This book explores the role of algorithmic media services (e.g. Instagram, Google, Twitter/X, TikTok) in mass communication. It provides empirical analyses of these media as digital environments which shape news distribution, advertising practices, and interpersonal communication. Drawing on interdisciplinary research from media studies, computer science, and communication, the book separates evidence-based insights from widespread "folk theories" about big tech companies and their role in society. By focusing on structural changes introduced by algorithmic mediation, this work contributes to ongoing discussions about digital literacy, regulation of big tech, and the future of democratic discourse. The structural focus also provides theoretical insights regarding dispersed gatekeeping roles in algorithmic media environments, the communication dynamics surrounding enshittification, and emerging forms of digital capital in the age of "influencers." Overall, the book offers a pragmatic perspective toward the rapidly-evolving digital communication environment, emphasizing human agency and the potential for more purposeful engagement with algorithmic media.

This book offers a deep exploration of recent rural land reform within China, focusing on how a central-initiated policy experimentation has played out at the county-level. Through the lens of urban theories, including local governments' behavior, state rescaling, and policy entrepreneur, it reveals the dynamics of this sensitive and debated reform practice. Drawing on first-hand interviews with key officials across provincial, prefectural, county, and village levels, this study provides valuable insights into the mechanisms of policy-making and implementation along the urban hierarchy. Ideal for students and researchers in urban studies and land resource management, this book illuminates current land reform practices in China while offering a window into the complex interactions and political negotiations among local governments across various administrative layers.

While scientific consensus on climate change is widely accepted, political responses to the crisis remain slow and inadequate. Current approaches often rely on incremental reforms or technological fixes, while the language of "sustainability" has failed to inspire broad democratic action. These limits stem from deep-seated assumptions-human exceptionalism, capitalist growth, and the idea that ecosystems are mere "resources." As climate disruption accelerates, we need a new way of thinking that moves beyond these constraints and sparks collective imagination.

Green Abolitionism offers a new approach. Drawing on abolitionist traditions and ecological economics, Christopher C. Robinson introduces "green abolitionism" as a framework for reimagining environmental politics around freedom rather than sustainability. Across nine engaging lectures, Robinson blends political theory, ecological critique, and stories of activism to show how anti-capitalist, democratic strategies can transform our relationship to the planet. Accessible yet thought-provoking, Green Abolitionism invites readers to see climate action not as technical adjustment but as a bold, abolitionist project-one that demands creativity, justice, and hope.

This volume collects chapters written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Philip K. Dick's transformative 1974 mystical experiences, through which he ultimately contextualized his influential and posthumously much-adapted science-fiction and speculative fiction.
Contributing authors here examine the enduring significance of Philip K. Dick and his work, drawing on diverse scholarly perspectives that engage seriously with his self-understanding as Christian, gnostic, mystic, and theologian. Including contextual introduction and overviews, individual chapters focusing on specific works of PKD (as well as some of their adaptations), critical analysis, and examination of their significance within the life and worldview of PKD and his milieu, this collection continues foundational work that has characterized PKD's contributions to science fiction and speculative fiction as significant to its increasingly gnostic trajectory, as well as opening new avenues of exploration that situates PKD's impact within the broader appeal of esoteric worldviews as they have continued to propagate through the counterculture into the mainstream. PKD's commitment and dedication to Christian belief, faith, and practice, as well as Christian gnosis and mystical experience, are foci of particular interest, and this volume challenges the frequent misconception of PKD as exclusively relevant to Gnostic counter-cultural mysticism. Instead, his esoteric Christian gnosis is identified and analyzed as the basis of his ultimately moral and consistently humanistic theology.

This book argues that the cause of liturgical pluralism and disunity on the one hand and the path to unity in liturgy on the other is based on the choice taken between two conflicting interpretations of the divine presence.

The transubstantiation hypothesis championed by the Sacramental model, tacitly accepted by the Kerygmatic model, and strongly encouraged by the Charismatic model has produced conflicting liturgical practices resulting in disunity. The Biblical Sanctuary model applies a phenomenological exegesis to selected Old and New Testament passages showing that the Biblical view of the divine presence temporally grounds the relationship between all of the components of liturgy and by doing so points to a unified liturgy.

This volume presents emerging scholarly perspectives on transcultural entanglements from the fields of Intercultural Theology, Religious Studies, and related disciplines. The anthology offers novel insights for the young discipline of Intercultural Theology, introducing innovative historiographical, methodological, theoretical, and empirical approaches that accentuate its transdisciplinary and global-local dynamics. The authors, all early career researchers, provide critical evaluations of the current state of the discipline, highlight unresolved issues, and identify areas that have been under-researched. By emphasizing power dynamics, marginalization, and decolonization, their contributions address central debates in the fields of the historiography of missions, global entanglements, eco-religion, lived religion, and transcultural encounters.

