Is there a special role for the Low Countries in art history’s current focus on global mobility? How, and why, should we conceive of the globalization of Netherlandish art? The essays brought together in this volume examine how artworks produced in the wake of European expansion – produced in the Netherlands in reaction to the world outside Euro…
Near-death experiences offer a glimpse not only into the nature of death but also into the meaning of life. They are not only useful tools to aid in the human quest to understand death but are also deeply meaningful, transformative experiences for the people who have them. In a unique contribution to the growing and popular literature on the subject, philosophers John Martin Fischer and Benj…
In March of 2012, The Linux Foundation released a report entitled, ‘Linux Kernel Development: How Fast it is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It’. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system that facilitates communication between computer hardware and soft-ware, and the Linux kernel development project is conside…
I identify as an anthropologist, with a slight undercoating of archaeology, which was triggered f ifty years ago by seeing pots with unusual designs in a Bangkok market. In a grade seven project on choosing a career, I wrote that I wanted to be an archaeologist; much later I learned that anthropology was the best route to that career. I received my BA in anthropology from the University of Toro…
People with Down syndrome possess a culture. They are producers of culture. And in the 21st century, this culture is increasingly visible as a global phenomenon. Down Syndrome Culture examines Down syndrome alongside its social, cultural, and artistic representation. Author Benjamin Fraser draws upon neomaterialist and posthumanist approaches to disability as well as the work of disability theo…
Augmented reality can be understood as an integration of the virtual into the real or augmentation thereof. This places augmented reality on the ‘reality’ side of the mixed reality continuum,1 meaning that virtual elements usually exist as foreign bodies in a real space. While there are many possible applications for augmented reality, its potential for a…
Do you love quantum physics, cosmology, and the humor behind the popular television show The Big Bang Theory? Have you been on the lookout for a fun, non-technical explanation of the science behind things like time travel, wormholes, antimatter, and dark energy? You’ll find all of that, and more, inside this fact-filled, cartoon-packed book. In Quirky Quarks: A Cartoon Guide to the Fa…
“There was no such thing as the Scientific Revolution, and this is a book about it” (Shapin 1996, 1). So began Stephen Shapin’s The Scientific Revolution, a work, con-cise and smart, that embodied an approach to the history of science termed “the social construction of science.” Shapin argued that if we are going to talk about a “scientific revolution,” then we need to see it not …
In classical mythology, Atlas carries the weight of the world and the star-studded sky on his shoulders. Much like his brother Prometheus, Atlas, a Titan, is punished by the victorious Olym-pian gods, led by Zeus, for siding with Kronos and the humans created by the Titans in the war against them. Prometheus is also notorious for having given humanity fire. Consequently, he…
The term "gender" was first distinguished from "sex" in the 1950s, when psychologists began to discuss the idea of "gender roles"--behaviors and responsibilities given to people by a society rather than flowing from their biology. Over the last two decades, transgender people have expanded our understanding of gender even further, introducing to the mainstream the concept of "gender identity," …
Maya Puspa steps out of her home and salon with confidence and grace, narrowly avoiding the puddles that have transformed her lane into a muddy track. She smiles, arching her thin, penciled-on eyebrows as she turns to a group of elderly men gathered over a chessboard. It is her evening walk and, cheerily greeting the men, Maya strides out of her lane and onto a city street. Maya li…
In a 2017 speech, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe declared that the Confederate monuments should be removed because they helped to keep racism alive in present-day institutions and attitudes. President Donald Trump, for his part, argued that those attempting to remove the monu-ments were seeking to rewrite history in order to remove all traces of ideas with whi…
The book of Daniel (Dan) presents us with many indications of multiple authorship and a complicated textual history. Most obviously, there are the oppositions of genre and language. Dan 1–6 contain loosely connected court tales, mostly narrated in the third person.1 Dan 7–12 contain apocalypses, mostly narrated in the first person.2 Largely but not e…
Sometimes animals surprise us by doing something that seems uncannily human-like.Marmosets (South American monkeys of the family Callitrichidae) are tiny, weighing only around 300–400g, and though they are primates they look entirely unlike humans, perhaps even a little more like squirrels. However, like humans they form pair bonds, and collaborate in childcare…
