Books published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing

This collection of essays explores ways that universities in East Africa can better serve the common good. Each essay here delves into different aspects of improving the quality of higher education.

This book adopts a broad and multifaceted approach to that most preeminent of classical literature genres: the Epic. Set in the ancient world, from archaic Greece to imperial Rome, the scope of interest here extends, for comparative purposes, to Vedic and Sanskrit poetry, as well as the Medieval epic.

This book presents the field of sports statistics to two very distinct target audiences, namely academicians, in order to raise their interest in this growing field, and, on the other hand, sports fans, who, even without advanced mathematical knowledge, will be able to understand the data analysis and gain new insights into their favourite sports.

This book brings together an edited selection of presentations from the Association for Medical Humanities annual conference 2015, held at Dartington Hall, UK, that address the question: How might innovative performing arts help to develop medical education and practice?

The primary role played by religion in the development of the Spanish nation in the Iberian Peninsula and its subsequent role in the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas has been well studied.

Why discuss birth and death when they lie outside discourse? And why look at them together when they are so much unlike each other, one the moment of fresh beginnings, joys, and the relative certainties of existence, the other the moment of life's end, grief, and the relative uncertainties of non-existence?

This book offers the reader a critical and interdisciplinary introduction to Brazilian history. Combining a didactic approach with insightful historical analysis, it discusses the main political, cultural, and social developments taking place in the Latin American country from 1500 to 2010.

The textbook experience of poverty can be witnessed in a number of developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America. Accordingly, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been identified as an important tool for poverty reduction, as it is noted to accelerate economic growth and employment in a nation, and is currently an essential issue for countries such as Uganda. This book finds that Ragnar's 1953 'Vicious-Circle of Poverty' remains undisputed even today, showing that attracting FDI is not the end, but that a nation's absorption capacity is equally paramount. The implications of the FDI 'frog-leap theory' for developing countries and the Community Capital Absorption Capacity Development (CCACD) framework provide plausible poverty reduction approaches in the 21st century. Without such measures, bringing an end to poverty is likely to elude governments and multinational corporations in developing countries.

Ethics has become a particularly relevant topic for discussion and a subject for serious study. It has a very long tradition, of course; but nowadays one hears frequently of the need, because of abuses or concerns, to formulate and adopt ethical codes in various areas or professions. This book aims to make a philosophical contribution to the discussions and debates on the topic. Compared to the traditional approach to the philosophical study of ethics, however, this book adopts a different strategy. It shows that such ethical thinking, in the concrete particulars, originates in various academic and professional contexts, among others. But inasmuch as theoretical issues require wider and more intensive attention, it argues that ethical thinking needs to be pursued further and that it can be aided by philosophical investigations. In its concluding chapters the book presents an alternative foundation for ethical decision-making. Philosophically grounded, it moves away from an individualistic ethical perspective to a relational one that has been shaped through dialogue with the various contexts in which ethical think-ing arises.

Postmodern Ethics offers a new perspective on debates surrounding the role of the intellectual in Italian society, and provides an original reading of two important Italian contemporary writers, Leonardo Sciascia and Antonio Tabucchi. It examines the ways in which the two writers use literature to engage with their socio-political environment in a climate informed by the doubts and scepticism of postmodernism, after traditional forms of impegno had been abandoned. Postmodern Ethics explores ways in which Tabucchi and Sciascia further their engagement through embracing the very factors which problematized traditional committed writing, such as the absence of fixed truths, the inability of language to fully communicate ideas and intertextuality. Postmodern Ethics provides an innovative new reading of Tabucchi's works. It challenges the standard view in critical literature that his writing may be divided into 'engaged' texts which dialogue with society and 'postmodern' texts which focus on literary interiority, suggesting instead that socio-political engagement underpins all of his works. It also offers a new lens on Sciascia's writing, unpacking why Sciascia, unlike his contemporaries, is able to maintain a belief in literature as a means of dialoguing with society. Postmodern Ethics explores the ways in which Tabucchi and Sciascia approach issues of terrorism, justice, the anti-mafia movement, immigration and the value of reading in connected yet distinct ways, suggesting that a close genealogy may be drawn between these two key intellectual figures.

This volume, edited from the proceedings of a unique conference held at Sam Houston State University, offers the reader an independent Texas-style celebration of Medieval and Renaissance culture and thought. In the opening article, Richard North reveals some ways in which medieval literature pioneered the modern novel.

