Search results for ""edinburgh university press""

This multi-authored volume, newly available in paperback, focuses on Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press (1917-1941). Scholars from the UK and the US use previously unpublished archival materials and new methodological frameworks to explore the relationships forged by the Woolfs via the Press and to gauge the impact of their editorial choices on writing and culture. Combining literary criticism, book history, biography and sociology, the chapters weave together the stories of the lesser known authors, artists and press workers with the canonical names linked to the press following a 'rich, dialogic' forum or network. The book brings together a wide range of thematic material in three sections - 'Class and Culture', 'Global Bloomsbury' and 'Marketing Other Modernisms'.

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This book explores how film analysis can take account of the presence of digital images in cinema. Digital images are now ubiquitous elements within the cinematic frame but, as we analyse films or film moments, it can often be difficult to be sure how - and how much - to talk about digital elements. This accessible book demystifies the relationship of digital imaging to processes of watching and reading films, and gives scholars and students the tools to engage with digital imaging in cinema with ease. A wide-ranging series of case studies demonstrates how digital elements can be discussed and analysed in different scenarios, and a language is developed to describe digital elements accurately. Not just for digital effects enthusiasts, this book is essential for anyone interested in how to approach film critically: it is a toolbox for contemporary film analysis. Key features: this is the first book exploring how the presence of digital imaging in film affects the production of meaning; locates contemporary digital effects practice in relation to historical traditions of filmmaking and special effects practice; proposes a fresh, flexible approach to the close textual analysis of film that can take account of the digital; and, uses case studies from the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and "Avatar" to "Alice in Wonderland" and "King Kong" to demonstrate this approach in action.

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This is a polemical attack on how recent Shakespeare biographers have disguised their lack of information. How is it that biographies of Shakespeare can continue to appear when so little is known about him, and what is known has been in the public domain for so long? Why is it that a majority of the biographies published in the last decade have been written by distinguished Shakespeareans who ought to know better? This book attempts to solve this puzzle by examining the methods the biographers have used to hide their lack of knowledge. At the same time, by exploring efforts to write a life of Shakespeare along traditional lines, it asks what kind of beast biography really is and how it can ethically be approached. From this book, the reader can learn all that is directly known about Shakespeare. It exposes the lie of the Shakespeare biography industry where books marketed as biographies are nothing of the kind. It questions how we acquire our knowledge of other people and what an ethical expectation of a biography could be.

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This title explores how Walter Pater and his contemporary aesthetes were influenced by modern philosophies. Repositioning Walter Pater at the philosophical nexus of Aestheticism, this study presents the first discussion of how Pater redefines Romantic Individualism through his engagements with modern philosophical discourses and in the context of emerging modernity in Britain. It also considers the dynamics between form and thought at the fin de siecle, contextualizing its comments in terms of Matthew Arnold, Oscar Wilde, Vernon Lee and others, to offer a fully integrated account of the intellectual cultures and currents in this period. It boldly reassesses Pater's intellectual significance, arguing that he self-consciously poised on the cusp between late-Victorian Romanticism and Modernism. It imaginatively combines close readings with cultural and intellectual history and biography to reconsider individualism and philosophical thought in the Aesthetic Movement. It provides the most substantial scholarly engagement with Pater's unpublished manuscripts (held at the Houghton Library, Harvard University).

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This is a new translation of two essential works on Deleuze, written by one of his contemporaries. From the publication of "Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event" to his untimely death in 2006, Francois Zourabichvili was regarded as one of the most important new voices of contemporary philosophy in France. His work continues to make an essential contribution to Deleuze scholarship today. This edition makes two of Zourabichvili's most important writings on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze available in a single volume. "A Philosophy of the Event" (1994) is an exposition of Deleuze's philosophy as a whole, while the complementary "The Vocabulary of Deleuze" (2003) approaches Deleuze's work through an analysis of key concepts in a dictionary form. Key features: singles out the three most controversial questions in debates surrounding Deleuze's philosophy today: univocity, creative vitalism and the event and with an introduction by Gregg Lambert and Daniel W. Smith, two of the world's leading commentators on Deleuze.

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This book develops a set of cosmopolitan just war principles for all forms of armed conflict. Just war theory exists to stop armies and countries from using armed force without good cause. But how can we judge whether a war is just? John Lango adopts a cosmopolitan approach to argue that the more traditional state-centric just war theory should be both globalised and democratised. From this foundation, he formulates a set of morally absolute principles. He shows how these can be applied to all forms of armed conflict, however large or small: from interstate wars to UN peacekeeping missions, and from civil wars to counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations.

