Intentional Dissonance

It’s been 10 years since the world officially ended. In the last city on Earth, Jon Salt is addicted to Sadness, a drug that invokes its name, and obsessed with his lover, Michelle; both of which threaten to drive him insane. Strange creatures and new technologies appeared in the last days of humanity and the widespread adoption of teleportation technology sundered the fabric of time and space, leaving a smattering of looping ghosts. It is a sad, monotone world, but the remaining populace is happy, thanks to the anti-depressants in the water supply. The last government on Earth has taken a special interest in a gift that Jon possesses: the ability to make his thoughts real. Jon must rely on that gift and the help of a few unlikely friends to stay one step ahead of those who desperately want to use him for something far more sinister than even he could dream…

It's been 10 years since the world officially ended. In the last city on Earth, Jon Salt is addicted to Sadness, a drug that invokes its name, and obsessed with his lover, Michelle; both of which threaten to drive him insane. Strange creatures and new technologies appeared in the last days of humanity and the widespread adoption of teleportation technology sundered the fabric of time and space, leaving a smattering of looping ghosts. It is a sad, monotone world, but the remaining populace is happy, thanks to the anti-depressants in the water supply. The last government on Earth has taken a special interest in a gift that Jon possesses: the ability to make his thoughts real. Jon must rely on that gift and the help of a few unlikely friends to stay one step ahead of those who desperately want to use him for something far more sinister than even he could dream...

What is music, what is its value, and what does it mean? In this stimulating volume, Roger Scruton offers a comprehensive account of the nature and significance of music from the perspective of modern philosophy. The study begins with the metaphysics of sound. Scruton 7istinguishes sound from tone; analyzes rhythm, melody, and harmony; and explores the various dimensions of musical organization and musical meaning. Taking on various fashionable theories in the philosophy and theory of music, he presents a compelling case for the moral significance of music, its place in our culture, and the need for taste and discrimination in performing and listening to it. Laying down principles for musical analysis and criticism, this bold work concludes with a theory of culture--and a devastating demolition of modern popular music. "A provocative new study."--The Guardian

This book provides tools to help pre-service teachers and teacher-preparation programs identify, evaluate, and respond to misaligned expectations early in the teacher-preparation sequence. Plato tells the story of prisoners who mistake the shadows on the wall of their cave for flesh-and-blood reality. These “shadow narratives” dominated their expectations, and when confronted with a three-dimensional reality that bore little resemblance to the shadows, the prisoners were blinded by the light. Surrounded by images and rhetoric that reduce the fullness of teaching to flat, two-dimensional representations, today's pre-service teachers tend to develop expectations of teaching that resemble the shadows more than they resemble reality. These misaligned expectations often lead to practice shock: the painful and disillusioning cognitive dissonance that comes about when unsustainable expectations collide with real-world practice. Intended as a proactive manual for mitigating practice shock, this book shines a light on the shadows by giving pre-service teachers the tools to examine, confront, and revise their own misaligned expectations of teaching before they reach the point of crisis.

