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Across the last fifty years, epidemiology has developed into a vibrant scientific discipline that brings together the social and biological sciences, incorporating everything from statistics to the philosophy of science in its aim to study and track the distribution and determinants of health events. A now-classic text, the third edition of this essential introductory textbook gives an overview of the core concepts that form the underpinnings of epidemiology and epidemiologic research. Rather than focusing on statistics or formulas, Epidemiology presents the underlying epidemiologic principles and concepts in a coherent and straightforward exposition. This core content is supplemented with historical notes, a discussion of scientific inference, details about infectious disease epidemiology, and some advanced topics--including how to deal with missing data, the use of causal diagrams, and quantitative bias analysis techniques--that serve as an on-ramp into further study for those who elect to pursue it. By emphasizing a unifying set of ideas, students will develop a strong foundation for understanding the principles of epidemiologic research.

Erich Fromm, the prominent twentieth-century public intellectual and psychoanalyst, was recognized for his courageous stand against fascism, racism, and human destructiveness. Until now, however, little has been known about the extent to which Fromm's personal experience of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust shaped his outlook and work. In Edge of Catastrophe, Roger Frie introduces for the first time the unpublished Holocaust correspondence in Fromm's family. The letters provide insight into Fromm's life as a German-Jewish refugee and help us to understand the effect of Nazi Germany's racial terror on Fromm and his German-Jewish family. In the aftermath of the genocide, Fromm returned again and again to the themes of responsibility, social justice, and human solidarity, yet without revealing his own experience. As this book powerfully shows, Fromm's social, political, and psychological writings take on new meaning in light of the traumas and tragedies that he and his family experienced. The image of Fromm that emerges from this book enriches our understanding of what it means to be both a social critic and practicing psychologist. In light of the racial hatred and antisemitism we see today, Frie demonstrates that a politics of engagement and a psychology of well-being go hand in hand. Frie suggests that there is much to be learned from the urgency in Fromm's writings as we seek to respond to the social crises and the renewed threat of fascism in our present age.

Arguably among the worst of all medical afflictions, the dementias slowly destroy one's personality, take a tremendous emotional, physical, and financial toll on patients and families, and are irreversible and inexorably fatal. Winter's End: Dementia and Its Life-Shortening Options is constructed around a lengthy and detailed nonfiction account that is layered with the voices of approximately 100 palliative medicine practitioners, legal scholars, bioethicists, social workers, nurses, neurologists, psychiatrists, and other authorities from North America and Europe. This book explores how and when one might prepare to foreshorten life after being diagnosed with a dementing illness, while not ignoring the reality that for most people such actions are unthinkable and unacceptable. Dan Winter was one of the exceptions, and after being diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he resolved to hasten his death. He struggled over what method to employ and the timing of when to act. Winter's End is intended to catalyze conversations between clinicians, people affected by dementias, and the general public. It is a spellbinding and provocative book about a taboo subject that is increasingly germane to all aging societies that value patient autonomy.

Scholars have sometimes maintained that the study of the history of African religions is an impossible endeavor. Some have contended that African religions do not have a history unto themselves, apart from their interaction with the newer religious traditions of Islam and Christianity. Others concede that such a history exists, but believe the source materials are insufficient to reconstruct such a history. This book speaks directly to these critics. The history of African religions becomes in many ways like a pentathlon, expecting the scholar who conducts such research to work with written texts, to learn African languages, to live within a community where these religious traditions are practiced, to study material culture, both sacred and mundane, and a variety of archaeological sources from tree rings to stone circles and gravesites. By relying on the existing corpus of written texts, oral traditions, linguistic analyses, descriptions based on participant observation, and various types of archaeology, Robert M. Baum demonstrates that African religious history is nearly as old as humanity itself. Baum has spent his entire academic career focused on the historical study of African religious traditions, as far back as accessible sources will permit. This volume traces the history of African religions beginning with early hominids and their ritual and burial sites through ancient Egypt, North and Northeast Africa, and Africa south of the Sahara from the Fourth Millennium BCE to the birth of Islam in the Seventh Century.

