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Nihilism and Negritude
by Célestin MongaIn a searching meditation on ways of living in modern Africa, Célestin Monga dispels the stereotypes that cloud how outsiders view the continent, and how Africans sometimes view themselves. He shows how dance, music, bodily experience, faith, and mourning reflect a nihilism that finds meaning and joy in a life that would otherwise seem absurd.
Nihilism and Negritude: Ways of Living in Africa
by Célestin MongaThere are two common ways of writing about Africa, says Célestin Monga. One way blames Africa’s ills on the continent’s history of exploitation and oppression. The other way blames Africans themselves for failing to rise above poisonous national prejudices and resentments. But patronizing caricatures that reduce Africans to either victims or slackers do not get us very far in understanding the complexities and paradoxes of Africa today.A searching, often searing, meditation on ways of living in modern Africa, Nihilism and Negritude dispels the stereotypes that cloud how outsiders view the continent—and how Africans sometimes view themselves. In the role of a traveler-philosopher, Monga seeks to register “the picturesque absurdity of daily life” in his native Cameroon and across the continent. Whether navigating the chaotic choreography of street traffic or discoursing on the philosophy of café menus, he illuminates the patterns of reasoning behind everyday behaviors and offers new interpretations of what some observers have misunderstood as Africans’ resigned acceptance of suffering and violence.Monga does not wish to revive Negritude, the once-influential movement that sought to identify and celebrate allegedly unique African values. Rather, he seeks to show how daily life and thought—witnessed in dance and music, sensual pleasure and bodily experience, faith and mourning—reflect a form of nihilism developed to cope with chaos, poverty, and oppression. This is not the nihilism of despair, Monga insists, but the determination to find meaning and even joy in a life that would otherwise seem absurd.
Nihilism: A Philosophical Essay
by Stanley Rosen"The growing importance of reason in philosophy concerns Stanley Rosen in this essay. Rosen's primary objective is to defend Plato and classical philosophy against Martin Heidegger's radical existentialist criticism. . . . Many critics of Heidegger consider his dubious politics during the early days of Nazi rule irrelevant to the understanding of his work. Rosen argues, on the contrary, that Heidegger's philosophy helps explain his initial enthusiasm for, and later submission to, the Nazi regime. The argument yields genuine insight into the connection between philosophical and political nihilism. Furthermore, exposing the evil consequences of nihilistic thought adds to his stout defense of the classical tradition." -- Elliot Feingold, Book Week
Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber (The Tanner Lectures on Human Values)
by Wendy BrownOne of America’s leading political theorists analyzes the nihilism degrading—and confounding—political and academic life today. Through readings of Max Weber’s Vocation Lectures, she proposes ways to counter nihilism’s devaluations of both knowledge and political responsibility.How has politics become a playpen for vain demagogues? Why has the university become an ideological war zone? What has happened to Truth? Wendy Brown places nihilism at the center of these predicaments. Emerging from European modernity’s replacement of God and tradition with science and reason, nihilism removes the foundation on which values, including that of truth itself, stand. It hyperpoliticizes knowledge and reduces the political sphere to displays of narcissism and irresponsible power plays. It renders the profound trivial, the future unimportant, and corruption banal.To consider remedies for this condition, Brown turns to Weber’s famous Vocation Lectures, delivered at the end of World War I. There, Weber himself decries the effects of nihilism on both scholarly and political life. He also spells out requirements for re-securing truth in the academy and integrity in politics. Famously opposing the two spheres to each other, he sought to restrict academic life to the pursuit of facts and reserve for the political realm the pursuit and legislation of values.Without accepting Weber’s arch oppositions, Brown acknowledges the distinctions they aim to mark as she charts reparative strategies for our own times. She calls for retrieving knowledge from hyperpoliticization without expunging values from research or teaching, and reflects on ways to embed responsibility in radical political action. Above all, she challenges the left to make good on its commitment to critical thinking by submitting all values to scrutiny in the classroom and to make good on its ambition for political transformation by twinning a radical democratic vision with charismatic leadership.
Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower
by Sergei KhrushchevMore is known about Nikita Khrushchev than about many former Soviet leaders, partly because of his own efforts to communicate through speeches, interviews, and memoirs. (A partial version of his memoirs was published in three volumes in 1970, 1974, and 1990, and a complete version was published in Russia in 1999 and will appear in an English translation to be published by Penn State Press.) But even with the opening of party and state archives in 1991, as William Taubman points out in his Foreword, many questions remain unanswered. "How did Khrushchev manage not only to survive Stalin but to succeed him? What led him to denounce his former master [an event that some interpreters herald as the first act in the drama that led to the end of the USSR]? How could a man of minimal formal education direct the affairs of a vast intercontinental empire in the nuclear age? Why did Khrushchev’s attempt to ease East-West tensions result in two of the worst crises of the Cold War in Berlin and Cuba? To resolve these and other contradictions, we need more than policy documents from archives and memoirs from associates. We need firsthand testimony by family members who knew Khrushchev best, especially by his only surviving son, Sergei, in whom he often confided."As Sergei says, "During the Cold War our nations lived on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, and not only was it an Iron Curtain but it was also a mirror: one side perceived the other as the 'evil empire,' and vice versa; so, too, each side feared the other would start a nuclear war. Neither side could understand the real reasons behind many decisions because Americans and Russians, representing different cultures, think differently. The result was a Cold War filled with misperceptions that could easily have led to tragedy, and we are lucky it never happened. And still, after the Cold War, American-Russian relations are based on many misunderstandings." In this book Sergei tells the story of how the Cold War happened in reality from the Russian side, not from the American side, and this is his most important contribution.Sergei N. Khrushchev was born in 1935 when his father was Moscow party chief. He accompanied his father on major foreign trips—to Great Britain in 1956, East Germany in 1958, the United States in 1959, Egypt in 1964, among many others. After he became a control systems engineer and went to work for leading Soviet missile designer Vladimir Chelomei, Sergei attended many meetings at which his father transacted business with key leaders in the Soviet defense establishment. He has received many awards and honors for his work in computer science, missile design, and space research. Besides his many technical publications, he has published widely on political and economic issues. In 1991 Little Brown published his memoir about his father’s last years, Khrushchev on Khrushchev. In that same year he received an appointment to the Center for Foreign Policy Development of the Thomas J. Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, where he is today. He and his wife, Valentina Nikolayevna, applied for U. S. citizenship in 1999, an event widely covered in the media.
Nine Chapters on Mathematical Modernity: Essays on the Global Historical Entanglements of the Science of Numbers in China (Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context)
by Andrea BréardThe book addresses for the first time the dynamics associated with the modernization of mathematics in China from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century from a transcultural global historical perspective. Rather than depict the transformations of mathematical knowledge in terms of a process of westernization, the book analyzes the complex interactions between different scientific communities and the ways in which the past, modernity, language, and mathematics were negotiated in a global context. In each chapter, Andrea Bréard provides vivid portraits of a series of go-betweens (such as translators, educators, or state statisticians) based on a vast array of translated primary sources hitherto unavailable to a non-Chinese readership. They not only illustrate how Chinese scholars mediated between new mathematical objects and discursive modes, but also how they instrumentalized their autochthonous scientific roots in specific political and intellectual contexts. While sometimes technical in style, the book addresses all readers who are interested in the global and cultural history of science and the complexities involved in the making of universal mathematics. “While the pursuit of modernity is in the title, entanglement is of as much interest. Using the famous ‘Nine Chapters’ as a framework, Bréard considers a wide range of that entanglement from divination to data management. Bréard’s analysis and thought-provoking insights show once again how much we can learn when two cultures intersect. A fascinating read!” (John Day, Boston University).
Nine Essential Things I've Learned About Life
by Harold S. KushnerFrom the beloved author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, deeply moving and illuminating reflections on what it means to live a good life. As a congregational rabbi for half a century and the best-selling author of twelve books on faith, ethics, and how to apply the timeless wisdom of religious thought to everyday challenges, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner has demonstrated time and again his understanding of the human spirit. In this compassionate new work, his most personal since When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Kushner relates how his time as a twenty-first-century rabbi has shaped his senses of religion and morality. He elicits nine essential lessons from the sum of his teaching, study, and experience, offering a lifetime's worth of spiritual food for thought, pragmatic advice, inspiration for a more fulfilling life, and strength for trying times. With fresh, vital insight into belief ("there is no commandment in Judaism to believe in God"), conscience (the Garden of Eden story as you've never heard it), and mercy (forgiveness is "a favor you do yourself, not an undeserved gesture to the person who hurt you"), grounded in Kushner's brilliant readings of Scripture, history, and popular culture, Nine Essential Things I've Learned About Life is compulsory reading from one of modern Judaism's foremost sages. Distilling the wisdom of an extraordinary career, this profoundly inspiring yet practical guide to well-being is truly the capstone to Kushner's luminous oeuvre.From the Hardcover edition.
