A History of the Book: Disrupting Society from Tablet to Tablet

The written word is arguably one of the most powerful tools available to mankind. This book analyzes the history and social impact of written language from the oldest known writing systems to the rise of electronic media.https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/history_of_book/1015/thumbnail.jp

Co-Creativity and Engaged Scholarship

This open access book explores creative and collaborative forms of research praxis within the social sustainability sciences. The term co-creativity is used in reference to both individual methods and overarching research approaches. Supported by a series of in-depth examples, the edited collection critically reviews the potential of co-creative research praxis to nurture just and transformative processes of change. Included amongst the individual chapters are first-hand accounts of such as: militant research strategies and guerrilla narrative, decolonial participative approaches, appreciative inquiry and care-ethics, deep-mapping, photo-voice, community-arts, digital participatory mapping, creative workshops and living labs. The collection considers how, through socially inclusive forms of action and reflection, such co-creative methods can be used to stimulate alternative understandings of why and how things are, and how they could be. It provides illustrations of (and problematizes) the use of co-creative methods as overtly disruptive interventions in their own right, and as a means of enriching the transformative potential of transdisciplinary and more traditional forms of social science research inquiry. The positionality of the researcher, together with the emotional and embodied dimensions of engaged scholarship, are threads which run throughout the book. So too does the question of how to communicate sustainability science research in a meaningful way

Consideration of possible futures for peri-urban sites based on restabilising ecosystem processes : rewilding nature and people

Inadequate funding, the shifting baseline syndrome phenomena, and the prescribe and protect approach to conservation collectively hinders ecosystem function. Rewilding offers an alternative solution without the same limitations. While it is documented that large-scale rewilding projects have seen an increase in biodiversity, further empirical evidence is needed to establish whether rewilding can be applied to small-scale, peri-urban sites.A Geographical Information System (GIS) was used to produce historical and contemporary data on the vegetation type and cover of Upper Moss Side (UMS), a small-scale site in the Upper Mersey Estuary between Warrington and Runcorn. Two scenarios were tested - passive management and rewilding - using local ecological data, which was input into a Markov model for the former, and analysed against a critical review of the relevant literature for the latter. These scenarios, plus underpinning data, were presented to local stakeholders via a workshop. The workshop data were analysed using thematic analysis focussed on the practicality and acceptability of the rewilding approach.Under the passive management scenario the Markov model calculated a transferal in landcover from a diverse mosaic of habitats to a predominantly woodland with patches of grassland and scrub and lowering biodiversity. Under the rewilding scenario the model predicted a mosaic of habitats that increases biodiversity when missing ecological functions are reoccupied. Feedback from the workshop demonstrated that while everyone agreed it is acceptable to rewild some thought it was not practical.This study has shown that rewilding can be a suitable strategy in a small-scale, peri-urban landscape, and highlighted some of the many challenges associated with this approach. Elements of rewilding could be applied to UMS that could benefit the wider area, e.g. increased flood protection. The exploration of stakeholder values and ecological data, as presented here, can be used to evaluate the suitability of future rewilding projects in the UME and elsewhere

Co-Creativity and Engaged Scholarship

This open access book explores creative and collaborative forms of research praxis within the social sustainability sciences. The term co-creativity is used in reference to both individual methods and overarching research approaches. Supported by a series of in-depth examples, the edited collection critically reviews the potential of co-creative research praxis to nurture just and transformative processes of change. Included amongst the individual chapters are first-hand accounts of such as: militant research strategies and guerrilla narrative, decolonial participative approaches, appreciative inquiry and care-ethics, deep-mapping, photo-voice, community-arts, digital participatory mapping, creative workshops and living labs. The collection considers how, through socially inclusive forms of action and reflection, such co-creative methods can be used to stimulate alternative understandings of why and how things are, and how they could be. It provides illustrations of (and problematizes) the use of co-creative methods as overtly disruptive interventions in their own right, and as a means of enriching the transformative potential of transdisciplinary and more traditional forms of social science research inquiry. The positionality of the researcher, together with the emotional and embodied dimensions of engaged scholarship, are threads which run throughout the book. So too does the question of how to communicate sustainability science research in a meaningful way

