Climate Change and Sub-Saharan Africa: The Vulnerability and Adaptation of Food Supply Chain Actors

Edited by John K. M. Kuwornu, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

November 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-265-4
Availability: In stock
382pp. ¦ $56 £42 €48

The adverse effects of climate change and climate variability have become some of the biggest environmental and socio-economic challenges for society, and for food supply chain actors, in particular. Serving as a serious inhibitor to the attainment of food security, climate change poses a fundamental threat to the availability, accessibility, stability and utilization of nutritious food and quality drinking water. The threat of this global phenomenon is not only apparent from the difficulties faced by all food supply chain actors, but is also felt acutely by households dependent on semi-subsistence agriculture. As evidenced by numerous studies conducted by the academic community, governmental and non-governmental organisations, climate change and climate variability will have disastrous effects on entire food supply chains across the world. This edited volume looks to address: How vulnerable are food supply chain actors to climate change and climatic variability? What adaptation strategies are they adopting? How is the resilience of food supply chains being supported? Are they being financed and/or supported by international organizations to cope with climate change? And what governmental support are they receiving to help cope with climate change? This book is an essential resource for students, lecturers, researchers, agribusinesses, marketing firms, agricultural institutions, climate change adaptation institutions, policymakers and many others with an interest in agricultural development and the global food industry.

Staying Open: Charles Olson’s Sources and Influences

Edited by Joshua S. Hoeynck, Case Western Reserve University

December 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-430-6
Availability: In stock
322pp. ¦ $64 £48 €54

“Staying Open, Charles Olson’s Sources and Influences” investigates the inter-disciplinary influences on the work of the mid-Century American poet, Charles Olson. This edited collection of essays covers Olson’s diverse non-literary interests, including his engagement with the music of John Cage and Pierre Boulez, his interests in abstract expressionism, and his readings of philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. The essays also examine Olson’s pedagogy, which he developed in the experimental environment at Black Mountain College, as well as his six-month archeological journey through the Yucatan Peninsula in 1950 to explore the culture of the Maya. This book will, therefore, be a strong research aid to scholars working in diverse fields – music, archeology, pedagogy, philosophy, art, and psychology – as it outlines methods for close inter-disciplinary work that can uncover the mechanics of Olson’s creative, literary processes. Building on the straightforward scholarship of George Butterick, whose Guide to the Maximus Poems remains indispensable for readers of Olson’s work, the essays in this volume will also guide readers through the thick allusions within The Maximus Poems itself. New interest in the wide-ranging and non-literary nature of Olson’s thought in several recent academic works makes this book both timely and necessary. Physics Envy: American Poetry and Science in the Cold War and After by Peter Middleton as well as Contemporary Olson edited by David Herd have started the process of uncovering the extent to which Olson’s inter-disciplinary interests inflected his poetic compositions. “Staying Open” extends the preliminary investigations of Olson’s non-literary sources in those volumes by bringing together a community of scholars working across disciplines and within a wide variety of humanistic concerns.

Creating Compassionate Classrooms: Understanding the Continuum of Disabilities and Effective Educational Interventions

Nicholas D. Young, American International College et al.

December 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-604-1
Availability: In stock
192pp. ¦ $61 £46 €52

Throughout the chapters of this book, the reader will be introduced to the thirteen disability categories included in IDEA (specific learning disabilities, emotional/behavioral disorders, autism, other health impaired, intellectually disabled, multiple disabilities, speech or language impairments, traumatic brain injury, hearing impairment, deaf/blind, deafness, visual impairment, and orthopedic impairment), using the legally established definitions. Lengthy descriptions of best practices, modifications and accommodations follow, offering a complete picture of each disability and how educators and parents collaboratively can assist the struggling student. To set the stage, the book begins with chapters that discuss special education in general, response to intervention as an intermediary step in the academic continuum of support, and the individualized education plan process. Subsequent chapters examine each of the thirteen aforementioned IDEA disability categories, which have not been commonly incorporated into one comprehensive resource; however, for the sake of brevity, some disability categories have been combined when doing so did not impact practice implications. Emphasis is placed on effective classroom strategies and interventions associated with each disability category with the intent of providing practitioners and those who support them with the information and tools necessary to support students with identified educational needs. To the extent possible, the primary authors sought to ensure this resource was practical and user-friendly for educators who work directly with students with the range of recognized disabilities. This book demystifies the special education process and disability categories as well as offers educators and their families the tools to help our students, who have one or more disabilities, find life-long success. Ensuring the best for our students with disabilities requires that we first acknowledge and support the hard work and deep commitment of those professionals and parents/guardians who devote their lives to teaching, reaching, mentoring and advocating for those most vulnerable in our classrooms.

Philosophical Neuroethics: A Personalist Approach. Volume 1

Foundations

James Beauregard, Rivier University

December 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-532-7
Availability: In stock
226pp. ¦ $60 £45 €51

Neuroethics is a theoretical and practical discipline that considers the many ethical issues that arise in neuroscience. From its inception, the field has sought to develop an ethical vision from within the confines of science, a task that is both misguided and, in the end, impossible. Providing a solid theoretical foundation for neuroethics means looking to other sources, most specifically to philosophy. In this groundbreaking work, the author examines the current underpinnings of neuroethical thinking and finds them inadequate to the task of neuroethics – to think ethically about persons, technology and society. Grounded in the physicalist and deterministic presuppositions of contemporary science, and drawing on utilitarian thought, neuroethics as currently conceived lacks the ability to develop a robust and adequate notion of persons and of ethics. Philosophical Neuroethics examines the historical reasons for this state of affairs, for the purpose of proposing a more viable alternative – drawing on the tradition of personalism for a more adequate metaphysical, epistemological, anthropological and ethical vision of the human person and of ethics that can serve as a solid foundation for the theory and practice of neuroethical decision making as it touches on the neurologic and psychiatric care of individuals, our philosophy of technology and the social implications of neuroscience that touch on public policy, neurotechnology, the justice system and the military. Drawing on the personalist philosophical tradition that emerged in the twentieth century in the works of Mounier, Maritain, Guardini, Wojtyla, and the Modern Ontological Personalism of Juan Manuel Burgos, Philosophical Neuroethics brings to light the limitations of contemporary neuroethical thinking and sets forth a comprehensive vision of the human person capable of interacting with the contemporary questions raised by neuroscience and technology.

Parallaxic Praxis: Multimodal Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Research Design

Pauline Sameshima, Lakehead University, Canada et al.

January 2019 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-541-9
Availability: In stock
326pp. ¦ $59 £44 €50

Winner of the '2020 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award' Parallaxic Praxis is a research framework utilized by interdisciplinary teams to collect, interpret, transmediate, analyze, and mobilize data generatively. The methodology leverages the researchers’ personal strengths and the collective expertise of the team including the participants and community when possible. Benefits include the use of multi-perspective analyses, multi-modal investigations, informal and directed dialogic conversations, innovative knowledge creation, and models of residual and reparative research. Relying on difference, dialogue, and creativity propulsion processes; and drawing on post-qualitative, new materiality, multiliteracies, and combinatorial, even juxtaposing theoretical frames; this model offers extensive research possibilities across disciplines and content areas to mobilize knowledge to broad audiences. This book explains methods, theories, and perspectives, and provides examples for developing creative research design in order to innovate new understandings. This model is especially useful for interdisciplinary partnerships or cross-sector collaborations. This book specifically addresses issues of research design, methodology, knowledge generation, knowledge mobilization, and dissemination for academics, students, and community partners. Examples include possibilities for scholars interested in doing projects in social justice, community engagement, teacher education, Indigenous research, and health and wellness.