Why is American politics so intense and emotionally competitive today, and how did we get here? In The Fundamental Voter, John H. Aldrich, Suhyen Bae, and Bailey K. Sanders explain why the notion that we are divided into tribal loyalties is, at best, only partially correct, and discuss how the divisions rest on much more substantive politics than they once did. In the 1950s and 1960s, the American public based voting primarily on partisan loyalties. Landslide presidential elections were once common, but over the last forty years, they have converged to very closely contested elections. Congressional elections were increasingly incumbent centered before 1984 and decreasingly so afterward. These changes reflect the changing nature of fundamental forces that shape the public's electoral opinions and voting behavior. From a single such fundamental, partisan identification, the electorate now rests on five fundamental forces: party, ideology, issues, race, and economics. Since the 1980s, these fundamentals have grown increasingly important and increasingly aligned, such that voters are now sorted into two increasingly bitterly divided sides. Believing that the other side is on the wrong side of nearly everything of political relevance, voters, like officials, have come to deeply dislike the opposition, a state of affairs that threatens to undermine the stability of democratic institutions in the United States.

What does a sanctuary for Hawaiian crows have in common with a troop of robots programmed to perform the Māori haka, or recreations of World Heritage Sites built in Minecraft?A family heirloom. An endangered species. An ancient piece of pottery. A threatened language. These things differ in myriad ways, but they are tied together by a common thread: they are all examples of things that call out to be saved. The world is brimming with things worth saving, and we have limited time and resources. How do we decide what to save? Why do we make these choices? Philosopher Erich Hatala Matthes explores these questions as they surface in radically diverse contexts--from museums to TikTok, and from National Parks to the corner of your attic. Matthes illustrates the deep relationship between the things we might save and our sense of self. If our cares and concerns are a fundamental part of our identity, then what we care for and preserve will play a significant role in shaping and maintaining our understanding of who we are. In a world in which everything that we care about is subject to powerful forces of change--from climate disturbance and armed conflict, to social transformation and the wear and tear of time--the terms on which we confront change will be key to whether and how we can save the things we care about in the ways that really matter to us. Will change be foisted upon us? Or is there a role for us to play in rejecting, influencing, or managing change? As he explores these questions, Matthes tackles related themes such as authenticity, agency, and appropriation: Who exactly should be responsible for saving things, and on whose behalf should such efforts be pursued? These are all essential elements to a fuller understanding of what to save and why.

Growing Songwriting is a groundbreaking book on the pedagogy of songwriting that starts with the essential question: How do I begin to write songs myself and with my students? In this book, Randles suggests that we start with cover songs, then explore the middle ground of remixes and sampling, and finally, jump into the world of lyric writing and the musical world of original songs. A growing metaphor also features throughout: lesson "seeds" are presented along with "water" in the form of stories of how people have written songs in the past and "sunlight" in the shape of ideas for continuation and inspiration. It is all about growing! In this book, you will be inspired by stories of how riffs were created, how lines were penned, and how songwriters capture their ideas in journals. Original music making is part inspiration and mostly hard work. This book gives you a window into the world of craft that surrounds the working lives of professional songwriters and pulls you into that world in small manageable steps. In looking to the metaphor of nature for pedagogical answers--answers that may very well usher in the most profound curricular growth period in the history of music education--Growing Songwriting aims to sow the seeds of songwriting in your life so that it can also flourish in the lives of your students.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read at Oxford Academic and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Leading multinational technology companies like Alphabet, Meta, Twitter, TikTok, and Microsoft now operate sprawling, complex systems to govern online behavior. These technical and bureaucratic infrastructures, commonly termed "content moderation" or "trust and safety," were developed in an effort to keep illegal and harmful material--such as child abuse imagery, hate speech, and incitement to extremist violence--out of sight and out of mind. But recently, they have been mired with scandal, and increasingly are in the public crosshairs. In The Politics of Platform Regulation, Robert Gorwa outlines how governments are shaping the emerging space of online safety. Through case studies from Germany, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, and insights gleaned from ongoing policy debates in Brazil, India, and China, Gorwa explores the domestic and international politics that influence how, why, and when platform regulation comes into being. Going beyond existing work that explores the hidden private rules and practices increasingly shaping our online lives, The Politics of Platform Regulation is a measured empirical and theoretical account of how the state is pushing back.

