Beyond Dichotomies examines literary texts, cultural production, and concrete local practices within the context of modernity and globalization by focusing on the ways in which some societies confront the complexity of cultures reflected in new forms of knowledge, narratives, and subjectivities. The contributors explore how particular societies negotiate the relations between the global and the local, and use a geographical, comparative perspective combined with an interdisciplinary approach to offer a diversity of views and illuminate the cultural impact of globalization on different societies around the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. These societies face complex questions regarding people's histories, identities, and cultures that embody the ambivalence, contradictions, and anxieties generated by the process of globalization. The contributors provide a compelling conclusion for a rethinking and reconfiguration of cultures and intercultural relations in today's global world in which dichotomized representations coexist with a discourse of globalization.

This book brings together personal stories and theoretical concepts in the exploration of how second generation female migrants (SGFMs) in Norway negotiate their identities and give new form and content to their own notions of peace and belonging beyond a double life. By applying postmodern and feminist scholarship, the book challenges static ideas of cultural identity in discourses about the national and the family contexts. It takes the reader on a journey through the transformations of conflicts on sexuality, identity, and belonging by the SGFMs themselves. This will be an important book for feminist and migration researchers, as well as for those concerned with minority issues. (Series: Masters of Peace - Vol. 8)

This book offers multi-method case studies of course-based tutoring and one-to-one tutorials in developmental first-year writing courses at two universities. The author makes an argument for more peer-to-peer learning situations for developmental writers and more detailed studies of what goes on in these peer-centered environments.

Exploring Materiality and Connectivity in Anthropology and Beyond provides a new look at the old anthropological concern with materiality and connectivity. It understands materiality not as defined property of some-thing, nor does it take connectivity as merely a relation between discrete entities. Somewhat akin to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it sees materiality and connectivity as two interrelated modes in which an entity is, or more precisely – is becoming, in the world. The question, thus, is how these two modes of becoming relate and fold into each other. Throughout the four-year research process that led to this book, the authors approached this question not just from a theoretical perspective; taking the suggestion of 'thinking through things' literally and methodologically seriously, the first two workshops were dedicated to practical, hands-on exercises working with things. From these workshops a series of installations emerged, straddling the boundaries of art and academia. These installations served as artistic-academic interventions during the final symposium and are featured alongside the other academic contributions to this volume. Throughout this process, two main themes emerged and structure Part II, Movement and Growth, and Part III, Dissolution and Traces, of the present volume, respectively. Part I, Conceptual Grounds, consists of two chapters offering conceptual takes on things and ties – one from anthropology and one from archaeology. As interrelated modes of becoming, materiality and connectivity make it necessary to coalesce things and ties into thing~ties – an insight toward which the chapters and interventions came from different sides, and one in which the initial proposition of the editors still shines through. Throughout the pages of this volume, we invite the reader to travel beyond imaginaries of a universe of separate planets united by connections, and to venture with us instead into the thicket of thing~ties in which we live.

Environmental activism in rural places frequently pits residents whose livelihood depends on resource extraction against those who seek to protect natural spaces and species. While many studies have focused on women who seek to protect the natural environment, few have explored the perspectives of women who seek to maintain resource use. This book goes beyond the dichotomies of "pro" and "anti" environmentalism to tell the stories of these women. Maureen Reed uses participatory action research to explain the experiences of women who seek to protect forestry as an industry, a livelihood, a community, and a culture. She links their experiences to policy making by considering the effects of environmental policy changes on the social dynamics of workplaces, households, and communities in forestry towns of British Columbia's temperate rainforest. The result is a critical commentary about the social dimensions of sustainability in rural communities. A powerful and challenging book, Taking Stands provides a crucial understanding of community change in resource-dependent regions, and helps us to better tackle the complexities of gender and activism as they relate to rural sustainability. Social and environmental geographers, feminist scholars, and those engaged in rural studies, environmental sustainability, and community planning will find it invaluable.

This volume aims to broaden our understanding of the related genres of parables, fables, and similes in the Graeco-Roman world. These genres, which make use of narrative analogy, appear in early Christian and ancient Jewish literatures and in various Graeco-Roman sources. However, despite the fact that these texts were part of the wider cultural context of Graeco-Roman antiquity, they have not yet been thoroughly studied in relation to each other. The present volume brings together contributions on a range of Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources, so as to contribute to the study of parables, fables, and similes across disciplinary boundaries. The contributions highlight the fluid boundaries between these different genres, but also demonstrate how their adoption and adaption in different literary works give expression to the distinct identities of the composers.

Thanks to the recent »return to religion«, the holy has become a relevant issue in public debate, as is suggested by concepts such as »re-sacralization« and »re-enchantment«. Holy war and religiously motivated terrorist attacks, the fascination in popular culture for subjects such as the Holy Grail (as in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code), new spiritual longings both within and outside institutional religion – all testify to the new religious climate. This situation calls for a reassessment of both classical and new theories about the holy.Espen Dahl offers a theoretical account of the holy. Central to its approach is the idea that the holy cannot be reduced to one stable essence, but is fundamentally composite and takes place »in between«. This means that the typical modern dichotomies between the holy and the profane, the pure and the impure, the pious and the violent, cannot be drawn as sharply as scholars once did. Instead, the manifestation of the holy takes place in the interstice between those spheres. Such a position is not strong – it attests to the weakness of the holy. Through a critical dialogue with the most influential recent contributions, various theories and responses to them are presented on the basis of the book's overall perspective.Espen Dahl deals with various theoretical perspectives, corresponding to the numerous dimensions of the holy. Phenomenology plays the principal role, because it offers the best means to preserve the experiential dimensions which are essential to the holy. From this perspective, the book discusses theories from religious science, theology, philosophy, and psychology.

In the last fifteen years, there has been significant interest in studying the brain structures involved in moral judgments using novel techniques from neuroscience. This is the first volume to take stock of fifteen years of research of this fast-growing field of moral neuroscience and recommend future directions for research.