This open access book covers four decades of work by the leading Australian philosopher, mathematician and historian of ideas, James Franklin.

These interlinking essays are connected by a core theme: the necessary structures in reality that allow certain knowledge of absolute truths. Franklin's Aristotelian realist philosophy of mathematics shows how mathematical truths are directly about physical reality, and at the same time certainly and provably true. Ranging from mathematics to evidence evaluation to ethics, his philosophy of probability sees the relation of evidence to hypothesis, such as in science and law, as purely logical, hence necessary.

Across ethics and the philosophy of religion, the theme of necessity is repeated: basic ethical truths (such as the worth of persons and the wrongness of murder) are shown to have the same certainty as mathematics. Focus on the history of ideas connects the philosophical work in the present with the medieval scholastic tradition, which defended similar necessities but is now neglected.

Here is an up-to-date introduction to Franklin's overall perspective. Recalling Western philosophy to its roots, it reveals the way absolute necessities are discoverable across the abstract fields of mathematics, logical evidence and ethics.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

This open access book examines climate policy effort among subnational governments participating in the Under2 Coalition. The central research question investigates whether Under2 Coalition founding members demonstrate greater climate policy effort compared to early joiners (2015-2016) and later joiners (post-2016), and whether these performance differences persist over time. The empirical analysis focuses on subnational governments in five countries that played influential roles in founding and developing the Under2 Coalition: Canada, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The study makes three key contributions to climate governance literature. First, it systematically demonstrates how climate policy effort and leadership dynamics evolve within the Under2 Coalition framework. Second, it provides genuinely comparative insights across two dimensions-comparing different membership categories within countries and across nations. Third, it offers a replicable methodological template for expanding this research approach to other contexts.

By examining quantifiable indicators including policies, policy instruments, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, the book provides valuable insights into how multilevel climate governance can be strengthened and sustained over time, bridging theory and practice in understanding subnational climate action.

This book explores methods of bringing environmentalist, art-based and Indigenous ways of knowing and being into dialogue to improve relationships with the Earth and Her First Peoples.

Geo Takach argues that two of the greatest crimes committed by humanity - environmental devastation and the continued dishonour, dispossession and attempted eradication of Indigenous peoples - are entwined and need to be addressed together. Rooted in communication and cultural studies, this book explores ways to bring environmental, arts-based, and Indigenous ways of knowing and being into dialogue towards improving relationships with the Earth and Her First Peoples.

Through this multimodal exploration, the book builds an analytical foundation for that alliance by considering causes and challenges common to ecological and human colonization. Joined by a generous array of Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge-keepers, artists, scholars and citizens, Takach then demonstrates how we can interweave environmental, arts-based and Indigenous perspectives and collaborative meaning-making in our communications to inspire what he calls environmental conciliation.

This book presents a comprehensive account of how archaeology in Africa evolved, was challenged, and reimagined. Moving from nineteenth-century antiquarianism through independence to today, the book dismantles "dark continent" myths, foregrounds African ways of knowing, and argues for a praxis of archaeologies: multivocal, community-engaged, and methodologically rigorous. Case-led chapters demonstrate how trade, mobility, religion, and the environment have produced diverse African pasts, while contemporary sections address restitution, heritage policy, tourism, and climate risk.

The book begins by clarifying what "Africa" signifies in scholarly and public discourse, then dismantles the enduring "dark continent" trope by setting colonial narratives against African intellectual traditions and evidence. Subsequent chapters track the emergence of archaeology, beginning with collections, amateurs, and missionaries, and progressing to professional excavations, surveys, and archaeological science, as well as the discipline's theoretical shifts, from culture history and processualism to post-processual and postcolonial critique, all examined through African case studies. The closing chapters set out why the past matters now: for identity, education, livelihoods, and environmental stewardship.

Clear prose, focused case studies (spanning deep prehistory to the second-millennium trade horizons), and a continent-wide lens make this volume essential for students and researchers, while its emphasis on ethics and engagement resonates with heritage professionals and the broader public. The result is a clear, compelling account of what African archaeology is, how it differs from older traditions, and why it matters-for scholarship, for heritage stewardship, and for public life.

