bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ecocritique and Anecdote
Authors: Cubitt Sean
Published: February 2020

Section 1 starts by considering the central notion of this book: a “ecocritique”. The ecocritique recognises that the good life for all includes the well-being of the world we are involved in at every level from the cellular to the cosmic. It is all encompassing. Section 1 then considers how the term “anecdote” relates to ecocritique. Anecdotes provide a peculiarly powerful tool for finding out the meaning of living well, as well as the answering the oft-asked question: who is this “we”? The beauty of anecdotes is that they operate in a non-contemporaneous time. They operate equally well in the past, present, and future. A primary political and ecocritical task of anecdotal method, therefore, is to recognise this hybrid temporality, and to free and maintain its capacity to generate new futures and new pasts.
A Global Epidemic
Authors: Campanella Edoardo , Dassù Marta
Published: February 2020

The world is becoming populated by jingoistic leaders who appeal to past national glory and inhabit a rose-tinted past. Brexit is merely the tipping point of a global phenomenon. Chinese President Xi Jinping calls for the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people”, whereas Donald Trump promises to “Make America Great Again”. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan harbors neo-Ottoman ambitions, while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s political lodestar is the nineteenth-century Meiji Restoration. In other cases, nostalgic leaders reject their countries’ historical reversals of fortune like Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Vladimir Putin in Russia. Despite its romantic flavor, nostalgia is actually a malaise – a mix of paranoia and melancholy. Like most psychological disorders, nostalgia is usually accompanied by amnesia. It depicts the past in such an idealized way that some crucial details are lost. Human beings tend to view historical evidence in a myopic manner, ignoring what does not fit their preconceptions. Populist leaders simply leverage these mental processes to recount their own version of history and mobilize their followers. The chapter analyzes how demographic, economic and technological forces are spreading the disease of longing in a structural way.
Constructing a Nostalgic Narrative
Authors: Campanella Edoardo , Dassù Marta
Published: February 2020

This chapter reconstructs the nostalgic national myth created by Brexiteers during the EU Referendum campaign. Myths, which by definition are a mix of truth and lies, are not descriptions of things, but expressions of a determination to act. When a nation is at a crossroads, for example before a war or an existential referendum, the glories of the past can influence people to take one path over another. The Brexiteers scrupulously built their own nostalgic myth, paying attention to its credibility, idealizing a specific historical era, and creating strong links between Brexit and Britain’s history. In the end, past, present and future were so intertwined that it was impossible to distinguish them. Britain’s past golden age was suddenly seen as its new beginning. Brexiteers monopolized and nationalized British history to convey a message that was consistent with their political agenda. This chapter is a step-by-step description of how the aforementioned nostalgic national myth was fabricated. It will also show that the “now and here” strategy adopted by the Remain camp failed because it was too rational at a time when the electorate was experiencing a highly emotional moment, partly caused by the financial crisis, and more broadly, by globalization.
Sovereignty, City, and the People
Authors: Kaicker Abhishek
Published: February 2020

In 1638 the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan embarked on his most ambitious architectural project: the building of a new Delhi in his own name. Beginning with a discussion of the development of a distinctly Mughal discourse of sovereignty centered on an ideal of the ruler’s heaven-granted fortune to rule (daulat), this chapter shows how the new city of Shahjahanabad was an enunciation of the discourse of sovereignty in bricks and mortar. A site of imperial power, Islamic piety, commercial prosperity, and urbane pleasure, the city was built to mediate an idealized relation between the king and the people. The second part of this chapter traces the unintended consequences of this act: the growth of a prosperous city, in which the forces of commerce caused the rise of new elites and the growth of a large and unruly underclass.
Poetry and the Public in Aurangzeb’s Delhi
Authors: Kaicker Abhishek
Published: February 2020

In 1658, the emperor Aurangzeb began his long reign on the Mughal throne. This chapter shows how Aurangzeb’s vision of sovereignty diverged from that of his predecessors, in lessening the emphasis on the otherworldly gift of daulat and more on adherence with the law (sharīʿa). This process, which was accompanied by an increasing emphasis on Sunni piety at court and the broader development of a bureaucratic juridical infrastructure for the empire, was designed to subordinate the realm’s many Muslim communities into a unitary ‘Community of Muslims’ obedient to the emperor. But such interventions in Mughal society would also provoke a critical response, couched in the language of satire, and is apparent in the works of the poets Niʿmat Khan-i ʿAli and Mir Jaʿfar Zatalli, which are compared here. More broadly, this chapter argues, the forces of commercialization powered the circulation of the practices of satirical poetry between courtly assemblies and the wider world of the city, shaping an urban domain of public criticism that lay outside the control of imperial authority.
Daulat’s Flight
Authors: Kaicker Abhishek
Published: February 2020

