In this book, Mark K. George argues that the goal of Deuteronomy is not merely to provide ancient Judah with another set of laws but to write "Israel" itself into existence. He reads Deuteronomy as a manual for self-definition with two key aspects: being an Israelite means recognizing oneself as a subject under Yahweh's control, and Deuteronomy is the handbook of techniques by which one monitors oneself to become Israel.

Scholars have acknowledged the influence of certain literary features of ancient Assyrian imperial treaties on Deuteronomy. In this book, George argues that the key to both Deuteronomy and Assyrian rituals of control is their monitoring mechanism, not only speaking to their audiences but also providing them with new ways to understand themselves and behave. He suggests that Deuteronomy redefines not only Israel but also Yahweh himself according to an Assyrian imperial model-with Israel as the subject, God as a distant imperial ruler, and the text itself as a local monitor. In showing this, he extends the insights of Michel Foucault, who urged us to view power not merely as something imposed from above by force, but as something that can entwine and shape us from below.

This book provides an invaluable exploration of Deuteronomy, of interest to scholars and students working on Deuteronomy itself and biblical studies more generally, as well as on questions of ancient politics and governmentality, Foucault studies, and the history and material culture of the Ancient Near East.

The book is a unique blend of quantitative research and statistical analysis using R. Lucidly written, it covers a range of statistical techniques applicable to cross-sectional data in the backdrop of quantitative research and survey research. In addition to the basic concepts, this book also explores advanced multivariate statistics topics like principal components analysis, cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling and more.

This volume begins with an introduction to R, RStudio and gives a step-by-step approach to installation and usage. The chapters on quantitative data and sampling build the background for understanding quantitative and survey research. It gradually builds the foundations into descriptive and inferential statistics, while simultaneously providing and describing the R code as well as the interpretation of the output generated by executing that R code. This gives the reader clarity in both the techniques as well as the R code. Many examples relevant to different statistical analyses make the book interesting to readers across different disciplines.

The book will be useful to the students, researchers and teachers of Economics, Psychology, Management, Data Science, Education, and other social science disciplines. Students at undergraduate and graduate level, doctoral, post-doctoral and professional researchers, as well as teachers of research methodology and quantitative techniques will find this book a handy resource for using R for quantitative research.

This volume examines the enduring entanglement of erotic desire with political, cultural, and historical change. Bringing together interdisciplinary scholarship, it explores how sex, sexuality, and eroticism both shape and are shaped by historical narratives, across diverse periods, geographies, and media. The chapters address secrecy, colonial and imperial regimes, regulation, and acts of resistance, revealing how the erotic functions as a site of power, negotiation, and subversion. Case studies range from historical correspondence and colonial medical debates to queer romance, feminist art, and contemporary queer theory, engaging with contexts from People's Poland to post-independence Lithuania, Thatcher-era Britain, and beyond.

This book will be of value to scholars and students of history, literary and cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, art history, and queer theory. Its multidisciplinary approach offers both specific historical insights and broader methodological reflections on how the study of eroticism can illuminate the workings of power and resistance. By foregrounding the erotic as a dynamic historical force, the volume invites readers to reconsider the intimate links between pleasure, politics, and the past, and to see sexuality as central to understanding human experience across time.

This book explores the ways in which educators in media programs at colleges and universities can work toward decolonizing the curriculum and implementing necessary practices of media literacy to help students become more responsible media practitioners.

Taking an autoethnographic approach and reflecting on their experiences as a student and educator with an intersectional identity, the author proposes that for media education to instil positive change in the media industry, there must be a more direct objective of decolonizing media education. Looking specifically at how media education programs lack an understanding of how to make their courses more equitable, they propose an ambitious start to decolonize media education: by dismantling current classroom norms and rebuilding from the perspective of performance, as it is connected to the bodies of those in the classroom and the field, we can build a critical media literacy framework to make education equitable.

This insightful book will support media educators in higher education, as well as k-12 media educators, instructional designers, and media researchers.

Through an international cohort of contributors, this book examines the rich and diverse strands of artistic and cultural production from the nineteenth century to the present day that contribute to elastic and ever-expanding histories of feminist art.