This open access volume is a call to action and a toolbox for educators, administrators, community engagement specialists, and workforce developers who want to make their course content, institutional commitments, and outreach projects relevant to twenty-first century learners. The book demonstrates the impact a higher education institution, its faculty, and community partners can have through education and action for sustainability. By being a sustainability educator and doing sustainability work, individuals can create living and learning labs that make such interdisciplinary activity integral to campus life and regional engagement. This book answers the United Nations' call to universities to step up and address the most urgent crises of our time by marshalling the resources, wisdom and energy of youth and communities to promote active listening, creative expression, greater climate stability, social equity, and, by extension, peace.

The Fundamental Tendency of Our Times (Tendenza) is the Italian philosopher Emanuele Severino's crucial reflection on modern technology and science, in which he articulates his major contribution to the analysis of Western modernity: the claim that, beginning with Greek civilization, a nihilistic spirit of domination informs our conceptual and social systems.

In this book Severino applies his framework to the geopolitical situation before the fall of the Berlin Wall; yet his insights have continuing relevance in light of the current threat of ecological collapse accelerated by an orientation to the world as an object of exploitation.

Significant for its parallels with, and differences from, Heidegger's discussion of technology, this book's explicit discussion of politics gives essential clarification to Severino's notoriously complex philosophical discourse. With a foreword contextualizing the historical moment of its publication, this first English translation will be invaluable for those interested in understanding the thought of one of the most remarkable Italian theorists of the 20th century.

Published with the kind support of SEPS (Segretariato Europeo per le Pubblicazioni Scientifiche).

An inspiring call to action that links today's climate crisis to Earth's evolution throughout history.

Our Time is a true story. Alasdair Skelton takes readers through time, from the formation of the Earth to the present day, reflecting on the finely tuned climate system and its elegant workings that have made it possible for living things to thrive on Earth for three-and-a-half billion years. Skelton explores what happened when Earth's climate spiraled out of control and how it repaired itself time and time again, and as we plunge into our own chapter of time, he highlights our separation from nature as a root cause of the crisis in which we now find ourselves.

Skelton tells this story as a geologist who was awoken to climate activism by the voices of his own students. He shares a perspective on the climate crisis as a blink of an eye amidst the enormity of time. Concluding with what will happen if we fail to act, and what will happen if we do act, Skelton compares alternative futures and explains how we can still choose a good one. Throughout, and without ever betraying scientific truth, Our Time navigates the narrow path from the inaction of denial and despair to the action of hope. This is a beautiful history of planet Earth and the role humans can play in its evolving climate story.

This book explores the impact of our consumption habits on the planet and how global crises can transform them. Connecting climate policy, sustainable development, and consumer behavior, it offers a clear framework for understanding responsible consumption. Additionally, the book examines EU climate targets, circular economy principles, and the role of digital commerce in shaping environmental outcomes.

Through an analysis of five major global crises ranging from the 1973 oil shock to the current climate emergency, the book illustrates how recent disruptions, such as the pandemic and the Russo-Ukrainian War, can prompt more conscientious choices while revealing the obstacles to lasting change. With real-world case studies and evidence-based policy insights, the book provides researchers, policymakers, and individuals interested in climate action with theoretical insights and practical tools.

An examination of how comics represent, confront, and sometimes perpetuate gendered violence.

Lee Okan argues that comics, with their hybrid form of image and text, possess an ability to express the unspeakable dimensions of trauma while also raising ethical questions about spectatorship, representation, and storytelling. Through close analysis of contemporary and independent comics, as well as anthology collections, this book shows how artists navigate the tension between testimony and spectacle, visibility and exploitation.

