Polity press jul 2012 (10 Ergebnisse)

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Confucian political philosophy has recently emerged as a vibrant area of thought both in China and around the globe. This book provides an accessible introduction to the main perspectives and topics being debated today, and shows why Progressive Confucianism is a particularly promising approach. Students of political theory or contemporary politics will learn that far from being confined to a museum, contemporary Confucianism is both responding to current challenges and offering insights from which we can all learn.The Progressive Confucianism defended here takes key ideas of the twentieth-century Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan (1909-1995) as its point of departure for exploring issues like political authority and legitimacy, the rule of law, human rights, civility, and social justice. The result is anti-authoritarian without abandoning the ideas of virtue and harmony; it preserves the key values Confucians find in ritual and hierarchy without giving in to oppression or domination. A central goal of the book is to present Progressive Confucianism in such a way as to make its insights manifest to non-Confucians, be they philosophers or simply citizens interested in the potential contributions of Chinese thinking to our emerging, shared world.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - All discourses aimed at asserting the value of human life as suchÑwhether philosophical, ethical, or politicalÑassume the notion of personhood as their indispensable point of departure. This is all the more true today. In bioethics, for example, Catholic and secular thinkers may disagree on what constitutes a person and its genesis, but they certainly agree on its decisive importance: human life is considered to be untouchable only when based on personhood. In the legal sphere as well the enjoyment of subjective rights continues to be increasingly linked to the qualification of personhood, which appears to be the only one capable of bridging the gap between human being and citizen, right and life, and soul and body opened up at the very origins of Western civilization.The radical and alarming thesis put forward in this book is that the notion of person is unable to bridge this gap because it is precisely what creates this breach. Its primary effect is to create a separation in both the human race and the individual between a rational, voluntary part endowed with particular value and another, purely biological part that is thrust by the first into the inferior dimension of the animal or the thing. In opposition to the performative power of the person, whose dual origins can be traced back to ancient Rome and Christianity, Esposito pursues his strikingly original and innovative philosophical inquiry by inviting reflection on the category of the impersonal: the third person, in removing itself from the exclusionary mechanism of the person, points toward the orginary unity of the living being.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - In this book Jeffrey C. Alexander develops an original social theory of trauma and uses it to carry out a series of empirical investigations into social suffering around the globe.Alexander argues that traumas are not merely psychological but collective experiences, and that trauma work plays a key role in defining the origins and outcomes of critical social conflicts. He outlines a model of trauma work that relates interests of carrier groups, competing narrative identifications of victim and perpetrator, utopian and dystopian proposals for trauma resolution, the performative power of constructed events, and the distribution of organizational resources.Alexander explores these processes in richly textured case studies of cultural-trauma origins and effects, from the universalism of the Holocaust to the particularism of the Israeli right, from postcolonial battles over the Partition of India and Pakistan to the invisibility of the Rape of Nanjing in Maoist China. In a particularly controversial chapter, Alexander describes the idealizing discourse of globalization as a trauma-response to the Cold War.Contemporary societies have often been described as more concerned with the past than the future, more with tragedy than progress. In Trauma: A Social Theory, Alexander explains why.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - The rise of digital photography and imaging has transformed the landscape of visual communication and culture. Events, activities, moments, objects, and people are 'captured' and distributed as images on an unprecedented scale. Many of these are shared publicly; some remain private, others become intellectual property, and some have the potential to shape global events. In this timely introduction, the ubiquity of photography is explored in relation to interdisciplinary debates about changes in the production, distribution, and consumption of images in digital culture.Ubiquitous Photography provides a critical examination of the technologies, practices, and cultural significance of digital photography, placing the phenomenon in historical, social, and political-economic context. It examines shifts in image-making, storage, commodification, and interpretation as highly significant processes of digitally mediated communication in an increasingly image-rich culture. It covers debates in social and cultural theory, the history and politics of image-making and manipulation, the current explosion in amateur photography, tagging and sharing via social networking, and citizen journalism. The book engages with key contemporary theoretical issues about memory and mobility, authorship and authenticity, immediacy and preservation, and the increased visibility of ordinary social life.Drawing upon a range of sources and original empirical research, Ubiquitous Photography provides a comprehensive introduction to critical academic debate and concrete developments in the field of digital photography. It is essential reading for students and scholars interested in media and society, visual culture, and digital technology. …

