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The University of Crisis
This book began as a collection of papers presented at a conference entitled ‘The Future Business of Higher Education’ held at Oxford University. The contributions range from those who grapple with the question of what a University should do, through those concerned with making Higher Education more efficient, to some who were already planning for some technologically inevitable virtual future. These disparate leanings led to inevitable conflict and a challenge in editing into book form. In compiling and editing the chapters the editor has tried to preserve some of the diversity of opinion presented at Oxford. By doing so it is apparent that some individual contributors would find unacceptable much of what others in the book have to say. The traditionalists clash with the modernizers, the Left with the Right, Public with Private and the theorists with the practitioners. It is this very divergence of philosophical opinion as to the future of Higher Education that makes this book such an enjoyable and stimulating read.
The Idea of Education
This book represents a ‘position statement’ from the intellectually vibrant and challenging debate that emanated from the inaugural conference project launch entitled 'The Idea of Education' held at Mansfield College, Oxford in July 2002. The book conveys a wide spectrum of views about 'the idea of education' in recognition of the fact that 'the idea' is not as straightforward as it may appear on the surface. It seems the universities are not alone in this apparent uncertainty of definition. Further Education seems equally nonplussed as regard its purpose or raison d'être. Furthermore, even for those within the sector, it appears to be a point of much contention as to where Further Education ends and Higher Education begins. The book is divided into three main sections: The Current Structures of Education, Issues within Contemporary Education and The Ambitions of Education. The chapters wrestle, sometimes at variance with each other, with the paradoxes and concerns felt by each writer grappling with the idea of education.
Minding Evil
Minding Evil: Explorations of Human Iniquity brings together fifteen essays, versions of which were presented at the Fifth International Conference on Evil and Wickedness, held in Prague in 2004. The volume examines evil and wickedness from a variety of disciplines, including criminology, cultural studies, gender studies, law, literature, peace studies, philosophy, psychology, and sociology. In so doing Minding Evil keeps in play the doubled meaning of its title: on the one hand, to tend to evil, that is, to oversee, cultivate, and deploy it; on the other hand, to be bothered by evil and so, in learning to identify or recognise it, to try to understand its workings and thus contain or control it and, perhaps, repair or undo it. While the essays taken together work to show the difficulty and at times the travesty of not being able to distinguish between the two meanings, it is this second meaning that remains key. What are the individual and collective responsibilities entailed in minding - being troubled by - evil? This is the central question of this volume.
Building Sustainable Communities
In this inter-disciplinary follow-up to Future as Fairness: Ecological Justice and Global Citizenship (edited by Haugestad and Wulfhorst, Rodopi 2004) 14 chapters explore a variety of conceptual and practical pathways to the building of sustainable communities. Five chapters provide different perspectives on sustainable and unsustainable agriculture. Other cases explored are wildlife valuations, distributional effects of environmental policy, the emerging American nuclear power renaissance, regulation of care use, job losses with a raising GDP, cooperation between labour and environmentalists, plant biotechnology, participatory decision making, acoustic ecology, decent competition, and fractality as a key to global citizenship and ecological justice. The introduction sketches a framework for constructive evaluation of the interrelationships between environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, communities, and social interactions.
Suffering the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune
The book Suffering the Slings and Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune: International Perspectives on Stress, Laughter and Depression highlights topics covered at an inaugural inter-disciplinary conference Making Sense of Stress Humour and Healing held in Budapest in May 2005. The chapters provide a truly international and inter-disciplinary perspective on the subject. Contributors to this volume come not only from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds but also from many parts of the globe. They speak of universal truths and of site-specific concerns. They do not all speak with one voice and some of their points diverge one from the other but each sheds their own light on the topics, allowing readers to form a richer picture of the issues than might otherwise be possible.
Education and Leadership
This truly international book brings together authors from different regions of the world including North America, South Africa, Europe, Iran and Russia all of whom are concerned with aspects of the challenges involved in the expansion of higher education, both in student numbers and areas of study. Some are concerned about the loss of guiding principles which steered university education for centuries. The traditional purposes of higher education have come under such pressure that we have achieved “conflicting models of the university” (Claes) and “ambiguity” in regard to teaching and research (Simons et al). For others, the problems are at a different stage. Contributions from Sout...
Redefining Europe
On May 1, 2004, the European Union expanded dramatically. Ten new countries on the periphery of the old union were absorbed, changing the EU in many ways. How can we redefine Europe now? What is its meaning? Is “Europe” just a theoretical concept or, worse yet, merely a small geographical region? Or, on the contrary, is Europe re-emerging as a Western civilization of its own, a North Atlantic partner? Many scholars believe that federalism should play the central role as 25 member states seek to cooperate fully while simultaneously retaining their sovereignty. This volume, with new and thought-provoking contributions by leading experts, clarifies the issues and proposes ways in which federalism can rescue and preserve the new Europe.
Frontiers of Diversity
"Frontiers of Diversity critically examines the explanatory and normative power of pluralism in contemporary philosophy, politics, economics and culture. Based on the papers presented at the "First Global Conference on Critical Issues in Pluralism" at Mansfield College, Oxford, it brings together for the first time essays examining pluralism's impact, both positive and negative, in each of these critical domains. These essays exhibit something of the fertility of the concept of pluralism, not only across the spectrum of fields, but at all levels of analysis, from individual to social to national and international, touching on specific cases from around the world. Through their diversity, the essays are intended to both promote cross-pollination between these domains of study and experience, and to encourage reflection on pluralism as a powerful cross-disciplinary approach for understanding the contemporary world."--BOOK JACKET.
Gut Feelings
What does 'healing' mean for people who have chronic illnesses without a known cure? Gut Feelings shows readers a new way to explore the problem of suffering, seeking answers in sociology, philosophy and theology. Catherine Garrett's autobiographical narrative links physical, emotional and spiritual experience with intellectual discovery. It is written for people in pain and for all who hope to alleviate suffering. As a profound meditation on life with illness, this book shows that academic and personal wisdom, offered in the form of stories, can make healing itself more widely accessible.
The Clown Doctor Chronicles
This is the first book in English to provide a close-up view of the emotional and rewarding experiences of clown-doctors working with hospitalized children. It describes the development of a new program in a pediatric hospital and all the challenges that confront clown-doctors. The book recounts work that takes place over a few months in 1999-2000. Most of the children that are described had been diagnosed with leukemia and other serious forms of cancer. They were hospitalized often and ran the risk of death. This book is a tale of love and humor and of dealing with great traumas and tragedy. It tells of the immense compassion and the amazing resilience of individuals in the most stressful a...
