The Confluence of Wisdom Along the Silk Road

Omar Khayyam’s Transformative Poetry

Mostafa Vaziri, University of Innsbruck, Austria

July 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-257-8
Availability: In stock
208pp. ¦ $79 £63 €68

For centuries along the vibrant cultural corridor of the Silk Road of Central Asia, philosophers and thinkers from Hellenic, Chinese and Indian traditions debated existential issues. Out of this stimulating milieu, the iconic poet-mathematician Omar Khayyam emerged in the eleventh century, advancing a transformative intercultural philosophy in his poetic work, the Rubaiyat. Vaziri traces the themes of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat back to the highly influential philosophical traditions of the Silk Road and uncovers fascinating parallels in original works by Heraclitus, Zhuangzi (Daoism), Nagarjuna (Mahayana Buddhism), and the Upanishads. In addition, Vaziri’s elegant translation and unique classification of the verses of the Rubaiyat reveal an existential roadmap laid out by Khayyam. In this pioneering volume, Vaziri not only fuses the multiple disciplines of literature, philosophy, culture, history and medicine but also takes the approach of the Rubaiyat to a new level, presenting it as a source of wisdom therapy that stands the test of time in the face of doubt and confusion, offering a platform for self-restoration.

Radical Equalities and Global Feminist Filmmaking - An Anthology

Edited by Bernadette Wegenstein, The Johns Hopkins University and Lauren Benjamin Mushro, The Johns Hopkins University

March 2022 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-187-8
Availability: In stock
412pp. ¦ $90 £60 €77

Radical Equalities and Global Feminist Filmmaking - An Anthology’s main objective is to exhibit and unveil the fruit of the growing movement of feminist filmmakers around the world through interviews with current filmmakers themselves and through critical analysis of the works of these filmmakers. Every filmmaker we examine tells their own story about radical equality from a place that they have lived, are drawing from, or have imagined. The common theme in all of the films of our selected filmmakers is the obligation they feel towards the oppressed and the resulting ethics of interdependence their films exhibit. Some films give voice to those who are suffering in the shadows, or have been silenced and murdered because of their political orientation and work; some films showcase vulnerable identities (especially gender identities) because the characters are inter-sex, transgender, of a marginalised class and skin color, are being forced into a split identity because of a colonial history, or because they are living in a part of the world from which they cannot escape. Other films highlight the feminist experience of lesbian love and its constraints or revolutions, the experience of motherhood, and the question of origin in all of its complexities. The authors have, to date, conducted 16 interviews with filmmakers from around the world who, in very different ways - at times with comic relief , at times by pointing the cameras back at themselves, at times by inviting the viewer to grieve with them - question radical equality and vulnerability. We have selected these films on the basis of their unique stories and story-telling style, and their diverse points of view referencing different socio-political historical realities around the world. Each of them has one, if not several, female, intersex or non binary characters as their leads; each of them engage us with the question of feminism in a political way that highlights our obligation toward the character and her lived experience. Each of them focuses on “interdependence” as an aesthetic and cinematic principle. But what is most important is the fact that each filmmaker will be able to describe how they found their access and inspiration for their story, and how the film reflects on their own lived experience that is socio-economically and historically determined.

African Literature, Mother Earth and Religion

Edited by Enna Sukutai Gudhlanga, Zimbabwe Open University, Zimbabwe et al.

January 2022 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-128-1
Availability: In stock
220pp. ¦ $65 £53 €59

This book is a collection of essays that explore the intersection of Earth, Gender and Religion in African literary texts. It examines cultural, religious, theological and philosophical traditions, and their construction of perspectives and attitudes about Earth-keeping and gender. This publication is critical given the current global environmental crisis and its impact on African and global communities. The book is multidisciplinary in approach (literary, environmental, theological and sociological), exploring the intersection of African creative work, religion and the environment in their construction of Earth and gender. It presents how the gendered interconnectedness of the natural environment, with its broad spirituality and deep identification with the woman, features prominently in the myths, folklores, legends, rituals, sacred songs and incantations that are explored in this collection. Both male and female writers in the collection laud and accept woman’s enduring motif as worker, symbol and guardian of the environment. This interconnectedness mirrors the importance of the environment for the survival of both human and non-human components of Mother Earth. The ideology of women’s agency is emphasised and reinforced by ecofeminist theologians; namely those viewing African women as active agents working closely with the environment and not as subordinates. In the context of the environmental crisis the nurturing role of women should be bolstered and the rich African traditions that conserved the environment preserved. The book advocates the re-engagement of women, particularly their knowledge and conservation techniques and how these can become reservoirs of dying traditions. This volume offers recorded traditions in African literary texts, thereby connecting gender, religion and the environment and helpful perspectives in Earth-keeping.