In 1719, a group of high noblemen from the clan of the Sayyids of Barha deposed the Mughal ruler Farrukh Siyar and replaced him with another prince. Such an act of unprecedented violence against the kingly body shook the established ideals of imperial authority. The regicide was understood, explained, debated, and justified in the admonitory histories that were written by observers of this moment of crisis, who vainly struggled to establish a new ideal of sovereignty. Yet the king and his nobility were not the only actors in this drama. For, as this chapter demonstrates, this convulsion of politics at the highest levels of the empire witnessed the forceful intervention of a new actor: the people of the city. While the popular action was dismissed by elite observers, these pages demonstrate how the city’s ordinary folk rejected the attempt by the nobility to change the structure of power.
From the Origins
Authors: Walker Iain
Published: February 2020

Chapter two begins by providing an overview of the prehistory and early history of the western Indian Ocean, setting the Comoros in the wider context. It then goes on to discuss various hypotheses regarding the first settlement of the islands, based on the archaeology of the islands, the nearby African coast and Madagascar. Genetic analysis and archaeological findings confirm the contributions of Arab, Austronesian and African settlers to the local population. The basic social structures of the islands’ people are discussed, matrilineality and the development of religious practices following the arrival of Islam, drawing on both oral traditions and archaeological evidence. It looks at how the islands were incorporated into wider trading systems and, with the arrival of Shirazis, a regional cultural complex.
Federation, Separatism and Union
Authors: Walker Iain
Published: February 2020

A further coup d’etat in 1995 did nothing to improve the national economy, mismanagement and the national Ngazidja-dominated government’s lack of sensitivity. It finally led to a declaration of independence instituted by the island of Ndzuani in 1997. An armed intervention to restore order was a disastrous failure, and following the death of president Taki a military government led by Azali Assoumani took over and negotiated an agreement between the islands that finally led to the establishment of a new structure – the Union of the Comoros – that was intended to guarantee the islands a degree of autonomy. A rotating presidency was largely symbolic and the political struggles of the early 21st century were personified by Ngazidja’s Azali and Ndzuani’s Sambi, the former, re-elected president, potentially for ten years, in 2019, becoming increasingly authoritarian. Meanwhile, Mayotte became a French department.
Introduction
Authors: Callahan William A.
Published: February 2020

This introduction outlines the main theoretical, methodological, and empirical goals of the book, which are argued in more detail (and with more references) in later chapters. It explains how visual images need to be appreciated not just in terms of their ideological-value, but also in terms of their affect-work: not just what they mean, but also how they make us feel, both as individuals and as collectives. It outlines the book’s original analytical framework, which juxtaposes (1) the social construction of visual meaning with (2) the visual provocation of social orders, world orders, and “affective communities of sense.” It introduces the image/artifact distinction to explain why the book looks at both images (photographs, films, and art) and artifacts (maps, veils, walls, gardens, and cyberspace). Since much critical analysis is dominated by deconstructions of “Western” visual images, the introduction starts to examine how visuals from Asia and the Middle East challenge our understanding of international politics. It concludes with a summary of what the chapters cover.
Dynamic Dyads
Authors: Callahan William A.
Published: February 2020

Rather than see visibility and visuality as opposing strategies, Chapter 3 argues that both are valuable for an analysis of sensible politics. It figures them as complementary opposites that are joined in the productive tension of a dynamic dyad. It shows how dynamic dyads offer a critical approach to Eurocentrism and East/West figurations and introduces other dynamic dyads—inside/outside, Civilization/barbarism, civility/martiality—that are further developed in later chapters. In this way it looks to Chinese concepts, practices, and experiences to engage in a comparative analysis of visual international politics.
Methods, Ethics, and Filmmaking
Authors: Callahan William A.
Published: February 2020

This short introduction explains how Part II, “Visual Images,” engages with existing debates in visual international politics through chapters addressing the aesthetic turn in international relations (Chapter 4), visual securitization (Chapter 5), and ethical witnessing (Chapter 6). To make these arguments, it uses a range of visual images—photographs, documentary films, feature films, online videos, and visual art—to discuss visuality/visibility, ideology/affect, and cultural governance/resistance. Using these examples, Part II examines how visual culture studies and visual IR have used the visibility strategy to deconstruct visual images in order to reveal their hidden ideology. It argues that while exploring important issues, this research agenda is also limited by its hermeneutic mode of analysis and by its narrow focus on Euro-American images of P2.P3security, war, and atrocity. It seeks to push beyond this verbally-inflected mode of analysis to see not just what images mean, but what they can “do” in provoking affective communities of sense. Part II thus employs comparative analysis and critical aesthetics to juxtapose concepts, practices, and experiences from different times and places.
Walls as Barriers, Gateways, and the Sublime
Authors: Callahan William A.
Published: February 2020

