Books published by Palgrave MacMillan

In this book, Juli Gittinger argues that America's fascination (obsession?) with the apocalypse is a synthesis of religion, popular culture, and politics in a way that is particular to the US and consonant with mythological-historical narratives of America. As a result, we can identify American apocalypticism as a sort of religion in itself that is closely tied to "civil religion," that has a worldview and rituals that create identifiable communities and connects American mythology to apocalyptic anxieties. Gittinger discusses how various cultures and groups form as a result of this obsession, and that these communities form their own rituals and responses in various forms of "prepping" or survivalist practices. She lays out an argument for a broad eschatology prevalent in the US that extends beyond traditional religious designations to form an apocalyptic worldview that is built into our narrative as a country, as well as furthered by popular culture and media's contributionto apocalyptic anxieties. Subsequently, Gittinger uses case studies of apocalyptic events--current or speculative--that reveal how our anxieties about the end of the world (as we know it) inform our culture, as well as religious narratives that emerge from such crises.

As global supply chains become more complex, the need for expertise in their financial aspects grows. This book aims to equip students and professionals with the knowledge to navigate these complexities, ensuring efficient and resilient financial supply chain operations. It provides an in-depth exploration into the intricate and constantly evolving realm of supply chain finance. By merging key concepts, major mechanisms, hands-on risk analytics, and the latest technology trends, this book offers a seamless and comprehensive examination of the topic, grounded in the author's twenty years of academic research and hands-on experience. Students in supply chain management will gain a thorough understanding of the financial elements that are integral to modern supply chains, including the importance of liquidity, the role of financial institutions, and the optimization of cash flows within the supply chain ecosystem. Definitions will be used throughout the text to elucidate financial terminology that may be unfamiliar to management students. The instructor's manual will include PowerPoint slides, exercises, and quizzes to assess student comprehension and progress. This textbook will serve as the primary resource for understanding the financial dimensions of supply chains.

This book explores the significant textual relationship between Mary and Percy Shelley and the early works of the Brontë siblings. Through a detailed examination of the Shelleyan narrative accessible to the Brontës from their childhood to their final novels, this study argues for a fresh perspective on the Brontës' engagement with the Shelleys in both their juvenilia and later seven novels. In this respect, the book considers the Brontës as readers rather than exclusively as writers, viewing them as a product of the early nineteenth-century literary marketplace which maintained affinities to Romanticism. Reading, rewriting, and appropriating the textual Shelleys was a fundamental vein stemming the Brontës' writing from childhood, with Mary epitomising the model for what the sisters would eventually become: the female novelist.

This textbook is a comprehensive, engaging, and user-friendly introduction to philosophy of science, written by a philosopher and a scientist. By exploring traditional debates within philosophy of science, as well as analysing contemporary scientific controversies for philosophical bias, the reader is invited to reflect upon how philosophical assumptions influence scientific theory, methods, and practice. Key features: An accessible introduction to philosophy of science written by a philosopher and a scientist. Demonstrates the philosophical influences on scientific thinking, practice, and expert disagreement. Applies philosophy of science to analyse some specific real-life cases of scientific controversy. Includes some of the many important contributions from women philosophers and scientists. This book is an essential resource for students and teachers in philosophy of science. It is also useful for anyone interested in the philosophical influences on contemporary science.

This book explores how ideas of nature and the nonhuman play an important part in literary depictions of same-sex desire in twentieth-century Norwegian literature. Critically probing dichotomies such as pastoral/urban and human/animal, the chapters show how literary fiction constructs, represents, and interprets experiences of same-sex love and attraction, traditionally conceived as "unnatural." Providing in-depth studies of a variety of texts, this book demonstrates the merits of bridging the gap between the "de-naturalizing" project of gender and queer theory on the one hand, and, on the other, the ecocritical centering of material, nonhuman environments.

This volume explores the importance of inter-generational oral culture and stories that transcend time, space, and boundaries transmitted historically from one generation to the next through proverbs, idioms, and folklore tales in different geographical and spatial contexts. These important stories and their embedded life lessons are introduced, explained, and supplemented with pre and post educational activities and lesson plans to be used as learning resources. The centering of orality as a tool and medium for educating the future generation is a reclamation and reaffirmation of Indigeneity, Indigenous knowledges. and non-hegemonic approaches to support students in a socio-culturally sustaining manner. Through this understanding, this book explores the interconnectedness between culture, traditions, language, and way of life through oral storytelling, sharing, and listening.

