World Tales
World Tales

Author: Idries Shah

Publisher: Octagon Press Ltd

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 0863040365

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No ordinary collection of tales, this anthology was the result of extensive research that led Shah to conclude that there is a certain basic fund of human fictions which recur again and again throughout the world and never seem to lose their compelling attraction. This special paperback version of World Tales concentrates on the essentials, the text of the stories, and omits the illustrations which were part of a previous edition.

The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights
The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights

Author: H. ten Have

Publisher: UNESCO

Published: 2009-01-01

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 923104088X

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In October 2005, UNESCO Member States adopted by acclamation the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. For the first time in the history of bioethics, some 190 countries committed themselves and the international community to respect and apply fundamental ethical principles related to medicine, the life sciences and associated technologies. This publication provides a new impetus to the dissemination of the Declaration, and is part of the organisation's continuous effort to contribute to the understanding of its principles worldwide. The authors, who were almost all involved in the elaboration of the text of the Declaration, were asked to respond on each article: Why was it included? What does it mean? How can it be applied? Their responses shed light on the historical background of the text and its evolution throughout the drafting process. They also provide a reflection on its relevance to previous declarations and bioethical literature, and its potential interpretation and application in challenging and complex bioethical debates.

UNESCO on the Ground
UNESCO on the Ground

Author: Michael Dylan Foster

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2015-10-12

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 0253019532

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For nearly 70 years, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has played a crucial role in developing policies and recommendations for dealing with intangible cultural heritage. What has been the effect of such sweeping global policies on those actually affected by them? How connected is UNESCO with what is happening every day, on the ground, in local communities? Drawing upon six communities ranging across three continents—from India, South Korea, Malawi, Japan, Macedonia and China—and focusing on festival, ritual, and dance, this volume illuminates the complexities and challenges faced by those who find themselves drawn, in different ways, into UNESCO's orbit. Some struggle to incorporate UNESCO recognition into their own local understanding of tradition; others cope with the fallout of a failed intangible cultural heritage nomination. By exploring locally, by looking outward from the inside, the essays show how a normative policy such as UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage policy can take on specific associations and inflections. A number of the key questions and themes emerge across the case studies and three accompanying commentaries: issues of terminology; power struggles between local, national and international stakeholders; the value of international recognition; and what forces shape selection processes. With examples from around the world, and a balance of local experiences with broader perspectives, this volume provides a unique comparative approach to timely questions of tradition and change in a rapidly globalizing world.

UNESCO and the Fate of the Literary
UNESCO and the Fate of the Literary

Author: Sarah Brouillette

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2019-09-10

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1503610322

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A case study of one of the most important global institutions of cultural policy formation, UNESCO and the Fate of the Literary demonstrates the relationship between such policymaking and transformations in the economy. Focusing on UNESCO's use of books, Sarah Brouillette identifies three phases in the agency's history and explores the literary and cultural programming of each. In the immediate postwar period, healthy economies made possible the funding of an infrastructure in support of a liberal cosmopolitanism and the spread of capitalist democracy. In the decolonizing 1960s and '70s, illiteracy and lack of access to literature were lamented as a "book hunger" in the developing world, and reading was touted as a universal humanizing value to argue for a more balanced communications industry and copyright regime. Most recently, literature has become instrumental in city and nation branding that drive tourism and the heritage industry. Today, the agency largely treats high literature as a commercially self-sustaining product for wealthy aging publics, and fundamental policy reform to address the uneven relations that characterize global intellectual property creation is off the table. UNESCO's literary programming is in this way highly suggestive. A trajectory that might appear to be one of triumphant success—literary tourism and festival programming can be quite lucrative for some people—is also, under a different light, a story of decline.

The Axemaker's Gift
The Axemaker's Gift

Author: James Burke

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1997-03-31

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0874778565

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"A detailed, original and persuasive reading of cultural and intellectual history."—Los Angeles Times. "A genuine tour de force."—San Francisco Chronicle.