The dramatic story of a mutiny aboard an eighteenth-century British ship and how its owners effectively rallied the power of the British Crown to protect their investment and expand their wealth and political power across multiple generations. In 1768, the British slave ship Black Prince, departed the port of Bristol, bound for West Africa. It never arrived. Before reaching Old Calabar, the crew mutinied, murdering the captain and his officers. The mutineers renamed the ship Liberty, elected new officers, and set out for Brazil. By the time the ship arrived there, the crew had disintegrated into a violent mob and fired into the port city. After the Black Prince wrecked off the coast of Hispaniola, the rebels fled to outposts around the Atlantic world. An eight-year manhunt ensued. This book follows the crew's turn to piracy and the merchant-owners' response to the uprising. At the very moment that the American Revolution unfolded in North America, the Black Prince's owners conducted a "shadow" revolution, mobilizing the power of the British Crown to seek justice and restitution on their behalf. These private merchants used state surveillance, policing, extradition, capital punishment, international diplomacy, and even warfare in order to protect their wealth. During an era of professed liberty and freedom, the privatization of state power was already emerging, replacing monarchies with corporate oligarchies, presaging a new kind of political power in the Atlantic world. The eighteenth-century Bristol slave merchants and subsequent generations of their families accrued great fortunes from the trade and invested it in early British banks, railroads, insurance companies, industrial manufacturing, and even the Anglican Church. Mutiny on the Black Prince narrates the dramatic story of the events onboard and the merchant owners' efforts to capture the rebels from around the Atlantic world, as well as the way that British slavery shaped the industrializing Atlantic economy and the evolution of the modern corporate state.

Lupus, a disease of the immune system, can be quite deadly, claiming the lives of thousands of patients yearly. Dr. Daniel J. Wallace is one of the world's leading authorities on this disorder, an eminent clinician who has treated over 3,000 lupus patients, the largest such practice in America. His The Lupus Book, originally published in 1995, immediately established itself as the most readable and helpful book on the disease. Now Dr. Wallace has once again completely revised The Lupus Book, incorporating a wealth of new information. This book discusses new drug information and newly discovered information about the pathology of the disease all laid out in user-friendly language that any patient could understand. In particular, Wallace discusses the first drug for lupus to be approved by the FDA--belimumab (Benlysta)--as well as other drugs in clinical trials. Readers will also discover sections on the science of lupus and breakthroughs in research including: genetics, microbiome, and clinical trial methodology. And as in past editions, the book provides absolutely lucid answers to such questions as: What causes lupus? How and where is the body affected? Can a woman with lupus have a baby? And how can one manage this disease? Indeed, Dr. Wallace has distilled his extensive experience, providing the most up-to-date information on causes, prevention, cure, exercise, diet, and many other important topics. There is also a glossary of terms and an appendix of lupus resource materials compiled by Dr. Wallace. This new seventh edition discusses new treatments, review of pathogenesis, new laboratory tests

Practicing is an essential part of every musician's life, but we are rarely taught how to practice in the most effective and efficient way. Many of us find ourselves frustrated when we sound good in the practice room only to embarrass ourselves on stage or in front of our teachers. We feel overwhelmed by the amount of music we have to learn, unsure how to balance everything. Playing from memory can feel terrifying and an insurmountable challenge, and overcoming bad habits can seem impossible at times. Molly Gebrian applies the science of learning and memory to practicing and performing, giving musicians the tools to learn music more effectively and experience greater confidence on stage. Researchers working in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience have discovered many important principles about how the brain learns new information, retains this information both short- and long-term, and how to make this learning reliable in high-pressure situations like performances. Musicians often choose practice strategies that don't align well with the optimal ways in which the brain learns, leading to frustration while practicing and inconsistency in performance. The author offers a practical guide, using accessible language for non-scientists and non-academics, to help musicians get more out of their practicing by applying this research. Gebrian starts with general principles of learning and how the brain works, and then progresses through increasingly specific topics. Throughout the book, the science behind the various topics is explained in layman's terms, accompanied by practical, actionable advice that can be implemented immediately, to give musicians of all levels better tools while practicing and greater confidence on stage.

