Our lives are full of disruptions, from the minor - a flat tire, an unexpected phone call - to the fateful - a diagnosis of infertility, an illness, the death of a loved one. And the ways in which we come to understand and cope with these disruptions can say as much about our cultural heritage as they say about us as individuals. In the first book to examine disruption in American life from a cultural rather than a psychological perspective, Gay Becker follows hundreds of people to find out what they do after something unexpected occurs. Starting with bodily distress, she shows how individuals recount experiences of disruption metaphorically, drawing on important cultural themes to help them reestablish order and continuity in their lives.

Information and communication technology is transforming our notion of literacy. In the study of second language learning, there is an acute need to understand how learners collaborate in mediating discourse online. This edited volume offers essays and research studies that lead us to question the borders between speech and writing, to redefine narrative, to speculate on the consequences of many-to-many communication, and to ponder the ethics of researching online interaction. Using diverse technologies (bulletin boards, course management systems, chats, instant messaging, online gaming) and situated in different cultural environments, the studies explore intercultural notions of identity, voice, and collaboration. Although the studies come from varying theoretical perspectives, they point, as a whole, to insights to be gained from an ecological approach to studying how people make discourse online. The volume will especially benefit researchers in the digital arena and instructors who must consider how online interaction affects language learning and use.

Mediating Across Difference is based on a fundamental premise: to deal adequately with conflict—and particularly with conflict stemming from cultural and other differences—requires genuine openness to different cultural practices and dialogue between different ways of knowing and being. Equally essential is a shift away from understanding cultural difference as an inevitable source of conflict, and the development of a more critical attitude toward previously under-examined Western assumptions about conflict and its resolution. To address the ensuing challenges, this book introduces and explores some of the rich insights into conflict resolution emanating from Asia and Oceania. Although often overlooked, these local traditions offer a range of useful ways of thinking about and dealing with difference and conflict in a globalizing world. To bring these traditions into exchange with mainstream Western conflict resolution, the editors present the results of collaborative work between experienced scholars and culturally knowledgeable practitioners from numerous parts of Asia and Oceania. The result is a series of interventions that challenge conventional Western notions of conflict resolution and provide academics, policy makers, diplomats, mediators, and local conflict workers with new possibilities to approach, prevent, and resolve conflict. Contributors: Roland Bleiker; Volker Boege; Morgan Brigg; Stephen Chan; Frans de Jalong, Sr.; Lorraine Garasu; Mary Graham; Hoang Young-ju; Carwyn Jones; Joy Kere; Debra McDougall; Norifumi Namatame; Chengxin Pan; Oliver Richmond; Deborah Bird Rose; Muhadi Sugiono; Tarja Väyrynen; Polly O. Walker; Jacqueline Wasilewski.

Our contemporary moment is preoccupied with arbitrating ‘reality’. With the spectre of buzzwords like ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ we find a scramble to locate or fix some sort of universal ‘real’ beneath what are positioned as ‘fake’ articulations. To engage with this crisis, this collection argues for the importance of a new conjuncture in communication and cultural studies of media. Building on Hall’s understanding of ‘conjuncture’ as a way of grasping moments within hegemonic struggle, the essays suggest that the current moment requires a revitalization of the concept of conjuncture.

Questions of values, ontologies, ethics, aesthetics, discourse, origins, language, literature, and meaning do not lend themselves readily, or traditionally, to equations, probabilities, and models. However, with the increased adoption of natural science tools in economics, anthropology, and political science—to name only a few social scientific fields highlighted in this volume—quantitative methods in the humanities are becoming more common. The theory of complexity holds significant promise for better understanding social and human phenomena based on interactions among the participating "agents," whatever they may be: a thought, a person, a conversation, a sentence, or an email. Such systems can exhibit phase transitions, feedback loops, self-organization, and emergent properties. These dynamic systems lend themselves naturally to the kind of analysis made possible by models and simulations developed with complex science tools. This volume offers a tour of quantitative analyses, models, and simulations of humanities and social science phenomena that have been historically the purview of qualitative methods.

This is the first English translation of the earliest Chinese Buddhist text, but it is more than a translation. Keenan shows that Mou-tzu's Treatise on Alleviating Doubt is a Buddhist hermeneutic on the Chinese classics. Using a reader-response method of examining the text, Keenan shows how the rhetoric convinces readers that one can remain culturally Chinese yet be a Buddhist. The Introduction explains the reader-response methodology, develops the movement of the dialogue in terms of this method, and clarifies the rhetorical impact of Master Mou's argument. The Introduction is followed by the thirty-seven articles of the text. Each article is first translated into English, then the contextual images and ideas are unpacked for each, and finally each article is subjected to a reader-response critique that shows what the argument accomplishes in each of its progressive steps.

Handbook of Mediators in Septic Shock presents a comprehensive, systematic evaluation of the various putative mediators of septic shock through the use of meta-analysis. Experts of individual mediators have objectively evaluated the collective literature using classical Koch-Dale Criteria for causal relationships. A decision tree approach has been used to analyze the existing evidence for each of the four Koch-Dale Criteria for each individual mediator of septic shock. The book provides an integrated perspective that describes how these many mediators interact. It also covers how advances in mathematical modeling of complex realities are applied to the field of septic shock pathogenesis. CRC Handbook of Mediators in Septic Shock will be a useful reference for emergency room and intensive care physicians, trauma specialists, pathophysiologists, physiologists, biochemists, pharmacologists, and others interested in the topic. Features

This is the first book to bring together many aspects of the interplay between religion, media and culture from around the world in a single comprehensive study. Leading international scholars provide the most up-to-date findings in their fields, and in a readable and accessible way.Some of the topics covered include religion in the media age, popular broadcasting, communication theology, popular piety, film and religion, myth and ritual in cyberspace, music and religion, communication ethics, and the nature of truth in media saturated cultures.The result is not only a wide-ranging resource for scholars and students, but also a unique introduction to this increasingly important phenomenon of modern life.

Mediator book on Islamic and modern political economy and the system of Islamic and modern companies deals with the subject of political economy from an Islamic and modern perspective. The book also deals with the system of Islamic and modern companies. The book contains a careful research on these topics of interest to readers interested in this field. The study aims to put the Islamic and modern economy on two parallel sides within the framework of the interview between two systems that agree on principles and differ in regulatory laws between legitimacy and status. It aims to put in front of businessmen and trade the five Islamic companies with their systems and laws and the five modern companies with their laws and regulations in an interview between two systems that meet at the table of production and investment despite their differences in source.

Mediated Terrorism in the 21st Century offers new interpretations of figures emerging from representations of terrorism and counterterrorism: the male hero, female agent, religious leader, victim/perpetrator, and survivor. This collection of essays by a broad array of international scholars reflects the altered image-making processes that have developed from George W. Bush’s “war on terror.” Building on current literature on media and terrorism, this volume analyzes the most recent technological developments that have impacted the way we experience terrorism: online videos, social media, cartoons, media feeds, and drones. The authors address different time periods, different terrorist groups, and explore the way filmmakers and television producers from the USA, Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East are documenting modern wars in popular culture.