Andre F. Depuis, the author, seems to be a social outcast, trying to fill a humdrum, low-level life. Gradually, with the help of a decent memory, including various artistic references, he pieces together something extraordinary. A new and different way of living. By good choice and chance associations, the writer develops a line of reasoning, and anticipation of, as it could be called, a heterogeneous disposition. A simple but complex, dark but comic, twist from the mundane to the miraculous. All readers are advised to lose themselves in this book. The book also stands re-reading well.

Heterogenous Wastes Characterization Methods and Recommendations addresses the problems faced by investigators when attempting to characterize heterogenous wastes contaminated with hazardous chemicals and/or radionuclides. The book is the result of a workshop conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy to devise methods for cleaning up waste sites, including landfills and drum dumps, where these chemicals have been spilled or improperly stored. The book summarizes study planning tools, sampling design strategies, and field and laboratory methods now in use. It also identifies the advantages and disadvantages of each method. In addition, the book identifies areas that would benefit from methodological research or development or the adoption of new approaches. Pertinent regulatory definitions have been assembled and augmented with practical working definitions. Heterogenous Wastes Characterization Methods and Recommendations is essential for personnel who work with hazardous wastes or in sanitary engineering firms.

Uriah Kriegel develops an objective theory of what it is for a mental state to be conscious. The key idea is that consciousness arises when self-awareness and world-awareness are integrated in the right way. Conscious mental states differ from unconscious ones in that, whatever else they represent, they represent themselves in a very specific way.

The Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Arts and Culture offers a comprehensive overview of sociology of art and culture, focusing especially – though not exclusively – on the visual arts, literature, music, and digital culture. Extending, and critiquing, Bourdieu’s influential analysis of cultural capital, the distinguished international contributors explore the extent to which cultural omnivorousness has eclipsed highbrow culture, the role of age, gender and class on cultural practices, the character of aesthetic preferences, the contemporary significance of screen culture, and the restructuring of popular culture. The Handbook critiques modes of sociological determinism in which cultural engagement is seen as the simple product of the educated middle classes. The contributions explore the critique of Eurocentrism and the global and cosmopolitan dimensions of cultural life. The book focuses particularly on bringing cutting edge ‘relational’ research methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, to bear on these debates. This handbook not only describes the field, but also proposes an agenda for its development which will command major international interest.

This anthology consists of a collection of papers on the nature of dis positions and the role of disposition concepts in scientific theories. I have tried to make the collection as representative as possible, except that problems specifically connected with dispositions in various special sciences are relatively little discussed. Most of these articles have been previously published. The papers by Mackie, Essler and Trapp, Fetzer (in Section 11), Levi, and Tuomela appear here for the first time, and are simultaneously published in Synthese 34, No. 4, which is a special issue on dispositions. Of the previously published material it should be emphasized that the papers by Hempel and Fisk have been extensively revised specially for this anthology. The papers are grouped in four sections, partlyon the basis of their content. However, due to the complexity of the issues involved, there is considerable overlap in content between the different sections, especially between Sections land 11. I wish to thank Professors James Fetzer and Carl G. Hempel for helpful advicc in compiling this anthology.

Studying people’s lives requires acknowledging the multiple entanglements between individual singularity and processes of social patterning. This book testifies how challenging and creative the study of these connections can be. It gathers international contributions that show, in imaginative ways, how a person’s life or specific domains of existence can be observed, tackled, and analysed across time. This volume reveals the potential of biographical research in the production of social theory, in the development of methodological innovation, in giving voice and protagonism to people, and in the understanding of the social unfolding of their lives. It is a testimony of a vibrant and youthful field, with a long tradition in social sciences, and with numerous connections with other study areas, namely the life course approach. The different chapters illustrate how the challenges posed by this type of research focused on the individual level of analysis are particular and what creative responses are required to continue analysing the link between biography and society. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Contemporary Social Science.

Although sampling errors inevitably lead to analytical errors, the importance of sampling is often overlooked. The main purpose of this book is to enable the reader to identify every possible source of sampling error in order to derive practical rules to (a) completely suppress avoidable errors, and (b) minimise and estimate the effect of unavoidable errors. In short, the degree of representativeness of the sample can be known by applying these rules. The scope covers the derivation of theories of probabilistic sampling and of bed-blending from a complete theory of heterogeneity which is based on an original, very thorough, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the concepts of homogeneity and heterogeneity. All sampling errors result from the existence of one form or another of heterogeneity. Sampling theory is derived from the theory of heterogeneity by application of a probabilistic operator to a material whose heterogeneity has been characterized either by a simple scalar (a variance: zero-dimensional batches) or by a function (a variogram: one-dimensional batches). A theory of bed-blending (one-dimensional homogenizing) is then easily derived from the sampling theory. The book should be of interest to all analysts and to those dealing with quality, process control and monitoring, either for technical or for commercial purposes, and mineral processing. Although this book is primarily aimed at graduates, large portions of it are suitable for teaching sampling theory to undergraduates as it contains many practical examples provided by the author's 30-year experience as an international consultant. The book also contains useful source material for short courses in Industry.

The work of Michel Foucault has become a major resource for educational researchers seeking to understand how education makes us what we are. In this book, a group of contributors explore how Foucault’s work is used in a variety of ways to explore the ‘hows’ and ‘whos’ of education policy – its technologies and its subjectivities, its oppressions and its freedoms. The book takes full advantage of the opportunities for creativity that Foucault’s ideas and methods offer to researchers in deploying genealogy, discourse, and subjectivation as analytic devices. The collection as a whole works to makes us aware that we are freer than we think! This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Education Policy.

Critical social theorist and philosopher David Theo Goldberg is one of the defining figures in critical race theory. His work, unsurpassed in its analytical rigor and political urgency, has helped transform the way we think about race and racism across the humanities and social sciences, in critical, social and political theory and across geopolitical regions. In this timely collection of incisive and lively conversations with Susan Searls Giroux, Goldberg reflects upon his studies of race and racism, exploring the key elements in his thought and their contribution to current debates. Sites of Race is a comprehensive overview of Goldberg’s central ideas and concepts, including the idea of the Racial State, his emphasis on militarism as a culture, and his treatment of the "theology of race". Elegantly navigating between the theoretical and the concrete, he brings fresh insight to bear on significant recent events such as the War on Terror, Katrina, the killing of Trayvon Martin and Arizona's controversial immigration laws, in the process enriching and elaborating upon his vast body of work to date. Sites of Race offers fresh avenues into Goldberg's work for those already familiar with it, and provides an ideal entry point for students new to the field of critical race theory.