Rather than treating comics as an isolated medium, Okan situates these works within broader cultural and media discourses on sexual violence, arguing that comics shape and are shaped by feminist activism, visual culture, and reader response. Sexual Violence in Comics traces how creators reframe the terms of witness, challenge dominant narratives, and reclaim narrative authority, particularly in the wake of the #MeToo movement and beyond.

Through an analysis of vernacular metaphors of food and consumption for religious experience and theology in late-fourteenth and early fifteenth century England, Caleb D. Molstad explores what that language reveals about late-medieval religion during a time of swift religious and linguistic change.


In the move from Latin to Middle English, medieval authors gave vibrant expression to religious ideas through the emerging literary language, a phenomenon Nicholas Watson has termed "vernacular theology." Molstad places focus on poetic and prose works including William Langland's Piers Plowman, Nicholas Love's A Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, and Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection, Pearl-Poet's Cleanness, and A Ladder of Foure Ronges. Alimentary metaphors not only make religious concepts more accessible to a non-educated, lay audience, the language of food and consumption alters the shape of the religious content communicated through it. This book employs cognitive linguistics and food studies to explore the transcultural, sociological, anthropological, and historical significance of the food and foodways behind the metaphorical language and the theological transformations the metaphors produce.

This book explores the multifaceted impact of sports mega-events, from the World Cup to the Olympics, Formula One, and America's Cup. Often celebrated for uniting nations, showcasing culture, and driving economic growth, these events also face increasing scrutiny for their ecological and social consequences. Global Sports Go Green-Or Do They? critically examines claims of environmental responsibility, addressing their effects on ecosystems, communities, and athletes, and interrogates the gap between greenwashing rhetoric, material realities, and grassroots resistance.

The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the sociology of sport, mega-events, sociology of culture and sustainability.

The overlaps between the digital humanities and textual studies-two major scholarly fields which share common interests and methods-still demand further theoretical reflections. This volume brings together an exciting collection of book historians, textual editors, curators, and new media theorists to provide templates for and methodological reflections on how digital textual studies research can be done.

Featuring contributions from a variety of early career and experienced scholars and practitioners, this volume uses case studies and methodological provocations to open up digital textual studies, as well as taking a step back to consider the broader theoretical and pedagogical implications they raise. In doing so, it sets the agenda for pragmatic, digital text-based scholarship and methods, providing useful tools and frameworks for anyone in need of an introduction to textual studies that is grounded in digital research and new media.

Focusing on Southern African perspectives, this groundbreaking book explores how digital spaces offer alternative avenues for queer and trans visual cultures in Africa as manifested and shared through popular social media platforms.

In its analysis of the dynamic intersection of queerness/transness, African identities, and social media, this book sheds light on the complexities, challenges and transformative potential of these emerging digital platforms and cultures. Through close textual and semiotic readings of content on sites like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter), the authors demonstrate how queer and trans content creators harness visuality, performance and algorithmic visibility to challenge heteronormative scripts and narratives of gender and sexuality.

Providing an in-depth analysis of how visual cultures function as archives, sites of protest, and spaces of worldmaking for gender and sexual minorities, this book rejects colonial epistemic frameworks to advance a decolonial queer and trans project which foregrounds fluidity, embodiment and diasporic interconnection. The authors explore this important intervention in African queer studies and digital media scholarship, highlighting both the transformative power and precarity of online queer and trans lives in repressive, unaccommodating and unequal contexts.

A major figure in contemporary Indian and comparative philosophy, Arindam Chakrabarti's work has spanned across disciplines such as metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of language and epistemology. Bringing together an international list of distinguished philosophers, this collection of essays covers key areas of Chakrabarti's work, demonstrating the breadth and depth of his philosophical contributions.

Organised by discipline, each chapter from leading scholars such as Monima Chadha, Stephen Phillips and Timothy Williamson highlights the cross-cultural and borderless nature of philosophical engagement with Chakrabarti's work, concluding with responses from Chakrabarti himself. By illuminating the key elements of his thought and examining the variety of sources he draws upon, from Nyaya and Advaita to Shaivism, this volume features cutting-edge contributions that adopts Chakrabarti's method of synthesizing insights from classical Indian philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy.