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Several Latin American films ('Amores Perros', 'Y Tu Mama Tambien', 'Cidade de Deus', 'Central do Brasil', 'Nueve Reinas', 'El Hijo de la Novia') enjoyed an unprecedented level of critical and commercial success in the world film market. These films were considered transnational as they benefited from substantial external capital or creative. Followed in the 2000s by a series of equally critical and/or commercially successful 'deterritorialised' films by some of the same directors, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, Fernando Meirelles, Walter Salles the incipient transnationalism of the first films and the directors' position in international cinema was confirmed. This book incorporates the Latin America/Hollywood and Indiewood vector of filmmaking into its study of the region's transnationalised filmmaking. It argues that although undoubtedly 'commercial', films produced either within, or under the structures of Hollywood are not necessarily apolitical nor totally divorced from key notions of national or continental identity. Tierney shows that it is the auteurist nature of many of these deterritorialised transnational films which plays a key role in their ability to engage with issues of national and continental identity and to forge a transnational tradition beyond the geospatial limits of the region. To support its arguments about the transnational trend, the book uses textual analysis and industrial case studies looking both at the five directors who have most publically interacted and, in their own ways influenced, the trend as well as those of other filmmakers who are also involved in it.

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This volume, newly available in paperback, brings together the best of T. C. Smout's recent articles and contributions to books and journals on the topic of environmental history and offers them as a collection of 'explorations'. The author's interests are multi-faceted and, though often focussed on post-1600 Scotland, by no means restricted to that area.

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This is a new translation of two essential works on Deleuze, written by one of his contemporaries. From the publication of "Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event" to his untimely death in 2006, Francois Zourabichvili was regarded as one of the most important new voices of contemporary philosophy in France. His work continues to make an essential contribution to Deleuze scholarship today. This edition makes two of Zourabichvili's most important writings on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze available in a single volume. "A Philosophy of the Event" (1994) is an exposition of Deleuze's philosophy as a whole, while the complementary "The Vocabulary of Deleuze" (2003) approaches Deleuze's work through an analysis of key concepts in a dictionary form. Key features: singles out the three most controversial questions in debates surrounding Deleuze's philosophy today: univocity, creative vitalism and the event and with an introduction by Gregg Lambert and Daniel W. Smith, two of the world's leading commentators on Deleuze.

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Do you want to improve your teaching practice and get the most out of student feedback? This textbook prepares TESOL teachers for the practical component of their programme. It covers both the theory of reflective practice and practical techniques and explains the cycle of observation, planning and materials, teaching, feedback, and action. By raising your awareness of this teaching practice cycle and you will learn the practical ways in which these activities can improve your teaching performance. It includes activities which focus on your own knowledge and experiences. It provides a selection of further reading. It uses real data, including classroom interaction and feedback discourse, from a range of different cultural contexts. It explains on going professional development and practice based and action research.

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This is the first collection of critical essays on the work of this most original thinker. Francois Laruelle is one of the most important French philosophers of the last 20 years, and as his texts have become available in English there has been a rising tide of interest in his work, particularly on the concept of 'Non-philosophy'. Non-philosophy radically rethinks many of the most cutting-edge concepts such as immanence, pluralism, resistance, science, democracy, decisionism, Marxism, theology and materialism. It also expands our view of what counts as philosophical thought, through art, science and politics, and beyond to fields as varied as film, animality and material objects. It contains an exclusive interview with Laruelle and a new essay written by Laruelle himself. It provides an overview of Laruelle's thought and an understanding of his contemporary relevance. It includes an annotated bibliography of Laruelle's work and secondary sources.

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The first complete, scholarly English-language biography of Ibn Khaldun. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) is one of the most influential and important Muslim thinkers in history, inspiring at least as much interest among modern scholars as his immediate contemporaries. Legions of sociologists, anthropologists and historians have studied his philosophy of history, treating the Muqaddimah as a timeless piece of philosophy. Yet most studies ignore the fascinating story of Ibn Khaldun's own life and times. Rejecting portrayals of him as a modern mind lost in medieval obscurity, Allen Fromherz demonstrates how Ibn Khaldun's ideas were shaped by his historical context and personal motivations. Relying on original Arabic sources, most importantly Ibn Khaldun's unique autobiography, this is the first complete, scholarly biography of Ibn Khaldun in English. It not only tells the life story of Ibn Khaldun in an accessible way, it also introduces readers to the fourteenth-century Mediterranean world. Seen in the context of a politically tumultuous and religiously contentious fourteenth century Mediterranean, Ibn Khaldun's ideas about tribalism, identity, religion and history are even more relevant to pressing, modern concerns.

