Open Access Books

Since the 1960s the relationship between Blacks and Jews has been a contentious one. While others have attempted to explain or repair the break-up of the Jewish alliance on civil rights, Seth Forman here sets out to determine what Jewish thinking on the subject of Black Americans reveals about Jewish identity in the U.S. Why did American Jews get involved in Black causes in the first place? What did they have to gain from it? And what does that tell us about American Jews? In an extremely provocative analysis, Forman argues that the commitment of American Jews to liberalism, and their historic definition of themselves as victims, has caused them to behave in ways that were defined as good for Blacks, but which in essence were contrary to Jewish interests. They have not been able to dissociate their needs--religious, spiritual, communal, political--from those of African Americans, and have therefore acted in ways which have threatened their own cultural vitality. Avoiding the focus on Black victimization and white racism that often infuses work on Blacks and Jews, Forman emphasizes the complexities inherent in one distinct white ethnic group's involvement in America's racial dilemma.

The here collected contributions relating to the 46th International Conference of the Representation Disciplines Teachers, organized jointly by Sapienza University of Rome, Roma Tre University, and San Raffaele Roma University, aim to offer the scientific community a reflection on the theoretical and methodological aspects related to the concept of èkphrasis, a term that, in the field of representation, concerns descriptive, analogical, and digital activities that generate new knowledge in several areas of application. The Conference aims to place at the center of the discussion an interpretation of the concept of research that, without neglecting an idea of study, protection, and enhancement of environmental and cultural heritage, focuses on the needs of contemporary society and its possible developments, making use of innovative theoretical, methodological, and operational activities, including those characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. According to this interpretation, research can also be seen as a foreshadowing of the definition and testing of experimental proposals aimed at exploring new areas of investigation: this opens up imaginative and utopian perspectives in the relationship between the sciences, the arts, and the disciplines that contribute to common goals, through the experimentation of methods, techniques, and languages for conceiving, prefiguring, designing, and representing.

Qu’est-ce qu’un corps? Ce livre s’attache d’avantage à se poser cette question qu’à y répondre. L’ouvrage propose de complexifier quelques lieux communs à diverses échelles de proximité de cet assemblage matériel qu’est le corps. Ceci permet d’intégrer pleinement les objets, atmosphères et autres corps environnant celui-ci afin de proposer une lecture politique de leurs relations volontaires et fortuites. Du sweatshirt à capuche porté par Trayvon Martin lorsqu’il se fit tuer dans la banlieue de Miami Gardens, Florida, aux rues new-yorkaises durant Occupy Wall Street, en passant par le mur d’apartheid en Palestine, ce livre progresse par une succession d’exemples illustrant l’hypothèse selon laquelle les corps et les objets de toutes tailles entretiennent nécessairement des rapports politiques entre eux. What is a body? This book is more attached to raising the question than in offering a definitive answer. Instead, Lambert proposes to make more complex certain commonplaces located at various degrees of proximity to the body’s material assemblage, allowing a better integration of the surrounding objects, atmosphere and other bodies and proposing a political reading of their relationship to the body, whether deliberate or accidental. From the hoodie that Trayvon Martin wore when he was killed in the suburbs of Miami Gardens, Florida, to the streets of New York City during Occupy Wall Street and the apartheid wall in Palestine, this book moves through a series of episodes that illustrate how bodies and objects of all sizes are enmeshed in deeply entangled political relationships.

During the Middle Ages agriculture and agricultural labor was involved in a new system of values, due to the expansion of Christianity, and this valorization had a great impact on society and economic development of Western Europe. Agriculture was considered part of the artes mechanicae and peasants (laboratores) were recognized as one of the three orders of the social representation. However, in the 13th-15th centuries, there were some significant changes such as the shift from serfdom to contracted work, investments in agriculture by citizens, and the development of new connection between cities and the countryside. Historical treatises on agriculture and other public sources provide evidence of these news ideas, that viewed agriculture as the “most useful and necessary” craft.

