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Ambiguity and Film Criticism: Reasonable Doubt (Palgrave Close Readings in Film and Television)
by Hoi Lun LawThis book defends an account of ambiguity which illuminates the aesthetic possibilities of film and the nature of film criticism. Ambiguity typically describes the condition of multiple meanings. But we can find multiple meanings in what appears unambiguous to us. So, what makes ambiguity ambiguous? This study argues that a sense of uncertainty is vital to the concept. Ambiguity is what presses us to inquire into our puzzlement over a movie, to persistently ask “why is it as it is?” Notably, this account of the concept is also an account of its criticism. It recognises that a satisfying assessment of what is ambiguous involves both our reason and doubt; that is, reason and doubt can work together in our practice of reading. This book, then, considers ambiguity as a form of reasonable doubt, one that invites us to reflect on our critical efforts, rethinking the operation of film criticism.
Ambiguity and the Absolute: Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty on the Question of Truth (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
by Frank ChouraquiFriedrich Nietzsche and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Chouraqui argues, are linked by how they conceive the question of truth. Although both thinkers criticize the traditional concept of truth as objectivity, they both find that rejecting it does not solve the problem. What is it in our natural existence that gave rise to the notion of truth?The answer to that question is threefold. First, Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty both propose a genealogy of “truth” in which to exist means to make implicit truth claims. Second, both seek to recover the preobjective ground from which truth as an erroneous concept arose. Finally, this attempt at recovery leads both thinkers to ontological considerations regarding how we must conceive of a being whose structure allows for the existence of the belief in truth. In conclusion, Chouraqui suggests that both thinkers’ investigations of the question of truth lead them to conceive of being as the process of self-falsification by which indeterminate being presents itself as determinate.
Ambiguity in EU Law: A Linguistic and Legal Analysis (Law, Language and Communication)
by Sofiya KartalovaAmbiguity – an expression or utterance giving rise to at least two mutually exclusive interpretations – has been traditionally regarded as an ever-present, and therefore trivial, feature of EU law, alongside other forms of linguistic indeterminacy. At the same time, ambiguity has been condemned as a perilous defect in the legal text, since it is commonly assumed that the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) would necessarily exploit it to engage in judicial activism. In contrast, more recent theories present ambiguity as a means of promoting greater acceptability and coherence, while trusting the CJEU’s willingness to exert judicial restraint for the benefit of judicial co-operation. This ground-breaking work challenges some of the theoretical assumptions about ambiguity in EU law and puts forward a more accurate and complete theory about the CJEU’s strategic use of ambiguity. Ambiguity is here transformed from an underestimated or misunderstood detail of undetermined significance to a desirable systemic feature of the EU legal order with concrete properties and impact. Ambiguity as the implicit basis of the CJEU’s decision-making is shown to be strategically valuable for the implementation of the authority of EU law at some of the most pivotal moments in the evolution of the EU legal order. This interdisciplinary investigation presents in-depth linguistic and legal analysis of ambiguity found in the text of key provisions of EU Treaties and in the language of some of the CJEU’s leading preliminary rulings in the area of fundamental rights, freedom of movement and EU citizenship. The book suggests a categorisation of examples, basic guidance about the type of case and situation where the phenomenon is likely to emerge as well as an assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of this unusual judicial technique. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the areas of Law and Language, Public International Law, EU Law and Multilingualism.
Ambiguity in Organization Theory: From Intrinsic to Strategic Perspectives (Elements in Organization Theory)
by Eero Vaara Giulia Cappellaro Amelia CompagniThis Element presents and discusses the main trajectories in the evolution of the concept of ambiguity and the most relevant theoretical contributions developed around it. It specifically elaborates on both the intrinsic perspectives on ambiguity as an inherent part of organizational decision-making processes and the more recent strategic perspectives on discursively constructed strategic ambiguity. It helps illuminate the path ahead of organizational scholars and offers new avenues for future research. This is important given the ever more pervasive presence of ambiguity in and around organizations and societies.
Ambiguity, Transparency, and Institutional Strength
by S. Nuri ErbaşA report from the International Monetary Fund.