Chapter 9 continues the exploration of how visual artifacts can be sensory spaces and infrastructures of feeling that provoke unexpected affective communities of sense. It is common to criticize post–Cold War walls, especially the US-Mexico barrier and Israel’s West Bank barrier, as ineffective and immoral. This chapter, however, problematizes such arguments by using the unlikely juxtaposition of the Great Wall of China and the conceptual dynamics of gaps and loosening/tightening to explore (1) how walls can be a rational security policy; (2) how they are not simply barriers, but can be complex gateways for flows; and (3) how they are not simply texts waiting to be decoded—they are also sites of nonnarrative and nonlinear affective experience that can even excite the sublime. This critical juxtaposition of walls first explores what walls can tell us about the politics of borders, identity, and foreign policy, then considers how, as infrastructures of feeling, walls are examples not simply of ideology, but also of the affective experience of horror and wonder.
Delaying Doomsday
Authors: Mehta Rupal N.
Published: February 2020

Why are states willing to give up their nuclear weapons programs? This book presents a new theory for how external inducements supplied by the United States can convince even the most committed of proliferators to abandon weapons pursuit. Existing theories focus either on carrots or sticks. I explore how using both positive and negative inducements, in the shadow of military force, can persuade both friends and foes not to continue their nuclear weapons pursuit. I draw on worldwide cross-national data on nuclear reversal, case studies of Iran and North Korea, among other countries, and interviews with diplomats, policy-makers, and analysts. I show that the majority of proliferators have been persuaded to reverse their nuclear weapons programs when offered incentives from the United States. Moreover, I demonstrate that these tools are especially effective during periods of leadership transition and can work on both allies and adversaries. My theory and evidence also suggest a broader conception of counterproliferation than currently exists, identifying how carrots and sticks used together can accomplish one of the international community’s most important policy objectives.
Introduction
Authors: Chatterji Angana P. , Hansen Thomas Blom , Jaffrelot Christophe
Published: February 2020

In the Introduction, Angana P. Chatterji, Thomas Blom Hansen and Christophe Jaffrelot elaborate on the unparalleled majoritarian turn of politics in India today, its present effects and future impact. The Introduction delimits the ascendance of Hindu nationalist dominance in India via the institutions of state and within civil and political society, and also names the key elements in the contemporary ascendance of Hindu nationalist dominance to establish a majoritarian state in India. The triumph of the BJP in 2014, the article elaborates, brought about two unprecedented events: never had the Hindu nationalist movement won an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha, (the lower house of parliament), and never had this movement, known for its hostility to the personalization of power and its collegial governance, been so influenced by one politician, Narendra Modi. The Introduction outlines the key themes and issues elaborated upon in the interdisciplinary collection that delves into the politics, representations, and aspirations, the aspects and events, and the traumas and dislocations of the seemingly continuous yet structurally reconstituted contemporary experiment to establish a majoritarian state in India.
Reflections in the Crowd Delegation, Verisimilitude, and the Modi Mask
Authors: Ghassem-Fachandi Parvis
Published: February 2020

Fachandi discusses the social mechanism of delegation in connection with the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, and the subsequent popularity of the Modi mask in crowds and rallies in Gujarat and later across India. Fachandi argues that Modi’s public image underwent a remarkable transformation in the early 2000s as he emerged as an icon of ‘Hindu anger’, in effect reversing and reconfiguring the idea of ahimsa (non-violence) that for so long had been touted as a core element of Gujarati culture. After the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002, Modi became the face of this ‘reaction’ (pratikriya) that gave birth to a new and aggressive form of Hindu. The use of the Modi mask, Fachandi argues, signifies this new Hindu self, a self that still sits uneasily with personal dispositions and fears and remains in need of symbolic support in the form of the mask. The mask signifies a form of delegation of power, the projection of Hindu support onto the Hindu majority leader who, in turn, is enabled and empowered to speak and act in the overtly aggressive genre of the ‘angry Hindu’ (krodh Hindu).
Sangh and Sarkar
Authors: Kanungo Pralay
Published: February 2020

This chapter examines the hazy boundaries between the RSS and the BJP. The 2014 elections were a point de départ for this nexus to govern India together. There was no longer the pretense of the RSS being a cultural organization. This is illustrated by various examples of RSS leaders who are now ministers in the government. This differs from the past, wherein the RSS took a backseat and behaved like an ideological mentor in the public eye. These days, their maneuvers are largely discernible in the political arena. If Modi has charisma and leadership, Bhagwat has organization and authority, together they make India’s joint enterprise by sharing power. The RSS manages the grassroots Hindutva network through education and cultural events, with an increasing influence over the state’s apparatus, it seems like New Delhi is running from Nagpur.
Contours of Crony Capitalism in the Modi Raj
Authors: Bhattacharya A.K. , Thakurta Paranjoy Guha
Published: February 2020