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This book offers graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in linguistics and English Language an accessible overview of the structural and cognitive approaches to English historical semantics. Focusing primarily on Lexical Semantics, the study of word meaning, the book looks at how these approaches help to answer two key questions in Historical Linguistics: how and why languages change.

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The New Soundtrack brings together leading edge academic and professional perspectives on the complex relationship between sound and moving images. Former editors of The Soundtrack, Stephen Deutsch, Larry Sider and Dominic Power, bring their expertise to this project, providing a new platform for discourse on how aural elements combine with moving images. The New Soundtrack also encourages writing on more current developments, such as sound installations, computer-based delivery, and the psychology of the interaction of image and sound. The journal has an illustrious Editorial Board containing some of the most prominent people working with sound in the arts and media and the discourse which surrounds it. The New Soundtrack includes contributions from recognised practitioners in the field, including composers, sound designers and directors, giving voice to the development of professional practice, alongside academic contributions. Each issue also features a short compilation of book and film reviews on recently released publications and artefacts.

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This is an eclectic, interdisciplinary overview of persuasive strategies and propaganda techniques. Living in a saturated media environment, we are crowded from all sides by persuasive messages and information. Advice, promotion and propaganda form a spectrum of persuasion - and everywhere we see it performed in its full theatricality, complete with actors, scripts, props and costumes. Media, Persuasion and Propaganda guides the reader through the many varieties of persuasion and its performance, exploring the protocols of rhetoric unique to the medium, from orality and print to film and digital images. Using case studies and exercises, this innovative study poses challenging questions: How do individuals and organisations exert influence to build communities and networks? What role do media play in communicating persuasive messages? How do we use recent discoveries in cognitive science to promote a cause, advocate social change or market ideas and products? How do we defend ourselves against manipulation and undue influence and when does persuasion turn into propaganda? It uses global examples and case studies to define the spectrum of persuasion, from promotion to propaganda. It examines the performance of propaganda, from orality to new media. It includes exercises in each chapter to reinforce the key themes and promote discussion. 1. Orientalism: it explores western scholarly and media portrayals of the Orient the Middle East, North Africa, and Islam for ideological purposes; 2. Abu Ghraib Exposed; it examines the disturbing images which emerged in the US media in 2004 exposing the torture of Iraqi prisoners by the American military and CIA operatives in Abu Ghraib prison, Baghdad; 3. PR and Climate Change: it delves into Cuba's Revolutionary Landscape to look at the presentation of climate issues; 4. The Power of Nightmares; British filmmaker Adam Curtis argues that the global 'War on Terror' is based on a myth providing politicians with their power to govern; and; 5. Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation Scanda. It also includes: 6. The Israel Lobby: In March 2009, British MP George Galloway was denied entry into Canada because he supported Hamas, an elected political party in Gaza identified as a terrorist organisation by the Canadian government. Soules examines the pro Israel lobby as a significant source of flak challenging media reports on Israeli Palestinian relations; 7. Fox News: raises issues about journalistic ethics and management interference, especially when that interference is sustained, partisan, and inflammatory; and 8. Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry. In his notorious 1995 performance piece, dissident Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei photographed himself dropping an ancient Han Dynasty urn which smashed at his feet. This case study explores the aftermath and how Ai Wei Wei became a hero of dissent for critics of China's human rights policies.

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This title shows how Deleuze's philosophy is shaking up research in the humanities and social sciences. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, and his work is of continuing relevance today. Now, Deleuzian thinking is having a significant impact on research practices in the Social Sciences, particularly because it breaks down the false divide between theory and practice. This book brings together international academics from a range of Social Science and Humanities disciplines to reflect on how Deleuze's philosophy is opening up and shaping empirical research. Contributors from fields throughout the social sciences demonstrate how engaging with Deleuze's work is reshaping their research processes. It questions the relationship between theory and methodology. It explores the conditions under which empirical research is conducted. It considers the effects/affects of research.

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12 new essays evaluating Agamben's work from a postcolonial perspective. Svirsky and Bignall assemble leading figures to explore the rich philosophical linkages and the political concerns shared by Agamben and postcolonial theory. Agamben's theories of the 'state of exception' and 'bare life' are situated in critical relation to the existence of these phenomena in the colonial/postcolonial world. * Features an international set of expert contributors who approach postcolonial criticism from an interdisciplinary perspective * Deals with colonial and postcolonial issues in Russia, Israel and Palestine, Africa the Americas, Asia and Australia * Offers new insights on colonial exclusion, racism and postcolonial democracy * A timely intervention to debates in poststructuralist, postcolonial and postmodern studies for students of politics, critical theory and social & political philosophy

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Originally entitled 'Life at Twenty-Five', Stevenson's first collection of essays conducts conversations with the reader about the most satisfying ways to rebel against Victorian respectability in the areas of love, marriage, money and leisure.

