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Character and Conflict in Jane Austen's Novels: A Psychological Approach

by Bernard J. Paris

In Character and Conflict in Jane Austen's Novels , Bernard J. Paris offers an analysis of the protagonists in four of Jane Austen's most popular novels. His analysis reveals them to be brilliant mimetic creations who often break free of the formal and thematic limitations placed upon them by Austen. Paris traces the powerful tensions between form, theme, and mimesis in Mansfield Park , Emma , Pride and Prejudice , and Persuasion . Paris uses Northrop Frye's theory of comic forms to analyse and describe the formal structure of the novels, and Karen Horney's psychological theories to explore the personalities and inner conflicts of the main characters. The concluding chapter turns from the characters to their creator, employing the Horneyan categories of self-effacing, detached, and expansive personality types to interpret Jane Austen's own personality. Readers of Jane Austen will find much that is new and challenging in this study. It is one of the few books to recognise and pay tribute to Jane Austen's genius in characterisation. Anyone who reads this book will come away with a new understanding of Austen's heroines as imagined human beings and also with a deeper feeling for the troubled humanity of the author herself.

Character and Causation: Hume’s Philosophy of Action

by Constantine Sandis

In the first ever book-length treatment of David Hume’s philosophy of action, Constantine Sandis brings together seemingly disparate aspects of Hume’s work to present an understanding of human action that is much richer than previously assumed. Sandis showcases Hume’s interconnected views on action and its causes by situating them within a wider vision of our human understanding of personal identity, causation, freedom, historical explanation, and morality. In so doing, he also relates key aspects of the emerging picture to contemporary concerns within the philosophy of action and moral psychology, including debates between Humeans and anti-Humeans about both 'motivating' and 'normative' reasons. Character and Causation takes the form of a series of essays which collectively argue that Hume’s overall project proceeds by way of a soft conceptual revisionism that emerges from his Copy Principle. This involves re-calibrating our philosophical ideas of all that agency involves to fit a scheme that more readily matches the range of impressions that human beings actually have. On such a reading, once we rid ourselves of a certain kind of metaphysical ambition we are left with a perfectly adequate account of how it is that people can act in character, freely, and for good reasons. The resulting picture is one that both unifies Hume's practical and theoretical philosophy and radically transforms contemporary philosophy of action for the better.

Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession

by Marjorie Garber

What is “character”?Since at least Aristotle’s time, philosophers, theologians, moralists, artists, and scientists have pondered the enigma of human character. In its oldest usage, “character” derives from a word for engraving or stamping, yet over time, it has come to mean a moral idea, a type, a literary persona, and a physical or physiological manifestation observable in works of art and scientific experiments. It is an essential term in drama and the focus of self-help books. In Character: The History of a Cultural Obsession, Marjorie Garber points out that character seems more relevant than ever today, omnipresent in discussions of politics, ethics, gender, morality, and the psyche. References to character flaws, character issues, and character assassination and allegations of “bad” and “good” character are inescapable in the media and in contemporary political debates. What connection does “character” in this moral or ethical sense have with the concept of a character in a novel or a play? Do our notions about fictional characters catalyze our ideas about moral character? Can character be “formed” or taught in schools, in scouting, in the home? From Plutarch to John Stuart Mill, from Shakespeare to Darwin, from Theophrastus to Freud, from nineteenth-century phrenology to twenty-first-century brain scans, the search for the sources and components of human character still preoccupies us. Today, with the meaning and the value of this term in question, no issue is more important, and no topic more vital, surprising, and fascinating. With her distinctive verve, humor, and vast erudition, Marjorie Garber explores the stakes of these conflations, confusions, and heritages, from ancient Greece to the present day.

Chaotic Neutral: How the Democrats Lost Their Soul in the Center

by Ed Burmila

A recent history of the Democratic Party that identifies its chronic errors—the &“pathologies&” of the New Democratic mindset—and argues urgently against a return to the status quo Why did the Democrats initially abandon their principles, and why haven&’t they been able to grasp that they need a new strategy in the face of decades of diminishing returns? In Chaotic Neutral, political scientist Ed Burmila breaks it to us, tracing the party&’s metamorphosis from bold defender of labor rights, civil rights, and a robust social safety net to a timorous, ideology-free, regulation-averse lifestyle brand.Chaotic Neutral tracks the evolution (or devolution) of the Democratic Party from the New Deal era to Biden&’s status-quo candidacy and the pandemic, when, even in the midst of a national crisis, the Democrats could not manage to pass sweeping progressive legislation. It is a timely analysis and, simultaneously, a timeless one that pinpoints why Dem politicians act like also-rans even when they&’re in power. Burmila doesn&’t pull any punches as he describes the Democrats&’ brand of futility politics, but he also doesn&’t claim that all is futile, instead laying out a potent strategy for how the party might abandon its lesser-of-two-evils strategy and shift back into drive.