Dimensions of Shared Agency: A Study on Joint, Collective and Group Intentional Action

Giulia Lasagni, Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany

July 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-127-4
Availability: In stock
233pp. ¦ $60 £45 €51

"Dimensions of Shared Agency" investigates the way in which standard philosophical accounts have been dealing with the issue of collective actions. In particular, the book focuses on the ‘Big Five’ of analytical social ontology (namely, Michael Bratman, Margaret Gilbert, Philip Pettit, John R. Searle and Raimo Tuomela) and their accounts of shared/collective intentions and actions. Through systematic readings of different positions in the debate, the author proposes original ways of analyzing and classifying current theories of shared agency according to whether they advance a member-level or a group-level account of shared agency. While member-level accounts (MLA) are theories of shared agency based on individuals’ attitudes and actions, group-level accounts (GLA) give attention to the group of individuals considered as a whole, i.e., as an agent itself. Criticism arises against the idea that the Big Five have proposed stable group-level accounts suitable for explaining the case of shared agency as a group-level phenomenon. The widespread tendency in the debate is to endorse a perspective called holistic individualism, which maintains that high-level explanations are objective even though social facts are ontologically reducible to facts about individuals. Lasagni argues that as long as holistic individualism is held, the GLA is reducible to the MLA because holistic individualism upholds ontological individualism based on a deep individualistic premise, fixing the special status of individual agents as natural persons. The premise makes the claim to treat groups as agents contradictory to the general framework of the theory. This book profiles an alternative interpretation according to which agency should be considered as a functional kind, which is equally instantiated by different systems, such as individual human beings and organized social groups. In this way, the author claims, the reduction of the social can be avoided. "Dimensions of Shared Agency" will be of interest to doctoral students, researchers, and scholars interested in social ontology and the philosophy of the social sciences. It can also be utilised as supplementary reading or an introduction to philosophy students and scholars who are first approaching the philosophy of collective intentionality and shared agency.

The Philosophical Dimension of Psychology: A Beginner’s Guide

James A. Harold, Pepperdine University, Franciscan University of Steubenville

September 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-963-9
Availability: In stock
184pp. ¦ $65 £47 €54

Both students and professors typically assume that the content of introductory psychology textbooks, which are empirical in nature, are identical to psychology proper. Yet, what is surprising is how many interesting psychological insights can be found in both philosophy and literature that are often not found in psychology texts. Such insights are clearly psychological in nature, yet they do not go back to any empirical investigation. It seems that basic psychology textbooks—typically providing the basis for undergraduate and graduate psychology programs—represent only one important dimension of psychology: empirical psychology. But there is no simple, co-extensive identity between psychology and empirical psychology. ‘The Philosophical Dimension of Psychology: A Beginner’s Guide’ begins with an investigation of what constitutes the subject matter of psychology, which demonstrates the aspects of psychological reality that are ignored, missed or at times even theoretically denied by mainline contemporary psychology (if they lack an empirical warrant). Such matters include inner conscious experience, the world of intrinsic value, as well as the higher, uniquely personal dimension of human nature (that is, of intellect and will). This book, therefore, offers a more complete survey of the entire sphere of psychological reality, which could provide the context for more properly interpreting empirical psychological phenomena. For example, should we understand psychological conditioning principles within a broader context of personal freedom? Is a person more rightly conceived in a psychologically immanent way, that is, oriented simply toward the fulfillment of instincts and needs, or is there as well a transcendent orientation, oriented to truth and meaning? Should we understand psychology simply from the point of view of efficient causation, or do we need to also take into account final causation? It will be of interest to psychology students of either undergraduate or graduate level and of great use to those with no prior knowledge of philosophy.