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In her innovative take on G.W. F. Hegel's The Encyclopaedia Logic, Julie E. Maybee uses pictures and diagrams to cut through the philosopher's dense, difficult writing. Picturing Hegel: An Illustrated Guide to Hegel's Encyclopaedia Logic utilizes diagrams in order to rehabilitate Hegel's logic for serious consideration by showing how each stage develops step-by-step from earlier stages according to definite, logical patterns. This interpretation makes Hegel's work accessible and understandable for new and experienced readers alike. Because Hegel uses the same logic in all of his works, Maybee's analysis and defense of the logic will capture the attention of those readers interested in Hegel's ethics, politics, history, philosophy of religion, and phenomenology. Through the included diagrams, Maybee is able to define central Hegelian concepts such as 'being-in-itself,' and 'being-in-and-for-itself' with a new level of precision. Maybee argues that Hegel's logic does not include the one logistical pattern most often attributed to him; namely, the pattern 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis.' Rather, Hegel's model of logic was more scientific than formalistic in nature, as the philosopher himself pointed out. Hegel considered himself an encyclopedic culmination of Western philosophy in some ways, and indeed his work summarizes many of the presuppositions of Western philosophy. By picturing Hegel's logic, we can gain a greater understanding of ourselves.

A practical people not prone to be lured to philosophical abstraction for its own sake, the Romans looked toward philosophy for guidance on how to live. Though wary of Greek philosophy, the Romans would come to see the need for philosophies such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism to point the way to leading the good life. With the help of these philosophies, they attempted to grapple with some of most enduring concerns of the human condition: Who am I? How should I live my life? What, if anything, is my destiny? Raymond Angelo Belliotti's Roman Philosophy and the Good Life provides an accessible picture of these major philosophical influences in Rome and details the crucial role they played during times of major social upheaval. Belliotti demonstrates the contemporary relevance of some of the philosophical issues faced by the Romans, and offers ways in which today's society can learn from the Romans in our attempt to create meaningful lives. Roman Philosophy and the Good Life will certainly intrigue those who are drawn to Roman history and politics, and especially those who enjoy viewing philosophy in action.

Human Communication and the Brain: Building the Foundation for the Field of Neurocommunications, by Donald B. Egolf, provides an introduction to the latest neuroscience research and expands its applications to the study of communication. Egolf explores both methodological and ethical issues that are surfacing as a result of the newest findings, revealing important new questions about the nature of communication and the brain, including: is there a way to communicate directly with the brain? What outside powers should be permitted to access that method of information dissemination?Egolf's text has implications for a number of communication subsets, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, political, marketing, and deception, and this new research undoubtedly will provoke debate amongst communication and neuroscience scholars for years to come.

Constructing Community examines community from the particular perspective of the shaping and control of urban space in contemporary liberal democracies. Following a consideration and critique of influential theories of community that have arisen within European philosophy over the last three decades, Brian Elliott investigates parallel approaches to community within urban theory and practice over the same period. Underlying the comparison of political theory and urban practice is a basic assumption that community and place are intimately connected such that the one cannot be adequately understood without the other. The underlying intention of this book is to advocate a particular understanding of community, one that centers on collective, grassroots oppositional action. While it draws on certain current theories and practices, the model of community put forward is far from the orthodox position. This study is a provocative and original analysis of the question of urban politics in contemporary liberal democracies. It offers a strong case for reconsidering current debates on democratic politics in light of the connection between political power and the control of public space and the built environment.

In Ethical Leadership in Turbulent Times, leadership and organizational theory are blended with early 20th Century history to model public leadership that is both monumentally effective and classically ethical. What is leadership? What makes leadership good or bad? To answer these questions, Gerald M. Pops draws on the multi-faceted career of George C. Marshall as an extended case study, focusing on the timely subject of leadership in public service. The dominating traits of Marshalls career were his character, virtues, and ethical practices in two world wars, his efforts to keep the peace and promote economic recovery following World War II, his style of management, and his approach to international diplomacy and nation-building. Pops shows how Marshalls leadership was unique, given the ethical qualities displayed in his character and instilled in the organizations he led. All of these are examined in the context of his long career, and related to an abundant body of leadership theory, in order to successfully present Marshall as an effective public leader not only of the military and political realms, but of business and society as well. This makes the book ideal for students and scholars in the fields of political science, public administration, and the burgeoning field of leadership studies. It is also a fascinating read for all those with a love of twentieth century and military history.