Chaotic Harmony: A Dialog about Physics, Complexity and Life (Emergence, Complexity and Computation #11)

by Ali Sanayei Otto E. Rössler

This fascinating book written by Ali Sanayei and Otto E. Rössler is not a classic scientific publication, but a vivid dialogue on science, philosophy and the interdisciplinary intersections of science and technology with biographic elements. Chaotic Harmony: A Dialog about Physics, Complexity and Life represents a discussion between Otto Rössler and his colleague and student, focusing on the different areas of science and highlights their mutual relations. The book's concept of interdisciplinary dialogue is unusual nowadays although it has a long tradition in science. It provides insight not only into interesting topics that are often closely linked, but also into the mind of a prominent scientist in the field of physics, chaos and complexity in general. It allows a deep look into the fascinating process of scientific development and discovery and provides a very interesting background of known and unknown facts in the areas of complex processes in physics, cosmology, biology, brains and systems in general. This book will be valuable to all who are interested in science, its evolution and in an unconventional and original look at various issues. Surely it can serve as an inspiration for students, explaining the often overlooked fact that science and philosophy enrich each other.

Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth (The Wellek Library Lectures)

by Elizabeth Grosz

Instead of treating art as a unique creation that requires reason and refined taste to appreciate, Elizabeth Grosz argues that art-especially architecture, music, and painting-is born from the disruptive forces of sexual selection. She approaches art as a form of erotic expression connecting sensory richness with primal desire, and in doing so, finds that the meaning of art comes from the intensities and sensations it inspires, not just its intention and aesthetic.By regarding our most cultured human accomplishments as the result of the excessive, nonfunctional forces of sexual attraction and seduction, Grosz encourages us to see art as a kind of bodily enhancement or mode of sensation enabling living bodies to experience and transform the universe. Art can be understood as a way for bodies to augment themselves and their capacity for perception and affection-a way to grow and evolve through sensation. Through this framework, which knits together the theories of Charles Darwin, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Jakob von Uexküll, we are able to grasp art's deep animal lineage. Grosz argues that art is not tied to the predictable and known but to new futures not contained in the present. Its animal affiliations ensure that art is intensely political and charged with the creation of new worlds and new forms of living. According to Grosz, art is the way in which life experiments with materiality, or nature, in order to bring about change.

Chaos is the New Calm (American Poets Continuum)

by Wyn Cooper

Chaos is the New Calm expands the parameters of the sonnet form, putting rhymes in unusual places, inventing new stanza structures, and addressing a variety of subject matter ranging from travelogue to inner monologue, from social commentary to solitary musing. These poems are alive with sound, rhythm, and lyric insights into the world.Wyn Cooper&’s poem &“Fun&” was adapted by Sheryl Crow for her hit song &“All I Wanna Do.&” He collaborates on music and spoken word with novelist Madison Smartt Bell. Cooper is co-organizer of the Brattleboro Literary Festival. He consults for the Poetry Foundation&’s Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute.

Chaos is the New Calm

by Wyn Cooper

Chaos is the New Calm expands the parameters of the sonnet form, putting rhymes in unusual places, inventing new stanza structures, and addressing a variety of subject matter ranging from travelogue to inner monologue, from social commentary to solitary musing. These poems are alive with sound, rhythm, and lyric insights into the world.Wyn Cooper's poem "Fun" was adapted by Sheryl Crow for her hit song "All I Wanna Do." He collaborates on music and spoken word with novelist Madison Smartt Bell. Cooper is co-organizer of the Brattleboro Literary Festival. He consults for the Poetry Foundation's Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute.

Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change

by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz Fabien Locher

"If you want to understand the long path to the climate crisis, read this book." –Deborah Coen, Professor of History and the History of Science and Medicine, Yale UniversityPoliticians and scientists have debated climate change for centuries in times of rapid changeNothing could seem more contemporary than climate change. Yet, in Chaos in the Heavens, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Fabien Locher show that we have been thinking about and debating the consequences of our actions upon the environment for centuries. The subject was raised wherever history accelerated: by the Conquistadors in the New World, by the French revolutionaries of 1789, by the scientists and politicians of the nineteenth century, by the European imperialists in Asia and Africa until the Second World War.Climate change was at the heart of fundamental debates about colonisation, God, the state, nature, and capitalism. From these intellectual and political battles emerged key concepts of contemporary environmental science and policy. For a brief interlude, science and industry instilled in us the reassuring illusion of an impassive climate. But, in the age of global warming, we must, once again, confront the chaos in the heavens.