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This title explores Anglo-American economic diplomacy in South America during the Second World War. Thomas Mills explores how relations between Britain and the US in South America were related to the development of the economic landscape of the post-war world - the economic world that we are, to a large extent, still living in. Drawing on extensive secondary reading and archival research in official and private collections, this new study challenges existing scholarship - including notions about the nature of the economic diplomacy undertaken by the wartime allies - and makes an informed and original contribution to research on Anglo-American relations. Topics explored include: the Lend-Lease Export White Paper and its effects on British exports to South America; Economic warfare policies such as blacklisting and the Axis replacement programme; specific industries that had a strategic value as well as commercial importance, such as telecommunications; and, enterprises that took on an importance beyond their intrinsic worth, such as the central Brazilian railway.

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This title presents a range of critical engagements with the work of Alain Badiou. This collection of 13 essays directly addresses the work of Alain Badiou, focusing specifically on the philosophical content of his work and the various connections he established with both his contemporaries and his philosophical heritage. This is the first reassessment of Badiou's work since the publication of the English translation of Logics of Worlds, (2009). It critiques how Badiou sources and responds to existing philosophical arguments and traditions as well as the arguments he employs to do so. It examines Badiou's work through the lens of a number of thinkers and themes, from Cantor and category/topos theory, through Lacan and Lautman, to Sartre and subject.

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This book presents a new approach to the issue of temporality in film. Matilda Mroz argues that cinema provides an ideal opportunity to engage with ideas of temporal flow and change. Temporality, however, remains an underexplored area of film analysis, which frequently discusses images as though they were still rather than moving. This book traces the operation of duration in cinema, and argues that temporality should be a central concern of film scholarship. In close readings of Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'Avventura", Andrei Tarkovsky's "Mirror", and the ten short films that make up Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Decalogue" series, Mroz highlights how film analysis must consider both particular moments in cinema which are critically significant, and the way in which such moments interrelate in temporal flux. She explores the concepts of duration and rhythm, resonance and uncertainty, affect, sense and texture, to bring a fresh perspective to film analysis and criticism. Essential reading for students and scholars in Film Studies, this engaging study will also be a valuable resource for critical theorists.

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Thomas Reid was an intellectual polymath interested in all aspects of Enlightenment thought. Paul Wood reconstructs Reid's career as a mathematician and natural philosopher and shows how he grappled with Sir Isaac Newton's scientific legacy.

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Examines the tensions between the aims of military technology and modernist aesthetics in relation to perception. A basic aim of visual technologies is to collapse perception with the perceived object. Modernist aesthetics shows that an irreducible element of time and space always remains. Military technology tends towards the impossible goal of eliminating this dimension; modernist aesthetics exploits it. Placing military operations alongside modernist aesthetics reveals the civic sphere suspended between two incompatible desires. Reading the art and writing of Djuna Barnes, Joseph Conrad, Marcel Duchamp, James Joyce, Mina Loy, Stephane Mallarme, the Italian Futurists and H. G. Wells against Apache attack helicopters, Network-Centric Warfare, satellites, decoys, sirens and radios, this book addresses issues such as targeting, surveillance, visibility and the invisible, broadcast and media, the military body, diasporas, geopolitics and beauty. Key Features * An important contribution to the increasingly important interdisciplinary field of war studies * Original and 'groundbreaking' readings of modernist art, literature, music, poetics and aesthetics * A valuable and provocative new reading of the avant-garde * Contributes to a new understanding of both military technics and modernist aesthetics

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How Deleuze's philosophy informs the interdisciplinary and multi-faceted problematic of education. The 12 original essays in this volume look at contemporary debates on teaching and learning across the broad territory of educational theory and philosophy of education. Moving from the formal to post-formal mode of education, the contributors explore education as an experimental and experiential process of becoming grounded in life that represents the becoming - Other of Deleuze's thought. It features contributors that include Ronald Bogue and James Williams. It addresses contemporary debates on ethics, social experience & educational futures, subjectivity & creativity, pedagogy and literacy, mathematics, arts & science education.

