Routledge International Handbook of Feminisms and Gender Studies: Convergences, Divergences and Pluralities
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Augustine and the Catechumenate
William Harmless
As one of the most influential thinkers in Christian history, St. Augustine (354-430) had a flair for teaching and meditated deeply on the mysteries of the human heart. This study examines a little-known side of his career: his work as a teacher of candidates for baptism.
ln the revised edition of this seminal book, both the text and notes have been revised to better reflect the state of contemporary scholarship on Augustine, liturgical studies, and the catechumenate, both ancient and modern. This edition also includes new findings from some of the recently discovered sermons of Augustine and incorporates new perspectives from recent research on early Christian biblical interpretation, debates on the Trinity, the evolution of the liturgy, and much more.
This reconstruction of Augustine’s catechumenate provides fresh perspectives on the day-to-day life of the early church and on the vibrancy and eloquence of Augustine the preacher and teacher.
A reader's companion to Augustine's confessions
Kim Paffenroth & Robert P. Kennedy
This book is a tool for teaching and studying the great Christian classic, Augustine’s Confessions. It is a unique venture in which thirteen different scholars look at each of the thirteen books in the Confessions and interpret their chapters in light of that book and in light of the rest of Augustine’s work. The result is that the richness and ambiguity of Augustine’s work shines through as well as the richness and ambiguity of different readings of the Confessions.
Question 7
Richard Flanagan
Who loves longer?
Beginning at a love hotel by Japan’s Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows.
By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West’s affair, through 1930s nuclear physics, to Flanagan’s father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb is dropped, this daisy chain of events reaches fission when a young man finds himself trapped in a rapid on a wild river, not knowing if he is to live or to die.
Flanagan has created a love song to his island home and his parents and the terrible past that delivered him to that place. Through a hypnotic melding of dream, history, science and memory it shows how our lives so often arise out of the stories of others and the stories we invent about ourselves.
Metamorphosis: A life in pieces
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
When the trapdoor opened for Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, he plummeted into a world of MRI scans, a disobedient body and the crushing unpredictability of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. But, as he explores in Metamorphosis, his fall also did something else. It took him deep into his own mind: his hopes, his fears, his loves and losses, and the books that would sustain, inform and nourish him as his life began to transform in ways he could never have imagined.
Tipping the velvet
Sarah Waters
Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty’s dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins.
Relativity in modern physics
Nathalie Deruelle & Jen-Philippe Uzan
This comprehensive textbook on relativity integrates Newtonian physics, special relativity and general relativity into a single book that emphasizes the deep underlying principles common to them all, yet explains how they are applied in different ways in these three contexts. Newton’s ideas about how to represent space and time, his laws of dynamics, and his theory of gravitation established the conceptual foundation from which modern physics developed. Book I in this volume offers undergraduates a modern view of Newtonian theory, emphasizing those aspects needed for understanding quantum and relativistic contemporary physics. In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed a novel representation of space and time, special relativity. Book II presents relativistic dynamics in inertial and accelerated frames, as well as a detailed overview of Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism. This provides undergraduate and graduate students with the background necessary for studying particle and accelerator physics, astrophysics and Einstein’s theory of general relativity. In 1915, Einstein proposed a new theory of gravitation, general relativity. Book III in this volume develops the geometrical framework in which Einstein’s equations are formulated, and presents several key applications: black holes, gravitational radiation, and cosmology, which will prepare graduate students to carry out research in relativistic astrophysics, gravitational wave astronomy, and cosmology.
The archive of empire: Knowledge, conquest, and the making of the early-modern British world
Asheesh Kapur Siddique
Over the span of two hundred years, Great Britain established, governed, lost, and reconstructed an empire that embraced three continents and two oceanic worlds. The British ruled this empire by correlating incoming information about the conduct of subjects and aliens in imperial spaces with norms of good governance developed in London. Officials derived these norms by studying the histories of government contained in the official records of both the state and corporations and located in repositories known as archives.