The contributions facilitate an understanding of the complex histories of feminist art, material, and cultural production for both new and inveterate students and scholars, while complicating feminist art's canonization by engaging questions and issues of history-writing itself. An implicit concern throughout the volume is how feminist art history has both addressed and, at times, been complicit in its own systems of exclusion. Foregrounding political and social movements and developments in related fields such as critical race studies, Indigenous studies, trans studies, disability studies, and critical ethnic studies in recent decades, this volume looks beyond the canonical lineage of feminist art history toward an expansive view of feminist art's pasts, pitfalls, and potentials. The book also goes beyond the traditional visual arts to consider vernacular and material cultures in our increasingly visually oriented world (which encompasses the social media and citizen journalism accelerated in the COVID era).

The book will be of interest to scholars and students working in art history and gender studies.

Pleasure in Birth: Wellbeing, Praxis, and Reproductive Justice explores how birthing people experience pleasure in childbirth, challenging dominant narratives that equate birth solely with pain and suffering.

Drawing on The Birth Pleasure Study-the first rigorous mixed-methods research of its kind-this book presents rich data from 23 interviews covering 43 birth experiences across diverse racial, ethnic, gender, and socio- economic backgrounds. The book weaves experiential accounts with critical analysis to examine how cultural beliefs shape birth experiences and reinforce the maternal health crisis, particularly in the US. By introducing the Pleasure-Forward Birth Model, the book reimagines childbirth as a site of possibility, resilience, and joy, pushing back against the hyper-medicalized and fear-driven status quo.

Pleasure in Birth: Wellbeing, Praxis, and Reproductive Justice is ideal for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and professional birth workers in the social and medical sciences, especially those interested in reproductive justice, maternal health, and cultural approaches to childbirth.

Sh'i Clerical Authority in Iraq: The Neo-Traditional Marji'yya and the Transformation of Political Order provides the first comprehensive analysis of the evolving relationship between Shi'i religious authority and the state in Iraq through a distinctive historical sociology framework that illuminates structural and contextual transformations.

Spanning decades of complex interaction, it examines the often tense coexistence and rivalry between the state apparatus and the transnational Shi'i Marji'iyya, revealing how their relationship has been fundamentally reshaped by broader historical processes. Through meticulously researched case studies, the volume traces how state-building initiatives, secularization efforts, and shifting conceptions of national community have continuously challenged and reconfigured traditional religious authority. The analysis centers on the watershed moment of 2003, when Saddam Hussein's authoritarian regime collapsed, creating space for Shi'i religious and Islamist actors to emerge as significant political forces amid weakening central authority and a shift from homogenization to communitarianism as the organizing principle of political community. The author introduces the innovative concept of "neo-traditional Marji'iyya" to theorize the transformation in the public presence, political agency, and institutional configuration of Shi'i religious authority in contemporary Iraq.

A significant contribution to the fields of Middle Eastern studies, political theology, and state-religion relations, this book offers essential insights for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand the complex interplay between religious institutions and political power in post-authoritarian contexts and fragile states.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

This book pays respect to different embodiments of Black editors in the Atlantic world, highlighting that from North to South America to Great Britain they occupied and promoted multifaceted roles, agendas, and poieses during a transformative period in the Atlantic world, the long nineteenth century. Black people's contributions to print ventures have been constant and manifold across the Atlantic world during the past centuries. If enslavement and forced labor dictated their involvement in many instances, Black people from early on also adopted the roles of authors, contributors, subscribers, and, notably, editors of different print materials. Through careful historical analysis, this volume illuminates the diverse strategies, networks, and intellectual contributions of these editors who navigated complex social and political landscapes while advancing their communities through print culture.

Black Editorship in the Early Atlantic World is essential reading for scholars and students of Black Atlantic studies, print culture history, nineteenth-century literature, journalism history, and those interested in the intellectual and cultural contributions of Black communities during a pivotal era of global transformation.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Atlantic Studies.

This book is the first written history of the development of African dance in the UK covering the last 60 years of the 20th century.