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Films such as Occident, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, Police, Adjective and If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle have brought Romanian cinema from relative obscurity into the limelight of the international festival circuit and to the attention of professional and lay audiences alike. These films' common aesthetic, thematic, ethical and ideological traits expound a coherent and increasingly important film movement - the new Romanian cinema. Through the prism of a representative selection of twenty extraordinarily well-crafted and highly awarded films made over the last decade, this book offers an overview of Romanian cinema from its origins to the present. It describes the cultural, social and political environment. It features historical and textual analysis of key films. It offers a unique exploration of the films' audio-visual grammar of space and time. It integrates contemporary film theory and cultural and gender studies. It examines the broader (Eastern European) industrial context and the impact of audience and industry discourses. It features interviews with prominent directors such as Cristi Puiu, Cristian Mungiu, and Corneliu Porumboiu.

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This book, a collection of Alex Danchev's essays on the theme of art, war and terror, newly available in paperback, offers a sustained demonstration of the way in which works of art can help us to explore the most difficult ethical and political issues of our time: war, terror, extermination, torture and abuse. It takes seriously the idea of the artist as moral witness to this realm, considering war photography, for example, as a form of humanitarian intervention. War poetry, war films and war diaries are also considered in a broad view of art, and of war. Kafka is drawn upon to address torture and abuse in the war on terror; Homer is utilised to analyse current talk of 'barbarisation'. The paintings of Gerhard Richter are used to investigate the terrorists of the Baader-Meinhof group, while the photographs of Don McCullin and the writings of Vassily Grossman and Primo Levi allow the author to propose an ethics of small acts of altruism. This book examines the nature of war over the last century, from the Great War to a particular focus on the current 'Global War on Terror'. It investigates what it means to be human in war, the cost it exacts and the ways of coping.Several of the essays therefore have a biographical focus.

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Marcel Mauss' 'Essai sur le don' (1923--4) has become one of the central non-philosophical references of contemporary French philosophy. Deleuze (and Guattari) and Derrida, to cite only two, engage with the concept of the gift explicitly and repeatedly. Gerald Moore shows how the problematic of the gift drives and illuminates the last century of French philosophy. By tracing the creation of the gift as a concept, from its origins in philosophy and the social sciences, right up to the present, Moore shows its central importance for a poststructuralist understanding of the relation between philosophy and politics.

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Hugh MacDiarmid is widely considered the most significant Scottish poet since Robert Burns and the major literary force in twentieth-century Scottish culture. His poetry is both compelling in its intellectual challenge and captivating in its lyrical beauty. This book explores the principal thematic and aesthetic preoccupations in MacDiarmid's work, relating his poetry to key national and international concerns in modern culture and politics. It offers a vital updating of MacDiarmid scholarship through contributions by leading scholars of the modern period which provide a contextual and interpretive guide to this challenging writer. All of MacDiarmid's major poetic works are examined in addition to a representative selection of his diverse output in other genres, from journalism to shorter fiction, autobiography and political polemic. His poetry and his place in the cultural history of Scottish, British and international modernism will be contemporised through consideration of his significance from a European, transatlantic and ecological global perspective. This collection of essays on MacDiarmid will draw on the creative and discursive writings made newly available through the recent publication of previously uncollected work. Key features: * Updates and internationalises MacDiarmid studies * Provides informed analysis and contextualisation of MacDiarmid's poetry through close readings of texts * Utilises recently published MacDiarmid material * Contributes to a re-drawing of the map of international literary modernism

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Combines historical rigour with an analysis of dramatic contexts, themes and forms The 17 contributors explore the longstanding and vibrant Scottish dramatic tradition and the important developments in Scottish dramatic writing and theatre, with particular attention to the last 100 years. The first part of the volume covers Scottish drama from the earliest records to the late twentieth-century literary revival, as well as translation in Scottish theatre and non-theatrical drama. The second part focuses on the work of influential Scottish playwrights, from J. M. Barrie and James Bridie to Ena Lamont Stewart, Liz Lochhead and Edwin Morgan and right up to contemporary playwrights Anthony Neilson, Gregory Burke, Henry Adams and Douglas Maxwell. Key Features * Provides a thorough overview of Scottish theatre from the earliest days to the present * Deals with play texts as well as with the key contexts and themes of drama and theatre over the years * Provides insights into the work of leading Scottish playwrights, including the new generations since the 1970s * Written for students and theatre-lovers alike

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Alain Badiou's philosophical project is a genuine system in the traditional sense. It profoundly shakes up the field of thought as well as offering fresh insights into contemporary events. His concepts are becoming indispensable tools in a variety of fields, from philosophy to anthropology, including art, politics and theatre. From Antiphilosophy to Worlds and from Beckett to Wittgenstein, over 90 entries in this dictionary provide detailed explanations and engagements with his key concepts and some of his major interlocutors. They also reflect the crucial divergences in Badiou scholarship in a productive and enlightening way.

