic-external continuum in which forces of economic origin were seen as defining the rationale of a foreign policy that was supposed to take a developing nation to the fulfilment of its legitimate aspirations. At the same time, the innovations that were made with practically no earlier precedent to go by and the kind of institution building required for the purpose have been dealt with critically so as to bring out the interplay of domestic development aspirations and the art of ensuring policy independence by appropriate diplomacy. In the turbulent context of the Cold War the Indian experiment in the management of foreign relations and the positive gains it reaped in collectivising the principle of non-alignment did constitute a subject that demanded a non-conventional approach to get to the bottom of it. That is precisely what distinguishes the book by one of the most qualified experts in International Relations, enjoying intellectual acclaim both at home and abroad. The book starts with a theoretical discourse on the applicability or otherwise of the political economy approach as it stood at the time of writing. In subsequent chapters it examines a dependent economy's quest for an independent foreign policy, the central challenge before the external affairs ministry of the country. It needed, among other things handling of external aid, and foreign investment to recharge the developmental enterprises at home in a manner that would not interfere with the autonomy in judging and reacting to external events. Economic restructuring at home which brought a strong public sector as complementary to a fledgling private sector constituted an essential aspect. So also came up the new experiment of building a collective economic front with other developing nations. In its compact, yet well documented, analysis the book provides the most engaging scholarly presentation of the subject in all its relevant technicalities.
This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. From New Orleans to New York, from London to Paris to Venice, many of the world's great cities were built on wetlands and swamps. Cities and Wetlands is the first book to explore the literary and cultural histories of these cities and their relationships to their environments and buried histories. Developing a ground-breaking new mode of psychoanalytic ecology and surveying a wide range of major cities in North America and Europe, ecocritic and activist Rod Giblett shows how the wetland origins of these cities haunt their later literature and culture and might prompt us to reconsider the relationship between human culture and the environment. Cities covered include: Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Hamburg, London, New Orleans, New York, Paris, St. Petersburg, Toronto, Venice and Washington.
Contemporary craft, art and design are inseparable from the flows of production and consumption under global capitalism. The New Politics of the Handmade features twenty-three voices who critically rethink the handmade in this dramatically shifting economy. The authors examine craft within the conditions of extreme material and economic disparity; a renewed focus on labour and materiality in contemporary art and museums; the political dimensions of craftivism, neoliberalism, and state power; efforts toward urban renewal and sustainability; the use of digital technologies; and craft's connections to race, cultural identity and sovereignty in texts that criss-cross five continents. They claim contemporary craft as a dynamic critical position for understanding the most immediate political and aesthetic issues of our time.
This book engages with the experience of space and time in youth cultures across the world. Putting together contemporary case studies on young transnationalists, young glocals and young protesters in cities on the five continents, it analyzes new agoras and chronotopes in global cities. It is based on a selection of papers first presented to the International Sociological Association (ISA) Research Committee 34 session on Youth Cultures, Space and Time that took place during the ISA World Congresses of Sociology in Gothenburg, Sweden (2010), and in Yokohama, Japan (2014). The value of this volume for youth researchers worldwide is twofold. Firstly, the chapters exemplify innovative approaches to understanding the fluid and dynamic urban space-time dimension in which young people's cultural and bodily practices are located. Secondly, the volume offers a transnational perspective. Chapter contributors come from countries across the world, and give account of very diverse youth culture phenomena. They represent both established researchers and new voices in youth research. Contributors are: Oscar Aguilera Ruiz, Ilenya Camozzi, Carles Feixa, Vitor Sergio Ferreira, Liliana Galindo Ramirez, Elham Golpoush-Nezhad, Leila Jeolas, Jeffrey J. Juris, Hagen Kordes, Sofia Laine, Carmen Leccardi, Pam Nilan, Jordi Nofre, Ndukaeze Nwabueze, Luca Queirolo Palmas, Yannis Pechtelidis, Geoffrey Pleyers, Jose Sanchez Garcia, Mahmood Shahabi. Youth, Space and Time is now available in paperback for individual customers.
Dante's Gluttons: Food and Society from the Convivio to the Comedy explores how the medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) uses food to express and condition the social, political, and cultural values of his time. Combining medieval history, food studies, and literary criticism, Dante's Gluttons historicizes food and eating in Dante, beginning in his earliest collected poetry and arriving at the end of his major work. For Dante, the consumption of food is not a frivolity, but a crux of life, and gluttony is the abdication of civic and spiritual responsibility and a danger to both the individual body and soul, as well as the greater collective. This book establishes how one of the world's preeminent authors uses the intimacy and universality of food as a touchstone, forging a community bound by a gastronomic language rooted in the deeply human relationship with material sustenance.