Ambiguous Adventure
by Katherine Woods Wole Soyinka Cheikh Hamidou KaneThe celebrated classic by a groundbreaking figure in African literature addresses a critical contemporary issue--the collision of Islamic African values and Western culture.Hailed by Chinua Achebe as one of the greatest African novels ever written, this long-unavailable classic tells the tale of young Samba Diallo, a devout pupil in a Koranic school in Senegal whose parents send him to Paris to study philosophy.But unknown to Samba, it is a desperate attempt by his parents to better understand the French colonial forces transforming their traditional way of life. Instead, for Samba, it seems an exciting adventure, and once in France he excels at his new studies and is delighted by his new "marvelous comprehension and total communion" with the Western world.Soon, though, he finds himself torn between the materialistic secularism and isolation of French civilization and the deeper spiritual influences of his homeland. As Samba puts it: "I have become the two."Written in an elegant, lyrical prose, Ambiguous Adventure is a masterful expression of the immigrant experience and the repercussions of colonialism, and a great work of literature about the uneasy relationship between Islamic Africa and the West--a relationship more important today than ever before.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Ambiguous Affair
by R. PattersonMagnolia Edwards, a businesswoman, a mother, and a neglected wife, is swept off her feet in a secret, flirtatious love affair with a tantalizing younger man, Aaron Freeman, whom she believes to be her soulmate. Passion consumes the two of them until Magnolia feels deceived after Aaron admits that his intentions toward her weren't always genuine. Magnolia's controlling husband, Joe, is acting shadier than usual, which leads her to undertake some detective work, where she discovers a common link between alluring Aaron and her husband, which is far worse than she ever expected. The chemical attraction between Magnolia and Aaron has left a permanent yearning on both of their hearts. Aaron tries to regain her trust, but can Magnolia accept Aaron's apology and give in to her constant desires, or will she remain in her sham of a marriage for the sake of her children?
Ambiguous Angels: Gender in the Novels of Galdós
by Catherine JagoeThe contradictory nature of the work of Benito Pérez Galdós, Spain's greatest modern novelist, is brought to the fore in Catherine Jagoe's innovative and rigorous study. Revising commonly held views of his feminism, she explores the relation of Galdós's novels to the "woman question" in Spain, arguing that after 1892 the muted feminist discourse of his early work largely disappears. While his later novels have been interpreted as celebrations of the emancipated new woman, Jagoe contends that they actually reinforce the conservative, bourgeois model of frugal, virtuous womanhood—the angel of the house.Using primary sources such as periodicals, medical texts, and conduct literature, Jagoe's examination of the evolution of feminism makes Ambiguous Angels valuable to anyone interested in gender, culture, and narrative in nineteenth-century Europe.
Ambiguous Antidotes: Virtue as Vaccine for Vice in Early Modern Spain
by Hilaire KallendorfChastity and lust, charity and greed, humility and pride, are but some of the virtues and vices that have been in tension since Prudentius’ Psychomachia, written in the fifth century. While there has been widespread agreement within a given culture about what exactly constitutes a virtue or a vice, are these categories so consistent after all? In Ambiguous Antidotes, Hilaire Kallendorf explores the receptions of Virtues in the realm of moral philosophy and the artistic production it influenced during the Spanish Gold Age. Using the Derridian notion of pharmakon, a powerful substance that can serve as poison and cure, Kallendorf’s original and pioneering insight into five key Virtues (justice, fortitude, chastity, charity, and prudence) reveals an intriguing but messy relationship. Rather than being seen as unambiguously good antidotes, the Virtues are instead contested spaces where competing sets of values jostled for primacy and hegemony. Employing an arsenal of tools drawn from literary theory and cultural studies Ambiguous Antidotes confirms that you can in fact have too much of a good thing.
Ambiguous Bodies: Reading the Grotesque in Japanese <I>Setsuwa</I> Tales
by Michelle Osterfeld LiAmbiguous Bodies draws from theories of the grotesque to examine many of the strange and extraordinary creatures and phenomena in the premodern Japanese tales called setsuwa. Grotesque representations in general typically direct our attention to unfinished and unrefined things; they are marked by an earthy sense of the body and an interest in the physical. Because they have many meanings, they can both sustain and undermine authority. This book aims to make sense of grotesque representations in setsuwa—animated detached body parts, unusual sexual encounters, demons and shape-shifting or otherwise wondrous animals—and, in a broader sense, to show what this type of critical focus can reveal about the mentality of Japanese people in the ancient, classical, and early medieval periods. It is the first study to place Japanese tales of this nature, which have received little critical attention in English, within a sophisticated theoretical framework. Li masterfully and rigorously focuses on these fascinating tales in the context of the historical periods in which they were created and compiled.
