bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Making Sense of Land
Authors: Uekötter Frank
Published: March 2024

The chapter argues that the history of agricultural land requires a multitude of perspectives. It begins with an outline of Indigenous soil knowledge, knowledge in settler societies, and the crucial differences to modern expertise. The chapter stresses that science-based understandings provided a clearer idea of elements of soil fertility while at the same time running a risk of a reductionist approach. This was particularly significant for agrochemistry, which viewed soils as little more than a store of nutrients. Organic farming was an outgrowth of controversies over an exceedingly chemical approach to soil fertility. The chapter also discusses the rise of the concept of land ownership, the rise and fall of land reform in Western societies, and the persistence of land reform in the Global South. In sum, the multiple trends that define the modern history of lands imply tensions and contradictions that will shape agricultural challenges in the future.
Potatoes
Authors: Shepherd Christopher
Published: March 2024

This chapter explores the most prolific tuber, the potato, from its early history to the present. The discussion moves from the potato in its original pre-Columbian Andean setting, through the Spanish colonial and republican periods in Peru, and then to Europe before returning to modern-day Peru. It looks at the potato’s domestication and its attributes, and its place in state-making and state expansion, in warfare and peasant resistance, in demographic growth and industrialization, in scientific agronomy and Third World development, and, finally, in the national and cultural politics of Indigenous agricultural practice and agrobiodiversity conservation. Arguing that the potato was never a couch potato, but rather a most ambitious and enthusiastic little tubérculo, the chapter addresses the question of how history, social science, and ethnography position and explain the potato’s political, sociocultural, and economic agency over the longue durée.
Cotton
Authors: Robins Jonathan
Published: March 2024

Cotton agriculture emerged independently in at least four places across the tropics. Cotton became a versatile and highly valued fiber for making textiles, spreading across the Old and New Worlds. The American South became the world’s leading exporter of cotton in the nineteenth century, relying on slave labor. Colonial states forced peasants across Africa and Asia to grow cotton in competition with the South during and after the US Civil War, but the United States remained a dominant exporter into the twentieth century. Large-scale irrigation projects brought cotton agriculture to arid regions in Africa, America, and Asia, but the most cotton continued to be rain-fed, grown by small-scale farmers. Mechanization gradually drove small producers out in the United States, but small-scale cotton cultivation remains viable in many parts of the world.
Wet Rice in East Asia
Authors: Bray Francesca
Published: March 2024

In the history of many Asian civilizations, from medieval Angkor to early modern China and modern Japan, wet-rice farming could be considered a “killer app”: once established as the mainstay of the economy, its requirements and affordances structured long-term patterns of social organization and material growth. This chapter analyzes the role of intensive rice farming in shaping “industrious revolutions” in China and Japan. In the East Asian rice economies, rice not only nourished local communities and the state but circulated as the lifeblood of internal and external trading circuits, establishing first China, then Japan as leading players in the global economy. Yet rice farming need not be intensive to perform this linking function, as we learn from the hitherto hidden histories of Asian swidden farmers’ engagement in commodity markets and global trade circuits. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on how Asia’s rice-based histories challenge established paradigms of historical change and future progress.
A History of Livestock and People
Authors: Strom Claire
Published: March 2024

This chapter offers a global overview of the history of livestock. It focuses exclusively on ungulates (hoofed mammals), as the most significant livestock throughout history, and, more specifically, on cattle and hogs as the most important livestock in terms of meat production and global presence. It argues that the animality of livestock was initially a benefit to humans, as animals could feed and reproduce themselves as well as move independently to market. However, with advances in technology and science, these advantages have largely disappeared. By the twenty-first century, the animality of livestock is more of a liability, contributing to environmental and climatic degradation.
Wheat
Authors: Isern Thomas D.
Published: March 2024

Wheat is a cultivar with agency in world history. Gluten as well as other nutritional and agronomic virtues commended early wheats to humankind. Out of its Neolithic origins, wheat achieved a unity with human agriculturalists; was disseminated across Europe, Asia, and North Africa; spread globally as a participant in settler colonialism; established identifiable wheat belts; and was implicated in environmental catastrophes on the order the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains of North America. Established wheat belts such as the Great Plains developed coherent commodity cultures by which production practices were related to the environment. A direct historical relationship tied the wheat culture of the Great Plains to that of the Russian steppe. In the late twentieth century, wheat culture rose to new prominence in Asian nations as a result of the Green Revolution.
Mechanization in Agriculture
Authors: Hurt R. Douglas
Published: March 2024

