A theological map of markets as ambiguous-and improvable-moral contexts

Do markets corrupt us, or support our character? They do both, argues Christina McRorie in The World of Markets. She engages empirical research on economic decision-making to identify both the conditions under which markets encourage selfish and opportunistic behaviors and those under which markets do the opposite, encouraging just and even generous actions. This influence over our decisions suggests that markets may also shape our agency itself, over time. How should Christians make theological sense of this?

Highlighting the tensions woven into the theological concept of "the world"-given that it is beloved by God and yet also a dangerous realm of moral darkness-The World of Markets builds a case for viewing markets as ambiguous worlds that mediate both sin and grace in our daily lives by influencing our moral agency. In light of God's own love for the world, it proposes that Christians are called to approach markets with an attitude that balances critique with appreciation and to collaborate with others to make markets more grace-filled contexts. Toward this end, The World of Markets identifies concrete ways that markets can become a world where it is easier to be good.

This book examines the politics of representation in Chinese American literature through cultural history and urban theory. Its central problem: how can Chinese American authors represent their realities when the signs they use have been predetermined by centuries of racist discourse? Popular imaginaries of 'Chinese-ness'-from foodways to 'China-towns'-are sustained by a system of signs that renders 'things-Chinese' exotic, other, and inscrutable, with concrete socio-political consequences for the community's rights and representation.
Early Chinese American writing resisted these discourses through life writing and de-exoticization. Later interventions-such as Chin's hypermasculinized "Chinatown cowboy"-attempted subversion but remained trapped within the same system of signs. The author departs from these approaches by turning to the lived and the everyday. Drawing on Lefebvre's Production of Space, she analyzes Chinatown as a socially produced lived space, reading Jade Snow Wong's "Fifth Chinese Daughter", Shawn Wong's "Homebase" and Fae Myenne Ng's "Bone", and Wayne Wang's "Chan is Missing" as sediments of everyday life that sublate the dominated, mystified spaces of discursive Chinatown.

Tone Roald creates a new foundation for aesthetics by taking seriously real-life experiences with works of art. Relying upon descriptions of experiences with art in the autobiographical and literary texts of St. Augustine, Denis Diderot, Stendahl, Virginia Woolf, and Proust, as well as fifteen-years' worth of interviews with museumgoers about their most intense experiences with visual arts, Roald explores the variety of aesthetic experiences available to us throughout history and articulates why experiences with art remain important today. The book draws upon phenomenological psychology, psychoanalysis, and cultural theory to articulate a taxonomy of basic affective experiences with art. What affect is, what affective experiences with art are like, and what meanings these experiences have for us have been limited in aesthetic theory. Beginning with pleasure, continuing with wonder and resonance, and ending with rapture and serenity, she notably reveals similarities in aesthetic experience across history. Roald's work seeks a democratization of art; not concerned with the "correct interpretation" of the work of art or with idealized responses to art, this eye-opening new approach grants primacy to experience - historical and contemporary - and lays an experiential foundation for the development of a different kind of aesthetic theory.

This book explores digital politics from an African perspective. It sheds light on how digital technologies are reshaping political landscapes across Africa, and examines the implications and analytical consequences. Each chapter focuses on different aspects of political dynamics, navigating the nexus between the analogue and digital worlds.

Drawing on case studies from East, West and South Africa, the book provides in-depth analyses of political mobilisation, digital identification, medical drones, electoral campaigning and the monetisation of digital platforms. Theoretical discussions include African communitarianism, digital indigeneity, democratisation and changes in political discourse.

Based on a comprehensive theoretical framework and grounded in empirical research, this book offers critical reflection and a deeper understanding of digital politics. It will appeal to students, researchers and scholars of African studies, media and digital studies, African politics, political science and area studies, as well as policy-makers interested in a better understanding of digital politics in Africa.

Investigates how discourse spills from language to action, generating, obfuscating, and perpetuating violence while also offering the words, principles, and practices that may interrupt it.

