Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships, and Immersive Theatre

Nandita Dinesh

Drawing from Dinesh’s findings in Memos from a Theatre Lab: Exploring What Immersive Theatre “Does”, this practice-based-research project – second in an envisioned series of Immersive Theatre experiments in Dinesh’s theatre laboratory -- considers the potential impact of pre-existing relationships between actors, spectators, and performance spaces when using immersive theatrical aesthetics toward educational and/or socio-political objectives. Memos from a Theatre Lab: Spaces, Relationships and Immersive Theatre explores the following questions: When audience members do not know the actors outside the milieu of a theatrical performance, does an immersive form hold different implications than if performers and spectators know each other in ‘real life’? When actors and spectators are strangers to each other, are performers more or less likely to judge the responses that are given to them within an immersive scenario? What kinds of immersive situations, especially in Applied Theatre interventions, might benefit from the presence or absence of a pre-existing relationship between performers, audience members, and the spaces in which these experiences occur? In describing the processes involved in: designing such an experiment, crafting the relevant immersive performances, and gathering/ analysing data from actors and spectators, this book puts forward strategies for students, researchers, and practitioners who seek to better understand the form of Immersive Theatre.

Emotions and Education: Promoting Positive Mental Health in Students with Learning Disabilities

Nicholas D. Young, American International College et al.

Written by an experienced team of practitioners and scholars, this text attempts to fill the gap in texts that specifically address the needs of Learning Disabilities (LD) students in the socioemotional and mental health domains. By providing a foundational understanding of some of the salient issues facing students with learning disabilities, we hope to empower all of those who are working to ensure their success by providing the particular challenges that LD students and their families may face, and strategies and best practices for building creativity, resiliency, prosocial behavior, and positive mental health. As a practitioner and family-oriented text, this book seeks to offer a truncated review of relevant literature followed by suggestions to guide practice.

Yoruba Philosophy and the Seeds of Enlightenment

Advancing Yoruba Philosophy

Yemi D. Prince

For upwards of 25 years, Yemi D. Prince (also known as Yemi D. Ogunyemi) has systematically devoted himself to the education, research and reason of Creative Writing and from Creative Writing to Creative Thinking and from Creative Thinking to Yoruba narrative, cultural, folk philosophy. On realizing that Creative Thinking has become his area of focus and interest, he succeeds in cultivating big ideas, combining them with his life-long experiences in the Humanities, transforming them into new ways of writing, thinking or reasoning. (Some of his big ideas have led to the publication of booklets such as Yoruba Idealism, We Should All Be Philosophers, The Artist-Philosophers in Yoruba land, Codes of Morality and Pursuit of Wisdom.) Thus his big ideas have helped him separate Yoruba folk philosophy from Yoruba autochthonous religion. With his love for big ideas, born out of Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking, he has been able to put a new face on Yoruba Philosophy.

Nietzsche Trauma and Overcoming

The Psychology of the Psychologist

Uri Wernik

"Nietzsche Trauma and Overcoming " shows that Nietzsche suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and most probably was a victim of childhood sex abuse. I bring convincing evidence from his texts to support these claims, along with a discussion of corroborating psychological findings on these issues. I show that he teaches coping with pain and suffering, based on his life experience, with lessons from the school of war, the wisdom of reinterpretation, and artistic activity. His three themes of the Superman, Eternal Recurrence, and the Will to Power, the heart of his philosophy and psychology, are understood in a new light, in relation to his personal suffering and overcoming. The book criticizes the attempts to diagnose Nietzsche as suffering from various psychiatric disorders, psychoanalyze him as a fatherless child grown old, and outing him as a closet homosexual. These approaches lead to a dead-end. Firstly, it is impossible to prove that someone is a paragon of mental health, not a covert homosexual, and unmoved by a parent’s death. Secondly, these speculations explain only a small part of Nietzsche’s personal statements, found in his writings. Thirdly, and most importantly, they do not change our understanding of his ideas and how they were arrived at; they do not increase our appreciation of him; and do not leave us with any lessons for life (the goal of any good writing according to Nietzsche).