Amrit Singh and the Birmingham Quean: fictions, fakes and forgeries in a vernacular counterculture

For a literary critic preparing a scholarly edition of a text like this within an epistème that disparages the theory underpinning it for being tainted with the gestural idealism of 1968 and the neon-glare of 1980s high postmodernism, the crucial question is how to reconcile the commitment to authenticity ingrained in historicist textual studies (perhaps the critic’s only viable disciplinary inheritance) with the author’s implicit antagonism to any such quietist approach. The encounter inevitably becomes a battle of wills. In the course of the current project, this theoretical struggle escalates exponentially as doubts concerning the authenticity (and indeed the existence) of both writer and manuscript are multiplied. If a thesis can be retrospectively extrapolated from this project, it is the argument that fiction is demonstrably a tractable forum for research in the Arts and Social Sciences: all the more tractable for its anti-authenticity. The critic’s loss is the novelist’s gain. Specifically, in this case, the faithful historian of late twentieth century literatures, languages and cultures can solve the key dilemma of the subject by working under the auspices of Creative Writing. Only in this way can justice be done to the most cogent intellectual trend of the posmodern period (perhaps its defining feature): one that revelled in its own pluralities, ambiguities and contradictions, and resisted all the unifying, teleological models of ‘history’ that had been implicated in the century’s terrible ‘final solutions’. In other words, only fiction can tell the history of a culture that rejects that history. If this means condoning forgery… so be it

Envy, Poison, and Death

At the heart of this book are some trials conducted in Athens in the fourth century BCE. In each case, the charges involved a combination of supernatural activities, including potion-brewing and cult activity; the defendants were all women. Because of the brevity of the ancient sources, and their lack of agreement, the precise charges are unclear; the reasons for taking these women to court, even condemning some of them to die, remain mysterious. This book takes the complexity and confusion of the evidence not as a riddle to be solved, but as revealing multiple social dynamics. It explores the changing factors—material, ideological, and psychological—that may have provoked these events. It focuses in particular on the dual role of envy (phthonos) and gossip as processes by which communities identified people and activities that were dangerous, and examines how and why those local, even individual, dynamics may have come to shape official civic decisions during a time of perceived hardship. At first sight so puzzling, these trials come to provide a vivid glimpse of the sociopolitical environment of Athens during the early to mid-fourth century BCE, including responses to changes in women’s status and behaviour, and attitudes to particular supernatural/religious activities within the city. This study reveals some of the characters, events, and local social processes that shaped an emergent concept of magic: it suggests that the legal boundary of acceptable behaviour was shifting, not only within the legal arena, but also with the active involvement of society beyond the courts