This chapter examines crony capitalism in the first four years of the Modi’s premiership. Firstly, it analyses the changing dynamics of crony capitalism in India after independence from the licensed raj to liberalization in 1991 after which it resurfaced in forms of favors to big businesses, such as special economic zones, spectrum allotment and mining contracts. Secondly, the analysis of data under the Modi regime shows that crony capitalism has decreased, but this can be misleading because the evolutionary process of declining dependence on government patronage also contributed to it. Crony capitalism is also the main political issue that catapulted Modi to power in 2014. It is an issue that has often led to political upheavals in independent India. Finally, with the electoral bonds, increasing private investment and sphere of influence, it may not be a surprise if history repeats itself.
Hindutva Incorporation and Socioconomic Exclusion
Authors: Sundar Nandini
Published: February 2020

Nandini Sundar examines the conditions and discursive strategies utilized by the BJP to contribute to building an extensive Adivasi (tribal) voter base that continues to support the BJP despite the party’s alignment with industrialists who displace rural and tribal communities, and whose ruling ideology marginalizes and devalues Adivasis. Narendra Modi’s popularity is no more central to this question than in discussions that revolve around the fatal attraction of the BJP holds to Adivasis and Dalits. Why do Adivasis vote in such large numbers for a party which is clearly aligned with the industrialists who want to displace them; why do Dalits align with a party whose ruling ideology is so clearly holds them in contempt? Sundar analyzes several strategies of incorporating Adivasis into the Hindu nation: Sanskritization, modernization (in the form of schooling), the (anti-Christian) conversion debate, service work, and mass violence and small-scale incidents.
Queer Presence in/and Hindu Nationalism
Authors: Bacchetta Paola
Published: February 2020

This chapter describes Hindu nationalist examples of national and transnational strategies of social inclusion and exclusion that mobilize gender and sexuality, including strategies that valorize some queer categories and de-valorize others, while also targeting the Hindu nation’s Others (such as Muslims) through complex social operations that draw upon, in part, colonial queerphobic legacies. This chapter contributes to the study of queer sexualities in postcolonial nationalisms through focusing on Hindu nationalism, discussing four social operations that organize the present: xenophobic queerphobia; queerphobic xenophobia, queerphilic idealization, and selective queer national-normativization. Through this work, Bacchetta seeks to complicate the current binary in which queer acceptance is already imagined as always a good thing and is systematically associated with the left, while queer repression is assigned to the right, toward creating and converging in struggles that enrich and support practices of freedom for all.
Prudence, or On Education
Authors: Hanley Ryan Patrick
Published: February 2020

Chapter 1 examines Fénelon’s contributions as an educator. It focuses on four texts indispensable to appreciating the methods and aims of his masterwork Telemachus. These include the book-length Dialogues on Eloquence and Education of Girls, and his shorter Letter to the Academy and “Advice on Education.” In interpreting these texts, it argues that fundamental to them—and indeed to Fénelon’s political philosophy as a whole—is Fénelon’s claim that the proper aim of moral and political education is not substituting pure love for self-love, but rather discouraging pernicious self-love and encouraging healthy self-love. Fénelon describes this as a shift from “false glory” to “true glory.” And this shift, it argues, is central to Fénelon’s political philosophy, and also reveals him to be an insightful moral psychologist as well as a moderate and subtle political thinker.
Basic Skills II
Authors: Churchill Larry R.
Published: February 2020

The four skills for ethics described in this chapter are imaginative skill, the ability to expand the reach of our empathy to include a wider range of people; assertive skill, the need to finally choose from among the competing values the ones we will embrace and live by; connective skill, that is, linking goodness with happiness—the kind of personal flourishing not available through fame and fortune; and narrative skill, which is our ability to tell true stories about ourselves and others. One key ingredient in narrative capacity is the ability to see that people intersect at different points at their life trajectories and with different moral concerns. The ethics of narration is the effort to tell truthful stories about these complex events.
The Racism of the Radical Right
Authors: Abbas Tahir
Published: February 2020

This chapter explores the nature of racism in the Global North, exploring its antecedents in imperialism and colonialism. It surveys the growth of European cultural and political power, and how racism characterized its economic relations with the rest of the world. Europe imagined ‘the other’ in polarized terms, largely because of the power monopoly it possessed. How this racism entered popular culture is also explored, as well as its lingering impact in the context of post-colonialism, migration and diaspora of minorities often coming to the ‘mother country’ in search of better opportunities or having been invited to work in declining industrial sections as part of the post-war reconstruction process. The rise of ethnic nationalism reflects on the prominence of cultural and structural binary racism that has seen a gradual shift away from a strictly black-white dualism. The reductionism and essentialism of the racism are shifting more and more towards a Muslim-non-Muslim dualism.
Muslim Origins and Destinations
Authors: Abbas Tahir
Published: February 2020

