Open Access Books

Through Feminist Eyes gathers in one volume the most incisive and insightful essays written to date by the distinguished Canadian historian Joan Sangster. To the original essays, Sangster has added reflective introductory discussions that situate her earlier work in the context of developing theory and debate. Sangster has also supplied an introduction to the collection in which she reflects on the themes and theoretical orientations that have shaped the writing of women's history over the past thirty years. Approaching her subject matter from an array of interpretive frameworks that engage questions of gender, class, colonialism, politics, and labour, Sangster explores the lived experience of women in a variety of specific historical settings. In so doing, she sheds new light on issues that have sparked much debate among feminist historians and offers a thoughtful overview of the evolution of women's history in Canada.

Eine Trennung von Natur und Kultur war für das moderne Denken und damit auch die Frühpädagogik über lange Zeit konstitutiv. Die Verletzlichkeit von Mensch und Welt in der Klimakrise und im Zeitalter des Anthropozäns ist ein Motor, Alternativen zur Natur-Kultur-Dichotomie für die Theoriebildung und Forschung der Pädagogik der frühen Kindheit zu erkunden. Die versammelten Beiträge widmen sich Fragen zu einer relationalen Verhältnisbestimmung von Natur und Kultur im Kontext der frühen Kindheit. Fragen zu anthropologischen Bildern des Kindes und seiner Bildung, zu empirischen Konkretisierungsfeldern in pädagogisch gerahmten Situationen sowie politischen und ethischen Perspektiven für die Forschung und Praxis der Frühpädagogik stehen dabei im Fokus.

The precarious reality of videogame production beyond the corporate blockbuster studios of North America.The videogame industry, we're invariably told, is a multibillion-dollar, high-tech business conducted by large corporations in North America, Europe, and East Asia. But, in reality, most videogames today are made by small clusters of people working on shoestring budgets, relying on existing, freely available software platforms, and hoping, often in vain, to rise to stardom—in short, people working like artists. Aiming squarely at this disconnect between perception and reality, The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist presents a more accurate and nuanced picture of how the vast majority of videogame-makers work.Drawing on insights from over 400 game developers, Brendan Keogh develops a new framework for understanding videogame production as a cultural field in all its complexity. Part-time hobbyists, aspirational students, client-facing contractors, struggling independents, artist collectives, and tightly knit local scenes—all have a place within this model. But proponents of non-commercial game-making don't exist in isolation; Keogh shows how they and their commercial counterparts are deeply interconnected and codependent in the field of videogame production. A cultural intervention, The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist challenges core assumptions about videogame production and reveals the diverse and precarious communities, identities, and approaches that make it a significant cultural practice.

Published

El presente libro es el resultado del trabajo colectivo del Grupo de Trabajo de CLACSO “Izquierdas: Praxis y Transformación Social", coordinado por Viviana Bravo Vargas y Mariana Mastrángelo. Dos temas son los protagonistas de este trabajo: la clase trabajadora, por un lado, y por el otro, su vínculo con la izquierda. El contexto es América Latina en los siglos XX y XXI. La temática refiere a los distintos momentos que hemos atravesado como grupo de trabajo (desde sus inicios en el año 2013) y que han tenido como eje central la discusión en torno a “qué es ser de izquierda en Latinoamérica", qué relaciones se establecen entre ésta y la clase obrera, los movimientos sociales y políticos.

Within the framework of the Excellence Cluster Topoi, a fruitful interdisciplinary debate on space and movement over the long term has developed. The workshop “Computational approaches to movement in archaeology” (organized on January 6 2011 in Berlin) tackled questions related to space and movement in the framework of computational archaeology, landscape archaeology, historical geography and archaeological theory. The current volume, which is the product of this meeting, brings together contributions that show how the study of settlement patterns and movement has been dramatically transformed by the use of spatial technology (GIS), in particular Cost Distance and Least Cost Paths (LCP) Analysis. The term “least cost path” is somewhat deceptive, however, since it is not just the costs of movement, but also the benefits of moving to a particular location that influenced the routes chosen and created. Archaeological theories about the way people moved in the landscape, and how they created and maintained paths and communication networks are often based on relatively abstract notions. For example, several papers in the current volume indicate that visibility may have been an important factor (co-)determining movement and path creation in the landscape. However, the exact parameters involved, and how they influenced the routes chosen, are largely within the realm of speculation. Computer-based modelling can be seen as a sophisticated approach to speculation. It allows us to experiment with the possible parameters involved, change the values and weights of each and inspect the outcome to see whether it conforms to our initial expectations and if it in some way fits the actual archaeological evidence. Most importantly, computer-based models are explicit: since all assumptions are laid out in detail, we can study the consequences of changing them, and the models can be replicated. It is through modelling that different scenarios can be explored and compared to real-world outcomes. Computer-based models are therefore in essence heuristic tools that can help to develop theory and interpretation.

This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact

Pluridisciplinaire, cet ouvrage a rassemblé littéraires, historiens et linguistes autour de la question de l’apologétique chrétienne, de l’Antiquité au XXe siècle. Étudiant deux mille ans de rhétorique apologétique en Europe, il vient combler le manque d’ouvrage de synthèse sur cette question, toujours abordée de manière synchronique et fragmentée. Le « genre » apologétique même a été interrogé, au prisme de définitions variées et avec comme socle épistémologique les études de Bernard Pouderon sur la naissance de cette forme d’écriture en Grèce antique. Pourquoi l’apologie chrétienne, évidente lors des persécutions de la Rome polythéiste et aux origines du christianisme, a-t-elle survécu jusqu’à l’époque contemporaine ? Irréductible à la querelle théologique, dévoiement dans lequel elle s’égarera pourtant souvent aux périodes les plus agitées de l’histoire, quand les sociétés sont traversées de courants contraires, elle se donne à lire même aux époques dites de catholicisme triomphant. Ne serait-elle pas devenue intrinsèquement liée à l’expression de la pensée chrétienne ? Comment l’apologie peut-elle quitter son domaine propre pour s’insinuer dans l’écriture de fiction ? C’est à ces questions préliminaires que vingt-quatre contributions tentent de répondre, offrant un passionnant itinéraire à travers diverses expressions, littéraires et historiques, de la pensée religieuse européenne, de l’Antiquité à nos jours.