In Activating Youth as Change Agents: Integrating Youth Participatory Action Research in School Counseling, editors Amy L. Cook and Ian P. Levy aim to reshape the way school counselors work with youth by shifting the power dynamic to allow young people to tell their stories and uncover the hidden inequities and power structures that disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) as well as other marginalized groups. Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) is an action-oriented research and group approach that encourages critical examination of experiences and knowledge in ways that seek to promote youth and community development. The authors describe the applications of YPAR as a youth-oriented group process where school counselors collaborate alongside students in developmentally relevant ways to achieve their goals toward personal growth and positive school-community improvement. In section one of the book, YPAR is introduced with a focus on the individual/small group level. In sections two and three, authors provide developmentally relevant descriptions and report on YPAR projects conducted in small and large groups, and illustrate YPAR at the community level. Activating Youth as Change Agents is essential reading for school counseling professionals and trainees who are seeking how to engage in culturally responsive counseling practice that helps build counselors' self-awareness and understanding of bias, and how to collaborate with others to improve systems that are unjust. Additionally, this book provides practitioners and counselors-in-training with group-counseling skills focused on action and how to engage in social justice efforts both locally at their school and in their communities.

Foundations of Perinatal Genetic Counseling is the first book to provide a practical introduction to the concepts and skills needed to practice genetic counseling with clients before and during pregnancy. In this new edition, the authors provide a revised and updated overview of these concepts including pregnancy basics, information of the perinatal genetic counseling session and family history, testing options and procedures (e.g., diagnostic testing, screening, carrier screening, assisted reproductive technology), common indications, pregnancy management, common counseling situations, and suggested learning activities. With newly expanded material, updated guidelines, and discussions on technological and procedural advancements in the field, Foundations of Perinatal Genetic Counseling: Second Edition is an essential companion for both the classroom and the clinic. Authored by genetic counselors at the forefront of contemporary perinatal practice, this all-in-one reference provides an accessible yet comprehensive overview of the most pertinent information for new learners and practicing counselors. Perinatal genetic counselors will find themselves returning to this unique resource long after their training has come to an end.

Richly illustrated with figures and examples and supplemented with a glossary of terms, The Evolutionary Roots of Human Brain Diseases assembles recent findings in clinical neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and cellular biology to elucidate the origins of human brain diseases and how evolution has given rise to exclusive impacts on brain health only in humans. The book is succinct, up-to-date, and written by researchers across numerous disciplines, making it a compulsory read for clinical neurologists, psychologists, and all medical researchers interested in the brain. The book's 22 chapters cover basic science concepts behind cerebral cellular specificities or human-specific network developments, detailed discussions of neurological or psychiatric diseases and their clinical expression with an evolutionary focus, the newest imaging techniques to study the brain, future medication developments, as well as cultural and societal repercussions. Evolutionary concepts ranging from genetic pleiotropic antagonism to disease remnants of ancient behaviours crucial for survival are also presented. Insightful and innovative in its approach, this book offers a fascinating interdisciplinary dialogue on the potential repercussions of ongoing human brain evolution.

Politicians, judges, and citizens commonly use the phrase "rule of law" to describe some good that flows from a legal system. But what precisely is that good? Even in Aristotle's time, there was no agreement on either its nature, and on whether it counted as an unqualified good. Even now, a core rule-of-law aspiration is that law can constrain how power is flexed. But how or when? Disagreement persists as to whether the rule of law is a matter of how law is used or why it is deployed. In consequence, the World Bank, the leaders of Singapore's one-party state, and the Communist Party in China can all offer their own spins on the concept. By charting these disagreements and showing the overlap and the conflicts between different understandings of the concept, Aziz Z. Huq shows how the rule of law can still be used as an important tool for framing and evaluating the goals and functions of a legal system. He traces the idea's historical origins from ancient Greece to the constitutional theorist Albert Venn Dicey to the economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek. And he explores how that value is coming under pressure from terrorist threats, macroeconomic crisis, pandemics, autocratic populism, and climate change.