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This title maps the development of the crime drama on international television. The television crime drama has been a constant of the television landscape since it first migrated from film and radio onto the small screen in the 1950s. Since then, from Dixon of Dock Green to The Wire, from Minder to The Sopranos or Cracker to Dexter, the crime drama has continued to attract large audiences even as the depiction of the crime, the perpetrators and the investigators has changed. This book provides an historical analysis of the TV crime series as a genre by paying close attention not only to the nature of TV dramas themselves, but also to the context of production and reception. Rather than simply providing an overview, this book offers a series of case studies to illuminate key issues in the trajectory of the genre. Particular attention will be paid to the transnational career of the television crime drama, including the British and American product, as well as attention to crime drama series produced in other national contexts such as Europe and Australia. In terms of reception, this book includes original research on how the TV crime drama is perceived by audiences within the particular national context of Australia where American, British and European crime dramas vie for attention in the TV schedule alongside the local product. Finally, the future of the TV crime series is canvassed in a discussion of the changing television landscape and the shift to other forms of TV consumption enabled by new digital technologies. It includes case studies on The Wire, Minder and The Killing. It discusses drama from Australia, the US, Britain and Europe.

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This book investigates the sensuous qualities of narration in the feature-length fiction film. Ian Garwood provides a comprehensive account of existing work on film narration and offers an overview of the sensuous aspects of cinematic storytelling - for example, the image becomes 'soft' in order to signal the representation of a character's memory or a 'scratchy' version of a song plays on the soundtrack in order to shape the viewer's understanding of the images it accompanies - as demonstrated through a broad selection of films. The films used as case studies in the book are particularly 'multi-layered', in that they all make extensive use of materials with sensuously contrasting visual and/or aural properties: for example, films whose images are a combination of colour and monochrome e.g. The Wizard of Oz whose soundtracks feature multiple voiceover narrators e.g. All About Eve or which feature multiple performers portraying the same character e.g. the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There.

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This distinctive comparison of Islamic and Christian mysticism focuses on the mystic journey in the two faith traditions - the journey which every believer must make and which leads to the Divine. The author clears away misconceptions and highlights similarities and differences in the thought and lives of six key mystics: Al-Kalabadhi, Al-Daylami, Al-Qushayri, Julian of Norwich, Thomas A. Kempis and Teresa of Avila. He considers the ways of Perfection on the Mystic Path and asks in what ways these authors have embarked on the mystic journey. He looks at the themes they have in common, as well as their differences, and asks how they envisage the concept of 'union' with the Deity. Readers will gain a broad understanding of the interdisciplinary and intertextual nature of the subject, as well its the diverse intellectual and historical contexts. Key Features Highly interdisciplinary: embraces both Eastern and Western mystical traditions Surveys themes as diverse as secular chivalry and union with the Divine Examines the role of al-Khidr/ al-Khadir/ Elijah/ Elias/ St George in both the Islamic and Christian mystical traditions Considers the negative and positive articulations of each tradition Assesses and compares three major Islamic and three major Christian mystics A companion volume to Islam, Christianity and Tradition: A Comparative Exploration by Ian R. Netton (978 0 7486 2392 1)

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In recent years Agamben's work has gained prominence for its incisive critique of the Western political tradition. Yet this has often resulted in a selective reading of his broad body of work, rather than one that addresses it as a complex whole. The Agamben Dictionary has brought together leading and emerging scholars from across the world to provide this essential overview of his work.

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The first theoretical and practical guide to the application and operation of shari'ah-based structures and Islamic venture capital in the private equity industry. Case studies and examples of business financial appraisals are used to give an in-depth view of areas including the Islamic banking industry; its use as a source of funding in the biotechnology industry, pharmaceuticals, ICT, agriculture and fisheries; and its utility by investment companies as part of their asset management strategies. Key Features *Begins with an overview of the industry before focusing on key areas within it including profit sharing, valuation, risk mitigation, exit strategies, trust, monitoring methods and due diligence *Looks at private equity and venture capital in the MENA and ASEAN regions, the UK, Europe and the USA *Case studies are accompanied by questions appropriate for classroom discussion or assignments

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This book introduces the essential principles and techniques of formal semantics. In formal semantics, structure is treated as the essential ingredient in the creation of sentence meaning from individual word meaning. This approach synthesizes the traditions of logical language analysis with the scientific findings of contemporary empirical linguistics and introduces new ways to understand language meaning. Designed as a quick yet thorough introduction to one of the most vibrant areas of research in modern linguistics today this volume reveals the beauty and elegance of the mathematical study of meaning. It contains examples and exercises. It offers an accessible style that is aimed at students developing knowledge of formal semantics. It can be applied to logic, computational linguistics and artificial intelligence.

