Rising life expectancies and declining social capital in the developed world mean that an increasing number of people are likely to experience some form of loneliness in their lifetimes than ever before. Narratives of Loneliness tackles some of the most pressing issues related to loneliness, showing that whilst recent policies on social integration, community building and volunteering may go some way to giving an illusion of not being alone, ultimately, they offer a rhetoric of togetherness that may be more seductive than ameliorative, as the condition and experience of loneliness is far more complex than commonly perceived. Containing thought-provoking contributions from researchers and commentators in several countries, this important work challenges us to rethink some of the burning issues of our day with specific reference to the causes and consequences of loneliness. Topics include the loneliness and mental health of military personnel, loneliness and social media, loneliness and sexuality, urban loneliness, and the experiences of transnational movement and adopted children. This book therefore makes an overdue multidisciplinary contribution to the emerging debate about how best to deal with loneliness in a world that combines greater and faster connectedness on the one hand with more intensely experienced isolation on the other. Since Emile Durkheim first claimed that the structure of society could have a strong bearing on psychological health in the 1890s, researchers in a range of disciplines have explored the probable impact of social context on mental health and wellbeing. Interdisciplinary in approach, Narratives of Loneliness will therefore be of great interest to academics, postgraduate students and researchers in social sciences, the arts, psychology and psychiatry.

Rising life expectancies and declining social capital in the developed world mean that an increasing number of people are likely to experience some form of loneliness in their lifetimes than ever before. Narratives of Loneliness tackles some of the most pressing issues related to loneliness, showing that whilst recent policies on social integration, community building and volunteering may go some way to giving an illusion of not being alone, ultimately, they offer a rhetoric of togetherness that may be more seductive than ameliorative, as the condition and experience of loneliness is far more complex than commonly perceived. Containing thought-provoking contributions from researchers and commentators in several countries, this important work challenges us to rethink some of the burning issues of our day with specific reference to the causes and consequences of loneliness. Topics include the loneliness and mental health of military personnel, loneliness and social media, loneliness and sexuality, urban loneliness, and the experiences of transnational movement and adopted children. This book therefore makes an overdue multidisciplinary contribution to the emerging debate about how best to deal with loneliness in a world that combines greater and faster connectedness on the one hand with more intensely experienced isolation on the other. Since Emile Durkheim first claimed that the structure of society could have a strong bearing on psychological health in the 1890s, researchers in a range of disciplines have explored the probable impact of social context on mental health and wellbeing. Interdisciplinary in approach, Narratives of Loneliness will therefore be of great interest to academics, postgraduate students and researchers in social sciences, the arts, psychology and psychiatry.

This Handbook is designed to help cooperative education and internship professionals and employers design, carry out, and disseminate quality research and evaluation studies of work-based education. It offers examples of current, leading-edge studies about work-based education, but with a practical twist: The chapter authors frame their studies within a specific key research design issue, including finding a starting point and a theoretical framework; fitting research into one's busy practitioner workload; deciding on particular data-gathering methods and an overall methodological approach; integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies; and disseminating results. Also addressed are questions and concerns that are relevant throughout the course of a research project: the use of theory in research; the role and relationship of program assessment to research; and ethical considerations in research. By combining descriptions of exemplary research and evaluation studies with practical advice from top researchers in the field, this volume is a useful tool for educators and employers who are designing and carrying out their own studies, as well as a resource for what current research is discovering and affirming about the field itself. Educators from other fields, such as study abroad and service-learning will also find this book an indispensable reference in conducting research on experiential learning and teaching.

The food we eat is as diverse as the cultures and lifestyles of the people consuming it. But the issues underlying food run much deeper than the whims of our cultures or palates. Until now, the subject of food security has mostly been viewed as a rural issue, with research and development work honing in on subsistence farming. But with the massive influx into cities, the focus needs to shift to the metropolis. The hungry season takes science writer Leonie Joubert and photographer Eric Miller to eight different cities and towns around southern Africa as they explore the complex issues around food security, including: Childhood stunting and malnutrition; The transition from traditional ‘African’ to ‘Western’ diets; Chronic lifestyle-related illnesses associated with a modern diet; Nutritional literacy, behaviour and choices; Large-scale food production and urban food gardens; Poverty, joblessness and the geography of the city; Urban planning, supermarkets and the full food value chain; and food wastage. Ultimately, The Hungry Season looks at the crisis of hunger and malnutrition surrounding us in the city, hidden behind layers of affluence and comfort. It tackles the fundamental question: Why is it that in southern Africa we produce enough calories and nutrients to keep the region full, satisfied and well nourished, and yet we still have such high levels of hunger and malnutrition?

