Bøger udgivet af Academica Press

America is suffering from a deep spiritual crisis. The national polarization that so many miscast as political is really a conflict between two spiritual solutions pointing in drastically different directions. One is Wokeism, a new religion that speaks most clearly to America's spiritually starved young, urban, credentialed, professional elites. Its unique takes on race, gender, climate, virology, and misinformation provide adherents with an understanding of persistent unfairness and inequality, pervasive evil, the true self, the end of days, the source of ritual, and the dangers of blasphemy-effectively filling core spiritual needs without ever conceding that such needs exist. The Woke, who deny that theirs is a faith, are rapidly turning Wokeism into the established religion of the United States. The other solution is the American Spirit, a reconnection with our nation's spiritual roots and the traditional faiths that fueled them. For far too long, we have denied the existence of such a spirit, seen it as a source of shame, buried it, or recast it as an embarrassing artifact of an older time. The way forward thus requires us to face a harsh reality: we are mired in a deep spiritual crisis, the new religion of Wokeism is ascendant, and only a revival of America's founding spirit can preserve the American nation and save the Republic.

America and the West are now in the penultimate stage of a revolution defined by "wokeness." What we call "partisanship" is essentially the effect of the late but growing realization of the revolution's opponents that they face a major threat to their interests, convictions, and ways of life. It is not the "wokerati," but their likely victims who are waking up. What they see is how a large number of social trends that may have posed little danger separately-mass migration made more divisive by multiculturalism; the rise of identity politics; the imposition of bureaucratic "diversity;" the collapse of Christianity and traditional religious restraints; the sexual revolution; the weakening of the family; radical gender theory and the rising hostility between the sexes; terrorism and its gradual accommodation by democratic governments and institutions; the smothering of national sovereignty by "global governance;" the rise of anti-national elites in Western societies; the post-communist crises of conservatism; the extraordinary recent resurrection of "socialism" as a social panacea among the young; the economic consequences of environmentalism-all have coalesced into a brewing social revolution that leaves most ordinary people feeling dispossessed in their countries and losing the future. In this series of essays written over the course of a storied career, John O'Sullivan, a former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and editor of National Review shows how this revolution has emerged and how this revolution can be resisted.

Nuclear Agendas in Japan and Taiwan compares practical management cases regarding nuclear energy in regional neighbouring partners: Japan and Taiwan. An introductory overview of Japan's nuclear policy leads to the specification of important factors tangible in everyday life. What we perceive as knowledge transfer innovation and renewed industrial assessments shift to a regional territory that develops its own rules and practices within the dimension of nuclear energy innovation technology and post-crisis regulatory agendas. This literature-based discussion refers to complementary systems and recovery practices that have been envisioned in a post-Fukushima nuclear adaptive model. Thematic information about environmental effects and institutional partnerships advance the idea of a comparable ecosystem in which deliberative processes undertaken in Japan follow science, technology, and societal (STS) exchanges that form concurrent regional action plans with contextual disaster risk arrangements. Taiwan is an essential complementary innovation case reviewed in this analysis for contextual environmental policy directions. Reflections about regional knowledge transfers and energy innovation technology in Taiwan highlight some history-related factors that can facilitate a specific understanding of regional innovation in Asia-Pacific and local energy innovation partnerships. Nuclear energy organizational plans for Taiwan are introduced in association with the (STS) approach due to comparable socioeconomic dynamics that can deeply influence science and technology enterprises and Taiwanese localities, thereby offering objective participation. In both Japanese and Taiwanese nuclear regulatory cases, this technical account indicates the build-up of communication systems and a regional development framework that has been reformed progressively, but nevertheless shows an increased tendency to classify promotional learning networks through safety and security schemes intertwined with nuclear energy transitions worldwide.

How Rampage Killers Interpret Their Worlds addresses a question that recently has become disturbingly persistent: "What compels a person or a pair without notice and seemingly without any foreseeable benefit to attack numerous individuals, many of whom are strangers, in a single setting?" It considers that query from the vantage point of psychological circumspection - not as evidence of social fragmentation or historical turbulence. In doing so, it fills in the sketch for the seemingly random stimuli for rampage assaults by tracing the sequential development of motivators: the constitutional mindset of the murderer, the disenfranchisement from humanitarian norms, vindictive obsession, fantasy-driven planning, willful (though detached) engagement, and finally the bloody aftermath. The integrative design links the perspectives of three populations that have typically been treated as distinct - school annihilators, workplace avengers, and public executioners. Further, as expert educator Dr. Funk demonstrates, such mass violence is rarely utilitarian but frequently performative. Throughout the work, carefully sourced theory, scientific data, and analytical biographies inform the premises, observations, and conclusions. Synthesizing research from multiple disciplines with carefully constructed case studies, the work once and for all puts to rest the prevailing mystique of the sudden rampaging assailant and reveals the predictable, premeditative nature of the crime. Central to the criminological autopsies are analyses of the words and deeds of the murderers themselves - before, during, and after their massacres.

