Books published by EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS

Presents new perspectives on representations of female heterosexuality in selected contemporary British and American novels

Is it possible that various disciplines, theorists and cultural commentators have been hurtling down a blind alley in the last thirty years, searching for the holy grail of the postmodern? What if, after all, we have never have been postmodern? Or what if we are, instead, now living 'after postmodernity'? As global culture rushes off the cliff of catastrophe with its neo-liberal, neo-conservative ideologies mangled in the process, this book provides theory at the speed of light designed to capture the fast flickering images of the real, gone before you can blink in today's accelerated culture. Key Features* Sets out a variety of reasons why we should move away from seeing the recent era as 'postmodern' and our culture as 'postmodernist' through a series of analyses of contemporary culture. * Highlights key theorists, such as Paul Virilio and Jean Baudrillard, who, despite the pitfalls of their work, chart a new route map out of the trajectories of the catastrophic. * Envisages a new object of knowledge for the contemporary world - mobile accelerated nonpostmodern culture (MANC). *Provides some of the building blocks and conceptual resources for a 'claustropolitan sociology' of the global future in order to better understand the catastrophic present, where claustropolis is rapidly replacing cosmopolis.

This is the first monograph to examine mediated business interaction in Spanish. It focuses on communication between native speakers of Spanish from different Spanish-speaking countries with a view to informing our understanding of intercultural communication in a contemporary business environment. Using elements of pragmatics with tools from conversation analysis, the book examines the various activities that telephone conversationalists engage in to supply and demand a service over the phone through the mediational means of Spanish by addressing the following questions. * Do speakers of Spanish display similar communicative practices as those observed in other languages when requesting and being offered a service over the phone? * Do specifically located activities such as the call openings and closings display similar coordination and ritualisation as that observed in other languages?* Does the language seen as a cultural tool reflect a different orientation towards such activities? * What strategies do telephone agents and (prospective) clients employ to obtain a sale and either procure the best value for money or obviate it, respectively? And, what role does intercultural communication play in the construction of these practices?

Explores the use of images, sounds and videos in Jihadi media and how people engage with themISIS is often described as a terrorist organisation that uses social media to empower its supporters and reinforce its message. Through 12 case studies, this book examines the different ways in which Jihadi groups and their supporters use visualisation, sound production and aesthetic means to articulate their cause in online as well as offline contexts.Divided into 4 thematic sections, the chapters probe Jihadi appropriation of traditional and popular cultural expressions and show how, in turn, political activists appropriate extremist media to oppose and resist the propaganda. By conceptualising militant Islamist audiovisual productions as part of global media aesthetics and practices, the authors shed light on how religious actors, artists, civil society activists, global youth, political forces, security agencies and researchers engage with mediated manifestations of Jihadi ideology to deconstruct, reinforce, defy or oppose the messages.Key Features¿ Fosters theoretical approaches to audiovisuality in the context of 'propagandistic' imagery¿ Points to strategies and logics of appropriation within and around Jihadi audiovisuality, such as humour, re-enactments and memetic forms of cultural resistance¿ Considers cultural and aesthetic expressions that evolve in response to Jihadi media output¿ Presents empirically grounded research, combined with historical, multi-modal, rhetorical, ethnomusicological and digital audio-visual analysis and interpretations¿ Case studies include: an exploration of: staged violence in IS productions; the appropriation of IS's nashid S¿alil al-S¿awarim in digital contexts; the responses by social workers and former supporters of jihadi groups and movements; and how researchers themselves are part of the entanglements caused by politicisation and securitisation of IslamChristoph Günther is the Principal Investigator and Simone Pfeifer is a Postdoctoral Researcher of the junior research group 'Jihadism on the Internet: Images and Videos, their Dissemination and Appropriation' at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz.

Rhythm and Critique presents 12 new essays from a range of specialists to define, contextualise and challenge the concepts of rhythm and rhythmanalysis. It includes newly translated materials from Rudolf Laban and Henri Meschonnic.

This collection of essays from a range of philosophers and art practitioners offers tools through which we can action change across art and philosophy, across a range of media and across the theory/practice divide.

Scotland's Foreshore tells the story of the battle that took place during the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century between the Crown and private proprietors over the ownership of the foreshore.

The second edition of Arabic Sociolinguistics offers an extended commentary on the important findings of new critical approaches to language and society in Arab-speaking countries.

A student's introduction to the sounds of English

From the Prime Meridian Conference of 1884 to the celebration of the millennium in 2000; from the fiction of Joseph Conrad to the novels of William Gibson and W.G. Sebald, Reading the Times offers fresh insight into modern narrative.

Utilising a pioneering theological and hermeneutic framework adapted from both classical Muslim literature and contemporary academic studies of the Qur'an, Ramon Harvey explores the underlying principles of its system of social justice.

Using archival research and interviews with politicians, Andrew W. Neal investigates security politics from the 1980s to the present day to show how its meaning and practice have changed over time. He develops an original reassessment of the security/politics relationship that directly challenges current debates in critical security studies.