This "Handbook" is designed to help cooperative education and internship professionals and employers design, carry out, and disseminate quality research and evaluation studies of work-based education. It offers examples of current, leading-edge studies about work-based education, but with a practical twist: The chapter authors frame their studies within a specific key research design issue, including finding a starting point and a theoretical framework; fitting research into one's busy practitioner workload; deciding on particular data-gathering methods and an overall methodological approach; integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies; and disseminating results. Also addressed are questions and concerns that are relevant throughout the course of a research project: the use of theory in research; the role and relationship of program assessment to research; and ethical considerations in research.
By combining descriptions of exemplary research and evaluation studies with practical advice from top researchers in the field, this volume is a useful tool for educators and employers who are designing and carrying out their own studies, as well as a resource for what current research is discovering and affirming about the field itself. Educators from other fields, such as study abroad and service-learning will also find this book an indispensable reference in conducting research on experiential learning and teaching.

Cape Town is vibrant, industrious, creative and entertaining. It has the sophistication and attraction of a world-class city, set in an environment of legendary beauty. But it is also riddled with contradictions and inequities, scarred by a past that left society fragmented and alienated many of its residents. Now it is seeking a new, inclusive identity that will embrace and celebrate the diverse mix of people that gives the city character and life. In this title, the many faces of Cape Town are revealed, faces that will engage visitors and no doubt surprise locals who thought they knew their city. Through the text and photographs, experience Cape Town, a people's city, uncovered.

Contents:
Part I: General Perspectives on Loss, Trauma, Coping and Positive Impacts of Loss. From Vulnerability to Growth: Positive and Negative Effects of Stressful Life Events. The Other Side of Trauma: Towards a Psychology of Appreciation. Bereavement. Helping Victims of Loss and Trauma: A Social Psychological Perspective. Victim Thinking. The Ranking of Personal Grief: Death and Comparative Loss. Parallel Selves as Ending of the Grief Work. Rational Suicide. Part 2: Loss and Trauma Associated with Specific Populations. The Role of Perceived Control in Coping with the Losses Associated with Chronic Illness. Coping as a "Reality Construction": On the Role of Attentive, Comparative, and Interpretive Processes in Coping with Cancer. Loss, Adjustment, and Growth after Cancer: Lessons from Patients' children. The Few Gains and Many Losses for Those Stigmatized by Psychiatric Disorders. The Human Costs of Organizational Downsizing: The "Irrational" Effects of The Justice Motive on Managers, Dismissed Workers, and Survivors. Transcending A Lifetime of Losses: kers, and Survivors. Transcending A Lifetime of Losses: Grief and Loss. On Being Homeless and Mentally Ill: A Multitude of Losses and the Possibility of Recovery. Part 3: Loss and Trauma Associated with Close Relationships. Loss, Resources, and Resiliency in Close Interpersonal Relationships. Negotiating Terminal Illness: Communication, Collusion, and Coalition in Caregiving. Caregiver Loss and Quality of Care Provided: Pre-Illness Relationship Makes a Difference. Adjusting to Infertility. Widowhood in Later-Life. The Loss of Loved Ones: the Impact of Relationship Infidelity. Unyielding custody disputes: Tempering Loss and Courting disaster. Cognitive Interdependence and the Experience of Relationship Loss. Part 4: Conclusion. Commentary on Field of Loss and Trauma and Chapters.

Acclaimed as Sappho reborn by the circle of humanist intellectuals centred around Groningen University in the Netherlands, the Dutch poet Titia Brongersma published her only book, The Swan of the Well, in 1686. This is the first full translation of Brongersma's extant work. An artist as versatile, eloquent, and daring as her English contemporary Aphra Behn, Brongersma dedicated more than thirty impassioned poems to her beloved, Elisabeth Joly, and experimented with pastoral verse in West Frisian. Famed, too, for her part in a pioneering excavation at the ancient monument in Borger, Brongersma celebrated this experience in strong verse. Evoking Ovid, Petrarch, Dutch theatre, and French opera, the poet brought to life a lost world of gifted, surprising, charming women and men - Joly, her own family, her friends, her patrons, and her supporters - as well as figures from history and mythology. Brongersma expressed a powerful sentiment of solidarity with her sex. Her interest in women's lives, their pleasures, plights, and priorities, inflected the baroque profusion of genres she so captivatingly adopted. Eric Miller's facing-page translations of every piece that Brongersma published are themselves works of art, adequate to this artist's extraordinary bequest. His introduction and notes redeem Brongersma from three centuries of obscurity, survey relevant scholarship, and develop original insights into the poet's inspirations, physical surroundings, sources, and connections.