The mechanization of American agriculture depended on cumulative knowledge, perceived need, and affordability. Inventors and agricultural engineers built on previous knowledge, farmers had specific technological needs that required mechanized implements, and these machines had to be affordable. Environment and geography also influenced the development and adoption of mechanized implements, that is, equipment with moving parts. The dry, level terrain of the Great Plains and Far West proved more satisfactory for mechanization than the humid Midwest. The mechanization of cotton farming in the South remained a difficult problem until the mid-twentieth century. The two most important developments in the mechanization of American agriculture on a national scale are the gasoline tractor and grain harvesting implements. Henry Ford built the first commercially and operationally successful tractor, called the Fordson, and the International Harvester Company improved this implement with the Farmall. Obed Hussy and Cyrus Hall McCormick built the first successful reapers. Combine innovations began with Hiram Moore. Threshing machines and fanning or winnowing mills also contributed to the mechanization of the grain harvest. The mechanization of American agriculture with these implements saved farmers time and labor, enabling the cultivation of more acres and greater productivity. Mechanized implements also contributed to overproduction, the elimination of farm workers, and the consolidation of farms, as well as the loss of farm population.
The Growing Power of Agricultural Science
Authors: Anderson J. L.
Published: March 2024

The story of agricultural science is one of growing power; power to increase production and the enhanced authority of scientists. Eighteenth-century farmers and rural elites were interested in agricultural reforms, paying attention to scientists who articulated theories about chemistry and breeding in an attempt to solve production problems. Those elites established laboratories and experimental farms that were the progenitors of state-sponsored agricultural science. Scientists built educational and research institutions that ultimately provided producers with useful knowledge to boost production. They subsequently fought with other scientists for power and for a place of influence in public life. The scientific solutions they offered often cut both ways, solving old problems even as they created new ones, ranging from environmental degradation to the de-skilling of labor. Furthermore, science was yoked to colonial authority, constructing a landscape of commodity production and the social control required to sustain it. Agricultural science has been commodified and deployed with mixed success in the fight against hunger and poverty, most famously in what became known as the Green Revolution. Scientists’ success in developing solutions to the problems of agricultural production, despite some notable shortcomings, has given them unprecedented power over people and the land.
Regulation of Synaptic Transmission through Mitochondrial Positioning and Metabolism
Authors: Li Sunan , Sheng Zu-Hang
Published: March 2024

This chapter provides an overview of axonal mitochondrial trafficking/anchoring and their metabolic function in modulating synaptic efficacy and plasticity. Synaptic transmission is a key neuronal information process. Mitochondria are commonly localized at presynaptic terminals, where they sustain presynaptic function by producing ATP and buffering calcium. Given their extremely polarized geometry, neurons face exceptional challenges maintaining local ATP and Ca2+ homeostasis at distal presynapses that are constantly changing with altered synaptic activity. Mitochondrial transport in axons and their distribution at presynapses are correlated with synaptic activity. Therefore, precise control of axonal mitochondrial trafficking and positioning and their capacity in buffering calcium and supplying presynaptic energy or “synaptoenergetics” are critical for neurons to adapt to dynamic synaptic activity. Mitochondrial dysfunction and impaired trafficking have been implicated in major neurological disorders associated with bioenergetic failure. Investigation into the roles of mitochondria in synaptic transmission is an important research frontier.
English in multicultural Indonesia
Authors: Frank Lauder Allan , Kaswanti Purwo Bambang
Published: March 2024

This is an overview of English in Indonesia, of English in a country with a national language, Indonesian, and of more than 700 languages in the whole archipelago. As the first foreign language in Indonesia, English is an obligatory subject at schools. Early this century the idea of using it as a medium of instruction raised a controversial issue. English is an inhibiting factor for publication in reputable international journals for some researchers in social sciences and humanities. The flood of new terms in English during the pandemic was bewildering to decipher for those living in distant areas. In the era of world Englishes, there has been a growing issue of a new variety, ‘Indonesian English’. Due to the booming economies of China and Korea, it remains to be seen whether the languages of these two countries are emerging as threats to the position of English in Indonesia.
English in Vietnam
Authors: Canh Le Van
Published: March 2024

This chapter discusses a number of critical issues related to English in contemporary Vietnam, where English has recently been favoured in both education and society. The chapter describes the Vietnamese historical sociolinguistic context before it critically analyses the role of English in education and society. In addition, the chapter presents a concise cross-linguistic analysis of Vietnamese and English to foreground the discussion of the linguistic features of the English spoken by Vietnamese speakers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the future of English language education in Vietnam can navigate its way through the intricate relationship between English as a lingua franca and multilingualism in order to fulfil better its expected role in nation-building.
English-language literature of Hong Kong
Authors: Tse Kelly Yin Nga
Published: March 2024

