Books published by Cambria Press

The name of Mubarak-i Wakhani (1839-1903), a Persian (Tajik) mystic poet, musician, astronomer, and Ismaili religious scholar from Badakhshan, is hardly known in modern academic circles related to Persian and Ismaili studies. Despite his importance to Ismaili esoteric thought in general and the Ismaili tradition of the peoples of the Pamir Mountains in particular, Mubarak has received only scant attention from modern scholars. One of the major reasons for Mubarak's relative obscurity is probably the geographic location of his homeland and its socio-economic, political, and intellectual environment. There has been no serious scholarly research conducted on Mubarak's life and works. This book is the first introductory study on the subject, and provides the first systematic presentation of the seminal Islamic figure. In the desire to establish an accurate biography of Mubarak and to render his often confused Ismaili-Sufi ideas as lucidly and coherently as possible, this book, by Dr. Abdulmamad Iloliev (PhD, Cambridge University) of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, concentrates on assessing his life and thoughts in their historical and religious context. It explores how far Mubarak's works represent the indigenous Pamiri perception of Ismailism and where he stands in relation to general Ismaili thought. Likewise, through the study of the works of Mubarak, it seeks to explore the distinctive elements of Pamiri Ismailism, which itself is an interesting, but relatively neglected area in religio-cultural studies of the minor nations within the diverse civilization of Islam in general and the former Soviet Union in particular. This is a must-have resource for all scholars in Islamic Studies.

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that neither contains a reservation nor officially recognizes any Native American group. The stance of state government is that there are no Native Americans in the state. However, there is a large and growing community of Native Americans that is growing more active and more frustrated with the state's position. Invisible Indians is based on three years of research with Native Americans in Pennsylvania. The authors have crossed the state to attend powwows and tribal meetings, as well as interview individual Indians. Based on several, extensive ethnographic interviews, this book provide an extremely insightful account of Native Americans in Pennsylvania. The book also examines the history of Native American/government relationships within the state, as well as critical issues such as casino gambling and state recognition that are the crux of current negotiations. The book is also about the ways Pennsylvania's Native Americans are reinventing their history and their cultures to meet their own social and psychological (identity) needs. This book is a much-needed addition to the literature on Native American identity today--the critical issue in contemporary Native American politics. The book also debunks the official state stance that no Native Americans exist in Pennsylvania. Invisible Indians will be a valuable reference both to social scientists interested in personal identity issues as well as all interested in Pennsylvania cultures and issues.

Little work has been done to explicate the motivational factors of agency, particularly in cases where an artifact initially deemed ineffective or superfluous becomes an everyday necessity, such as the automobile at the turn of the twentieth century. Farmers saw it as a "devil wagon" but later adopted it for use as an all-around device and power source. What makes a social group change its position about a particular artifact? How did the devil wagon overcome its notoriety to become a prosaic mainstream device? These questions direct the research in this book. While they may have been asked before, author Imes Chiu (PhD, Cornell University) brings a different and refreshing approach to the problem of newness. Preexisting practices and work routines used as explanatory devices have something interesting to say about diffusion strategies and localization measures. This innovative study examines the conversion of users. To understand the motivating factors in mass adoption, the study focuses on perceptions and practices associated with horses and motorcars in three different settings during three different periods. All three cases begin with the motorcar in the periphery: all three end with it achieving ubiquity. This multiple-case design is used for the purpose of theoretical replication. Results in all three cases show that a contrived likeness to its competitor-the horse-contributed to the motorcar's success. The motorcar absorbed the technical, material, structural, and conceptual resources of the technology it displaced. This book, which includes several rare photographs, will be an important resource for those who wish to study the history of transportation and technology adaptation.