The adverse effects of flood disasters in urban areas have been increasing in severity and extent over the past years. The amount of loss resulting from these events is also increasing exponentially, particularly in highly urbanised urban areas, where the effects of intensive land use and climate change are particularly extreme—all despite that our scientific knowledge, technical competence, and computational capacity to develop highly sophisticated and accurate forecasting and simulation models are higher than ever, as is our capacity to map and analyse flood-related data. In order to tackle this global issue, it is fundamental to keep on promoting and developing fundamental and applied research that allows the better targeting of interventions to improve resilience, reduce vulnerability, and enhance recovery as well as assisting decision-makers in delivering more effective flood risk-reduction policies. This book aims to contribute to this goal by providing a space in which to share and discuss recent studies and state-of- the-art methodologies focused on the assessment and mitigation of flood risk in urban areas. It includes nine high-quality chapters authored by eminent scholars who had the tremendous generosity to join me in this editorial project. The range of topics covered by these nine studies is extraordinarily vast, reflecting the complexity of the current challenges associated with the topic.

The new multidisciplinary study area of Wind Engineering was born as a response to the needs of design and construction for increasingly daring infrastructures: lighter materials and dimensions have made many projects very sensitive to the action of wind and therefore it is now necessary to study the applied fluid-dynamics, aero-dynamics of bodies and aero-elastics also for the civil engineering sector. The volume is a first attempt at an organic and complete collection of notions at the advanced university course level (including Masters and Doctorates), but it also intends to offer important help to those professionals whose activity is carried out in the design, management and development of works of large dimensions that are sensitive to the action of wind.

This study analyses the representation of Durbanite and Capetonian urban spaces in the following selection of post-apartheid works: Mariam Akabor's ''Flat 9'', Rozena Maart's ''Rosa's District Six'', Johan van Wyk's ''Man Bitch'', K. Sello Duiker's ''Thirteen Cents'', Bridget McNulty's ''Strange Nervous Laughter'', and Lauren Beukes' ''Moxyland''. The focus lies on the interrelatedness of shifting post-apartheid subjectivities and urban space (and place) in these literary works. The analysis not only grants access to different ‘new voices` of post-apartheid literature, it also sheds light on the perception of South African history, urban geography, and cultural topography – essentially, on real as well as imagined South African urban spaces – as the literary representations of city-spaces become archives of cultural transformation processes; a gateway to the understanding of the developments and changes of, and within, the two cities in question.

Verbindungen zwischen Blumen und menschlichen Körpern wuchern wild in den Vorstellungen Dichtender, Forschender und Liebender. In Literatur und Theorie sind sie seit den frühesten schriftlichen Quellen erkundet worden: Blumen werden anthropomorphisiert, Menschen defloriert, Inspiration wird mit Bestäubung verglichen. Botanische Erkenntnisse beeinflussen das literarische Schreiben über Pflanzen, während menschliche Moralvorstellungen wiederum den Blick auf Florales verändern. Die Beiträger*innen analysieren aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive Zusammenhänge zwischen Poetik, Körperlichkeit und Floralem und verknüpfen so Literatur(-wissenschaften) mit Critical Plant Studies, Ecocriticism, Gender Studies sowie Dichtungstheorie.

Producer Organisations (POs) have the potential to provide alternatives to the current iniquitous economic systems through collectivising small farmers into economic production chains, and as essential actors in bringing about socially-oriented innovation. The exponential growth of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) in India indicates ongoing efforts to transform farming as an enterprise through greater connection with markets and value chains, and lesser state involvement. The chapter provides a comprehensive review of global literature on collective enterprises and locates this research in the context of dynamic and fluid realities of the Global South that often get underrepresented in mainstream literature. The incubation, promotion and management of these institutions require a new inclusive frame to make sense of the complexity of FPOs in India beyond the narrow parameters of agricultural economics with a greater focus on socio-political dimensions. Through detailed studies of fifteen FPO cases, this volume seeks to expand the boundaries of the current discourse by exploring the multiple dimensions of FPO growth, management, and performance in diverse settings through a unique participatory research process.

This book discusses the role of cultural practices and policy for sustainable development in West Africa across different artistic disciplines, including performance, video, theatre, community arts and cultural heritage. Based on ethnographic field research in local communities, the book presents findings on current debates of cultural sustainability in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Benin. It provides a unique perspective connecting cultural studies, conflict studies and practical peacebuilding approaches through the arts. The first part pays particular attention to aspects of social cohesion and the circumstances of internally displaced persons e. g. caused by the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria. The second part focuses on cultural policy issues and challenges in the context of sustainable development, investigating participatory approaches and bottom-up processes, the role of governments and civil society, as well as performing arts organizations and universities in policy making and implementation processes. Performing Sustainability in West Africa presents research results and new methods on the role of artistic and cultural practices in conflict situations as well as current debates in cultural policy for researchers, academics, NGOs and students in cultural studies, sustainable development studies and African studies.

The aim of this book is to present recent results in both theoretical and applied knot theory—which are at the same time stimulating for leading researchers in the field as well as accessible to non-experts. The book comprises recent research results while covering a wide range of different sub-disciplines, such as the young field of geometric knot theory, combinatorial knot theory, as well as applications in microbiology and theoretical physics.