The first festschrift dedicated to Chakrabarti, this volume presents his enterprise of bringing Indian and Western philosophical traditions into creative dialogue and celebrates his major contributions in defining the field of cross-cultural philosophy today.

This book investigates the ways in which human reconnection with the ocean and coast is a desire and bid for a reconnection with human sensory experience on Earth. In seeking to examine the sensory, temporal and spiritual human experience of the ocean and coast, as well as the cultural dimensions of those experiences, it seeks to offer deep insight into what it really means to 'rehumanize' ocean and heritage management in Africa, and by extension, the world. The author proposes that rehumanization involves deepening emerging concepts of human-nature interaction; perceiving nature as consisting not only of potentially sentient entities and qualities, but considering that these have their own, not yet fully discernible logics and processes. This book also suggests that the interaction between humans and nature - specifically the ocean - be considered as a locus for a radical decolonization of identity in Africa, since it involves consideration of African connection with the ocean, not via the violent processes of slavery and colonization but via processes of adaptation and co-resilience with nature.

In Nigerian Journalism and the Digital Age, Adeyanju Apejoye, Andrew Danjuma Dewan, and Seamus Simpson explore the extent to which a globally accessible online communication environment may be poised to provide the conditions for Nigeria to adopt, strategically, elements of 21st-century online mass communication with the potential for significant political and social development.
Through critical exposition of the history and character of Nigeria's journey to the digital age the authors demonstrate how provision and consumption of both traditional and digital news have emerged and evolved as a topic of interest within decades of significant change within the Nigerian news media system. Underpinning the volume's analysis is the core contention that the most productive, innovative, and effective media systems are those that position accountability to the public interest as a crucial factor in the functioning of news production and consumption. Apejoye, Dewan, and Simpson's volume constitutes a significant contribution to understanding the Nigerian news media environment in the era of expanding digital information networks and services.

This book is about impossible colours. Impossible colours earn their name because they are forbidden by opponent processing, the orthodox scientific account of how the visual system encodes colour. Yet there are good reasons to think we can and do see such colours. This book investigates two different kinds of impossible colours. First, there are reddish greens and yellowish blues, which are often thought to be impossible to see or even conceive. A range of evidence is given here that shows this to be false - including colour figures that might allow the reader to see these colours themselves. The second kind of impossible colour is entirely familiar, indeed mundane, and includes colours such as orange, purple and brown. The book assembles evidence showing that these colours are experienced as phenomenologically elementary, a fact that contradicts opponent processing theory. This book also provides a new account of colour experience, to which these two kinds of colours provide the keys, and explores the deep implications for scientific and philosophical thinking which follow. For science, impossible colours call into question the opponent process theory. For philosophy they give new perspectives on long-contested questions. Are colours characteristics of the external world, which our visual systems grant us direct experiential access to? Or are they generated in some way by the visual system, an illusion we project onto the external world?

This second edition of Palestinian Activism in Israel deepens the exploration of Bedouin women's leadership in the Naqab through the intergenerational activist biographies of three women from the Al-Sana lineage. Building on the first edition's focus on Amal Al-Sana Alh'jooj, a pioneering Palestinian Bedouin activist, this volume weaves together the narratives of her mother, Hajar Al-Sana, and grandmother, Rukiya Al-Sana, to examine the everyday practices of female political agency in this Bedouin society. It traces how three generations of women navigated patriarchy and colonialism during the Nakba and the Siyag Reservation to the Intifadas and the aftermath of the Prawer Plan. Situated amid gender, identity, community, and tribal belonging, the book describes the lived experiences of Naqab Bedouin women's steadfastness (sumud) and survival. Through empirical research and anthropological description, it highlights the intersectionalities and complexity of their activism(s) and calls for rethinking the multigenerational experiences of Palestinian women in the Middle East through the perspectives of the activists themselves.

A thoughtful exploration of how the Sahara Desert can be returned to its former glory as a green paradise while actively combating climate change.