This study introduces a parallel concept within the British and European exploitative 'triangular slave trade', by showing how powerful cultural heritage circles were being nurtured to enrich popular culture globally. Of necessity therefore, the reader is introduced to the continent of Africa and their religious principles and practices; the Caribbean and the creolisation of African culture and finally to the UK, where continental Africans met kith and kin from the Caribbean and distilled British African dance. Information relating to key individuals (e.g., Berto Pasuka, Boscoe Holder, Allister Bain, Jeanette Springer, George Dzikunu, Peter Badejo, Barry Anderson, Chester Morrison, Angela Anderson, Beverley Glean, Greta Mendez, H. Patten, Hermin McIntosh and Jackie Guy) who developed the infrastructure to underpin African dance development over those decades is acknowledged and explored. The final section, Women pioneers - In Their Own Words - facilitates Lorna, Angela and Pauline Anderson (Ekome), Patricia Donaldson (Mystic & The Israelites and Kokuma), Beverley Glean (Irie! dance theatre), Greta Mendez (MAAS Movers) and Judith Palmer (Afrikan Calabash and Adzido) to share their personal journeys in African dance and the significant contribution they made within the Dance Movement.

This study is a valuable resource for students and scholars in performance studies and dance studies.

This work pioneers the concept of "cultural self-awareness" in social psychology by moving beyond "WEIRD psychology" to examine the psychological transformations of Chinese society during rapid modernization. The book accomplishes this through unique studies on symbolic boundaries, policy processes, and mentality maps.

Focusing on the intersection of social psychology and religious studies, the book explores cultural awareness and identity in the context of modern pressures. Through compelling case studies, particularly those involving social identity events and diverse religious groups, it reveals the complexities of contemporary China. Integrating sociological perspectives and theoretical exploration within transitional psychology, the book demonstrates how social psychology provides vital tools for understanding behavior in transitional societies. While deeply rooted in the Chinese experience, its innovative concepts and methodologies offer universally relevant insights for interpreting similar global dynamics.

This book is essential reading for students and scholars of social psychology, cultural studies, sociology, and religious studies, as well as for professionals interested in China or societal transitions. Its accessible approach also benefits librarians, publishers, and policymakers seeking profound analyses of modern societal change.

Ancient Lives is an engaging and accessible textbook that introduces complete beginners to the fascinating worlds of archaeology and prehistory through sites of key significance and the world's first civilizations.

Opening with an introduction to the basic principles, methods, and theoretical approaches of archaeology, the book then provides a summary of world prehistory from a global perspective, exploring human origins and the reality of life in the prehistoric world. Later chapters explore the development of agriculture and animal domestication, and the emergence of cities and state-level societies across the globe. The new edition updates and reflects the latest thinking through numerous updates of case studies, discoveries, and advances in methods and theory. In addition to comprehensive revisions throughout the book, new sections on the relevance of archaeology to contemporary society and issues are included.

Ancient Lives continues to be a comprehensive and essential introduction to archaeology and is an ideal textbook for students studying archaeology and prehistory for the first time.

This book engages in the stream of transnational migration studies by drawing on an empirical examination of the ties that Tunisian migrants and their descendants, living in both northern and southern Italy, maintain with their country of origin.

Through the unique application of Pierre Bourdieu's theoretical framework to the study of transnationality, the book demonstrates how transnationality can be understood in terms of practice - or as the actualisation of a habitus generated in relation to the social position of the agents, through a constant dialectic between interiority and exteriority. Rather than engaging with selected concepts in isolation, the work employs Bourdieu's entire framework to develop a holistic interpretation of the transnational experience, where objective and subjective dimensions are intimately intertwined, ultimately leading to a praxeological approach to the analysis of migratory transnationality.

Towards Transnationality as Practice addresses a crucial gap in transnational migration studies, bringing a deeper understanding of the modalities through which transnationality is practised. It will appeal to scholars, researchers and advanced students with interests in migration and diaspora, transnationalism, cross-Mediterranean migration, social space, and belonging.

This book explores the narrative of education being in a state of perpetual crisis and the motivations behind the historical and contemporary tendency to exploit the same. Written as a call for greater media literacy, the book recognizes how and when "solutions" to the oft-acknowledged educational crises fail to address root causes, which ends up only maintaining the status quo.

The chapters of the book examine how the notion of education being in a perpetual state of crisis is often underpinned by a lack of funding, cherry-picking of data, ideological imperatives, the fashioning of public opinion as amorphous, or simple incompetence. Offering real-world solutions using international examples from Japan, India, Sweden, Russia, South Korea, and more, explained through robust philosophical conceptions, the author advocates for skepticism and epistemic humility as a key component in education. The book ultimately calls for people to reclaim the agency they have collectively surrendered in face of these crises and emphasizes on forging a new path that prioritizes forward-thinking movements.