Ambiguous Childhoods: Peer Socialisation, Schooling and Agency in a Zambian Village
by Nana ClemensenGrowing up with social and economic upheaval in the peripheries of global neoliberalism, children in rural Zambia are presented with diverging social and moral protocols across homes, classrooms, church halls, and the street. Mostly unmonitored by adults, they explore the ambiguities of adult life in playful interactions with their siblings and kin across gender and age. Drawing on rich linguistic-ethnographic details of such interactions combined with observations of school and household procedures, the author provides a rare insight into the lives, voices, and learning paths of children in a rural African setting.
Ambiguous Discourse
by Kathy MezeiCarefully melding theory with close readings of texts, the contributors to Ambiguous Discourse explore the role of gender in the struggle for narrative control of specific works by British writers Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Anita Brookner, Angela Carter, Jeanette Winterson, and Mina Loy. This collection of twelve essays is the first book devoted to feminist narratology--the combination of feminist theory with the study of the structures that underpin all narratives. Until recently, narratology has resisted the advances of feminism in part, as some contributors argue, because theory has replicated past assumptions of male authority and point of view in narrative. Feminist narratology, however, contextualizes the cultural constructions of gender within its study of narrative strategies. Nine of these essays are original, and three have been revised for publication in this volume. The contributors are Melba Cuddy-Keane, Denise Delorey, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Susan Stanford Friedman, Janet Giltrow, Linda Hutcheon, Susan S. Lanser, Alison Lee, Patricia Matson, Kathy Mezei, Christine Roulston, and Robyn Warhol.
Ambiguous Loss: Learning To Live With Unresolved Grief
by Pauline BossWhat happens when there is mourning with no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer’s patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding this kind of loss? <p><p> In this sensitive and lucid account, Pauline Boss explains that, all too often, those confronted with such ambiguous loss fluctuate between hope and hopelessness. Suffered too long, these emotions can deaden feeling and make it impossible for people to move on with their lives. Yet the central message of this book is that they can move on. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Boss suggests strategies that can cushion the pain and help families come to terms with their grief. Her work features the heartening narratives of those who cope with ambiguous loss and manage to leave their sadness behind, including those who have lost family members to divorce, immigration, adoption, chronic mental illness, and brain injury. With its message of hope, this eloquent book offers guidance and understanding to those struggling to regain their lives.
Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief
by Pauline BossWhen a loved one dies we mourn our loss. We take comfort in the rituals that mark the passing, and we turn to those around us for support. But what happens when there is no closure, when a family member or a friend who may be still alive is lost to us nonetheless? How, for example, does the mother whose soldier son is missing in action, or the family of an Alzheimer’s patient who is suffering from severe dementia, deal with the uncertainty surrounding this kind of loss?In this sensitive and lucid account, Pauline Boss explains that, all too often, those confronted with such ambiguous loss fluctuate between hope and hopelessness. Suffered too long, these emotions can deaden feeling and make it impossible for people to move on with their lives. Yet the central message of this book is that they can move on. Drawing on her research and clinical experience, Boss suggests strategies that can cushion the pain and help families come to terms with their grief. Her work features the heartening narratives of those who cope with ambiguous loss and manage to leave their sadness behind, including those who have lost family members to divorce, immigration, adoption, chronic mental illness, and brain injury. With its message of hope, this eloquent book offers guidance and understanding to those struggling to regain their lives.
Ambiguous Love in Mysteries: Volume 1 (Volume 1 #1)
by Yan YunSu mu, who was framed because her father didn't want to mix with others, escaped by chance, but she had no skills. She could only survive from the cases she witnessed and heard from childhood. She wanted to stay away from this place of right and wrong. She didn't expect that the deeper she was trapped in a series of unsolved cases, the people she should have kept away from unconsciously had a fatal attraction. If the cost of overturning the case is the rest A child, then I will.
