bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Acoustic Emission Partial Discharge Localization in Oil Based on Artificial Bee Colony
Authors: Zhi Yang Lim , Norhafiz Azis  , Mohd Hashim Ahmad Hafiz , Mohd Radzi Mohd Amran , Norsahperi Nor Mohd Haziq , Azrul Mohd Ariffin
Published: January 2025

This study explores the application of an artificial bee colony (ABC) to locate partial discharge (PD) in a test tank based on acoustic emission (AE) approach. Data from a previous AE PD experimental study, which includes the coordinates of 3 AE sensors and the time difference of arrival (TDOA), were used to construct the nonlinear localization equations. It is known that localization algorithms are among the factors that can affect PD localization accuracy, and the ongoing research in this area underscores the need for further advancements in this topic. Therefore, the ABC was proposed to estimate the PD location through a colony of 120 bees, evenly divided into 60 employed and 60 onlooker bees. The employed bees explored the bounded search space, and onlooker bees refined PD locations found by the employed bees through local search. Scout bees were set out whenever a bee exceeded the limit of abandonment to discover possible PD locations in new areas of the search space. After 500 iterations, the optimal solution was the estimated PD location produced by ABC. Comparisons with the genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and bat algorithm (BA) revealed that the distance error, maximum deviation and computation time for AE PD localization based on ABC are the lowest. The study concludes that the ABC is more suitable for the multi-variable PD localization task than the GA, PSO, and BA due to its effective balance between local search by onlooker bees and global exploration by scout bees.
Inorganic Phosphorus Fractions and Sorption Capacity of Sediments Correlated with Physicochemical Parameters of Water in Langat River, Selangor Malaysia
Authors: Garba Jega Bilyaminu , Mustafa Muskhazli , Rajaram Micheal Charles , Abd Aziz Nor Azwady , Wan Solahudin Wan Mohd Syazwan , Hashim Noor Haza Fazlin , Mohd Fazli Bashirah
Published: January 2025

This study investigates the physicochemical parameters of water, their association with inorganic phosphate fractions, and the sorption capacity of sediments. Water and sediment samples were collected from upstream, midstream, and downstream sections between November 2022 and June 2023. The water samples were analysed according to the American Public Health Association (APHA) guidelines for physicochemical parameters. Inorganic phosphate fractions in the sediments were quantified using the molybdenum blue colourimetric method. Sediment phosphate sorption capacity was assessed by measuring the resulting filtrate and applying regression correlation and Langmuir isotherm models to determine the relationships among the sediment samples. Sediment analysis of inorganic phosphorous fractions revealed varying percentages of Ca-P (32.6%), Rs-P (38.3%), and Fe-P (48.4%) dominating the upstream, midstream, and downstream sections, respectively. Sediment phosphate adsorption varied between sections (upstream: 4.00 to 18.21 mg/g vs. midstream: 4.36 to 21.10 mg/g vs downstream: 4.00 to 12.98 mg/g), with no significant differences between streams at specific phosphate concentrations. However, all the sections displayed a saturation point of approximately 20–25 mg/l. The Langmuir isotherm parameters accurately described P adsorption onto Langat River sediments, as indicated by the moderately high R2 values for Qmax and RL. The downstream section of the Langat River had elevated levels of EC, COD and SRP parameters and Ex-P, Al-P, Fe-P, and Ca-P fractions, except for the Rs-P fraction that dominated the midstream section, indicating collective effects of anthropogenic activities. Therefore, strict regulations to improve wastewater treatment and promote sustainable wastewater management are essential for reducing inorganic phosphorus pollution in the Langat River and protecting water quality.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND ORGANISATIONAL COMMITMENT IN THE HOTEL INDUSTRY OF GHANA: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF JOB SATISFACTION
Authors: Musah Faisal
Published: January 2025

This study investigated the mediating role of job satisfaction in the relationship between HRM practices and organisational commitment in the hotel industry of Ghana. The study collected primary data from 21 hotels within the New Juaben North and South municipalities. The study population comprised 433 hotel employees within the municipalities. A total of 208 participants were selected using the simple random sampling method and structured questionnaires were administered to the chosen respondents. The study employed a quantitative approach and adopted the explanatory research design. The data gathered were analysed using Smart PLS-SEM 4. The findings indicated that, the relationship between recruitment and organisational commitment is statistically insignificant. Furthermore, job satisfaction does not have a mediating effect on the relationship between recruitment and organisational commitment and training and organisational commitment among hotel employees. However, it is worth noting that job satisfaction has mediation effect in the relationship between compensation and organisational commitment in the hotel industry of Ghana. The study concluded that merely attracting and selecting candidates through the recruitment process may not directly translate into higher levels of commitment within the hotel industry and recommends that management of hotels should utilize behavioural interviews that assess candidates not only for skills but also for their alignment with the hotel values and culture. This approach helps ensure that new hires are more likely to integrate well into the existing team and stay committed in the long term.
Child Abandonment in 19th Century Lisbon: The Provenance and Distribution of Foundlings Through a GIS Lens
Authors:   Instituto de História Contemporânea, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade NOVA de Lisboa / IN2PAST, Portugal, Vieira Paulino Joana
Published: January 2025

