The Irish National Theatre Society began its centenary in 2004 with ambitious theatrical events at home and abroad. By the end of the year, however, the company was close to financial ruin, culminating in its dissolution and subsequent reestablishment. The financial crisis was only one element of controversy during the centenary year. During this period, the remit of the Abbey Theatre as a house for the performance of Irish identity and new Irish writing was brought into question. While debates unfolded over the artistic and financial crises, many commentators queried the very nature of, or...

This book studies a best-practices example of what is known as the organizing local approach to union renewal. Several unions in the US, the UK, and other countries have embraced this model of unionism as a formula for labor revitalization. Organizing locals aim to strengthen unions by redeploying resources and mobilizing workers around the goal of member recruitment. The union local under study stands out as an exceptional case within the US context. Against the backdrop of a languishing labor movement, this local has succeeded at recruiting workers and keeping its members engaged....

This book explores the political trajectory of Latin America s most important contemporary labor movement. The New Unionism played a central role in Brazil s struggle for democracy in the 1980s and recast the country s subsequent party politics through its creation of the innovative Workers Party (PT). The author breaks new ground by analyzing this celebrated prototype of -social movement unionism- as a heterogeneous alliance of component factions that evolves in relation to shifting economic, political, and ideological contexts. Through the prism of internal politics, he shows how Brazil s...

From Terra Nullius to Land of Opportunities and Last Frontier, the European dream has constructed and deconstructed Australia to feed its imagination of new societies. At the same time Australia has over the last two centuries forged and re-invented its own liaisons with Europe arguably to carve out its identity. From the arts to social sciences, to society itself, a complex dynamic has grown between the two continents in ways that invite study and discussion.
A transnational research group has begun its collective investigation project of which this first volume is the outcome....

This book is about experiences of personal chaos and their relationship to creativity. It presents evidence that creativity emerges where it seems totally unlikely, in things and places which are not usually associated with it: catastrophe, utter hopelessness and desperation, grief and depression, social oppression and injustice, failure and boredom. All these are chaotically disruptive of what we usually call quality of life . In fact, they are different kinds of chaos, which represents the effective reversal of human meanings, thus bringing home the limitations of simple theorising. In this...

Since the end of the Cold War, the consolidation of peace and security in south-eastern Europe has been one of the most complex and troublesome issues facing the international community. The sequence of conflicts in the Balkans has resulted in serious loss of life, economic collapse, and a number of controversial interventions, leading contemporary scholars to reconsider old perceptions about violent ethnic conflict. Drawing on a wealth of theoretical and empirical sources, this book tackles some of the prevailing questions on the root causes and management of ethnic conflict. Under what...

Schools, colleges and universities are investing a great deal in the purchase of computer resources for the teaching of modern languages, but whether these resources make a measurable difference to the learning of language students is still unclear. In this book the author outlines the existing evidence for the impact of computers on language learning and makes the case for an integrated approach to the evaluation of computer-assisted language learning (CALL). Drawing on current and past research linked to CALL and e-learning, the author builds a comprehensive model for evaluating not just...

This book looks at the many transatlantic bonds which have linked and still link Germany and the United States. German immigrants to the Americas brought with them a good deal of cultural baggage. They cultivated their German heritage in their schools, churches, and clubs. They expressed pride in this heritage by erecting monuments to Goethe or Schiller, Beethoven or Wagner, Alexander von Humboldt or -Turnvater- Jahn. They claimed Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, Carl Schurz, Gustave Koerner, and John A. Roebling as their own. But German-born or German-trained sculptors did not limit themselves...

This book presents new translations of the earliest known studies in Social Policy. Juan-Luis Vives s De Subventione Pauperum (On the Relief of the Poor) is an academic report on the organisation of social welfare, prepared for the senate of Bruges and published in 1526. Forma Subventionis Pauperum (The government of poor relief), published in 1531, is an anonymous evaluation report. It reviews the system of poor relief in the city of Ypres, five years after the policy was introduced.
These reports lay out methods and approaches for the delivery of social services within...

Competitive economics produces an enormous abundance of goods and services but at an intolerable environmental and social cost. Competition has become an end in itself, which leads to detrimental effects on nature, society and future generations. A change of paradigm is needed. Business should respect the ecological and social limits in which it operates and embed its activities in the natural and social systems. This book promotes a collaborative attitude of doing business based on a positive view of the self and others. Theoretical contributions, reflections, cases, examples, and...