As the empire expanded in both the Americas and India, however, this system of political knowledge came to be regarded as inadequate in governing the non-English people who inhabited the lands over which the British asserted sovereignty. This posed a key problem for imperial officials: What kind of knowledge was required to govern an empire populated by a growing number of culturally different people? Using files, pens, and paper, the British defined the information order of the modern state as they debated answers to this question. In tracing the rise and deployment of archives in early modern British imperial rule, Asheesh Kapur Siddique uncovers the origins of our data-driven present.
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Code of conduct: why we need to fix Parliament -- and how to do it
Chris Bryant
As Chair of the Committees on Standards and Privileges, Chris Bryant has had a front-row seat for the battle over standards in parliament. Cronyism, nepotism, conflicts of interest, misconduct and lying: politicians are engaging in these activities more frequently and more publicly than ever before. The result? The work of honest and accountable MPs is tarnished. Public trust is worn thin. And when nearly two thirds of voters think that MPs are out for themselves, democracy is in trouble.
It is time for a better brand of politics. Taking us inside the Pugin-carpeted corridors of Westminster, from the prime minister’s office to the Strangers’ Bar, Code of Conduct examines every angle of parliamentary conduct and suggests how parliament might – at last – get its house in order.
Great Britain?: how we get our future back
Torsten Bell
There are few who are better placed to investigate Britain’s plight than Torsten Bell, Labour MP for Swansea West and former Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation.
In Great Britain? he offers both a clear-eyed diagnosis of the problems facing our country – a uniquely toxic combination of huge inequality and stagnant economic growth – and a bold vision for the alternative. This is a book bursting with ideas and infectious hope.
In his treasure trove of enlightening and original analysis, Torsten Bell argues that our era of chaos and cynicism needs neither utopianism nor nostalgia, but a practical patriotism to raise living standards and create a more equal country. He passionately points us towards a Britain that we can actually build – a future worth fighting for.
Literature for the people: how the pioneering Macmillan brothers built a publishing powerhouse
Sarah Harkness
From an impoverished childhood in the Scottish highlands to Victorian London, this is the inspiring story of two brothers – Daniel and Alexander Macmillan – who built a publishing empire – and brought Alice in Wonderland to the world. Their remarkable achievements are revealed in this entertaining, superbly researched biography.
Daniel and Alexander arrived in London in the 1830s at a crucial moment of social change. These two idealistic brothers, working-class sons of a Scottish crofter, went on to set up a publishing house that spread radical ideas on equality, science and education across the world. They also brought authors like Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hardy and Charles Kingsley, and poets like Matthew Arnold and Christina Rossetti, to a mass audience. No longer would books be just for the upper classes.
In Literature for the People Sarah Harkness brings to life these two warm-hearted men. Daniel was driven by the knowledge that he was living on borrowed time, his body ravaged by tuberculosis. Alexander took on responsibility for the company as well as Daniel’s family and turned a small business into an international powerhouse. He cultivated the literary greats of the time, weathered controversy and tragedy, and fostered a dynasty that would include future prime minister Harold Macmillan.
The life of LTC Rolt: where engineering met literature
Victoria Owens
In 1926, Tom Rolt who was then sixteen years old, abandoned his public school education. Having taken a job with a small firm of agricultural engineers, he realised that he had found his life’s calling. But the way ahead was neither smooth nor easy. Having secured a premium apprenticeship, the firm which took him on foundered and although he eventually qualified as a mechanical engineer, the 1930s depression made it almost impossible to find regular employment. Nothing daunted, with the encouragement of his mysterious companion ‘Cara’, he turned to writing. His literary career flourished alongside his association with the Vintage Sports Car Club, the Inland Waterways Association and the Talyllyn Railway. Between his Inland Waterways Association and Talyllyn phases, Angela, his first wife, left him to join Billy Smart’s Circus, and Sonia -an actress-turned-boatwoman – would become his second wife.