Mapping out the Rushdie Republic differs from existing studies on the work of Salman Rushdie by dint of its seriousness of intent and profundity of content. Every major work of the writer is paid due attention as separate articles are devoted to every aspect of his literary persona.

November 2012 saw the joint annual conference of the British branch of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY UK) and the MA course at the National Centre for Research in Children's Literature (NCRCL) at Roehampton University.

This book approaches the visual clues acknowledged by political philosophy, interested in the relationship of the philosophy and the politics of film.

The focus of this volume is on essential themes, images and generic patterns, beginning with a Talmudic legend about four scholars. They, by means of daring mystical interpretations of Scripture, entered a Paradise, representing different means of imaginative reading, perception, memory and application of the law. One of them died, one went mad, another became a heretic and the other came back as a traditional exegete and teacher. Based on that legend, this book examines a small group of late 19th and early 20th century European Jewish intellectuals and artists in the light of their dreams, writings, and moments of crisis. These men and women, comedians in both the sense of stage actors and clowns or witty performers, believed they had entered a new secular and tolerant society, but discovered that there was no escape from their Jewish heritage and way of seeing the world. This monograph looks into the imperfect mirror of cultural experience, discovers a hazy world of illusions, dreams and nightmares on the other side of the looking glass, and sometimes constructs a midrashic conceit of the comical and grotesque screen between them.

Pupils with Social, Emotional and Behaviour Difficulties (often known as SEBD and EBD) comprise a group of learners who present challenges to their educators and the educational system; often, working with these pupils can be challenging and stressful for their teachers, as well as any professional involved. In England, research concerning the education and learning of pupils with SEBD has progressed considerably in the past three decades, and 'good practice' when working with pupils who present these difficulties has been widely investigated. In Cyprus, however, it is not nearly so widely known about and has not been researched to any great extent. This book explores the situation in the Cypriot education system, and begins by expanding the reader's knowledge on developments on the education of those pupils whose behaviour raises challenges to the educational system and causes concerns to those involved. The book is informed by research which was undertaken by the author in Cyprus, and documents the views of educators and professionals on good practice. It explores the microsystem of a school, and will enrich the knowledge and understanding of those with personal and professional interests in working with these pupils to be ready to accommodate their needs. The book also contributes to a better understanding of the nature of SEBD, especially since the number of students presenting such difficulties in Cypriot primary education requires practitioners to be ready to provide the best practices possible.

The concept of a "e;fishing entity"e; is a new category of fishing actors, separate from that of states, in the international law of the sea. The emergence of this new category provides a significant development towards a more flexible application of regulations regarding usage of the sea. A fishing entity owns advanced technology and fishing skills, and, as such, has an important role to play in global and regional conservation and management of fishery resources. Despite this, it is defined as being distinct from a "e;state"e; in the relevant legal documents, resulting in unclear circumstances involving certain global and regional agreements which usually apply to the latter. This ambiguity is particularly prevalent in legal procedures on the high seas when the sovereignty of a "e;state"e; comes into question, such as boarding and inspection. This book provides a detailed definition of the role of the "e;fishing entity"e; in the international law of the sea, and its obligations and rights in high seas fishery enforcements.

Resistance used to mean irrational and reactionary behaviour, assuming that rationality resides on the side of progress and its parties. The end of the Cold War allows us to drop ideological and prejudicial analysis. Indeed, we recognise that resistance is a historical constant, and its relation to rationality or irrationality is not predetermined.This volume asks: to what extent are social scientific conceptions of 'resistances' sui generis, or borrowed from natural sciences by metaphor and analogy? To what extent do the social sciences continue to be a 'social tribology' lubricating a process of strategic changes?Fifteen authors explore these questions from the point of view of different disciplines including physics, biology, social psychology, history of science, history of medicine, legal theory, political science, history, police studies, psychotherapy research and art theory.The book offers a unique panorama of concepts of 'resistance' and examines the potential of a general 'resistology' across diverse practices of rationality.