This chapter tells a largely chronological story of the development of English language Hong Kong literature from the British colonial era to the postcolonial present. Inevitably, this attempt to chart the English literary history of Hong Kong is partial and perspectival in nature. This is not only because accounts of a given literary culture are always historically contingent, but also because Hong Kong writing in English is in the throes of taking its distinct shape. At its best, therefore, this chapter presents a provisional outline, which places dominant trends, genres, figures, and features in specific moments. In so doing, the chapter contests the almost calcified assumptions of those who look askance at Hong Kong as a cultural desert.
The British East India Company in Southeast Asia
Authors: Kaislaniemi Samuli
Published: March 2024

This chapter is a survey of the contacts between the British East India Company and Southeast Asia, from the founding of the Company in 1600 to the beginning of the British colonial period in the early 1800s. A brief history of the Company illustrates how it changed over time from a group of London merchants to a two-headed ‘company-state’. The chapter then describes and explains the periods of contact the Company had with Southeast Asia, in order to highlight the presence and continuity of English-speakers in the region. The final section discusses what we know and what we could know about English in Southeast Asia in the Company period, and calls for further research on the prehistory of SEA Englishes.
English language education and educational language policy in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
Authors: Choi Tae-Hee , Clayton Thomas , Hum Chan , Phommalangsy Phouvanh , Hoang Oanh Thieu Thi
Published: March 2024

This chapter discusses English language education and educational language policy in the three nations of Indochina: Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. After briefly reviewing history, geography, demographics, and linguistic diversity, the authors of each country study detail the structure of education and the educational language policies in place in the relevant country, giving particular attention to policies supporting the English language. They continue by discussing English language teaching and learning in both formal and non-formal education, with attention to curriculum, pedagogy, textbooks, textbook development, teacher training, and evaluation. They conclude each country study with a brief discussion of anticipated or planned developments in English language policy, teaching, and learning.
English in Southeast Asian advertising
Authors: Bhatia Tej K. , Hiramoto Mie
Published: March 2024

This chapter has three primary goals: to account for the salient features of English in Southeast Asian advertising; to show that multilingual language-mixing and script-mixing is a norm and not an exception; and to uncover and explain deep-rooted biases associated with darker skin in the advertising of beauty care products. Following sociolinguistic and visual semiotic approaches, the mechanisms of bias identification and bias construction are revealed via a multimodal interface analysis. The findings of formal and functional aspects of multiple mixing are presented. For our data collection, a structured sampling of print and digital/internet TV ads from the pan-SEA region is carried out. The conclusions drawn are not only valid for SEA advertising, but may also be generalizable for almost any form of international advertising that is rooted in colourism.
English in Southeast Asian tourism
Authors: Schneider Edgar W.
Published: March 2024

Tourism requires communication, and the default choice for transcultural interactions is English. This chapter looks into the roles and forms of English employed in tourism in Southeast Asia, and into methodological issues of investigating this subject. It begins with some fundamental sociolinguistic considerations on tourism encounters, together with a brief survey of the depth and quality of penetration of English in Southeast Asian countries and the growth of tourism in the region. It is argued that agents active in tourism in the region often acquire it ‘at the grassroots’ instead of (or in addition to) the usual scholastic transmission. Various possible sources are characterized and exemplified, including anecdotal observations, oral recordings, written samples observed on location, and metalinguistic statements found in travel guidebooks and on the web.
The Asian Corpus of English (ACE)
Authors: Lixun Wang , Kirkpatrick Andy
Published: March 2024

As a lingua franca, English plays an extremely important role in Asia: there are more speakers of English in Asia than the total number of native English speakers. To study English as a lingua franca (ELF) in Asia, it is important to establish a large-scale representative spoken Asian ELF corpus. Inspired by the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), the first large-scale corpus of spoken ELF interactions in Europe, a project team in Asia led by Professor Andy Kirkpatrick compiled the Asian Corpus of English (ACE), a million-word corpus of spoken ELF interactions in Asia (https://corpus.eduhk.hk/ace). This chapter will introduce the overall design of the ACE corpus, the data collection methods, and the functionalities of the ACE online system. Some examples of ACE-based research will also be shown. This chapter aims to help those who wish to conduct research using the Asian Corpus of English.
Research bibliography of selected works related to Southeast Asian Englishes
Authors: Moody Andrew J.
Published: March 2024

