Difference is one of the most influential critical concepts of recent decades. Mark Currie offers a comprehensive account of the history of the term and its place in some of the most influential schools of theory of the past four decades, including post-structuralism, deconstruction, new historicism, psychoanalysis, French feminism and postcolonialism. Employing literary case studies throughout, Difference provides an accessible introduction to a term at the heart of today's critical idiom.
The earliest of the four Gospels, the book portrays Jesus as an enigmatic figure, struggling with enemies, his inner and external demons, and with his devoted but disconcerted disciples. Unlike other gospels, his parables are obscure, to be explained secretly to his followers. With an introduction by Nick Cave
We are plagued today by a decline in ethical behavior. Scandals come so thick and fast that any attempt to list them is out of date in weeks if not days. But ethics isn't just a matter of headlines; it's a part of everyone's life. We're called on to make ethical decisions, large and small, all the time. This can be particularly tricky in the workplace, where our decisions can affect not just ourselves but coworkers, clients, customers, and even the entire company. Existing ethics books are of limited use. They generally feature one author's opinions on very specific situations, which may well have nothing to do with the problems we're facing. And anyway, we don't need expert advice. Mark Pastin insists every one of us is qualified to resolve even the thorniest dilemmas ourselves, and in this profoundly practical book he gives us the tools to do just that. Pastin argues that we all have an innate ethical –he calls it “the ethics eye.” The problem is, we're not aware we have it or how to develop it. Here he provides practical tools we can use to open up our ethics eye so that we can consistently see what is right and do it. Make an Ethical Difference shows how to apply these tools using actual ethical dilemmas drawn from Pastin's decades of experience as an advisor to governments, corporations, and NGOs. The point is not to try to wedge your situation into one of the examples—it's to show how a tool that can be applied to any situation is used in one particular instance. And once you've reached a decision, Pastin offers strategies for building consensus with those who might disagree with you. People often feel hopeless and skeptical that there is anything they as individuals can do to raise society's ethical level or resolve long-standing impasses. By using the unique tools in this book, we will gain confidence in our innate ethical sense and take actions that will elevate the ethical level of the groups and organizations we belong to and society as a whole.
Paul lies at the core of the constant debate about the opposition between Christianity and Judaism in biblical interpretation and public discourse as well. The so-called new perspective on Paul has not offered a significant break from the formidable paradigm of Christian universalism vs. Jewish particularism in Pauline scholarship. This book seeks to liberate Paul from the Western logic of identity and its dominant understanding of difference, which tend to identify Pauline Christianity as its ally. Drawing attention to the currency of discourses on difference in contemporary theories as well as in biblical studies, the author critically examines the hermeneutical relevance of a contextual and relational understanding of difference and applies it to interpret the dynamics of Jew-Gentile difference reflected particularly in meal practices (Galatians 2:1-21 and Romans 14:1--15:13) of early Christian communities. This book argues that by deconstructing the hierarchy of social relations underlying the Jew-Gentile difference in different community situations, Paul promotes a politics of difference, which affirms a preferential option for the socially "weak," that is, solidarity with the weak. Paul's politics of difference is invoked as a liberative potential for the vision of egalitarian justice in the face of contemporary globalism's proliferation of differences.
This text provides specially written profiles of eight key discourse analysts, describing each one's main contribution to the field, and introducing their method of discourse analysis.
Prejudice pervades our society in many guises, from pejorative remarks to acts of violence. Communicating Prejudice explores the many dimensions of prejudice. It presents a new and integrative conceptual model of prejudice, the layered perspective of cultural intolerance, and uses this model to analyze the communication of prejudice in a variety of spheres such as racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, and classism. Drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives, the first two chapters present the model and theoretical foundation for the book, and subsequent chapters deal with specific foci of prejudice, including personal prejudice and prejudice in relationships, organizations, and the media. Included is a series of personal narratives to illustrate specific types and instances of prejudice. This book will be useful as a supplementary text in upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level courses examining issues of race, gender, and ethnicity.
Mimetic words, also known as ‘sound-symbolic words’, ‘ideophones’ or more popularly as ‘onomatopoeia’, constitute an important subset of the Japanese lexicon; we find them as well in the lexicons of other Asian languages and sub-Saharan African languages. Mimetics play a central role in Japanese grammar and feature in children’s early utterances. However, this class of words is not considered as important in English and other European languages. This book aims to bridge the gap between the extensive research on Japanese mimetics and its availability to an international audience, and also to provide a better understanding of grammatical and structural aspects of sound-symbolic words from a Japanese perspective. Through the accounts of mimetics from the perspectives of morpho-syntax, semantics, language development and translation of mimetic words, linguists and students alike would find this book particularly valuable.