The issue of African migration since the Covid-19 pandemic depended on novel influences and determinants. The chapters in this edited volume evaluate recent variables that instigated the migration of Africans and assess implications for Africans, Africans in diaspora, and their global reverberations. The volume unites well-researched and theoretically informed empirical studies constructed on qualitative research methodologies. To project significant social science and humanities voices, the book's chapters reinforce theory-building rather than assumptions derived from arm-chair theorizing, journalistic presentations, and subjective personal views. The issue of African migration is fundamentally a matter of human modeling and therefore is never static. As this unique new volume demonstrates, it is consistently value-laden and reminiscent of "politics as an art."

Until now, the influential agents in rampage killings have been described with unsatisfactory generalizations or chalked up to unconscious impulses. Instead of simply attributing lethal decision-making to distorted thinking, Why Rampage Killers Emerge proffers a conceptual tableau to explain the genesis of the mentality that engages in sudden acts of mass violence. As an experienced educator, Dr. Funk applies a multi-disciplinary perspective with case study methods and statistical tools to define the external circumstances and excavate the internalized misconceptions necessary for the formation of a rampageous mindset. Given the breadth of the construct and the anecdotal patterns supporting its categorization, there should be little doubt that an autogenic assailant will conform to the descriptive model diligently surveyed in this text. While by no means excusing the perpetrators of unprovoked mass attacks, this study does offer an explanation for the origins of the foreboding thought processes at work and contains valuable diagnostic implications. As such, it will be useful to mental professionals, school administrators, law enforcement professionals, business managers, and the public at large in the prevention of repeated acts of deadly spectacle. Dr. Funk's premises are studiously supported by rigorous scholarship and engagingly written to attract attentive readers.

What is war today? To answer this question, we can no longer rely on notions of war elaborated in various classic works, because we are faced with a new problem-how to save humankind from annihilation in a total world war involving weapons of mass destruction. The simplest answer is to establish a "Leviathan," whose promise and project is straight forward: cancel all powers except one, which will be universal and absolute, and start a war without end against all free powers and all liberties. This way eventually you will get peace forever. But can Leviathan actually deliver on this promise? And peace at what cost, because Leviathan demands absolute and unlimited power over the entire human race? It is this problem that A Philosophy of War lays out in all its chilling detail. Is there another solution that can bring political and cultural peace to the world? Indeed, there is, and this book next details a very clear path, one that also ensures that we do not become enslaved by Leviathan. Nations, and their "wisdoms" (that is, "religions") can unite as peace becomes possible. If you love liberty and desire peace, then this book is for you.

The Recollections of Sir James Bacon, a leading light in the evolution of English law during the 19th century, casts an unexpectedly amusing and high-spirited light on turbulent times. Celebrated in his maturity as a witty judge whose decisions were rarely challenged, he was born in humble circumstances, one of ten children. His Recollections describe a happy and industrious, albeit Dickensian, childhood that began with leaving school for work at age twelve and ended with him enshrined as one of highest officials in the land. Enterprising and gifted, Sir James's story carries us through his early writings and journalism, through his legal career, to his arrival at the pinnacle of government. Sir James also chronicled the colorful panoply of British society in his times: social and political crises, friends imprisoned for gambling debts, travels to Europe in the era of reaction and revolution, the celebrated legal cases he witnessed, and the fascinating Britons he knew. This fresh account, published after 150 years in the family archive, is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Britain, the evolution of its unparalleled legal tradition, and the extraordinary figures who made it possible.

Hijab: Word of God or Word of Man? is the most comprehensive and exhaustive study of the subject of the Islamic veil to date. According to Muslim authorities, the Islamic veil is a religious obligation. For them, Muslim women who fail to wear the hijab commit a major sin that merits punishment in hell and even eternal damnation. Since the rise of Islamist movements in the twentieth century, some Muslims have gone as far as to mandate fines, imprisonment, physical punishment, rape, and even death for young girls and women who wear so-called "bad hijab," or who fail to veil. What does the Qur'an really say regarding women's dress? What does the hadith literature of Islam teach? How did Muslim women dress throughout history? What impact did culture have on the process? What moral and ethical conclusions can we draw regarding the rules governing women's clothing? These are the questions that are answered in this seminal study.