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in researching the Englishes of Southeast Asia (SEA), especially from the world Englishes perspective. In addition to research articles in journals—especially within four journals devoted to the world Englishes perspective, which emphasizes the pluricentricity of English—there has been tremendous growth in the number handbooks and scholarly monographs published on the topic. This chapter compiles a bibliography of scholarly monographs that might be used to research Southeast Asian Englishes from a variety of perspectives, including educational, historical, sociolinguistic, and macro-sociolinguistic. Volumes related to the region as well as individual SEA nations are included.
English ideologies in ASEAN
Authors: Zein Subhan
Published: March 2024

This chapter discusses ideological contestation surrounding the English language, English language education policies, and English varieties in ASEAN. The chapter argues that there are beliefs, perceptions, ideals, and aspirations which amalgamate in complex and dynamic relationships to affect the nature of the English language as well as its structure, value, use, acquisition, and development in the ASEAN region. Understanding English in ASEAN would require a thorough examination of the ideologies emerging in the spread and use of English and of how English varieties are perceived by ASEAN member states. It would also require an examination of how language education policies aiming to promote English proficiency have been formulated, implemented, and experienced. The chapter shows that whether they develop English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) or English as a Subject in Basic Education (ESBE) policies, ASEAN member states continue to grapple to promote English while facing the threat of language endangerment.
A Non-Practitioner’s Case for Civically Engaged Research
Authors: Smith Rogers M.
Published: March 2024

The political science discipline should place renewed emphasis on civically engaged research, commonly defined as inquiries conducted via partnerships with communities in processes of determining questions, structuring research, and interpreting results. In the Progressive era, American political scientists often pursued such research, but especially after the rise of behavioralism in the discipline, many later abandoned civically engaged scholarship due to concerns for scientific objectivity. As a result, many political scientists failed to notice or to grasp major developments, including civil rights activism, the rise of the Religious Right and nationalistic populisms. Civically engaged research does raise serious ethical issues about how both researchers and communities can avoid mistreating each other as well outside groups Lamentably, Progressive era scholars aided the eugenics movement, racial segregation and disfranchisement, destruction of Native American cultures and families, and imperial governance of non-white peoples. Today, there remain serious concerns about political scientists exploiting or being exploited by community partners, among other challenges. But these ethical issues must be constructively addressed, not avoided, if the discipline is to fulfill its potential to illuminate and improve politics through multiple methods of research.
Halakhah and Aggadah in the Talmud and Post-Talmudic Literature
Authors: Stone Suzanne Last
Published: March 2024

Both the Hebrew Bible and the Talmudic tradition freely mix laws and narratives, raising the question of their interrelationship. Rabbinic scholars of the post-talmudic period (geonim) generally held that the narrative material is “not law” and should not serve as a legal source, giving rise to the familiar division between halakhah and aggadah, the one constituting rules of conduct and decision-making and the other, a literary tradition reflecting the worldview of the early rabbis. This chapter reviews the jurisprudential arguments marshaled by the post-talmudic geonim against the legal authority of the aggadah and shows how familiar jurisprudential debates about “what is law?” implicitly shaped their attitude toward aggadah as a legal source. More capacious understandings of law, such as legal theories that maintain that law is composed not only of rules but also of principles provide a useful tool for redescribing the legal role of aggadah within the Talmudic corpus itself. The chapter turns to the classical Anglo-American common law as a way of clarifying the role of narratives in legal reasoning, both in the Talmudic corpus and in contemporary halakhic writings, in which aggadah has enjoyed a marked renaissance as a legal source.
Judaism and the Modern American Family
Authors: Eleff Zev
Published: March 2024

The twentieth century brought about tremendous upheaval for the “traditional” American family. The nuclear suburban family portrayed in 1950s television programs such as Leave it to Beaver—if that version of the family ever existed in mass-form—was undone by powerful forces. Stakeholders within the political, social, and cultural realms all reacted to the stark rise in divorce rate, advances in fertility, and the legal recognition of same-sex marriage. The same was the case for religious leaders, American Judaism no exception. Owing to their professional craft, the rabbinic leaders of the three major branches of American Judaism looked primarily to Jewish law as a mechanism and language to navigate, protect, or change how their faith groups understood the contours of family life. While their interpretations and limitations varied, that each group took Jewish law, as their point of departure, demonstrates the capacity of halakhah, at some level, to remain the shared bond of Jewish life.
Close, Yet Creative, Reading
Authors: Stein Hain Elana
Published: March 2024

