An amazing adventure series. Valentine is a porcupine that lives in a boring town. The townsfolk think she dances too much. She dresses weird. Her boombox has skulls on it...yuck Valentine learns that it is great to be different and discovers how to make friends.

Academia is an important site for producing knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the globe at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet surprisingly little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from national policy requirements, particularly performance measurement. What effects do these policies have on individual universities and the academics who work within them? While policy surely has impacts on institutions and academics, there are also numerous other things that shape academic life. This book's starting point is that there are three main shaping forces that govern academia - intellectual curiosity, disciplinary traditions and research policy. Bringing these three levels together into a framework, this book examines how academia is governed, both formally and informally, bridging the different aspects of governing knowledge networks through a large multi-country study. Author Jenny Lewis uses a large empirical study of academics in three countries (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) and in the broad disciplinary areas of the humanities, social sciences and sciences, to demonstrate the analytical framework's application. The book also offers some needed directions on what policy should and can do, providing a snapshot of contemporary academic life in different disciplines and in different countries, from the perspective of academics on the frontline.

Academia is an important site for producing knowledge, which is crucial in driving economies and societies around the globe at the beginning of the 21st century. Yet surprisingly little is known about how contemporary universities are shaped by the formal and multiple demands they face from national policy requirements, particularly performance measurement. What effects do these policies have on individual universities and the academics who work within them? While policy surely has impacts on institutions and academics, there are also numerous other things that shape academic life. This book's starting point is that there are three main shaping forces that govern academia - intellectual curiosity, disciplinary traditions and research policy. Bringing these three levels together into a framework, this book examines how academia is governed, both formally and informally, bridging the different aspects of governing knowledge networks through a large multi-country study. Author Jenny Lewis uses a large empirical study of academics in three countries (Australia, Britain and New Zealand) and in the broad disciplinary areas of the humanities, social sciences and sciences, to demonstrate the analytical framework's application. The book also offers some needed directions on what policy should and can do, providing a snapshot of contemporary academic life in different disciplines and in different countries, from the perspective of academics on the frontline.

The glowing, painterly poems of Jenny Lewis' first collection take soundings in the depths: of the layers of the pasts that create a life, of the sources of self and creativity, of the structures beneath the surface. It is a region of loss and of recovery, the realm where memories are stored and poetry is made. Ghosts appear. An unknown father, the 'young South Wales Borderer' who died when Lewis was a few months old, bequeaths an irrecoverable sense of incompleteness to his child. Poems about being sent away to a Masonic school, aged seven, reflect the shadow that loss casts, while a later sequence suggests how the missing pieces may be recovered from the depths. "Fathom" is an intense and textured collection that leads the reader from surfaces to the heart of things. In the end is a sense of affirmation, where self is made whole.

To understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their role, and what drives and motivates them. However, the current literature takes little account of this, preferring instead to frame the decisions as the outcomes of a rational search for value-maximising alternatives; or the result of systematic and well-ordered institutional and organisational processes.

Yet understanding how personal and emotional factors interact with broader institutional and organisational influences to shape the deliberations and behaviour of politicians and bureaucrats is paramount if we are to construct a more useful, nuanced and dynamic picture of government decision making. This book draws on a variety of approaches to examine individuals working in contemporary government, from freshly-trained policy officers to former cabinet ministers and prime ministers. It provides important new insights into how those in government navigate their way through complex issues and decisions based on developed expertise that fuses formal, rational techniques with other learned behaviours, memories, emotions and practiced forms of judgment at an individual level.

This innovative collection from leading academics across Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public management and administration and public policy.

Jenny Lewis relocates Gilgamesh to its earlier, oral roots in a Sumerian society where men and women were more equal, the reigning deity of Gilgamesh’s city, Uruk, was female (Inanna), only women were allowed to brew beer and keep taverns and women had their own language – emesal. With this shift of emphasis, Lewis captures the powerful allure of the world’s oldest poem and gives it a fresh dynamic while creating a fastpaced narrative for a new generation of readers.

To understand public policy decisions, it is imperative to understand the capacities of the individual actors who are making them, how they think and feel about their role, and what drives and motivates them. However, the current literature takes little account of this, preferring instead to frame the decisions as the outcomes of a rational search for value-maximising alternatives or the result of systematic and well-ordered institutional and organisational processes. Yet understanding how personal and emotional factors interact with broader institutional and organisational influences to shape the deliberations and behaviour of politicians and bureaucrats is paramount if we are to construct a more useful, nuanced and dynamic picture of government decision-making. This book draws on a variety of approaches to examine individuals working in contemporary government, from freshly-trained policy officers to former cabinet ministers and prime ministers. It provides important new insights into how those in government navigate their way through complex issues and decisions based on developed expertise that fuses formal, rational techniques with other learned behaviours, memories, emotions and practiced forms of judgment at an individual level. This innovative collection from leading academics across Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom and North America will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public management and administration, and public policy.

Taking Mesopotamia was originally inspired by Jenny Lewis's search for her lost father - the young South Wales Borderer who fought in the ill-fated Mesopotamian campaign of World War I. Through reconstructed diary extracts, witness statements, formal poems and free verse, the book extends into a wider exploration of the recent Iraq wars. It also includes translations of a number of the poems into Arabic, and photographs taken by Lewis's father on campaign in 1916. Woven throughout the book is a strand inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh, whose themes of hubris, abuse of power and fear of death show us how little the world has changed in four thousand years.

The New Management Reader examines the circumstances and ideas that are currently shaping management. The book is divided into two sections. Part I looks at the ways in which change will have a lasting impact on management. Key areas covered include gender issues, ethical and green awareness, information technology and the Ôshrinking world’. Part II focuses on the emerging issues and concepts that will shape management thinking and practice in the future, looking at information management, networking and collaboration, new models of management, and high involvement organizations.