This volume portrays the practice of Old German textual criticism from its beginnings in the 19th century to the early 20th century, examining the most important editions and personalities from the discipline’s history and presenting its methodological development alongside detailed analyses of methods and problem-solving strategies. The volume closes with an outlook on the various research controversies and the impact of editorial approaches.

The 'telluric' crises sweeping the world today at various levels – starting with the failure of the 'globalisation utopia' – have their origin in a worldwide ecological crisis that makes old development models unworkable. The emerging alternative is visible in the widespread diffusion of new territorial communities, which represent a challenge both to development models based on economic 'monoculture' and to the modern era vision of the community principle, seen as a remnant of the past doomed to disappear. Thousands of experiences of new communities are increasingly taking responsibility for a new world narrative (new territories ecologically built, principle of plurality, centrality of new social subjects and their relations, non-hierarchical forms of self-government, over-local ‘bioregional’ openness) which challenges the 19th-century opposition between 'community' and 'society': multi-actor, multidimensional and transcalar communities will be no less than the future society.

The essay asks the following questions: What is broad language (and why not call it inclusive or representational)? What is its social, cultural and metacognitive reflection relevance? What are the possible risks its use could entail?

As the fashion industry grapples with sustainability challenges, Fair Trade and other alternative models offer pathways to ethical and environmental transformation. Yet, these approaches remain underexplored in practice and academia. Fair Fashion? critically examines the role of Fair Trade alongside concepts such as »social fashion«, »circular economy« and »regenerative fashion«, highlighting their potential and limitations. With an emphasis on cultural sustainability, this interdisciplinary collection bridges theory and practice, encouraging dialogue between designers, economists, business leaders and activists. Essential for professionals and researchers alike, the contributions offer fresh perspectives on reimagining the future of fashion.

In the Book of Acts, Paul is portrayed as a messenger who brings the good news of God to the world. He is a commanding orator who captivates his audiences, including a Roman senatorial proconsul and a Jewish king, with his gestures, appearance, and speeches. His performances appeal to both Greco-Roman and Jewish cultural scripts alike. But why does Luke portray Paul in this way? Using insights from both modern performance studies and ancient rhetoric, Arco den Heijer analyses five episodes from Acts (in Paphos, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, Athens, and before Agrippa in Caesarea) to suggest that Luke's portraits of Paul's performance served to counter negative views of Christians in both Roman and Jewish circles, views that circulated in the social network of Theophilus, the addressee of the book.

Being environmentally conscious is not nearly as modern as we imagine. As a mode of thinking it goes back hundreds of years. Yet we typically imagine ourselves among the first to grasp the impact humanity has on the environment. Hence there is a fashion for green confessions and mea But the notion of a contemporary ecological awakening leads to political impasse. It erases a long history of environmental destruction. Furthermore, by focusing on our present virtues, it overlooks the struggles from which our perspective arose. In response, Happy Apocalypse plunges us into the heart of controversies that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around factories, machines, vaccines and railways. Jean-Baptiste Fressoz demonstrates how risk was conceived, managed, distributed and erased to facilitate industrialization. He explores how clinical expertise around 1800 allowed vaccination to be presented as completely benign, how the polluter-pays principle emerged in the nineteenth century to legitimize the chemical industry, how safety norms were invented to secure industrial capital and how criticisms and objections were silenced or overcome to establish technological modernity. Societies of the past did not inadvertently alter their environments on a massive scale. Nor did they disregard the consequences of their decisions. They seriously considered them, sometimes with dread. The history recounted in this book is not one of a sudden awakening but a process of modernising environmental disinhibition.