The Oxford Handbook of Sociology for Social Justice calls on sociologists to be first and foremost activists who apply sociological skills and imaginations to the work of organizing, mobilizing, educating, and envisioning radical social change. There has never been a more important time for such work. As millions of people are organizing and mobilizing in new and unparalleled ways to challenge the global powers responsible for political repression, exploitation and poverty, social devastation and ecological destruction, authoritarian movements are growing just as rapidly. This transformative political and social moment calls for the boldest forms of praxis from radical scholar-activists. This Handbook includes theoretical framing pieces on the decolonization of sociology and its demand for an alternative approach to social science developing from grassroots engagements to challenge powers of exploitation and oppression. This collection also provides critical case studies on sociological work committed to progressive policy initiatives and a variety of local and global organizing efforts from the classroom to industrial labor unions, from farmers and farm workers to musicians and journalists, and other public intellectual efforts. It has been written and edited in a way that might inspire students and faculty not to abandon the passion for political change and social justice that may have brought them to sociology in the first place. The contributors to this volume come from around the world and are finding ways to link their skills and interests to struggles for justice and liberation in powerful and creative ways. The possibilities are limited only by the collective imagination of groups' and movements' capacities to develop solidarity and find meaning and joy in struggle. Scholars are trained to look for new knowledge in the physical and virtual stacks of libraries where philosophers have tried to interpret the world. The Oxford Handbook of Sociology for Social Justice is an attempt to inspire sociologists to look and engage elsewhere if we hope to change it.

Nine tales of early Irish literature beautifully retold in a modern, evocative style A mysterious woman appears nightly at the bedside of a prince and sings to him until he falls sick with love for her. A determined hero tracks his beloved through several incarnations, struggling to win her back. A young warrior seeks a woman who turns into a swan. These are the plots of little-known, anonymous tales composed over a thousand years ago in the monastic libraries of Ireland. In poetry and prose, they tell us what happens when human and supernatural lovers cross the boundaries between our world and the Otherworld (síd). Set in a lost time of heroes, demi-gods, warrior queens, and other folk of the Irish Otherworld (áes síde), these stories inspired some of the earliest fairy tales of France and England. What is more, they are sexier, funnier, and bloodier than better-known medieval myths and romances. In Otherworld, historian and novelist Lisa M. Bitel offers lively retellings of these Irish original myths using her expertise in Irish history and literature to guide modern readers. She traces themes and characters that link the nine magical tales, explains customs and locations, and brings out the humor. Like all storytellers--whether medieval or modern, performers or scribes--Bitel interprets the originals as she leads her readers over the boundary of reality to the Otherworld. Drawings especially created for the book by Saba Joshaghani accompany these astonishing tales.

A new biography of the 8th president of the United States, the first chief executive not born a British citizen and the first to use the party system to chart his way from tavern-keeper's son to the pinnacle of power. Martin Van Buren was one of the most remarkable politicians not only of his time but in American presidential history. The principal architect of the party system and one of the founders of the Democratic Party, he came to dominate New York-then the most influential state in the Union-and was instrumental in electing Andrew Jackson president. Van Buren's skills as a political strategist were unparalleled (he was known as the "Little Magician"), winning him a series of high-profile offices: US senator, New York's governor, US secretary of state, US vice president, and finally the White House. In his rise to power, Van Buren sought consensus and conciliation, bending to the wishes of slave interests and complicit in the dispossession of America's Indigenous population--two of the darkest chapters in American history. This new biography of Van Buren -- the first full-scale portrait in four decades -- charts his ascent from a tavern in the Hudson Valley to the presidency, concluding with his late-career involvement in an antislavery movement. Offering vivid profiles of the day's leading figures (Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, DeWitt Clinton, James K. Polk), James Bradley's book depicts the struggle for power in the tumultuous decades leading up to the Civil War.

When the Lord's House Closes examines the forces behind the increase in church closings and provides community-centric recommendations for repurposing church buildings. With a focus on cities and communities of color, Melvin Delgado's analysis highlights the rewards and challenges of urban church repurposing. With the aid of case studies, this book considers whether, and how, community needs and interests can be factored into decisions for how a closed church might be used.