In Portugal, until the late 1860’s, child abandonment was an anonymous, legal, and generalized practice. The Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa (SCML) was responsible for the guardianship of Lisbon’s abandoned children, the Portuguese capital and largest city. Nevertheless, the character of such a practice led to increasing numbers. A debate then emerged and became more vigorous over the mid-century, culminating in the decree of 1867. This replaced the wheels, a wooden cylinder which rotated to allow anonymous abandonment, with controlled and justified admissions, the generalization of lactation subsidies, and policing around the institutions. Where did foundlings come from and where were they sent when raised by external wet nurses after their abandonment? Was there a spatial pattern? To produce a spatial and visual representation of this distribution and coverage to address the research questions, this analysis relies on the SCML quantitative reports and on SIGMA, a GIS-database designed to depict the evolutions in Portuguese administrative divisions. We conclude that most foundlings came from Lisbon and, in later years, from those Lisbon parishes hosting the popular and working classes, and later preferably distributed to wet nurses living in the countryside, thereby achieving the institution’s goals.
AI-Driven Personalization: Generative Models in E-Commerce
Authors: Manu Vallabh Mishra
Published: January 2025

E-commerce platforms are increasingly leveraging personalized recommendations to provide a more tailored shopping experience for users. While traditional recommendation methods typically rely on collaborative filtering, which considers behavioral data and user similarities, they often neglect individual preferences and tastes. In contrast, generative models have shown promise in enhancing personalized recommendations, especially in the e-commerce industry. These models create data points based on a distribution, enabling them to better represent the underlying user data. By integrating data from various sources, businesses can develop personalized recommendations that are more relevant than generic suggestions, taking into consideration individual interests, preferences, and purchase history. Generative models have the ability to learn and adjust over time, resulting in more precise suggestions for users. Their implementation in e-commerce has proven effective in boosting user engagement and driving sales. Additionally, these models can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by providing more pertinent and personalized content. They also have the potential to set e-commerce platforms apart in a competitive market and enhance users' shopping experiences. As these models continue to advance, it is expected that they will further enrich e-commerce experiences in the future.
The anxiety, depression, and TMD: Multidisciplinary therapy
Authors: Prada Simone Graziani , Siqueira Adriana Ugolini Benatti de , Camargo Gabriela Machado , Roesler Célia , Silva Evelyn Esteves de Oliveira , Couto Junior Oswaldo , Saba Felipe Sampaio , Moura Raphael Zanetti Sarra , Nobre Shinji Yamashita , Zanetti Claudia
Published: January 2025

Abstract
 Introduction
Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) affects the jaw and muscles, often linked to stress, anxiety, and sleep issues. Comprehensive care addressing physical and psychological factors improves outcomes.
ObjectiveThis study proposed a multidisciplinary approach (psychologists, dentists, and physical therapists) to treat these conditions with non-pharmacological techniques, aiming for a more effective and personalized treatment.
MethodThe research was conducted at the Sacomã Basic Health Unit in São Paulo, Brazil, and included 12 healthcare professionals in an active intervention and 6 patients as a control group during 1 month. The intervention consisted of four weekly one-hour sessions and home therapies sent via WhatsApp, utilizing stretching, mindfulness, thermotherapy, self-massage, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Participants completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires on depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), bruxism (OBC), and pain (GCPS and Pain Drawing).
ResultsThe interventions resulted in significant reductions in the PHQ-9 (p=0.028), GAD-7 (p=0.039), OBC (p=0.015), and PD (p=0.016) scales, demonstrating the positive impact of group dynamics. Additionally, there was a decrease in pain and an improvement in the quality of life of the participants.
ConclusionDespite sample limitations, the data indicate that multidisciplinary interventions can effectively manage TMD, resulting in reduced pain and associated symptoms. The approach showed potential to improve patients' quality of life, highlighting the importance of integrated and personalized treatment. Future studies with larger samples and extended follow-up are necessary to validate these findings and expand the applicability of the
Screening tests for migraine applied to the population of the Bauru campus of the University of São Paulo: a prevalence study
Authors: Tanoue Aline Donata , Honório Heitor Marques , Conti Paulo Cesar Rodrigues , Fernandes Adriano Yacubian
Published: January 2025

