bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Islamic Studies and Teaching Islam Studying and teaching Islam in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Methods and approaches (In Persian)
Authors: Yazdi Ali Asgari
Published: September 2018

The article reflects the results of the international meeting “Theology and Islamic Studies in Russia and Iran: history, methods, educational  approach.” The meeting took place in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian academy on the 8th of May 2018. The Meeting Committee received a substantial grant from the Culture Section of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Russia. At the meeting took part over 20 scholars from various research and educational bodies of the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Among them were scholars from the University of Teheran, the al-Mustafa International University, Moscow State University, St Petersburg State University, Bashkortostan State University in Ufa, the Daghestan Institute of Hunmanities, The Moscow State University of Foreign Languages, the Pyatigorsk State University, and the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. In the article Prof. Yazdi outlines the recent trends in teaching Islamic theology and Islamic studies in the University of Teheran. The outstanding results gained by the scholars of this University in the field of Islamic education has attracted a vivid interest of their Russian colleagues. The teaching of Islam in the Islamic Republic of Iran runs in the four main directions:

1. Teaching of Islam in the traditional framework combined with rational sciences and philosophy.

2. Islamic studies and Islamic theology as a separate teaching module in the leading Universities of Iran.

3. Islamic studies are combined with teaching of exact sciences as in the Imam Sadiq University (Tehran), the Motahhari University (Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan Province) and the Imam Reza University (Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan Province).

4. Islamic studies constitute an integral part of University education in Iran.

The teaching of Islam in the Islamic Republic of Iran is based on the Islamic tradition, philosophy and rational sciences. Therefore, the theology is considered as one of the aspects of the rational teaching. This is the basis of the Iranian moderate Islam. The author shares his practical experience of teaching Islam and Islamic sciences of many years.
Sadr ash-Shari`a and his work Ta`dil al-`Ulum (In Arabic)
Authors: Idrisov Qurbonali Kh.
Published: September 2018

The article deals with the personality of a Muslim scholar of the 1st part 14th cent. His name was `Ubayd Allah b. Mas`ud, his laqab was Sadr ash-Shari`a as-saghir (Sadr ash=Shari`a  ath-thani). He authored a work (yet unpublished) known under the title Ta`dil al-`ulum, which until recently has not attracted sufficient attention. The article comprises `Ubayd Allah b. Mas`ud’s biography and a survey of the existent hand-written copies of Ta`dil al-`ulum. Dr Idrisov suggests a different date of its composition and offers some corrections to the existent MSS catalogues where the work is described. Along with this information the article provides a survey of the sources used for compiling the Ta`dil al-`Ulum as well as a summary of the work, which became a milestone in the development of the maturidi kalam in Khorasan and Mawarannahr.
The Impact of Agency on Time and Risk Preferences
Authors: Gneezy Ayelet , Imas Alex , Jaroszewicz Ania
Published: September 2018

Scholars have long argued for the central role of agency in the human experience. In this paper, we demonstrate the importance of agency in shaping people’s patience and risk tolerance. We focus on the context of resource scarcity, which has been associated with both impatience and a lack of agency. Using data from a representative sample of over 86,000 individuals worldwide and two experiments, we replicate the decrease in patience among those exposed to scarcity. However, we show that endowing individuals with agency over scarcity fully moderates this effect, increasing patience substantially. We further show that agency’s impact on patience is partly driven by greater risk tolerance. These results hold even though individuals with greater agency do not exercise it; simply knowing one could alleviate one’s scarcity is sufficient to change behavior. Finally, we demonstrate that these effects of agency generalize beyond scarcity, highlighting the potential for agency-based policy and institutional design.
Feasibility study of a hot-air tethered aerostat system
Authors: MAHTO NAVIN KUMAR
Published: September 2018

The lifting gas used in Lighter-than-Air systems is usually Helium or Hydrogen. Helium is a rare gas and hence very expensive and Hydrogen, though relatively less expensive and easily available, is highly inflammable. Hot air has been used as an LTA gas since the first flight of a balloon in the 18th century, but its utilization in tethered aerostat systems has been limited. The objective of this project is to examine the feasibility of using hot air as the LTA gas in a practical tethered aerostat system. In this study, the thermal analysis of hot air envelope was conducted to predict heat losses and power requirements. This was followed by an experimental study to validate the theoretical values obtained from the thermal model, in which an electrical heating system was inserted inside a spherical envelope made of rip-stop nylon with a fire-retardant coating. Heat loss predictions were extrapolated for a larger size working prototype and feasibility studies were performed. The experimental heat loss predictions were far higher than those obtained using the thermal model available in literature. The power requirement for the smallest possible spherical working prototype made of Polyurethane coated envelope, with a radius of 2.3 m was estimated to be more than 66 kW. However, for an envelope fabricated with a proprietary material named aerofabrix®, around 33% reduction in the power requirement was estimated. These results show a promise for a hot-air based tethered aerostat system, but with several design and operational challenges, which will be highlighted in the paper.
A mechanistic model of coral bleaching due to temperature-mediated light-driven reactive oxygen build-up in zooxanthellae.
Authors: Baird Mark , Mongin Mathieu , Rizwi Farhan , Bay Line , Cantin Neal , Skerratt Jennifer , Soja-Wozniak Monika
Published: September 2018