On July 7, 1944, all remaining Japanese forces on Saipan conducted a massive suicide attack against the American forces that had landed on the island several weeks earlier. At approximately 3am, the Japanese forces rushed southward on the Tanapag Plain and overwhelmed the soldiers of the U.S. Army's 27th Infantry Division. Hundreds of Japanese soldiers continued unimpeded for 1,200 yards, where they came upon the U.S. Marine artillerymen of the 3rd Battalion of the 10th Marine Regiment of the 2nd Marine Division. Direct howitzer and machine gun fire slowed, but did not stop, the massive suicide attack. The howitzer batteries, as well as headquarters battery, were overrun, and the Marines banded together in small pockets with rifles and pistols in an effort to hold off the Japanese. Against formidable odds, the Marines withstood continued Japanese attacks for nearly twelve hours until soldiers from other units fought their way forward and finally stopped the charge. The scene of carnage on the Tanapag Plain the next day was indescribable. The Marines who survived the attack were in shock. Those who observed the aftermath of the battle could not believe it had happened, but it was one of the most dramatic days in military history.

Imposing Fictions aims to ameliorate the growing problem of what Martin Heidegger refers to as psychological and cultural "homelessness" by diagnosing the nature of the latter's current manifestations and offering readings of literature that seek to inspire the genuine, and genuinely subversive, alterity required by an authentic mode of being. Specifically, it advocates for the value of subversive literature and its capacity to impose itself on the multitude of cultural and psychological preconceptions that govern the generalized but deeply personal, contemporary self. Subversiveness in this context implies pushing against the grain of identity formation as commonly dictated by the hegemony of technology. It does so both stylistically and thematically by foregrounding the imperative of figurative death in the service of authenticity. With the theoretical frameworks of Martin Heidegger and Alain Badiou as central guideposts, literary texts ranging from genre horror to American and French fiction are examined for their contributions to the legitimization of a metaphoric death drive and a concomitant, ameliorative quality of being that ultimately assumes the form of what some philosophers and fiction writers alike call love.

The Battle of Brandy Station occurred on June 9, 1863. It was the largest cavalry engagement ever to take place in the United States, with just over 20,000 participants. From the opening shots at Beverly Ford, to the final charge on Fleetwood Heights, the Laurel Brigade was in the thick of the fight. This book is a user's guide for visiting and studying the Brandy Station Battlefield while touring sites associated with the Laurel Brigade. Maps and photographs produced in chronological order will assist readers who follow the line of march from the Shenandoah Valley through Culpeper County, Virginia, and across the field of Brandy Station with the most storied brigade of Confederate Cavalry. Photographs of key commanders, artifacts, and locations on the battlefield will bring the stories of these brave soldiers to life.

How should we interpret the Bible in light of the latest biblical research and archaeology? One day in the Spring of 2009, an exhausted technician realized he had made a colossal mistake. Part of a team of archaeologists, mathematicians, physicists who were on a high-tech quest to unlock a millennia-old secret, concealed in a few written documents from the First Temple Period (1000-587 B.C.E.), he had been tasked with photographing pottery fragments from a Judahite fortress in Arad, in the Negev desert. But as he looked at the photographs, he saw that he had mistakenly photographed the wrong side of the shards--the side that appears to be blank. Staring at the infrared images he had taken, Michael jumped from his chair: the seemingly blank shard in fact had four lines of what looked like graffiti. Suddenly, archaeologists across the Holy Land where able to identify vast amounts of writing. This led to the realization that literacy in ancient Israel was far more extensive than anyone had imagined--a finding that suggests that part of the Bible was probably already composed in the eighth century B.C.E., at about the same time, scholars believe, that Homer¿s Iliad was compiled. This discovery in the Negev was only one of many vital findings made possible by applying the latest scientific methods in Biblical research. Ancient DNA, geo-archaeology, residue analysis, radiocarbon, and climate analysis has considerably changed what we know about the past. As a result, the Biblical narratives are being revaluated. This book will tell the story of how those and other technologies are transforming our understanding of the Bible and the cultures that created it.

Sleepless Nights: The Faults and Failings of Love is an inquiry into the cultural and psychological forces at work in our most intimate relationships. Romanticized and theorized throughout all ages, love remains the paradigm of human experience, the one aspect of life that could redeem all the suffering and disappointment to which we are otherwise heir. And yet it too often forms part of that very suffering itself. In this daring and reflective book, Stuart Walton invites the reader to check into a love hotel with a difference. Instead of selling rooms by the hour, this one offers a luxurious vacation from everyday reality, but in each of its public areas and in its guestrooms, a different scenario is unfolding that relates to the conduct of romantic liaisons in actuality, their momentary splendors, and the crashing and burning to which so many of them are subject. With help from philosophers and musicians through the ages, we find our way to a clear-sighted and honest assessment of the pitfalls and trapdoors with which all love, however ideally conceived, is furnished.

