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Virtual Learning: Insights and Perspectives
by Ravi Inder Singh Pooja SikkaThis book brings together the research work conducted by renowned academics and practitioners on critical and immensely important issues of virtual learning. It provides innovative ideas and empirical findings on the subject. The sixteen chapters by established and young scholars from all over the country offer strong theoretical and analytical discussion, and examine a wide range of issues confronting the education sector in India in general and the higher education sector in particular. The book seeks to address pertinent issues relating to virtual learning like emerging scenario with respect to required changes in pedagogy used in higher education learning, perceptions of learners about online mode of learning, problems and challenges in virtual learning, paradigm shifts in higher education, designing of new learning strategies for online mode of learning and about the role virtual learning plays in inclusive growth. The scholarly discussion of the book will serve as an excellent vade mecum for readers who want to understand the various dimensions of virtual learning, specifically those that emerged during the Covid-19 Pandemic period, and will provide opportunities to researchers to use it as reference to pursue research in the field of virtual learning.
Virtual Literacies: Interactive Spaces for Children and Young People (Routledge Research in Education #84)
by Julia Gillen Jackie Marsh Guy Merchant Julia DaviesThe growth of interest in virtual worlds and other online spaces for children and young people raises important issues for literacy educators and researchers. This book is a timely and much-needed collection of current research in the area. It provides a synthesis of knowledge and understanding and will be a key resource for scholars, students and teachers, particularly those interested in digital literacies. The work presents a coherent vision of current knowledge, and some of the most engaging, empirical research being undertaken on virtual worlds and online spaces in and beyond educational institutions. It contains international studies from the UK, North America and Australasia. This is an important time for those researching virtual worlds, videogaming and Web 2.0 technologies, since there is growing professional interest in their significance in the education and development of children and young people. Whether these technologies are solely associated with informal learning or whether they should be incorporated into classroom contexts is hotly debated. This book provides a principled evaluation and appreciation of the learning, teaching and instruction that can occur in digital environments, showing children, young people and those who work with them as active agents with possibilities to navigate new paths.
The Virtual Manager Collection (3 Books) (HBR 20-Minute Manager Series)
by Harvard Business ReviewToday we have greater control over where and when we work. As our businesses spread across the world and technology makes it easy to do our jobs from anywhere there's Wi-Fi, more of us have the option to go remote. But that doesn't mean we're good at it. Whether you're calling in from a home office every day or one of your team members occasionally logs in from the quiet car on a train, distance can make collaboration more difficult. Remote work gives teams flexibility and options, but when you're not face-to-face with colleagues, it's difficult to set and manage expectations, deal with inevitable tech glitches, keep your people (and yourself) motivated and engaged, and infuse warmth and personality into the blunt communication tools you're using.The Virtual Manager Collection gives you the solutions you need to be productive, whether you're managing a team, a project, or just your own work. This specially priced three-volume set includes Virtual Collaboration, Running Virtual Meetings, and Leading Virtual Teams.Tips and strategies cover: getting your technology up and running-and keeping it there building and maintaining relationships from afar communicating well through a variety of media running productive virtual meetings setting and managing expectations for your work leading geographically dispersed teamsThis set has the practical advice, insights, and tools you need to work well, no matter where you are.Don't have much time? Get up to speed fast on the most essential business skills with HBR's 20-Minute Manager series. Whether you need a crash course or a brief refresher, each book in the series is a concise, practical primer that will help you brush up on a key management topic. Advice you can quickly read and apply, for ambitious professionals and aspiring executives-from the most trusted source in business. Also available as an ebook.
Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence: Risks and Opportunities for Your Business
by Matteo ZaralliTechnology is rapidly transforming the way people learn and train, and the integration of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) could be the next big breakthrough. With the advent of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse, there are endless possibilities for creating immersive and engaging learning environments. However, there is also a need to address the risks and challenges that these technologies present.This book explores the risks and opportunities of VR and AI for coaching and training, with an eye toward the emerging trends of Web 3.0 and the Metaverse. Coaching and training have become increasingly important for companies seeking to develop and retain talent. With the advent of VR and AI technology, there is an opportunity to create immersive and engaging learning environments that could greatly enhance the learning experience. However, there are also risks associated with the use of these technologies, such as data privacy and cybersecurity.This book provides an in-depth analysis of the risks and opportunities of VR and AI for coaching and training, to help startup and business executives understand how to use these technologies responsibly and effectively. We need a new perspective. The book discusses the intersection of various major subjects and topics: business, innovation, technology, and philosophy in terms of critical thinking. The transition we are experiencing through this new Intelligent Revolution is very important, and soon everyone will witness the shift from e-learning to v-learning.