Nine Essential Things I've Learned About Life
by Harold S. KushnerFrom the beloved author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, deeply moving and illuminating reflections on what it means to live a good life. As a congregational rabbi for half a century and the best-selling author of twelve books on faith, ethics, and how to apply the timeless wisdom of religious thought to everyday challenges, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner has demonstrated time and again his understanding of the human spirit. In this compassionate new work, his most personal since When Bad Things Happen to Good People, Kushner relates how his time as a twenty-first-century rabbi has shaped his senses of religion and morality. He elicits nine essential lessons from the sum of his teaching, study, and experience, offering a lifetime's worth of spiritual food for thought, pragmatic advice, inspiration for a more fulfilling life, and strength for trying times. With fresh, vital insight into belief ("there is no commandment in Judaism to believe in God"), conscience (the Garden of Eden story as you've never heard it), and mercy (forgiveness is "a favor you do yourself, not an undeserved gesture to the person who hurt you"), grounded in Kushner's brilliant readings of Scripture, history, and popular culture, Nine Essential Things I've Learned About Life is compulsory reading from one of modern Judaism's foremost sages. Distilling the wisdom of an extraordinary career, this profoundly inspiring yet practical guide to well-being is truly the capstone to Kushner's luminous oeuvre.From the Hardcover edition.
Nine Modern Moralists: Paul Tillich, Karl Marx, H. Richard Niebuhr, Fyodor Dostoevski, Reinhold Niebuhr, Jacques Maritain, Jean-paul Sartre, Emil Brunner, Edmond Cahn
by Paul RamseyEminent Princeton Philosopher Paul Ramsey looks at the lives and ideas of nine famous Moralists of the modern age.The featured philosophers are — Paul Tillich, Karl Marx, H. Richard Niebuhr, Fyodor Dostoevski, Reinhold Niebuhr, Jacques Maritain, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emil Brunner and Edmond Cahn. “The greatness of the men whose insight and reflections are the subject of the following chapters is obviously a sufficient justification for this volume. The reader who simply wants to learn what was felt and thought and believed by some of the outstanding minds of the immediate past and of the present can, it is hoped, do so by reading the chapters of this book as expository essays. Here he will find their thought anatomized; and, in relatively brief compass, it may be possible for him to become seriously engaged in thinking their thoughts after them. Certainly, no one can come to an understanding of the latest and best of contemporary ideas and ideals by going around these men; only by going through them can one gain a deeper understanding of himself and of our epoch.
Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood
by Rose GeorgeLos Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist: A “compelling chronicle” of the science, politics, and business of blood (The Wall Street Journal).Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event.Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to the breakthrough of the “liquid biopsy,” which promises to diagnose cancer and other diseases with a simple blood test. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world’s first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as “Menstrual Man” for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the US is known as the “OPEC of plasma.” And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you. Spanning science and politics, individual’s stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life’s blood in an entirely new light.One of Bill Gates’ Recommended Summer Reading Titles“Stellar . . . An informative, elegant, and provocative exploration of the life-giving substance . . . A wondrously well-written work.” —Booklist (starred review)Both fascinating and informative . . . George packs her book with the kinds of provocative, witty, and rigorously reported facts and stories sure to make readers view the integral fluid coursing through our veins in a whole new way.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“George charges down wholly unexpected avenues of medical history and global injustice, leaving the reader by turns giddy and appalled. And always, always in awe of the writing.” —Mary Roach, author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War“A very good book.” —The New York Times
Nine Talmudic Readings
by Emmanuel LevinasThese nine masterful readings of the Talmud by the renowned French Jewish philosopher translate Jewish thought into the language of modern times.One of the major continental philosophers of the twentieth century, Emmanuel Levinas was also an important Talmudic commentator. Between 1963 and 1975, he delivered an enlightening and influential series of commentaries at the annual Talmudic colloquia of a group of French Jewish intellectuals in Paris. In this collection, Levinas applies a hermeneutic that simultaneously allows the classic Jewish texts to shed light on contemporary problems and lets modern problems illuminate the texts. Besides being quintessential illustrations of the art of reading, the essays express the deeply ethical vision of the human condition that makes Levinas one of the most important thinkers of our time.
