Humanities & Social Sciences

The Mishna Berura is, without a doubt, Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan's greatest and most complex contribution to the canon of Orthodox Jewish Law; it is a singular work that synthesizes Jewish traditions, laws, and mores into a practical halakhic guide to daily religious life. For all of his traditionalism, Rabbi Kagan was an iconoclast, and the Mishna Berura broke from many of the traditional approaches of deciding halakhic directives. Instead, he favored studying, engaging, and asserting decisions in a nuanced, almost natural approach to how ethical people should live their daily lives consistent with Jewish law. Today, the Mishna Berura has gained widespread recognition and is considered authoritative by essentially all of contemporary Orthodox Jewry, a measure of greatness that few works of Halakha have attained. Michael J. Broyde and Ira Bedzow here investigate this seminal text and explore its background and decision-making process.

This interdisciplinary book explores socially engaged art as a subject of study and its relevance in higher arts education institutions' third mission—giving back to society and engaging with the community—to build a sustainable higher arts education for the future. Drawing on data from two large-scale EU-funded projects—supplemented by interviews, educational document analysis, and secondary data—this book explores emerging trends in the arts sector and the role of arts universities in cross-sector collaboration, innovation, and actions towards social and environmental responsibility. Chapters posit theoretical analysis, case studies and practically orientated examples from countries including the United States, Ghana, Indonesia, and from across Europe to explore the growing demands for the positive societal impact of higher arts education. Located at the interface between the sociology of higher arts education and community engagement, the book explores a richness of international contexts including activism, churches, refugee work, eldercare, gender politics, prisons and many others. This timely volume responds to the urgent need to investigate the full potential of socially engaged art in higher arts education. As such, it will appeal foremost to scholars, researchers, postgraduate students, and teachers in higher arts education and the sociology of education. Practitioners working in arts curriculum design, university-society partnerships, and those focused on creating inclusive and respectful spaces in higher arts education and research, will also find the volume of use.

Voor het eerst is er nu een neutraal boek over alternatief genezen dat het fenomeen niet de lucht in prijst, noch verketterd, maar de waarde en betekenis ervan voor de moderne samenleving verkent en de kwesties eromheen uitlegt.

This open access book provides practical guidance for non-profits and community sector organisations about how to get started with data analytics projects using their own organisations’ datasets and open public data. The book shares best practices on collaborative social data projects and methodology. For researchers, the work offers a playbook for partnering with community organisations in data projects for public good and gives worked examples of projects of various sizes and complexity.

Rita Kesselring provides a compelling ethnographic account of the wildly uneven, deeply interconnected development trajectories of Solwezi, a copper mining town in Zambia, and Zug, an urban hub for metal trading firms in Switzerland. In so doing, she provides a valuable open access case study of the unequal interdependencies that global capitalism creates between towns and cities in the Global North and Global South. Through detailed storytelling, Kesselring explores the lives and routines of state officials, residents, mine managers, and mine employees in Solwezi. From there, she follows Solwezi’s copper as it makes its way through shipping, financing, and trading. Highlighting the key actors in this value chain, Kesselring reveals not only the central role Switzerland plays in Southern Africa's mining industry, but also the central role that Southern Africa plays in Switzerland’s status as a leading service commodity trading hub— thanks primarily to the constant flow of wealth from Zambia to Switzerland. What emerges from this detailed portrait of inequitable interdependencies is a new way forward. It is only through joint solidarity action between such vastly different but inherently connected places, Kesselring argues, that the world can arrive at more equitable North-South economic relationships. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Thanks to modern technology, we are now living in an age of multiplatform fictional worlds, as television, film, the Internet, graphic novels, toys and more facilitate the creation of diverse yet compact imaginary universes, which are often recognisable as brands and exhibit well-defined identities. This volume, situated at the cutting edge of media theory, explores this phenomenon from both theoretical and practical perspectives, uncovering how the construction of these worlds influences our own determination of values and meaning in contemporary society.

Barrier-free communication includes all measures to reduce obstacles to communication in various situations and fields of action. Due to disabilities, illnesses, different educational opportunities or drastic life events, people have very different needs in terms of how texts or communications must be prepared for them in order to meet their individual requirements and access prerequisites. In this handbook, the topic of accessible communication is examined in interdisciplinary breadth and critically reflected upon. Current findings, proposed solutions and desiderata from research are juxtaposed with reports from practitioners and users who provide insights into how they deal with accessible communication and highlight current and future requirements and problems. Christiane Maaß, University of Hildesheim, is Professor of Media Linguistics at the Institute for Translation Studies and Specialised Communication and Head of the Research Centre for Easy Language. Isabel Rink, University of Hildesheim, is managing director of the Research Centre for Easy Language, programme coordinator of the Master's programme in Accessible Communication and a lecturer at the Institute for Translation Studies and Specialised Communication.