A green Sahara is something the world has not seen since 10,000 BC when the Sahara was a wet, lush region. By 3,000 BC though the climate changed, the rains stopped, and the ancient green Sahara dried into today's desert. It was the victim of a phenomenon that reminds us today of global climate warming. But what if we could reverse the desertification of the Sahara, and bring back the green paradise of days passed?

In The Green Sahara: Regaining Paradise in the Face of Climate Change, John Gaudet explores the process by which climate change in ancient times converted a green paradise into an arid desert land, highlighting parallels to what is happening in our time. But he also illuminates how an intense effort to create green energy is being made by several Saharan countries to build and operate enormous solar and wind farms. As a result, a wave of green energy generated in the Sahara, the largest desert on earth, is about to swamp the world, and could lead to a regreening of the Sahara Desert. If a new green Sahara happens, how will the world benefit?

Covering just 20% of the Sahara Desert with wind turbines and solar panels would generate almost five times more energy than is currently needed worldwide. Gaudet highlights further benefits of deploying climate technology to the desert such as sequestering large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and eliminating negative health and ecosystem effects felt worldwide from desert dust. Gaudet's manifesto demonstrates how, in this fascinating case, climate change induced by man actually has the power to save the world and restore a beautiful piece of ancient history.

Revolutionary desire and decolonial struggle inside the heart of the carceral state

Deadly Refusals offers an intimate portrait of Kurdish decolonial struggle within the carceral and legal apparatuses of the Turkish state. Set in the counterterrorism courts and maximum-security prisons of Northern Kurdistan, Serra M. Hakyemez's ethnography examines how prosecuted and imprisoned Kurds from different socioeconomic backgrounds organize in refusal of the criminalization and colonization of their political demands and desires. Through acts of self-criticism, revolutionary education, and comradely care, these prisoners articulate a political subjectivity that challenges the foundations of colonial power.

Based on more than seventeen years of ethnographic research-including interviews with former prisoners, lawyers, judges, and prosecutors; observations of more than one hundred court hearings; and analysis of prison memoirs, poetry, and legal archives-Deadly Refusals uncovers the mechanisms through which counterterrorism law reproduces the colonial state. Yet it is not solely a study of repression. Engaging psychoanalytic concepts of subject, desire, and ethics, Hakyemez illuminates how these carceral spaces also become sites of revolutionary responsibility. Here, refusal is not resignation but a political act in which the colonized self is killed - literally or figuratively - to make way for a larger collective subjectivity.

Using the interplay of comradeship and intimacy, political desire and ordinary pleasure, death and love, Deadly Refusals examines how Kurdish political prisoners forge multilayered relations of decolonization in an ongoing psychopolitical struggle. Hakyemez shows how both small gestures of withdrawal, restraint, and negation as well as radical acts like language protests, hunger strikes, and death protests become part of a shared struggle for alternative futures that state power cannot fully contain or comprehend.

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This book is grounded in close observation of the everyday work and life of Chinese government officials. It centers on the daily practices of civil servants and seeks to answer three fundamental questions: What exactly do they do each day? Why do they do it in that way? And what explains the characteristics of these practices? The study offers three main findings. First, the daily behavior of civil servants at all levels has visibility in content and homogeneity in structure, mainly writing documents, holding meetings, and visiting and receiving guests. These three types of behavior have become the most important part of civil servants' work. Second, through historical tracing, it is argued that the emergence and changes of a "mountain of documents and a sea of meetings" are determined by historical power venues, depending on the design of political organizational structure, the pattern of political power relations, and the core values of political culture. Third, the characteristics of current civil servant behavior are determined by a specific bureaucratic structure. Centralized constraints, bureaucratic involution, and cultural inertia determine their behavioral rules. This book argues that the key to understanding this issue is not to deny these behaviors, but to improve these behaviors and their environment on the premise of acknowledging their necessity and rationality, and to enhance the effectiveness of civil servant behavior.