The discovery of ammonia synthesis from the elements forms the basis of dis-cussion for many topics including fertilizer and food, environmental protection,the repercussions of scientific research, and economic transformation, as well asother industrial, political, and social events. The story in this book focuses on thedevelopment of the natural sciences and de…
Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the “New England Courant.” To this journal he became a contributor, and later …
This volume explores the concept of humour and its relationship with human behaviour. The interdisciplinary essays in this book cover a wide range of time, from the sixteenth century to the present day. They delve into various cultural contexts, challenging social norms and prompting readers to reflect on the ethical implications of humour. The collection highlights the varied metaphors of hero…
hroughout his adult life, Alabaster kept diaries. In 1987, they were donated to the Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.2 For much of his career, the diaries list his daily appointments and meetings with only brief notices of personal events; for this he used Letts’s brand diaries, one day for each page. However, the first four volume…
There is a large and mostly unmet global need for affordable and efficacious wound care, despite modern-day medicine advancing at break-neck speed. Indeed, the tide of chronic wounds is rising. Modern lifestyle changes, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), bring a rapid rise in non-communicable disease including cardiovascular disease, o…
The arts offer tremendous potential for enriching, enlivening and propelling learning that transforms individuals and communities. Arts learning fuels transformative education that helps increase students’ capacity and motivation to build a more peaceful and sustainable world. However, to fully realize that potential, teachers must mindfully structure and support educational experiences to op…
The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the Laws, and is certainly the greatest of them. There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist; the Politicus or Statesman is more ideal; the form and institutions of the State are more clearly drawn out in the Laws; as works of art, the Symposium and the Protagoras are of higher excel…
As a discipline, the study of Biblical Hebrew grammar began largely among Arabic-speaking Jews of the Middle Ages, particularly in the ʿAbbasid period (750–1258 CE). Indeed, it has long been acknowledged by scholars that the Hebrew grammatical tradition, in many ways, grew up out of and alongside the Arabic grammatical tradition. Many concepts present in Hebrew grammar have their origins in …
"The series “Russia and the Asia-Pacific” explores political, economic, social, cultural and environmental interactions of the Russian Far East within its Asian-Pacific context as well as with the Russian capital in the past and present. Its first volume addresses from a multidisciplinary perspective notably the following questions: How were and are directives from a centre thousands of kil…
Synthetic biology raises the possibility that pathogenic bioweapons could be designed, developed, and deployed in new ways that diverge from the disease-causing characteristics of naturally occurring pathogens (NAS 2018). Traditionally, only known pathogens found naturally in the environment, such as B. anthracis and Y. pestis, were developed as biological weapons because o…
The idea for this collection was born out of a chance encounter over coffee in a U.S. Starbucks. Over a wide-ranging conversation, we discussed the state of working-class literature as a field, the de-cline of Marxism in academia, our favorite working-class authors, and the lack of good coffe shops on U.S. campuses. We both gen-erally laid out the various trajectories of scholarly rec…
Alexander von Humboldt starts his “Critical Inquiries” in 1852 withthe observation that the miscalculation of one authority has triggeredmany forms of human action in exploring the planet. It is for him theact of travelling that generates knowledge and ultimately drives forwardhuman intellectual progress, even if the travellers themselves might bemisguided. Human triggers and reasons for tr…
This year marks 50 years since the least developed countries (LDCs) category was established by a United Nations General Assembly resolution, following research, analysis and advocacy work by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This pivotal landmark comes as intergovernmental negotiations are taking shape for a new programme of action for the LDCs for the decade 202…
Coaching is mainly an art and, like the artist, the coach must have two attributes. The first is creative flair, that marriage of aptitude and passion which enables him to draw an athlete’s dream towards realisation. The athlete, moved to express himself within a social mosaic, chooses to do so in pursuit of competitive excellence in sport. The coach creates order and direction for that expre…
This book is about systems. It focuses on the engineering of systems, and upon systems analysis. In the first case, the concern is with improving systems already in existence. Topics presented in this book have been developed and organized into six parts. This book is intended for use in the classroom at either the undergraduate or graduate level or by the practicing professional in industry, b…