Patterns of racism in the Global North are correlated with the changing nature of globalization and its impact on individual economies, especially over the last four decades. The ‘left behind’ are groups in society who have faced considerable downward social mobility, with some becoming targeted by the mainstream and fringe right-wing groups who do this to release their pent up frustration towards the center of political and economic power. How this form of racism has evolved over time to focus on race, ethnicity, culture and now religion is explored in relation to the UK case, discussing the rise of Trump and the issue of Brexit as symptoms of a wider malaise affecting societies of the Global North. These forms of tribalism act to galvanize the right, combining racism with white supremacy, xenophobia and isolationism.
Dag Hammarskjöld, the United Nations and the Decolonisation of Africa
Authors: Melber Henning
Published: February 2020

In 1953 Dag Hammarskjöld became the second Secretary-General of the United Nations—the highest international civil servant. Before his mission was cut short by a 1961 plane crash in then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia), he used his office to act on the basis of anti-hegemonic values, including solidarity and recognition of otherness. The dubious circumstances of Hammarskjöld’s death have received much attention, including a new official investigation (which is summarized in a chapter), but have perhaps overshadowed his diplomatic legacy—one that has often been hotly contested.
This book summarizes Hammarskjöld’s personal background and the normative frameworks of the United Nations. He then explores the years of African decolonization during which Hammarskjöld was in office, investigating the scope and limits of his influence within the context of global governance during the Cold War. It paints a picture of a man with strong guiding principles, but limited room for maneuver, colliding with the essential interests of the big powers as the ‘wind of change’ blew over the African continent. The book is a critical contribution to the study of international politics and the role of the UN in the African decolonization processes during the Cold War. It is also exploring the role of individuals in leadership positions of the international civil service and by doing so is a tribute to the achievements of a cosmopolitan Swede.
Introduction
Authors: Melber Henning
Published: February 2020

This chapter outlines the rationale and context that motivates the discussions in the book, and also summarizes the current literature on Dag Hammarskjöld. It points to the differences in analyses, perceptions and judgments concerning his influence and role as UN Secretary-General by looking at the potential flaws in methodology and assessment of evidence as regards Hammarskjöld’s influence and interests, as well as his ethics. It engages with the pitfalls and challenges of navigating through and verifying reliable evidence, as well as keeping fact separate from fiction. This chapter also explains the book’s approach, which to a large extent relies on the use of primary texts authored by Hammarskjöld throughout his time in office.
Arafat and Abbas
Authors: Klein Menachem
Published: February 2020

This landmark volume presents vivid and intimate portraits of Palestinian Presidents Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, revealing the impact these different personalities have had on the struggle for national self-determination. Arafat and Abbas lived in Palestine as young children. Uprooted by the 1948 war, they returned in 1994 to serve as the first and second presidents of the Palestinian Authority, the establishment of which has been the Palestine Liberation Organization’s greatest step towards self-determination for the Palestinian nation. Both Arafat and Abbas were shaped by earlier careers in the PLO, and each adopted their own controversial leadership methods and decision-making styles. Drawing on primary sources in Arabic, Hebrew and English, Klein gives special attention to the lesser-known Abbas: his beliefs and his disagreements with Israeli and American counterparts. The book uncovers new details about Abbas’ peace talks and US foreign policy towards Palestine, and analyses the political evolution of Hamas and Abbas’ succession struggle. Klein also highlights the tension between the ageing leader and his society. Arafat and Abbas offers a comprehensive and balanced account of the Palestinian Authority’s achievements and failures over its twenty-five years of existence. What emerges is a Palestinian nationalism that refuses to disappear.
Inside The Church of Almighty God
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

Branded “the new Falun Gong” by local authorities, The Church of Almighty God is today the most persecuted religious movement in China. Thousands of police officers are deployed full time to identify and arrest its members. Hundreds of thousands are in jail. Yet the movement continues to grow. Authorities (perhaps exaggerating) claim it has some four million members. They also accuse it of serious crimes. This book is based on interviews with hundreds of members of the once secretive movement, as well as Chinese police officers hunting it. It presents the movement’s origins and history and its idiosyncratic theology, centered in the belief that Jesus Christ has returned in our time in the shape of a Chinese woman, worshipped as Almighty God, to eradicate the sinful nature of humans. It explores the church’s minimalistic but rich worship practices and tells the dramatic story of its persecution in China. It discusses why the movement grew, and grew so rapidly. It also describes the struggling communities of asylum seekers in various countries and addresses legal and social issues about their status as refugees. A candid look at the criminal accusations, largely fabricated by Chinese propaganda, completes the book. The conclusion places The Church of Almighty God within the context of Xi Jinping’s reshaping of Chinese policy on religions.
The Suicide of Ms. Liu and Other Chinese Persecution Stories
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

The chapter tells the stories of persecution, arrest, detention, torture, and in some cases extrajudicial killing of nine members of The Church of Almighty God in China. All the stories reveal the real names of the victims and are supported by documents filed with the Human Rights Council of the United Nations during the 2018 Universal Periodic Review of China and published on the website of the United Nations. They evidence a consistent pattern of repression and abuse. The victims were arrested for no other crime than being active in a banned religious group. Members of their families were also threatened and persecuted. Extra-judicial killings were covered up, and families were told that natural causes were responsible for the victims’ deaths.
China’s Struggle against the Xie Jiao
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