Chaos Imagined: Literature, Art, Science

by Martin Meisel

The stories we tell in our attempt to make sense of the world—our myths and religion, literature and philosophy, science and art—are the comforting vehicles we use to transmit ideas of order. But beneath the quest for order lies the uneasy dread of fundamental disorder. True chaos is hard to imagine and even harder to represent. In this book, Martin Meisel considers the long effort to conjure, depict, and rationalize extreme disorder, with all the passion, excitement, and compromises the act provokes.Meisel builds a rough history from major social, psychological, and cosmological turning points in the imagining of chaos. He uses examples from literature, philosophy, painting, graphic art, science, linguistics, music, and film, particularly exploring the remarkable shift in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from conceiving of chaos as disruptive to celebrating its liberating and energizing potential. Discussions of Sophocles, Plato, Lucretius, Calderon, Milton, Haydn, Blake, Faraday, Chekhov, Faulkner, Wells, and Beckett, among others, are matched with incisive readings of art by Brueghel, Rubens, Goya, Turner, Dix, Dada, and the futurists. Meisel addresses the revolution in mapping energy and entropy and the manifold effect of thermodynamics. He then uses this chaotic frame to elaborate on purpose, mortality, meaning, and mind.

Chaos and Order: The Complex Structure of Living Systems

by Friedrich Cramer

Molecular biologist Cramer explores how recent revelations about nonlinear systems enhance our perceptions of nature. Each chapter begins with a semi-fictitious dialogue and ends with a poem by the likes of Yeats, Dickinson, and Stevens. Of interest to specialist and nonspecialist scientists and to general readers who are basically familiar with scientific principles.

Chaos and Compromise: The Evolution of the Mississippi Budgeting Process

by Brian A. Pugh

Chaos and Compromise: The Evolution of the Mississippi Budgeting Process takes the topic of budgeting and makes it exciting, and not just for political junkies. Instead of focusing on numbers, this book looks at the policymakers responsible for the budget. Brian A. Pugh provides a historical perspective on the decisions and actions of legislators and governors going back more than a century. Pugh reviews how Mississippi’s budget making evolved and sifts legislation and litigation as well as those legislators and governors responsible for developing this process. Pugh explains in detail the significant actions taken by the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government that affected Mississippi’s procedures. Significant legislation covered includes the passage of Senate Bill 356, which gave the governor the authority to prepare and submit a budget recommendation in 1918; the passage of the Administrative Reorganization Act of 1984; the passage of the Budget Reform Act of 1992; and the passage of the Financial and Operational Responses That Invigorate Future Years Act (FORTIFY) during the First Extraordinary Session of 2017. The first two chapters provide a historical perspective and give the reader an understanding of how legislation and litigation contributed. The book also covers interventions by the courts, which led to the unprecedented separation of powers case Alexander v. State of Mississippi by and Through Allain (1983). In addition to discussing important laws and legislators, Pugh takes a detailed look at six of Mississippi’s recent governors—Bill Allain, Ray Mabus, Kirk Fordice, Ronnie Musgrove, Haley Barbour, and Phil Bryant—to examine their methods for getting the legislature to include their ideas in the often anguished process of making a budget.

Chants of a Lifetime: Searching For A Heart Of Gold

by Krishna Das

Chants of a Lifetime offers an intimate collection of stories, teachings, and insights from Krishna Das, who has been called "the chant master of American yoga" by the New York Times. Since 1994, the sound of his voice singing traditional Indian chants with a Western flavor has brought the spiritual experience of chanting to audiences all over the world. He has previously shared some of his spiritual journey through talks and workshops, but now he offers a unique book-with-audio download combination that explores his fascinating path and creates an opportunity for just about anyone to experience chanting in a unique and special way. Chants of a Lifetime includes photos from Krishna Das’s years in India and also from his life as a kirtan leader—and the audio that is offered exclusively in the book consists of a number of "private" chanting sessions with the author. Instead of just being performances of chants for listening, the recordings make it seem as if Krishna Das himself is present for a one-on-one chanting session. The idea is for the listener to explore his or her own practice of chanting and develop a deepening connection with the entire chanting experience.