We are continually catching up with and being caught by words, especially words that hurt. These collected essays probe the interaction of violence and words across time, place, and circumstance. Often cited as the core source of violence, religion's capacity for coordinating ideas, symbols, and groups has made it a potent force in the production and deflection of violence. Yet the production of the category "religion" has also contributed to violence; employed to surveille and subjugate targeted populations, "religion" enabled and conveyed colonial domination on a global scale. The claim that religion causes violence has therefore missed a fundamental insight: as a word, "religion" also acts in and on the world. Contributors thus ask: How does persecution become weaponized in and through language? Whose stories are told and who is allowed to speak them? And how do language, symbols, art, activism, and performance find ways to speak back, push back, and offer critique? Theorizing, historicizing, and addressing the violence of words and words of violence, "religion" emerges as critical theory and embodies the very practice of critique.

This book examines the incompatibility of Western democratic models within African socio-political contexts. The book explores historical, cultural, and structural factors that make the wholesale adoption of Western democracy problematic for African nations. It argues that democracy, as practiced in the West, often overlooks indigenous governance systems and traditional values, leading to political instability and governance failures. The work proposes alternative frameworks rooted in African realities, aiming to foster sustainable governance and development. This book's focus is on whether Western liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with the historical, sociocultural, and cultural conditions of Africa. Critics contend that Africa's community ethos and spiritual traditions are incompatible with Western democracy's emphasis on individualism, adversarial politics, and secularism.

A sweeping history of how noncitizen students shaped U.S. universities

From colonial missionary schools to the globalized university of the twentieth century, U.S. higher education has long depended on students who were never meant to belong. Degrees of Empire tells the untold history of how noncitizen students - Indigenous youth, students from Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and others positioned outside the boundaries of citizenship - have been central to the making of American universities and the expansion of U.S. power.

Tracing the intertwined development of higher education, immigration law, and imperial governance from the seventeenth century through the mid-twentieth, Abigail Boggs shows how universities functioned as fundamental instruments of empire. Noncitizen students were recruited and educated under conditions of surveillance, restriction, and impermanence, trained to circulate knowledge, labor, and political ideals on behalf of the United States even as they were denied full political membership and exposed to constant threat of exclusion or deportation.

Drawing on archival records, immigration policy, institutional documents, and the writings of students themselves, Degrees of Empire demonstrates how universities helped produce racial hierarchies, manage populations, and naturalize liberal ideals of merit and mobility. By examining the figure of the noncitizen student genealogically across time, Boggs reveals a fundamental contradiction at the heart of U.S. higher education: institutions that present themselves as open and universal have long relied on selective inclusion structured by race, citizenship, and capital.

At a moment when immigration and higher education are once again sites of intense political struggle, this book offers a powerful rethinking of the American university-not as a neutral engine of opportunity, but as a central technology of empire and a contested space in which alternative futures may yet be imagined.

This book shares the authors' insights into processes of change in education policy research gained during research and supervision work in comparative and international education (CIE). The authors' focus on charting change in education and societies within CIE, and across academic research traditions more widely, is on two salient areas: decolonization in education research approaches and ethnographic approaches to the investigation of social policies in education. This book contributes methodological insights from multiple case studies within international research projects that span work over two decades considering global social policies in Southeast Asian and Pacific contexts. The various chapters address research issues in CIE fieldwork and supervision, with particular attention to collaborative and focused ethnographic approaches based in decolonial and postcolonial perspectives.

This book reimagines career and technical education (CTE) for a rapidly changing global landscape, bridging theory, policy, and practice through cross-cultural insights from China, Russia, and the United States. It reframes CTE as a dynamic, ethical, and inclusive field that must anticipate disruption while embracing innovation. Drawing on qualitative analysis, policy review, and case studies, the book delivers actionable strategies and forward-looking perspectives. It provides a practical roadmap for educators, policymakers, and workforce leaders to redesign CTE in response to artificial intelligence, economic transformation, and cultural change, offering a globally informed framework for preparing the next generation of learners.