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT ETC. GUY: "Eric Miller's stories have more than once made me spit coffee from my nose from laughing. His humor ranges from subtle and self-effacing, to ribald. He writes what many of us think but don't dare say." -Jeffrey Bergeron/Biff America, author of Steep, Deep and Dyslexic and columnist for Backcountry Magazine and the Summit Daily News "Eric Miller's parental observations are amusing and provocative. He stumbles through his role as a husband and father to two teenage daughters, but manages to press on." -Marne Larsen, Editor, Growing Up Chico Magazine "Eric Miller is an aging athlete that has more luck figuring out what's happening on a hockey rink than in the minds of his wife and teenage daughters." -Q. Bryce Randle, Editor, Hockey Player Magazine "Eric Miller, former North State Voices columnist and Etc. Guy blogger, has the knack of observingdaily, mundane, events and spinning theminto amusing stories.Hecan be edgy, but mostguys are." -David Little, Editor, Chico Enterprise-Record Visit www.etcguy.com for more information"

At the end of his landmark 1994 book, The Soul of the American University, historian George Marsden asserted that religious faith does indeed have a place in today's academia. Marsden's contention sparked a heated debate on the role of religious faith and intellectual scholarship in academic journals and in the mainstream media. The contributors to Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian's Vocation expand the discussion about religion's role in education and culture and examine what the relationship between faith and learning means for the academy today. The contributors to Confessing History ask how the vocation of historian affects those who are also followers of Christ. What implications do Christian faith and practice have for living out one's calling as an historian? And to what extent does one's calling as a Christian disciple speak to the nature, quality, or goals of one's work as scholar, teacher, adviser, writer, community member, or social commentator? Written from several different theological and professional points of view, the essays collected in this volume explore the vocation of the historian and its place in both the personal and professional lives of Christian disciples.

This book outlines many of the techniques involved in materials development and characterization for photoelectrochemical (PEC) - for example, proper metrics for describing material performance, how to assemble testing cells and prepare materials for assessment of their properties, and how to perform the experimental measurements needed to achieve reliable results towards better scientific understanding. For each technique, proper procedure, benefits, limitations, and data interpretation are discussed. Consolidating this information in a short, accessible, and easy to read reference guide will allow researchers to more rapidly immerse themselves into PEC research and also better compare their results against those of other researchers to better advance materials development. This book serves as a "how-to" guide for researchers engaged in or interested in engaging in the field of photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. PEC water splitting is a rapidly growing field of research in which the goal is to develop materials which can absorb the energy from sunlight to drive electrochemical hydrogen production from the splitting of water. The substantial complexity in the scientific understanding and experimental protocols needed to sufficiently pursue accurate and reliable materials development means that a large need exists to consolidate and standardize the most common methods utilized by researchers in this field.

After the death of a loved one... ...how do you laugh again? ...how do you love again? ...how do you live life again? ...how do you navigate the journey of grief? ...how do you reclaim the dreams you once had? Before the death of a loved one... ...how do you prepare? ...how do you help others going through grief? You start by picking up this book. Why? Am I an expert in all things grief and grieving? Hardly - far from it. Sure, I'm a Bachelor's Degree prepared nurse practicing in pediatric oncology - caring for cancer kids - who has had the privilege of helping more than one family through the grieving process. But more than that, I am a father who held his young son as he took his last breath. Little did I know that that last breath would usher in my first step on my personal journey of grief, a journey that continues today. Perhaps you are undertaking that journey right now, even as you read these sentences. Perhaps you know someone who is on this journey. Or maybe you have not yet experienced grief, and are reading this text simply because you are curious why some guy would actually encourage you to yell at God. No matter where you stand in relation to grief, I invite you to stop standing and start walking - take that first step with me. In this book you will be given a front-row seat, a raw and intimate look into the thoughts, feelings, pains and joys of a father and mother as they live out a ten-day span that begins with an innocent late summer walk and ends with a son's dying breath. You will see in action what one of our son's doctors described as "faith, hope and love" that "affected doctors, nurses and secretaries in a profound way." It is a story of hope and encouragement in the midst of darkness and despair. Interspersed throughout this story will be various lessons that I have learned along my now decade-long journey. These lessons will discuss powerful topics including dreams, forgiveness, miracles, and questioning God. I even give you permission to laugh at me along the way, as you might find humorous stories from my childhood illustrating these lessons (you'll be in awe of the time I came up with the world's most ingenious plan to find out if a fifth-grade crush liked me back). Be ready to cry. Be ready to laugh. This book is not a 10- or 20-step grief recovery plan. I will not tell you how to "get over" your loved one or how to "get past" the grief. Instead I am passionate about showing you how to embrace your grief, and more importantly how to embrace life again after someone you loved dearly no longer shares that life with you. So will you come with me? Don't worry - I brought the Kleenex.

