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Under what conditions does 'sensation' become 'sensational'? In the early nineteenth century murder was a staple of the sensationalizing popular press and gruesome descriptions were deployed to make a direct impact on the sensations of the reader. By the end of the century, public concern with the thrills, spills, and shocks of modern life was increasingly articulated in the language of sensation. Media sensationalism contributed to this process and magnified its impact, just as sensation was, in turn, taken up by literature, art and film. In the contemporary world the dramatization of these experiences in an era of media panics over terrorism and paedophilia has taken an overtly melodramatic form, in which battles of good and evil play out across the landscapes of our lives. Sensational Subjects develops an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to exploring these themes, their impact and their implications for understanding the modern world. A companion volume, Sympathetic Sentiments: Affect, Emotion and Spectacle in the Modern World is published simultaneously by Bloomsbury

1. Introduction : bordering securities in a global world / Catarina Kinnvall and Ted Svensson -- 2. Mobile borders/bordering mobilities : status functions, contemporary state bordering practices and implications for resistance and intervention / Anthony Cooper and Chris Perkins -- 3. Joined-up security : a genealogy / Mark Bevir -- 4. The curious state of the good samaritan : humanitarianism under conditions of security / Tugba Basaran -- 5. Border thinking and the women, peace and security agenda : reapproaching global governmentality and eurocentrism / Katherine Allison -- 6. Negotiating citizenships and borders of political belonging / Paul Nesbitt-Larking -- 7. Community arts, new media and the desecuritisation of migration and asylum seeker issues in the UK / Maria Rovisco -- 8. Bordering the indefinite nation : Pakistan, the Taliban and desecuritised religion / Catarina Kinnvall and Ted Svensson -- 9. New political community and governance at the top of the world : spatiality, affinity and security in the Arctic / Annika Bergman Rosamond and Ben Rosamond -- 10. Conclusion / Catarina Kinnvall and Ted Svensson.

Introduction: The New South Africa at twenty: Some Brechtian whipsers / Peter Vale . - 1 The ANC Youth League and the politicisation of race / Deborah Posel . - 2 The political economy of pervasive rent-seeking / Raphael de Kadt and Charles Simkins . - 3 South African Marxisms, past and present / Kirk Helliker and Peter Vale. - 4 Living out our differences: Reflections on Mandela, Marx and my country - an interview with Jakes Gerwel / John Higgins . - 5 Neo-liberal restructuring and the fate of South Africa's labor unions: A case study / Mondli Hlatshwayo . - 6 The cradle to the grave: Reflections on race thinking / Gerhard Mare . - 7 Conjunctural remarks on the political significance of 'the Local' / Richard Pithouse . - 8 Part 1: Prolegomenon to education in crisis / Salim Vally . - 8 Part 2: Education in crisis / Neville Alexander . - 9 Uneasy relations: Women, gender equality and tradition / Cherryl Walker . - 10 Art and culture in contemporary South Africa: The present future / Sandra Klopper

These in-depth case studies provide novel insights in to the fast-changing language situation in multilingual China, and how it changes the meanings of language identity and language learning. This linguistic ethnographic study of language attitudes and identities in contemporary China in the era of multilingualism provides a comprehensive and critical review of the state of the art in the field of language-attitude research, and situates attitudes towards Chinese regional dialects in their social, historical as well as local contexts. The role of language policies and the links between the interactional phenomena and other contextual factors are investigated through the multi-level analysis of linguistic ethnographic data. This study captures the long-term language socialisation process and the moment-to-moment construction of language attitudes at a level of detail that is rarely seen. The narrative is presented in a highly readable style, without compromising the theoretical sophistication and sociolinguistic complexities..

Talhoffer's professional fencing manual of 1467 illustrates the intricacies of the medieval art of fighting, covering both the 'judicial duel' (an officially sanctioned fight to resolve a legal dispute) and personal combat. Combatants in the Middle Ages used footwork, avoidance, and the ability to judge and manipulate timing and distance to exploit and enhance the sword's inherent cutting and thrusting capabilities. These skills were supplemented with techniques for grappling, wrestling, kicking and throwing the opponent, as well as disarming him by seizing his weapon. Every attack contained a defence and every defence a counter-attack. Talhoffer reveals the techniques for wrestling, unarmoured fighting with the long sword, pole-axe, dagger, sword and buckler, and mounted combat. This unparalleled guide to medieval combat, illustrated with 268 contemporary images, provides a glimpse of real people fighting with skill, sophistication and ruthlessness. This is one of the most popular and influential manuals of its kind.

