Humanities & Social Sciences

In the antebellum Natchez district, in the heart of slave country, black people sued white people in all-white courtrooms. They sued to enforce the terms of their contracts, recover unpaid debts, recuperate back wages, and claim damages for assault. They sued in conflicts over property and personal status. And they often won. Based on new research conducted in courthouse basements and storage sheds in rural Mississippi and Louisiana, Kimberly Welch draws on over 1,000 examples of free and enslaved black litigants who used the courts to protect their interests and reconfigure their place in a tense society. To understand their success, Welch argues that we must understand the language that they used — the language of property, in particular — to make their claims recognizable and persuasive to others and to link their status as owner to the ideal of a free, autonomous citizen. In telling their stories, Welch reveals a previously unknown world of black legal activity, one that is consequential for understanding the long history of race, rights, and civic inclusion in America.

The author deals with practices and debates on migration and ethnic differences, racism and anti-racism in the context of feminist activism in Vienna. In a longitudinal analysis from the 1980s to the 2010s, the work examines how white feminist activists negotiate powerful ethnicized differences - in explicit speech as well as implicit action. Last but not least, the question is how these practices not only construct the 'other', but also produce the 'own'.

Social Structure Adaptation to COVID-19 offers global, interdisciplinary perspectives that examine how the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the development trajectory of schools, public health, the workforce, and technology adoption. It explores social themes in society, economy, policy, and culture and draws on a social framework to describe key functions of societal adaptation to the pandemic. Edited by Suresh Nanwani and William Loxley, the volume is grounded in the study of system components and their objectives to improve overall well-being given the ill effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapters explore interconnected social networks and how sectors restructured themselves to stabilize or transform society. International contributors from 20 countries offer case studies that highlight key themes including personal connectivity, societal equality, well-being, big data, and national resilience. They predict how impactful the pandemic might be in reshaping the future and assess how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected school system shutdown, public health collapse, business closures, public policy failure, and technology-driven social media acceleration. Offering insights into how institutions and sectors work together in times of crisis, and how COVID-19 has restructured social behavior, Social Structure Adaptation to COVID-19 will be valuable reading for scholars and students of sociology, political science, anthropology, comparative international development, psychology, and education. It will also be of interest to policymakers concerned with education, work and organizations, and media and technology. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 international license.

In this open access book, Carlos Montemayor illuminates the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by examining our drive to live a dignified life. He uses the notions of agency and attention to consider our pursuit of what is important. His method shows how the best way to guarantee value alignment between humans and potentially intelligent machines is through attention routines that satisfy similar needs. Setting out a theoretical framework for AI Montemayor acknowledges its legal, moral, and political implications and takes into account how epistemic agency differs from moral agency. Through his insightful comparisons between human and animal intelligence, Montemayor makes it clear why adopting a need-based attention approach justifies a humanitarian framework. This is an urgent, timely argument for developing AI technologies based on international human rights agreements. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by Carlos Montemayor and San Francisco State University.

This book presents the first comparative study of notable literary shipwrecks from the past four thousand years, focusing on Homer’s Odyssey, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. James V. Morrison considers the historical context as well as the “triggers” (such as the 1609 Bermuda shipwreck) that inspired some of these works, and modern responses such as novels (Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Coetzee’s Foe, and Gordon’s First on Mars, a science fiction version of the Crusoe story), movies, television (Forbidden Planet, Cast Away, and Lost), and the poetry and plays of Caribbean poets Derek Walcott and Aimé Césaire. For survivors who are stranded on an island for some period of time, shipwrecks often present the possibility of a change in political and social status—as well as romance and even paradise. In each of the major shipwreck narratives examined, the poet or novelist links the castaways’ arrival on a new shore with the possibility of a new sort of life.

The low representation of men in elementary educational institutions is now largely understood as a problem by educational science but also by politics, the media and parents. The intention of the book is to make men in education visible and to provide impulses for a "gender neutral" professionalism in elementary education. This volume contains the dissertation written by the author as part of a research project funded by the FWF Science Fund at the University of Innsbruck. After an introductory section on the history of the kindergarten, career choices and the importance of men in child care, empirical results from research are presented and discussed in three main groups: young people prior to career choices, young men and women in education and active educators. The extensive evaluations of the questionnaire surveys and the detailed interview statements give a very "plastic" and varied picture of men in kindergarten. For the first time compressed statements of men and women in child care are compared and made available to the public. The results show the profile and the experiences of men as well as their way into the profession. Represented and analyzed are similarities and differences in the sexes. The book concludes with considerations on how to increase the proportion of men in early education.

The present paper attempts to analyze the relevance of work in early Christianity by adopting a gender perspective. The New Testament episode of Martha and Mary (Lk 10:38-42) will be used as a privileged case study to emphasize the connection between work and idleness against the wider theoretical background of the temporally oriented economic structure of ancient society. The episode of Martha and Mary, with its emphasis on domestic work is a highly representative case in this regard. By focusing on the nexus between temporality, economy and working activity, an attempt will therefore be made to frame female agency within the broader framework of gender roles as they were conceived in ancient Mediterranean society.