Virtual Reality and Virtual Environments: A Tool for Improving Occupational Safety and Health (Occupational Safety, Health, and Ergonomics)
by Andrzej GrabowskiVirtual reality (VR) techniques are becoming increasingly popular. The use of computer modeling and visualization is no longer uncommon in the area of ergonomics and occupational health and safety. This book explains how studies conducted in a simulated virtual world are making it possible to test new solutions for designed workstations, offering a high degree of ease for introducing modifications and eliminating risk and work-related accidents. Virtual reality techniques offer a wide range of possibilities including increasing the cognitive abilities of the elderly, adapting workstations for people with disabilities and special needs, and remote control of machines using collaborative robots.Detailed discussions include: Testing protective devices, safety systems, and the numerical reconstruction of work accidents Using computer simulation in generic virtual environments On the one hand, it is a self-study book made so by well-crafted and numerous examples. On the other hand, through a detailed analysis of the virtual reality from a point of view of work safety and ergonomics and health improvement. Ewa Grabska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, PolandNoteworthy is the broad scope and diversity of the addressed problems, ranging from training employees using VR environments with different degrees of perceived reality; training and rehabilitation of the elderly; to designing, testing, modifying, and adapting workplaces to various needs including those of disabled workers; to simulation and investigation of the cause of accidents at a workplace.Andrzej Krawiecki, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland
Virtual Reality Usability Design
by David Gerhard Wil J. NortonThe development of effective and usable software for spatial computing platforms like virtual reality (VR) requires an understanding of how these devices create new possibilities (and new perils) when it comes to interactions between humans and computers. Virtual Reality Usability Design provides readers with an understanding of the techniques and technologies required to design engaging and effective VR applications. The book covers both the mechanics of how human senses and the mind experience immersive virtual environments, as well as how to leverage these mechanics to create human-focused virtual experiences. Deeply rooted in principles of human perception and computational interaction, the current and future limitations of these replacements are also considered. Full of real-world examples, this book is an indispensable guide for any practising VR developer interested in making efficient and effective interfaces. Meanwhile, explorations of concrete theory in their practical application will be useful for VR students and researchers alike.
Virtual Sociocultural Convergence
by William Sims BainbridgeThis book explores the remarkable sociocultural convergencein multiplayer online games and other virtual worlds, through the unificationof computer science, social science, and the humanities. The emergence of online media provides notonly new methods for collecting social science data, but also contexts fordeveloping theory and conducting education in the arts as well astechnology. Notably, role-playing gamesand virtual worlds naturally demonstrate many classical concepts about human behaviour,in ways that encourage innovative thinking. The inspiration derives from the internationally shared values developedin a fifteen-year series of conferences on science and technology convergence. The primary methodology is focused on sending avatars, representingclassical social theorists or schools of thought, into online gameworlds thatharmonize with, or challenge, their fundamental ideas, including technologicaldeterminism, urban sociology, group formation, freedom versus control, classstratification, linguistic variation, functional equivalence across cultures, behaviouralpsychology, civilization collapse, and ethnic pluralism. Researchers and students in the social and behaviouralsciences will benefit from the many diverse examples of how both qualitativeand quantitative science of culture and society can be performed in onlinecommunities of many kinds, even as artists and gamers learn styles and skillsthey may apply in their own work and play.
Virtual Teams: Mastering Communication And Collaboration In The Digital Age
by Terri R. KurtzbergElectronic communication is now embedded in our daily experience, as is work involving off-site collaborators. Virtual communication has become an essential job skill that is critical to individual and group success, yet most people just muddle through it without giving it any thought. Drawing on decades of scientific research in the fields of psychology, organizational behavior, and sociology, this book explains how to master the art and science of communicating virtually. <p><p> The author first analyzes the subtle but significant changes that result when conversations are moved online, providing examples and tips to avoid common pitfalls, then discusses how team behavior and decision making can best be guided in this realm. Readers will fully understand what makes teams "click"--what inspires trust, how to get a team "off on the right foot," and what steps to take in order to make good collaborative decisions--as well as other key topics for virtual teamwork, such as best practices for working in the cross-cultural environment. The book serves as an ideal guide for anyone who participates in or manages a virtual team but is also suitable as a supplemental textbook in a business school course on organizational behavior or business communication.