This book addresses several key issues in the biological study of death with the intent of capturing their genealogy, the assumptions and presuppositions they make, and the way that they open specific new research avenues. The book is divided into two sections: the first considers physiology and the second evolutionary biology. In the first part, Huneman reconstructs a conceptual genealogy of experimental physiology based on an in-depth analysis of Bichat's investigations of death processes. In the second part he explains that biologists in the late 1950s put forth a research framework that evolutionarily accounts for death in terms of either an effect of the weakness of natural selection or a by-product of natural selection for early reproduction. He illustrates how the biology of death is a central field and that studying it provides insight into the way that the epistemic structure of this knowledge has been constituted, persists until now, and may conflict with some traditional philosophical ideas.

This open access handbook takes a comparative and global approach to analyse the practice of slavery throughout history. To understand slavery - why it developed, and how it functioned in various societies - is to understand an important and widespread practice in world civilisations. With research traditionally being dominated by the Atlantic world, this collection aims to illuminate slavery that existed in not only the Americas but also ancient, medieval, North and sub-Saharan African, Near Eastern, and Asian societies. Connecting civilisations through migration, warfare, trade routes and economic expansion, the practice of slavery integrated countries and regions through power-based relationships, whilst simultaneously dividing societies by class, race, ethnicity and cultural group. Uncovering slavery as a globalising phenomenon, the authors highlight the slave-trading routes that crisscrossed Africa, helped integrate the Mediterranean world, connected Indian Ocean societies and fused the Atlantic world. Split into five parts, the handbook portrays the evolution of slavery from antiquity to the contemporary era and encourages readers to realise similarities and differences between various manifestations of slavery throughout history. Providing a truly global coverage of slavery, and including thematic injections within each chronological part, this handbook is a comprehensive and transnational resource for all researchers interested in slavery, the history of labour, and anthropology.

The case studies in this Volume 2 book support the premise that organizational policies are what ensure institutionalization and sustainability of futures thinking in corporations, non-profits, and educational institutions. Futures thinking here reflects a systems approach utilized by organizational leaders to observe and interpret signals of change or disruption, identify trigger points of impact, employ foresight methodologies to build scenarios of the future and plan action, and then ultimately translate/actualize the most viable scenarios into successful business outcomes. What is new in the field of futures thinking today is not the general source of change (i.e., technology, globalization, and workforce well-being), but the tumultuous level of disruption occurring due to three phenomena--explosive use of social media, shift in great wealth, and government instability. Scholars and practitioners alike will find the case studies in this book provide nuanced insights into such disruptions, as well as discussion of best practices to ensure successful business solutions.

This edited collection examines the impact of new technologies and new managerial and policy perspectives on entrepreneurial development in Southern Africa, paying particular attention to small and medium sized enterprises, which contribute significantly to GDP and employment, but often find it difficult to survive beyond the first five years. Chapters are divided in two parts, the first covering technological perspectives and the second managerial perspectives. Africa's cultural and geographic diversity is taken into account, with authors from Ghana, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe providing regional case studies and the editors synthesising these discussions in a concluding chapter that touches on sustainability and development to working lives and livelihoods across the region. Exploring critical issues of entrepreneurial human capital development, innovation, technology, legislative frameworks and marketing strategies, this book will be of great interest to researchers, students and policymakers.

This Pivot explores the cultural economy of comedy in the UK, looking specifically at the links between industry practices and structures and who produces comedy in the UK. The research is based on interviews with comedians in the East Midlands; significantly, this demographic has been historically under-researched in studies of precarity, where the East Midlands is typically overlooked in discussions of arts funding and access in favour of a more simplistic north/south divide narrative. Similarly, whilst there has been increased discussion of the precarity of the creative and cultural industries, as well as media articles on the difficulty of breaking into comedy as a member of a marginalised group, there has been relatively little academic research to support this. While Friedman's work in particular has been helpful for understanding the link between comedy producers, class and taste making, there has been less attention paid to the sociologies of work within comedy. This book fillsthese gaps in research by exploring the experiences of comedians in the East Midlands, contributing to the rich body of scholarship on inequality in the cultural industries and promoting a better understanding of the impact of structural inequalities and precarity on access to the cultural industries.