Nine-Headed Dragon River: Zen Journals 1969-1982
by Peter MatthiessenIn August 1968, naturalist-explorer Peter Matthiessen returned from Africa to his home in Sagaponack, Long Island, to find three Zen masters in his driveway--guests of his wife, a new student of Zen. Thirteen years later, Matthiessen was ordained a Buddhist monk. Written in the same format as his best-selling The Snow Leopard, Nine-Headed Dragon River reveals Matthiessen's most daring adventure of all: the quest for his spiritual roots.
Nineteenth Century Popular Fiction, Medicine and Anatomy: The Victorian Penny Blood and the 1832 Anatomy Act (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine)
by Anna GasperiniThis book investigates the relationship between the fascinating and misunderstood penny blood, early Victorian popular fiction for the working class, and Victorian anatomy. In 1832, the controversial Anatomy Act sanctioned the use of the body of the pauper for teaching dissection to medical students, deeply affecting the Victorian poor. The ensuing decade, such famous penny bloods as Manuscripts from the Diary of a Physician, Varney the Vampyre, Sweeney Todd, and The Mysteries of London addressed issues of medical ethics, social power, and bodily agency. Challenging traditional views of penny bloods as a lowlier, un-readable genre, this book rereads these four narratives in the light of the 1832 Anatomy Act, putting them in dialogue with different popular artistic forms and literary genres, as well as with the spaces of death and dissection in Victorian London, exploring their role as channels for circulating discourses about anatomy and ethics among the Victorian poor.
Nineteenth-Century British Secularism: Science, Religion and Literature (Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700-2000)
by Michael RectenwaldNineteenth-Century British Secularism offers a new paradigm for understanding secularization in the nineteenth century. It addresses the crisis in the secularization thesis by foregrounding a nineteenth-century development called 'Secularism' – the particular movement and creed founded by George Jacob Holyoake from 1851 to 1852. Nineteenth-Century British Secularism rethinks and reevaluates the significance of Holyoake's Secularism, regarding it as a historic moment of modernity and granting it centrality as both a herald and exemplar for a new understanding of modern secularity. In addition to Secularism proper, the book treats several other moments of secular emergence in the nineteenth century, including Thomas Carlyle's 'natural supernaturalism', Richard Carlile's anti-theist science advocacy, Charles Lyell's uniformity principle in geology, Francis Newman's naturalized religion or 'primitive Christianity', and George Eliot's secularism and post-secularism.
Nineteenth-Century Philosophy of Religion: The History of Western Philosophy of Religion, Volume 4
by Graham Oppy N. N. TrakakisThe nineteenth century was a turbulent period in the history of the philosophical scrutiny of religion. Major scholars - such as Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Newman, Caird and Royce - sought to construct systematic responses to the Enlightenment critiques of religion carried out by Spinoza and Hume. At the same time, new critiques of religion were launched by philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and by scholars engaged in textual criticism, such as Schleiermacher and Dilthey. Over the course of the century, the work of Marx, Freud, Darwin and Durkheim brought the revolutionary perspectives of political economy, psychoanalysis, evolutionary theory and anthropology to bear on both religion and its study. These challenges played a major role in the shaping of twentieth-century philosophical thought about religion. "Nineteenth-Century Philosophy of Religion" will be of interest to scholars and students of Philosophy and Religion, and will serve as an authoritative guide for all who are interested in the debates that took place in this seminal period in the history of philosophical thinking about religion.