Vulnerable Sovereignty: A cybernetic essay in political sciences

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis, entitled Vulnerable Sovereignty: A cybernetic essay in political science, attempts to investigate an area usually related to the sphere of military or national defence. Nevertheless sovereignty as conceived in this study enables the analysis to be set in a broader context using the cybernetic concept of information as a key explanatory element. It is clear that there are a variety of criteria and even ideological viewpoints used in the political sciences and there may be some readers who do not agree with some judgments employed in this work. The thesis is organized into five chapters: in the first, the concept of information is analysed, beginning with its etymological origin and its relationship to cybernetics, system theory, computation, and, finally, its importance as a new factor of power. The second chapter attempts to establish the relationship between international entities which control information and the occurrence of economic problems such as 'the energy crisis'. The introduction of the theme "Energy crisis: threshold for a war" is used to investigate this relationship, to explain the main sources of this crisis and to assess the role of transnational corporations as manipulators of information in this situation. Chapter III, "Underdevelopment: the real crisis", analyses, within the framework of the underdevelopment and dependency theory, the historical and economic aspects of Latin-American dependence. Here the relationship between the process of underdevelopment and technology is discussed in detail. This analysis is fundamental in order to understand not only the technological dependence of the Latin American states but to assess the implications of this condition for their sovereignty. In chapter IV the problem of the vulnerability of the sovereignty of technologically dependent countries is discussed. A general concept of sovereignty, in the context of the international political system, is introduced in this chapter in order to analyse the links between transnational corporations and the trilogy: sovereignty, information and technology. This analysis is conducted from two points of view: first, within the context of the international political system; this will be referred to as TNCs within the international political system. Second, within the specific context of technologically dependent states. The economic and political vulnerability of some underdeveloped countries, established as a function of the deterioration of their ty, is shown in this chapter to be closely linked to the leakage of political and economic information. This leakage of information is explained as a consequence of the participation of foreign technology which is outside the control of the local interests in dependent economies. Finally, in chapter V some cybernetic alternatives are presented, the theme of war briefly mentioned in chapter II, is reconsidered in order to explain two decision levels which are treated as alternative approaches to the problems discussed throughout the work. These two decision levels are described here under the headings of "The peacetime alternative" and "The wartime alternative". The decisions at the first level(The peacetime alternative) require the analysis of the following questions. 1. - Can a valid measure of the access of the information(data)implicit in the productive process of a country be formulated? In this section a method of measuring the information produced by the 64 industrial activities which, according to the United Nations International Classification Standard (ISICC) can be identified within the economy of any country, is suggested. The country studied is Venezuela: a full list of the 580 transnational corporations operating in its 64 industrial categories has been elaborated and is included in annex N°27. 2. - Which changes should be considered in a strategic plan of access and control of information? In this section it is argued that no strategy of development for those underdeveloped countries which have resources would be successful if a strategy of control of information is not planned and executed first. However, the execution of such a strategy requires changes, and these do not occur either continuously or spontaneously, rather they are discrete and induced and could be measured and controlled. 3. - How could a control of a goods and services information system help a nation to deal with destabilizing activities? In this section the possibility of developing a cybernetic mechanism capable-of producing suitable information with respect to the production system is reviewed. This mechanism would provide the user with vital information whenever the relative stability of the output of goods and services from a firm or industry was disturbed and threatened to become intentionally unstable. The decisions invoked at the second level, (The wartime alternative) require the analysis of two questions: 1. - Could the idea of war be considered in the formulation of a strategy of development? survive" This section, "The cybernetic preparedness to discusses the implications of technological dependence in the light of the strategic relations between he world super-powers. International war between the super-powers would surely collapse the economy of any technologically dependent country because it would effectively cut off access to vital technology. But by severing the links of technological dependence the underdeveloped country would be forced to initiate independent development in order to subsist. Hence this section examines- whether or not those underdeveloped countries which have resources can initiate such independent development during peace time instead of waiting for war as a historical alternative. 2. - Could the scheme of an 'economic closed system' stand as alternative for transformation and development in some Latin-American countries? This last section starts from the theoretical assumption that when a politically independent country (analysed as a system) does not possess sufficient resources it has to become an open system in order to survive; if it fails to obtain resources from the external world, it is then inevitably obliged to exchange sovereignty for the resources which it does not possess. However, if the assumption is changed, that is, the underdeveloped country possesses resources then it is possible to develop closed transformations. By guaranteeing an increment in sovereignty to levels compatible with the development options, this could allow the selected model, whatever might be its ideological basis, to be actually converted into a realisable alternative

Envy, Poison, and Death

At the heart of this book are some trials conducted in Athens in the fourth century BCE. In each case, the charges involved a combination of supernatural activities, including potion-brewing and cult activity; the defendants were all women. Because of the brevity of the ancient sources, and their lack of agreement, the precise charges are unclear; the reasons for taking these women to court, even condemning some of them to die, remain mysterious. This book takes the complexity and confusion of the evidence not as a riddle to be solved, but as revealing multiple social dynamics. It explores the changing factors—material, ideological, and psychological—that may have provoked these events. It focuses in particular on the dual role of envy (phthonos) and gossip as processes by which communities identified people and activities that were dangerous, and examines how and why those local, even individual, dynamics may have come to shape official civic decisions during a time of perceived hardship. At first sight so puzzling, these trials come to provide a vivid glimpse of the sociopolitical environment of Athens during the early to mid-fourth century BCE, including responses to changes in women’s status and behaviour, and attitudes to particular supernatural/religious activities within the city. This study reveals some of the characters, events, and local social processes that shaped an emergent concept of magic: it suggests that the legal boundary of acceptable behaviour was shifting, not only within the legal arena, but also with the active involvement of society beyond the courts