Channels of Power: The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq

by Alexander Thompson

When President George W. Bush launched an invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, he did so without the explicit approval of the Security Council. His father's administration, by contrast, carefully funneled statecraft through the United Nations and achieved Council authorization for the U.S.-led Gulf War in 1991. The history of American policy toward Iraq displays considerable variation in the extent to which policies were conducted through the UN and other international organizations. In Channels of Power, Alexander Thompson surveys U.S. policy toward Iraq, starting with the Gulf War, continuing through the interwar years of sanctions and coercive disarmament, and concluding with the 2003 invasion and its long aftermath. He offers a framework for understanding why powerful states often work through international organizations when conducting coercive policies-and why they sometimes choose instead to work alone or with ad hoc coalitions. The conventional wisdom holds that because having legitimacy for their actions is important for normative reasons, states seek multilateral approval. Channels of Power offers a rationalist alternative to these standard legitimation arguments, one based on the notion of strategic information transmission: When state actions are endorsed by an independent organization, this sends politically crucial information to the world community, both leaders and their publics, and results in greater international support.

The Changing Urban School (Routledge Library Editions: Education)

by Robert Thornbury

The author takes a long look at what goes on in schools, and the roles played by people specifically concerned with them: but finally the problems of the school are seen as indissolubly bound up with the changes that have overtaken urban life. The school cannot be isolated, teachers, administrators, planners and parents must actively co-operate in making the school work in society and a society which works for the school. Nothing other than such a total vision, he concludes, will enable us to achieve normal educational goals. Robert Thornbury writes out of fifteen years experience of the urban school and of the problems not only of Britain but also those sometime similar, often more acute, of other countries, in particular the United States and Australia. The need for a total urban strategy is worldwide. His point of view is broad-based but his sympathies lie most of all with the hard-working teacher who stayed on in the urban classroom. It is a book for teachers therefore, but also, by its own argument, for all concerned with the future of the inner-city and the reordering of education.

Changing Theory: Concepts from the Global South

by Dilip M. Menon

This book is an original, systematic, and radical attempt at decolonizing critical theory. Drawing on linguistic concepts from 16 languages from Asia, Africa, the Arab world, and South America, the essays in the volume explore the entailments of words while discussing their conceptual implications for the humanities and the social sciences everywhere. The essays engage in the work of thinking through words to generate a conceptual vocabulary that will allow for a global conversation on social theory which will be necessarily multilingual. With essays by scholars, across generations, and from a variety of disciplines – history, anthropology, and philosophy to literature and political theory – this book will be essential reading for scholars, researchers, and students of critical theory and the social sciences.

Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno

by Raymond Geuss

For Raymond Geuss, philosophers’ attempts to bypass normal ways of thinking—to point out that the question being asked is itself misguided—represents philosophy at its best. By provoking people to think differently, philosophers make clear that we are not fated to live within the stifling systems of thought we inherit. We can change the subject.

The Changing Meaning of Kitsch: From Rejection to Acceptance

by Max Ryynänen Paco Barragán

This book inaugurates a new phase in kitsch studies. Kitsch, an aesthetic slur of the 19th and the 20th century, is increasingly considered a positive term and at the heart of today’s society. Eleven distinguished authors from philosophy, cultural studies and the arts discuss a wide range of topics including beauty, fashion, kitsch in the context of mourning, bio-art, visual arts, architecture and political kitsch. In addition, the editors provide a concise theoretical introduction to the volume and the subject. The role of kitsch in contemporary culture and society is innovatively explored and the volume aims not to condemn but to accept and understand why kitsch has become acceptable today.

Changing Images in Mathematics: From the French Revolution to the New Millennium (Routledge Studies in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine #13)

by Umberto Bottazzini Amy Dahan Dalmedico

This book focuses on some of the major developments in the history of contemporary (19th and 20th century) mathematics as seen in the broader context of the development of science and culture. Avoiding technicalities, it displays the breadth of contrasting images of mathematics favoured by different countries, schools and historical movements, showing how the conception and practice of mathematics changed over time depending on the cultural and national context. Thus it provides an original perspective for embracing the richness and variety inherent in the development of mathematics. Attention is paid to the interaction of mathematics with themes whose proper treatment have been neglected by the traditional historiography of the discipline, such as the relationship between mathematics, statistics and medicine.

Changing Identities in Higher Education: Voicing Perspectives (Key Issues in Higher Education)

by Ronald Barnett Roberto Di Napoli

In this timely and innovative book scholars from Europe, the UK, North America and Australia, explore their own sense of identity, reflecting both on their research and scholarly interests, and their work experiences. Taking the form of a debate, Changing Identities in Higher Education helps to widen the contemporary space for debates on the future of higher education itself. The book is split into three parts: part one presents a set of essays each on a set of identities within higher education (academic, student, administrative/managerial and educational developers). part two includes responses to Part one from authors speaking from their own professional and scholarly identity perspective part three illustrates perspectives on the identities of students, provided by students themselves. With its original, dialogic form and varied content, this book is of interest to all those concerned in current debates about the state and nature of higher education today and those interested in questions of identity. It makes especially useful reading for students of higher education, lecturers in training, academics and managers alike.