This edited volume examines recent trends towards more global and transnational research within the field of the history of science, technology, and medicine. It focuses on three major themes which are especially important to this shift in perspective: firstly, the analysis of local/global relationships; secondly, the back-and-forth movement across borders involving encounters and exchanges; and thirdly, the significance of historical actors who played a crucial role as go-betweens-especially between Europe and other regions of the world. Distinct in its breadth, this volume offers insights into a range of topics drawn from the history of science, technology, and medicine from approximately 1760 to the present.

This book brings together leading global educators who reflect on how their theoretical foundations and professional practice shape their teaching, research, and leadership. Through rich autobiographical narratives, contributors explore identity, purpose, and praxis in transformative learning environments. This volume offers critical insight into the intellectual traditions that continue to shape lifelong learning, adult education, and educator development. The chapters provide a rare, intimate view into how educators evolve through lived experience, critical reflection, and professional praxis. This book serves as a cornerstone for faculty development programs, doctoral seminars, and global dialogues in lifelong learning and academic identity.

This book examines the educational philosophy of William Godwin, who is best known today as the founding father of philosophical anarchism, the husband of the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and the father of Mary Shelley. In the 1790s, after the French Revolution, he was regarded as the leading British political philosopher and novelist of the day. The book argues that his political philosophy can be appreciated best when attention is paid to the core role and nature of education. Graham Nutbrown posits that Godwin's philosophy of education represents a road not taken, an alternative to the road followed by progressive educationalists who looked to Rousseau for inspiration, on the one hand, and to the nineteenth century advocates of state schooling on the other. Godwin's direct influence on educational theory and practice today is limited, yet he anticipated many of its themes and commitments - in relation, for example, to pedagogical and curricular priorities and to educational justice. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduate students of philosophy of education, political philosophy, the long eighteenth century and Romanticism.

This book explores innovative ideas in contemporary psychodrama including ideas in the field of psychodrama online. It sheds light on psychodrama in various contexts and spheres of application across different regions of Russia. Rooted in the pioneering theories of Jacob Levy Moreno and his followers, this book delves into the rich history and theoretical foundations of psychodrama, while showcasing its practical use in clinical psychology, educational settings, and both group and individual psychotherapy. It offers a deep understanding of contemporary Russian psychodrama and its practical applications, providing a broad perspective on this therapeutic method. The chapters explore the seamless connection between theoretical concepts and live psychodrama practice. The book is a vital resource for both learning and professional development. It offers practical strategies and insights to tackle current issues in psychological and social practice. It also shares practical recommendations for addressing modern issues, making it a valuable resource for experienced psychodrama therapists and practitioners, as well as those who are just beginning to familiarize themselves with psychodrama.

There is a view of the Mediterranean steeped in prejudice regarding the oriental backwardness of its peoples. And there is a lyrical, aestheticizing view that envisions the Mediterranean as a sea standing firm against the oceanic power of capitalism. This book is a philosophical guide in order to deconstruct these two forms of 'Mediterraneanism': the first relegates the South of Europe and the whole Mediterranean to a position out of space and time, out of history and out of the West (because history can only be Western history). The second form is the reversal of the first, or the reversal of the stigma. Thus, the critique against the Mediterranean's slowness turns into praise in contrast to the speed of capitalism; emotion and irrationality become features of new non-logocentric philosophies of nature, no longer played out by separating but by blending mind and body, reason and passion. Both of these forms have created an imaginary Mediterranean, ventriloquizing its peoples.