This book will be of value to academics, postgraduates, and scholars of education interested in a solution-centric reorientation of the ongoing narrative and notions of education.

Using Rubrics for Teaching and Learning offers practical, evidence-based ideas for how rubrics can serve the multifaceted needs of students. Research shows that, under the right conditions, rubrics can promote learning, scaffold effective peer and self-assessment, and even support self-regulated learning, while also expediting an informative grading process. Built on four principles of effective application, this accessible book posits that rubrics must be developmentally and pedagogically appropriate, illuminate the learning goals, enable constructive feedback, and produce fair grades. Critiques of common shortcomings in rubric design and implementation offer guidance for positive, purposeful classroom experiences. Pre- and in-service teachers who read this book will come away with skills in using rubrics to support learning.

This book takes the complicated subject of contracting and explores it in depth, providing coaches and readers with insights into the psychology of containment and how to contract in a way that enables trust and accelerated growth, introducing a newly developed practitioner model named the 8Ps Platform.

Structured around the 8P Platform (Purpose, People, Professional, Philosophy, Process, Practicalities, Psychological, and Personal), the book breaks down the complexities of contracting while retaining the depth practitioners need across diverse settings. Each aspect of the model is illustrated through case studies and practitioner quotes, with additional guidance from the PROP scaffolding (Position, Reinforce, Outline, Personalise) that makes challenging conversations more accessible. Drawing on academic research and real-world practice, the author shows how effective contracting prevents ethical pitfalls, manages expectations, and creates the conditions for meaningful development work.

Offering an in-depth exploration of contracting for containment, this book is an essential reference for coaches, mentors, supervisors, and professionals in organisation and leadership development.

A Psychoanalysis Influenced by Dissidence, Decoloniality, and Feminism analyzes the intersection of psychoanalysis with feminisms, decolonial theories, philosophy and queer theory.

Fernando Barrios asks key questions such as: Is psychoanalysis a Eurocentric invention based on a colonial logos, and is there room for anything else? What can psychoanalysis say about the racialisation of bodies, poverty, and class? What can it say not only about the subjective effects of systems of oppression but also about the very production of subjectivity within them? Barrios considers texts and authors who rarely meet in dialogue - Indigenous, Chicano, and border feminisms, Jean Genet and authors of the anti-social turn in the queer field, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan in tension with Monique Wittig and Jack Halberstam, Paul B. Preciado and Isabelle Stengers, Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, the ontological turn and the affective turn - generating a field of productive tension. Through these cross-readings, the book examines the effects of a psychoanalysis that allows itself to be affected by contemporary discourses and practices in a situated manner.

A Psychoanalysis Influenced by Dissidence, Decoloniality, and Feminism will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, and to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic and Lacanian studies, feminisms, queer theory, critical theory, and decolonial theories.

Circulating Subjects investigates the migration of women abroad for sex work from the 1880s through the 1930s, which Russian feminists, liberal jurists, and imperial bureaucrats worked together to define and criminalize as "white slavery." As Circulating Subjects reveals, white slavery became a powerful tool of border control for the Russian Empire, later the Soviet Union, as it played a central role in shaping a global campaign against sex trafficking.

Philippa Hetherington explores how a paternalistic desire to protect women underwrote the expansion of state power, linking gender, sexuality, and migration to the broader politics of sovereignty. Through vivid archival research spanning Odessa, Istanbul, and Geneva, Hetherington follows the development of Russian and Soviet efforts against sex trafficking across legal, diplomatic, and carceral domains. She draws on police files, consular reports, and the records of early feminist and humanitarian organizations to show how anti-trafficking campaigns, often led by people who considered themselves progressive, ultimately reinforced systems of surveillance and repression. Her framing of the "sex/migration nexus" captures how trafficking became a flexible label used to police the movements of entire populations.

Circulating Subjects examines how trafficking was constructed, debated, and institutionalized. Hetherington's account offers critical insight into how moral panic becomes policy and how states mobilize concern for women to reinforce their power. For readers interested in gender, migration, and global law, this book illuminates a past that echoes in the ways we police borders today.