Mass coral bleaching has emerged in the 21st century as the greatest threat to the health of the world's reefs. A sophisticated process understanding of bleaching at the polyp scale has now been achieved through laboratory and field studies, but this knowledge is yet to be applied in mechanistic models of shelf-scale reef systems. In this study we develop a mechanistic model of the coral-symbiont relationship that considers temperature-mediated build-up of reactive oxygen species due to excess light, leading to zooxanthellae expulsion. The model explicitly represents the coral host biomass, as well as zooxanthellae biomass, intracellular pigment concentration, nutrient status, and the dynamics of reaction centres and the xanthophyll cycle. Photophysiological processes represented include photoadaptation, xanthophyll cycle dynamics, and reaction centre state transitions. The mechanistic model of the coral-symbiont relationship is incorporated into a $\sim$1 km resolution coupled hydrodynamic - biogeochemical model that encompasses the entire $\sim$2000 km length of the Great Barrier Reef. A simulation of the 2016 bleaching event shows the model is able to capture the broadscale features of the observed bleaching, but fails to capture bleaching on offshore reefs due to the model's grid being unable to resolve the bathymetry of shallow platforms surrounded by deep water. To further analyse the model behaviour, a $\sim$200 m resolution nested simulation of Davies Reef (18$^{\circ}$49'S, 147$^{\circ}$38'E) is undertaken. We use this nested model to demonstrate the depth gradient in zooxanthellae response to thermal stress. Finally, we discuss the uncertainties in the bleaching model, which lie primarily in quantifying the link between reactive oxygen build-up and the expulsion process. Through the mechanistic representation of environmental forcing, this model of coral bleaching applied in realistic environmental conditions has the potential to generate more detailed predictions than the presently-available satellite-based coral bleaching metrics, and can be used to evaluate proposed management strategies.
Unconscious semantic priming from pictures under backward masking and continuous flash suppression
Authors: Stein Timo , Utz Vanessa , Van Opstal Filip
Published: September 2018

It is debated which perceptual functions can take place unconsciously and which depend on conscious awareness. Here, we tested whether the meaning of invisible pictures can be processed unconsciously, and whether this would depend on the psychophysical technique used to render these images invisible. We measured whether pictures of animals or objects presented under backward masking or continuous flash suppression could prime the subsequent categorization of target words into animal or non-animal. The backward masking experiment failed to replicate the priming effect reported in two previous studies, despite sufficient statistical power. Similarly, the continuous flash suppression experiment provided no evidence for a priming effect. Thus, our experiments failed to demonstrate unconscious semantic processing of pictures. These results support the emerging view that unconscious processing is rather limited in scope.
Are Humans Peacocks or Robins?
Authors: Stewart-Williams Steve
Published: September 2018

Sociobiological approaches have made great inroads into psychological science over the last few decades. This hasn’t come without a fight. One of the main fronts on which the battle has been fought is the origins of human sex differences. Evolutionary psychologists have made a strong case that many basic sex differences in our species have an evolutionary origin; the case is now so strong, in fact, that it seems unreasonable to deny a significant evolutionary contribution. A question mark remains, however, over the relative magnitude of the evolved differences. Are we highly dimorphic, polygynous animals like peacocks? Or are we relatively monomorphic, pair-bonding animals like robins? In this chapter, I argue that we’re closer to the latter than the former - a fact that makes us somewhat anomalous among the animals. In many species, the males alone compete for mates and the females alone choose from among the males on offer. In our species, in contrast, both sexes compete for mates and both are choosy about their mates. Certainly, males compete more fervently and females are choosier, at least in early courtship and for low-commitment relationships. But the most conspicuous feature of the human mating system is mutual mate choice, coupled with relatively modest levels of overall dimorphism. Link to published version: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-evolutionary-perspectives-on-human-behavior/are-humans-peacocks-or-robins/83C55792A6FFB864AD46860FD0606692
Estimates of Relative Acceptability from Paired Preferences
Authors: Luckett Curtis , Burns Sara , Jenkinson Lindsay
Published: September 2018

The relative acceptability of a food or beverage is often of interest in a variety of different research topics. In humans, a 9-point category scale is typically used when the hedonic characteristics of several products are of interest. However, these scales are not consistently used by participants and therefore reliability is low. This paper outlines the effectiveness of four techniques (mElo, Thurstonian modeling, Bradley-Terry, and Friedman) to calculate numerical values for products based upon their performance in a paired preference paradigm. In this study, acceptance data from 4 separate studies were compared to numeric scores constructed from a paired preference paradigm. In general, numeric ratings compared constructed from paired comparisons correlated very well with the mean overall liking ratings. The relationship between these acceptance ratings and numerical preference ratings did show to be somewhat dependent on the type of food product. This study serves as a guide to those looking to further quantify paired preference data.
When Affirmative Action Disappears: Unexpected Patterns in Student Enrollments at Selective U.S. Institutions, 1990-2016
Authors: kehal prabhdeep singh , Hirschman Daniel , Berrey Ellen
Published: September 2018