Nineteenth-Century Philosophy: Revolutionary Responses to the Existing Order (The History of Continental Philosophy #2)
by Daniel Conway Alan D. SchriftThe second half of the 19th Century saw a revolution in both European politics and philosophy. Philosophical fervour reflected political fervour. Five great critics dominated the European intellectual scene: Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Soren Kierkegaard, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Friedrich Nietzsche. "Nineteenth-Century Philosophy" assesses the response of each of these leading figures to Hegelian philosophy - the dominant paradigm of the time - to the shifting political landscape of Europe and the United States, and also to the emerging critique of modernity itself. Both individually and collectively, these thinkers succeeded in revolutionizing theology, philosophy, psychology, and politics. The period also saw the emergence of new schools of thought and new disciplinary thinking. The volume covers the birth of sociology and the social sciences, the development of French spiritualism, the beginning of American pragmatism, the rise of science and mathematics, and the maturation of hermeneutics and phenomenology.
Nirvana in a Nutshell: 157 Zen Meditations
by Scott ShawMeditations to help you stop seeking inner peace—and start experiencing it instead. Nirvana is not to be found in the fulfillment of endless desires, the analysis of profound thoughts, or even hours, days, or years of meditative contemplation. In fact, it is the very act of seeking to obtain happiness, peace, and enlightenment that keeps them out of reach. Nirvana in a Nutshell offers 157 Zen meditations to help you discover what you might be doing (or not doing) in your life to sabotage your goal of reaching inner peace, your own personal paradise. But, as Scott Shaw explains, a desire for Nirvana is like any other desire—a cause of suffering. Let go of the quest and become that which you truly seek and you will find your own Nirvana.
Nirvana: The Last Nightmare
by Osho Osho International FoundationNirvana has become an idealized word associated with the juxtaposition of a cult rock celebrity who died before his time and a vague new age version of Eastern religion. An altered state to be hoped for, but likely unattainable, reinforcing that all too familiar uneasiness associated with never being able to have what we truly desire in life.Osho masterfully brings this internal state of tension to the surface and through the use of five beautiful Zen stories examines, unravels and reveals the meaning of nirvana. By absorbing without interpreting, making a decision without worrying if it is the right one, or surrendering to each moment, it is possible to come to a point where we simply drop through the manifestations of the ego. In that moment, living an ordinary life becomes an extraordinary delight.
Nishida Kitaro's Chiasmatic Chorology: Place of Dialectic, Dialectic of Place (World Philosophies)
by John W. KrummelNishida Kitaro (1870–1945) is considered Japan's first and greatest modern philosopher. As founder of the Kyoto School, he began a rigorous philosophical engagement and dialogue with Western philosophical traditions, especially the work of G. W. F. Hegel. John W. M. Krummel explores the Buddhist roots of Nishida's thought and places him in connection with Hegel and other philosophers of the Continental tradition. Krummel develops notions of self-awareness, will, being, place, the environment, religion, and politics in Nishida's thought and shows how his ethics of humility may best serve us in our complex world.
Nishida and Western Philosophy
by Robert WilkinsonNishida Kitaro (1870-1945) is the most important Japanese philosopher of the last century. His constant aim in philosophy was to try to articulate Zen in terms drawn from Western philosophical sources, yet in the end he found that he could not do so, and his thought illustrates a conceptual incommensurability at the deepest level between the main line of the Western tradition and one of the main lines in Eastern thought. This book is a work of comparative philosophy. Attention is given to the consequences of Nishida's metaphysics in the areas of ethics, aesthetics, the philosophy of religion and notably the implications of Nishida's example for the question of pluralism. This study of Nishida brings into sharp focus the question of whether, faced with a conceptual incommensurability at as deep a level as that manifested by Zen, the choice between it and its Western alternative can be wholly rational.
Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power
by Robert DallekThe renowned scholar’s epic dual biography of the 37th president and his powerful secretary of state: “A classic work of contemporary American history” (The Los Angeles Times).Working side by side in the White House, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were two of the most compelling, contradictory, and powerful figures in the second half of the twentieth century. While their personalities could hardly have seemed more different, both were largely self-made men, brimming with ambition, driven by their own inner demons, and often ruthless in pursuit of their goals.Tapping into a wealth of recently declassified archives, Robert Dallek uncovers fascinating details about Nixon and Kissinger’s tumultuous personal relationship and brilliantly analyzes their shared roles in monumental historical events—including the nightmare of Vietnam, the unprecedented opening to China, détente with the Soviet Union, the Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, the disastrous overthrow of Allende in Chile, and the scandal of Watergate.