Confronted with the uncertainties of living in a modern liberal society, many are tempted toward moral paralysis: a hesitation to judge or act on those judgments. Reinhold Niebuhr's paradoxical conception of the self allows for a deeper interpretation of this plight and, in this insightful book, Daniel Malotky shows that Niebuhr's work holds out a potential solution to it: a framework for a measure of moral certainty without ideological blindness. The paradox of freedom and finitude demands that though endeavors to reach a meaningful totality will always be limited in some fashion, grasping this totality must still be attempted. Using Niebuhr's thought as a guide, Malotky conceives of a framework that provides the parameters of justification as defined by the pragmatists, while also opening the door to the critical appropriation of the moral wealth of Christian tradition. Malotky follows Niebuhr's example in a defense of the traditional Christian concepts of sin, love, and grace. He engages in immanent criticism, shaping a response to the violently disposed, focusing on the issue of gun violence in particular, and defining what our own attitude should be to the use of force. Readers will be engaged by the way this this concise book models a properly Christian pragmatism on questions of violence.

This insightful book focuses on the multifaceted subject of sustainable religious peacebuilding. Katrien Hertog discusses the ways in which religious actors can utilize resources to prevent violent conflict from occurring, reduce conflict when it does happen, and rebuild bridges between sides in after conflict has ceased. She examines the emergence of the field of religious peacebuilding, developing a conceptual framework that outlines how aspects of religious organizations can contribute to effectual peacebuilding and creating a screening model that allows readers to analyze the resources and obstacles to peacebuilding in-depth. Using the Russia and the Orthodox Church as a major case study, Hertog clearly shows what the concrete resources for peace are, how they are applied, what obstacles are hindering their realization, and how these resources can be better utilized and supported. This book tackles the controversial issue of the place of religion and religious organizations in the peace process. While recognizing that no simple answer exists in solving ethnic, religious, and tribal conflict, Hertog presents the ways religion can be used to create lasting, sustainable peace.

Germans often claim that 'we have learned the lessons of our history.' But what, precisely, are the lessons they have drawn from their Nazi-era past? What experiences from that time continue to hold significant meaning for Germans today, and how have those experiences shaped postwar German cultural identity? Though Germans have come to recognize the evils of Nazism, for them, its primary evil derived from the war it unleashed and the hardships, death, and destruction that the war wrought on the Germans themselves, and less from the losses and suffering it caused others. Recent public discussion about the Allied bombing campaign against Germany, the expulsion of Germans from Eastern Europe, and other German experiences during and following the Second World War have revealed what some see as an emerging tendency among Germans to perceive themselves as much the victims of wartime acts as other peoples. Through a survey of postwar literature, film, and other popular media, as well as public commemorations and other means of memorializing and discussing the past, K. Michael Prince demonstrates that the theme of German suffering has been an abiding and even overriding element of postwar German historical memory and a chief component of German cultural identity. While academics have focused their attention on Nazism, atrocity and genocide, and while Germany's official ceremonies and other acts of public memory have been similarly directed, it was the wartime sufferings of average Germans that have remained at the core of German historical consciousness, influencing their attitudes toward war in general and shaping Germany's role in world affairs.

This book analyzes the ways in which the Chinese government and military responded to the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province. It adopts a comparative and historical perspective in studying the responses of the Chinese government in the first critical 72 hours, the mobilization of the People's Liberation Army and its difficulties, the assertive and important role of the non-governmental groups which established a partnership with the state in the rescue operations, and the process and politics of reconstruction. The book is rich in materials, including comparative case studies of the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, the outbreak of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003, the earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and Myanmar, and the contrasts with the Japanese earthquake tsunami in 2011. Researchers, government officials, policy analysts, seismic specialists, journalists and students will find this book extremely useful, conceptually insightful and practically policy-relevant.