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The Scottish National Party has played a significant role in the politics of Scotland in the last forty years. In particular it has contributed to and shaped the impact and dynamics of devolution. This collection brings together academics, writers, commentators and analysts of Scottish politics to address the nature of the SNP: its position in Scotland, its influence on devolution, its role as a minority administration and its relationship with other institutions in Scotland, the UK and Europe.

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Introduces new readers and students to a celebrated and controversial Victorian novel-poem Michele Martinez guides readers through the poem's major themes and literary and socio-cultural contexts, introducing a range of interpretive frameworks. Long extracts from the poem are accompanied by helpful explanatory commentary. The text's composition history, major influences and modes of poetic expression are also discussed. The teaching and bibliographic chapters offer supplementary materials including print and internet resources. Key Features *Ideal guide for readers coming to the text for the first time, or teaching the text at University level * Fully contextualised and annotated sections of the poem * Detailed exploration of key themes: poetic vision; love and poetry; epistolary fiction; epic and society; motherhood and sexual transgression; poetry and prophecy * Innovative teaching suggestions * Advice and guidance for further reading

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In these 15 taster essays you will discover the key concepts and critical approaches of the theorists who have had the most significant impact on the humanities since 1990. On completing each chapter, you will find suggestions for further reading so that you can find out more and start applying the ideas in question. In addition to chapters on individuals such as Badiou, Ranciere and Spivak, there are chapters on Laclau and Mouffe, and a chapter on Green critical theorists. Key Features *Written by experienced lecturers including John Armitage (Northumbria University), Paul Hegarty (University College Cork), David Huddart (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Simon Tormey (The University of Sydney), Samuel A. Chambers (Johns Hopkins University) *Sets each theorist in their biographical and intellectual context *The only book to offer chapter-length introductions to such a range of contemporary theorists making it the first place to look for an informed overview and evaluation *Jon Simons has edited two other popular guides to critical theory: From Kant to Levi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory and Contemporary Critical Theorists: From Lacan to Said.

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The first volume in the Muslim Civilisations Abstracts series is a reference catalogue of 200 annotated bibliographies and abstracts of encyclopedias published during the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Material has been made available in English, Arabic and Turkish. Volumes in the series seek not only to represent the diversity of Muslim societies, but also to create access to and reinforce communication between scholars and institutions across Muslim contexts; where the sharing of knowledge and information has often been hindered due to language barriers.

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Recent discussions of the 'Chinese economic development model', the emergence of an alternative 'Muslim model' over the past quarter century and the faltering globalisation of the 'Washington Consensus' all point to the need to investigate more systematically the nature of these models and their competitive attractions. This is especially the case in the Muslim world which both spans different economic and geographic categories and is itself the progenitor of a development model. The 'Chinese model' has attracted the greatest attention in step with that country's phenomenal growth and therefore provides the primary focus for this book. This volume examines the characteristics of this model and its reception in two major regions of the world - Africa and Latin America. It also investigates the current competition over development models across Muslim contexts. The question of which model or models, if any, will guide development in Muslim majority countries is vital not only for them, but for the world as a whole. This is the first political economy study to address this vital question as well as the closely related issue of the centrality of governance to development.

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This book could easily be called 'A Guide for the Modern Muslim', for someone to whom the sentiments of his or her ancestors resonate but who cannot accept the canonised formulas of a stultified education. Charfi spells out what, for him, is the essential message of Islam, followed by a history of its unfolding through the person of the Prophet Muhammad, who was a visionary seeking to change the ideals, attitudes and behaviours of the society in which he lived. The message and its history are delineated as two separate things, conflated by tradition. Charfi's reflections cross those horizons where few Muslim scholars have dared until now to tread. He confronts with great lucidity those difficult questions with which Muslims are struggling, attempting to reconsider them from a moral and political perspective that is independent of the frameworks produced by tradition.