Discussions of U.S. affirmative action policy assume that considering race in undergraduate admissions increases Black and Latinx student enrollments. We show that this assumption accurately describes enrollment patterns for higher-status colleges and universities, but not institutions across the field of higher education. We use fixed effects modeling to analyze the association between a stated affirmative action admissions policy and enrollment trends for first-year students of different racialized backgrounds between 1990 and 2016 at 1,127 selective institutions. We find that, at the most selective institutions, stated policy usage was associated with increased Black student enrollments. However, at less selective institutions, policy usage was associated with decreased Black enrollments and increased Non-U.S. resident enrollments. We also identify close-to-zero estimates of this relationship for enrollment trends of additional demographic backgrounds. We use these findings to elaborate the role of field-level status dynamics in racialized organizations theory. Paradoxically, U.S. American higher education's contemporary racialized status order roughly consists of higher-status institutions that consider race in admissions but do not enroll racially heterogenous cohorts, middle-status institutions that do not consider race but enroll racially heterogenous cohorts, and lower-status non-selective institutions that enroll disproportionately high numbers of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students. This paper is now available at Sociology of Race and Ethnicity journal: https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492211008640
Vessel wall MRI characteristics of endovascularly treated aneurysms: association with angiographic vasospasm
Authors: Mossa-Basha Mahmud , Huynh Thien J. , Hippe Daniel S. , Fata Peter , Morton Ryan P. , Levitt Michael R.
Published: September 2018

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this paper was to evaluate the association between intracranial vessel wall MRI enhancement characteristics and the development of angiographic vasospasm in endovascularly treated aneurysm patients.

METHODS

Consecutive cases of both ruptured and unruptured intracranial aneurysms that were treated endovascularly, followed by intracranial vessel wall MRI in the immediate postoperative period, were included. Two raters blinded to clinical data and follow-up imaging independently evaluated for the presence, pattern, and intensity of wall enhancement. Development of angiographic vasospasm was independently evaluated. Delayed cerebral ischemia; cerebral infarct; procedural details; and presence and grade of subarachnoid, parenchymal, and intraventricular hemorrhage were evaluated. Statistical associations were determined on a per–vessel segment and per-patient basis.

RESULTS

Twenty-nine patients with 30 treated aneurysms (8 unruptured and 22 ruptured) were included in this study. Interobserver agreement was substantial for the presence of enhancement (κ = 0.67) and nearly perfect for distribution (κ = 0.87) and intensity (κ = 0.84) of wall enhancement. Patients with ruptured aneurysms had a significantly greater number of enhancing segments than those with unruptured aneurysms (29.9% vs 7.2%; OR 5.5, 95% CI 2.2–13.7). For ruptured cases, wall enhancement was significantly associated with subsequent angiographic vasospasm while controlling for grade of hemorrhage (adjusted OR 3.9, 95% CI 1.7–9.4). Vessel segments affected by balloon, stent, or flow-diverter use demonstrated greater enhancement than those not affected (OR 22.7, 95% CI 5.3–97.2 for ruptured; and OR 12.9, 95% CI 3.3–49.8 for unruptured).

CONCLUSIONS

Vessel wall enhancement after endovascular treatment of ruptured aneurysms is associated with subsequent angiographic vasospasm.
Hubungan Antara Motivasi, Dukungan Keluarga Dan Kecemasan Mahasiswa Dalam Menghadapi Ujian Proposal Di Prodi Keperawatan Waingapu
Authors: Gunawan Yosephina Elizabeth Sumartini , Landi Melkisedek , Anthasari Diane
Published: September 2018

Introduction: students are vulnerable to anxiety due to various demands, especially in facing the exam of a proposal or a final assignment at a college. The motivation and family support are the factors that affect students' anxiety in facing the exam proposal or final project. The purpose of this study is to know the relationship between motivation and family support with the anxiety of third-grade students in facing the exam proposal in Nursing Program Study of Waingapu. Methods: This study was a pre-experimental study with the cross-sectional design. The sample was 44 respondents with a sampling technique using consecutive sampling method. Instruments used in the form of questionnaires and research variables consisted of motivation, family support and anxiety using Spearman's rho analysis technique. Result: the research conducted on 44 respondents shows that there is no correlation between motivation (P= 0,254) and family support (P= 0,674) with student level anxiety in facing exams of the proposal of Nursing Program Study of Waingapu. Conclusion: The researcher concludes that there is no correlation between motivation and family support with students' anxiety level III in facing the exam proposal in Nursing Program Study of Waingapu.
The Effectiveness of Psychosocial and Behavioral Interventions for Informal Dementia Caregivers: Meta-Analyses and Meta-Regressions
Authors: Jütten Linda Helena , Mark Ruth Elaine , Wicherts Jelte Michiel , Sitskoorn Margriet Maria
Published: September 2018

Background:

Many psychosocial and behavioral interventions have been developed for informal dementia caregivers. Because existing meta-analyses only focused on a limited number of interventions and outcomes, how effective these interventions are overall and which interventions components are associated with larger effects has yet to be explored.