Looking at the Sun: New Writings in Modern Personalism

Edited by Simon Smith, University of Surrey and Anna Castriota

Every kind of exploration is touched in some way by a philosophy of persons; touched and often vitally enhanced. This collection sets out to mine this rich seam of influence, bringing together authors keen to strike new developments and applications. Together, they have put their philosophy of persons to work in fields as wide-ranging as the moral and the metaphysical, the practical and the political, the cultural and the cosmological. In doing so, they have drawn on and illustrated the depth and breadth of modern Personalist thought, demonstrating its crucial relevance to debates across the entire philosophical spectrum. Whether they are familiar with the Personalist tradition or no, readers from every corner of the philosophical world will find much here to challenge and stimulate them. Most importantly, they will find a new and badly needed philosophical perspective.

Generational Interdependencies: The Social Implications for Welfare

Edited by Beverley A. Searle

The issue of generational transfers is growing in importance. Populations are ageing, placing an increasing burden on provision of pensions, health care and other welfare services. In many nations the imbalance between a growing, older generation, supported by a shrinking younger generation, has fuelled debates about intergenerational justice. The key argument being that political and institutional developments over the last century have been to the advantage of older generations at the expense of current younger and future generations. But this only addresses half of the story, neglecting the flows of resources, through private, family channels. One key response to the growing fiscal problem of ageing societies has been to focus responsibility on self-funding and familial support. The growth of asset values, particularly housing, which are concentrated among the elderly, underpin such strategies. But this exposes new risks as potentially extractable resources are determined by wider fluctuations in the economy, and housing markets in particular. Clearly, these cohort effects, and responses to them, play out differently in different national developmental settings, depending on long-run patterns of economic, social and demographic change. This collection address these issues and provides original insights across different international contexts. The collection focusses on financial and non-financial transfers, generational interdependencies, and the role of labour and housing markets in welfare support, set against the changing economic landscape following the Great Financial Crisis of 2007. Although institutional and national differences exist the key emerging issues are the same: the financial and welfare challenges of supporting aging in societies; inequalities in the availability of assets across individuals, families and nations; and the extent to which private asset accumulation can support families over the life course. Drawing from examples across European countries, this collection will nonetheless be relevant to researchers and policy makers in other nations addressing the complexities of providing welfare across the life course in the face of restricted financial resources.

Reporting from the Wars 1850 – 2015

The origins and evolution of the war correspondent

Edited by Barry Turner, University of Lincoln et al.

From the foundations of the world’s first great empires to the empires of today, war has preoccupied human civilisation for as many as 4000 years. It has fascinated, horrified, thrilled, confused, inspired and disgusted mankind since records began. Provoking such a huge range of emotions and reactions and fulfilling all the elements of newsworthiness, it is hardly surprising that war makes ‘good’ news. Modern technological advancements, such as the camera and television, brought the brutality of war into the homes and daily lives of the public. No longer a far-away and out-of-sight affair, the public’s ability to ‘see’ what was happening on the frontline changed not only how wars were fought but why they were fought. Even when a war is considered ‘popular,’ the involvement of the press and the weight of public opinion has led to criticisms that have transformed modern warfare almost in equal measure to the changes brought about by weapon technology. War reporting seeks to look beyond the official story, to understand the very nature of conflict whilst acknowledging that it is no longer simply good versus evil. This edited volume presents a unique insight into the work of the war correspondent and battlefield photographer from the earliest days of modern war reporting to the present. It reveals how, influenced by the changing face of modern warfare, the work of the war correspondent has been significantly altered in style, method, and practice. By combining historical analysis with experiences of modern day war reporting, this book provides an important contribution to the understanding of this complicated profession, which will be of interest to journalists, academics, and students, alike.

Political Philosophy in the East and West

In Search of Truth

Jaan Islam

In the 21st century, amid converging global political, social, and economic forces we are questioning the fundamental values we hold true, driven by an antagonism between different schools of political philosophy—between left- and right-wing politics. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of western political philosophy and underlines the core principles of each argument. It then argues that neither have we solved nor do we have any pathway to eventually solve, the question of right and wrong—we are essentially moral relativists in disguise. In order to break out of this cycle of uncertainty, the book proposes a solution of knowledge-based cognition: policy based on a concrete and proven understanding of an absolute and certain body of truths. This requires an analysis and blending of non-western political philosophical traditions, such as those espoused by Islam and Confucianism. This book gives an original critique of western political philosophy and is the first book to engage in a reconstruction of Islamic political philosophy.