Description: In Glimpses of Another Land, Eric Miller takes the reader across the American landscape in quest of insight into our times. For those facing challenges and choices from all sides, Miller offers not analysis so much as reorientation--the kind of sharpened vision that redirects movement. An age featuring 9/11 as its defining moment surely requires probing reflection and judgment. Here Eric Miller, with an alert eye and keen voice, provides both. Endorsements: ""Eric Miller is one of the most thoughtful and graceful writers today--a combination of intelligence, humility, and faithful insight. I try to read everything he writes. What a gift to have so many of his essays collected in one place "" --Mark Galli, senior managing editor of Christianity Today ""Whether he writes about the Amish, popular Christian music, or the Pittsburgh Steelers, Eric Miller's prose sings with grace, passion, wit, Pennsylvania patriotism, and, suffusing it all, a sense of hope. His is an America of neighbors, faith, and peace, not vacuous pop culture and political cant. In the tradition of Christopher Lasch and Wendell Berry, Eric Miller illumines for us a way back home."" --Bill Kauffman, author of Ain't My America ""It's fitting that Eric Miller begins this book by talking about hope and longing. Grounded in a specific time and place, clear-eyed about our troubles, these essays offer bright glimpses of another land."" --John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture ""Eric Miller is quickly becoming one of the best evangelical cultural critics at work among us today. Always timely, never trendy, usually salty, never cynical, his essays have a winsome way of delighting us in the good, drawing us out of ourselves in longing for a better, more humane and divine mode of living in the world . . . May his tribe increase and find a way of loving the rest of us in. May they help us keep our hope alive."" --Douglas A. Sweeney, author of The American Evangelical Story ""These essays invite a new generation to appreciate an older legacy of post-partisan political hope. Here is a voice that echoes with Burke, Chesterton, Berry, and above all, Christopher Lasch. Miller's pointed insights and intimate prose are invitations to both reflection and delight."" --James K. A. Smith, author of The Devil Reads Derrida ""Eric Miller is my favorite Christian cultural critic. I have been absorbing his writings for over a decade, and they never fail to inspire me with hope for something better, something real. If you haven't read him, you must. These essays will challenge you to think differently about what it means to be a human being in this world."" --John Fea, author of The Way of Improvement Leads Home About the Contributor(s): Eric Miller is Professor of American History at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Hope in a Scattering Time: A Life of Christopher Lasch (2010) and coeditor of Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian's Vocation (2010).

The collapse of Zaire brought with it the invading armies of eight African states, along with an unknown number of paramilitary groups. Due to the complexity of the conflict International Relations (IR) theory has attempted to explain the cause of the conflict as a war of resources, anarchy, neo-imperialism, a failure of international institutions or the constructive nature of parties involved in the conflict. Instead this monograph utilizes neorealism to explain the cause of continuation of conflict in the Congo. Beginning with the Rwandan Genocide which led to the Rwandan-Congolese security dilemma intern causing the First and Second Congo Wars, and was followed by proxy warfare between the two states. The inability of the United Nations peacekeeping mission to address the security dilemma or strengthen the state capacity of the Congo to impose its sovereignty over its territory explains the continuation of conflict in eastern Congo. A better understanding of the security dilemma posed by non-state actors and its effects on the interaction with states can aid in understanding of other conflicts that have not be resolved by international interventions.

The story of the civil rights movement is well-known, popularized by both the media and the academy. Yet the version of the story recounted time and again by both history books and PBS documentaries is a simplified one, reduced to an inspirational but ultimately facile narrative framed around Dr. King, the Kennedys, and the redemptive days of Montgomery and Memphis, in which black individuals become the rescued survivors. This story renders the mass of black people invisible, refusing to take seriously everyday people whose years of persistent struggle often made the big events possible.Time Longer than Rope unearths the ordinary roots of extraordinary change, demonstrating the depth and breadth of black oppositional spirit and activity that preceded the civil rights movement. The diversity of activism covered by this collection extends from tenant farmers' labor reform campaign in the 1919 Elaine, Arkansas massacre to Harry T. Moore's leadership of a movement that registered 100,000 black Floridians years before Montgomery, and from women's participation in the Garvey movement to the changing meaning of the Lincoln Memorial. Concentrating on activist efforts in the South, key themes emerge, including the under appreciated importance of historical memory and community building, the divisive impact of class and sexism, and the shifting interplay between individual initiative and structural constraints.More than simply illuminating a hitherto marginalized fragment of American history, Time Longer than Rope provides a crucial pre-history of the modern civil rights movement. In the process, it alters our entire understanding of African American activism and the very meaning of civil rights.

Over the past fifty years Brazil's evangelical community has increased from five to twenty-five percent of the population. This volume's authors use statistical overview, historical narrative, personal anecdote, social-scientific analysis, and theological inquiry to map out this emerging landscape. The book's thematic center pivots on the question of how Brazilian evangelicals are exerting their presence and effecting change in the public life of the nation. Rather than fixing its focus on the interior life of Brazilian evangelicals and their congregations, the book's attention is directed toward social expression: the ways in which Brazilian evangelicals are present and active in the common life of the nation.