Rooted in feminist ethnography and decolonial feminist theory, this book explores the subjectivity of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons, as shaped by resistance. Ashjan Ajour examines how these prisoners use their bodies in anti-colonial resistance; what determines this mode of radical struggle; the meanings they ascribe to their actions; and how they constitute their subjectivity while undergoing extreme bodily pain and starvation. These hunger strikes, which embody decolonisation and liberation politics, frame the post-Oslo period in the wake of the decline of the national struggle against settler-colonialism and the fragmentation of the Palestinian movement. Providing narrative and analytical insights into embodied resistance and tracing the formation of revolutionary subjectivity, the book sheds light on the participants' views of the hunger strike, as they move beyond customary understandings of the political into the realm of the 'spiritualisation' of struggle. Drawing on Foucault's conception of the technologies of the self, Fanon's writings on anti-colonial violence, and Badiou's militant philosophy, Ajour problematises these concepts from the vantage point of the Palestinian hunger strike.
In Moral Pressure for Responsible Globalization, Sherrie M. Steiner offers an account of religious diplomacy with the G8, G7 and G20 to evoke new possibilities in an effort to influence globalization to become more equitable and sustainable. Commonly portrayed as 'out of control', globalization is considered here as a political process that can be redirected to avoid the tragedy of the global commons. The secularization tradition of religion depicts faith-based public engagement as dangerous. Making use of historical materials from faith-based G-plus System shadow summits (2005-2017), Steiner provides ample information to arrive at an interpretation that significantly differs from traditional accounts. Using broader scope conditions, Steiner considers how human induced environmental changes contribute to religious resurgence under conditions of weakening nation states.
The Anatomy of Peace will instil hope and inspire reconciliation. Through a series of moving stories about once-bitter enemies reunited, it shows us how we routinely misunderstand the causes of conflict - and perpetuate the very problems we're trying to solve. The Anatomy of Peace shows you how to: - Focus on helping things go right, rather than 'fixing' things that go wrong - Think about others as people with fears of their own, not obstacles in your way - Stop worrying about how the world sees you - Learn to move away from blame and bitterness
Violence has only increased in Mexico since 2000: 23,000 murders were recorded in 2016, and 29,168 in 2017. The abundance of laws and constitutional amendments that have cropped up in response are mirrored in Mexico's fragmented cultural production of the same period. Contemporary Mexican literature grapples with this splintered reality through non-linear stories from multiple perspectives, often told through shifts in time. The novels, such as Jorge Volpi's Una novela criminal [A Novel Crime] (2018) and JuliAn Herbert's La casa del dolor ajeno [The House of the Pain of Others] (2015) take multiple perspectives and follow non-linear plotlines; other examples, such as the very short stories in !Basta! 100 mujeres contra la violencia de gEnero [Enough! 100 Women against Gender-Based Violence] (2013), also present multiple perspectives. Few scholars compare cultural production and legal texts in situations like Mexico, where extreme violence coexists with a high number of human rights laws. Unlawful Violence measures fictional accounts of human rights against new laws that include constitutional amendments to reform legal proceedings, laws that protect children, laws that condemn violence against women, and laws that protect migrants and indigenous peoples. It also explores debates about these laws in the Mexican house of representatives and senate, as well as interactions between the law and the Mexican public.
The boundary between 'high' culture and 'popular' culture is neither hermetic nor stable. A wide-spread mechanism of a reception strongly influenced by structuralism and post-modernism has led to the amplification and acceleration of cultural production between these two poles. Relying on a decidedly theoretical approach, this volume offers a broad perspective transgressing linguistic, cultural, temporal, and media borders. Reflections and perspectives on the relationship between 'high' and 'popular' culture are the subject of the thirteen articles collected here. Side by side with theoretical approaches, case studies covering classical and Heavy Metal music, TV series and pornographic films, zombies and 'Creature Features', philosophically infused comics and popular lexicography, professional wrestling and hypertext literature pave the way to a contemporary aesthetics.