Some scholars of Islam have argued that slavery and concubinage are permissible according to the Qur'an and the teachings and practice of the Prophet Muhammad. When faced with dissenting views on the disputed subject of the legitimacy of slavery in Islam, they often respond with a loaded question and a theological trap: "Did the Prophet Muhammad commit a grave moral wrong?" Others advance moral relativism. Georgetown University's Jonathan Brown, for example, controversially maintained that "slavery is wrong," but added the disclaimer that "as a Muslim myself, I cannot condemn it as grossly, intrinsically immoral across space and time. To do so would be to condemn the Qur'an, the Prophet Muhammad and God's law as morally compromised." As Dr. John Andrew Morrow makes clear in Islam & Slavery, there is not a single verse in the Qur'an that commands slavery. Slavery is neither an article of faith nor is it a religious obligation. In fact, the Qur'an encourages and even requires Muslims to emancipate enslaved people. As far as the exponents of Islam's spiritual, moral, ethical, and egalitarian tradition are concerned, the Qur'an, the Prophet, and Islam introduced a system that would reform the practice of slavery and abolish it entirely and forever. As God asks in the Qur'an: "What will make you know what the steep path is? It is the freeing of a slave."

This volume comprises supplemental source material to accompany courses in the history of Russian Orthodox music course. It is meant as a study aid for students and contains valuable reference sources for students and practitioners alike.

Chris Heitzman's innovative book looks beyond the first principles of business and considers ways you may not have thought of to build on the basics to elevate your performance from merely good to the next level. It will be an essential guide for start-ups, seasoned business leaders, and employees looking to be better at business.

This volume contains five chapters that present highly original research on Siberia's unique history by five Russian scholars. The volume is edited by Prof. Elena A. Okladnikova, a faculty member of the Herzen State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. The articles include discussions of seafaring along the Siberian coast, ethnolinguistic considerations, the worldview of inner Asian nomads, and ethnocultural understandings of civilization crossroads.

The theory and praxis of ecofeminism has barely been investigated in an Indian context. Ecofeminism is an inclusive theory and provides an intersectional study of feminism, ecocriticism, and literature. Ecofeminism and Indian Women Writing in English unearths the sensibility of Indian women writings through the lens of ecofeminism. This book gives all the required details about ecofeminism, major movements and ecofeminist theories, in both the Indian as well as Western perspectives. It will help the readers understand the discourse of ecofeminism. The reader will get a thorough understanding on how to critically examine an ecofeminist element in a particular text. The book's main objective is to re(store) the cultural heritage of India against its colonial history that had mis(interpreted) the environmental ethics of Indian philosophy, affinity of women with nature and animals. The so-called developmental models of post-modern era will be beneficial only when they will focus on mutual sustainability of man and nature.

This book offered to the reader's attention is an ethnographic study devoted to the traditional pottery of Yakutia. The author, A. A. Savvin, collected materials for the book during field research in 1939-1941, when ceramic tableware had largely already lost its former role in the household way of the Yakuts. But the skills for its manufacture were still preserved in certain localities. Savvin managed to document the last "living" evidence of a craft that had a centuries-old history and established traditions. It is noteworthy that the research conducted by Savvin was a scientific project in the modern sense of the term. It was carefully planned and executed in accordance with a pre-written program, which is also included in this edition. The sources of information were not only direct observations of the working processes of the production of ceramic tableware but also conversations-interviews with potters, memoirs of representatives of the older generation. A special layer of research consisted of materials of folklore, folk beliefs, and customs related to pottery.

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1904, George Balanchine was the 20th century's towering figure of classical ballet. Coming to America in 1933, Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet and the New York City Ballet, where he hired the Danish-born Peter Martins as a dancer and, later, as a choreographer. Balanchine and Me is dedicated to Martins's profound artistic relationship with George Balanchine, who taught him a new, freer style of dance, and ultimately entrusted Martins with the future of the New York City Ballet, which Martins went on to lead for 35 years. This proved to be an inspired choice as Martins led the company to new heights, strengthened it financially, and initiated many innovative new programs. Peter Martins' insights and anecdotes of working closely with Balanchine are historically important and often highly dramatic. Balanchine and Me is an indispensable resource to anyone interested in dance and the cultural universe of New York City.