Most known for his creative fictions that tackle literary questions of authorship as well as more philosophical notions such as multiverse theory, Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has captivated scholars from a variety of disciplines since his emergence on the international scene. However, much of the scholarship surrounding Borges does not focus on the reception of Borges's works in the fields of philosophy, the visual arts, film, political science, media theory, mathematics, and law, nor do it consider how his affiliations and interests changed over the course of his long life. In The Oxford Handbook of Jorge Luis Borges, editors Daniel Balderston and Nora Benedict, along with a team of international scholars, contextualize Jorge Luis Borges's work for a new generation of twenty-first-century readers and critics. This volume shifts the emphasis to Borges's working life, his writing processes, his collaborations and networks, and the political and cultural background of his production. The Handbook also evaluates his impact on a variety of other fields ranging from political science and philosophy to media studies and mathematics. The volume highlights current debates among Borges scholars, reevaluating how the physical forms and socio-political contexts of Borges's writings both shaped and determined specific readerships around the world. Incorporating such broader perspectives into the Handbook brings out tensions, continuities, and discontinuities in Borges's work, allowing for a much more nuanced understanding of it.

What do the power rock band Aegis, multimedia superstar Vice Ganda, queer zombie film Zombadings, and glocalized movement P-Pop have in common? These subjects of Philippine pop culture embody novel convergences in aesthetics, style, tone, and thematic content culled from local, regional, and global ideas. Pop Convergence explores the contemporary pop music and related multimedia cultures of Manila, the center for commercial entertainment industries in the Philippines. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the country was recovering from decades of political mayhem and economic turbulence against a backdrop of swelling class divide and the maturation of mass media. Distinct from the somberness of nationalist anthems, Western music covers, and protest songs of prior years, the creative industries of new-millennium Manila generated a multimedia movement emphasizing kitsch, parody, and overstatement. These works, author James Gabrillo claims, can be read as complex expressions of consumer fatigue, ironic self-consciousness, and instinctive reclamation of social power by the creative working class. This entertainment industry developed a buoyant system of mass culture, filtered through the demands of postcolonial, postmodern Manila's broadening capitalist media enterprises. Pop Convergence locates the hallmarks and contributions of this scene within an assortment of platforms--on screens, via streams, and on the streets-- to explore musical sequences in cinema, reality television spectacles, melismatic power ballads, song-and-dance contests, musical comedy bars, and viral virtual sensations. Dissecting these arenas of musical articulation and negotiation, Pop Convergence metaphorizes the interplay within Manila's contemporary networks of artistic production, power, and spectatorship as a complex patchwork of convergence. This multimedia patchwork is framed not simply as a culmination of tradition stained by outside influence but as a fascinating force resulting from endless confrontation.

The inclusion of marginalised groups is a problem of modern democratic societies as representative democracy is built on principles which favour the majority. Around the world, some sections of society are silenced and actively excluded--including women, migrants, refugees, LGBTIQ, indigenous communities, and ethnic minorities, among others. The voice of the majority is used to contain, diminish, and oppress minorities through institutional racism, violence, erasure from public life, socio-economic exclusion, and gender inequality. As marginalised people around the globe rise up to challenge political regimes, there is a pressing need to understand what political voice is, why is it vital to marginalised and excluded people, and examine its transformative potential. In Political Voice, Aidan McGarry examines the agency of marginalised people, emphasizing the processes and strategies through which different communities around the world articulate their political voices. McGarry develops an innovative concept of political voice around three elements: autonomy, representation, and constitution. This conceptualization is illustrated through contemporary case studies of two persecuted and silenced groups: LGBTIQ activists in India and Roma mobilization in Europe. The cases show how excluded people articulate their ideas, demands, hopes, and experiences, and what impact these interventions have on democratic institutions. By focusing on the political voices of marginalised groups, McGarry considers democratic expression beyond the ballot box, examining how the articulation of political voice constitutes marginalised groups and democracy itself.

