Live Deep and Suck all the Marrow of Life: H.D. Thoreau's Literary Legacy

Edited by María Laura Arce Álvarez, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain and Eulalia Piñero Gil, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

April 2020 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-464-1
Availability: In stock
179pp. ¦ $45 £33 €38

Considered to be one of America’s great intellectuals, Thoreau was deeply engaged in some of the most important social debates of his day including slavery, the emergence of consumerism, the American Dream, living on the frontier, the role of the government and the ecological mind. As testimony to Thoreau’s remarkable intellectual heritage, his autobiography, essays and poetry still continue to inspire and attract readers from across the globe. As a celebration of H.D. Thoreau’s Bicentenary (1817-1862), this edited volume offers a re-reading of his works and reconsiders the influence that his transcendentalist philosophy has had on American culture and literature. Taking an intertextual perspective, the contributors to this volume seek to reveal Thoreau’s influence on American Literature and Arts from the 19th century onwards and his fundamental contribution to the development of 20th century American Literature. In particular, this work presents previously unconsidered intertextual analyses of authors that have been influenced by Thoreau’s writings. This volume also reveals how Thoreau’s influence can be read across literary genres and even seen in visual manifestations such as cinema.

Singleness in Britain, 1960-1990: Identity, Gender and Social Change

Emily Priscott

December 2019 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-387-3
Availability: In stock
181pp. ¦ $59 £44 €50

This book contributes to an emerging field of research, looking at the significance of marital status to debates about identity and gender. It examines representations and experiences of single men and women between 1960 and 1990, using a wide variety of sources, including digitized British newspapers, social research, films, and lifestyle literature. Whilst much-existing work focuses on the early-to-mid 20th centuries (such as Katherine Holden’s ground-breaking work, The Shadow of Marriage: Singleness in England, 1914-1960), this book alternatively examines the impact of the 1960s and the aftermath of changing attitudes to singleness. While Holden and others, such as Virginia Nicholson in Singled Out, focus largely on social status and lived experience (often through oral testimony), the author is just as interested in finding new ways of looking at gender and sexuality. This work starts from the premise that a distinct double standard existed in attitudes towards single men and women, which continued even after the wave of legislation to improve women’s status during the 1960s. Examining these often vastly different expectations reveals a complex web of progress, continuity, and contradictions, highlighting the uneven pace of social change and its frequent compromises and limitations. Using theoretical approaches such as feminism and queer theory, this work explores the impact of changing gender norms on issues including single fatherhood, old maid stereotypes, and experiences of homelessness. It can be used as a study aid for 20th-century British history and gender studies courses, and might also interest both established academics and intellectually curious non-academic readers. The author has made efforts, where possible, to clearly explain her theoretical approaches and interventions for those who might be unfamiliar with them.

City of Children

Francesco Tonucci, Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies of the National Research Council, Italy

January 2020 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-763-5
Availability: In stock
189pp. ¦ $33 £25 €28

The city, born to be a place of meeting and exchange, has for several decades taken as a default model the strong citizen, man, adult and worker, thereby transforming it into a hostile space for the weakest: the elderly, the disabled, the poor and the children. The automobile, the toy of choice for the privileged citizen, is also taken to be the principal 'citizen' of the city, thus endangering the health, aesthetics and mobility of the rest of us. This book proposes a new philosophy of city governance that takes children as the default citizens, with the confidence that a city sensitive to the needs of childhood will be healthier for everybody. This work recovers elements of the 1989 Convention of the Rights of the Child that recognize the full citizenship of children to suggest two principle axioms for optimal city design: the participation of children in city governance and the restitution of their autonomy, which allows them to stay with their friends and play freely. Boys and girls, in this way, represent all those excluded from decisions and power. This book is primarily written for politicians and city managers so that they can take on board the ideas within. Yet it is also important for teachers and parents so that they can respect the rights provided in the convention. City of Children should be made available to students on teacher-training courses, and also to the children who are the book’s true protagonists. At present, more than two hundred cities in Spain, Italy, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Brazil and Costa Rica have joined this project. This book is a translation of “La città dei bambini” and was translated as part of the Bridging Language and Scholarship initiative. The English edition by Vernon Press follows previous editions of this important work in Italian and the four languages of the Spanish nation (Galego, Basque, Catalan and Castilian), French and Portuguese to make available for the first time this important work to a broader international audience.

The African Mother Tongue and Mathematical Ideas

A Diopian Pluridisciplinary Approach

Abdul Karim Bangura, American University Center for Global Peace

February 2020 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-818-2
Availability: In stock
402pp. ¦ $57 £43 €49

This book by renowned scholar Dr Abdul Karim Bangura combines linguistics and mathematics to show how and why African-centred mathematical ideas can be a driving force in Africa’s development efforts. Bangura explores the concept that Africa has been the centre of the History of Mathematics for thousands of years, as the civilizations that emerged across the continent developed contributions which would enrich both ancient and modern understanding of nature through mathematics. However, scholars and other professionals working in the field of mathematics education in Africa have identified a plethora of issues in carrying out their tasks. This is highlighted by one of the most compelling arguments in the book, which is that a major reason for these problems is the fact that the African mother tongues has been greatly neglected in the teaching of mathematics in the continent. Bangura asserts that a change has to be made in order for Africa to benefit from the exceptional opportunities mathematics offer, showing that, even if there is a great body of work connecting linguistics and mathematics, few analyses have been performed on the link between African languages and mathematics—and the ones that have been made are not theoretically-grounded on linguistics. Thus, the book begins by identifying the objects of study of linguistics and mathematics, and delineates which ones they have in common. Next, since the object of study of linguistics is language, the nine design features of language are employed to examine each of the objects as it pertains to African languages. After that, mathematical ideas of sustainability and those of tipping points are suggested as means to help Africa’s development efforts.

Manual of Reformed Stoicism

Piotr Stankiewicz, University of Warsaw, Poland

February 2020 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-648-5
Availability: In stock
352pp. ¦ $67 £50 €57

This book is a manifesto of reformed Stoicism. It proposes a system of life which is bullet-proof, universal, viable and effective in every cosmic setting. It holds in every possible universe, under any government and within any economic system. We can be reformed Stoics no matter what we believe in. Reformed Stoicism is about enjoying and exercising our agency. In other words, it’s about the flow of making autonomous and right decisions, and about celebrating our ability to make them. With no reliance on nature, with the recalibration of metaphysical positions, with skepticism towards grand discourses and universal answers, with an emphasis on the usefulness instead of truthfulness of narratives, with no reference to the vanity argument, with criticism of both conservative and ascetic misinterpretations of Stoicism, with an overall softer and more empathic approach, we can no longer be defined by the generic term “Stoicism”. Our time, in short, calls for a fresh interpretation of Stoicism. It is time for a new generation of Stoics. Thus: reformed Stoicism.