Worlds Of Desire Realms Of Power

Edited by leading authorities, this key reference reflects the multidisciplinary nature of its subject. It is an essential resource for teaching, an invaluable companion to independent study, and a solid starting point for wider subject exploration.

Since the 1980s, globalization and neoliberalism have brought about a comprehensive restructuring of everyone’s lives. People are being ‘disciplined’ by neoliberal economic agendas, ‘transformed’ by communication and information technology changes, global commodity chains and networks, and in the Global South in particular, destroyed livelihoods, debilitating impoverishment, disease pandemics, among other disastrous disruptions, are also globalization’s legacy. This collection of geographical treatments of such a complex set of processes unearths the contradictions in the impacts of globalization on peoples’ lives. Globalizations Contradictions firstly introduces globalization in all its intricacy and contrariness, followed on by substantive coverage of globalization’s dimensions. Other areas that are covered in depth are: globalization’s macro-economic faces globalization’s unruly spaces globalization’s geo-political faces ecological globalization globalization’s cultural challenges globalization from below fair globalization. Globalizations Contradictions is a critical examination of the continuing role of international and supra-national institutions and their involvement in the political economic management and determination of global restructuring. Deliberately, this collection raises questions, even as it offers geographical insights and thoughtful assessments of globalization’s multifaceted ‘faces and spaces.’

North American and European scholars of archaeology and theology explore the issue of how primary religious texts of the ancient Mediterranean world and artifactual evidence can be mutually supportive and illuminating. The essays are divided into those on early Christianity, late-antique Judaism, and the Greco-Roman world at large, and include studies on the placing of Jesus, celibacy and social deviancy in the Roman period, and epigraphic evidence for Jewish defectors. Canadian card order number: C00-930959-4. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

This book examines the concepts of power, wealth and women in the important Mahayana Buddhist scripture known as the Gandavyuha-sutra, and relates these to the text’s social context in ancient Indian during the Buddhist Middle Period (0–500 CE). Employing contemporary textual theory, worldview analysis and structural narrative theory, the author puts forward a new approach to the study of Mahayana Buddhist sources, the ‘systems approach’, by which literature is viewed as embedded in a social system. Consequently, he analyses the Gandavyuha in the contexts of reality, society and the individual, and applies these notions to the key themes of power, wealth and women. The study reveals that the spiritual hierarchy represented within the Gandavyuha replicates the political hierarchies in India during Buddhism’s Middle Period, that the role of wealth mirrors its significance as a sign of spiritual status in Indian Buddhist society, and that the substantial number of female spiritual guides in the narrative reflects the importance of royal women patrons of Indian Buddhism at the time. This book will appeal to higher-level undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars of religious studies, Buddhist studies, Asian studies, South Asian studies and Indology.

An innovative introduction to Human Geography, exploring different ways of studying the relationships between people and place, and putting people at the centre of human geography. The book covers behavioural, humanistic and cultural traditions, showing how these can lead to a nuanced understanding of how we relate to our surroundings on a day-to-day basis. The authors also explore how human geography is currently influenced by 'postmodern' ideas stressing difference and diversity. While taking the importance of these different approaches seriously as ways of thinking about the role of place in peoples' everyday lives, the book also tries to encapsulate what has been so vibrant and exciting about human geography over the last couple of decades. By using examples to which students can relate - such as how they imagine and represent their home, the way they avoid certain spaces, how they move through retail spaces, where they choose to go to university, how they use the Internet, how they represent other nations and so on - the authors show how geography shapes everyday life in a manner that is seemingly mundane yet profoundly important.

Changes in the nature of knowledge production, plus rapid social and cultural change, have meant that the 'curriculum question' – what is to be taught, and by extension, 'whose knowledge' – has been hotly contested. The question of what to teach has become more and more controversial. This book asks: what is an appropriate curriculum response to the acute, renewed interest in issues of race and racism? How does a school subject like geography respond? The struggle over the school curriculum has frequently been portrayed as being between educational 'traditionalists' and 'progressives'. This book suggests a way out of this impasse. Drawing upon and extending insights from 'social realism', it explores what a Future 3 geography curriculum might look like - one that recognizes the importance of the academic discipline as a source of curriculum-making but at the same time avoids geographical knowledge becoming set in stone. The book focuses very sharply on issues of race and racism, enabling teachers to engage in curriculum making in geography that is racially literate. The Foreword is written by Julian Agyeman, a former geography teacher in the UK and now Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University, USA.

Introduces students to the key concepts and challenges in this topical area by exploring and challenging the notion of sustainability and its relationship to contemporary tourism in the developing world.