How laws are created, shaped, and applied is a significant but often overlooked component of studies on armed conflict. Almost every contentious legal question involves aspects of law-making and shaping, be it the determination of a rule's scope of application, whether and how to regulate a "new" situation, or determining which sources and materials to take into account. As such, all who operate in this space - whether academic, practitioner, policy-maker, or legal advisor - must appreciate and understand the forces, factors, and actors which converge to make and shape the ever-developing law of armed conflict. This volume brings together several key contributors to explore this making and shaping in depth. A variety of aspects of law-making and shaping are analyzed, from the methodology behind identifying principles and rules of law, to what weight should be given to the views of particular actors, to the various forums where the law is made and shaped. It examines foundational materials of the law of armed conflict including the 1949 Geneva Conventions and considers the influence of a wide scope of actors, ranging from States, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and international courts and tribunals through to expert groups, commissions of inquiry, and non-state armed groups. This volume also asks us to broaden our gaze beyond spaces where the law is traditionally created to uncover different types of making and unmaking

What is a feminist theologian to do with Christianity's patriarchal inheritance? She can avoid the most patriarchal aspects of the theological tradition and seek resources for constructive work elsewhere. Or she can critique misogynistic texts and artifacts, exposing their strategies of domination to warn against replicating them. Both approaches have merits and yet, without other interpretive strategies, they reaffirm that the theological tradition does not belong to women and others marginalized by gender. They cannot transform the discourse. But within feminist theology are the seeds of another approach, aimed at just such transformation by reworking the theological landscape to become hospitable to all those marginalized by gender. Attunement: The Art and Politics of Feminist Theology identifies trajectories resonant with this alternative approach and from them, describes and develops attunement as a third, generative path for feminist theologians. Attunement is an aesthetically-invested approach to texts and artifacts that self-consciously co-creates as it interprets. Aware of what the text affords the reader, attunement constellates images, texts, and insights to build or augment positive affordances in the text and diminish negative ones. Natalie Carnes describes why this approach is significant for feminist theology, maps its roots in a long history of gender-marginalized individuals claiming authority, describes how it casts interpretation as both an aesthetic and political event, and notes how it might provide a way forward in vexed topics in feminist theology.

The evolution and spread of Protestantism has been shaped largely by its focus on reading and interpreting the Bible. For evangelists in late-nineteenth-century Brazil, the promotion of literacy was key to spreading the gospel throughout the country, a fact that shaped the communities and cultures that grew up around the faith. In this book, Pedro Feitoza explores the intricacies of the early history of Brazilian Protestantism through an analysis of the production and circulation of evangelical texts. He examines the experiences, aspirations, and ideas of key missionaries, ministers, schoolteachers, and booksellers, whose proselytism was dependent on the distribution of religious texts and who went to great means to support the publication and circulation of this work. Through the pages of such texts, evangelical ministers and writers projected themselves and their religious communities into the public debates of their era. This book uncovers how foreign missionaries and local religious experts navigated among multiple conceptual and ideological landscapes and transmitted Protestant ideas and theology to the Brazilian public, while simultaneously promoting their religious and socio-political arguments. Considering an array of periodicals, tracts, books, missionary correspondence, conversion narratives, and autobiographies from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Feitoza evaluates both these texts' ideas and ideologies and the practices that emerged in their wake. Propagandists of the Book provides a nuanced and comprehensive view of religious change during this time.

Scholars of religion have mostly abandoned the concept of "syncretism" in which certain apparent deviations from "standard" practice are believed to be the result of a mixture of religions. This is particularly relevant to Thailand, in which ordinary religious practice was seen by an earlier generation of scholars as a mixture of three religions: local spirit religion, Hinduism, and Buddhism. In part, the perception that Thai Buddhism is syncretistic is due to a misunderstanding of traditional Buddhism, which has always accepted the existence of local spirits and gods. Nevertheless, there are aspects of Thai Buddhist practice that still stubbornly appear syncretistic. Moreover, Thai Buddhists themselves are increasingly adopting the language of syncretism, referring to traditional Thai religion as a mixture of local, Hindu, and Buddhist practices. This raises the question: If syncretism is so wrong, then why does it seem so right? In Holy Things, Nathan McGovern answers this question through an in-depth study of the worship of spirits, gods, and Buddha images--all known as sing saksit, or "holy things"--in Thailand. He takes the reader on a historical and genealogical journey, showing how the category saksit began as a term to describe a power that is inherent to gods and spirits and accessible to Brahmans. Only later, when it was used in the nineteenth century to translate the Western concept of the "holy" did it become associated with Buddhist practice. McGovern shows that what appears to be syncretism is actually an illusion. The worship of "holy things" is not a mixture of different religions, but the category of "holy things" is a mixture of different ways of talking about religion.