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Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) is one of the most influential and important Muslim thinkers in history. Ibn Khaldun has inspired at least as much interest among modern scholars as his immediate contemporaries. Legions of sociologists, anthropologists and historians have studied his philosophy of history, treating the Muqaddimah as a timeless piece of philosophy. Most studies of Ibn Khaldun ignore the fascinating story his own life and times. Rejecting portrayals of Ibn Khaldun as a modern mind lost in medieval obscurity, Ibn Khaldun: Life and Times demonstrates how Ibn Khaldun's ideas were shaped by his historical context and personal motivations. Relying on original Arabic sources, most importantly Ibn Khaldun's unique autobiography, this is the first complete, scholarly biography of Ibn Khaldun in English. While previous studies dismissed Ibn Khaldun's autobiography as lacking in psychological depth, Ibn Khaldun: Life and Times challenges this view. Demonstrating the rich and complex nature of Ibn Khaldun's memoirs, Ibn Khaldun: Life and Times not only tells the life story of Ibn Khaldun in an accessible way, it also introduces readers to the fourteenth-century Mediterranean world. Seen in the context of a politically tumultuous and religiously contentious fourteenth century Mediterranean, Ibn Khaldun's ideas about tribalism, identity, religion and history are even more relevant to pressing, modern concerns.

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An authoritative assessment of the changing relationship between the Bible and the arts In this unique Companion, 35 scholars, from world-famous to just beginning, explore the role of the Bible in art and of artistic motifs in the Bible. The specially commissioned chapters demonstrate that just as the arts have portrayed biblical stories in a variety of ways and media over the centuries, so what we call 'the' Bible is not actually a single entity but has been composed of fiercely contested translations of texts in many languages, whose selection has depended historically on a variety of cultural pressures, theological, social, and, not least, aesthetic. Key Features: * Divided into 3 sections, Inspiration and Theory, Art and Architecture, and Literature * Generously illustrated * Covers aesthetic interpretations of specific biblical books; of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles as a whole; the transmission of biblical texts; various bindings and illustrations of Bibles - in response to pressures as diverse as Islamic craftsmanship and the English Reformation * Includes pieces on biblical influences on poetry, painting, church architecture, decoration, and stained glass; on poetry, hymns, novels, plays, and fantasy literature * Spans the earliest days of the Christian era to the present

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This is the first dictionary dedicated to the work of Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). It explains and contextualises more than a hundred key concepts, terms, influences and topics within his thought. An essential reference for students and scholars of Baudrillard, it also serves as an authoritative overview of how his ideas have shaped a broad range of disciplines, from art, architecture, film and photography to sociology, philosophy, human geography, media studies and cultural studies. The entries are written by thirty-five leading Baudrillard specialists from around the world, including Rex Butler, Mike Gane, Gary Genosko, Victoria Grace, Diane Rubenstein and Andrew Wernick.

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This is the first dictionary dedicated to the work of Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). It explains and contextualises more than a hundred key concepts, terms, influences and topics within his thought. An essential reference for students and scholars of Baudrillard, it also serves as an authoritative overview of how his ideas have shaped a broad range of disciplines, from art, architecture, film and photography to sociology, philosophy, human geography, media studies and cultural studies. The entries are written by thirty-five leading Baudrillard specialists from around the world, including Rex Butler, Mike Gane, Gary Genosko, Victoria Grace, Diane Rubenstein and Andrew Wernick.

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The Scottish parliamentary and local elections of 2007 were significant for two key reasons: the SNP was brought to power for the first time in its history, posing a fundamental challenge to the 300-year Scottish-English Union; and the local elections used the Single Transferable Vote - the first time such an electoral system has been used in Great Britain since 1945. This book explores the significance of these two developments, asking whether they herald a revolutionary break with the past or simply mark a continuing evolution of existing patterns of Scottish politics. It uses a unique source of evidence - representative high quality annual sample surveys of the Scottish public that since 1999 have regularly measured how people in Scotland have reacted to devolution and how they have behaved in elections. Readers will gain an unparalleled insight into the identities, attitudes and electoral behaviour of people in Scotland during the first decade of devolution.

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The year 2008 will be remembered as the moment when the US elected its first African American president. This revealing book seeks to place the extraordinary rise of Barack Obama within the larger context of a possible historic political realignment in the US and of limits to US power in the world. For 2008 also offered a number of history lessons that will surely inform studies of the election and its aftermath. Carl Pedersen's book is an attempt to engage with these history lessons. It examines the demographic changes that will likely change the nature of American national identity. And it assesses the extent to which the grassroots organizations that were crucial in winning the election for Obama may influence the way he will govern the nation. Obama's America also attempts to map out the contours of an Obama Doctrine in foreign policy by looking at how his identity has shaped his views on the role of the US in the world and how he, in turn, has been influenced by his foreign policy advisers. It examines the challenges Obama faces in confronting a post-American world in which the US is no longer the sole superpower. Will Obama be a transformative president?

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