This book traces the forgotten history of a Japanese farm settlement in the Sacramento River delta. Before the wartime removal and incarceration, most West Coast Japanese Americans, including immigrant Issei and US-born Nisei generations, resided in rural agricultural areas. Existing histories of Japanese America have often overlooked this farming aspect of their experience, focusing instead on urban narratives. Centered on the town of Walnut Grove, the "downriver" (kawashimo) settlement was home to Issei farmers, merchants, and laborers who lived alongside their Nisei children in a society characterized by strict racial segregation and landlessness. In the delta basin, a small group of white landowning settlers and corporate interests held power and wealth, shaping social relations and economic opportunities for mostly Asian immigrant settlers and fieldhands.

Combining theories of settler colonialism, racial capitalism, and immigrant transnationalism with the techniques of microhistory, Eiichiro Azuma reveals the intricate dynamics of paternalistic interdependency between white landlords and Japanese tenants, as well as the complex interethnic relations among marginalized immigrant groups in the local segregated society and agricultural economy. Through his careful analysis of heretofore overlooked immigrant vernacular sources and oral histories, Azuma sheds important light on a lesser-known aspect of rural Asian American history through the lens of multiracial entanglements on the ground.

This volume provides a comprehensive examination of the world's vital deltaic systems and discusses the environmental challenges they face. It addresses key issues including delta formation, climate extremes, seawater intrusion, changing crop patterns, land degradation, and the factors threatening the sustainability of deltaic landscapes. The volume explores science-based strategies for the management, restoration, improvement, and reclamation of these highly productive yet vulnerable regions, offering guidance for policymakers and stakeholders committed to their long-term preservation.

The book investigates major delta systems, including the Nile, Mississippi, Coastal Louisiana, and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) deltas, which play crucial roles in global food security and economic development. The volume examines the complex interactions among hydrological processes, land-water dynamics, climate change, and human activities, while also assessing community resilience and diverse resource-management practices from around the world.

The volume emphasizes the importance of safeguarding water, food, and energy resources for the millions of people who depend on deltaic environments and addresses the interconnected challenges of the Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystems (WEFE) nexus. Linking these challenges to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the book offers actionable solutions and practical insights for enhancing delta resilience and sustainability.

This volume serves as an essential resource for policymakers, researchers, earth and environmental scientists, practitioners, and postgraduate students dedicated to understanding and securing the future of the world's deltaic environments.

Rivers, salmon, and dams collide where climate urgency meets justice, memory, and powerHydropower has long defined the Northwest. Massive dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers electrify cities, fuel industrial growth, and help create one of the lowest-carbon electricity systems in the United States. Yet those same structures also flooded Indigenous homelands, transformed river ecosystems, and helped drive the region's iconic salmon toward collapse. Damming Debates examines this profound dilemma at the heart of the region's energy future.

Blending fieldwork, interviews, and historical research, Nik Janos follows the people shaping the hydropower debate-dam operators, policymakers, tribal leaders, environmental advocates, farmers, and river communities-as they wrestle with competing visions. The conflict is often framed as "dams versus fish," but beneath that slogan lies deeper questions about climate responsibility, tribal sovereignty, economic livelihoods, and the meaning of environmental restoration.

Hydropower embodies a central paradox of the clean-energy transition: infrastructure that produces abundant low-carbon electricity can simultaneously perpetuate ecological damage and colonial extraction. In the Northwest, debates about dam removal, salmon recovery, and energy reliability reveal how difficult it is to reconcile climate urgency with justice and ecological repair.

Clear, nuanced, and grounded in voices from across the region, Damming Debates offers an essential guide to a consequential environmental crossroads-and to the broader challenge of building a just energy transition.

This book traces the existence and potential of two concepts rarely considered together: Blackness and World Languages. Each chapter begins with a vignette illustrating how the phenomenon of Black World Languaging has manifested in the author's life. Layering on fresh data to existing research, Austin unpacks the ways that World Languages constructs barriers both to humanizing and Black language practices, or Black World Languaging, despite the latter's alignment with what is called for by national 'foreign' language standards. Each chapter then concludes with reflection questions for various stakeholders across language education. The book will be relevant to language teachers and learners, as well as students and researchers in fields including teacher education, language education, world languages, language policy, and sociolinguistics.