Nixon's Back Channel to Moscow: Confidential Diplomacy and Détente (Studies In Conflict, Diplomacy, And Peace Ser.)
by Richard A. MossAn in-depth study of the secret communications that led to unprecedented thaw between Cold War superpowers—“quite gripping [and] wonderfully revealing” (Jeremi Suri, author of Liberty’s Surest Guardian). The détente between the United States and the Soviet Union was among the Nixon administration’s most significant foreign policy successes. The diplomatic back channel that national security advisor Henry Kissinger established with Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin became the most important method of achieving this thaw in the Cold War. While Kissinger preferred back channels for streamlining communications and preventing leaks, these methods were widely criticized by State Department officials left out of the loop and by an American public weary of executive secrecy.Richard A. Moss’s penetrating study documents and analyzes US-Soviet back channels from Nixon’s inauguration through the May 1972 Moscow Summit. He traces the evolution of confidential diplomacy and examines major flashpoints, including the 1970 crisis over Cienfuegos, Cuba, the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT), US dealings with China, deescalating tensions in Berlin, and the Vietnam War. Moss argues that while the back channels improved US-Soviet relations in the short term, the Nixon-Kissinger methods provided a poor foundation for lasting policy.Employing newly declassified documents, the Nixon tapes, and the complete record of the Kissinger-Dobrynin channel, Moss reveals the behind-the-scenes deliberations of Nixon, his advisers, and their Soviet counterparts. This is the first scholarly study to comprehensively assess the central role of confidential diplomacy in shaping America’s foreign policy during this critical era.
No Apocalypse, No Integration: Modernism and Postmodernism in Latin America
by Martín HopenhaynWinner of the Premio Iberoamericano Book Award in 1997 (Spanish Edition) What form does the crisis of modernity take in Latin America when societies are politically demobilized and there is no revolutionary agenda in sight? How does postmodern criticism reflect on enlightenment and utopia in a region marked by incomplete modernization, new waves of privatization, great masses of excluded peoples, and profound sociocultural heterogeneity? In No Apocalypse, No Integration Martín Hopenhayn examines the social and philosophical implications of the triumph of neoliberalism and the collapse of leftist and state-sponsored social planning in Latin America. With the failure of utopian movements that promised social change, the rupture of the link between the production of knowledge and practical intervention, and the defeat of modernization and development policy established after World War II, Latin American intellectuals and militants have been left at an impasse without a vital program of action. Hopenhayn analyzes these crises from a theoretical perspective and calls upon Latin American intellectuals to reevaluate their objects of study, their political reality, and their society's cultural production, as well as to seek within their own history the elements for a new collective discourse. Challenging the notion that strict adherence to a single paradigm of action can rescue intellectual and cultural movements, Hopenhayn advocates a course of epistemological pluralism, arguing that such an approach values respect for difference and for cultural and theoretical diversity and heterodoxy. This essay collection will appeal to readers of sociology, public policy, philosophy, cultural theory, and Latin American history and culture, as well as to those with an interest in Latin America's current transition.
No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth (Whole Mind Ser.)
by Ken WilberA simple yet comprehensive guide to the types of psychologies and therapies available from Eastern and Western sources. Each chapter includes a specific exercise designed to help the reader understand the nature and practice of the specific therapies. Wilber presents an easy-to-use map of human consciousness against which the various therapies are introduced and explained. This edition includes a new preface.
No Citizen Left Behind
by Meira LevinsonWhile teaching at an all-Black middle school in Atlanta, Meira Levinson realized that studentsâ individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their profound marginalization within American society. This is because of a civic empowerment gap that is as shameful and antidemocratic as the academic achievement gap targeted by No Child Left Behind. No Citizen Left Behind argues that students must be taught how to upend and reshape power relationships directly, through political and civic action. Drawing on political theory, empirical research, and her own on-the-ground experience, Levinson shows how de facto segregated urban schools can and must be at the center of this struggle. Recovering the civic purposes of public schools will take more than tweaking the curriculum. Levinson calls on schools to remake civic education. Schools should teach collective action, openly discuss the racialized dimensions of citizenship, and provoke students by engaging their passions against contemporary injustices. Students must also have frequent opportunities to take civic and political action, including within the school itself. To build a truly egalitarian society, we must reject myths of civic sameness and empower all young people to raise their diverse voices. Levinsonâs account challenges not just educators but all who care about justice, diversity, or democracy.