Halakhic interpretation inhabits two opposing methods. On the one hand, it is built from close textual readings of authoritative texts, where even slight changes in formulation or fine grammatical nuances are legally and/or conceptually significant. On the other hand, many of the exegetical tools initially applied to biblical texts and the practice of textual resolution found in the Talmud and subsequent writing display little hesitation in reading texts contrary to their natural grain. This chapter will offer both a historical and a conceptual account of these practices and evaluate the tools and structure of rabbinic interpretation. The chapter will examine four exemplary interpretative movements, separated by time and place, but all sharing this same phenomenology: ancient rabbinic midrash, talmudic interpretation of earlier rabbinic texts, medieval toseftan analysis of Talmudic law and literature, and 19th-century conceptual Brisker methodology. These will be compared and contrasted, revealing the unique contributions of each, as well as their shared threads.
International Studies in Action
Authors: Willis Charmaine N. , Roberts Joseph W. , Asal Victor
Published: March 2024

Simulations have been increasingly integrated into political science courses as pedagogical tools, especially given the importance of human interaction in the social sciences. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the benefits and considerations of the use of simulations in political science, especially international relations (IR) and international studies. We believe that simulations offer a multitude of benefits to instructors and students alike, from clarifying abstract theories to providing a change of pace from the traditional lecture format, if carefully chosen. This chapter also showcases several simulations that vary in terms of the concept or theory under discussion, the amount of preparation and materials required, the class size, and the duration of the simulation. The simulations profiled include: the Hobbes Game, Diplomacy, levels of analysis games, two-level negotiations, and Reacting to the Past.
When Conflict Is (Not) Elsewhere
Authors: Johnson Heather L.
Published: March 2024

This chapter explores the dynamics of teaching international relations (IR) in Northern Ireland, and proposes the need to challenge dominant narratives of abstraction when teaching in post-conflict societies. Traditional approaches to teaching international studies, through the discipline of IR, is imbued with processes of containment and abstraction (that reflect a Western-centric and colonialist history. In the post-conflict society of Northern Ireland, these narratives combine with the abstractions already present in the local curriculum to estrange students from the way the conflict is represented and taught. This inhibits them from seeing themselves and their experiences without distortion through the lens of the discipline. Recognizing such dissonances, and confronting them with critical pedagogy, helps students to challenge the dominant narratives of the discipline, seeing themselves and others as complex and as participants in the conversations of the international.
Teaching Methods
Authors: Youde Jeremy
Published: March 2024

International studies scholars and teachers need to embrace the teaching of research methods to our students. There exists no single set of research methods in international studies. This is not surprising, given that international studies is an inherently interdisciplinary field. In addition, there is relatively little research on research methods pedagogy in international studies. As a result, it can be difficult for faculty to figure out how best to deliver these courses and what should be included. This chapter aims to counter the dread that students (and faculty) frequently feel toward research methods courses by emphasizing the benefits of the field’s eclecticism. By embracing the diversity of methods and finding ways to help students think critically about their methodological choices, research methods courses in international studies can be emancipatory and provide a wide range of opportunities for understanding the world around us. The chapter also reflects on the author’s own experiences teaching a research methods course for international studies.
How Does Learning Space Structure International Studies Programs?
Authors: Breuning Marijke
Published: March 2024

This chapter conceptualizes the international studies learning space as multifaceted and offers a nested model of learning space that consists of the classroom, the educational institution, the educational system, and the geographic space. The chapter discusses the ways the geographic space within which an IS program is located influences how students interact with the substance of the discipline. It also conveys that educational systems may offer wider or narrower bounds within which to design IS programs and that institutions differ in the types of programs they (can) offer. Lastly, the chapter discusses similarities and differences between physical and virtual classrooms and the consequences for learning. The conclusion offers suggestions to further develop our understanding of the impact of learning space on IS programs.
Queer Pedagogies
Authors: Hagen Jamie J. , Serrano-Amaya José Fernando , Ritholtz Samuel
Published: March 2024

Most pedagogical interventions default to heteronormative and cisnormative assumptions, marginalizing queer and trans perspectives, literatures, and experiences. This chapter considers both the political risk as well as transformative potential of “queer pedagogy.” Central to debates about how to teach lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) topics in the international studies classroom are definitional questions related to what issues are “LGBTQ,” and how to adopt an inclusive pedagogical approach. This chapter explores the politics of queer pedagogy, the queer politics of studying sexuality in the international studies classroom, and how engaging in a queer pedagogy in teaching IR relates to the push for queer inclusion on campuses. Finally, the chapter reflects on the backlash faced by those doing this work in higher education today.
A Pedagogy of Erasure
Authors: King Hayden , Thomas David P.
Published: March 2024