Introduction: Migraine is a prevalent neurological disorder marked by recurrent and severe headaches that significantly impacts individuals' quality of life. Objective: This study aims to apply migraine screening tools to the population of the Bauru campus of the University of São Paulo (USP) to estimate the prevalence of migraine and assess the impact of pain on daily life.
Methods: A cross-sectional study involved 216 participants, comprising students, faculty, and staff, who completed online questionnaires, including the “ID Migraine,” “International Headache Society Migraine Diagnosis,” and “Migraine Screen Questionnaire.” The impact of migraine on daily activities was assessed using the “Headache Impact Test. The data were analyzed using the Shapiro-Wilk test, Student's t-test, Mann-Whitney test, and Pearson's correlation, adopting a 5% significance level.
Results: Out of 216 respondents, 69 (31.94%) were diagnosed with migraine using the ID Migraine tool. The International Headache Society questionnaire identified 86 participants (39.81%) as having migraine, while the Migraine Screen Questionnaire indicated 94 participants (43.52%). A combined analysis identified 20.83% of participants (n=45) as having migraine across all questionnaires. A total of 113 participants (52.31%) tested positive for migraine in at least one questionnaire. Results also revealed a strong correlation between positive migraine diagnosis and significant limitations in daily activities, as assessed by the Headache Impact Test (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Using multiple migraine screening questionnaires enhances sensitivity and specificity in identifying individuals with migraine. The findings reveal a substantial population at the USP campus likely affected by migraines, emphasizing the need for further research and intervention strategies.
Teaching Outside of the Margins: School-Based Agricultural Education Teachers’ Perspectives on Globally Competent Teaching During an International Experience
Authors: Roberts Richie , Stair Kristin S. , Figland-Cook Whitney F. , Jayaratne K. S. U.
Published: January 2025

Because of the need to produce more globally competent students, researchers have called for integrating global concepts into the agricultural education curriculum over the past decade. Despite this, many teachers have not been adequately prepared to facilitate such in practice. This investigation sought to examine [State] SBAE teachers’ perspectives on globally competent teaching during an international experience in Costa Rica. As a result of our analysis of the data, three themes emerged (1) teaching outside of the margins, (2) global storytelling, and (3) innovative global experiences. The themes narrated the ways in which the teachers in this study articulated how they intended to create globally competent students in SBAE as a result of their international experience. The results of this investigation also illuminated a critical implication for the discipline – if we more intimately connect the local to the global, perhaps SBAE could position itself to engage in discussions and address problems associated with diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) more profoundly. Moving forward, we recommend that teacher educators and state agricultural education leaders explore how international experiences might be used as an entry point for SBAE to engage in critical conversations and understand how issues of DEIB can be addressed more effectively.
The Impact of a Weeklong STEM Immersion Curriculum Experience in School-Based Agricultural Education
Authors: Eck Christopher , Rankin III Kristopher , Marsh Kayla , Sewell Emily , Best Ryan , Coleman Bradley , Robinson J. Shane
Published: January 2025

Advocation for the STEM workforce in education has been noted from career sectors ranging from business to agriculture on local, state, and national levels. Modern agriculture is no longer only about manual labor and tending to crops and livestock, it has grown into a sophisticated field that heavily relies on STEM in virtually every aspect. Although research has explored school-based agricultural education (SBAE) students’ interest in STEM and the perceptions of SBAE teachers related to STEM integration, little has been done to determine the impact of a STEM-enhanced curriculum on students’ knowledge and their STEM interest. Undergirded with human capital theory, this study sought to determine the impact of a weeklong, immersive STEM curriculum experience on SBAE students’ sustainable bioenergy content knowledge and STEM interest. The change in sustainable bioenergy examination scores resulted in a statistically significant difference with a large effect size. In addition, SBAE students reported an increase across the semantic scale for science, while other areas remained consistent or decreased. SBAE teachers should incorporate additional experiential learning activities by integrating STEM principles with a particular focus on mathematics, technology, and engineering to increase interest and career specific human capital.
River and Society in Northern Italy
Authors: Panato Marco
Published: January 2025

This book considers for the first time the relationship between the river environment and the economic and political structures of northern Italy in the post-Roman period. Through the study of the relationship between river and society over time, it shows how the Carolingian conquest and other major political events in northern Italy did not seem to introduce radical changes in the daily life or broad economic systems. In fact, ecological circuits, local networks, family strategies and monastic policies seem to have been equal factors that shaped the relationship between river and society.