With a focus on intercultural communication between Japanese and Americans, this book describes how differing listening styles and conversational behaviours across cultures can negatively influence intercultural communication. Responding to the many calls for studies examining the teachability of listener responses in the language classroom, the author investigates whether listener responses would be a suitable target for instruction in the EFL/ESL classroom, and, if so, what instructional methods are best suited to teaching this elusive aspect of pragmatic competence. By addressing these issues, this book provides exciting and novel insights into various aspects of applied linguistics. By supplementing language data and questionnaires with retrospective and longitudinal research techniques, the author is able to present a much richer description and deeper understanding of how and why participants used listener responses in the manner they did. With the findings supporting an explicit approach to teaching listener responses, this book provides language practitioners with a direction in which to move forward. Beyond this practical application, this study sheds new light into such theoretical debates as the role of consciousness in language teaching (the Explicit vs. Implicit debate), the universality of Grice's theory of conversation and the potentially differing conceptualisations of politeness across cultures.

The topic of this book is in congruence with the current trends in foreign language education worldwide. On the one hand, it tackles the concept and implementation of intercultural language teaching; on the other, it analyses the circumstances in which information and communication technology may be utilised in the contemporary EFL classroom. Both intercultural teaching and Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) have been promoted by national/international educational documents in Europe, the USA and Asia, and endorsed by international organisations, including the Council of Europe and UNESCO. This book constitutes a pioneering attempt at establishing the role of ICT in English language and culture teaching within the Polish education system. However, the research instruments used within both research modules are applicable to other education systems worldwide, while the results obtained have implications for intercultural and computer-assisted language education in international contexts.The research results presented in the book highlight to the broad EFL profession a wide range of issues relating to the use of ICT in the foreign language classroom. They also offer materials writers, software designers and EFL teachers criteria with which to evaluate the intercultural component of CALL software.

This book focuses on the importance of topical reading in understanding Islamic figures and themes, and applies this approach to two landmark Elizabethan plays: George Peele's Battle of Alcazar and William Percy's Mahomet and his Heaven. The former is the first English play to present a Moor as a major character, while the latter is the first English play to be based on Quranic material and feature the Prophet of Islam as a major character. In both plays, the book argues, topical concerns played a major role in the formation of Islamic characters and themes, rendering the term 'representation' highly debatable. The book also briefly covers other Elizabethan plays that contained Islamic elements, such as Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and The Merchant of Venice, and Marlowe's Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus. Topical issues covered in the work include British-Muslim relations, the Spanish Armada, Elizabethan patriotism in literature, Catholic-Protestant tensions in the late 16th century, the gynaecocracy debate, and Elizabethan alchemy and magic.

This book investigates the practice of family mediation and some of the challenges that may hinder its effective use by marginalised groups in a society. Those challenges include gendered power disparity and family violence, especially towards women, and the discussion extends to how the challenges can be overcome through a practice of evaluative mediation to provide fair outcomes for women. Unlike other contemporary books on mediation, this book not only discusses different theories of power and equity in mediation, it also includes a number of verbatim quotes from different mediation sessions to demonstrate how those theories are operationalised in a real life context.While other contemporary texts on mediation focus on Western style facilitative mediation and its limitations in attaining fair justice for women enduring gendered power disparity and family violence, this text emphasises an evaluative mediation style that is embedded in Eastern social practices. Instead of focusing on gendered power disparity and family violence as limitations on the practice of facilitative mediation, this book details the practice of evaluative mediation which may provide fair justice to women despite the presence of gendered power disparity and family violence in a society.

Winner of the 2013 Outstanding Qualitative Book Award by the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.Signs of Hope tells the story of a narrative inquiry with three deafhearing families. For many of us, deafness represents loss and silence. For others, being deaf is a genetic quirk; an opportunity for learning, spiritual adventure and reward. For yet others, it is the most natural thing in the world; a connection to a genealogical layer of signing ancestors and the continuation of a culture. Amid the noise of mainstream, medical and educational discourses of deafness, here are family voices demanding to be heard - whether spoken or signed - that challenge audiological and surgical intervention, that call for scrutiny and critique of 'inclusive' deaf-related pedagogical practices, that rail against marginalisation of members of minority cultures. Over four years, Donna West has recorded the stories of three families who wish to counter and resist what they see as damaging misconceptions and discriminatory constructions of deafness and deafhearing family life. Here, spaces are created that respect and acknowledge human beings - adults, children, deaf, hearing - as storytellers. The poetic and performative narratives at the heart of this book reveal not only the ways in which hurtful definitions of, and discrimination towards, deaf people and signing deafhearing families is destabilised, but also the ways in which celebration of deaf culture and sign language are affirming and vital for healthy family life.