This chapter critically analyzes the near silence from international relations scholars on the topics and perspectives of Indigenous peoples in relation to the study of global politics. In the broader context of this silence in the discipline, and the calls for post-secondary institutions to engage in processes of Indigenization or decolonization, this chapter focuses specifically on how IR is taught at the introductory level in Canada. It asks, Are IR teachers integrating Indigenous perspectives and content into the curriculum or following the stubborn trend of continuing to erase Indigenous people and perspectives? To answer the question, the authors have undertaken content analysis of 42 introductory IR course outlines from across Canada. Despite some signs of hope in the data, they reveal that the teaching of IR at the introductory level in Canada fails to adequately respond to these pressing calls to decolonize the curriculum.
Seafaring in Prehistory
Authors: Montenegro Alvaro
Published: March 2024

A common distribution pattern of people over space and time can be generally described as presence at particular locations for longer periods and relatively rapid displacement between those locations. Understanding how these displacements take place is central to many archaeological inquiries, but places of permanence tend to be better represented in the material record than the pathways linking them. This is particularly true for movement over water, where trips—with the rare exception of accessible wrecks—leave no recoverable traces on the environment. Add to this the fact that vessels tend to be built from materials with poor preservation, and it becomes clear that the challenges in understanding ancient seafaring are significant. This chapter shows how computer models that simulate ocean voyages have been used for decades as a viable and productive methodological strategy to deal with this maelstrom of uncertainty. It consists of (1) a short review of how these models have been used by archaeologists; (2) an overview of the basic principles and challenges involved in simulating seafaring; (3) a description of existing model categories, their strengths and weaknesses; (4) a discussion on the types, sources, and adequacy of the environmental information, such as wind and current data, required as input by simulations; and (5) a few suggestions for future development. The goal is to introduce voyaging simulations to those with little or no knowledge of the subject and to expand the view of the field for readers already familiar with the methodology.
21st Century Turkish Theology
Authors: Wilkinson Taraneh R.
Published: March 2024

The early 21st century witnessed a period of productivity and growth for Turkish Muslim theology. This chapter (1) provides an overview of 21st-century Turkish Muslim theology and its continuity with the Republican and Ottoman pasts; (2) situates ilahiyat faculties within the concrete milieu of broader institutions that have contributed to the recent period of flourishing; and (3) makes a case for the generative value of contested continuities. The fact of its contestation is both a feature of local Turkish Islam and shared across other Islamic negotiations of modernity. However, Turkish theology is not reducible to a local version of Islam modernism, nor to a defensive reaction to modernity’s skepticism of religion. Taking up the example of humanism as a contested concept spanning the late Ottoman and 21st century Turkish Muslim theological contexts, I argue that contestation, when in moderation, contributes to the intellectual vibrancy and creativity of Turkish Muslim thought.
Grassroots Origins of Russia’s Illiberalism
Authors: Grek Ivan
Published: March 2024

Conventional interpretations of civil society tend to present horizontal associations as an exclusively liberal phenomenon. However, civil societies can be illiberal and project illiberal values on state institutions. The literature identifies a cluster of horizontal associations in Eastern Europe that provide support to illiberal democracies, such as Poland and Hungary, through their ties with populist political parties and conservative church organizations. This chapter demonstrates that a similar trend existed in 1990s Russia and resulted in the ascendance of Vladimir Putin’s illiberal hegemony. After the collapse of the USSR, middle- and upper-middle-class citizens started to engage the Russian Orthodox Church and regional politicians in the creation of a variety of conservative civic organizations, which promoted a resurrection of Orthodox values and helped to build the foundations of a new political Russian conservatism through many projects, from school reforms to influencing the Russian Constitution and legislation.
Hosea 1–3, the Marriage Metaphor, and the Ties That Bind
Authors: Kalmanofsky Amy
Published: March 2024

Feminist biblical criticism has changed the ways readers understand the texts that comprise the biblical marriage metaphor. This essay argues that scholars should continue to work with the marriage metaphor texts and suggests several avenues that will provide fresh insights into the metaphor. There is more work to be done on the rhetorical power of metaphor to communicate and shape ideology in general and more consideration to be paid to how the construction of masculinity rhetorically and ideologically shapes the marriage metaphor in the Bible, as it does in Hos. 1–3. More attention also should be paid to the language of transformation within the marriage metaphor which is evident in Hos. 1–3. Exploring these avenues will reveal dimensions of the biblical marriage metaphor that will capture a new generation of readers.
Introduction
Authors: Kelle Brad E.
Published: March 2024