The number of people who live in poverty has always far exceeded the number who do not. The normative question of how governments ought to treat the poor goes to the heart of the idea of justice and thus it is an essential element of political theory. Yet, there has been no formal study of the treatment of poverty in Western political thought. The chapters ofPoverty, Justice, and Western Political Thought include an analysis of the main arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau, Smith, Mill, Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, Rawls, and Nozick about the causes, effects, and solutions to the problem of poverty and how their treatments of poverty relate to the idea of a just society. This book asks: What is the relationship between poverty and justice in the state? If we are to understand the relationship between the poor and the idea of a just state in the tradition of Western political thought, then we must be able to recognize how these theorists' definitions, assumptions, and conclusions about poverty contribute to or detract from the idea of justice. At the core of this work is the claim that the demands of justice necessarily entail that the political theorist engage with the problem of poverty, with the goal being to suggest some thoughtful and reasonable approaches to the problem. Poverty, Justice, and Western Political Thought demonstrates that historical analysis and reconstruction of the treatment of poverty is critical because we are part of a historical community. Rather than being artifacts of scholarship, philosophical debates and ideas that are hundreds and thousands of years old continue to be relevant today because they are part of the foundation for society's beliefs about who the poor are, why they are poor, and what responsibility, if any, society has to them. This book will benefit political theorists and philosophers interested in the history of political thought, poverty, or distributive justice, as well as non-theorists.

True Freedom: Spinoza's Practical Philosophy is a straightforward presentation of Spinoza's philosophy focused on the issue of how one might live. The book is unique among recent Spinoza scholarship in the way in which it centers on the ethical component in Spinoza's work. In order to bring Spinoza's ethics to the fore, Brent Adkins begin with what he considers to be Spinoza's fundamental ethical insight: namely, that emotions are controlled by understanding them. Adkins reveals how the process of unfolding Spinoza's philosophy is always anchored in the very practical issue of living well. The significance of True Freedom lies in its understanding of Spinoza's ethics as an 'experimentalism' and its accessibility to a very wide audience. Despite the fact that Spinoza died over 300 years ago, his writings remain remarkably prescient for a wide variety of disciplines, from religion to neuroscience. The source of this prescience, however, comes from Spinoza's recasting ethical theory in terms of how we might live rather than in terms of how we should live. Freedom in every aspect of life from the personal to the political to the religious is dependent on a particular way of engaging with the world. This engagement takes the form of an experiment to see if what we engage with results in an increase or a decrease in our capacity to affect and be affected by the world. True freedom, for Spinoza, lies in increasing our capacities.

Desert and Virtue: A Theory of Intrinsic Value presents a comprehensive examination of desert and what makes people deserve things. Stephen Kershnar demonstrates how desert relates to virtue, good deeds, moral responsibility, and personal change and growth through the life process. He persuasively argues that desert is a function that relates well-being, intrinsic value, and a 'ground,' which is defined as a person's character or act. Kershnar also explores whether his theory is consistent with the limited responsibility people have for who they are. Desert and Virtue's insightful analysis will be particularly useful for those interested in philosophy, religion, and other fields that touch on value theory.

In Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking toward a New Humanity, Marilyn Nissim-Sabat offers a comprehensive critique of the interrelated concepts of 'victim' and 'survivor' as they have been ideologically distorted in Western thought. Framed by the phenomenological perspective of Edmund Husserl, Nissim-Sabat carries out her argument through an intense engagement with current scholarly work on Toni Morrison's Beloved, Sophocles' Antigone, akrasia, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, feminist philosophy of science, and Marxism. Nissim-Sabat ultimately proposes that a new consciousness, enabled by the phenomenological attitude, of the way in which ideological distortion of the concepts of 'victim' and 'survivor' helps to perpetuate victimization will empower us to find ways to end victimization and its anti-human consequences. The book's interdisciplinary approach will make it appealing to a broad range of students and scholars alike.