This monograph offers an innovative approach to the study of the early Middle Ages, integrating social sciences, historical records, archaeological and geoenvironmental data analyses to overcome the lack of written and material sources. These new integrated perspectives on the post-Roman world shed light on the relationship between humans and their environment and on the social complexity of the riverscape, topics not yet fully investigated in the historiographical debate.
Picturing German Antiquity in the Age of Print
Authors: Carlisle Rachel M.
Published: January 2025

Picturing German Antiquity in the Age of Print: Art, Archaeology, and the Style All’antica in Early Modern Augsburg examines the central role of print to local antiquarian pursuits and generation of a style all’antica in early sixteenth-century Augsburg, Germany. Working in the shadow of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, Augsburg’s leading patrons, including humanist Konrad Peutinger and the mercantile Fugger family, documented local antiquities and commissioned new works of classicizing art and architecture, visually asserting a genuine, unbroken lineage to the city’s past.

This study challenges earlier narratives by arguing that Augsburg’s artists and printers did not directly copy Italian Renaissance models but instead manipulated the imported visual vocabulary according to local concerns. The book brings together scholarly discourses on transalpine exchange, scientific advancements in printmaking, and reception of antiquity north of the Alps to offer a new understanding of art in early modern Augsburg and northern Europe at large.
Women Artists and Artisans in Venice and the Veneto, 1400-1750
Authors: Cooper Tracy E.
Published: January 2025

This book of essays highlights the lives, careers, and works of art of women artists and artisans in Venice and its territories from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The collection represents the first fruits of an ongoing research program launched by Save Venice, Inc., Women Artists of Venice, directed by Professor Tracy Cooper of Temple University, in conjunction with a conservation program, led by Melissa Conn, Director of Save Venice, Inc. Inspired by a growing body of research that has resurrected female artists and artisans in Florence and Bologna during the last decade, the Save Venice project seeks to recover the history of women artists and artisans born or active in the Venetian republic in the early modern period. Topics include their contemporary reception - or historical silence - and current scholarship positioning them as individuals and as an underrepresented category in the history of art and cultural heritage.
Artists and Artisans in the Account Books of Marino Grimani, Patrician and Doge of Venice (Late Sixteenth-Early Seventeenth Centuries)
Authors: Adank Maria
Published: January 2025

The detailed account books of Doge Marino Grimani (1595-1605) reveal a wide network of contacts with artists and craftsmen, both men and women. The analysis of two of the volumes indicates continuous relationships based on mutual trust and on the doge’s refined material expertise. This essay will focus on the purchases of this wealthy Venetian patrician, before and after his dogeship (1589-1605), highlighting his prominent position as a client of the city’s most renowned artists and artisans. A significant difference in the numbers between male and female professionals is indicated, as well as gender placement by professional category. Marino Grimani demonstrated particular preferences for the work of certain female artisans and luxury crafts, including needlework.
Cultural Analysis as Reading for the Object
Authors: Peeren Esther
Published: January 2025

In this chapter, I present cultural analysis as a reading for the object: a reading that looks for and establishes some thing existing in culture as the object of analysis, and a reading in support of or on the side of the object, taking care that it, in its thingness that makes it more than the object of this analysis, is given the last word and not stifled by concepts and theories being thrown at it. This reading for the object is seen as involving a practice of close reading distinct from, on the one hand, surface or descriptive reading and, on the other, overreading.
Gathering, Framing, and the Temporality of Cultural Analysis
Authors: van Alphen Ernst
Published: January 2025

A main principle of cultural analysis is the close reading of texts, images, material objects, and practices. Yet, for cultural analysis, meaning is not text-immanent. Rather, it depends on the act of fram¬ing: an act performed in the present, with critical, political, and ethical implications. Prior to framing, however, one first gathers, compiles, or assembles objects. This gathering too is neither neutral nor objective. It enables the researcher to be critical and political, bringing with it what can be seen as the most important characteristic of cultural analysis: its contemporaneity, implying togetherness of different historical moments and periods and enabling their comparison. In this chapter I demonstrate these different acts on the basis of my recent book.
Art, War, and Exile in Modern Korea
Authors: Jin Jinyoung Anna
Published: January 2025

This book celebrates the life and works of Lee Qoede (1913–1965), who focused on art’s social purpose and representation of civilians. He believed “art must be an integral part of the struggle in reality. It cannot simply be a still-life of apples, flowers, or scenery.” Born in South Korea, he was a prisoner of war, defected to North Korea, was politically purged, and died at fifty-two. His works were banned in South Korea until 1988.

This monograph explores Lee Qoede’s art within the context of Cold War politics and international leftist exchanges, including his experiences of civilian massacres, prisoner-of-war camps, and his defection to North Korea. It examines social realism, socialist realism, and Mexican mural influences on Lee’s oeuvre, reevaluating his place in South Korean art history. Highlighting the global impact of Lee’s work, the book integrates insights from international artists and movements, challenging Eurocentric modernism and offering a comprehensive understanding of his artistic journey.
Leaving Fossil Fuels Underground
Authors: Gupta Joyeeta , Hogenboom Barbara , Rempel Arthur , Olofsson Malin
Published: January 2025

How can the world move away from a century-old global system based on fossil fuels? And how can societies in the Global South and Global North overcome the deeply vested economic, financial and political interests of the fossil fuel system? Despite the alarming effects of climate change and three decades of international climate negotiations, industrialized countries continue to exploit new fossil fuel reserves. Many countries in the Global South follow suit and still engage in large new fossil fuel projects and their related pollution, social injustice and debts. Increasingly, however, social and political actors are mobilising for leaving fossil fuels underground (LFFU).

