This book presents interviews with some of the most provocative artists of the postmodern era. These sculptors, writers, filmmakers, activists, and performance artists have forged a new vision of art that is confrontational, political, and concerned with interrupting the domination of our lives by mass culture.

Ideas are embedded in social arrangements, which in turn produce effects. With this simple premise, this radically accessible systems design book makes a compelling case for arrangements as a rich and overlooked terrain for social justice and world building. Unpacking how ideas like racism and sexism remain sturdy by embedding themselves in everything from physical and social infrastructure to everyday speech and thought habits, this book gives readers the tools to sense, intervene in and imagine new arrangements.

What role can provocation play in the process of renewal, both of individuals and of societies? Provocation in Popular Culture is an investigation into the practice of specific provocateurs and the wider nature of cultural provocation, examining, among others: Banksy Sacha Baron Cohen Leo Bassi Pussy Riot Philippe Petit Archaos. Drawing on Bim Mason’s own twenty-five year career as performer, teacher and creative director, this book explores the power negotiations involved in the relationship between provocateur and provoked, and the implications of maintaining a position on the ‘edge’. Using neuroscience as a bridge, it proposes a similarity between complexity theory and cultural theories of play and risk. Three inter-related analogies for the ‘edge’ on which these performers operate – the fulcrum, the blade and the border – reveal the shifts between structure and fluidity, and the ways in which these can combine in a single moment.

Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions: Theory, Research, and Procedures surveys a variety of areas to which cognitive-behavioral strategies have been applied. The various contributors represent some of the major innovators in the field. Each has developed and systematically evaluated programs which apply sound empirically based procedures to cognitive and behavioral phenomena. The opening chapter traces the short developmental history and describes the current professional environment of the cognitive-behavioral movement. The chapters that follow represent major contributions by the leading investigators across a number of areas of intervention. Each chapter describes a summary of research in the respective area, a description of the actual intervention procedures with supporting empirical data, and a consideration of the theoretical foundations and potential implications associated with the intervention. The chapter contents vary across three dimensions. First, the interventions range from those that focus on the acquisition of new capacities to those that deal with the control and modification of existing processes. Second, several chapters focus on adult populations, several on child populations, and some on both. Finally, whereas a number of the chapters deal with problems that have been areas of traditional clinical concern, several others explore new and interesting applications for cognitive-behavioral interventions.

Much has changed since Camille Paglia first burst onto the scene with her groundbreaking Sexual Personae, but the laser-sharp insights of this major American thinker continue to be ahead of the curve—not only capturing the tone of the moment but also often anticipating it. Opening with a blazing manifesto of an introduction in which Paglia outlines the bedrock beliefs that inform her writing—freedom of speech, the necessity of fearless inquiry, and a deep respect for all art, both erudite and popular—Provocations gathers together a rich, varied body of work spanning twenty-five years, illuminating everything from the Odyssey to the Oscars, from punk rock to presidents past and present. Whatever your political inclination or literary and artistic touchstones, Paglia’s takes are compulsively readable, thought provoking, galvanizing, and an essential part of our cultural dialogue, invariably giving voice to what most needs to be said.

"Positive Psychologist and coach challenges conventional coaching wisdom to help you bring your practice to the next level. Positive Provocation is a series of 25 short provocations aimed at engaging coaches in reflection about their own practice. Each provocation is approximately three to five pages long and addresses tropes, sacred cows, and other familiar aspects of coaching proactive. Each includes attention to research, the introduction of fresh concepts, and suggestions for applying these to coaching. These meditations are on-brand for Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, who is widely known for both his thought leadership in coaching and his challenging style of training and coaching. Robert refers to his fresh perspective as a "90-degree view." If each person looks at life from a zero-degree view-everybody has immediate access to their own thoughts, memories, feelings, and perceptions-than the most challenging opposition comes from a 180-degree view. As a coach and educator, Dr. Biswas-Diener prefers a 90-degree angle; one that is just provocative enough to feel fresh and to get people to sit up and take notice but not so challenging that it makes people defensive or leaves them feeling invalidated. The promise of Positive Provocation is the promise of coaching itself: a chance to have new questions asked of the reader, an opportunity to reflect, and an emphasis on practical application"--

Interpersonal violence has many faces and many names - domestic violence, child abuse, school bullying. Anger, Aggression, and Interventions for Interpersonal Violence reveals what clinical scientists know and what mental health practitioners can do about interpersonal violence. To advance the way professionals conceptualize interventions for violent clients, contributors consider the complex relation between anger and aggression and discuss how that relation affects treating various forms of interpersonal violence. Should treatment focus on anger, on aggression, or on both? Does that decision depend on the form of interpersonal violence, or does the anger-aggression relation suggest a core set of intervention principles and strategies? Readers are provided up-to-date, detailed discussions as well as focused commentaries, all written by internationally known researchers. This volume will serve as a comprehensive guide for researchers and practitioners alike.

Pushing back against the contemporary myth that freedom from oppression is freedom of choice, Frank Ruda resuscitates a fundamental lesson from the history of philosophical rationalism: a proper concept of freedom can arise only from a defense of absolute necessity, utter determinism, and predestination. Abolishing Freedom demonstrates how the greatest philosophers of the rationalist tradition and even their theological predecessors--Luther, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Freud--defended not only freedom but also predestination and divine providence. By systematically investigating this mostly overlooked and seemingly paradoxical fact, Ruda demonstrates how real freedom conceptually presupposes the assumption that the worst has always already happened; in short, fatalism. In this brisk and witty interrogation of freedom, Ruda argues that only rationalist fatalism can cure the contemporary sickness whose paradoxical name today is freedom.

Conflicts involve powerful experiences. The residue of these experiences is captured by the concept and language of emotion. Indiscriminate killing creates fear; targeted violence produces anger and a desire for vengeance; political status reversals spawn resentment; cultural prejudices sustain ethnic contempt. These emotions can become resources for political entrepreneurs. A broad range of Western interventions are based on a view of human nature as narrowly rational. Correspondingly, intervention policy generally aims to alter material incentives ('sticks and carrots') to influence behavior. In response, poorer and weaker actors who wish to block or change this Western implemented 'game' use emotions as resources. This book examines the strategic use of emotion in the conflicts and interventions occurring in the Western Balkans over a twenty-year period. The book concentrates on the conflicts among Albanian and Slavic populations (Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, South Serbia), along with some comparisons to Bosnia.

In Anarchy of the Body, art historian KuroDalaiJee sheds light on vital pieces of postwar Japanese avant-garde history by contextualizing the social, cultural, and political trajectories of artists across Japan in the 1960s. A culmination of years of research, Anarchy of the Body draws on an extensive breadth of source material to reveal how the practice of performance by individual artists and art groups during this period formed a legacy of resistance against institutionalization, both within the art world and more broadly in Japanese society. This book contains 256 high-quality reproductions, including rare performance photographs not readily accessible elsewhere, as well as a comprehensive chronology. KuroDalaiJee was awarded the 2010 Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (criticism category) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's Art. Contributors: Kurokawa Noriyuki (editor), Jason Beckman (copy-editor of the translation), Andrew Maerkle (translator), Shima Yumiko (translator), Alice Kiwako Ashiwa (editorial assistant), Daniel González (translator), Claire Tanaka (translator), Giles Murray (translator), Jenny Preston (translator) Translated from the original Japanese edition published with Tokyo: Grambooks, 2010. In cooperation with Art Platform Japan / The Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan Art Platform Japan is an initiative by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan, to maintain the sustainable development of the contemporary art scene in Japan.