This volume of Advances in econometrics is devoted to Bayesian model comparison. It reflects the recent progress in model building and evaluation that has been achieved in the Bayesian paradigm and provides new state-of-the-art techniques, methodology, and findings that should stimulate future research. The volume contains articles that should appeal to readers with computational, modeling, theoretical, and applied interests. Methodological issues include parallel computation, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, dynamic model selection, small sample comparison of structural models, Bayesian thresholding methods in hierarchical graphical models, adaptive reversible jump MCMC, LASSO estimators, parameter expansion algorithms, the implementation of parameter and non-parameter-based approaches to variable selection, a survey of key results in objective Bayesian model selection methodology, and a careful look at the modeling of endogeneity in discrete data settings. Important contemporary questions are examined in applications in macroeconomics, finance, banking, labor economics, industrial organization, and transportation, among others, in which model uncertainty is a central consideration.

This volume of Advances in econometrics is devoted to Bayesian model comparison. It reflects the recent progress in model building and evaluation that has been achieved in the Bayesian paradigm and provides new state-of-the-art techniques, methodology, and findings that should stimulate future research. The volume contains articles that should appeal to readers with computational, modeling, theoretical, and applied interests. Methodological issues include parallel computation, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, dynamic model selection, small sample comparison of structural models, Bayesian thresholding methods in hierarchical graphical models, adaptive reversible jump MCMC, LASSO estimators, parameter expansion algorithms, the implementation of parameter and non-parameter-based approaches to variable selection, a survey of key results in objective Bayesian model selection methodology, and a careful look at the modeling of endogeneity in discrete data settings. Important contemporary questions are examined in applications in macroeconomics, finance, banking, labor economics, industrial organization, and transportation, among others, in which model uncertainty is a central consideration.

"This topical, lively and wide-ranging book examines the material conditions under which the contemporary English novel is produced and consumed. Its starting point is the general economic emergency which showed up these conditions with unusual clarity in the early 1970s. The first section of the book, 'Crisis and Change', considers the changing patterns of institutional book-purchase, inflation and novel-production, the 'Americanisation' of the British book trade, and the present state of fiction reviewing. The second section, 'State Remedies', surveys such interventions, and failed interventions, as Public Lending Right, Arts Council patronage, and university support for creative writers. The third section, 'Trends, Mainly American', selects specific areas (paperback publishing, self-publishing, book-clubs, television work) which offer pointers to significant future developments in British literary culture. Fiction and the Fiction Industry pays close attention to actual novels, combining literary criticism with its examination of the book trade."--Bloomsbury Publishing

"There is something unsettling, but also powerful, in the encounter with individual and collective experiences of human suffering. Intensive Media explores the discomfort and fascination initiated by instances of pain and suffering, their 'aversive affects', as they trouble but also vitalise contemporary media environments. In the contexts of crisis, conflict and suffering explored throughout this book, aversive affect operates micropolitically to make explicit or hide the material conditions that surround instances of pain in all its specificity. That is, in so many scenarios, personal, social and political stakes are set around the thresholds of intensity that give rise to a 'sense' of pain and the unpredictable valences of its aversive affects. It is in this sense that McCosker and his case studies develop outwards from the middle of what has been referred to as 'the problem of pain', a problem that traverses media, communication, art, sociality and politics in their confrontation with affect, biology and neurophysiology"--

As governments and institutions work to ameliorate the effects of anthropogenic CO2 emissions on global climate, there is an increasing need to understand how land-use and land-cover change is coupled to the carbon cycle, and how land management can be used to mitigate their effects. This book brings an interdisciplinary team of fifty-eight international researchers to share their novel approaches, concepts, theories and knowledge on land use and the carbon cycle. It discusses contemporary theories and approaches combined with state-of-the-art technologies. The central theme is that land use and land management are tightly integrated with the carbon cycle and it is necessary to study these processes as a single natural-human system to improve carbon accounting and mitigate climate change. The book is an invaluable resource for advanced students, researchers, land-use planners and policy makers in natural resources, geography, forestry, agricultural science, ecology, atmospheric science and environmental economics