The Prudence of Love: How Possessing the Virtue of Love Benefits the Lover focuses upon the intersection of philosophical, theological, and psychological issues concerning love. Eric Silverman advocates an account of the virtue of love derived from Thomas Aquinas's account of charity and makes three claims concerning love's effect on a person's happiness. First, he argues that there are at least five distinct ways that possessing the virtue of love contributes to the lover's happiness. Surprisingly, only one of these benefits is primarily relational, while the other benefits are largely psychological. Second, Silverman argues that the combination of love's benefits typically increases the lover's overall level of happiness. Finally, he argues that possessing a loving disposition is a more reliable strategy for increasing one's overall happiness than possessing an unloving disposition. Throughout The Prudence of Love, Silverman demonstrates that love's benefits are identifiable according to all four major views of happiness.

As the twenty-first century progresses, the Indo-Pacific theater is experiencing an unprecedented transformation involving economic development, military build-ups, political reforms, social changes, and technological advancements. The region now reflects a multitude of geopolitical challenges, factors, and complicated realities. Although America is still recognized as the most powerful force in the Indo-Pacific region, the challenge to America's hegemonic role is quite real and unrelenting. The ongoing global financial crisis has left a changed world with unanswered questions in its wake. Is America's post-WWII dominance of the Indo-Pacific region finally coming to an end? Can the United States and China work together to manage the region's hegemonic responsibilities? In The Geopolitical Power Shift in the Indo-Pacific Region, Randall Doyle provides analysis and insights on the transformational changes and the epochal history unfolding in this part of the world and America's increasingly precarious political and economic position.

Gadamer's Ethics of Play: Hermeneutics and the Other examines the ethical dimensions of understanding by focusing on Gadamer's concept of 'play' as it is developed in his magnum opus Truth and Method. Monica Vilhauer argues for the global relevance of play in Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics by revealing play as the key concept that depicts the process of all understanding_that is, the dynamic, dialogical, and interpretive process by which interlocutors come to grasp a common subject matter together. Through the lens of dialogue-play, the book focuses on openness toward one's dialogue partner, respect for his differing point of view, and a willingness to learn from him in conversation as crucial ethical conditions of genuine understanding. The book aims to revive the ethical heart of philosophical hermeneutics and reveal the transforming power of the Other in Gadamer's hermeneutics. While Gadamer's Ethics of Play develops his philosophical hermeneutics as an ethical philosophy, in the style of the older tradition of Aristotelian practical philosophy, it is finally critical of the extent to which Gadamer's hermeneutics can be used as a guide to practice. The book points out our need for guidance when we face our most prevalent obstacle to understanding_a closedness to the Other, or unwillingness to engage in conversation_but finds no guidance from Gadamer in scenarios where ethical conditions are lacking. Inspired by Gadamer's discussion of play, the book searches for types of human interaction that might have the power to open or re-open the play of dialogue between those who have become closed to each other, so that true understanding between them can be developed. The book is accessible to an undergraduate audience, while also being relevant to ongoing debates among Gadamer scholars.

The Visual Poetics of Raymond Carver draws on the study of visual arts to illuminate the short stories of noted author Raymond Carver, in the broader context of vision and visualization in a literary text. Ayala Amir examines Carver's use of the eye-of-the-camera technique. Amir uncovers the tensions that structure his visual aesthetics and examines assumptions that govern scholarly discussions of his work, relating these matters to the complex nature of photography and to the current 'visual turn' of cultural studies. The research uses visual approaches to reflect upon traditional issues of narrative study-duration, dialogue, narration, description, frame, character, and meaning. Amir shows how Carver's visual aesthetics shapes the meaning of his stories, while also challenging accepted notions of the boundaries of 'the literary.'