Christmas Island is a small territory of Australia located in the Indian Ocean. It is home to three main ethnic groups, the smallest of which are European Australians. Christmas Island is also where those who arrive "illegally" to seek asylum in Australia are accommodated. Christmas Island has played a key role in Australian security, located as it is at the northern extremity of Australian territory; much closer to Indonesia than to the nation to which it belongs, and from whose territory it has recently been excised for migration purposes. As a migration exclusion zone, Christmas is both within and without of the nation, and has gone from a place known among nature lovers for its unique red crabs and bird life to the highly politicised subject of national concern and heated debate. But what is it like to be at home on Christmas Island? How do locals make and come to be at home in a place both within and without of the nation? This anthropological exploration--the very first one ever undertaken of this strategically important island--focuses closely on the sensual engagements people have with place, shows how Christmas Islanders make recourse to the animals, birds and topographic features of the island to create uniquely islandic ways of being at home--and ways of creating "others" who will never belong--under volatile political circumstances. This original ethnography reveals a complex island society, whose presence at the very edge of the nation reveals important information about a place and a group of people new to ethnographic study. In and through these people and their relationships with their unique island place, this ethnographic exploration reveals a nation caught in the grip of intensive national angst about its borders, its sense of safety, its struggles with multiculturalism, and its identity in a world of unprecedented migratory movement. As the first book in the discipline of anthropology to study Christmas Island in ethnographic terms, Christmas Island is a critical work for all collections in anthropology and Australian Studies. "Christmas Island is described by Simone Dennis as 'the last outpost of the nation', that is, a multicultural microcosm of contemporary Australia, worried by a search for a national identity in touch with the past but not limited by it...In Simone Dennis, Christmas Island has its consummate ethnographer and analyst." - Professor Nigel Rapport, University of St. Andrews

This book is the much awaited English translation of Liu Zaifu's book, Reflections on Dream of the Red Chamber. The book consists of three parts-reflections on Dream of the Red Chamber, comments on Dream of the Red Chamber, and discussions on Dream of the Red Chamber. There is also an appendix, "A Discussion of the Philosophy in Dream of the Red Chamber," a speech delivered by Liu Zaifu at the Institute of Philosophy, Central University and at the Chinese Department of Tunghai University, Taiwan, in December 2005. The first part comprises two hundred and four personal reflections on all aspects of Dream of the Red Chamber, the undisputed best traditional novel in China. The second part contains three essays on the spiritual value of the novel, the feeling of repentance and the transcendental philosophical viewpoint in the novel. The third part includes thirteen discussions of various characters and episodes in the novel. The appendix discusses the philosophy in the novel. As the best traditional novel in Chinese literature, Dream of the Red Chamber has attracted a tremendous amount of critical attention over the last hundred years and has given rise to a scholarly field commonly referred to as "redology." In contrast to the works on the novel by other scholars, Liu's book stands out with its personal, intuitive approach. Instead of engaging himself in evidential research, as many scholars in the field have done, Liu reflects on the spiritual orientation and the philosophical implications in the novel from a personal perspective. In so doing he infuses his reflections with his personal experience, his interpretations of works in Chinese literature and world literature, and his philosophical views. Influenced by Zen, Liu's book makes a connection between Dream of the Red Chamber and real life as it exalts the values and philosophical understandings in the novel. Reflections on Dream of the Red Chamber, with its highly original approach to its subject, will be an essential resource for English-speaking readers interested in the classical novel as well as those interested in contemporary literary criticism in China.

The Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature is a Marxist-Feminist reading of the Femme Fatale in nineteenth-century British literature that examines the changing social and economic status of women from the 1860s through the 1880s, and rejects the stereotypical mid-Victorian femme fatale portrayed by conservative ideologues critiquing popular fiction by Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Honoré de Balzac, and William Makepeace Thackeray. In these book reviews, the female protagonist is simply minimized to a dangerous woman. Refuting this one-dimensional characterization, this book argues that the femme fatale comes to represent the real-life struggles of the middle-class Victorian woman who overcomes major adversities such as poverty, abusive husbands, abandonment, single parenthood, limited job opportunities, the criminal underworld, and Victorian society's harsh invective against her. To overcome these hardships, she reverses her socioeconomic status, an act which demonstrates her self-reliance compared to other Victorian feminine literary figures. The femme fatale, in fact, becomes a precursor to the campaigns against the Contagious Diseases Acts, to the emergence of the New Woman, movements that illustrate more empowering subject positions of women during the later part of the nineteenth century, and subverts patriarchal constructions of domesticity and "fallenness" used to undermine women. More specifically, the femme fatale in the mid-century novel is a protest against representations of women as fallen and domestic. The Femme Fatale in Victorian Literature will be an important book for scholars in literature and Women's Studies.