"Featuring contributions by leading specialists in the field, the volume is a survey of cutting edge research in genres in political discourse. Since, as is demonstrated, "political genres" reveal many of the problems pertaining to the analysis of communicative genres in general, it is also a state-of-the-art addition to contemporary genre theory. The book offers new methodological, theoretical and empirical insights in both the long-established genres (speeches, interviews, policy documents, etc.), and the modern, rapidly-evolving generic forms, such as online political ads or weblogs. The chapters, which engage in timely issues of genre mediatization, hybridity, multimodality, and the mixing of discursive styles, come from a broad range of perspectives spanning Critical Discourse Studies, pragmatics, cognitive psychology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and media studies. As such, they constitute essential reading for anyone seeking an interdisciplinary yet coherent research agenda within the vast and complex territory of today's forms of political communication."--Publisher information

It might seem that contemporary economic theory offers a scientific account of choice among alternatives. Yet this is only superficially the case; the behavior of the agents in most economic models is completely specified by preference functions, technological possibilities, and market interactions. 'Choice' is a misnomer for solution of one or another kind of optimization problem in such models. The open-endedness that characterizes genuinely free choices made by real human beings is absent. The book aims to show that (1) the deterministic vision embodied in conventional economic modeling is neither consistent with nor supported by the state of the art in mathematics, logic, and physical science; (2) use of models that rule out unpredictability and freedom of action has had negative consequences for policy design and implementation; and (3) restoring meaningful freedom to the agents is an essential first step toward making social theorizing more realistic and insightful.

"For most people, fashion can daze and confuse. It is, however, a fascinating phenomenon that is key to how we define our identities, and it plays a central role in our lives. Proposing a comprehensive and accessible account of the global fashion industry, this book aims to present fashion in all its diversity and richness, to 'unveil' its mysterious mechanisms. Drawing on six core principles from the industry, Frédéric Godart guides the reader through the economic, cultural and social arena of the world's most glamorous industry. First, in the everyday-life game of identity-building, where fashion is deployed, between the individual and society. Secondly, the convergence of trends reveals how social influence is played out; likewise, fashion as an art, and how this is characterized by a creative and aesthetic autonomy. Finally, to all these dimensions, contemporary fashion adds the figure of the 'creative genius,' and gives a prominent importance to brands" - Publisher website

This book examines the social impact of intellectual property laws. It addresses issues and trends relating to health, food security, education, new technologies, preservation of bio-cultural heritage and contemporary challenges in promoting the arts. It explores how intellectual property frameworks could be better calibrated to meet socio-economic needs in countries at different stages of development, with local contexts and culture in mind. A resource for policy-makers, stakeholders, non-profits and students, this volume furthermore highlights alternative modes of innovation that are emerging to address such diverse challenges as neglected or resurgent diseases in developing countries and the harnessing of creative possibilities on the Internet. The collected essays emphasize not only fair access by individuals and communities to intellectual property – protected material, whether a cure, a crop variety, clean technology, a textbook or a tune – but also the enhancement of their own capabilities in cultural participation and innovation

This is the first collection of essays bringing together Deleuzian philosophy and postcolonial theory. Bignall and Patton assemble some of the world's leading figures in these fields - including Reda Bensmaïa, Timothy Bewes, Rey Chow, Philip Leonard, Nick Nesbitt, John K. Noyes, Patricia Pisters, Marcelo Svirsky and Simon Tormey - to explore rich linkages between two previously unrelated areas of study. They deal with colonial and postcolonial social, cultural and political issues in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Australia and Palestine. Topics include colonial government, nation building and ethics in the contemporary context of globalisation and decolonisation; issues relating to resistance, transformation and agency; and questions of 'representation' and discursive power as practiced through postcolonial art, cinema and literature. This book constitutes a timely intervention to debates in poststructuralist, postcolonial and postmodern studies. It will be of interest to students in cultural studies, cinema and film studies, languages and literature, political and postcolonial studies, critical theory, social and political philosophy