Objective:

To provide a comprehensive meta-analysis of the effectiveness of psychosocial and behavioral interventions on burden, depression, anxiety, quality of life, stress, and sense of competence in informal dementia caregivers. In addition, we examined if interventions which utilized more sessions and/or were delivered personally (face-to-face) had larger effect sizes. In exploratory meta-regressions, we examined seven additional moderators.

Methods:

The protocol was registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42017062555. We systematically searched the literature to identify controlled trials assessing the effect of psychosocial and behavioral interventions on the six outcome measures, for informal dementia caregivers. We performed six random effects meta-analyses, to assess the pooled effect sizes of the interventions. In addition, we performed separate meta-regressions, for each outcome, for each moderator.

Results:

The sample consisted of 60 studies. For all outcomes except anxiety, the pooled effects were small and in favor of the intervention group. No moderator was found to systematically predict these effects. There were no indications for publication bias or selection bias based on significance.

Conclusion:

Overall, the interventions yield significant (small) effects, independent of intervention characteristics. Future research should explore options to enhance the effectiveness of interventions aimed at assisting informal caregivers.
Users' guide to Knowledge management with concept maps and mind maps: what are these and a proposal of a workflow
Authors: Basu Arindam
Published: September 2018

In this article we describe concept maps, mind maps, and explain the differences between concept and mind maps. We also describe and their relative contributions to the process of assimilation and development of knowledge. We show with an example of motivation of students from a text to construct concept maps and mind maps and show how mind maps can take off from concept maps and reconstitute existing knowledge visually.
Introduction: The Cultural Politics of Transnational Filmmaking
Authors: Tierney Dolores
Published: September 2018

The introduction establishes the book’s argument; how transnational cinema has become central to Latin American filmmaking and film industries. It briefly traces the national and global processes (neoliberalism) that have pushed these industries towards transnational modes. The introduction also explores theories of transnational cinema and how these fit within the political, postcolonial and auteurist discourses around Latin American national cinemas. It also explores how these discourses function in relation to Latin America’s art cinema resurgence. Centring on Madeinusa (Peru/Spain Claudia Llosa 2006) and La teta asustada (Peru/Spain Llosa 2009) the introduction examines their transnational (festival) funding structures and aesthetic features. The introduction concludes with an explanation of the rationale behind the structure of the book which places each transnational auteur within sections prefaced by accounts of the national industries (Mexico, Brazil and Argentina) in which they began and (in different ways) continue their filmmaking careers.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Transnational Political Horror: Cronos (1993), El Espinazo Del Diablo (The Devil’S Backbone 2001) and El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’S Labyrinth 2006)
Authors: Tierney Dolores
Published: September 2018

Chapter 3 looks at Guillermo del Toro’s horror trilogy Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno. Using the frameworks of feminism, Marx and Freud it explores how horror and horrific tropes function in these films on a political level to address particular issues relevant to Mexico (the impact of NAFTA) and Spain (the recovery of historical memory of Spanish Civil War repression). It traces how these three films respond to and reproduce a shared Hispanic imaginary, history and politics by adapting and adopting Hollywood horror conventions as these have been read in political terms by Robin Wood (1985), Tanya Modleski (1999) and Barbara Creed (1999). Ultimately, it suggests that Cronos, El espinazo del diablo and El laberinto del fauno (Crimson Peak is analysed in the Epilogue) speak not only to local/national issues but also to transatlantic political concerns enabled by the progressive discourse at the heart of horror cinema.
Brazil: Introduction
Authors: Tierney Dolores
Published: September 2018

This introductory section acts as a platform to Chapters 4 and 5 which explore the films of the transnational auteurs Fernando Meirelles’ and Walter Salles. It offers an account of the resurgence (retomada) of Brazilian cinema post the 1990 closure of the state run enterprise Embrafilme. The section centres around Meirelles and Salles as exemplary producers (02Filmes, Videofilmes) of, as well as primary participants in the retomada and in the global shifts in media strategies as they have occurred in Brazil. It focuses on the state’s fiscal measures designed to foment filmmaking and the state’s (re-configured) involvement in the industry and also on the strategies (convergence, local exceptionality) of MPA, transnational media conglomerates and local media (Rede Globo) which have reinvigorated and renewed some filmmaking (‘blockbuster brasileiro’) in Brazil.
Fernando Meirelles as Transnational Auteur
Authors: Tierney Dolores
Published: September 2018

This chapter examines Fernando Meirelles’ Brazilian film Cidade de Deus alongside his deterritorialized English language films The Constant Gardener and Blindness. The chapter begins by re-examining the terms of the critical arguments ignited by Cidade de Deus’ seeming commerciality, ‘foreignness’ and mainstream depictions of violence. It challenges these arguments by suggesting that Cidade de Deus’ gangster/gangsta (Goodfellas/New Black Cinema) film derived formal self-consciousness is actually a means of counter mainstream political engagement. The chapter continues by analysing The Constant Gardener and how aspects of the cinema-novo inspired critique of Cidade de Deus are carried into these films through their genre-based critique of white privilege and nefarious drug companies (film noir in the Constant Gardener) and allegorical treatment of Latin America’s history of political repression (disaster/contagion movie in Blindness).
Epilogue: Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón 2013), Birdman (Alejandro G. Iñárritu 2014), The Revenant (G. Iñárritu 2015) and Crimson Peak (Guillermo Del Toro 2015)
Authors: Tierney Dolores
Published: September 2018