South Carolina Onstage offers a collection of seven plays spanning two hundred years, all by South Carolina authors. It begins with a concise history of the theater in the Palmetto State, from the first dramatic productions in colonial Charleston through the rise of opera houses and community theatres across the state, to the dynamic dramatic culture South Carolina today enjoys. Each of the plays included here illuminates a different moment in South Carolina's history and is prefaced by an introductory essay. Collectively, these plays reveal the rich diversity of South Carolina's dramatic heritage.

Are there degrees of coincidence? Is it poor hygiene to "double dip" a chip? Is it appropriate to say "God bless you" to a woman who sneezes if her husband does not? If you named a kid Rasputin, do you think that would have a negative effect on his life? For nine seasons, the Seinfeld gang engaged in argument and debate over such weighty matters of etiquette, leaving no stone unturned, no double-dipped chip ignored, no exposed nipple on a greeting card unexamined. But Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer were hardly the first to do this. In fact, they built their comedy around the sort of discussions we can find in the greatest collection of texts in the Jewish religion: The Babylonian Talmud. Like the eminent Rabbis of ancient Israel and Babylon, the Seinfeld gang spent their days poring over the excruciating minutiae of every single event imaginable. Seinfeld is the Jewish Talmud of a new generation. Thus does Jarrod Tanny bring you the The Seinfeld Talmud - Seinfeld as analyzed by the Sages of the Near East who gave us the illustrious Talmud, which, depending on whom you ask, is either the most comprehensive body of Jewish law ever produced or thousands of pages about nothing. This parodic take on Seinfeld through the lens of Jewishness will appeal to Seinfeld aficionados and anyone interested in the remarkable role Jewish culture has played in shaping American entertainment. Come join the masters of Judaic Law on their quest to master Seinfeld's domain.

The Opium Factory of Ghazipur has a history all its own. Like most other colonial enterprises, it was developed to further colonial mercantile and imperial interests. Ghazipore, as it was known in British India, was the headquarters of the Benaras opium agency, which included almost the whole of the then-United Provinces. Directed and driven by metropolitan capital, the opium factory's success signaled the rise of colonial India as a major exporter of raw opium. Nevertheless, the opium factory was not simply a site of production of "provision" opium; it was where metropolitan capital and imperial science and technology intertwined to ensure the vitality of a colonial establishment. Technology was not everything, however. Raising the standard of opium manufacturing required the services of the "opium chemist," who became vital to the efficacy of the entire operation. Colonial research focused on the extraction of alkaloids to meet the growing demand of medicinal opium and its imports to England during and after World War II. From a site of manufacture of crude raw opium, the factory evolved into a modern pharmaceutical concern that was totally redesigned and reequipped. Renamed the "Government Opium and Alkaloid Works," some elements of continuity render this 200-year old monument a legacy embodying a powerful narrative of how "opium made the world go round." This work is an attempt to revisit and uncover the many trajectories of the Ghazipur opium factory, which still remains a site of production in the twenty-first century.

Shenoute of Atripe and the Rise of Monastic Education in Egypt addresses the monastic teachings of Shenoute of Atripe, an Egyptian author and monastic leader of the fourth and fifth centuries CE, as well as the literary and cultural context of his teachings. The first chapter introduces Shenoute and explores the chronology of his life. Considering both known elements and new hints, it offers a new chronology that challenges the traditionally accepted reconstruction, especially with regard to the date of Shenoute's death. The second chapter focuses on Shenoute's educational background, particularly the hypothesis that Shenoute received a classical Greek education before becoming a monk. The last three chapters offer an analysis of the education offered by Shenoute, by his monastic predecessors in Egypt, and by Shenoute's successor Besa.

Opium Consumption and Experience in India offers a "cultural biography" of opium on the subcontinent. It spans the Raj and India after independence. The book examines the "social lives" of opium in India, beginning as a commodity in the sixteenth century, exploring its social transformation and singularization in the eighteenth century, and chronicling its decline from the mid-nineteenth century to obsolescence and the new "paths and diversions" of our own times. The book attempts to illuminate how opium came to occupy a central place in India's "cultures of consumption" and also in the socio-economic and political life of a people. How did opium become embedded in a social ethos where it not only served as a social lubricant but soon morphed into a narco-identity for the people of India? The identification of India as a land of "great opium eaters" spawned the propaganda of a "civilizing mission" that ushered in a new era of material exploitation and political domination. As Dr. Kour demonstrates, this had a significant impact on the development and regulation of opium and its use.