Robert Irwin’s history of Orientalism leads from Ancient Greece to the present. He shows that, whether making philological comparisons between Arabic and Hebrew, cataloguing the coins of Fatimid Egypt or establishing the basic chronology of Harun al-Rashid’s military campaigns against Byzantium, scholars have been unified not by politics or ideology but by their shared obsession. For Lust of Knowing is an extraordinary, passionate book, both a sustained argument and a brilliant work of original scholarship.
What is Orientalism, who were the Orientalists, and how did Western scholars of Islamic culture come to be vilified as insidious agents of European imperialism? In [this] new history, [the author] answers this question with a detailed ... story of the motley crew of intellectuals and eccentrics who brought an understanding of the Islamic world to the West. In a narrative that ranges from an analysis of Ancient Greek perceptions of the Persians to a portrait of the first Western European translators of Arabic to the contemporary Muslim world's perceptions of the Western study of Islam, Irwin affirms the value of the Orientalists' legacy: not only for the contemporary scholars who have disowned it, but also for anyone committed to fostering the cross-cultural understanding which could bridge the real or imagined gulf between Islamic and Western civilization.-Dust jacket.
The completely revised and updated fifth edition of Methods and Materials for Teaching the Gifted: Provides a comprehensive examination of the most current research and best practices in the field of gifted education. Addresses identification, twice-exceptionality, and culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Includes chapters related to designing curriculum and differentiating instruction. Covers developing critical and creative thinking, as well as encouraging talent development. Features chapter authors who are recognized researchers, practitioners, and leaders in the field of gifted education. The chapters are organized to promote critical thinking and discussion about each topic. This text is a complete resource curated for a wide range of K-12 educators and those working with inservice and preservice educators and administrators.
The supplemented edition of this important reader includes a substantive new introduction by the author on the changing nature of feminist methodology. It takes into account the implications of a major new study included for this first time in this book on poverty and gender (in)equality, and it includes an article discussing the ways in which this study was conducted using the research methods put forward by the first edition. This article begins by explaining why a new and better poverty metric is needed and why developing such a metric requires an alternative methodological approach inspired by feminism. Feminist research is a growing tradition of inquiry that aims to produce knowledge not biased by inequitable assumptions about gender and related categories such as class, race, religion, sexuality, and nationality."Just Methods" is designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in a range of disciplines. Rather than being concerned with particular techniques of inquiry, the interdisciplinary readings in this book address broad questions of research methodology. They are designed to help researchers think critically and constructively about the epistemological and ethical implications of various approaches to research selection and research design, evidence-gathering techniques, and publication of results.A key theme running through the readings is the complex interrelationship between social power and inequality on the one hand and the production of knowledge on the other. A second and related theme is the inseparability of research projects and methodologies from ethical and political values."
It is said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is a time honored cautionary statement that has suddenly acquired a new urgency. A little knowledge is dangerous, because as a force for dramatic change, knowledge today is revolutionary. More is known and being learned everyday than was ever known or learned before. As a direct result, the pace of change-and that means change in the sense of everything from business to economics, science, medicine, and politics-is beginning to accelerate much more rapidly than ever before in mankind's history. The purpose of this book then is twofold. First it is to provide a broader case for action for knowledge management-to explain what it is, why it has come about and why it is important. In this regard, we take a step back and try to understand the root causes behind the knowledge management techniques are very different, and in many ways more important, than the sort of process or productivity improvement techniques we have dealt with before. "Brains, not brawn. The success of countries, companies and people in the next century will depend on what they know and how clever they are at using this knowledge. Dale Neef has given us the best outline yet of the forces behind this extraordinary change in the world economy, the threats and opportunities we all face, and the prizes that await the winners." -Hamish McRae, author, The World in 2020, Associate editor, "The Independent", London "Dale Neef has produced a singular achievement: a book which lucidly explains the powerful driving role being played by knowledge in the emerging global economy. He provides a penetrating, all-too-rare trans-national perspective which highlights in a highly readable manner the historical, social and technological context within which this revolution is taking place. In doing so, he has stripped away the hype and jargon with which many knowledge management "experts" have clouded this structural change in the global economy. Mr. Neef offers a fascinating array of facts to support his explanations and goes on to discuss the implications of these developments for managers, for companies and for national governments. This book is a must-read for anyone actively engaged in global business today." -Jon Lowe, Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor "A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing provides a very comprehensive view of the impact that the knowledge revolution on our 21st Century society. The economic dislocations that Dale Neef describes are already taking place, creating the prospect that large segments of our population may not have the skills for sustainable employment in the future. The implications of these events on the social and political fabric of our country give one great pause for reflection and concern." -William R. Brody, President, The Johns Hopkins University "Once again, Dale Neef combines just the right amounts of theory, academia and practical business experience to write a truly insightful book. In his consulting work, Mr. Neef's broad business, cultural and educational background has allowed him to analyze problems from a rich variety of perspectives. In this