This open access textbook presents a comprehensive treatment of the arithmetic theory of quaternion algebras and orders, a subject with applications in diverse areas of mathematics. Written to be accessible and approachable to the graduate student reader, this text collects and synthesizes results from across the literature. Numerous pathways offer explorations in many different directions, while the unified treatment makes this book an essential reference for students and researchers alike. Divided into five parts, the book begins with a basic introduction to the noncommutative algebra underlying the theory of quaternion algebras over fields, including the relationship to quadratic forms. An in-depth exploration of the arithmetic of quaternion algebras and orders follows. The third part considers analytic aspects, starting with zeta functions and then passing to an idelic approach, offering a pathway from local to global that includes strong approximation. Applications of unit groups of quaternion orders to hyperbolic geometry and low-dimensional topology follow, relating geometric and topological properties to arithmetic invariants. Arithmetic geometry completes the volume, including quaternionic aspects of modular forms, supersingular elliptic curves, and the moduli of QM abelian surfaces. Quaternion Algebras encompasses a vast wealth of knowledge at the intersection of many fields. Graduate students interested in algebra, geometry, and number theory will appreciate the many avenues and connections to be explored. Instructors will find numerous options for constructing introductory and advanced courses, while researchers will value the all-embracing treatment. Readers are assumed to have some familiarity with algebraic number theory and commutative algebra, as well as the fundamentals of linear algebra, topology, and complex analysis. More advanced topics call upon additional background, as noted, though essential concepts and motivation are recapped throughout.

The study provides an overview of one of the most intensive phases of German-Polish literature exchange before the reciprocal contacts promoted by Poland until the mid-19th century, not least due to political reasons. The German-Polish literature relations have enjoyed quite a lot of interest in the last decades. However, the previous research concentrates on the one hand cultural-historical, the narrower literary area often far-reaching aspects, such as studies on the echo of the Polish uprisings in Germany, on the other hand on the reception of the work of individual personalities. The present work seeks to close some of the previous gaps by presenting the Polish-German literary relations of that time in their entirety in a condensed overview, focused on the respective literature reception in the form of translations and journalistic reactions under the broadest possible evaluation of German and Polish periodicals.

Development Engineering; Technologies for Development; Innovation for Humanitarian Action; Emerging Countries; Developing Countries; Tech4Dev

Among the geographical associations the Italian Centre for Historical and Geographical Studies (CISGE) was the one with which Massimo Quaini maintained a stronger relationship. In addition to the sharing of the study fields, Quaini was also linked to CISGE by the close and inseparable link between geography and history, the combination of concrete research and theoretical reflection, the plurality of approaches, the continuous dialectic and the marked interdisciplinarity. Elements that have always characterized the Centre since its foundation, becoming concrete in meetings, seminars, conferences, research groups, national and international projects and in numerous publications. Through a careful analysis of Quaini’s writings contained in the proceedings, the collections of essays and the journal Geostorie (which since 2000 replaced the Notiziario del CISGE) – a long and uninterrupted series from 1992 to 2017 – the contribution aims at highlighting the original, critical and stimulating contribution offered by Massimo to the four fundamental study streams of CISGE: historical geography, history of cartography, history of geographical thought, history of travels and of explorations.

This open access book discusses the challenges and opportunities faced by companies in an age that increasingly values sustainability and demands corporate responsibility. Beginning with the historical development of corporate responsibility, this book moves from academic theory to practical application. It points to ways in which companies can successfully manage their transition to a more responsible, sustainable way of doing business, common mistakes to avoid and how the UN Sustainable Development Goals are integral to any sustainability transformation. Practical cases illustrate key points. Drawing on thirty years of sustainability research and extensive corporate experience, the author provides tools such as a Step-by-Step strategic guide on integrating sustainability in collaboration with stakeholders including employees, customers, suppliers and investors. The book is particularly relevant for SMEs and companies operating in emerging markets. From a broader perspective, the value of externalities, full cost pricing, alternative economic theories and circular economy are also addressed.

The focus of this book is original research regarding the implementation of problem-based learning and pedagogies of play as active approaches to foster self-directed learning. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) in mind, educational institutions need to rethink teaching and learning for the future. As such, active engagement can be encouraged, as evident in this book, where problem-based learning drives learning through real-world problems, while pedagogy of play focuses on innovative environments where the action of play and learning are integrated with the aim of developing SDL. The following are addressed in the chapters: an overview of problem-based learning and pedagogy of play, metaliteracy, playful problem-based learning tasks, computational thinking in game-based tasks and geometry, solving puzzles, applying LEGO®, using drama as the pedagogy of play and implementing educational robotics. The empirical research findings disseminated in this book aim to inspire academics in the research focus area of self-directed learning with active learning approaches in the school and tertiary classroom that hold affordances to enhance 21st-century skills. Active learning is an umbrella term for pedagogies that mainstream student engagement, such as problem-based learning, cooperative learning, gamification, role-play and drama. This scholarly book highlights various engaging pedagogies.

Drawing on methods and approaches from anthropology, media studies, film theory, and cultural studies, the contributors to Media, Erotics, and Transnational Asia examine how mediated eroticism and sexuality circulating across Asia and Asian diasporas both reflect and shape the social practices of their producers and consumers. The essays in this volume cover a wide geographic and thematic range, and combine rigorous textual analysis with empirical research into the production, circulation, and consumption of various forms of media. Taken together, the essays offer fresh insights into research on gender, erotics, media, and Asia transnationally conceived. Contributors. Anne Allison, Tom Boellstorff, Nicole Constable, Heather Dell, Judith Farquhar, Sarah L. Friedman, Martin F. Manalansan IV, Purnima Mankekar, Louisa Schein, Everett Yuehong Zhang.

Horticulture