This book examines the role of key actors, arguments and approaches in promoting the much-needed rapid phase-out of fossil fuels. It addresses the importance of linking effective climate action to socially and ecologically inclusive development. In addition to local resistance, the book explores initiatives for national and international policies and financial mechanisms carried out by actors ranging from social movements to governments and large investors.

In Leaving Fossil Fuels Underground, an international team of well-established scholars and early career researchers takes a global perspective to demonstrate the challenges and possibilities of reaching this goal. They pay special attention to Africa and Latin America, with case studies on South Africa and Ecuador.
South Africa and the Political Economy of Fossil Fuels: Rationales for LFFU
Authors: Bond Patrick , Rempel Arthur
Published: January 2025

South Africa has relied on extremely high levels of coal and other fossil fuels, but the early 2020s was a period of flux in South Africa. Dominant patterns of fossil dependency began to change and the politics of ideas shifted not only to renewable energy, but also to an explicit commitment made by the government to LFFU. This chapter first looks into South Africa’s national context vis-à-vis climate policy and the related key actors. Next it discusses the key arguments and approaches for leaving fossil fuels underground (LFFU) that would also rectify the injustices of apartheid capitalism and address climate costs. Against a broader context of high-level corruption and collusion, the deep-rooted minerals-energy complex and the related lack of climate action, LFFU approaches that are being deliberated in South Africa include stranded assets, vulnerabilities to international trade, extractivism accounting, climate debt and the social cost of carbon (SCC). South Africa serves as a vital case of considering the politics of ideas that play an important role in changing dominant patterns.
The Swedish Monarchy and the Copper Trade
Authors: Stryker Lawrence
Published: January 2025

In 1611, the seventeen-year-old Gustav Adolf ascended the throne of Sweden. Before the new king could sit on his throne, however, he faced a disastrous war against Denmark, another conflict in Russia, and a rebellious nobility at home. Plus, Sweden itself had an arctic climate and a short growing season. Clearly Gustav II Adolf faced great difficulties even to survive. Yet by the end of the next decade, Gustav II Adolf’s Sweden was a leading military power in continental Europe. In 1630 the king invaded the Holy Roman Empire and joined the Thirty Years War to defend the Protestant cause. How was this possible? Sweden had one major asset, the Stora Kopparberg, the largest copper mine in Europe. The king exploited the mine and used the revenue to finance his political and military ambitions. This is the story of Gustav II Adolf’s efforts to improve efficiencies at the mine and control the marketing of its bounty.
Handbook of Sport and Japan
Authors: Macnaughtan Helen , Postlethwaite Verity
Published: January 2025

The Handbook of Sport and Japan presents a fascinating collection of established and new scholarship, a valuable text for readers who want to use sport as lens to look more closely into a nation. The handbook draws on a diversity of perspectives, disciplines and experiences all of which respond to the challenge of including sport in the study of Japan. The chapters in the handbook convey what taking part in sport feels and looks like, highlighting the sporting accomplishments of Japanese athletes and teams, while also reflecting how the sporting experience interacts with economics, diplomacy, media, culture, demographics, gender, ethnicity and identity. Contributions pose key questions about what conclusions can be made when sport is placed in the foreground of key events in Japanese history, including pre-war industrialisation and empire building, to the post-war economic boom, the 2011 Tohoku Disaster and the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
African Media in an Age of Extraction
Authors: Tsika Noah
Published: January 2025

African Media in an Age of Extraction takes a fresh, site-specific look at the relationship between moving images and the mining of natural resources, arguing that where we “place” Nollywood and other industries has important practical and conceptual consequences. Such locations are not just spatial metaphors but also tangible geographies with material connections to extractive economies. Sites of film production are often spaces of oil prospecting, timber harvesting, and mineral extraction—natural environments continuously transformed by capital. African Media in an Age of Extraction links such absolute spaces—reclaimed lands, razed forests, petroleum zones, abandoned coal mines collecting moss, vast tin fields inspiring illegal dredging by populations locked out of the licit economy—to the abstract and lived dimensions of film villages, shooting locations, and exhibition centers. The geographies of African media industries are not fixed locations cleanly separated from surrounding areas or from the wider world (including Hollywood), nor are they fully detachable from the mineral and hydrocarbon resources that also define them. Considering multiple scales—the local, the national, the regional, the continental, the planetary—this book takes stock of the physical terrain and extractive objects that Nollywood shares with other industries and that structure screen media more broadly. Topographies, political economies, national identities, and natural resources are entwined in ways that cinema makes intelligible and that carry the potential to transform the way we see the medium itself.
Birth Justice
Authors: van der Waal Rodante
Published: January 2025

Reproductive injustice is an urgent global problem. We are faced with the increased criminalization of abortion, higher maternal and neonatal mortality rates for people of color, and more and more research addressing the structural nature of obstetric violence. In this collection of essays, the cause of reproductive injustice is understood as the institutionalized isolation of (potentially) pregnant people, making them vulnerable for bio- and necropolitical disciplination and control.