The chapter discusses two key notions of contemporary Chinese policy about religion, “sinicization” and xie jiao. Both words have a venerable tradition in China, but are used by the regime with new meanings. “Sinicization” was once used to indicate that organizations operating in China should have Chinese rather than foreign leaders, but it now means that leaders should be selected, or at least approved, by the Chinese Communist Party. This also applies to religious organizations. Xie jiao is often translated as “evil cults,” but that translation is misleading. Xie jiao is a label used since the late Ming dynasty to indicate movements the authorities regard as antigovernment and socially dangerous. The politics of singling out and banning xie jiao was passed from Imperial to Nationalist China and then to the CCP regime. An official list of groups banned as xie jiao was reinstated in 1995. The Chinese Criminal Code now includes Article 300, making being active in a xie jiao a crime.
The Church of Almighty God
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

The chapter describes the origins and early history of The Church of Almighty God. It originated in 1991 around the revelations of a woman, whose name is (probably) Yang Xiangbin, who was later recognized as Almighty God. It then acquired an effective administrative leader, a man called Zhao Weishan. The community went through a formative period of trials and tribulations, at the end of which it recognized that the woman uttering the new revelations was the second coming of Jesus Christ, the incarnated Almighty God. Around this belief a complete system of dispensationalist theology grew, distinguishing three ages of the history of humanity, the Age of Law, the Age of Grace, and the present Age of Kingdom, which will eventually lead into the glorious Age of the Millennial Kingdom.
Escaping China
Authors: Introvigne Massimo
Published: February 2020

As of September 2019, more than five thousand members of The Church of Almighty God have escaped China and are seeking asylum in several different countries. The three largest groups are in the United States, South Korea, and Italy. With some notable exceptions (New Zealand, Canada, Finland, and Sweden), in most countries refugees experience problems in being granted asylum. The chapter discusses the sources of these difficulties and the most frequent objections leading to negative decisions. These decisions may have tragic consequences, as evidenced by case studies of refugees who had to return to China and were promptly arrested there.
The Taliban’S Tactical Adaptation
Authors: Giustozzi Antonio
Published: February 2020

The Taliban’s tactics were originally quite clumsy, but were able to evolve towards asymmetric tactics with the help of foreign advisers from Iran and Pakistan. Mines became the main weapon in the arsenal of the Taliban.
Conclusion
Authors: Giustozzi Antonio
Published: February 2020

The Taliban differ from the typical insurgencies of the Cold War, but their polycentric approach is popular among Xxi century insurgents, so it’s not a one-off. The Taliban’s polycentrism gave them immense resilience, but it turned into a limitation when they had to go on the offensive and score a decisive final victory.
Epilogue
Authors: Giustozzi Antonio
Published: February 2020

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
The Plight of Western Religion
Authors: Gifford Paul
Published: February 2020

‘Religion’ can be used to mean all kinds of things, but a substantive definition––based on the premise of superhuman powers––can clarify much. It allows us to attempt to differentiate religion from culture, ethnicity, morality and politics.This definition of religion necessarily implies a perception of reality. Until recent centuries in the West, and in most cultures still, the ordinary, natural and immediate way of understanding and experiencing reality was in terms of otherworldly or spiritual forces. However, a cognitive shift has taken place through the rise of science and its subsequent technological application.This new consciousness has not disproved the existence of spiritual forces, but has led to the marginalization of the other-worldly, which even Western churches seem to accept. They persist, but increasingly as pressure groups promoting humanist values.Claims of ‘American exceptionalism’ in this regard are misleading. Obama’s religion, Evangelical support for Trump, and the mega-church message of success in the capitalist system can all be cultural and political phenomena. This eclipsing of the other-worldly constitutes a watershed in human history, with profound consequences not just for religious institutions but for our entire world order.
Issues
Authors: Gifford Paul
Published: February 2020

This chapter argues that a substantive definition of religion provides considerable clarity, enabling us helpfully to differentiate religion from culture, ethnicity and politics. Such differentiation has become possible only with the rise of the modern West. The secularization thesis claims that with modernity religion loses its importance. This thesis is commonly held to be wrong; this book by contrast upholds the thesis, from a novel standpoint. Secularization is usually argued with reference to affiliation and attendance, with belief less analyzed. This book directly addresses the issue of contemporary belief and argues that belief (or a cognitive element) is integral to religion substantively understood. Traditionally, this cognition has entailed reference to otherworldly forces, and it is this otherworldly reference that modernity has peripheralized. Identity in the modern world increasingly has marginalized supernatural referents.
Cognitive Imagining and Literary Fictions
Authors: Gilmore Jonathan
Published: February 2020