book, he artfully applies this skill to Knowledge Management." -James R. Breakey, Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer, Green Tree Financial Corporation "This book is full of facts... that we need to understand if we are to draw critical conclusions about how the knowledge economy is impacting our businesses and our lives. Neef provides us with a broad perspective, concentrating not just on the US, but including insightful comparisons with Canada and Europe as well as many developing countries. The numbers provide an eye opening look at what has changed and what is changing in the knowledge economy...It is a book that challenges our thinking and ...provides a much needed conceptual framework to guide the actions organizations will need to take in the knowledge economy." -Nancy M. Dixon, Associate Professor of Administrative Sciences, The George Washington University "Leveraging employee knowledge has become a strategic necessity for all "high road" companies, and organizations must optimize knowledge management techniques in the new global economy. Ford understands the need to capitalize on the knowledge of our employees in order to improve our business and enhance shareholder value in what is now a knowledge-based, global economy." -Dar Wolford, Ford Manager, Best Practice Replication
As the fiftieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination approaches, the traumatic aspects of the tragedy continue to haunt our perceptions of the 1960s. One reason for this lies in the home movie of the incident filmed by Abraham Zapruder, a bystander who became one of the twentieth century's most important accidental documentarians. The first book devoted exclusively to the topic, Zaprudered traces the journey of the film and its effect on the world's collective imagination. Providing insightful perspective as an observer of American culture, Norwegian media studies scholar Øyvind Vågnes begins by analyzing three narratives that are projections of Zapruder's images: performance group Ant Farm's video The Eternal Frame, Don DeLillo's novel Underworld, and an episode from Seinfeld. Subsequent topics he investigates include Dealey Plaza's Sixth Floor Museum, Zoran Naskovski's installation Death in Dallas, assassin video games, and other artifacts of the ways in which the footage has made a lasting impact on popular culture and the historical imagination. Vågnes also explores the role of other accidental documentarians, such as those who captured scenes of 9/11. Zapruder's footage has never yielded a conclusive account of what happened in Dealey Plaza. Zaprudered thoroughly examines both this historical enigma and its indelible afterimages in our collective imagination.
Why is homosexuality socially marginal yet symbolically central? Why, in other words, is it so strangely integral to the very societies which obsessively denounce it, and why is it history - history rather than human nature - which has produced this paradoxical position? These are just some of the questions explored in this wide-ranging study of sexual dissidence which returns to the early modern period in order to focus, question, and develop issues of postmodernity. In the process it brilliantly links writers as diverse as Shakespeare, Gide, Wilde, and Genet, and cultural critics as different as St. Augustine, Freud, Fanon, Foucault, and Monique Wittig. So Freud's theory of perversion is discovered to be more challenging than either his critics or his advocates usually allow, especially when approached via the earlier period's archetypal perverts, the religious heretic and the wayward woman, Satan and Eve. The book further shows how the literature, histories, and sub-cultures of sexual and gender dissidence prove remarkably illuminating for current debates in literary theory, psychoanalysis, and cultural materialism. It includes chapters on transgression and its containment, contemporary theories of sexual difference, homophobia, the gay sensibility, transvestite literature in the culture and theatre of Renaissance England, homosexuality, and race.
The best organizations have the best talent. . . Financial incentives drive company performance. . . Firms must change or die. Popular axioms like these drive business decisions every day. Yet too much common management “wisdom” isn’t wise at all—but, instead, flawed knowledge based on “best practices” that are actually poor, incomplete, or outright obsolete. Worse, legions of managers use this dubious knowledge to make decisions that are hazardous to organizational health. Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton show how companies can bolster performance and trump the competition through evidence-based management, an approach to decision-making and action that is driven by hard facts rather than half-truths or hype. This book guides managers in using this approach to dismantle six widely held—but ultimately flawed—management beliefs in core areas including leadership, strategy, change, talent, financial incentives, and work-life balance. The authors show managers how to find and apply the best practices for their companies, rather than blindly copy what seems to have worked elsewhere. This practical and candid book challenges leaders to commit to evidence-based management as a way of organizational life—and shows how to finally turn this common sense into common practice.
Information and knowledge were essential tools of early modern Europe’s global ambitions. This volume addresses a key concern that emerged as the competition for geopolitical influence increased: how could information from afar be trusted when there was no obvious strategy for verification? How did notions of doubt develop in relation to intercultural encounters? Who were those in the position to use misinformation in their favour, and how did this affect trust? How, in other words, did distance affect credibility, and which intellectual and epistemological strategies did early modern Europe devise to cope with this problem? The movement of information, and its transformations in the process of gathering, ordering, and disseminating, makes it necessary to employ both a global and a local perspective in order to understand its significance. The rise of print, leading to various new forms of mediation, played a crucial role everywhere, inspiring theories of modernization in which media served as agents of new connections and, eventually, of globalization. Paradoxically, during the entire period between 1500 and 1800, the demise of distance through various strategies of verification coincided with constructions of otherness that emphasized the cultural and geographical difference between Europe and the worlds it encountered. Ten leading scholars of the early modern world address the relationship between distance, information, and credibility from a variety of perspectives. This volume will be an essential companion to those interested in the history of knowledge and early modern encounters, as well as specialists in the history of empire and print culture.