This book analyses the emergence and growth of the creative sector in Naples between the early modern and modern eras, focusing particularly on the development of music markets in the city. From the seventeenth century, Naples became one of the most culturally enriched regions in the Italian peninsula, with internationally known music schools, theatres and opera venues attracting visitors from across Europe in a burgeoning tourist market. This book sheds light on the driving economic factors and political contexts behind this key case study for the early growth of the opera and music sector in Europe. Starting with a discussion of the value of economic history to understanding cultural industries, the chapters approach this analysis through multiple lenses: the formation of human capital as the result of Naples' institutional urban welfare system; the role of cultural consumption as it evolved from a primarily religious activity to growing popular demand; and the rolethat central city authorities played in encouraging cultural activity through private investment and public policy. The book also draws on fascinating archival research to examine the contribution of Naples' music conservatories in the local creative economy. This book is a valuable resource to a broad range of readers, including those working in economic history, tourism history, the history of music and theatre, Italian social history and more.

This book explores the phenomenon of conversion to Shiʿa Islam in Italy. It thoroughly examines the motivations behind this religious transition and scrutinizes the doctrinal characteristics that Shiʿism incorporates thanks to the contributions of Italian converts. The text emphasizes the significance of René Guénon's Traditionalism as a pivotal factor in driving this religious mobility. Additionally, the book delves into the writings of figures such as Julius Evola, who introduced Guénon to Italy, shedding light on Evola's impact on the youth in the post-World War II era. Furthermore, it evaluates the influence of Henry Corbin on this spiritual journey. To realize this study, between 2018 and 2023, Minoo Mirshahvalad employed multidisciplinary methods that integrated sociology and history.

This book investigates the origins and development of the theory of four stages of liberation in Pāli literature. This theory is an important soteriological cartography in early Buddhism, particularly Theravāda Buddhism. Amrita Nanda challenges the traditional interpretation of the four stages by recognizing the impact of the changing socio-religious factors on the theory's origins and subsequent development. Based primarily on the Pali literary sources, this study utilizes sometimes-overlooked aspects of these texts. This book first traces the origins of each stage individually; then, it traces the formation of the theory and its subsequent development.

This book presents original qualitative research on the lives, identities, and experiences of queer Canadian Muslims and is the largest study to date on this population. Presented through a queer intersectional framework, the volume contains core evidence-based chapters on the lived experience, as well as the transnational politics of Islamophobia and LGBTQ+ rights promotion, the research on Muslim attitudes to queer issues, and the representations of queer Muslim issues within Canada. Key issues covered include: queer Muslim organizing, how queer Muslims reconcile faith, sexuality and gender identity through affirmative and liberatory frameworks and actions, how Muslims in Canada respond to sexual and gender diversity. The contributors also lay out future academic and research possibilities for further investigation and for the development of equity practices for recognizing and challenging the oppressions suffered by queer Muslims, addressing the discussion to queer Muslims as well as mainstream LGBTQ+ groups and mainstream Muslim groups.

The main objective of this book is to add, from a humanist perspective, new interdisciplinary insights and research results to the current academic debate on aging. The collection aims to enhance and complement the predominantly biomedical and sociological debates and provide a more comprehensive and highly topical view on aging and old age. By purveying a meaning-in-life perspective to the current debate we want to enrich and to deepen the research on aging, thus aspiring to an ideal of meaningful aging. The starting point of this book is a humanistic meaning frame for addressing basic needs of a meaningful existence, such as having goals in life, a sense of self-worth, connectedness with others, moral justification, a certain degree of understanding (comprehensibility), direction and influence with a view to cohesion in life, and not in the least place: (living) pleasure or excitement. Taken together, the essays show that experiencing a meaningful life contributes to one's mentalresilience, conceived as the ability to realize a humane individuality (autonomy) in thinking and acting in situations of adversity and vulnerability, particularly those faced by older people.

This book seeks to respond to these needs and focuses on the complexity, multiplicity, intersectionality, and dynamism of cultures with an approach that focuses on critical and emancipatory peacebuilding; values local and everyday peacebuilding; includes diverse voices; and draws on a narrative approach to link the personal and political. There is a pressing need for research, theory-building, teaching, and practice in how we work to resolve conflict and violence between identity groups--whether that identity is based on perceptions of ethnicity, gender, "race," class, or political affiliation. The objective of this book project is to create a text that brings together emerging voices in the field of peace and conflict studies and that links major themes from the social sciences to peace and conflict studies theory-building, research, and practice. It is relevant to students, educators, and practitioners in the fields of peace and conflict studies, cultural studies, sociology, and related disciplines.

This book offers theoretical and empirical contributions on the approaches, policies, practices concerning the inclusion of migrants through social entrepreneurship. Grounded in a multi-disciplinary approach and with a special focus on the Adriatic-Ionian region, the book offers a debate on the antecedents, processes and outcomes of social entrepreneurship and migrants' inclusion, describing some innovative initiatives and their potential transferability in other contexts. The Adriatic-Ionian macro-region represents an interesting yet overlooked area of research, characterized by evolving migration and inclusion policies, together with specific legislation and reforms for social entrepreneurship. The migration dynamics along the so-called Balkan Route confer to this macro-region strong political relevance in the field of security and migration management. Contributing to the targets of SDG 8, the book contextualizes the opportunities offered by social entrepreneurship as a form of decent work for migrants, and of potential growth driver for local and international territories.