This chapter offers a sketch of the book’s general explanatory framework: a cluster of theories and commitments about mental representation identified as the cognitive theory of the imagination. This chapter shows where that general theory must be modified and supplemented to be employed in the characterization and explanation of the particular kind of imagining constitutive of engagements with works of literature. In particular, this chapter identifies a neglected explanatory significance for theories of the imagination and truth in fiction of attending to fictions from an external standpoint (one that attends to, e.g., its genre, plot, style, and functions).
The Aging of a Star in Camelot
Authors: Phillips Victoria
Published: February 2020

“It takes me ten years to make a dancer,” Martha Graham declared, and by 1961, at age sixty-seven, she had created a generation of stars. Her technically powerful company trained with the matriarch of modern dance, its “Picasso,” as they readied to tour for a new, young president, John F. Kennedy, and his sophisticated wife, Jackie. He needed to show sophistication and gravitas; in 1962, Graham and her twenty glowing dancers toured Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, Poland, Sweden, West Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway, traversing a complex geographic puzzle of territories contested between East and West, engaging with “containment,” the “Iron Curtain,” old-fashioned wartime European neutrality, and Bandung’s issues of nonalignment, all refashioned by the changing Cold War. Yet the tour would start in Israel, again courtesy of private funding. Greece and Turkey had been named by Truman in his “containment” policy, led by George Kennan; Graham performed as Clytemnestra for the Greeks. Kennan sponsored Graham as she went “behind the Iron Curtain” to Yugoslavia and Poland, where religious works were foregrounded to fight the Soviet “atheists.” As in 1957, she would perform in West Germany, a Cold War hotspot. In Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway, she engaged with European neutrality, nonalignment, and the Non-Aligned Movement that demanded softer power. As Graham aged, she presented increasingly sexually charged works with the cover of modernism and myth. Yet her alcoholism took hold and compromised her work. Many suggested this should be a “farewell tour.”
Triumphing over “Exhaustion,” 1963–1974
Authors: Phillips Victoria
Published: February 2020

“She may be too tired to tour again,” announced a State Department official at a meeting to discuss Martha Graham’s 1962 tour. Performance shots of Graham’s sexually explicit Phaedra showed her as the aging protagonist in a long, bejeweled cocktail dress costume, with an extended leg inarticulate and bent, foot unpointed, its rounded, bunioned joints in evidence. Although she had used the cover of modernism to challenge the boundaries of sexuality with Phaedra on tour in 1962 in order to keep herself relevant, the strategy backfired. After touring for the Kennedys, the company performed at the Edinburgh Festival, and Graham came under congressional scrutiny for her work. In addition, foundation funding began to dry up as ageism enveloped Graham and modernism. After the assassination of Kennedy, Graham performed in London and Portugal with State Department support under Lyndon B. Johnson, but her failing physicality became a press refrain. With great reluctance, she retired and lapsed into an alcoholic coma. As the company struggled to survive, Graham recovered and retook control with Ron Protas. With renewed vigor, Graham tapped old contacts in Washington and staged fundraising events, drawing on her expertise with glamour and diplomacy. She obtained a tour under the Richard M. Nixon administration back to Asia, a primary area of diplomatic concern. After Nixon’s resignation, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger continued to support Graham, and she also latched on to the new first lady, Betty Ford, and left for Asia as the “First Lady of Modern Dance.”
“Grahamized and Americanized”
Authors: Phillips Victoria
Published: February 2020

Upon Graham’s return to the United States, the State Department declared her a “very valuable asset.” As the “First Lady” of modern dance, Graham had “made a positive contribution to overall Department of State foreign relations objectives.” Performances “convinced everyone that modern American culture had made an important contribution to the development of the twentieth century.” While photographs of Graham and Kissinger show a mutual if stiff respect, Graham’s principal alliance shifted to First Lady Betty Ford as Graham looked for White House invitations and financial support. Even as her company remained unstable, plagued by deficits that left it veering toward bankruptcy, Graham stayed on the government diplomatic resource list, and she tightened her alliance with the East Wing through to the West. As New York City veered toward bankruptcy, Graham staged lavish galas and star-studded events with Soviet defector and ballet star Rudolf Nureyev in tow. Betty Ford and Halston became key figures in her promotional efforts. Graham received the Medal of Freedom from Ford, but with his election loss to Jimmy Carter, Graham refocused her strategy.
Estrogen Receptor Distribution in the Hippocampus and Prefrontal Cortex
Authors: Torres-Reveron Annelyn , Brake Wayne G. , Milner Teresa A.
Published: February 2020

This chapter presents anatomical evidence for the distribution of estrogen receptors in the brain. First, the chapter presents a brief discussion of the historical findings that led to the discovery of nuclear and extranuclear estrogen receptors in the brain. A distribution pattern for each one of the receptors, estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), estrogen receptor beta (ERβ), and G-protein coupled estrogen receptor 1 (GPER1), is presented in sequential subsections. The discussion focuses on the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex areas, as these are largely involved in memory and cognitive behaviors, further discussed in other chapters in this book. In addition, co-localization studies with other neurotransmitter systems and molecules important for the functional activity of estrogen receptors is reviewed.
Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Rapid Effects of Estradiol on Memory Consolidation
Authors: Frick Karyn M. , Kim Jaekyoon , Koss Wendy A. , Tuscher Jennifer J.
Published: February 2020