Nach dem Deutsch-Französischen Krieg verdecken die Millionen-Reparationen die Folgen der gewaltigen gesellschaftlichen Umgestaltung, die Preußen erfasst hat. Mit Zeitverzug treffen sie auf die Landwirtschaft. Das löst krisenhafte Erscheinungen auf dem vom Großgrundbesitz dominierten platten Land aus. Landflucht, daraus resultierender Arbeitskräftemangel und zunehmende soziale Spannungen verschärfen die Lage. Besitzende und Herrschende sinnen auf Abhilfe. Sie finden zwei Auswege: Wiederherstellung eines kräftigen und lebensfähigen Bauernstandes und Ausstattung der auf dem Land Arbeitenden mit einem Flecken Land als „Bindungsmittel". Die Idee des Rentengutes wird geboren und die Bodenreform scheint auf. Max Weber gibt die Parole aus: Das Land der Masse! Wolfgang Blöß nimmt die Bestrebungen um die Änderungen der Grundbesitzverteilung in den Blick und zeigt ferner, dass Absicht und Prognosen sich nicht sogleich erfüllten, sondern eine Entwicklung in Gang setzten, die über die Blut- und Bodenpolitik und den Generalplan Ost der Nationalsozialisten schließlich zur Bodenreform in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone und zur Umformung des gesamten ländlichen Raums in diesem Gebiet führte.

This is an open access book. It gathers the proceedings of the 19th Global Conference on Sustainable Manufacturing, held on December 4-6, 2023, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With a focus on sustainable manufacturing advances and practices as a driver for growth, the chapters selected for this book report on sustainable production technologies for the mobility, energy and construction sector, and for machines and equipment, covering aspects of digitalization and circular economy. Moreover, they discuss energy-efficient process, waste reuse, and CO2 neutral production, giving a special emphasis to developing sustainable manufacturing in Latin America. This book offers extensive and timely information for both researchers and professionals in the field of manufacturing and business development.

This empirical study examines issues surrounding the integration of immigrants in Greece, in particular in Thessaloniki, as well as looking at migrants in neighbouring countries, Albania and Bulgaria. The book suggests that immigrants' integration should be understood in relation to broader processes of social change, which are increasingly connected to global forces. The transformation of Greece into a multicultural society has taken place during a period of transition and of increasing exposure to the international environment. Within this context, Thessaloniki has become a new home for immigrants from the Balkans in search of new identities. Integration is seen as a multifaceted and dynamic process. The concept of incorporation is critically introduced, in order to analyse both the ways by which migrants organise their lives in the host society and their structural, institutional and cultural conditions. The analytical framework is built upon an interdisciplinary approach that takes into account different incorporation contexts: socio-political responses, the labour market, housing and social space. A number of additional factors are also considered, e.g. the composition of migrant populations, migratory patterns and dynamics, the role of social networks, immigrants' strategies. The book provides an empirical account of the immigrants' characteristics, explaining the patterns and typologies of immigrants' integration in Greece. "Immigrants" become a social category "constructed" by exclusionary mechanisms: restrictive immigration policy, labour market exploitation, xenophobia. However, they do make a living in Thessaloniki; their integration is subject to time. gradually, immigrants become organic elements of the host society, which shapes, but is also being shaped by migration.

In the undulating plains of north-eastern Syria is the site of Tell Barri, identified with the city of Kahat. The archaeological sequence which has been brought to light stretches without interruption from the start of the third millennium up to the fourteenth century AD. This report illustrates the results of the twentieth excavation campaign, carried out by the group from the University of Florence and from the "Federico II" University of Naples. In Area G, the excavation of the chapel dating to the third millennium proceeded along with that of the palace of the Mid Assyrian King Adadnirari I; three coeval tombs were discovered, two with lavish furnishings. In Area J, the exploration of the Assyrian palace of Tukulti-Ninurta II was continued. As regards the Parthian phase, investigation has proceeded on the Great Defensive Wall in Area E and of the residential section in Area H. The text, prepared for printing in July 2005, was published following the tragic death of Paolo Emilio Pecorella, which took place on 29 August in Tell Barri in the course of the excavation campaign.