The Introductory essay locates the contributions of the volume within the broad scope and major movements of current critical scholarship on the book of Hosea. The study of Hosea is undergoing something of a renaissance, with no fewer than eight new commentaries in production. The essay explains how the volume approaches the study of Hosea in light of epistemologies, convictions, and practices that call for collaboration and the decentering of power. The volume thus offers lively scholarly exchanges among different essays on several interpretive topics for Hosea, rather than a single authoritative reading of each issue, and includes engagement with a range of feminist, womanist, queer, ethnic, postcolonial, and other considerations—sometimes with more than one treatment offered.
The Book of Hosea and the Socioeconomic Conditions of Eighth-Century BCE Israel
Authors: Hankins Davis
Published: March 2024

In the final years of the ancient kingdom of Israel, a ruling elite, centered in urban areas like the capital Samaria, increasingly controlled the broader population’s socioeconomic activities and resources. Through various changes in the political economy, the resources extracted from laboring peasants increased, which were used to support the elite’s diminished participation in productive labor, to increase trade for imported luxury goods, metals, and military materiel, and to satisfy the Neo-Assyrian empire’s taxing demands for tribute and resources from colonized peoples and territories. These changes came with considerable costs for peasant laborers, including intensified pressures to produce more goods, decreased self-determination over economic activities, and heightened vulnerabilities as these changes undermined various risk-reducing practices that protected subsistence-based agrarian communities, especially from threats posed by the region’s unpredictable climate. The book of Hosea sharply criticizes these manipulative and exploitative privileges and practices, even as it also imagines and encourages its community to pursue a more just, caring, peaceful, and sustainable social organization.
Texts and Versions of the Book of Hosea
Authors: Tully Eric J.
Published: March 2024

The Hebrew text of the book of Hosea has a reputation for obscurity and difficult readings that pose challenges for the interpretation of specific utterances. While a number of scholars have argued that these difficulties come from Hosea’s particular dialect, it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that the text was corrupted in transmission. If so, this occurred quite early, because other ancient manuscripts of Hosea, such as the fragmentary Hebrew texts from the Judean Desert as well as the translated versions, often reflect the same difficulties. While each of the major translations of Hosea (Greek Septuagint, Aramaic Targum, Syriac Peshitta, and Latin Vulgate) have their own distinctive translation character, their respective Vorlagen seem to have been quite similar to the Hebrew text behind the Masoretic Text (MT). Furthermore, the translators all had a high regard for their Hebrew source texts and typically restricted adjustments in their translations to those shifts that would increase clarity or encourage a particular theological reading.
Sociogeographical Machine Learning
Authors: Lund Rolf Lyneborg
Published: March 2024

This chapter delves into the integration of machine learning (ML) within spatial social science, elucidating its capacity for enhancing the analysis of sociogeographical data. It underscores the distinction between spatial and non-spatial data, emphasizing the importance of spatial context in understanding social phenomena. By exploring various ML methodologies, the chapter assesses their implications for sociogeographical studies, advocating for the incorporation of ML techniques to unravel complex social dynamics within geographical contexts. Through a detailed examination of both unsupervised and supervised learning models, it demonstrates the pivotal role of ML in identifying and categorizing sociospatial phenomena, offering insights into neighborhood effects and the theoretical and practical challenges of applying ML in spatial analysis. The chapter not only showcases the potential of ML to advance spatial social science but also calls for a nuanced understanding of the questions that necessitate ML approaches, positioning ML as a critical tool for future sociospatial research endeavors.
Predictive Analytics
Authors: Egbert Simon
Published: March 2024

Although humans have long sought to produce the most accurate predictions possible about the future and apply them to make decisions in the present, recent developments in machine learning have led to predictions assuming an even more important role in society. There is hardly any societal field in which algorithmic forecasts are not carried out and hardly anyone who has not become the subject of forecasts in their life. Against this backdrop, this chapter presents the existing literature on the topic and reflects on how predictive analytics should be understood from a sociological perspective and on the consequences with which it may be associated. It will show that predictive analytics needs to be grasped as a socio-technical constellation because any genuine reference to the future does not result from the technical-analytical process itself but comes about only through human interpretation of the results as future oriented. In addition, the chapter discusses the human role in the collection of data, in the process of algorithmic model construction, and in the selection and creation of patterns. It also highlights the fact that predictions cannot be separated analytically from their final implementation, as this has important consequences that often follow a circular logic and can, ultimately, have discriminatory consequences.
The Overregulation of the Democratic Politics of Freedom of Assembly
Authors: Woolman Stu
Published: March 2024

