Academia in crisis : dystopic optimism and postalgic realism in university life /
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Academia is standing at a junction in time. Behind lies the community of the curious, ahead the mass and the market. This book joins in a growing stream of works that explore the vicissitudes of present-day European universities in what Bauman coined as liquid times. Here, a number of concerned (engaged) European scholars attempt to defend and brush up academic core values and practices, starting from their own life worlds and positions in higher education. They share the view that there is no point in turning back, nor in mechanically marching straight on. Above all, they uphold that there is no alternative to treasuring academia as a space for thinking together. Hopefully the fruit of this sine qua non invites to think with, and envision academic activism. Contributors are Samuel Abraham, Stefano Bianchini, Simon Charlesworth, Leonidas Donskis, Frans Kamsteeg, Joost van Loon, Ida Sabelis, Tamara Shefer and Harry Wels.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004402034 :
0929-8436 ;
Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art : A Codicological Study of Iranian and Turkic Illuminated Book Fragments from 8th-11th Century East Central Asia /
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Mediaeval Manichean Book Art focuses on a corpus of c. one hundred fragments of exquisitely illuminated manuscripts that were produced under the patronage of the Turkic-speaking Uygurs in the Turfan region of East Central Asia between the 8th and 11th centuries CE, and used in service of the local Manichaean church. By applying a codicological approach to the analysis of these sources, this study casts light onto a lost episode of Central Asian art history and religious book culture. Each of the five chapters in this book accomplishes a well-defined goal. The first justifies the formation of the corpus . The second examines its dating on the basis of scientific and historical evidence. Chapter three assesses the artistry of their bookmakers, scribes, and illuminators. The fourth documents the patterns of page layout preserved on the fragments. The final chapter analyses the contextual relationship of their painted and written contents . Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art represents a pioneer study in its subject, research methodology, and illustrations. It extracts codicological and art historical data from torn remains of lavishly decorated Middle-Persian, Sogdian, and Uygur language manuscripts in codex, scroll, and "palm-leaf" formats. Through detailed analyses and carefully argued interpretations aided by precise computer drawings, the author introduces an important group of primary sources for future comparative research in Central Asian art, mediaeval book illumination, and Manichaean studies.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047405962
9789004139947
Religion in times of crisis /
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Religion is alive and well all over the world, especially in times of personal, political, and social crisis. Even in Europe, long regarded the most "secular" continent, religion has taken centre stage in how people respond to the crises associated with modernity, or how they interact with the nation-state. In this book, scholars working in and on Europe offer fresh perspectives on how religion provides answers to existential crisis, how crisis increases the salience of religious identities and cultural polarization, and how religion is contributing to changes in the modern world in Europe and beyond. Cases from Poland to Pakistan and from Ireland to Zimbabwe, among others, demonstrate the complexity and ambivalence of religion's role in the contemporary world.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource (pages) :
9789004277793 :
1061-5210 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Francis Cheynell : Polemic and Piety in The Divine Trinunity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (1650) /
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Sergiej S. Slavinski presents the first major study of Francis Cheynell's 1650 treatise on the doctrine of the Trinity. Situating Cheynell in his historical context, Slavinski examines Cheynell's role in the Trinitarian controversies of the Civil War and Interregnum England. The book demonstrates the interplay between polemic and piety in a work of Reformed scholasticism, showcasing how Cheynell's eclectic theological method in reading Scripture reinforced his conviction of the Trinitarian persons as one true God. Slavinski argues that Cheynell's polemical-practical Trinitarianism has the idea of Trinitarian oneness as infinite simplicity at its core.
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1 online resource (318 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004688018
From Crisis to Renewal : Development Policy and Management in Africa /
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This volume deals with crisis and renewal in African development policy and management. It digs deep into, takes stock of, and thoroughly analyzes the nature, impact, and future of development policy and management on the continent. It demonstrates the failure of post-independence policy and management in most of Africa, traces the emergence and results of reform measures, and advocates the lessons of success for the rest of Africa derived from Botswana's approach to sustainable development and its achievement of economic prosperity and the maintenance of political stability and good governance. It concludes, rather optimistically, that the prospects for sustainable development are much better now than they have ever been before with the 21st century likely to be hailed as 'The African Century' - bringing with it a durable peace and sustainable growth.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491687
9789004125315
The revolt of unreason : Miguel de Unamuno and Antonio Caso on the crisis of modernity /
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This book examines solutions to the crisis of modernity proposed by the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno and the Mexican philosopher Antonio Caso. Acceptance of the objective claims of modern scientific rationality and the consequent rejection of the objective validity of artistic, moral, and religious claims generates the crisis of modernity. The problem is that of justifying artistic, moral, and religious claims. Miguel de Unamuno in his classic work, The Tragic Sense of Life , addresses the conflict between the belief in personal immortality and modern scientific rationality. Holding that there is no rational justification for the belief in immortality, Unamuno finds a solution in a "saving scepticism" to act "as if" he deserved immortality. In his book Existence as Economy, as Art, and Charity Caso attempts to create an aposteriori metaphysics based on the "current" results of science supplemented by the intuitions of art and morality. In doing so, Caso believes that he has enlarged the scope of the knowable to include objects of art, morality, and religion. Unamuno, by accepting the strict line of demarcation between faith and reason has no other recourse but to turn to decisionism. By turning to intuitionism, Caso believes that he has blurred the line of demarcation. Decisionism and intuitionism, therefore, are worthy of further exploration.