Women and Gender in Chinese Martial Arts Films of the New Millennium, by Ya-chen Chen, is an excavation of underexposed gender issues focusing mainly on contradictory and troubled feminism in the film narratives. In the cinematic world of martial arts films, one can easily find representations of women of Ancient China released from the constraints of patriarchal social order to revel in a dreamlike space of their own. They can develop themselves, protect themselves, and even defeat or conquer men. This world not only frees women from the convention of foot-binding, but it also unbinds them in terms of education, critical thinking, talent, ambition, opportunities to socialize with different men, and the freedom or right to both choose their spouse and decide their own fate. Chen calls this phenomenon Chinese cinematic martial arts feminism. The liberation is never sustaining or complete, however; Chen reveals the presence of a glass ceiling marking the maximal exercise of feminism and womens rights which the patriarchal order is willing to accept. As such, these films are not to be seen as celebrations of feminist liberation, but as enunciations of the patriarchal authority that suffuses Chinese cinematic martial arts feminism. The film narratives under examination include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (directed by Ang Lee); Hero (Zhang Yimou); House of the Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou); Seven Swords (Tsui Hark); The Promise (Chen Kaige); The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang); and Curst of the Golden Flower (Zhang Yimou). Chen also touches upon the plots of two of the earliest award-winning Chinese martial arts films, A Touch of Zen and Legend of the Mountain, both directed by King Hu.

G.E.M. Anscombe (1919-2001) was one of the most important, outspoken, and misunderstood philosophers of the twentieth century. More than anyone else she revived virtue ethics and the philosophy of action. She was also almost alone in publicly opposing Oxford University's decision to award an honorary degree to President Truman. She regarded his decision to authorize bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki as murderous. Some liberals admire her for this stand, but conservatives also admire her for her opposition to abortion, contraception, and same-sex marriage. Clearly her values were not those of her times. This led her to reflect on the differences, producing such works as Modern Moral Philosophy, in which she rejected all modern theories of ethics. In this paper she coins the term 'consequentialism' to describe the dominant view, which she rejects, that what matters morally is the results of what one does. Put crudely, the ends can justify the means. If enough lives can be saved by targeting civilians, then civilians should be targeted. Against this, Anscombe insisted that certain actions are forbidden, which prompted her interest in the nature of action and its relation to a person's character. Whether one agrees with her or not, these are all issues that continue to be relevant and on which Anscombe's views are always strong and intelligently defended. Her presentation of these views, unfortunately, is often dense, and they are often badly misunderstood even by some very able minds. Anscombe's Moral Philosophy clarifies what Anscombe thought about ethics, showing how her different ideas connect and how she supported them. It also evaluates her reasoning, showing that it is stronger in some parts than in others. The five main chapters of the book deal in turn with her work on military ethics (including the so-called doctrine of double effect), her rejection of consequentialism, her attack on the modern, atheist notion of moral obligation, her analysis of intention and its relevance for ethics, and her controversial ideas about sex.

The Center Must Not Hold: White Women Philosophers on the Whiteness of Philosophy functions as a textual site where white women philosophers engage boldly in critical acts of exploring ways of naming and disrupting whiteness in terms of how it has defined the conceptual field of philosophy. Within this text, white women philosophers critique the field of philosophy for its complicity with whiteness as a structure of power, as normative, and as hegemonic. In this way, the authority of whiteness to define what is philosophically worthy is seen as reinforcing forms of philosophical narcissism and hegemony. Challenging the whiteness of philosophy in terms of its hubristic tendencies, white women philosophers within this text assert their alliance with people of color who have been both marginalized within the field of philosophy and have had their philosophical and intellectual concerns and traditions dismissed as particularistic. Aware that feminist praxis does not necessarily lead to anti-racist praxis, the white women philosophers within this text refuse to telescope as a site of critical inquiry one site of hegemony (sexism) over another (racism). As such, the white women philosophers within this text are conscious of the ways in which they are implicated in perpetuating whiteness as a site of power within the domain of philosophy. Framed within a philosophical space that values the multiplicity of philosophical voices, and driven by a feminist framework that valorizes de-centering locations of hegemony, interdisciplinary dialogue, and transformative praxis, The Center Must Not Hold refuses to allow the white center of philosophy to masquerade as universal and given. The text de-centers various epistemic and value orders that are predicated upon maintaining the center of philosophy as white. The white women philosophers who contribute to this text explore ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, taste, the nature of a dilemma, questions of the secularity of philosophy, perception, discipline-based values around how to listen and argue, the crucial role that social location plays in the continued ignorance about the reality of oppression and privilege as these relate to the subtle forms of white valorization and maintenance, and more. Those interested in critical race theory and critical whiteness studies will appreciate how the contributors have linked these areas of critical inquiry within the often abstract domain of philosophy.