"This book is a fascinating journey--from Augustine's total ban on lying, through the compromises of philosophers like Plato and Aquinas, to the radical espousal of truth's impossibility in Nietzche. Griffiths takes us into the heart of Augustine's theology to show how the act of duplicity disfigures the image of God in us and exposes human sinfulness. From that perspective, all discussion of lying that is merely based on morality, justice, compassion, or humanism is shown to be inadequate, and truthfulness becomes a gift of God's grace." -- Frances Young, University of Birmingham (England) "Elegantly composed conceptual clarity makes this sounding of Augustine a model for ethical inquiry: as the very paradigm of sin, lying (ubiquitous though it may be) cannot be countenanced if we are to become what we are called to be--animals whose speech reflects the Triune Creator by expressing our life as that Creator's gift. I have seldom been so impressed with a book." -- David Burrell, C.S.C. University of Notre Dame "The great temptation in writing about lying is to find a way beyond the Augustinian dictum that a lie is wrong under any circumstances. Griffiths resists the temptation and does so with intelligence, wisdom, theological acuity, and, one should gratefully add, deep sympathy for human limitations and weakness. This is a challenging and rewarding book, unlike any written in modern times on the topic." -- Robert Louis Wilken, University of Virginia "Griffiths' exacting and beautifully wrought analysis helps us to understand the centrality of deception in Western thought and practice: the lie resides silently at the center of our structures of speech and theoretical speculation as well as our equivocal practice. Most interestingly of all, he shows how Augustine's unequivocal ban upon lying, so unpalatable to our ears, provides a key to reordered ontology, moral philosophy, politics, and theory of language." -- Catherine Pickstock, University of Cambridge "This book shakes the foundations. Griffiths is a modern-day Augustine in rhetorical power, social analysis, textual rigor, and theological vision. Reading Griffiths requires steely never as the persuasion of his prose, the elegance and rigor of his argument, leave the reader in the dock, with only God as our witness. This is a masterful essay in philosophical theology--erudite, scholarly, and graceful in its simplicity." -- Gavin D'Costa, University of Bristol (England) "An excellent piece of scholarship that will intrigue anyone interested in the issues of morality and ethics." -- Library Journal

This unique text uses a step-by-step approach to guide the reader from fundamental concepts to advanced topics in improvisation. Each subject is broken into easy to understand segments, gradually becoming more complex as improvisational tools are acquired. Designed for the classically trained pianist with little or no experience in improvisation, it uses the reader’s previous knowledge of basic theory and technique to help accelerate the learning process. Included are more than 450 music examples and illustrations to reinforce the concepts discussed. These concepts are useful in all improvisational settings and can be applied to any musical style. For pianists interested in jazz, there are three chapters dedicated to introducing jazz improvisation, which can be used as the basis for further study in this idiom. Teachers using this text can go online to www.improvisationatthepiano.com to download lesson plans, ask specific questions about improvisation, and view answers to the most frequently asked questions about this book.

Are we in control of our own development in adulthood, or are we shaped by circumstances beyond our control? By adopting the concept of intentional self-development (ISD), this text outlines an action-theoretical approach to human development that emphasizes both an individual’s ability to shape their own development throughout the lifespan, and the extent to which this potential is limited. By examining general age-related changes and critical life events, Intentional Self-Development and Positive Ageing explores the adaptive cognitive-motivational processes that generate positive development in adulthood, including developmental tasks, cognitive changes, life-stage transitions, and biological and neural processes. Leipold goes on to discuss the concept of positive ageing, highlighting the flexibility of the term and evaluating it from multiple perspectives to demonstrate its subjectivity, as well as its importance. This text also discusses the importance of resilience in positive development, contributing to the search for conditions conducive to positive life conduct across the lifespan. This book will be essential reading for undergraduates and postgraduates studying lifespan development and gerontology, positive psychology, or health psychology, as well as researchers in those fields. It will also be of interest to developmental counsellors, clinicians, and other applied occupational groups who are seeking to understand the psychological basis of actions.

Author Henry Kong's More Self than Self: At Autism's Edge will take you on a captivating exploration of the autistic mind as Dr. Kong shares the latest discoveries in genetics and neuroscience. As a child, Kong was an awkward Asian American bookworm with oversized glasses and an overbearing father. Made to feel like an outsider, Kong was bullied by his classmates and endured degrading nicknames. Kong's stories tell of his childhood gift for memorization and the challenge that it creates later in life, and of his struggle to grasp and apply concepts to real-life situations. Through it all, Kong manages to finish medical school, educate himself about Asperger syndrome, write books, and open a private practice. In a conversational style, Dr Kong intersperses anecdotes with passages that cover both basic science and also delve into the cutting-edge research that has helped solve some of the mysteries behind autism. Not only will More Self than Self provide a comprehensive look into the differences between the autistic and neurotypical brain; it will also inspire anyone who has ever felt isolated and unaccepted to believe that they too can make their dreams come true.