Virtual Teams Across National Borders (Routledge Frontiers in the Development of International Business, Management and Marketing)
by Marin A. MarinovVirtual teams can be traced back to the 1990s with the debauched development of communication technologies as well as the fast extension of the internet. Virtual teams possess unique features allowing them to combine cultural multiplicity, specific tasks, physical remoteness of team members, continuous distant communication, critical interdependence of tasks, leadership, cohesion, empowerment, confidence, virtuality, special trust creation and trust building. For a successful functioning of present-day organisations, they need to employ geographically dispersed labour force. Creating virtual teams functioning across national borders, organisations secure the most competent talent available world-wide. Employing the best available know-how, virtual teams apply the knowledge of experts from various cultures having diverse capabilities as well as varied perceptions on dealing with multiple organisational challenges from strategic perspectives. Compositions of virtual teams operating across national borders alter depending on types of industry, organisation, and organisational unit. International virtual teams functioning across national borders perform from practically everywhere all over the world if there is a secure and constant internet connection. This book is dedicated to offering a comprehensive outlook and analysis of the theoretical and practical aspects related to the creation of virtual teams across national borders as well as the specifics of their implementation. The research, published as chapters in the book, allow the detection of the key aspects and trends concerning the creation and performance of virtual teams across national borders. The book presents topics, not being investigated in-depth so far or not researched at all. The purpose of the book is to fill in certain gaps in the existing research and subsequent publications, referring to a broad variety of issues concerning theoretical and empirical fundamentals of the creation of virtual teams and their functioning across national borders, the role of virtual intelligence in relation to distance interpretation in international virtual teams, geography of virtual teams in relation to digital nomads, communication in virtual teams, creation of communal identity via implementation of virtual teams, tax implications for virtual work among numerous other issues.
Virtual Trainings: So gestalten Sie mitreissende Online-Schulungen mit nachhaltigen Lerneffekten
by Jeb BlountDie weltweite Pandemie beschleunigte die breite Einführung virtueller Trainings. Diese Trainingsform kombiniert die Struktur, die Verantwortlichkeit und die Vorteile des sozialen Lernens vor Ort im Klassenzimmer mit Geschwindigkeit, Flexibilität und erheblichen Kosteneinsparungen. Virtuelle Schulungen sind auà erdem umweltfreundlich. Die gröà te Herausforderung beim virtuellen Training und der Grund für den groà en Widerstand dagegen ist jedoch, dass die Erfahrung in der Vergangenheit sehr mühsam war. Das liegt nicht an der Qualität des Lehrplans oder des Inhalts. Auch nicht am Talent des Trainers. Es ist die Lernerfahrung. Es gibt nur wenige Menschen, die noch nie das "Vergnügen" hatten, sich durch quälende virtuelle Trainings-Sessions zu schleppen. Der Tod durch Voice-over-PowerPoint, vorgetragen von einem desinteressierten Ausbilder, hat einen besonders bitteren Beigeschmack. Es ist die Art und Weise, wie virtuelle Trainings durchgeführt werden, die am wichtigsten ist. Wenn die virtuelle Lernerfahrung emotional positiv ist, sind die Teilnehmer beispielsweise engagierter, eignen sich neue Kompetenzen an und das Wissen bleibt haften. Auà erdem buchen Führungskräfte mehr virtuelle Trainings und Unternehmen integrieren virtuelle Trainings leichter in ihre Lern- und Entwicklungsinitiativen. Genau darum geht es in diesem Buch. "Virtual Trainings" ist der maà gebliche Leitfaden für die Durchführung virtueller Schulungen, die die Lernenden fesseln und neue Fähigkeiten und Verhaltensänderungen nachhaltig vermitteln. Jeb Blount, einer der bekanntesten Trainer und Autoren unserer Generation, führt Sie Schritt für Schritt durch die sieben Elemente effektiver, ansprechender virtueller Lernerfahrungen: Trainer-Mentalität & emotionale Disziplin, Produktion & Technologie, Medien & Visuelles, virtuelles Curriculum & Lehrplangestaltung, Planung & Vorbereitung, virtuelle Kommunikationsfähigkeiten, dynamische und interaktive Durchführung von Schulungen. Mit jedem neuen Kapitel werden Sie mehr und mehr Vertrauen in Ihre Fähigkeit gewinnen, Trainings in einem virtuellen Klassenzimmer effektiv durchzuführen. Wenn Sie erst einmal die virtuelle Durchführung von Schulungen beherrschen und die Vorteile des Fernunterrichts kennengelernt haben, werden Sie vielleicht nie wieder in ein physisches Klassenzimmer zurückkehren wollen.