Research from the past decade has begun to shed light on the neural mechanisms through which the potent estrogen 17β-estradiol (E2) regulates the formation of memories. Consolidation is a rapid process which appears to take advantage of the ability of estrogen receptors to quickly trigger cell signaling alterations that increase gene expression, local protein synthesis, and dendritic spinogenesis. This chapter discusses recent advances in understanding how the rapid effects of E2 on the hippocampus influence memory consolidation in female and male rodents and examines new directions for exploring similar mechanisms in other interconnected brain regions.
Estrogens Have Their Ups and Downs
Authors: Korol Donna L.
Published: February 2020

Estrogens produce robust yet mixed effects on cognition, at times enhancing learning and memory, at times impairing learning and memory, and still at other times having no measurable effects on learning and memory. When viewed through a multiple memory systems lens, these variable actions of estrogenic compounds are explained in part by the strategies required and the neural systems tapped during learning and memory. Estrogens tend to promote hippocampus-sensitive functions yet impair striatum-sensitive functions through the activation of multiple estrogen receptor subtypes. Thus, there are cognitive costs and benefits resulting from exposures to estrogens that illuminate an important notion: Depleting circulating ovarian hormones is not singularly detrimental to learning but instead can lead to learning improvements depending upon the type of task at hand. Approaching the effects of estrogens on problem-solving from this perspective may provide important insight to the range of cognitive health risks that may accompany menopause and hormone therapies.
Ovarian Hormones, Cognition, and Reproductive Aging
Authors: Prakapenka Alesia V. , Peña Veronica L. , Bimonte-Nelson Heather A.
Published: February 2020

Increasing evidence has demonstrated that sex steroid hormones, such as estrogens and progestogens, impact nonreproductive behaviors such as cognitive function in women and nonhuman animals. In addition to cognitive alterations associated with the reproductive cycle in young females, endocrine changes in middle-aged and aged females can impact cognition in ways that may increase risk of dementia and neurodegenerative disease. As such, understanding how aging and reproductive senescence influence cognitive functions like memory, and whether hormone therapy can mitigate these effects, is extremely important to maintaining women’s mental health. This chapter reviews the endocrine changes that occur at reproductive senescence in women and rodents, describes rodent models of menopause and memory assessment and discusses the effects of various hormone therapies on learning and memory in aging females. Various factors influencing the effects of hormone therapy on cognition are discussed, as are considerations for future research.
Effects of Dietary Estrogens on Dementia
Authors: Kassam Shelina , Hogervorst Eef
Published: February 2020

Following menopause, endogenous estrogen levels decrease, which has been identified as a risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia. However, modifiable lifestyle factors, such as diet, may be able to decrease dementia risk. Phytoestrogens, found in soy food products, are structurally similar to natural estradiol, which enables their interaction with estrogen receptors in brain areas important for learning and memory. The aim of this review is to synthesize findings showing cognitive effects of phytoestrogen consumption and present data from observational and randomized controlled trials. The available data suggest some benefit of phytoestrogen consumption to cognitive functions. However, results are inconsistent. Future research should attempt to establish the optimum dose and length of treatment, in addition to identifying the best soy food products to elicit beneficial cognitive effects.
Concepts and Categories of Art: A Very Brief Primer
Authors: Seeley William P.
Published: February 2020

Chapter 3 expands on the discussion of categories of art. The chapter evaluates four models for a theory of concepts for categories of art: a classical account derived from traditional, definitional theories of art; a prototype theory derived from Kendall Walton’s canonical discussion of categories of art; an exemplar theory derived from Morris Weitz’s anti-essentialism; and a knowledge-based account derived from Arthur Danto and Noël Carrol’s cognitivist theories of art. The chapter continues with a discussion of artworks and artifact concepts and concludes by arguing that a knowledge-based account of concepts provides the best model for understanding the structure of categories of art. and their role in our engagement with artworks.
Diagnosticity and the Problem of Depiction
Authors: Seeley William P.
Published: February 2020

Chapter 4 evaluates the application of the diagnostic recognition framework to philosophical discussions of the nature of depiction. The chapter surveys several traditional theories of depiction and makes an argument that current research in the psychology and neuroscience of perception supports a version of recognition theory.
Cognitivism at the Movies
Authors: Seeley William P.
Published: February 2020

Chapter 7 explores cognitivism as an alternative to realist and semiotic theories of the nature of film. The chapter develops a diagnostic recognition framework for film derived from a biased competition theory of attention and research on the role played by situation models in narrative comprehension.