The Epilogue draws together the major arguments of the book in its focus on art cinema realism and the use and manipulation of genres (the Western, the [space] disaster film, the horror film) in some of the recent films by the transnational auteurs: Cuarón’s Gravity, Iñárritu’s Birdman, and The Revenant and del Toro’s Crimson Peak. It looks at the shifting contexts of their production and settings now situated in the ideological, institutional and industrial complex of Hollywood studio filmmaking and located narratologically for the most part in the Global North or off planet. It explores whether it is possible to think of Gravity, Birdman, The Revenant and Crimson Peak as speaking, in the way the book has argued these directors’ previous films speak, from a position rooted in a peripheral, Global South or Latin American perspective.
‘I will give you nations as your heritage’ (Psalm 2:8)
Authors: Márkus Gilbert
Published: September 2018

Scotland’s first appearance in the historical record comes through its international trading links, and is seen initially through the eyes of those who write about it: traders, and then Roman writers in the context of Roman invasion and imperial administration. This chapter stresses the ambiguities of the experience of Empire among native societies of Scotland, negotiating ‘between fear and desire’. We therefore cannot present this period as a straightforward conflict between ‘Celt’ and ‘Roman’. The various processes of ‘Romanisation’ (or acquisition of romanitas) by native societies are discussed, not merely in terms of the ebb and flow of colonial reach, but in terms of the active agency of native communities in taking what they wanted from the repertoire of romanitas – which in itself was a soup of very varied cultural practices from all over the Empire (including, ultimately, Christianity). The motives and perceptions of all participants in this process are examined critically.
‘The just man will never waver’ (Psalm 111:6)
Authors: Márkus Gilbert
Published: September 2018

Adomnán is the only individual person in the nine centuries of Scotland’s history covered by this book for whom we have enough evidence to form a picture of a real human being, through his writings, the writings of his monastery, and writings about him. We can identify key moments in his life, and examine his writings (the Life of Columba, a book On the Holy Places, a law for the protection of women, children and clergy (non-combatants) called Cáin Addomnáin or Lex Innocentium, some minor canons or rules, and a short poem. His years as abbot of Iona also suggest that we should take other texts associated with Iona during his abbacy as indicative of Iona’s intellectual culture and ideology. Among these concerns are the protection of the vulnerable, the promotion of a new ideology of kingship, the place of Iona in hierarchies of ecclesiastical authority, the promotion of monastic life and scholarship, the resolution of the Easter dating dispute, the understanding of the liturgy.
Gestures and Aḥādīth al-Ṣifāt
Authors: Holtzman Livnat
Published: September 2018

This chapter spotlights the gestures (ishāra pl. ishārāt) which the teachers of Hadith (muḥaddithūn) performed while transmitting aḥādīth al-ṣifāt. The use of gestures in the context of aḥādīth al-ṣifāt entailed doctrinal and theological implications, and was in itself a matter of dispute. The performers of gestures among the muḥaddithūn of the seventh and eighth centuries, like Thabit al-Bunani (d. 740) and Harmala ibn ʿImran (d. 777) attributed the gestures to the Prophet and the ṣaḥāba. These muḥaddithūn perceived the gestures as iconic, namely gestures that display a concrete scene. The muḥaddith who in particular promoted the trend of performing gestures was Hammad ibn Salama (d. 784), and this chapter elaborates on his scholarly activity and public performances. Finally, this chapter evaluates the hermeneutical solutions to the gestures that accompanied the recitation of the anthropomorphic verses in the Quran and aḥādīth al-ṣifāt. These solutions were offered by the Hadith scholars who were active between the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries. These scholars, who were mostly Ashʿarites, tended to interpret the gestures as metaphoric, namely gestures representing abstract concepts. The chapter concludes with the unique discussion of the Hanbalite Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1201) on the topic of gestures and aḥādīth al-ṣifāt.
Final Remarks and Conclusions
Authors: Holtzman Livnat
Published: September 2018

Anthropomorphism in Islam presents a range of issues that encompass the problematics of aḥādīth al-ṣifāt. The book focuses on aḥādīth al-ṣifāt as popular oral literature; the use of aḥādīth al-ṣifāt in the traditionalistic discourse; and aḥādīth al-ṣifāt as iconic texts in the public sphere. These issues form the demarcation lines between ultra-traditionalism, middle-of-the-road traditionalism, and traditional-rationalism. The major findings of Anthropomorphism in Islam are as follows: first, the ultra-traditionalists were more receptive to aḥādīth al-ṣifāt than other middle-of-the-road muḥaddithūn. Second, the ultra-traditionalists were more attentive to the social function that aḥādīth al-ṣifāt served in offering the masses an Islamic religiosity which provided a direct way to perceive God without the interference of mediators. Third, the ultra-traditionalists structured the iconicity of aḥādīth al-ṣifāt by perfecting their skills as performers. Accordingly, Anthropomorphism in Islam offered the first large-scale examination of gestures that were part of the process of transmitting aḥādīth al-ṣifāṭ. These gestures symbolised the main features of the long-term debate between the flexible Hanbalites and the rigid Ashʿarites. Aḥādīth al-ṣifāt and the gestures that accompanied their recitation were among the most powerful icons of Islamic traditionalism.
Introduction
Authors: Wang Qi
Published: September 2018