The Virtual Transformation of the Public Sphere: Knowledge, Politics, Identity (Critical Interventions In Theory And Praxis Ser.)
by Gaurav DesaiThis book explores how new media technologies such as e-mails, online forums, blogs and social networking sites have helped shape new forms of public spheres. Offering new readings of Jürgen Habermas’s notion of the public sphere, scholars from diverse disciplines interrogate the power and possibilities of new media in creating and disseminating public information; changing human communication at the interpersonal, institutional and societal levels; and affecting our self-fashioning as private and public individuals. Beginning with philosophical approaches to the subject, the book goes on to explore the innovative deployment of new media in areas as diverse as politics, social activism, piracy, sexuality, ethnic identity and education. The book will immensely interest those in media, culture and gender studies, philosophy, political science, sociology and anthropology.
Virtual Unreality
by Charles SeifeThe bestselling author of Proofiness and Zero explains how to separate fact from fantasy in the digital world Digital information is a powerful tool that spreads unbelievably rapidly, infects all corners of society, and is all but impossible to control--even when that information is actually a lie. In Virtual Unreality, Charles Seife uses the skepticism, wit, and sharp facility for analysis that captivated readers in Proofiness and Zero to take us deep into the Internet information jungle and cut a path through the trickery, fakery, and cyber skullduggery that the online world enables. Taking on everything from breaking news coverage and online dating to program trading and that eccentric and unreliable source that is Wikipedia, Seife arms his readers with actual tools--or weapons--for discerning truth from fiction online.
Virtual Unreality
by Charles SeifeThe bestselling author of Proofiness and Zero explains how to separate fact from fantasy in the digital world Digital information is a powerful tool that spreads unbelievably rapidly, infects all corners of society, and is all but impossible to control--even when that information is actually a lie. In Virtual Unreality, Charles Seife uses the skepticism, wit, and sharp facility for analysis that captivated readers in Proofiness and Zero to take us deep into the Internet information jungle and cut a path through the trickery, fakery, and cyber skullduggery that the online world enables. Taking on everything from breaking news coverage and online dating to program trading and that eccentric and unreliable source that is Wikipedia, Seife arms his readers with actual tools--or weapons--for discerning truth from fiction online.
Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing
by Sverker Finnström Neil L. WhiteheadVirtual War and Magical Death is a provocative examination of the relations between anthropology and contemporary global war. Several arguments unite the collected essays, which are based on ethnographic research in varied locations, including Guatemala, Uganda, and Tanzania, as well as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and the United States. Foremost is the contention that modern high-tech warfare--as it is practiced and represented by the military, the media, and civilians--is analogous to rituals of magic and sorcery. Technologies of "virtual warfare," such as high-altitude bombing, remote drone attacks, night-vision goggles, and even music videoes and computer games that simulate battle, reproduce the imaginative worlds and subjective experiences of witchcraft, magic, and assault sorcery long studied by cultural anthropologists. <P><P> Another significant focus of the collection is the U. S. military's exploitation of ethnographic research, particularly through its controversial Human Terrain Systems (HTS) Program, which embeds anthropologists as cultural experts in military units. Several pieces address the ethical dilemmas that HTS and other counterinsurgency projects pose for anthropologists. Other essays reveal the relatively small scale of those programs in relation to the military's broader use of, and ambitions for, social scientific data.