Over the course of his life, he produced over thirty books, their subject matters ranging from canals and railways to engineering biography; company histories; a collection of accomplished ghost stories and a topographical survey of Worcestershire. He also wrote polemics about the plight of the craftsman in a world which relied increasingly upon mass production. In this book, the first full-length biography of Tom Rolt and a complement to his auto-biographical Landscape trilogy, Victoria Owens draws upon his surviving letters and unpublished manuscripts to tell the story of the engineer-turned-writer who made Britain’s industrial past the stuff of enduring literature.
Jonathan Swift in context
edited by Joseph Hone and Pat Rogers
Jonathan Swift remains the most important and influential satirist in the English language. The author of Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal, and A Tale of a Tub, in addition to vast numbers of political pamphlets, satirical verses, sermons, and other kinds of text, Swift is one of the most versatile writers in the literary canon. His writings were always closely intertwined with the English and Irish worlds in which he lived. The forty-four essays collected in Jonathan Swift in Context advance the latest research on Swift in a way that will engage undergraduate students while also remaining useful for scholars. Reflecting the best of current and ongoing scholarship, the contextual approach advanced by this volume will help to make Swift’s works even more powerful and resonant to modern audiences.
The thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak: an intellectual biography
Robert E. Upton
This work is a systematic study of Bal Gangadhar Tilak’s thought, focusing on his views on ‘communal’ relations within the Indian polity, on caste and reform in Hindu society, and on political ethics regarding violence and non-cooperation. The Thought of Bal Gangadhar Tilak adopts a contextualist approach, situating his ideas in local Maharashtrian as well as pan-Indian and global cultural-intellectual contexts. The approach blends Tilak’s quotidian journalism and speeches alongside his canonical texts on Aryan history and on the Bhagavad Gita. The work marks a departure from current interpretations, emphatically arguing that he is misappropriated and/or misunderstood as a proto-Hindutva thinker.
Instead, he is revealed to be a radical liberal who supports counter-autocratic violence, a majoritarian pluralist in terms of intercommunity relations, a self-strengthening reformer focused on masculinity, committed to reshaping India for the challenges of modernity- something fused in his thought with a resilient Brahmin supremacism. This book lays emphasis on his remarkable recognition as the nation’s ‘founding father’ and particularly demonstrates how his appropriation by Gandhi was in turn contested by those emphasising Tilak’s embrace of violence, particularly in the crucial mid-1920s period when he was indelibly linked to re-emerging Hindutva. More recently, growing ahistorical demi-official insistence on his social progressivism illustrates a change in India’s public culture, as does the use of popular or even legal pressure to de-legitimize perennial criticism of Tilak’s socio-political positions.
A year of creativity: 52 smart ideas for boosting creativity, innovation and inspiration at work
Kathryn Jacobs and Sue Unerman
A Year of Creativity demystifies what it means to be creative, showing how all of us need to exercise our creativity muscles if we are to meet the challenges of an uncertain world.
If you want to win at work, efficiency is not enough, strategy is not enough, and analysis is not enough. We live in times of increasing complexity and ambiguity; even businesses that have themselves been major disruptors fear major new disruption themselves. In response, leaders are battening down the hatches: the more uncertain the world, the more they retreat into stale, established patterns of behaviour.
This is a big mistake. The only way to secure competitive advantage is to ensure that creative thinking is driving your organization. It will enable workplace satisfaction, boost performance, and encourage new ideas throughout teams. To tackle our uncertain environment – and to win in the world of future business – we all need to get serious about creativity and the potential it can unleash.
The authors of Belonging have now written A Year of Creativity, which will make creativity accessible to everyone. In 52 lessons, it explores how to be creative (either individually or in groups and teams), how to nurture creativity, and how – as a result – to redefine yourself and your career.
A serious house: why if churches fall completely out of use, we may miss them
Martin Camroux
The church is in deep trouble, maybe in its death throes. Losing touch with the church has meant a break with the Western cultural past, its history, its music, its art, its literature, much of which cannot fully be understood without its religious heritage. But something more important than any of that is in danger of being lost. The church is a deeply imperfect and frustrating organization, but within it, community is experienced, values are nurtured, and God’s presence in the world is embodied in a people. The church carries the story of Jesus; it tells the story of who we are, it calls us to give away our lives to others and to find love as life’s central meaning. We have crossed a cultural divide. Before, if you did not hold traditional religious beliefs and belong to a church you felt obliged to explain yourself. Now the pressure is to explain why you do. This is my answer.