Critics typically regard Abe Kobo (1924-93) as writing against realism, due to his avant-garde aesthetics that challenged the Naturalist realism dominating the literary mainstream and the Socialist realism of the orthodox Left in postwar Japan. He considered his work thoroughly realist, however, and starting in the early 1950s in a series of avant-garde art and literary groups, he championed the possibility of a vital, contemporary realism that challenged the reader to question the reality represented in the text through increasingly self-conscious writing strategies. Through a reassessment of the texts in which he worked out his theory of realism, this study traces the development of his commitment to making truth from a lieto fiction, drama, and reportage that openly display their artifice. Key argues that the reflexivity of Abes texts, which lay bare their own processes of artificial construction in order to reflect how our everyday sense of reality is constructed and maintained, created a critical space for metatextual ideas that were not acknowledged by the literary establishment of his time and have yet to be recognized by critics today. Undergirding his theory and practice of realism was a critique of conventional documentary and of the classic detective story. The texts examined here expose the degree to which the documentarian and the detective are active fabricators of meaning rather than neutral observers of fact. By paying close attention to the tension between the documentary and the fictive in Abes works, Key draws out the ethical implications of his documentary approach, arguing persuasively that the documentary qualities of his writing, such as its valorization of objectivity over psychologism and the realm of concrete things over abstraction are strategies for challenging the dominant assumptions about what constitutes good ethics and good art, as well as the relationship between these two spheres.

Sakaguchi Ango (1906-1955) was a writer who thrived on iconoclasm and agitation. He remains one of the most creative and stimulating thinkers of twentieth-century Japan. Ango was catapulted into the public consciousness in the months immediately following Japan's surrender to the Allied Forces in 1945. The energy and iconoclasm of his writings were matched by the outrageous and outsized antics of his life. Behind that life, and in the midst of those tumultuous times, Ango spoke with a cutting clarity. The essays and translations included in Literary Mischief probe some of the most volatile issues of culture, ideology, and philosophy of postwar Japan. Represented among the essayists are some of Japan's most important contemporary critics (e.g., Karatani K?jin and Ogino Anna). Many of Ango's works were produced during Japan's wars in China and the Pacific, a context in which words and ideas carried dire consequences for both writers and readers. All of the contributions to this volume consider this dimension of Ango's legacy, and it forms one of the thematic threads tying the volume together. The essays use Ango's writings to situate his accomplishment and contribute to our understanding of the potentials and limitations of radical thought in times of cultural nationalism, war, violence, and repression. This collection of essays and translations takes advantage of current interest in Sakaguchi Ango's work and makes available to the English-reading audience translations and critical work heretofore unavailable. As a result, the reader will come away with a coherent sense of Ango the individual and the writer, a critical apparatus for evaluating Ango, and access to new translations of key texts.

Immigrant workers from indigenous communities who are working in low-wage jobs are often stigmatized for their origins, their status, and their poverty. For them, achieving the American Dream means overcoming the historic biases of contemporary economic, cultural, social, and political systems. The Dream Fields of Florida explores the limits of accessibility to the American Dream for Mexican-American farmworkers. Using ethnographic data from several immigrant communities in Florida, Ella Schmidt studies the intersecting and often contradicting issues of identity, citizenship, and belonging. She unravels the embedded structural inequalities of U.S. society and the ideological discourses that mask them and finds that only through playing by the rules can Mexican farmworkers be selectively granted second-class citizenship-if any at all. This book is a timely and increasingly necessary look at one of the most invisible populations in the United States, one that has been systematically ignored and continuously misrepresented. Contrary to their imposed labels as subservient 'illegal aliens,' Mexican farmworkers are the epitome of agency, embodying the American ideals that are at the basis of the (Mexican-) American Dream.