Virtual Worlds As Philosophical Tools
by Stefano Gualeni• What does it mean for human beings to 'be' in simulated worlds? • Will experiencing worlds that are not 'actual' change our ways of structuring thought? • Can virtual worlds open up new possibilities to philosophize? Inspired by Martin Heidegger's work,Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools seeks to answer these questions from a perspective that combines insights from the field of philosophy of technology with videogame design. Gualeni's exploration casts new light on interactive digital simulations as the context in which a new humanism has already begun to arise. From that perspective, this book articulates an understanding of virtual worlds as philosophical mediators.
Virtuality and Humanity: Virtual Practice and Its Evolution from Pre-History to the 21st Century
by Sam N. Lehman-WilzigThis is a pioneering study of virtuality through human history: ancient-to-modern evolution and recent expansion; expression in many fields (chapters on Religion; Philosophy, Math, Physics; Literature and the Arts; Economics; Nationhood, Government and War; Communication); psychological and social reasons for its universality; inter-relationship with "reality." The book's thesis: virtuality was always an integral part of humanity in many areas of life, generally expanding over the ages. The reasons: 1- brain psychology; 2- virtuality's six functions — escape from boredom to relieving existential dread. Other questions addressed: How will future neuroscience, biotech and "compunications" affect virtuality? Can/should there be limits to human virtualizing?
Virtually Criminal: Crime, Deviance and Regulation Online
by Matthew WilliamsAmidst the sensationalist claims about the dangers of the Internet, Virtually Criminal provides an empirically grounded criminological analysis of deviance and regulation within an online community. It integrates theory and empiricism to forge an explanation of cybercrime whilst offering new insights into online regulation. One of the first studies to further our understanding of the causes of cyber deviance, crime and its control, this groundbreaking study from Matthew Williams takes the Internet as a site of social and cultural (re)production, and acknowledges the importance of online social/cultural formations in the genesis and regulation of cyber deviance and crime. A blend of criminological, sociological and linguistic theory, this book provides a unique understanding of the aetiology of cybercrime and deviance. Focus group and offence data are analyzed and an interrelationship between online community, deviance and regulation is established. The subject matter of the book is inherently transnational. It makes extensive use of a number of international case studies, ensuring it is relevant to readers in multiple countries (especially the US, the UK and Australasia). Pioneering and innovative, this fascinating book will be of interest to students and researchers across the disciplines of sociology, criminology, law and media and communication studies.
Virtually Lost: Young Americans in the Digital Technocracy (Routledge Advances in Sociology)
by Garry RobsonThis book examines the connections between the psycho-social difficulties and challenges faced by children and younger people in their online lives; the structure, character, and motivations of the corporate system ‘behind’ the screen; and the possibility that the digital technostructure may come to form the backbone of a new post-democratic system of technocratic governance. Much of the originality of this book lies in its blending of subjects that are not often combined, thereby offering a fresh perspective: ‘generation studies’; the philosophy of technology; the history of the idea of technocracy; the technologically enhanced merger of corporate・governmental power in the U.S. system; the society-shaping goals and capabilities of the big tax-exempt American foundations over the last hundred years; the elite ‘superclass’ gaming of formally constituted transnational and global institutions; and the way the United Nations-centred SDG・ESG system is itself developing in the direction of a technocratic system of economic and population management. The book will appeal to readers interested in relationships between our contemporary global power elite, the structures it has created and processes it has set in motion, and how these affect young people whose development is already being over-determined by the activities of the big Silicon Valley entities and their associates.
Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class (Forerunners: Ideas First)
by Catherine LiuA denunciation of the credentialed elite class that serves capitalism while insisting on its own progressive heroism Professional Managerial Class (PMC) elite workers labor in a world of performative identity and virtue signaling, publicizing an ability to do ordinary things in fundamentally superior ways. Author Catherine Liu shows how the PMC stands in the way of social justice and economic redistribution by promoting meritocracy, philanthropy, and other self-serving operations to abet an individualist path to a better world. Virtue Hoarders is an unapologetically polemical call to reject making a virtue out of taste and consumption habits.Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.