Migration and the Crisis of the Modern Nation State?

Edited by Frank Jacob, Nord University, Norway and Adam Luedtke, Queensborough Community College (CUNY)

The anthology explores the interrelationship between migration and a supposedly existent crisis of the modern nation state. The argument of such a crisis is mainly used by the New Right to stimulate nationalist feelings and provoke hate and aggression. We, in contrast to this perception, argue that from a historical and current perspective, migration is not endangering the nation state, but rather changing the idea of a nation itself by redefining it. In historical as well as current case studies, the authors determine the political dangers of right wing demagogues, while emphasizing the chances, immigration is offering the progress of the nation state. While it will be discussed how nationalism is impacting on the perception of migration, we also want to emphasize how it is perceived by the people in the specific regions, which are either confronted with migration or those which are not. The authors for the volume come from different fields, namely history and political sciences, and are consequently able to offer the reader a broad insight into the historical roots and the current consequences nationalism had or has on the perception and the local as well as global policies towards migration. The analysis of particular immigrant groups (e.g. North Koreans in post-war Korea, South Asians in the Emirates, Middle Eastern refugees in Europe, Hispanics in the United States) as well as a close reading of crisis related media (newspapers and other media in Europe and the US) will, all in all, establish a broad perspective, due to which the reader will be able to compare and connect the national events to a larger global picture.

The Book of Changes: A Modern Adaptation and Interpretation

Paul G. Fendos, Minnesota State System

The Book of Changes: A Modern Adaptation and Interpretation attempts to breathe new life into the Book of Changes by making it relevant to the present time and day. It does so by using archaeological evidence to trace the origins of the Book of Changes, starting with numeric trigrams and hexagrams, making its way up to early divination manuals, and ending with the oldest extant version of the Books of Changes—usually referred to as the ‘received version.’ It also explains the development of the Book of Changes from a divination manual into a philosophical text dealing with change. However, its main focus is on delineating sixty-four patterns of change in the Book of Changes, patterns based on novel metaphorical interpretations of the line texts in the Book of Changes that serve as the foundation for a new handbook on change. Each metaphorical interpretation consists of 1) a hexagram and the Chinese character associated with it, 2) a ‘description’ of the hexagram, 3) the Chinese characters for the line texts, 4) translations of the line texts, 5) a general interpretation of the line texts based on those translations, 6) and some explanatory notes that attempt to clarify each interpretation. Translations and the interpretations based on those translations reference Traditional and Modernist understandings of the line text materials, ancient texts/dictionaries/lexicons from the period when the Book of Changes was compiled, and the ideas of the author as he works to create a new Chinese ‘philosophy of change,’ complete with examples of how it can be adapted in modern-day life. The clear and concise general introduction to the Book of Changes that is incorporated into this work, the many interpretations of the line texts contained in it, and a popular philosophical content make this book a welcome addition to the field and will attract interested scholars and teachers, engage business people or those looking to better understand Chinese culture, and appeal to those focused on spirituality and holistic living.

Talks on Education, Art, and Philosophy

Edited by İlker Aysel, Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Turkey et al.

This book is a collection of reflections on the state of education, art and philosophy, principally in modern Turkey. The contributed chapters include: the identity and social roles of teachers; foreign experts’ opinions concerning the structure of the Turkish education system; repercussions of recent Turkish education policies; a provocative essay on the underdetermination of scientific theories; the role of political power on state theatres in Turkey; the relationship between society and art as seen through the lens of theater; the connections between meliorism and other concepts philosophical such optimism and messianism.