Black celebrities in America have always walked a precarious line between their perceived status as spokespersons for their race and their own individual success -and between being "not black enough" for the black community or "too black" to appeal to a broader audience. Few know this tightrope walk better than Kanye West, who transformed hip-hop, pop and gospel music, redefined fashion, married the world's biggest reality TV star and ran for president, all while becoming one of only a handful of black billionaires worldwide. Despite these accomplishments, his polarizing behavior, controversial alliances and bouts with mental illness have made him a caricature in the media and a disappointment among much of his fanbase. This book examines West's story and what it reveals about black celebrity and identity and the American dream.
Readings in the Anthropocene brings together scholars from German Studies and beyond to interpret the German tradition of the last two hundred years from a perspective that is mindful of the challenge posed by the concept of the Anthropocene. This new age of man, unofficially pronounced in 2000, holds that humans are becoming a geological force in shaping the Earth's future. Among the biggest challenges facing our future are climate change, accelerated species loss, and a radical transformation of land use. What are the historical, philosophical, cultural, literary, and artistic responses to this new concept? The essays in this volume bring German culture to bear on what it means to live in the Anthropocene from a historical, ethical, and aesthetic perspective.
For Georgia, the signing of the Association Agreement and the DCFTA with the European Union in 2014 was an act of strategic geopolitical significance. Of all the EU's eastern partners, the country distinguished itself since the Rose Revolution of 2003 by pushing ahead with a radical liberalisation and economic reform agenda. Georgia is unique among the countries in the region for having largely cleansed its economy of corruption in the post-Rose Revolution period, although its political system is marked by oligarchal state capture since the change of government in 2012. The purpose of this Handbook is to make the complex political, economic and legal content of the Association Agreement readily understandable. This third edition, published seven years since signature of after entry into force of the Agreement's implementation is substantially new in content, both updating how Georgia has been implementing the Agreement, and introducing new dimensions (including the Green Deal, the Covid-19 pandemic, cyber security, and gender equality). The Handbook is also up to date in analysing Georgia's troubled democracy. Two teams of researchers from leading independent think tanks, CEPS in Brussels and Reformatics in Tbilisi, collaborated on this project, with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). This Handbook is one of a trilogy examining similar Association Agreements made by the EU with Ukraine and Moldova.
The Communist Temptation: Rolland, Gide, Malraux, and Their Times traces the evolution of the committed left-wing public intellectual in the interwar period, specifically in the 1930s, and focuses on leading left-wing intellectuals, such as Romain Rolland, Andre Gide, and Andre Malraux, and their relationships with communism and the broader anti-fascist movement. In that turbulent decade, Paris also welcomed a growing number of Russian, Austrian, Italian, Dutch, Belgian, German, and German-speaking Central European refugees-activists, writers, and agents, among them Willi Munzenberg, Mikhail Koltsov, Eugen Fried, Ilya Ehrenburg, Manes Sperber, and Arthur Koestler-and Paris once again became a hotbed of international political activism. Events, however, signaled a decline in the high ethical standards set by Emile Zola and the Dreyfusards earlier in the twentieth century, as many pro-communist intellectuals acted in bad faith to support an ideology that they in all likelihood knew to be morally bankrupt. Among them, only Gide rebelled against Moscow, which caused ideological lines to harden to the point where there was little room for critical reason to assert itself.
In the years between the Harlem Renaissance and World War II, African American playwrights gave birth to a vital black theater movement in the U.S. It was a movement overwhelmingly concerned with the role of religion in black identity. In a time of profound social transformation fueled by a massive migration from the rural south to the urban‑industrial centers of the north, scripts penned by dozens of black playwrights reflected cultural tensions, often rooted in class, that revealed competing conceptions of religion's role in the formation of racial identity. Black playwrights pointed in quite different ways toward approaches to church, scripture, belief, and ritual that they deemed beneficial to the advancement of the race. Their plays were important not only in mirroring theological reflection of the time, but in helping to shape African American thought about religion in black communities. The religious themes of these plays were in effect arguments about the place of religion in African American lives. In Staging Faith, Craig R. Prentiss illuminates the creative strategies playwrights used to grapple with religion. With a lively and engaging style, the volume brings long forgotten plays to life as it chronicles the cultural and religious fissures that marked early twentieth century African American society. Craig R. Prentiss is Professor of Religious Studies at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the editor of Religion and the Creation of Race and Ethnicity: An Introduction (New York University Press, 2003). |
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