The introduction opens the book with two highly symbolic anecdotes of cinematic imagination, respectively provided by filmmakers Cheng Qingsong and Wang Guangli who share a desire to rewrite the socialist past and understand postsocialism on a personal scale. The introduction then introduces the concept of the Forsaken Generation and explicates its peculiar historical consciousness as embodied in a much more personal and critical approach to history when compared with their older siblings found in the “educated youth” or the Fifth Generation. The Introduction concludes with an explication of the methodology used and a chapter outline.
For a Narration of One’s Own
Authors: Wang Qi
Published: September 2018

Chapter 2 closely examines selected narratives by the Fifth Generation and the Forsaken Generation, with emphasis on those from the latter group. Revisiting two Fifth Generation epic classics about China’s modern and socialist decades, Zhang Yimou’s To Live and Chen Kaige’s Fairwell, My Concubine, the chapter identifies their structure as characterized by chanceful illogic, debilitating cyclicality and ineffective subjective intervention. Following a discussion of the advent of independent cinema at that time in the light of a subjective turn in approaching historical representation and formal reflexivity—summarized in the term “personal filmmaking”—Chapter 2 then looks closely at two quintessential self-narratives of the Forsaken Generation: Meng Jinghui’s avant-garde play I Love XXX (Wo ai XXX, 1994) and Jiang Wen’s independent feature In the Heat of the Sun (1994).
Personal Documentary
Authors: Wang Qi
Published: September 2018

Chapter 4 turns to independent documentary and examines its non-fictional exercise of the subject-driven intervention in historical thinking. After an analysis of the observation documentary of Duan Jinchuan, it distills from the prevalent and much discussed verité practices an initially neglected line of “personal documentary.” It delineates the formal features as well as theoretical implications of this extraordinary practice and then examines two monumental examples of personal documentary: I Have Graduated by Wang Guangli and West of the Tracks by Wang Bing.
Conclusion: China’s Luckless but Hopeful Angels of History
Authors: Wang Qi
Published: September 2018

The conclusion provides an analysis of the contradictory conflation of stylistic excess and thematic obscuration in Jiang Wen’s film, The Sun Also Rises. In its juxtaposition of hyperactivity and death, often suicide, of characters, the film represents a dilemma facing the Forsaken Generation: how to the spectrality of the socialist legacy. Engaging with Jacques Derrida as well as Walter Benjamin, it suggests this generation of independent filmmakers as contemporary China’s “luckless but hopeful angels of history.” The conclusion ends with a poem by the author that distills the spirit of this book in a powerful dream image.
Chabrol and Genres
Authors: Dousteyssier-Khoze Catherine
Published: September 2018

This chapter investigates the various ways in which Chabrol’s cinema engages with genre(s). Although his output is generically diverse, Chabrol remains mostly associated with the crime thriller.
The focus is on how Chabrol works broadly within the confines of a generic frame while managing to reflect it in very different ways. The first case study, on Le Boucher, shows how a generically stable thriller transcends the genre at the end in order to become a philosophical investigation into civilisation and the human. In so doing, it identifies Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey as a key, undiscovered intertext for Le Boucher. The other films examined in this chapter, Masques, La Fille coupé en deux and Bellamy show how Chabrol resorts to reflexive modes (parody, theatricality) in order to raise questions about spectatorship.
Finally, by examining the fortunes of the adjective ‘chabrolien’ in film reviews and identifying a number of Chabrolean markers through two case studies (films by Anne Fontaine and Denis Dercourt), this chapter explores Chabrol’s lasting legacy on the contemporary French thriller.
The Human Beast
Authors: Dousteyssier-Khoze Catherine
Published: September 2018

This chapter examines Chabrol’s fascination with ‘human beasts’ or ‘monsters’ through the following (overlapping) motifs: the serial killer, the automaton and the female killer. Through detailed film analysis and close attention to techniques, it shows how Chabrol uses these figures to rethink the boundaries and concepts of normality. Although he often provides a detailed social and ideological framework within which to problematize the human beast, class and gender are misleading keys and causality is ultimately blurred to the point of opacity. The closer one gets to the monster (sometimes literally, through the use of close-up shots), the less one understands it. Case studies of the following films illuminate how Chabrol explores film grammar to convey the complexities of human nature and the fragmented, opaque nature of evil: Le Boucher; Landru; Les Fantômes du chapelier; Violette Nozière; La Demoiselle d’honneur; Blood Relatives.
Family Secrets
Authors: Dousteyssier-Khoze Catherine
Published: September 2018

