46622 research outputs found
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After Terrorism
No full textAfter Terrorism offers a groundbreaking analysis of how Japan navigated its alliance with the United States in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Drawing from newly declassified diplomatic documents, Ryuji Hattori challenges conventional narratives and introduces the concept of the global alliance security dilemma, illustrating how Japan struggled to balance its pacifist constitution with growing international security demands. Providing a rare, document-based perspective on the Bush-Koizumi era, Hattori offers insights into high-level negotiations, security policymaking, and the shifting geopolitical landscape of East Asia. Through a meticulous analysis of primary sources and interviews with key policymakers, he reveals how Japan's foreign policy was shaped by both alliance asymmetries and domestic constraints. Ideal for scholars of international relations, security studies, and Asian diplomacy, After Terrorism is an essential resource for understanding the long-term impact of post-9/11 security decisions on US–Japan relations and the broader Indo-Pacific order
Mobilise Your Thinking for Complexity - Moviliza tu Pensamiento para la Complejidad
No full textThis book presents the Open Educational Model for Complex Thinking (OEM4C), an innovative tool that fosters critical competencies such as systemic, critical, scientific and innovative thinking. Designed for students, teachers and researchers, the model addresses global challenges through open methodologies and emerging technologies, promoting inclusive and sustainable education aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through practical scenarios, case studies and digital tools, OEM4C inspires educational transformation that responds to the needs of a changing world
Ethics and Aesthetics in Ali Smith’s Fiction
No full textThis study offers a fresh perspective on Ali Smith’s work, analysing her fiction through a truly interdisciplinary lens. José I. Prieto-Arranz explores Smith’s engagement with contemporary issues such as digital violence, disinformation, pornography, nationalism, climate change, discrimination, and social fracture. Simultaneously, this book examines Smith’s unique stylistic choices, including her use of magical realism, intertextuality, and intermediality, to reveal the intricate connection between the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of her novels. Through close readings of Smith’s novels, from Like to Companion Piece, enriched with insights from her prolific short fiction, the author demonstrates how Smith constructs a “text continuum,” revealing recurrent themes and stylistic choices that underline her firm belief in the transformative power of fiction and, by extension, art. This book will appeal to scholars of contemporary literature, art theory, political science, sociology and cultural studies, and anyone interested in literature and social commentary
Nomadic Camera
No full textMultiperspective approach towards photography as a nomadic device and photographs as mobile objects of circulation. From its introduction in the early nineteenth century and through ongoing technical developments, photography has been a mobile medium closely tied to equipment, social conditions and cultural framings. The volume Nomadic Camera investigates the technical, medial and aesthetic relationship between photography and displacement in historical and contemporary perspectives. The contributing authors adopt the term ‘nomadic’ – signifying a transitory form of existence – to explore photography beyond static concepts of being and national boundaries. Viewing photography as a formative part of this history of mobility and migration, the book explores the interplay between the concepts of the ‘nomadic’ and the ‘camera’, offering new perspectives on photography as a medium on the move. The interdisciplinary contributions approach this topic from various angles. They examine photographic tools and technologies; investigate the role of bodies, agents, and performative acts in photographic practices; explore how photography constructs and conveys narratives of movement; and address issues of image circulation, archiving, and memory
Innovative Social Practice and Community-Based Approach to the Ocean
No full textThis book stands as a pioneering work, illustrating a community-based and people-centered approach to the ocean. It meticulously outlines methodologies, procedures, and evaluations of social practices initiated by universities and think tanks, rooted in the actualization of social responsibility. Its outcomes extend towards implications for blue impact finance, highlighting a dedicated commitment to fostering positive change in oceanic environments. Universities play a vital role in bridging research and education to create innovative solutions for communities as partnerships. Japan and Taiwan share similar concerns as maritime states and recognize that collaboration is the linchpin for strengthening relationships among faculty, students, and local residents, ensuring sustainability with a positive societal impact. To address this issue, the Ocean Policy Research Institute (OPRI) of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation collaborates with the Taiwan–Japan Alliance of Local Revitalization and Social Practice and the National Taiwan Ocean University. Through this joint effort, thematic case studies are selected to illuminate the methodology of impact assessment and evaluation for ocean-link initiatives within the framework of think tank–university social responsibility. This book contains four key parts: I. Methodology of Problem-solving Structure for Coastal Region; II. Challenges and Opportunities of Ocean-link Industries; III. Innovative Forms of Blue Impact; and IV. Evaluating Blue Impact from Social and Environmental Perspective. Successful experiences have been shown to rely on problem identification, assessment, and endeavor, driven by shared motivations and the establishment of trust among research institutes, universities, and communities. This is an open access book
Understanding Social Struggles
No full textRecently, both liberal philosophy of recognition and theories of epistemic injustice have come under attack for failing to reconstruct how marginalized groups find sources of recognition and agency. To understand social struggles well, we need to think of the way in which those within the struggle act towards emancipatory change instead of focusing on the (re)actions of those in power. This volume brings together leading scholars working at the intersection of epistemic injustice theories and recognition theories, setting out to apply insights from this relation to contemporary phenomena and backlashes in the formation and acts of socially struggling emancipators – also considering ideology critique, epistemology of ignorance, standpoint theory, and theories of consciousness raising
Puppetry and Dramaturgy
No full textThis open access book presents the results and conclusions of research conducted by the author, and assisted by a team of young researchers brought together in the PuppetPlays project funded by the European Research Council. It is the first international survey to examine Western European puppetry through a systematic study of its repertoires, composed by writers or by the puppeteers themselves. From improvised farces to the refined Baroque operas, from the parodies of institutional stages to the experiments of Modernism, from chivalric epics to contemporary dramaturgy, puppet repertoires are extraordinarily diverse. Their performances have been for centuries the only kind of theatre that many people could attend, but also a means of dramaturgical innovation. Their plays have crossed linguistic, geographical and social boundaries, adapting and spreading the great myths and classics of Western culture, and helping to build Europe's cultural identity. The analysis of these repertoires sheds new light on the history of theatre and society. When and how did puppet theatre compete with actors’ theatre? When and how did it serve as a laboratory for new dramaturgies? Why do writers and performing artists chose to use them today? These questions can only be answered through a close examination of the many forgotten or unpublished sources collected by the PuppetPlays project
Pragmatics in Contested Interpretation
No full textThis open access book explores the mechanisms by which different audiences hearing the same comments made by the same speaker in the same context come to different interpretations as to the meanings behind them. The study uses a ‘pragmacognitive’ approach that fuses insights from sociopragmatics and critical discourse analysis to examine both the speaker’s intentions and the audience’s reactions. The authors explore the role and construction of context through a pragmacognitive analysis of two controversial utterances made by Donald Trump during the 2020 and 2024 presidential election campaigns and one controversial comment from President Joe Biden’s short-lived 2024 re-election campaign. They analyse in detail how these comments have been interpreted by those receiving their words within the wider political context of a highly politicised and divisive campaign, inferred by some to constitute problematic insulting behaviours and/or calls for violence while others have found them to be playful political critiques. The authors emphasise how indeterminate language, activity type conventions, and the respective identities and reality paradigms of the speakers contribute to creating varied audiences with ‘contested interpretations’. Contested interpretations are particularly apparent in cases where ambiguous, hyperbolic, or even metaphorical language is used to simultaneously conduct face-attack against individuals and organizations, and appeal to a political base of supporters. This book contributes to the growing body of scholarship in this area and will be of interest to a multidisciplinary audience including readers in linguistics, political rhetoric, and political discourse