The Gavel and Sickle: The Supreme Court, Cultural Marxism, and the Assault on Christianity

Anthony Walsh, Boise State University

This book addresses the benefits of Christianity for all, the degradation of our culture since the 1950s, the pernicious effects that cultural Marxism has had on Western cultures, and the loss of religious freedom as the Founders envisioned it due to a number of Supreme Court rulings. We cannot understand the culture war and cultural debasement until we understand cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism has been "hiding in plain sight" since the 1930s with the immigration to the United States of a cadre of intellectuals from Germany who brought with them the folderol of critical theory, political correctness, gender neutrality, radical feminism, and moral relativism. This intellectual moonshine is designed to weaken family structure and individual morality, and it has worked. The ultimate purpose of cultural Marxism is to destroy Western civilization from within. This goal is clearly and unambiguously stated in their books and articles. In numerous places in these books and articles, cultural Marxists are adamant that if socialism is ever to come to America the two epicenters of Western morality, the family and Christianity, will have to be destroyed by slow, stealthy, and incremental attacks on them. They have been aided in their efforts by anti-Christian rulings by the United States Supreme Court since the 1940s. I do not claim in any sense that the Supreme Court is engaged in a conspiracy with cultural Marxists. Their rulings have been based on a reading of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that its authors would not recognize, and have used this clause to eviscerate the Free Exercise Clause—America’s “first freedom.” The Court has purged Christianity from the public square, and in doing so it has unwittingly helped the cultural Marxist agenda by spiritually disarming America.

The Death Penalty from an African Perspective

Views from Zimbabwean and Nigerian Philosophers

Edited by Jonathan O. Chimakonam, University of Pretoria, South Africa and Fainos Mangena, University of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe

This book is about an African philosophical examination of the death penalty debate. In a 21st century world where the notion of human right is primed, this book considers the question of the death penalty in two sub-Saharan African countries namely, Zimbabwe and Nigeria, notorious for their poor human right records. This edited collection comprises of 11 essays from Zimbabwean and Nigerian philosophers. As opinions continue to divide over the retention or abolition of the death penalty, these African philosophers attempt to localise this debate by raising the following questions: What is the meaning of life in the African place? Is it proper to take the human life under any guise at all? Who has the right to take the human life? Can the death penalty be justified on the bases of African cultures? Why should it be abolished? Why should it be retained? Indeed, this book is the first of its kind to engage the tumultuous issue of capital punishment in the postcolonial Africa and from the African philosophical point of view.

Financial Innovation: Theories, Models and Regulation

G. V. Satya Sekhar, Gitam University, India

Financial innovation is a regular feature of the global financial system. Financial innovation results in greater economic efficiency over time. In the process of creating a new financial product, besides basic theory of financial management, a financial engineer needs to acquire knowledge of optimization and financial modeling techniques. Modern financial innovation is underpinned by a rich literature including the seminal studies by Levich (1985), Smith, Smithson, and Wilford (1990), Verghese (1990), Merton (1992), Levine (1997), John D Finnerty (2002), Tufano (2003) and Draghi (2008), among many others. This book corresponds to the need to provide an integrated study on financial innovation and the economic regulatory mechanism. A key part of financial innovation covered in the book is the process of creating innovative financial securities and derivative pricing that offers new pay-offs to investors. The book also covers a selection of empirical studies corroborating financial innovation theories. It also exposes myths surrounding performance evaluation models. This book is presented in six chapters. The first chapter outlines important considerations on the application of financial innovation theories. The second chapter presents the theories that underpin financial innovation practice. The third chapter focuses on use of technology for financial modeling. The fourth chapter identifies the relationship between financial innovation and the wider economic system. The fifth chapter discusses the place of financial innovation in the global financial system. The sixth and final chapter presents a comparative analysis of India and the United States.