Aldous Huxley's Short Fiction analyzes Huxley's short stories within a modernist context, highlighting that he shared more characteristics with distinguished modernists than is usually believed. The book also explores other features of Huxley's short stories, focusing on themes such as consumerism, mainstream education, shallow intellectualism, women's emancipation, toxic masculinity, and sensational journalism, themes that correspond with both Huxley's time and our world, and position him among the most prophetic authors of the twentieth century. This study demonstrates that Huxley's short fiction can provide answers to questions that remain confusing or partially explained in the research on Huxley's work. It illustrates the constants and changes in Huxley's opinions on organized religion, mysticism, and the relation between sexuality and spirituality, while also clarifying Huxley's political opinion, which is often misunderstood due to his advocacy of pacifism. Finally, the in-depth interpretations of Huxley's short stories reveal the dynamics of his literary style, especially his complex humor and irony, areas he developed more than any other modernist author of short fiction.

This book examines Romania's efforts to consolidate liberal democracy and market economy, as desired by the generation who effected change in 1989 and required by the European Union. The ousting of Nicolae Ceausescu, leader of an autarchic and nationalistic dictatorship, underscored the limitations of politically engineering change when rule of law is weak, institutions are misused, and intolerance and cheating are prevalent. Despite initial hopes, Romania's transition combined progress and stagnation, missed opportunities, detours, unintended consequences, and success. The contributions illustrate the tenuous relationship between continuity and change in a country that is yet to catch up with its neighbors.

This book seeks to generate a theoretical and a reflective framework to re-connect people with culture and spirituality. It seeks to recreate important links between these domains to provide interpretative, foundational, and ethical perspectives. It is distinctive in that it focusses on the challenges that humanity is facing at a cultural, social, moral, and spiritual level. It provides a philosophical understanding of humanity from a humanistic and multidisciplinary perspective (encompassing ethics, language, art/cinema, political, cultural and gender approaches) and offers a variety of ways of how we can rethink our culture and our society for the future.

The United States as Global Liberal Hegemon examines America's role as the global liberal hegemon. Using a historical analysis to understand how the United States came to serve as the world leader, Goldberg argues why the role of a liberal hegemon is needed, whether the United States has the ability to fulfill this role, and what the pitfalls and liabilities of continuing in this role are for the nation. He also considers the impact that this role on the global stage has for the country as well as individual citizens of the United States. Goldberg argues that the United States's geographic location away from strong competitors, it's role as the dominant economy for much of the 20th century, and its political culture of meritocracy all contributed to the United States taking this role in the 1940s. He also argues that the role of liberal hegemon has shifted to include not only being the international policeperson but also to be the world's central banker, a role that at this time only the Unites States can fill.

This volume explores theories and practices of decolonizing education, drawing on international perspectives from scholars across the globe to engage new knowledges and build solidarities across different spaces. Decolonization is an ongoing process in which educators, community members, and practitioners alike have a stake in challenging Eurocentric paradigms and ways of knowing. The book showcases the contributions of praxis-oriented scholars and practitioners who seek to engage in decolonizing praxis that unsettles educational norms, forging new ways of thinking about teaching, learning, and leadership.

This book builds on the success of "Working to Learn" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) by focusing on the future of work and how young people, especially low-income young people and young people of color, are pursuing college and career goals through work-based learning experiences, yet encountering an increasingly racially and socioeconomically stratified labor market and educational system. Through policy analysis and case studies both from US and abroad, the authors will present the argument for why these models warrant revisitation, innovation, and investment, and elevate profiles of young workers, nonprofits, corporate partners, and governments today who are using work opportunities to open doors once closed.

This book compares the systems of exploitative race relations associated with two racist regimes - slavery in the British colonial Caribbean and forced labour in the Holocaust in Germany and the Nazi-occupied lands in Europe. Although each system was introduced by expansionist European powers, through racist enslavement, transportation, dehumanisation and the destruction of human life, the construction and operation of sugar plantations by African and Creole slave labour for the export of tropical products in the period 1650 to 1838 was different from the mass murder of Jewish and Gypsy civilians with the intention of creating a forced-labour regime and colonial-style ethnic cleansing during the Second World War.Though differentiated in time and place, the four principal common denominators that make feasible the detailed comparison of British Caribbean slavery and the Holocaust in Europe are racism, colonialism/occupation, slavery/forced labour, and death. Juxtaposition of these two companion studies will reveal comparisons and contrasts previously unexplored in the field of race relations under colonialism and the Holocaust. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of the social sciences and history, particularly those with an engagement with slavery and forced labour, the sociology of race and racism, and Holocaust studies.