Playwrights and Literary Games in Seventeenth-Century China: Plays by Tang Xianzu, Mei Dingzuo, Wu Bing, Li Yu, and Kong Shangren is a full-length study of chuanqi (romance) drama, a sophisticated form with substantial literary and meta-theatrical value that reigned in Chinese theater from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries and nourished later theatrical traditions including jingju (Beijing Opera). Highly educated dramatists used chuanqi to present in artistic form personal, social, and political concerns of their time. There were six outstanding examples of these trends, considered masterpieces in their time and ever since. This study presents them in their social and cultural context during the long seventeenth century (1580D1700), the period of great experimentation and political transition. The romantic spirit and independent thinking of the late Ming elite stimulated the efflorescence of the chuanqi, and that legacy was inherited and investigated during the second half of the seventeenth-century in early Qing. Jing Shen examinees the texts to demonstrate that the playwrights appropriate, convert, or misinterpret other genres or literary works of enduring influence into their plays to convey subtle and subversive expressions in the fine margins between tradition and innovation, history and theatrical re-presentation. By exploring the components of romance in texts from late Ming to early Qing, Shen reveals creative readings of earlier themes, stories, plays and the changing idea of romanticism for chuanqi drama. This study also shows the engagement of literati playwrights in closed literary circles in which chuanqi plays became a tool by which literati playwrights negotiated their agency and social stature. The five playwrights whose works are analyzed in this book had different experiences pursuing government service as scholar-officials; some failed to achieve high office. But their common concerns and self-conscious literary choices reveal important insights into the culture of the seventeenth century, and into the sociopolitical implications of the chuanqi genre. In addition to classical Chinese commentaries on chuanqi drama, this book uses modern critical theories and terminology on Western drama to enhance the analysis of chuanqi plays.

New updated version now available!This book is the outcome of a study conducted in the eastern city of Kolkata in India in the mid-2000s. It is an ethnographic study that looks closely at women from the upper and middle classes who work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that help empower women from all classes of society. Unlike many studies that focus on grassroots women who are the beneficiaries of NGO and developmental projects, this book looks at those women who, as volunteers and activists, help carry out these projects to the best of their abilities. These women are often overlooked from mainstream studies on women in developing nations. But their role is invaluable and crucial in defining the agendas and strategies used to enhance feminist consciousness and developing organizational structures.This book is significant because it offers awareness and alternative views to the challenges (and motivations) faced by middle and upper-class women volunteers and activists in building a career in the non-profit sector of NGOs in Kolkata. Through the testimonies of these women, it examines alternative processes of agency and change in order to define these challenges and motivations. Also revealed by the analysis, is useful information about the oppression and subordination of these women in contemporary gender-stratified civil society in India. But more importantly, this book examines the various ways urban, educated Indian women construct a feminist praxis in terms of their everyday lived experiences as volunteers and activists. In terms of their lived experiences, the women in this study reflect on the social challenges they encounter and motivations they experience as volunteers and activists, while also discussing their understanding of feminism and views on the image of a ';feminist' in the postcolonial context. The results demonstrate the power of feminist standpoint theorizing and how it raises consciousness, empowers women and stimulates resistance to patriarchal oppression and injustices. Finally, this book produces new knowledge and research on the conception of feminism among women volunteers and activists in a non-western setting and how they construct the image of a feminist.

Striking a Balance: A Primer in Traditional Asian Values offers a lucid, thoughtful, and thoroughly engaging review of the major ethical teachings in the dominant Asian traditions. Michael C. Brannigan applies his extensive background and scholarship to craft a concise yet comprehensive introduction to Asian ethics covering the long-standing traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. He does this through the skillful use of narratives from classical and contemporary Asian literature. Moreover, he demonstrates that, despite differences, these traditions share a unifying theme in their principal ethical teachings - cultivating balance is the fundamental building block for inner harmony, moral activity, and a just society. Through historical overview and discussion of essential ethical themes, Striking Balance presents the rich texture of traditional Asian moral teachings in ways that are appealing, instructive, and enlightening. The work presupposes no prior knowledge of ethics or of Asian traditions and is ideal for all who are interested in learning more about Asian cultures and moral teachings. It is also an invaluable text for students at the introductory as well as upper levels in ethics, Asian studies, philosophy, religion, and humanities.