Agreement plays a pivotal role in the generative theory of natural language. More recently, the minimalist paradigm suggests positing a separate operation: Agree - for agreement, alongside Merge - the recursive structure building operation, and Move - the displacement operation in grammar. Though Agree, it would seem, is well-supported by ample empirical data, there is reason to doubt the existence of such an operation in grammar. The advent of minimalism in linguistic theory necessitates doubting all attributes of the language faculty that seem unique to it. If language is part of cognition, the rest of cognition should be reflected in its workings, thus ruling out the possibility of the language organ standing out for being too idiosyncratic. Agree is very language-specific and yet the literature that readily accepts it hardly ever tries to locate it within the cognitive domain. This book makes an effort in this direction and shows that this operation is not conceptually necessary to the language system. It cannot be justified on general economy considerations. Alongside these conceptual arguments, the book also takes up long-distance agreement constructions from languages as diverse as Basque, Chamorro, Chukchee, Hindi-Urdu, Icelandic, Innu-aimun, Itelmen, Japanese, Kashmiri, Passamaquoddy and Tsez to show that what seemingly appear as evidence for Agree at first glance, on closer inspection, turn out to be instances of local, sisterhood relations in grammar.(Dis)Agree: Exploring Agreement Mechanisms will interest linguists and cognitive scientists, especially students and scholars of syntactic theory and the mind-language interfaces at graduate level and above.

The fourteen interviews in this book form an unprecedented wealth of material on authors' responses to HIV/AIDS in South Africa and Zimbabwe. They comprise a valuable archive which documents and contextualises the variety of views and opinions of different authors on their often ground-breaking choices in writing about HIV/AIDS. Each author ranks among the first to publish fiction on HIV/AIDS in their respective countries. These interviews are of particular merit as these issues have not been discussed at length with any of the authors before. Collectively they offer a unique range of approaches and opinions in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in southern Africa. Their significance lies in their specific literary, as well as their broader social, cultural and political perspectives on a disease which continues to spread despite extensive NGO, medical and government intervention. In both South Africa and Zimbabwe, government responses have failed to address the urgent need for new political and economic solutions to the challenge of HIV infection. Responses among the population have varied from widespread silence, shame and fear to political activism and outspoken critiques of government inaction. Writers give voice to this silence and contextualise the disparate reactions amongst diverse peoples.Globally, AIDS killed approximately 2 million in 2008. In 1998, AIDS was the largest killer in southern Africa, nearly double the one million deaths from malaria and eight times the 209,000 deaths from tuberculosis. It has long been the case that of those dying globally of AIDS, the majority live in southern Africa. When the associated social and cultural implications of infection with HIV are considered, fictional representations contribute significantly to our understanding of the impact of HIV/AIDS on communities and individuals, and provide a much-needed basis for 'humanising' an epidemic which is unimaginable statistically. It has been said that the feelings and reactions that HIV/AIDS inspires are often 'too unreal for words,' and it is this very notion, that certain diseases are taboo, unmentionable, and hardly even named as such, that makes verbalisation of this epidemic a modern imperative.

Twenty major German cities have a total of twenty-four theatres specializing, at a high level of sophistication, in presenting light comedy. They have their own typical ambience, principles of artistic management and casting. There are playwrights, actors, directors and designers who work almost exclusively in the genre, called boulevard comedy, developing highly specialised approaches to their work. In almost all cases, the predominantly privately run boulevard comedy theatres in Germany have been able to attract larger audiences than municipal or state theatres in the same cities. The book provides a description and an analysis of this phenomenon, which is unique to Germany. Chapters focus on an analysis of ambience, artistic managers, artistic policies and artistic structures, on major characteristics of the plays presented on the stages of German boulevard comedy theatres, on aspects of translation and the cultural transfer of comedy and laughter and on aspects of production and reception, dealing in turn with actors, directors, media coverage and audiences.

Drawing on philosophy, theology and psychoanalysis as well as on literary criticism, this collection of essays explores a range of fantasy texts with particular attention to the various ways in which they seek to deal with the reality of death. The essays uncover some fascinating links, and indeed tensions, between the writers discussed.

This collection of essays provides an historical, plural and original analysis of the Russian Revolution to mark its first centenary.

This book presents edited and revised versions of most of the papers presented at the First International Conference on Sustainable Alternatives for Poverty Reduction and Ecological Justice in 2012 (SAPREJ-12).

Centralization and over-professionalization can lead to the disappearance of a critical environment capable of linking the human sciences to the "real world." The authors of this volume suggest that the humanities need to operate in a concrete cultural environment able to influence procedures on a hic et nunc basis, and that they should not entirel