This book explores the writing of church history during the early Byzantine period, reconsidering the evidence for the nature and authorship of a hypothetical 'Arian' source for many surviving medieval histories of the fourth century. It considers surviving ecclesiastical histories written between the fifth and early thirteenth centuries to draw out commonalities apparently owed to this 'lost' source and discusses attempts by modern historians to reconstruct it. In doing so, it convincingly argues that this 'Arian' material likely belongs not to one work, but three: two chronicles and a martyrology. This book therefore provides a vital reassessment of fourth-century Christian historiography, as well as important insights on chronicle writing in the Middle Ages.

Drawing on extensive research from a 14-month ethnographic study, this book delves into the intricate lives of married women in a rural Sinhala village in Sri Lanka. It explores their efforts to uphold community expectations while employing innovative and strategic approaches to navigate ruptures within their marital journeys. The chapters progress by dissecting the pivotal gender roles assumed by women in building happy marriages, establishing stable households, cultivating harmonious homes, and achieving effective household management. At the heart of this narrative is the concept of 'homemaking, ' which symbolises not only family life but also social stature. The text discusses how the categorisation of homes as 'good' or 'bad' relies on women's conscientious adherence to gender norms. Notably, the author also looks at the unique practice of married women resorting to sorcery as a means to mitigate the challenges stemming from marital disruptions while remaining aligned with societal gender expectations. Throughout, chapters systematically investigate the spectrum of opportunities available to these women, alongside the constraints they encounter, as they endeavour to cultivate successful marriages. Overall, the book provides profound insights into the complex interplay of married life, spotlighting women's astute negotiations of their roles and adept management of ruptures within the framework of established gender norms.This book will be of interest to scholars in Gender Studies, Anthropology, Family Studies, and South Asian Studies.

How to Build a Human Brain takes a developmental approach to understanding brain structure and function. It guides readers through the evolution of the human brain, from its cellular building blocks, up to hind brain structures and functions, and through to neocortex and associated functions. In doing so, it enables students to develop a comprehensive knowledge of the relationship between brain networks and functions, neural underpinnings of functional problems seen after neuropathology, and neuroanatomy.Written in an engaging style, each chapter follows a blueprint format with subsections on issues like 'damage and repair' and 'faulty wiring' as the brain is 'built' across the course of the book. The author includes illustrative case studies and entertaining fast fact boxes to highlight the real-word relevance of each brain structure being examined. This textbook offers an accessible reference for students of neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, neuropsychology, and biological psychology.

Essays on Music, Adolescence, and Identity: The Adolescentia Project explores music consumption, self-discovery, media culture, and memory through autoethnographic essays on albums we loved during adolescence covering three decades (1980-2010) as the music industry and socio-cultural identity landscapes in the United States significantly changed. The collection advances our understanding of music culture, identity, and adolescence in three ways. First, by expanding our knowledge of the shifting relationship between music and identity by using historical methods to examine changes in music culture and socio-cultural landscapes from 1980 to 2010. Second, by interrogating the role of musical memory and the act of cultural remembering by including autoethnographic reflective essays charting contributors' experiences of understanding and performing self through a particularly formative album of their adolescence. And third, by critiquing the act of music consumption in relation to identity construction and cultural remembering. By examining these influential albums, we can better understand the role of popular culture in identity construction and the long-term impact of these formative musical experiences.

The onset of the pandemic has placed a greater emphasis on mental health, with many organizations making it a business imperative to ensure that employees are fully supported. Research on mental health in the workplace continues to grow, though there is a dearth of scholarly writings taking a micro approach to understanding the impact of negative work environments. This three-book series explores issues related to personality disorders and work-related suicides and the effect on employees and leaders. This volume focuses on the harmful effects of psychopathy in the workplace. The book is divided into three sections: defining psychopathy, identifying it through its effects on workplace productivity and performance, and understanding how that knowledge can limit its effect. With chapter contributions from authors around the world, this collection offers global perspectives on the harmful role that psychopathy can play in the workplace. Tackling topics such as abusive supervision and workplace bullying, this book will advance scholarship related to employee well-being, employee engagement, and counterproductive workplace behaviors.