Increasingly, political parties have adopted not only different policies, but different sets of facts. As E.J. Fagan argues, partisan think tanks have helped create these alternate realities in their capacity as de facto formal party organizations. Through the analyses generated by aligned think tanks, political elites on both the left and right frequently offer radically different assessments of a policy's consequences, such as the effect of tax cuts on deficits or the impact of environmental regulations on economic growth. In The Thinkers, Fagan tells the story of how partisan think tanks--such as the Heritage Foundation and Center for American Progress--displaced non-partisan experts to become the closest policy advisors to the Republican and Democratic Parties. He explores their history, how they influence policymakers, and how their influence impacts the polarization of American politics. More broadly, Fagan shows that the rise of partisan think tanks tracks closely with the increase in political polarization since the 1970s. Because they are funded and staffed by strong ideologues, partisan think tanks seek to move their party's preferences to the left or right of center. When they are successful, parties take more extreme positions than if they had only drawn information from non-partisan sources, which increases polarization. A powerful account of the impact of partisan think tanks on American democracy, The Thinkers will reshape our understanding of the fundamental drivers of the US's polarized political system.

"Ah, alas!" The "faithful shepherd" Mirtillo's woeful sigh of unrequited love, delivered with outrageous musical dissonances, has rung through the ages since the first publication of Claudio Monteverdi's madrigal "Cruda Amarilli" in 1605. But there is far more to the composer's nine books of madrigals than dissonant progressions--they are an integral part of the intellectual, artistic, and practical worlds of creation and performance in Italian musical and literary culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. While Monteverdi is also recognized for his operas and sacred works, it is no surprise that the madrigal dominated his output through his long career in Cremona, Mantua, and Venice. Author Tim Carter illustrates how the composer's wonderfully witty settings of Italian verse ran the gamut from compositions in the traditional polyphonic style for five unaccompanied voices to those in more modern idioms for one or more singers and instruments. Their poets included the major figures of the day--Torquato Tasso, Battista Guarini, and Giambattista Marino--as well as the classics, not least of all Petrarch, with texts that embraced all the current literary genres from lyric through epic to dramatic. Monteverdi also repeatedly asked and answered the fundamental question of any musical setting of poetry concerning the relationship between poetic and musical voice(s). Carter offers a more holistic perspective than has been adopted in the partial studies of Monteverdi's madrigals to date and moves far beyond conventional views of the composer and his work. He considers how Monteverdi engaged with poetry, with sound, and with the performers for whom he was writing. As Carter shows, Monteverdi was irascible, exasperating, and prone to error. Yet his astonishing musical mind was also inventive, playful, and capable of the most extraordinary wit--producing madrigals that continue to invite new approaches both to their study and to their performance.

In Buddhist cosmology, pretas make up one of several categories of rebirth. They are best known as "hungry ghosts," pitiful beings with miniscule mouths and bloated stomachs whose state of extreme starvation is a result of stinginess and immorality in a former life. But they were not always portrayed in this way. Of Ancestors and Ghosts traces the construction of the Buddhist realm of the pretas through narrative literature composed in Pali and Sanskrit in the first millennium of Buddhism's development in South Asia. By exploring issues such as where the departed go after they die, how the living can assist the dead in the next world, and how the departed fits into a karmic cosmology, Buddhist monks used these stories to construct the preta realm and, with it, Buddhist cosmology as we know it today. In the process they established themselves as religious experts concerning the dead. Of Ancestors and Ghosts illustrates the importance of narrative for the construction of religious cosmologies, showing that cosmologies come into formation over a long, cumulative process. Far from being simple morality tales, preta literature helped develop and articulate Buddhist understandings of actions and their fruits. In the process, these narratives portray ethical cultivation as inherently connected to the cultivation of bodies. As a result, stories about pretas speak to the vast range of embodied experiences in the Buddhist cosmos, including the intersection of human/non-human identity and class, caste, gender, and sexuality. These stories help model and elicit aesthetically informed embodied experiences that are themselves ethically formative. As a result, preta literature highlights the enduring importance of emotions and embodiment on the Buddhist path to awakening.