Recent demographic changes have sparked debate about the civic health of American democracy. Democracy requires people of different backgrounds to be disposed toward working together, and it requires 'little-noticed meeting places' where neighbors interact with each other, share their thinking, and address common problems. As issues of ethnic and social diversity become increasingly foregrounded, social scientists find pervasive social distrust and civic withdrawal in racially and ethnically heterogeneous communities, whether in big cities (Los Angeles) or small (Yakima, WA). In this book, Yi argues that increasing diversity can revitalize social and civic connectedness if our institutions rise up to the challenge of finding common ground and shared enterprise for people of different backgrounds. He highlights two types of organizational actors in the USA. One type renews and adapts longstanding religious, cultural, and civic traditions to a dynamic, multiethnic society. The second type attempts to introduce Americans to the many religious and cultural traditions from outside the United States. These tendencies point to a dynamic, 'many-stranded' model of liberal-plural democracy, which fosters and benefits from a variety of group affiliations and types of engagement. Organizations that combine internal, authoritative community with external, plural outreach, such as some evangelical mega-churches and karate schools, connect people across racial and economic divides. In these bridging organizations, people find a sense of unity among diversity; they get to know each other as individuals, rather than as representatives of disliked groups. Using fieldwork on churches, karate schools, and other organizations in a racially mixed, Chicago Southside neighborhood as well as a broader analysis of race and religion in the 1972D1998 General Social Survey, Yi combines classical democratic theory with compelling personal stories and rigorous empirical analysis. God and Karate in the Southside is the first book to analyze the intersection between race, religion, and martial arts in the United States. It is a mustDread for scholars interested in issues of community diversity and civic democracy.

The Bill of Rights was designed to protect the American public from encroachments of liberty by the federal government. During times of war, the president often spearheads efforts to limit rights in the name of national security. When these cases make their way through the federal courts system, it is expected that the judiciary would use rights-based language in their adjudication of cases dealing with such rights-based claims. Zones of Twilight shows that the courts actually use the separation of powers to decide these cases. In other words, the courts look to see if Congress has authorized the president to limit the liberties in question. More often than not, if Congress is on board, so are the federal courts. Although the common conception is that the courts give the president a blank check during war, it is in fact Congress that has received that blank check. Zones of Twilight looks at four reoccurring issues during times of war where the courts have had to decide cases where the executive has limited individual freedoms: military detentions, warrantless electronic surveillance, emergency economic powers, and free speech.

Patterned after his previous books on Shakespeare's plays, Jan H. Blits's New Heaven, New Earth is a scene-by-scene, line-by-line philosophical study of Antony and Cleopatra. Combining close attention to detail with interpretive breadth, Blits approaches Shakespeare as a first-rank thinker who, master of his own thought and writing, produced plays and poetry with an infinitely conscious art, like any commonly recognized philosophical poet. Treating the play as a fully coherent whole, Blits shows that Antony and Cleopatra, as much a history play as a love story, depicts the transition from the pagan to the Christian world_from the aftermath of the collapse of the Roman Republic and the decline of the pagan gods to the emergence of the Roman Empire and the conditions giving rise to Christianity. Instead of being organized thematically, New Heaven, New Earth follows the play from beginning to end, closely examining Shakespeare's text on its own terms and not on the terms of modern literary theory. Using this approach, Blits draws significant and insightful conclusions that will satisfy the interests of scholars of politics, literature, and history alike.

Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil is an investigation into the complexities of the relationship established between the media and the government in the aftermath of the Brazilian dictatorship. It examines the role of the mainstream press in the process of the democratization of the Latin American nation from 1984 to 2002 and questions to what extent the communications industry was able to offer contributions to the creation of wider democratic spaces for debate in the media's public sphere.Matos concludes that the commercial media did have a role in advancing the cause of democracy in Brazil, though limited by political and economic constraints. By focusing on the analysis of key post-dictatorship political and presidential campaigns, this book discusses the inherent tension between the media and the Brazilian state and shows how crucial the impact of these campaigns was in the formation of power hierarchies in society and politics. An important work that highlights the struggle for the wider inclusion social and political players in the media's ongoing dialogue on democratization,Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil provides a picture of the forms of media that have grown out of the diverse political interests of Brazilian society.