The central thesis of this book is that reproductive justice must be achieved through a radical reappropriation of relationality in reproductive care to safeguard the access to knowledge and care needed for safe bodily self-determination. Through empirical research as well as decolonial, feminist, midwifery, and Black theory, reproductive justice is reimagined as abolitionist care, grounded in the abolition of authoritative obstetric institutions, state control of reproduction, and restrictive abortion laws in favor of community practices that are truly relational.
Obstetric Racism as Necropolitical Disinvestment of Care: How Uneven Reproduction in the Netherlands Is Effectuated through Linguistic Racism, Exoticization, and Stereotypes
Authors: van der Waal Rodante , Helberg-Proctor Alana , Goodarzi Bahareh
Published: January 2025

In this chapter, we theorize how Dána-Ain Davis’s “uneven reproduction” and “obstetric racism” are effectuated in the Netherlands through linguistic racism, othering, and racial stereotypes. We conceptualize uneven reproduction as consisting of a bio- and necropolitics that optimizes certain life through investments and negates “other” life through disinvestments in reproductive care. Based on interviews with mothers, doulas, midwives, and midwives in training, we study how uneven reproduction plays out in daily practices of obstetric racism within the obstetric institution. In daily practice, we differentiate between a logic of investment and disinvestment which takes place through linguistic racism, othering, and exoticization, and the racial stereotype of Black women being “natural” birthers, while other marginalized racialized women are seen as “bad” birthers.
Objects, Commodities and Material Cultures in the Dutch Republic
Authors: Noorman Judith , Dietz Feike
Published: January 2025

How did objects move between places and people, and how did they reshape the Republic’s arts, cultures and sciences?

‘Objects’ were vitally significant for the early modern Dutch Republic, which is known as an early consumer society, a place famous for its exhaustive production of books, visual arts and scientific instruments. What happens when we push these objects and their materiality to the centre of our research? How do they invite us to develop new perspectives on the early modern Dutch Republic? And how do they contest the boundaries of the academic disciplines that have traditionally organized our scholarship?

In Objects, Commodities and Material Cultures, the interdisciplinary community of specialists around the Amsterdam Centre for the Study of Early Modernity innovatively explores the diverse early modern world of objects. Its contributors take a single object or commodity as a point of departure to study and discuss various aspects of early modern art, culture and history: from natural objects to consumer goods, from knowledge instruments to artistic materials. The volume aims to unravel how objects have moved through regions, cultures and ages, and how objects impacted people who lived and worked in the Dutch Republic.
Late Shakespeare and the English Baroque
Authors: Waller Gary
Published: January 2025

Late Shakespeare and the English Baroque focuses mainly on Shakespeare’s late (or later) works, those written from around 1607. It sets both poetry and plays within the emerging culture of the baroque, the term defined not merely by stylistic features but by the underlying ideological ‘structure of feeling’ of baroque culture in early modern England. The book extends the mode of analysis of The Female Baroque (Amsterdam University Press, 2020) and draws on theoretical work by José Antonio Maravall, Raymond Williams, and Julia Kristeva. It analyzes recurring Baroque characteristics – hyperbole and melancholy, theatricality, gender, and ‘plateauing’. Attention is given to the sonnets and other poems, as well as the tragedies from Hamlet on, and argues that increasingly, tragi-comedy emerges as a distinctively baroque Shakespearean characteristic. In the final chapter, primarily on The Tempest, the late Shakespeare is shown to have philosophical insights parallel to Montaigne or Bruno, and to provide anticipatory connections with later baroque artists like Vermeer.
The Religion(s) of Frans Hals
Authors: Grijzenhout Frans
Published: January 2025

Little is known about Frans Hals’s personal beliefs. He rarely painted religious subjects and it is hard to find references to spiritual convictions within the corpus of his painted portraits. We know, however, that the population of Haarlem at that time was divided along complex religious lines. How did Frans Hals navigate this intricate terrain as an artist and as a private person? What role did religion play in the commissions he received in the course of his career? And how did the portraits of Protestant ministers like Swalmius and Revius function in their own households?
Painted Stitches: Embroidery and the Paintings of Frans Hals
Authors: van Roon Marike
Published: January 2025

