Pedagogy for autonomy is a continuous struggle for transformative and empowering education. That struggle entails reflecting on what fosters or hinders teacher and learner development, acting towards challenging and reshaping oppressive forces and circumstances, and being willing to deal with complexity, uncertainty and risk-taking, without losing one s hopes and ideals. Our main purpose is to present and discuss ways in which critical reflecting, acting, and being emerge in contexts of teaching and/or teacher education, not as realisations of a grand theory of pedagogy for autonomy, but...

This book explores the influences for ethnopolitical groups to act internationally in advancement of their group interests. Yu-Wen Chen proposes an ecological approach to comprehend ethnopolitical contention. In essence, she argues that transnationalizing the contention has the merit of raising the ethnopolitical group s salience and helps to create niches that can demarcate one group from other claim-making groups in a society. Quantitative analysis of the primary data from the European Survey of Ethnopolitical Groups (ESEPG) and qualitative case studies confirm that although some...

There is no record of anything Herman Melville (1819 1891) may have thought or said about -Bartleby the Scrivener. A Story of Wall-Street-, his single most famous tale, published just over 150 years ago today. It is actually for a whole gamut of reasons that the text is unlikely to ever yield an interpretive consensus gentium, the insights of such magisterial figures as F.O. Matthiessen, Ralph Ellison, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, or Slavoj i ek notwithstanding. The volume adds to the nearly global Bartleby Industry with contributions by Andrzej Kopcewicz (Poznan), Joseph Kuhn (Poznan),...

This volume contains nine papers on various texts and aspects concerning discussions of ideal constitutions in the renaissance, dealing with the various genres of texts used for these discussions, their contexts, and the themes and aspects these constitutions and discussions have in common and in which they differ. The papers deal with some of the more famous texts and authors from the period (e.g. Machiavelli, Morus, Harrington) as well as with traditionally less frequently studied authors and texts in this context (including i.a. texts by Donato Gianoti, Justus Lipsius, and Laurentius...

Philosophizing for, with, and by children in a community of inquiry has proven to be an internationally successful learning strategy that enhances both the cognitive and emotional growth of children. Pioneering democratic programs for philosophizing with children now exist throughout the world. The work described in this book represents the latest research on theoretical concepts and applied projects within this field and brings together contributions from twenty-nine countries, representing all continents. The authors address questions on the theoretical foundation of Philosophy for...

What is postmodern literary subjectivity? How to talk about it without falling in the trap of negative hyper-essentialism or being seduced by exuberant lit speak? One way out of this dilemma, as this book suggests, is via a redefinition of the concept in the context of Emmanuel Levinas and his radical ethics. By defining subjectivity as an ethically charged act of language, Levinas provides a fresh perspective on the often trivialized aspects of postmodern poetics such as referentiality and affect construction strategies. The foregrounding of the ethical dimension of those poetic elements has...

New historicism has profoundly altered the way historiography is perceived by academics as well as the public and novelists have seized the resultant opportunity to render historical events through their artistic lenses. This book analyses the oeuvre of the British-born, Kenyan novelist Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, one of the best-known Kenyan writers today. Macgoye s work traces Kenya s recent history and the nation building process, transcending cultural and literary categories. Part of her achievement is the advancement of a new concept of identity, which rejects an essentialist model. Bittner...

In recent decades, theoretical and critical studies have oscillated between, on the one hand, wrestling otherness from a condition in which it is dependent on and defined relative to the notion of the same and, on the other hand, pursuing an approach to sameness and universality uncontaminated by otherness. Yet these concepts continuously prove mutually dependent. Together, they constitute a dynamic and productive tension which this book addresses. Inquiring into the representations and nature of self-other relationships in art, literature and culture, the chapters are written in and to a...

The general objective of this volume is to assess the effects of China s rural land property system on land allocation and land use. For almost 30 years, farmers have individual land use rights, but a number of problems remain. Land reallocations cause tenure insecurity and an underinvestment in land. Land use rights are not allowed to be used as collateral for accessing credit. Furthermore, women are discriminated in the land allocation process. These issues are analyzed at the household as well as the village level. The results show that there exists significant heterogeneity rather than a...

The 60th anniversary of the German Constitution provided the backdrop for a Conference at the Australian National University on 22nd and 23rd May 2009, bringing together Australian and German constitutional scholars to discuss core features of the constitutions of both countries. The following issues were presented and discussed from an Australian and German perspective respectively: Federalism as both countries are organized as federations; the concept of human dignity which is a central pillar in the German constitutional and legal system but not mentioned in the Commonwealth Constitution...