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1 online resource (xii, 193 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401208215 :
0929-8436 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Under the Adorned Dome, Four Essays on the Arts of Iran and India : Ehsan Yarshater Lecture Series /
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These essays are the revised and updated version of four lectures given in the Yarshater Lecture Series, at SOAS in London in 2013. They concern some aspects of the arts from pre-modern Iran and India, namely, the "making of" of Persian illustrated manuscripts, the iconography of Kashan wares, the use and re-use of luster tiles in Ilkhanid Iran, and the glazed tiles made in three Indian sultanates (Delhi, Bengal and Malwa). These four topics share concepts of influence and impact, although inflected on different modes. The productions they embody represent many poles of influence, even if working on different scales, from the extensive diffusion of products, techniques, and systems to almost isolated productions.
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1 online resource (270 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004549722
The ecological crisis and the logic of capital /
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The worsening environmental crisis has become a serious threat to mankind. The search for a solution to this crisis must begin by understanding its causes. Taking an eco-socialist perspective, The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital explores the logic of capitalism as a fundamental cause of today's environmental crisis, in particular the thirst for profit and the capitalist mode of production. By demonstrating the inherent antagonism between capital and ecology, this book argues that proposals to resolve the crisis within the capitalist system are utopian, that proposed remedies relying on scientific progress, alternative energies, low-carbon technologies or the introduction of ecological ethics and new attitudes toward Nature into market mechanisms are doomed to failure without a radical overhaul of the principles that govern capitalism.
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1 online resource. :
9789004356009 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
A Walk in the Park: Kinesthesia in the Arts of Landscape /
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Current neuroscience discloses that all emotional feeling originates as movement. Kinesthesia, our sixth sense, begins with movement of muscle cells and ends as emotion. Depth perception, which depends on movement, is always feeling-laden. To be expressive, art must somehow move our bodies. Studies of expressive dance demonstrate that we unconsciously model observed movements, duplicating in ourselves the feelings that generated the dancer's movements. The art of landscape creates choreography for a walk. But each of the fine arts play a role in landscape design. Here, then, is a new theory of landscape that easily extends to all the fine arts, explaining our enjoyment in landscape, as well as aesthetic enjoyment more generally.
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1 online resource (452 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004697591
The book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250-1517) : scribes, libraries and market /
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This book is the first to date to be dedicated to the circulation of the book as a commodity in the Mamluk sultanate. It discusses the impact of princely patronage on the production of books, the formation and management of libraries in religious institutions, their size and their physical setting. It documents the significance of private collections and their interaction with institutional libraries and the role of charitable endowments (waqf) in the life of libraries. The market as a venue of intellectual and commercial exchanges and a production centre is explored with references to prices and fees. The social and professional background of scribes and calligraphers occupies a major place in this study, which also documents the chain of master-calligraphers over the entire Mamluk period. For her study the author relies on biographical dictionaries, chronicles, waqf documents and manuscripts.
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xi, 178 pages : illustrations (cheifly color), plans ; 25 cm. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004387003 (hardback : alk. paper)
A study of the life and works of Athanasius Kircher, "Germanus incredibilis" : with a selection of his unpublished correspondence and an annotated translation of his autobiography...
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Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit in 17th-century Rome, was an enigma. Intensely pious and a prolific author, he was also a polymath fascinated with everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs to the tiny creatures in his microscope. His correspondence with popes, princes and priests was a window into the restless energy of the period. It showed first-hand the seventeenth-century's struggle for knowledge in astronomy, microscopy, geology, chemistry, musicology, Egyptology, horology... The list goes on. Kircher's books reflect the mind-set of 17th-century scholars - endless curiosity and a substantial larding of naiveté: Kircher scorned alchemy as the wishful thinking of charlatans, yet believed in dragons. His life and correspondence provide a key to the transition from the Middle Ages to a new scientific age. This book, though unpublished, has been long quoted and referred to. Awaited by scholars and specialists of Kircher, it is finally available with this edition.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004216327 :
1871-1405 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.