Virtues as Integral to Science Education: Understanding the Intellectual, Moral, and Civic Value of Science and Scientific Inquiry (Routledge International Studies in the Philosophy of Education)
by Wayne Melville; Donald KerrBy investigating the re-emergence of intellectual, moral, and civic virtues in the practice and teaching of science, this text challenges the increasing professionalization of science; questions the view of scientific knowledge as objective; and highlights the relationship between democracy and science. Written by a range of experts in science, the history of science, education and philosophy, the text establishes the historical relationship between natural philosophy and the Aristotelian virtues before moving to the challenges that the relationship faces, with the emergence, and increasing hegemony, brought about by the professionalization of science. Exploring how virtues relate to citizenship, technology, and politics, the chapters in this work illustrate the ways in which virtues are integral to understanding the values and limitations of science, and its role in informing democratic engagement. The text also demonstrates how the guiding virtues of scientific inquiry can be communicated in the classroom to the benefit of both individuals and wider societies. Scholars in the fields of Philosophy of Science, Ethics and Philosophy of Education, as well as Science Education, will find this book to be highly useful.
The Virtues of Economy: Governance, Power, and Piety in Late Medieval Rome
by James A. PalmerThe humanist perception of fourteenth-century Rome as a slumbering ruin awaiting the Renaissance and the return of papal power has cast a long shadow on the historiography of the city. Challenging this view, James A. Palmer argues that Roman political culture underwent dramatic changes in the late Middle Ages, with profound and lasting implications for city's subsequent development. The Virtues of Economy examines the transformation of Rome's governing elites as a result of changes in the city's economic, political, and spiritual landscape.Palmer explores this shift through the history of Roman political society, its identity as an urban commune, and its once-and-future role as the spiritual capital of Latin Christendom. Tracing the contours of everyday Roman politics, The Virtues of Economy reframes the reestablishment of papal sovereignty in Rome as the product of synergy between papal ambitions and local political culture. More broadly, Palmer emphasizes Rome's distinct role in evolution of medieval Italy's city-communes.
Virtues of Openness: Education, Science, and Scholarship in the Digital Age (Interventions: Education, Philosophy, And Culture Ser.)
by Michael A. Peters Peter RobertsShould all academic writings be free for us by anyone on the Web? The Virtues of Openness examines the complex history of the concept of the open society before beginning a systematic investigation of openness in relation to the book, the "open text" and the written word. These changes are discussed in relation to the development of new open spaces of scholarship with their impact upon open journal systems, open peer review, open science, and the open global digital economy. The Virtues of Openness argues that openness suggests political transparency and the norms of open inquiry, indeed, even democracy itself as both the basis of the logic of inquiry and the dissemination of its results.
Virtuous Pagans: Unreligious People in America (Routledge Library Editions: Sociology of Religion #18)
by Thomas H. DavenportThis book, first published in 1991, examines the unreligious of America. Most sociologists of religion viewed religious belief and behaviour as having strong positive function for individual well-being – with the implicit assumption that unreligious individuals would lack meaning in life. This book applies statistical approaches to modelling causality as it analyses a controversial topic in American sociology.
Virtuous Vice: Homoeroticism and the Public Sphere
by Eric O. ClarkeIn this daring study of queer life and the public sphere, Eric O. Clarke examines the effects of inclusion within public culture. Departing from studies that emphasize homophobia and its mechanisms of exclusion, Virtuous Vice details how mainstream efforts to represent queers affirmatively continually fall short of full democratic enfranchisement. Clarke draws on contemporary writings along with late-eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English and European cultural history to investigate how concepts of value, representation, and homoeroticism have interacted and circulated in the West since the Enlightenment. Examining the role of eroticism in citizenship and why only normalizing constructions of homosexuality enable inclusion, Clarke reconsiders the work of Habermas and Foucault in relation to contemporary visibility politics, Kant's moral and political theory, Marx's analysis of value, and the sexualized dynamics of the Victorian cultural public sphere. The juxtaposition of Habermas with Foucault reveals the surprising value of reading the former in the context of queer politics and the usefulness of the theory of the public sphere for understanding contemporary identity politics and the visibility politics of the 1990s. Examining how a host of nonsexual factors impinge historically upon the constitution of sexual identities and practices, Clarke negotiates the relation between questions of publicity and categories of value. Discussions of television sitcoms (such as Ellen), marketing techniques, authenticity, and literary culture add to this daring analysis of visibility politics. As a critique of the claim that equal representation of gays and lesbians necessarily constitutes progress, this significant intervention into social theory will find enthusiastic readers in the fields of Victorian, cultural, literary, and gay and lesbian studies, as well as other fields engaged with categories of identity.