Imperative of Economic Growth in the Eurozone: Competitiveness, Capital Flows and Structural Reforms

Edited by Antonin Rusek, Susquehanna University and Lubor Lacina, Mendel University, Czech Republic

European economic recovery appears to be taking hold. So is the European crisis over?  The acute phase of the crisis passed, however a number of medium and long term issues remain. The policies of “internal devaluations” are working, albeit slowly, to restore competitiveness in the countries most affected by the crisis. However, growth remains at best sluggish. The medium and long term outlook remains highly uncertain, fomenting social tensions and endangering political stability.   The restoration of economic dynamism is increasingly perceived as the answer to the question of the “European” future – economically, politically and socially. There is a broad consensus that dynamic structural reforms and the restoration of competitiveness at the level of the global economy are key answers to current European challenges. However, whatever the form these may take, the transfer of resources is implicit (and seemingly necessary), to underpin the current structure of eurozone. This indeed raises the question of governance – both fiscal and monetary. After all, the provision of resources implies an allocation – and it is hard to imagine that resources will be provided to the common pool unless the providers have some say with respect to allocation. And that requires some form of common (i.e. centralized) decision-making procedures, in all likelihood exceeding the common understanding of the acquis communautaire as it exists today – i.e. some form of the effective political arrangement. In this context, the basic idea which connects all contributions in this volume is the analysis of the problems which affected the Eurozone in the past decade and the challenges and dilemmas the Eurozone will face in the coming years.

Better to Reign in Hell, Than Serve In Heaven

Satan's Metamorphosis From a Heavenly Council Member to the Ruler of Pandaemonium

Allan Wright, University of Alberta

In this monograph, I argue that Satan was not perceived as a universal malevolent deity, the embodiment of evil, or the “ruler of Pandemonium” within first century Christian literature or even within second and third century Christian discourses as some scholars have insisted. Instead, for early “Christian” authors, Satan represented a pejorative term used to describe terrestrial, tangible, and concrete social realities, perceived of as adversaries. To reach this conclusion, I explore the narrative character of Satan selectively within the Hebrew Bible, intertestamental literature, Mark, Matthew, Luke, Q, the Book of Revelation, the Nag Hammadi texts, and the Ante-Nicene fathers. I argue that certain scholars’ such as Jeffrey Burton Russell, Miguel A. De La Torre, Albert Hernandez, Peter Stanford, Paul Carus, and Gerd Theissen, homogenized reconstructions of the “New Testament Satan” as the universalized incarnation of evil and that God’s absolute cosmic enemy is absent from early Christian orthodox literature, such as Mark, Matthew, Luke, Q, the Book of Revelation, and certain writings from the Ante-Nicene Fathers. Using Jonathan Z. Smith’s essay Here, There, and Anywhere, I suggest that the cosmic dualist approach to Satan as God’s absolute cosmic enemy resulted from the changing social topography of the early fourth century where Christian “insider” and “outsider” adversaries were diminishing. With these threats fading, early Christians universalized a perceived chaotic cosmic enemy, namely Satan, being influenced by the Gnostic demiurge, who disrupts God’s terrestrial and cosmic order. Therefore, Satan transitioned from a “here,” “insider,” and “there,” “outsider,” threat to a universal “anywhere” threat. This study could be employed as a characterization study, New Testament theory and application for classroom references or research purposes.

Cultural Landscape Transaction and Values of Nupe Community in Central Nigeria

Isa Bala Muhammad, Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria

The book provides readers with insights on how cultural landscapes are conceptualised under two major realms of tangible and intangible values as exemplified in this study of a rural Nupe community in central Nigeria. Equally important are the people-space and place relationship which results in a sense of place. The cultural values of communities are a product of both natural as well as the social setting which begins with the family. Accordingly, this book showcases how the concept of family structure shapes the architecture of the domestic space. Similarly, it also exemplifies how tangible and intangible cultural values are constituted within the domestic space as well as the entire cultural landscape. The uniqueness of this book is on the empirical evidence which is based on the documentation of an eight-month ethnographic study which brought about the native’s resident perception of their cultural landscape. This aligns with the global call in which UNESCO is at the forefront advocating the need for the preservation of values and identities of cultural landscapes. More also is that scholars in Human geography, Anthropology, Ethnography, Architecture and Cultural landscape studies can relate to the cultural transactions discussed in different chapters this book. The concluding chapter of this book gives the deductions drawn from the cultural landscape values of Nupe community which resulted in the formulation of Grounded Theory with spatial implications.