Ambiguous Love in Mysteries: Volume 2 (Volume 2 #2)
by Yan YunSu mu, who was framed because her father didn't want to mix with others, escaped by chance, but she had no skills. She could only survive from the cases she witnessed and heard from childhood. She wanted to stay away from this place of right and wrong. She didn't expect that the deeper she was trapped in a series of unsolved cases, the people she should have kept away from unconsciously had a fatal attraction. If the cost of overturning the case is the rest A child, then I will.
Ambiguous Love in Mysteries: Volume 3 (Volume 3 #3)
by Yan YunSu mu, who was framed because her father didn't want to mix with others, escaped by chance, but she had no skills. She could only survive from the cases she witnessed and heard from childhood. She wanted to stay away from this place of right and wrong. She didn't expect that the deeper she was trapped in a series of unsolved cases, the people she should have kept away from unconsciously had a fatal attraction. If the cost of overturning the case is the rest A child, then I will.
Ambiguous Love in Mysteries: Volume 4 (Volume 4 #4)
by Yan YunSu mu, who was framed because her father didn't want to mix with others, escaped by chance, but she had no skills. She could only survive from the cases she witnessed and heard from childhood. She wanted to stay away from this place of right and wrong. She didn't expect that the deeper she was trapped in a series of unsolved cases, the people she should have kept away from unconsciously had a fatal attraction. If the cost of overturning the case is the rest A child, then I will.
Ambiguous Pleasures
by Rachel SpronkAmong both male and female young urban professionals in Nairobi, sexuality is a key to achieving a 'modern' identity. These young men and women see themselves as the avant garde of a new Africa, while they also express the recurring worry of how to combine an 'African' identity with the new lifestyles with which they are experimenting. By focusing on public debates and their preoccupations with issues of African heritage, gerontocratic power relations and conventional morality on the one hand, and personal sexual relationships, intimacy and self-perceptions on the other, this study works out the complexities of sexuality and culture in the context of modernity in an African society. It moves beyond an investigation of a health or development perspective of sexuality and instead examines desire, pleasure and eroticism, revealing new insights into the methodology and theory of the study of sexuality within the social sciences. Sexuality serves as a prism for analysing how social developments generate new notions of self in postcolonial Kenya and is a crucial component towards understanding the way people recognize and deal with modern changes in their personal lives.
Ambiguous Relations: The American Jewish Community and Germany Since 1945
by Shlomo ShafirThe reemergence of a united Germany as a dominant power in Europe has increased even more it's importance as a major political ally and trade partner of the United States, despite the misgivings of some U.S. citizens. Ambiguous Relations addresses for the first time the complex relationships between American Jews and Germany over the fifty years following the end of World War II, and examines American Jewry's' ambiguous attitude toward Germany that continues despite sociological and generational changes within the community. Shlomo Shafir recounts attempts by American Jews to influence U.S. policy toward Germany after the ware and traces these efforts through President Reagan's infamous visit to Bitburg and beyond. He shows how Jewish demands for justice were hampered not only by America's changing attitude toward West Germany as a postwar European power but also by the distraction of anti-communist hysteria in this country. In evaluating the impact of Jewish pressure on American public opinion and on the West German government, Shafir discusses the rationales and strategies of Jewish communal and religious groups, legislators, and intellectuals, as well as the rise of Holocaust consciousness and the roles of Israel and surviving German Jewish communities. He also describes the efforts of German diplomats to assuage American Jewish hostility and relates how the American Jewish community has been able to influence German soul-searching regarding their historical responsibility and even successfully intervened to bring war criminals to trial. Based on extensive archival research in Germany, Israel, and the Unities States, Ambiguous Relations in the first book to examine this tenuous situation in such depth. It is a comprehensive account of recent history that comes to groups with emotional and political reality.
Ambiguous Transitions: Gender, the State, and Everyday Life in Socialist and Postsocialist Romania
by Jill MassinoFocusing on youth, family, work, and consumption, Ambiguous Transitions analyzes the interplay between gender and citizenship postwar Romania. By juxtaposing official sources with oral histories and socialist policies with everyday practices, Jill Massino illuminates the gendered dimensions of socialist modernization and its complex effects on women’s roles, relationships, and identities. Analyzing women as subjects and agents, the book examines how they negotiated the challenges that arose as Romanian society modernized, even as it clung to traditional ideas about gender. Massino concludes by exploring the ambiguities of postsocialism, highlighting how the legacies of the past have shaped politics and women’s lived experiences since 1989.