This book describes a research project begun by the author in 2015 and co-authored by the chiefs of the KhoiSan peoples living in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, South Africa, aided by staff and students at Nelson Mandela University. The scope of the project was to investigate methods and procedures that could help re-establish the link between the Indigenous communities and their ‘forgotten’ heritage sites due to the colonial segregations. Making use of a participatory and interdisciplinary method we explored the tangible and intangible heritage of the Eastern Cape province, with particular attention to the remains of precolonial fish traps located along the shoreline. Included also are important testimonies from the KhoiSan chiefs who, alongside the author, led the project.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. How might queer theory transform our interpretations of medieval Japanese literature and how might this literature reorient the assumptions, priorities, and critical practices of queer theory? Through a close reading of The Tale of Genji, an eleventh-century text that depicts the lifestyles of aristocrats during the Heian period, A Proximate Remove explores this question by mapping the destabilizing aesthetic, affective, and phenomenological dimensions of experiencing intimacy and loss. The spatiotemporal fissures Reginald Jackson calls "proximate removes" suspend belief in prevailing structures. Beyond issues of sexuality, Genji queers in its reluctance to romanticize or reproduce a flawed social order. An understanding of this hesitation enhances how we engage with premodern texts and how we question contemporary disciplinary stances.

In the last several years, much has been written about growing economic challenges, increasing income inequality, and political polarization in the United States. Addressing these new realities in America’s metropolitan regions, this book argues that a few lessons are emerging: first, inequity is bad for economic growth; second, bringing together the concerns of equity and growth requires concerted local action; and third, the fundamental building block for doing this is the creation of diverse and dynamic epistemic (or knowledge) communities, which help to overcome political polarization and to address the challenges of economic restructuring and social divides. “As America bolts toward a more multiracial future in the face of skyrocketing inequality, local leaders are desperately seeking strategies to foster more inclusive growth. Chris Benner and Manuel Pastor’s research uncovers a critical ingredient of success: diverse regional leaders coming together to build a foundation of shared knowledge and advance positive change.” — ANGELA GLOVER BLACKWELL, Founder and CEO, PolicyLink CHRIS BENNER is the Dorothy E. Everett Chair in Global Information and Social Entrepreneurship, Director of the Everett Program for Digital Tools for Social Innovation, and Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent book, coauthored with Manuel Pastor, is Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Region. His other books include This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity Are Transforming Metropolitan America and Work in the New Economy: Flexible Labor Markets in the New Economy. MANUEL PASTOR is Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, where he also serves as Director of USC’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and Codirector of USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). He is the coauthor of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future and This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity Are Transforming Metropolitan America.

Between the 11th and 13th centuries, the economy of Sardinia (which was then divided into four kingdoms or giudicati: Cagliari, Arborea, Torres, and Gallura) was characterized by a limited use of currency, which was compensated through the exchange of goods and services. The integration of Sardinia into Tyrrhenian commercial trade between the 12th and 13th centuries facilitated the transition towards a monetary economy, driven by Pisan and Genoese merchants who had established themselves on the island. However, this did not lead to the disappearance of alternative means of exchange; rather, it brought about a shift in the relationship between these alternative means and currency itself. The purpose of this study is to thoroughly investigate the use and dissemination of non-monetary exchange methods in Sardinia between the 13th and 14th centuries, while relating them to the role and function of currency within the unique economic context of the island.

Etosha Pan to the Skeleton Coast examines the conservation histories and concerns of one of southern Africa’s most iconic conservation regions: the variously connected ‘Etosha-Kunene’ areas of north-central and north-west Namibia. This cross-disciplinary volume brings together contributions from a Namibian and international group of scholars and conservation practitioners, working on topics ranging from colonial histories to water management, perceptions of ‘wildlife’ and the politics of belonging. Together, these essays confront a critical question: how can the conservation of biodiversity-rich landscapes be reconciled with historical injustices of social exclusion and marginalisation? The book is organised in five parts: the first provides a historical backdrop for the book’s detailed case studies, focusing on environmental and conservation policy and legislation; the second investigates post-Independence approaches to conservation; the third focuses on ‘Etosha-Kunene’ ecologies and related management issues; the fourth explores how historical circumstances shape present conservation and cultural landscapes; and the fifth addresses contemporary complexities of lion conservation and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM). By offering a comprehensive overview of evolving conservation boundaries, policies and practices in the region, this timely volume paves the way for the future design of conservation initiatives that more fully consider and integrate historical and cultural knowledge and diversity. Essential reading for conservation practitioners, policymakers, and academic researchers alike, this volume also serves as a valuable resource for university students interested in conservation studies and histories of conservation.