Frans Hals’s portraits illustrate the development of embroidery in fashion, especially in the 1620s and 1630s. They show the opulence of this embroidery to its fullest effect. While virtually no garments have survived, examples of similar embroidery still exist, mainly in the form of decorated bindings for bibles and songbooks for young women. These book bindings allow every stitch in Frans Hals’s portraits to be identified, despite the artist’s rather impressionistic style.
Bodies and Gender Identities in the Making of Silk Fibre in Seventeenth-Century France
Authors: Broomhall Susan
Published: January 2025

This chapter analyses how gender ideologies shaped conceptualisations about how silk fibre was generated in seventeenth-century French sericultural texts. It argues that contemporary ideas about appropriate gender identities, roles, and hierarchies marked how silk fibre production was understood and promoted as a new opportunity for the French kingdom. Manuals of sericulture conceptualised the making of silk fibre as a process that involved human and non-human agency. As they articulated the relative power, knowledge, and skills of its varied agents, these authors wove assumptions borne of contemporary gender ideologies into early modern sericulture, and into ideas about its creative and entrepreneurial aspects.
Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today
Authors: Hizi Gil
Published: January 2025

This volume takes readers on a journey into a central aspect of life in China, so-called “self-development.” Whether prompted by the cultural values of educational success, capitalist competition for wealth, or the Chinese Communist Party’s prescriptions for “good” citizenship, few people in China are immune to the impetus to “improve” themselves and thus bring about a better future. Contributors to this volume, interdisciplinary sinologists, draw on materials from practices in education, labor, and self-help as they spotlight “keywords” by which individuals make sense of their self-development journeys – including new forms of resistance to social norms. Rather than simply classify self-development by different activities or groups, the chapters map together ethical features that cut across Chinese society. Contributors explore the nuanced and ambivalent attitudes towards self-development of individuals navigating various requirements and pursuing more complete forms of existence. In so doing, they offer a snapshot of China that intersects with timely global concerns.
Optimizing Individual Desires: Mengxiang (Dreams) and Entrepreneurship in Chinese Universities
Authors: Hjortshøj Naja Morell
Published: January 2025

Role models have become an integral part of the “mass entrepreneurship and mass innovation” campaign as it unfolds in Chinese higher education. These models are characterized by having gone through a process of self-development to realize their own mengxiang (dreams). Based on long-term fieldwork conducted at an elite Chinese university and analysis of books about entrepreneurial role models, it is argued that the role models present entrepreneurship as a site for the articulation of individual desires that can be channelled into economically productive activities. As they link their personal aspirations to the modernization of the Chinese nation, the role models become an example of the party-state’s effort to tie the pursuit of individual dreams in with Xi Jinping’s “China Dream.”
Qingxu Shifang (Emotional Release) in Psychotherapeutic Learning
Authors: Iskra Anna
Published: January 2025

The popular interest in psychology and New Age spirituality among Chinese middle-class urbanites, coupled with the increasing reliance on psychological idioms in state propaganda, brought about the proliferation of discourses on emotional management across the nation. This chapter focuses on the practices of “emotional release” (qingxu shifang) that consist in collective purging of negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety or sadness. Drawing on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the local Body Mind Spirit milieu, these affective explosions are conceptualized as self-soothing practices that allow a temporary venting of negativity. They resonate with the state-promoted discourses of “positive energy” as a prescribed national mood, psychologizing the source of individual suffering, without addressing the underlying structural inequalities.
The Early Modern Production of Missionary Books on Indigenous Languages in New Spain and Peru
Authors: Van Loon Zanna
Published: January 2025

How do the social, material, and spatial processes underlying the making of early modern missionary grammars, vocabularies, and devotional translations deepen our understanding of their contents? The handwritten and printed missionary books produced in the Spanish viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru were key instruments designed to help study Indigenous languages in order to efficiently teach religious doctrine to local communities unfamiliar with European culture and religion. This volume considers these missionary books as physical and social objects and illuminates how a variety of factors determines their physical appearance, structure, and form, which in turn shape and guide the interpretation of their contents: people involved in its making; geographical and social circumstances and conditions of production; technologies, materials, and tools; genre and function(s) of the books; and intended readership, modes of distribution, and readerly responses.
The Iraqi Spring
Authors: Al-Rawi Ahmed
Published: January 2025

Since 2003 and following the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq witnessed tremendous changes to its political, social, and economic structures, and this book critically maps recent popular protests that engulfed the country and led to the death of thousands of civilian protesters. It delves into the nuances of the Iraqi socio-political context and offers a brief historical overview of political activism by investigating the internal structure of activism in the country as well as the regional and international dimensions. The study involves critical ethnographic research including interviews with Iraqi activists, social media analysis, Arabic and English news analysis, as well as in-depth assessment and contextualization of the Iraqi protests. The author argues that there is a need to call the protests an “Iraqi Spring” because of the country's unique historical, demographic, and political circumstances.
Non-Fiction Cinema in Postwar Europe
Authors: Česálková Lucie , Praetorius-Rhein Johannes , Val Perrine , Villa Paolo
Published: January 2025