Ambiguous Transitions: Gender, the State, and Everyday Life in Socialist and Postsocialist Romania
by Jill MassinoFocusing on youth, family, work, and consumption, Ambiguous Transitions analyzes the interplay between gender and citizenship postwar Romania. By juxtaposing official sources with oral histories and socialist policies with everyday practices, Jill Massino illuminates the gendered dimensions of socialist modernization and its complex effects on women’s roles, relationships, and identities. Analyzing women as subjects and agents, the book examines how they negotiated the challenges that arose as Romanian society modernized, even as it clung to traditional ideas about gender. Massino concludes by exploring the ambiguities of postsocialism, highlighting how the legacies of the past have shaped politics and women’s lived experiences since 1989.
Ambisexuality: The Anatomy of Transerotic Desire
by James WatsonAmbisexuals are men who are erotically attracted to 'women with a penis'. Michael simply smiled and said, "I've never been with a man. For me, a trans woman is a woman with masculine genitals, but she is still a woman. She looks like a woman and she acts like a woman." It's the 21st century. Trans women sex workers go to great lengths to meet these needs. Tens of thousands of men like Michael currently live around the world. You might think this is a modern development made possible by sex-change technology. But meticulous research reveals that this unrecognised sexual orientation has persisted across all major cultures throughout recorded history. In spite of this, almost nothing is known about ambisexuality. What motivates their sexual orientation… and the trans women they are drawn to? This book has fascinating anecdotal stories and hard data which leads to deep insights. It will make you re-evaluate what you think you know about human sexuality in an era of growing acceptance of gender diversity and sexual expression.
Ambisonics: A Practical 3D Audio Theory for Recording, Studio Production, Sound Reinforcement, and Virtual Reality (Springer Topics in Signal Processing #19)
by Franz Zotter Matthias FrankThis open access book provides a concise explanation of the fundamentals and background of the surround sound recording and playback technology Ambisonics. It equips readers with the psychoacoustical, signal processing, acoustical, and mathematical knowledge needed to understand the inner workings of modern processing utilities, special equipment for recording, manipulation, and reproduction in the higher-order Ambisonic format. The book comes with various practical examples based on free software tools and open scientific data for reproducible research.The book’s introductory section offers a perspective on Ambisonics spanning from the origins of coincident recordings in the 1930s to the Ambisonic concepts of the 1970s, as well as classical ways of applying Ambisonics in first-order coincident sound scene recording and reproduction that have been practiced since the 1980s. As, from time to time, the underlying mathematics become quite involved, but should be comprehensive without sacrificing readability, the book includes an extensive mathematical appendix. The book offers readers a deeper understanding of Ambisonic technologies, and will especially benefit scientists, audio-system and audio-recording engineers.In the advanced sections of the book, fundamentals and modern techniques as higher-order Ambisonic decoding, 3D audio effects, and higher-order recording are explained. Those techniques are shown to be suitable to supply audience areas ranging from studio-sized to hundreds of listeners, or headphone-based playback, regardless whether it is live, interactive, or studio-produced 3D audio material.
Ambit Stochastics (Probability Theory and Stochastic Modelling #88)
by Fred Espen Benth Ole E. Barndorff-Nielsen Almut E. VeraartDrawing on advanced probability theory, Ambit Stochastics is used to model stochastic processes which depend on both time and space. This monograph, the first on the subject, provides a reference for this burgeoning field, complete with the applications that have driven its development. Unique to Ambit Stochastics are ambit sets, which allow the delimitation of space-time to a zone of interest, and ambit fields, which are particularly well-adapted to modelling stochastic volatility or intermittency. These attributes lend themselves notably to applications in the statistical theory of turbulence and financial econometrics. In addition to the theory and applications of Ambit Stochastics, the book also contains new theory on the simulation of ambit fields and a comprehensive stochastic integration theory for Volterra processes in a non-semimartingale context. Written by pioneers in the subject, this book will appeal to researchers and graduate students interested in empirical stochastic modelling.