Mersey Built: The Role of Merseyside in the American Civil War

Robert Thorp

‘Mersey Built’ chronicles the little-known commercial battle that raged between North and South during the American Civil War. The South relied on Europe for its military supplies, which the North tried to stop with a naval blockade of all Southern ports. The South retaliated by destroying Northern merchant ships on the high seas, using war ships, secretly procured from British shipyards and smuggled out of Britain by sympathetic British captains using British crews. The Charleston-based business empire headed by George Trenholm provided a conduit for Confederate finance with its Liverpool branch acting as bankers for the Confederacy’s procurement agents. Merseyside, with its extensive docks and numerous shipyards quickly became the epicenter of Confederate operations in Europe. Several British businessmen bought ships specifically to run supplies through the Union blockade, leaving relationships between the United States and Britain strained, close to breaking point. The book relates the history of Trenholm’s commercial empire, its pre-war expansion into Liverpool and the pivotal role it played in supporting the Confederate war effort. The involvement of other Liverpool-based entrepreneurs and their successes and failures in blockade-running is described. Background histories of the Merseyside ship builders who constructed warships and blockade runners for the Confederacy are included as well as several mini-biographies of the Liverpool-based captains who smuggled out warships and braved the Union blockade. Details of each ship built on Merseyside for involvement in the Civil War are listed. The role of the United States consular service and its extensive, Liverpool-based, spy ring is described, as are the efforts of the United States ambassador in London to influence British government policy on neutrality. The author, a direct descendant of a Liverpool ship builder, and a blockade-running captain, brings new insights and previously unpublished facts to light in this fascinating chapter of history.

Mersey Built: The Role of Merseyside in the American Civil War

Robert Thorp

‘Mersey Built’ chronicles the little-known commercial battle that raged between North and South during the American Civil War. The South relied on Europe for its military supplies, which the North tried to stop with a naval blockade of all Southern ports. The South retaliated by destroying Northern merchant ships on the high seas, using war ships, secretly procured from British shipyards and smuggled out of Britain by sympathetic British captains using British crews. The Charleston-based business empire headed by George Trenholm provided a conduit for Confederate finance with its Liverpool branch acting as bankers for the Confederacy’s procurement agents. Merseyside, with its extensive docks and numerous shipyards quickly became the epicenter of Confederate operations in Europe. Several British businessmen bought ships specifically to run supplies through the Union blockade, leaving relationships between the United States and Britain strained, close to breaking point. The book relates the history of Trenholm’s commercial empire, its pre-war expansion into Liverpool and the pivotal role it played in supporting the Confederate war effort. The involvement of other Liverpool-based entrepreneurs and their successes and failures in blockade-running is described. Background histories of the Merseyside ship builders who constructed warships and blockade runners for the Confederacy are included as well as several mini-biographies of the Liverpool-based captains who smuggled out warships and braved the Union blockade. Details of each ship built on Merseyside for involvement in the Civil War are listed. The role of the United States consular service and its extensive, Liverpool-based, spy ring is described, as are the efforts of the United States ambassador in London to influence British government policy on neutrality. The author, a direct descendant of a Liverpool ship builder, and a blockade-running captain, brings new insights and previously unpublished facts to light in this fascinating chapter of history.

Relearning History

A Question-Driven Approach to the Study of the Past

Joe Regenbogen

For many students, the traditional approach to the study of history does not work. The litany of facts arranged in a chronological sequence often turns out to be mind numbing and forgettable. In addition, they see little relevance between the past and the world they live in today. Relearning History was written for those students. Instead of reviewing the traditional time line of the past, the focus is directed at questions relevant to the present. Why does the two-party system dominate American politics? Why is wealth so unevenly distributed? Why does race and gender still play such a large role in modern society? Why has there never been a World War Three? These “why” questions, along with 11 others, serve as the foundation for a discussion of history so that the study of the past is inexorably linked to a enhanced understanding of the present. Students who are currently enrolled in history classes can use Relearning History to supplement and enrich the traditional curriculum. Some may even want to use it in place of the traditional curriculum. As for those adults who have completed their formal education and never learned much in their earlier history classes, this book will give them the chance to finally study history in a meaningful manner.