The modern incarnation of the ‘constitutional right to assemble peaceably’ has displaced, in important respects, ‘the democratic politics that animates the freedom to assemble, to deliberate and to act collectively’ as equal citizens. While the modifier ‘peaceful’ must protect the bodily integrity or precarity of participants and non-participants in any given assembly, it ought not to be read in a manner that prevents (1) second-class citizens from challenging the overt and the covert structural barriers that prevent them from participating as equals in the assemblies that determine the contours of their lives and (2) the most minimal despoiling of private property during assemblies. Property rights too often serve to maintain the status quo and act as a break on assembly’s democratic and egalitarian desiderata. This construction of freedom of assembly stays true to the views of a broad array of theorists who vehemently condemn the use of force to bring about political change, but who, given the logic of their own work, are compelled to countenance a commitment to the occasional use of force by second-class citizens who have been effectively excluded from a state’s most important decision-making fora. The occasional use of force, whilst not prescriptively desirable, secures its legitimacy when outgroups are subsequently able to participate in the self-governance of the polity and to secure the same opportunities for self-actualization that more privileged citizens enjoy. This reappraisal of the freedom of assembly moves the right to assemble from the margins back to the centre of contemporary democratic thought.
Justice and Republicanism
Authors: Straumann Benjamin
Published: March 2024

This chapter discusses the conception of justice put forward by the Roman thinker Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE). Cicero wrote in the context of the collapse of the Roman republic, the largest and longest-lived republic hitherto in existence, and developed a political theory that put justice and legality front and center. Cicero’s jural or constitutional republicanism differs interestingly from both his eudaemonist Greek predecessors and present-day republicans. His theory of justice formulated a principle of popular sovereignty, albeit one limited by natural law; it gave fundamental importance to a set of equal rights, some of which were seen as pre-political; and it sketched a view of the common good understood as what accrues to people living under a system of public law (ius). This yields a jural theory of the state (res publica), a view that accords justice priority even before liberty, but justice here is not understood as personal virtue, but as something that necessarily has to be expressed in legal form, as rules. These rules survive Cicero’s scepticism: we can know them with a high degree of certainty, unlike conceptions of the highest good (summum bonum). The chapter closes by discussing how Cicero’s Roman theory of justice differs from some of the views put forward by some of today’s republicans.
Teaching
Authors: Kline Michelle Ann
Published: March 2024

The study of teaching has long been a focus in the field of cultural evolution because of its role in faithful cultural transmission of information, without which cumulative culture would not be possible. Claims about the prevalence, evolution, functions, and forms of teaching vary depending on how it is defined, and definitions vary in key characteristics across the disciplines of psychology, anthropology, and animal behaviour. This does not mean that a single, unitary definition must prevail. Instead, this chapter treats teaching as a broader set of behaviours that evolved because they function to facilitate learning in others, in human and non-human animals. To support this argument, the chapter reviews existing definitions of teaching across evolutionary sciences, and offers a reorganization of those definitions using Tinbergen’s levels of analysis. The chapter then uses a revised functionalist definition of teaching to review the empirical evidence for teaching in humans and other animals. Finally, the chapter addresses current problems in research on teaching, including the excessive focus on Western cultural contexts.
Cultural Evolution and Public Policy
Authors: Schimmelpfennig Robin , Muthukrishna Michael
Published: March 2024

Interventions are to the social sciences what inventions are to the physical sciences—an application of science as technology. Behavioural science has emerged as a powerful toolkit for developing public policy interventions for changing behaviour. However, the translation from principles to practice is often moderated by contextual factors—such as culture—that thwart attempts to generalize past successes. Here the authors discuss cultural evolution as a framework for addressing this contextual gap. They describe the history of behavioural science and the role that cultural evolution plays as a natural next step in closing existing gaps. The authors review research that may be considered cultural evolutionary behavioural science in public policy, and the promise and challenges to designing cultural evolution-informed interventions. Finally, the authors discuss the value of applied research as a crucial test of basic science: if theories and lab and field experiments don’t work in the real world, they don’t work at all.
How to Convey Trustworthiness via Social Media: Content Analysis and Citizen Testing of British MPs’ Facebook Posts
Authors: Bramah Helen A
Published: March 2024

The low and declining level of political trust in the UK is well documented but less is known about how citizens form trust judgements and how politicians can influence perceptions of trustworthiness through social media. This article addresses these important questions using a novel combination of content analysis and survey research, operationalising academic theory on political trust within the context of Facebook communication through a new lens. The findings offer a unique insight into how trustworthiness is conveyed on social media and the types of content that display competence, integrity and authenticity. UK citizens’ perceptions of MP communication are tested in an original survey using embedded Facebook content, allowing key features of high- and low-trust posts to be identified.