A lady's guide to scandal
Sophie Irwin
A lifetime of duty
Widowed at just seven-and-twenty from her marriage of convenience, Eliza, now Countess of Somerset, is bequeathed a fortune, hers to keep – provided she can steer clear of scandal.
The promise of love
The last thing she expects is to be torn between two very different men – a face from the past, whose loss she’s always mourned, and a roguish poet, who scorns convention.
A taste of freedom
But a lady’s reputation is fragile and with jealous eyes on Eliza’s fortune, it will only take one whisper of gossip for her to lose it all…
Pastoral care in practice: an introduction and guide
Michael Hopkins
All disciples of Jesus Christ are called to care for one another whether they have a formal role or not, and exercise pastoral care by listening, encouraging, comforting, offering practical help, praying. In times of crisis and in everyday life, good pastoral care people feel known and loved by God, and valued in the church. This short, yet comprehensive guide lays a biblical foundation for good pastoral care, offers a theological approach to understanding people, considers the particular needs of the sick, children and families, and those in difficult circumstances, and outlines the boundaries within which all can be safe. Throughout, examples and questions for reflection will deepen understanding and enrich practice.
Come wind, come weather: a pilgrim's handbook of prayers and activities for the length of Britain
Janet Lees
In Come Wind, Come Weather, Janet Lees, a former school chaplain, shares her inspiring journey walking the length of Britain at the age of 60. This book is more than a travelogue; it’s a practical guide to transforming your own walks – physical or metaphorical – into journeys of self-discovery and connection with the world around you. Pilgrimage, once a niche activity, has gone mainstream. Maybe you too are longing for such a transformative experience that will reconnect you with nature, deepen your faith, and empower you to act on climate change.
This book offers: ● Practical tips and inspiration for planning and undertaking your own pilgrimage ● Profound reflections on faith, nature and the climate crisis, gleaned from Janet’s 1110-mile trek across Britain ● Unique resources tailored to different ecological habitats, from mountains to the sea ● A powerful call to action to protect our planet No matter your destination or motivation, Come Wind, Come Weather will help you: ● Walk with intention and awareness ● Deepen your connection with the natural world ● Find inspiration for your own prayers and reflections ● Discover fresh perspectives on familiar places ● Expand your environmental activism Wherever you journey, whatever you do, may you ‘tread gently on the earth’.
Neptune's projects: a/k/a now that's what I call hyperobject ballads
Rishi Dastidar
What do you do when you are a god – but powerless and unable to prevent one of your favourite species from their insatiable, accelerating death wish? Do you try to shout louder and more insistently, or instead reinvent yourself as a troubadour of romantic ruin? Such are the dilemmas posed by Rishi Dastidar in his third poetry collection Neptune’s Projects, a reshaping of mythology for the climate crisis era which gives bold consideration to the stark choices we face.
A post-apocalyptic jig and reel, these poems are compelling, deadpan yarns of the sea, full of both fury and fun. In Neptune’s Projects the end of humanity is made wry, thrilling – and alive.
Displays.
Katherine Franco
Displays has theoretical commitments, even if only to a “birdlike, brained” logic. Katherine Franco’s debut collection attends to sibilants, the system of signs, and sainthood in a kind of half-joke. Displays features a subject who wants to be “good” and for desire to be delivered through a well-formed critique. She like explication. Then, she doesn’t.
Deriving its terrain from the classroom and the open road, Displays demonstrates how poetics is a source of knowledge and flight. The collection is dogged for a thesis, but instead finds itself amidst practicums, biopolytechnicaltechniques, and acts of renunciation. “Likeness is like / flying,” Franco writes in one of the book’s final poems. Flight need not mean an abandonment of politics, pain, or one’s daily life – the collection suggests – but instead the generation of a landscape where play and poetic experimentation reign. There, we can discover the restless epistemology distinct to Displays.