The (bourgeois) family becomes the focus of intense investigation and dislocation in Chabrol’s films and this chapter examines its subversive representation through the following key issues: incest, the couple, family rituals and the role of the patriarch. The use of ellipsis, symmetry and doubles, Magrittian trompe-l’œil, expressionistic mise-en-scène and theatricality are some of the techniques used by Chabrol to highlight the fact that the family is a mask, a well-rehearsed performance hiding dark impulses and mental disorders. As demonstrated through La Fleur du mal, Au cœur du mensonge, Poulet au vinaigre and Inspecteur Lavardin, the Chabrolean family is a highly toxic environment in which incest, dark secrets and murder swarm, thereby providing ideal ground to observe and dissect human pathologies and invite the viewer to ask questions about representation and ‘reality’ and the blurry relationship between appearances, ‘truth’ and lies.
Digital Film Production Studies
Authors: Atkinson Sarah
Published: September 2018

The chapter provides a state-of-the field picture in 2012 – a moment where industry discourse was rife with representations and images of the impacts of digital technologies upon film production.
The chapter outlines the approach of the book – the undertaking of a ‘Digital Film Production Study’ – a theoretical and conceptual framework synthesizing Production Studies, Film Studies and Digital Humanities, in order to be able to grapple with this complex industry at a critical moment of transition.
The chapter outlines the methodology of the book - an examination of the people and processes involved in the entire lifecycle of one film – released under the title of Ginger & Rosa (Directed by Sally Potter) in October 2012. The chapter explains how it is emblematic of the transitional film-to-data period.
The chapter also provides an overview of Sally Potter’s work and her own interest in how digital innovations in filmmaking a definition of digital film.
It includes a review of production studies literature and an overview of the fields methods as well as outlines of the content and arguments of the books following six chapters.
Epilogue
Authors: Atkinson Sarah
Published: September 2018

This chapter closes the book with a look back at 2012 through the contemporary moment of 2017 reflecting upon recent changes and innovations in the film industry. Five years on from the temporal origin of the book’s focus of study, the film industry and film production has continued to be impacted by digital interventions in innumerable ways. Since 2012, new creative and logistical responses to technological innovations have proliferated, resulting in new types of film production and new exhibition practices.
This chapter summarises the key concepts of the book - Production Aesthetic; collaborative auteurism; transitional auteurship; and workflow-warp and weft.
The chapter looks forwards to the future of digital film studies–approaches and methods through a summary of the analytical framework developed within the book: through the unification and cross-analyses of the tripartite of text, production aesthetics and representational text(s) and their subsequent mobilization and dissemination.
Introduction
Authors: Rosenmeier Christopher
Published: September 2018

This chapter provides an introduction to Xu Xu and Wumingshi and covers the book’s structure and methodology. It critiques the various terms that are used in both English and Chinese studies to categorise popular Chinese literature in the Republican period and it discusses the basis of the established divide between elite “new literature” (xin wenxue) and the much-castigated popular literature in China. It is argued that the term “Shanghai School” (haipai), a concept covering Shanghai popular literature from the 1920s to the 1940s, is too broad to be useful in analysing literature from this period or distinguishing between literary trends. The chapter also contains an extensive literature review, covering both English and Chinese works as they pertain to this study.
Boundaries of the Real in Xu Xu’s Fiction
Authors: Rosenmeier Christopher
Published: September 2018

This chapter focuses on Xu Xu’s fiction from the 1930s and 40s, providing analyses of his main short stories and novels from this period, demonstrating how Xu’s work transitioned from modernist experimentation to popular romances after his return from studies in France. Xu’s bestselling short stories and novels were often set abroad and featured exotic, otherworldly characters, such as ghosts, spies, pirates and gypsies. In many of these works, the cosmopolitan, rational and educated male protagonist encounters a mysterious, elusive, otherworldly woman. Eventually, the truth is revealed and the mysteries are uncovered, vindicating the modern outlook of the male narrator. With their references to traditional literature, abnormal psychology and sexual desire, such works frequently echo Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying’s writings from a decade earlier, yet Xu’s writings are mainly escapist entertainment rather than an attack on rational modernity or the status of art in society.
Conclusion
Authors: Burnetts Charles
Published: September 2018

In a 2010 article for The New York Times, literary theorist Stanley Fish comments on recent manifestations of the ‘crisis in the humanities’ in the form of language department closures at US universities such as at the State University of New York at Albany. Defending a ‘liberal arts’ education amid the neoliberalist reality of higher-education funding and knowledge production, Fish is nevertheless highly critical of a fellow respondent’s claims concerning the value of the humanities. This respondent asks in his letter, ‘What happened to public investment in the humanities and the belief that the humanities enhanced our culture, our society, our humanity?’ Fish advises caution concerning this line of defence, arguing:...
1968 and The Fractured Right
Authors: Shermer Elizabeth Tandy
Published: September 2018