After WWII, cinema was everywhere: in movie theatres, public squares, factories, schools, trial courts, trains, museums, and political meetings. Seen today, documentaries and newsreels, as well as the amateur production, show the kaleidoscopic portrait of a changing Europe. How did these cinematic images contribute to shaping the new societies emerging from the ashes of war, both in the Western and in the Eastern bloc? Why were they so crucial in framing and regulating new places and practices, political systems, economic dynamics, educational frameworks, and memory communities? This edited volume explores the multiple ways nonfiction cinema reconfigured public spaces, collective participation, democratisation, and governmentality between 1944 and 1956. Looking back at it through a transnational perspective and the critical category of spatiality, nonfiction cinema appears in a new light: simultaneously as a specifically situated and as a highly mobile medium, it was a fundamental agent in reshaping Europe’s shared identity and culture in a defining decade.
Finding the Best Time for Shorts
Authors: Česálková Lucie
Published: January 2025

Studies of the historical audience of non-fiction film are rather sporadic. This chapter focuses on a specific type of cinemas in which non-fiction films have predominated, the non-stop cinemas, and examines its importance in the period immediately after the end of World War II, when they satiated the interest of contemporary audiences in audiovisual information from around the world. Based on period surveys and oral history interviews, it seeks to reconstruct the role of the non-stop cinemas in the everyday life of postwar audiences. Highlighting the specificities of temporal openness and spatial accessibility, this text argues that non-stop cinemas were an important source of education and information for pre-TV audiences.
Moving Accountability
Authors: Lindeperg Sylvie , Pitassio Francesco
Published: January 2025

The chapter focuses on the role cinema played in documenting and supporting “transitional justice” at both a transnational and a national level. Allied organized trials prosecuting Nazi politicians, administrators, and soldiers, who were held responsible for perpetrating crimes in several different nations across Europe. Such were the cases of the Nuremberg and Dachau trials. However, the role filmmaking played in documenting and interacting with the trials greatly varied, according to the political value assigned to respective judgments and, therefore, the function courts deemed suitable for cinema itself.
Music as Epistemic Bulwark in West Bengal
Authors: Krakauer Ben
Published: January 2025

Colonial powers have often sought to establish their moral authority and political legitimacy by replacing local religious traditions with their own state-sanctioned worldviews and value systems. Chikowero (2015) characterizes attacks on musical tradition as epistemicide, and celebrates the innovations of subaltern populations in resisting such efforts. Contemporary West Bengal is under the crosshairs of right-wing Hindu nationalism, which seeks to stamp out traditions of tolerance and interreligious harmony. This chapter explores whether music in West Bengal can act as a bulwark against imposed ideologies. West Bengal has musical and religious traditions that draw from both Muslim and Hindu worldviews. Krakauer considers how the practice of music and dance can serve as an affective defense, an epistemological inoculation against anti-Muslim bigotry.
The Ensoundments of the Materially Ethereal in Indigenous Riau (Sumatra)
Authors: Porath Nathan
Published: January 2025

This chapter is focused on sounds associated with ethereal matter (semanget) and its embodied manifestation that vitalizes human, animal, and material physicality. I discuss the therapeutic sounds which are humanly generated to mobilize the materially ethereal to “repair bodies” in the Sakai shamanic healing rituals called dikei. The Orang Sakai lived on the edge of the Malay kingdom of Siak. Most Sakais are animist. Dikei is an ensounded performative event bringing ethereal beings and humans together for the purpose of healing and the reconstruction of boundaries between the human and ethereal dimensions. I suggest to explore this material in relation to Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of double “turning away of face.”
Driving While Tamil: Policing as a Regime of Mobility in Postwar Jaffna, Sri Lanka
Authors: dillon daniel
Published: January 2025

Despite over a decade of ostensible peace, the island of Sri Lanka has yet to experience a shift into genuine peace. Rather, various government institutions have extended the ethos of militarization and counter-terrorism into the daily lives of Sri Lankans in ways that are felt disproportionately by members of low-caste, low-class, and minority communities (ethnic, religious, and sexual). This chapter focuses on how this manifests in Jaffna Town, in northern Sri Lanka, with attention to policing as a regime of mobility. Drawing on ethnographic research with rickshaw drivers and a well-documented police shooting, this chapter argues for “driving while Tamil” as a heuristic that highlights the assemblage of forces that structure mobilities in the region, particularly for young Tamil men.