Farmers' Markets: Success, Failure and Management Ecology is the only book presently available that investigates the current phenomenal growth of farmers' markets in the U.S. The research is a reflection of a period marked by growing consumer interest in locally produced foods, a resistance toward a globalizing food system, and seemingly boundless interest in and support for farmers' markets. Using an ecological approach, the book explores historic trends related to growth and decline in market numbers, examines the management organization associated with markets of specific sizes, analyzes the characteristics and issues associated with markets that fail, and offers a model that illustrates how farmers' market organizers successfully adapt to barriers and challenges in their environment. The book engages a node in the food system that has implications for the economic health of small farms and the social and economic life of communities. The book incorporates both the academic and the practical. It will be an important reference to students and researchers across disciplines with interests in food system research, as well as practitioners managing or working with farmers' markets. As an applied study, the book provides information and recommendations to assist markets with decision making and strategic planning. Although the focus of this research is on one area in the United States, the findings have broad application. The foreword to this study is by distinguished scholar and food system analyst, Gail Feenstra of the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP) at the University of California, Davis.

Although Japan had severely curtailed its political involvement with the wider world in the seventeenth century, the Japanese economic influence on Asia remained quite pronounced. Even when the Japanese government expelled the Spanish and Portuguese and limited the Dutch to a small outpost in Nagasaki, and also decided to prohibit its own citizens from traveling abroad, the Japanese economy remained a force in Asia and played a significant role in the world economy as well. The seventeenth-century economy of Japan, however, was an "economy by proxy" since the agents that exchanged Asian and European luxury goods for Japanese products and precious metals were not Japanese but rather Dutch, Chinese, Korean, and Ryukyu Islanders. These peoples moved in to fill the economic gap left by the forced exclusion of the native Japanese merchants from an active role in the foreign economy of Japan. This eloquently detailed account illuminates the tremendous impact that the Japanese economy had on Asia and on the foreigners trading in Japan in the seventeenth century. This is a valuable addition to all collections in Asian Studies and World History.

In this unprecedented volume, Professor Thomas Hagood brings together the voices of key dance educators to express their views on the legacy of dance education. The book examines the values and practices dance educators live with, and what values and practices they take forward to promote or even retool and reinvent in their professional work. The book also engages in discussions of the people who embody (or have embodied) the values and practices the dance education field takes ownership of. Through working with and being exposed to teachers in the dance field, the editor and his contributors express how their learning and professional development has been inspired and shaped by their interactions with their mentors. It follows that legacy is important territory for dancers to consider as educators and as people. Such deep discussion of legacy in educational dance is not widely evidenced in existing literature. Since it is not an easy nor simple task to inventory what dance educators have absorbed from mentors with an objective or analytically aware eye, this book will serve well to expand this discussion. Critical assessment in dance education is also challenged by the fact that the field itself is very young. In analyzing legacy, the book interestingly shows that the mentors discussed may well be about people who are still very much alive. The book also addresses how dance is so culturally challenged by archetypal notions of who practices it, as well as its educational value and worth. The book presents dance scholars with many opportunities to learn new dimensions of dance history, to reflect on practices both old and new, to appreciate the values that shape their work in dance education, to get to know people who may not appear in the historic record, to revisit the gifts of those whom they may consider giants in the field have left, to consider the landscape of dance education as it has been shaped over time. The inclusion of the voices and contributions of some of the field's most prominent dance educators in this book and the critical issues they discuss make this book a must for every dance collection.

This book presents a scholarly examination of some of the most popular psychiatric disorders, psychological syndromes, trauma disorders, addictions, and emotional injury claims in an attempt to determine if these are merely forms of malingering being used to achieve financial gain through litigation, or as a means of escaping criminal or civil responsibility. The book also examines unreliable and unsubstantiated treatment and assessment methods used by the mental health industry which find their way into the courtroom. There has been a significant amount of research (and anecdotal evidence) recently presented in the scientific literature regarding many of the above-mentioned topics. In addition, there is a seemingly neverending parade of legal cases in the media which are examples of some of the topics of this book (e.g., the Andrea Yates case and others). What distinguishes this edited book from others is (1) it does not shy away from confronting the unusual and even bizarre psychological phenomena which the legal profession must deal with; (2) it provides a solid theoretical review from renown psychologists, psychiatrists, and lawyers; (3) it provides the latest psychological research findings relating to various questionable disorders and methods; (4) it presents real-life experiences from the courtroom; and (5) relevant case law is discussed. This book will be of monumental use to practicing attorneys and law students, practicing psychologists and psychiatrists, and students in mental health and criminal justice. The book will allow for a clear understanding of "syndrome" evidence, its uses and abuses, malingering, phony and bogus "diseases" and "addictions," and how patients, clients, and defendants (as well as psychiatrists, psychologists, and lawyers) abuse the mental health and legal systems in order to escape criminal culpability, attain benefits, or make a case.