This open access book explores the history and historiography of the Heresy of the Free Spirit, the name given to a group of individuals in the late Middle Ages who believed that their spiritual perfection had reached such a state that they were unable to sin. This book explores the historiography of this heresy, revealing how and why an idea of a distinct social movement was constructed and perpetuated across the centuries, from the mid-thirteenth to the twentieth century. It shows how this heretical sect became entangled with both the concept and terminology of another medieval religious movement, the beguines and beghards. Including detailed analysis and contextualization of both medieval inquisitorial sources and modern historiography, the author investigates how historical interpretations of this so-called sect have been influenced by the methods and practices of historians from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.

The political struggle that reshaped the Roman Republic in the 70s BCE is reinterpreted here from a new perspective. The analysis argues that the followers of Q. Sertorius forged a coherent movement for political reform that actively challenged the Sullan regime across several Roman provinces, including Hispania Ulterior, Hispania Citerior, and Asia.

By integrating literary, epigraphic, numismatic, and archaeological evidence, the study reconstructs the political discourse developed by this group of exiles engaged in a Republican civil war. A central focus lies on the Sertorian glandes inscriptae, inscribed lead slingshots from Hispania bearing formulas such as Q. Sertorius proconsul on the obverse and values including ius, pietas, fides, veritas, and spes, alongside symbols such as fasces, palm branches, anchors, and rudders. These messages reveal a shared vocabulary of legality, moral authority, and imperial projection of power. Through this material, the book demonstrates the existence of two competing Republics, one ruled by the Sullani, the other by the Sertorians, contesting hegemony across the Mediterranean basin. It will appeal to scholars of Roman civil wars, provincial history, political language and symbolism, as well as material culture.

Die Verehrung der Heiligen und ihrer Reliquien erlangte im Mittelalter grosse Bedeutung. Immer wieder wurden dabei unentdeckte Graeber von Heiligen oder Reliquien aufgefunden.

Diese Studie stellt Erzaehlungen von ueber einhundert solcher Auffindungen vor. Die Texte berichten von Vorgaengen, die sich zwischen dem 4. Jahrhundert, als Damasus von Rom und Ambrosius von Mailand die ersten Reliquien im lateinischen Westen auffanden, und dem Jahr 1200 ereignet haben sollen. Sie stammen aus dem karolingisch-fraenkischen Raum in seiner groessten Ausdehnung. Die Arbeit zeigt die breite Vielfalt der Erzaehlkontexte, narrativen Strategien, Topoi, Intentionen der Verfasser und funktionalen Zusammenhaenge auf. Sie widerlegt die aeltere Einschaetzung, dass den ?Inventiones‘ ein einheitliches Muster und aehnliche Funktionen zugrunde laegen.

Work shouldn't be this hard-or this unfulfilling. Burnout, low wages, gig labor, layoffs, and the struggle to balance purpose with pay have made many of us question what work is, and what it could be--and should be.
Ethicist Kate Ward offers a fresh, timely perspective rooted in Catholic social teaching. She explores work not only as a paid job but as purposeful human activity, examining it through five lenses: purpose, care, food, art, and pay. Caregiving, often undervalued yet essential to every life, reminds us that work extends beyond the workplace. Food and art reveal how creative and repetitive labor shape our satisfaction, meaning, and sense of contribution. And pay exposes the persistent gaps between society's valuation of labor and the real costs of living.
Ward draws on the Church's centuries-long reflection on work, justice, and human dignity, showing how its teachings speak directly to the frustrations and potential of modern labor. This first book devoted to Catholic social thought on work illuminates how communities and societies can better recognize, support, and value meaningful human activity.
Making a Life encourages readers to rethink what work is for, who it serves, and how it can nurture human flourishing. Whether you are a student, a professional, or someone simply seeking more purpose in daily life, Ward provides a compelling roadmap for understanding work as a path to both personal meaning and the common good.

Inter duo Imperia ? zwischen zwei Reichen. So beschreibt Plinius die Lage der Oase Tadmor, deren im griechischen auch als Palmyra bekannte Stadt neben fantastischen Ruinen ein einzigartiges epigraphisches Zeugnis hinterlassen hat: einen Schatz aus mehr als dreitausend Inschriften auf Palmyrenisch, Griechisch und Latein aus der Zeit zwischen 50 vor und 370 nach Christus. So einzigartig wie Lage und Geschichte, so umstritten ist die gesellschaftliche Struktur Palmyras in der Forschung: Handelte es sich um eine griechische Stadt mit Kolonnade, Tempeln, Magistraten und Aemtern? Oder war es eine Ansammlung von polymorphen Staemmen, aeusserlich griechisch, aber innerlich zusammengehalten durch Blutsbande, Fernhandelsertraege und Waffenglueck?

Zur Bearbeitung dieser Fragen geht diese Arbeit von einer umfangreichen Prosopographie aus, die sodann systematisch fuer einzelne Teilbereiche des Palmyrenischen Lebens ausgewertet werden, um Palmyras Institutionen in ihrer ganzen Bandbreite zu beleuchten: Symposien und Staemme, Zolleintreiber und Magistrate, Fernhaendler, Fremde, Nomaden und die Palmyrener der Diaspora.