Whilst there is an extensive body of research exploring the barriers to gender equality and female empowerment in high-income states, there are far fewer systematic analyses within lower-income settings. This book draws on extensive empirical data to analyse gender mainstreaming and gender transformative actions in Tanzanian higher education. The book maps the practical landscape of gender mainstreaming across 14 universities in Tanzania, and the theoretical landscape of African theories of masculinities and femininities underpinning educational institutions and practices. It then assesses the Gender Awareness and Transformation through Education project, which was designed to support the development of gender expertise and capacities in research and education at one specific institution, across both its administrative and academic units. Current and future academics at Dar es Salaam University College of Education were trained in gender-based research and education, and a strategic plan was developed to guide in the establishment of a Gender Research Centre that will provide gender expertise in research and teaching to the College; and, over time, to other HEIs nationally and regionally. By bringing together real-world insights from action-based research, the book demonstrates the impact of real-time social change and gender transformation, with implications both for Tanzania and beyond. Bringing novel empirical insights and policy recommendations, this book will be of interest to researchers and policy makers across the fields of gender studies, education, and African studies.

Vocabulary for Sustainable Consumption and Lifestyles: a Language for our Common Future curates a shared vocabulary of concepts that enables a society-wide conversation about sustainable consumption and lifestyles, the future of consumer society, and ways to transcend it. Since the United Nations (UN) Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the global environmental and social consequences of mass consumption have been well documented, yet progress is slow. Overconsumption and extractive practices continue to drive ecological overshoot. Set against this backdrop, each of the 87 essays in this book imparts a meaning to a concept, highlights its history, and offers different perspectives, interpretations, and applications for social change. The two premises of this book are that we need to transition to a society in which the well-being and dignity of people are achieved with a much smaller footprint and that technological solutions are inadequate for the challenge. Policies and actions are greatly lagging behind the growing understanding of the system of production-consumption because social change is often slow, and sustainable consumption does not have a clear political champion. The book addresses tensions that also interfere with progress, such as science versus politics, economic winners versus losers, traditions versus an uncertain future, and present needs versus future costs. This innovative volume is an important resource for students, scholars, policymakers, grassroots activists, and agents of change interested in sustainable consumption and sustainable living more broadly.

"Public debt levels are a very weak predictor of a country’s credit rating if a country’s other features are not taken into account. However, everything else equal, more public debt is associated with worse ratings. This paper explores the relationship between debt and sovereign creditworthiness through the debt thresholds associated with rating changes. It finds that the impact of an increase in public debt is non-linear and crucially depends on a country’s economic situation. Low levels of gross domestic product per capita are associated with a smaller range of possible ratings than higher levels. In countries with a higher gross domestic product per capita, a change in debt levels is thus more likely to result in a rating change. Overall, the non-linear relationship between debt and creditworthiness is substantial, and accounting for it improves the performance of sovereign credit rating models significantly."

‘Ritual Failure’ is a new concept in archaeology adopted from the discipline of anthropology. Resilient religious systems disappearing, strict believers and faithful practitioners not performing their rites, entire societies changing their customs: how does a religious ritual system transform, change or disappear, leaving only traces of its past glory? Do societies change and then their ritual? Or do customs change first, in turn provoking wider cultural shifts in society? Archaeology possesses the tools and methodologies to explore these questions over the long term; from the emergence of a system, to its peak, and then its decay and disappearance, and in relation to wider social and chronological developments. The collected papers in this book introduce the concept of ‘ritual failure’ to archaeology. The analysis explores ways in which ritual may have been instrumental in sustaining cultural continuity during demanding social conditions, or how its functionality might have failed – resulting in discontinuity, change or collapse. The collected papers draw attention to those turbulent social times of change for which ritual practices are a sensitive indicator within the archaeological record. The book reviews archaeological evidence and theoretical approaches, and suggests models which could explain socio-cultural change through ritual failure. The concept of ‘ritual failure’ is also often used to better understand other themes, such as identity and wider social, economic and political transformations, shedding light on the social conditions that forced or introduced change. This book will engage those interested in ritual theory and practices, but will also appeal to those interested in exploring new avenues to understanding cultural change. From transformations in the use of ritual objects to the risks inherent in practicing ritual, from ritual continuity in customs to sudden and profound change, from the Neolithic Near East to Roman Europe and Iron Age Africa, this book explores what happens when ritual fails.