Changing How We Choose: The New Science of Morality

by A. David Redish

The &“new science of morality&” that will change how we see each other, how we build our communities, and how we live our lives.In Changing How We Choose, David Redish makes a bold claim: Science has &“cracked&” the problem of morality. Redish argues that moral questions have a scientific basis and that morality is best viewed as a technology—a set of social and institutional forces that create communities and drive cooperation. This means that some moral structures really are better than others and that the moral technologies we use have real consequences on whether we make our societies better or worse places for the people living within them. Drawing on this new scientific definition of morality and real-world applications, Changing How We Choose is an engaging read with major implications for how we see each other, how we build our communities, and how we live our lives.Many people think of human interactions in terms of conflicts between individual freedom and group cooperation, where it is better for the group if everyone cooperates but better for the individual to cheat. Redish shows that moral codes are technologies that change the game so that cooperating is good for the community and for the individual. Redish, an authority on neuroeconomics and decision-making, points out that the key to moral codes is how they interact with the human decision-making process. Drawing on new insights from behavioral economics, sociology, and neuroscience, he shows that there really is a &“new science of morality&” and that this new science has implications—not only for how we understand ourselves but also for how we should construct those new moral technologies.

The Changing Face of Further Education: Lifelong Learning, Inclusion and Community Values in Further Education

by Terry Hyland Barbara Merrill

What are the values and policies which are driving the development of Further Education institutions?The rapid expansion and development of the post-compulsory sector of education means that further education institutions have to cope with ever-evolving government policies.This book comprehensively examines the current trends in further education by means of both policy analysis and research in the field. It offers an insightful evaluation of FE colleges today, set against the background of New Labour Lifelong Learning initiatives and, in particular, the links between college and community.This timely investigation of FE and New Labour policy, takes a unique community education perspective to determine whether the social objectives of current policy can be achieved by policy-makers, managers, staff and students in FE institutions.For students, lecturers and educators in the post-compulsory sector, in addition to policy-makers and managers, this is an invaluable source of information on a subject which is still largely under-researched.

Changing Educational Contexts, Issues and Identities: 40 Years of Comparative Education (Education Heritage)

by Michael Crossley Patricia Broadfoot Michele Schweisfurth

Documenting major intellectual and paradigmatic changes in the field of comparative education in the light of the history and development of the journal Comparative Education, this book compiles a selection of articles from forty years of the journal’s distinguished history. It illustrates how changing times have been reflected in the nature and quality of published comparative research. Contributors explore the impact of key issues such as marketisation, accountability and globalisation upon policy and practice world-wide. They explore how new challenges faced by the social sciences have seen shifts in the contexts, issues and priorities attended to by comparatives and how different approaches to comparative education have influenced the intellectual and professional identities and positioning of those involved. Bridging theoretically oriented scholarship with empirically grounded research relating to issues of policy and practice and with chapters addressing questions of relevance throughout the world, this book is an invaluable resource of ideas and stimuli for further thinking and research.

Changing Educational Assessment: International Perspectives and Trends (Routledge Library Editions: Education)

by Patricia Broadfoot Harry Torrance Roger Murphy

Assessment is a key area of interest and debate in education. Its increased use by governments as a powerful means of influencing educational practice are now features of the educational scene worldwide. This volume was the first major international review of such developments and it explores the impact of assessment on all areas of education, from teaching skills to policy-making. The contributors take a global perspective to spotlight the common problems facing teachers and students, policy-makers and politicians through the world as they seek to reconcile issues of equity and national development, educational imperatives and finite state resources. The contributions discuss the changing role of assessment and public examinations, and consider such specific issues as the development of a market economy in educational provision, the difficulties of measuring standards in international studies, and accreditation of absolute rather than relative competencies.

Changing Course in Latin America

by Kenneth M. Roberts

This book explores the impact of economic crises and free-market reforms on party systems and political representation in contemporary Latin America. It explains why some patterns of market reform align and stabilize party systems, whereas other patterns of reform leave party systems vulnerable to widespread social protest and electoral instability. In contrast to other works on the topic, this book accounts for both the institutionalization and the breakdown of party systems, and it explains why Latin America turned to the Left politically in the aftermath of the market-reform process. Ultimately, it explains why this "left turn" was more radical in some countries than others and why it had such varied effects on national party systems.

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