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This book is the first major study of the ways in which old age was perceived in Western culture and society. Beginning from ancient Palestine and Classical Greece, Minois traces the changing conceptions of the nature, value and burden of the old.He shows how, in ancient Greece, the cult of youth and beauty, on the one hand, and the reverence for the figure of the Homeric sage, on the other, created an ambivalent attitude towards the aged. This ambiquity appears again in the contrast between the active role that senior citizens played in Roman politics, and their depiction in satirical literature of the period. Christian literature in the Middle Ages also played a large part in defining the society's perception of the old, both in the image of the revered holy sage and in the total condemnation of the aged sinner.Minois traces the increasingly positive image of old age in various professions from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries. He shows how, as medical advances lengthened the average life-span, more and more old people were seen to take an active part in the life of the society. Throughout, Minois considers the interrelation of literary, religious, medical and political factors in the social fate of old men and women and their relationship with the rest of society.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Conflicts in the international system, both among and within states, bring death, destruction, and human misery. Understanding how third parties use mediation to encourage settlements and establish a durable peace among belligerents is vital for managing these conflicts. Among many features, this book empirically examines the history of post-World War II mediation efforts to:\* Chart the historical changes in the types of conflicts that mediation addresses and the links between different mediation efforts across time.\* Explore the roles played by providers of mediation in the international system - namely, individuals, states, and organizations - in managing violent conflicts.\* Gauge the influence of self-interest and altruism as motivating forces that determine which conflicts are mediated and which are ignored.\* Evaluate what we know about the willingness of parties in conflict to accept mediation, when and why it is most effective, and discuss the future challenges facing mediators in the contemporary world.Drawing on a wide range of examples from the Oslo Accords and Good Friday Agreement to efforts to manage the civil wars in Burundi, Tajikistan, and Bosnia, this book is an indispensable guide to international mediation for students, practitioners, and general readers seeking to understand better how third parties can use mediation to deal with the globe's trouble spots.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Craving pleasure as well as knowledge, Raphael Sanzio was quick to realize that his talent would only be truly appreciated in the liberal, carefree and extravagantly sensual atmosphere of Rome during its golden age under Julius II and Leo X.Arriving in the city in 1508 at the age of twenty-five, he was entranced and seduced by life at the papal court and within a few months had emerged as the most brilliant star in its intellectual firmament. His art achieved a natural grace that was totally uninhibited and free from subjection. His death, at just thirty-seven, plunged the city into the kind of despair that follows the passing of an esteemed and much loved prince.In this major new biography Antonio Forcellino retraces the meteoric arc of Raphael's career by re-examining contemporary documents and accounts and interpreting the artist's works with the eye of an expert art restorer. Raphael's paintings are vividly described and placed in their historical context. Forcellino analyses Raphael's techniques for producing the large frescos for which he is so famous, examines his working practices and his organization of what was a new kind of artistic workshop, and shows how his female portraits expressed and conveyed a new attitude to women.This rich and nuanced account casts aside the misconceptions passed on by those critics who persistently tried to undermine Raphael's mythical status, enabling one of the greatest artists of all time to re-emerge fully as both man and artist.…

Taschenbuch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - People care a great deal about justice. They protest and engage in confrontations with others when their sense of justice is affronted or disturbed. When they do this, they don't generally act in a strategic or calculating way but use arguments that claim a general validity. Disputes are commonly regulated by these 'regimes of justice' implicit in everyday social life. But justice is not the only regime that governs action. There are some actions that are selfless and gratuitous, and that belong to what might be called a regime of 'peace' or 'love'. In the course of their everyday lives, people constantly move back and forth between these two regimes, that of justice and that of love. And everyone also has the capacity for violence, which arises when the regulation of action within either of these regimes breaks down. In Love and Justice as Competences, Boltanski lays out this highly original framework for analysing the action of individuals as they pursue their day-to-day lives. The framework outlined in this important book is the basis for the path-breaking work that he has developed over the last twenty years - work that has examined the moral foundations of society in and through the forms of everyday conflict. For anyone who wants to understand what a critical sociology might mean today, this book is an essential text.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - This text provides for the first time in book form an exploration of the communicative aspects of the darker side of family life, ranging from, for example, severe acts of violence to more subtle forms of conflict. In addition to offering a working definition of the concept of the 'dark side' in the family context, the authors propose the Darkness Model of Family Communication that integrates relevant literature in new and significant ways. Researchers, teachers and advanced students alike will benefit from the holistic and theoretical approach to the topic advanced through this volume. Readers are also encouraged to process the material by reviewing discussion questions and the case study of the Moore family at the end of each chapter. Chapter topics include: - an overview of the 'dark side' of family communication - individual influences on the darkness of family communication - the dark side of dyadic family life - familial interaction structure and the dark side - dark family communication in a context of darkness - socio-cultural influences on family life - concluding reflections on the study of dark family communication The Dark Side of Family Communication offers an integrative understanding of the dark side of family communication and a theoretical mechanism for understanding related scholarship. It will be essential reading for all students and scholars of family communication.…

Buch. Zustand: Neu. Neuware - Conflicts in the international system, both among and within states, bring death, destruction, and human misery. Understanding how third parties use mediation to encourage settlements and establish a durable peace among belligerents is vital for managing these conflicts. Among many features, this book empirically examines the history of post-World War II mediation efforts to:\* Chart the historical changes in the types of conflicts that mediation addresses and the links between different mediation efforts across time.\* Explore the roles played by providers of mediation in the international system - namely, individuals, states, and organizations - in managing violent conflicts.\* Gauge the influence of self-interest and altruism as motivating forces that determine which conflicts are mediated and which are ignored.\* Evaluate what we know about the willingness of parties in conflict to accept mediation, when and why it is most effective, and discuss the future challenges facing mediators in the contemporary world.Drawing on a wide range of examples from the Oslo Accords and Good Friday Agreement to efforts to manage the civil wars in Burundi, Tajikistan, and Bosnia, this book is an indispensable guide to international mediation for students, practitioners, and general readers seeking to understand better how third parties can use mediation to deal with the globe's trouble spots.…