This chapter examines populist insurgents and rebellions in local elections and state primaries in the years leading up to 1968. It discusses how right-wing conservatives sought to defend democracy, capitalism and religion and how New Right activism reworked how Americans defined the left, right and centre. It looks particularly at the internal logic that shaped post-1968 metropolitan uprisings, and uses the Sunbelt region of Arizona as an example of how New Right principles were embedded within both top-down and grassroots revolutions. It examines the relationship between business and local government, as well as the reaction from white suburbanites who grew enraged that leaders seemed to be ignoring their conservative values. The chapter argues that grassroots critics transformed the business elite’s language of freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.
Life Writing, Protest and The Idea of 1968
Authors: Witham Nick
Published: September 2018

In the past half-decade the idea of 1968 has taken on a set of diverse and contradictory political meanings. This chapter interrogates the important function played by the memory of the year’s social upheavals within the work of a range of activists and intellectuals: Paul Berman, Angela Davis, Tom Hayden, Todd Gitlin, Bill Ayers, Robert Stone and Susan Brownmiller. All of these figures participated in the events of 1968 as New Left activists in one form or another. In the intervening period, however, they have used memories of 1968 to explain both mutations and continuities in their historical and political thinking. In assessing these developments, the chapter argues that these comparable reconfigurations of the idea of 1968 highlight both the significance and the ambiguity of the year’s events for contemporary political thinking, and suggest that the binary division between New Left and New Right needs to be reconfigured into order to understand the political legacy of 1968 in and beyond the United States.
On Fire: The City and American Protest in 1968
Authors: Matlin Daniel
Published: September 2018

This chapter argues that a diverse array of American social movements in the late 1960s regarded the city as a crucial terrain of struggles for visibility, empowerment and self-determination, while in much of American public discourse the city had come to represent the nation’s troubles. 1968 marked the peak of the fraught discourse of ‘urban crisis’ that had developed out of the postwar dynamics of urban disinvestment, government-subsidized white suburbanization, black migration and racialized inner-city poverty. The eruption of riots in black urban neighbourhoods in more than a hundred cities following Martin Luther King’s assassination crystallized a view of the city as the kernel of America’s lawlessness, anger and violence. Meanwhile, the protests and ‘police riot’ outside the Chicago Democratic National Convention in August indicate how the contestation of urban space functioned within countercultural and social protest movements. This chapter argues that these urban visions and urban confrontations exerted a powerful influence over American politics and culture into the 1970s and beyond.
Introduction
Authors: Yarza Alejandro
Published: September 2018

Francoist kitsch is interpreted as an essential part of a politically eclectic discourse whose study brings together aesthetics, film theory and the politics of fascist Spain. Drawing on conceptual work on fascism by thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Christopher Bollas, Mark Neocleous and Susan Sontag, and on studies on kitsch by Hermann Broch, Matei Calinescu, Gillo Dorfles, Umberto Eco and Saul Friedländer, among others, my theoretical framework elucidates how Francoism appropriated the fetishistic nature of cinema and kitsch aesthetics, relying on its potential both to mobilize and secure ideological control over the Spanish citizenry.
The Petrified Tears of General Franco: Kitsch and Fascism in José Luis Sáenz de Heredia’s Raza
Authors: Yarza Alejandro
Published: September 2018

Francoist kitsch aesthetic and its proximity to the realm of political power is best exemplified by the film Raza (Race, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1941), whose screenplay was written, under a pseudonym, by Franco himself. This chapter argues that the film exemplifies what Hermann Broch and Saul Friedländer have pinpointed as the essence of kitsch—the mixing of aesthetic and ethical categories culminating in the fetishization of suffering, violence and death.
Romancero Marroquí and the Francoist Kitsch Politics of Time
Authors: Yarza Alejandro
Published: September 2018

This chapter examines the colonial politics of Franco’s Spain through an analysis of Romancero marroquí (Morrocan Romance, Carlos Velo 1938), a documentary about Spanish Morocco produced during the Spanish Civil War by Franco’s provisional government. While in traditional colonial representations the colony becomes an alluring, albeit inferior, other to the colonizing Metropolis in need of progress and civilization, in its Francoist representation Spanish-Moroccan society becomes a model to be imitated, a kitsch paradise opposing—like Francoism itself—modern materialism and parliamentary democracy.
Franco, ese hombre: From Kitsch-Artist to Kitsch-Man
Authors: Yarza Alejandro
Published: September 2018

Franco ese hombre (Franco, that Man, José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, 1964) is a documentary about Franco by the director of Raza made to commemorate Franco´s “Twenty Five Years of Peace” political campaign. Made twenty-two years later than Raza, Franco ese hombre aims through its kitsch aesthetics to portray the elderly, historical Franco as the messianic hero needed to save Spain. In doing so, it completely rewrites Spanish history according to Francoist historical, ideological and political clichés. By means of a curious narrative splitting, Franco becomes both the protagonist of Spanish history and the ideal spectator of it, as the documentary comes to an end by showing us Franco inside a film theater at his official residence watching the documentary of his own exploits. From being a purveyor of kitsch, Franco reveals himself to be a kitsch-man who, believing his own lies was the ideal consumer of kitsch aesthetics.