This book celebrates the 70th anniversary of the publication of Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations by discussing the legacy of this seminal work and its enduring contributions to many areas of human practice such as artistic, scientific, and religious studies closely related to philosophical analyses. Chapters in this contributed volume reassess the debates around the Philosophical Investigations by discussing the different interpretations of Wittgenstein's late philosophy, especially the idea that philosophical investigations are grammatical ones.

To achieve this goal, authors in this volume look not only at the contributions in Wittgenstein's "pure philosophy" (e.g., the development of new methodological tools), but also his impact on sciences such as mathematics, psychology, medicine, law, anthropology etc.; arts such as music and literature; religious studies etc. Authors were invited to illustrate in different domains the applications of the grammatical therapeutic approach to philosophy showing how we can dissolve metaphysical problems in each area of human activity to reach complete clarity. Only then grammatical therapy is successful, that is, "cures" the disorders of metaphysics bringing tranquility to our thoughts and a "healthy" understanding of the workings of language.

Philosophy as Grammatical Therapy: Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations will be of interest to researchers interested in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein from different fields within philosophy, such as philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of art, philosophy of law, philosophy of religion and philosophical anthropology.

This book examines sustainability from an ethnoeconomics perspective, offering an equitable and durable pathway for economic development in the climate-biodiversity era. By recognising the rationalities, ecological knowledge, and institutional practices embedded within indigenous and local communities, it presents economic models built around sustainable practice, land stewardship, biodiversity, reciprocity, and social resilience rather than growth and extraction alone. In contrast to conventional approaches to development economics, ethnoeconomics defines economic activity as a culturally mediated relationship between human communities and their environments.

The book highlights the importance of culturally diverse knowledge traditions for global institutions, ecological renewal, and the future of the world economy. It will be of interest to students, researchers, and policymakers concerned with environmental economics, development studies, sustainability transitions, economic anthropology, biodiversity governance, and the role of indigenous and local knowledge in shaping more resilient and equitable forms of development.

This book examines how stakeholder theory can inform urban governance in an era of rapid change, sustainability challenges and digital innovation. Combining theoretical and practical insights, it explores how power dynamics, engagement strategies and decision-making processes shape modern cities.

Including engaging international case studies, the text highlights the importance of collaboration, transparency and inclusivity in building resilient urban communities. It challenges traditional governance models, advocating for integrative approaches that empower diverse stakeholders and strengthen democratic values. Designed as a roadmap for scholars, policy makers and planners, this book will empower local communities in their pursuit of sustainable and equitable cities.

This volume incorporates a large amount of research focused primarily on urban planning and oriented mainly at the architectural and building scale. It highlight emerging researches that emphasizes the importance of developing integrated concepts of art and culture in the design of urban and architectural landscapes for sustainable development. Through the research presented, the concept of reinventing the built environment is emphasized through emerging trends and field experiences, highlighting changes and illustrating methods and tools for renewed architectural design. In detail, the contributions have been collected with the aim of illustrating examples and case studies that can suggest new approaches, the use of innovative tools and emerging theories for sustainable design and management of the built environment that is increasingly attentive to the prospects of carbon neutral urban cities.

The book is an important guide for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. By providing a comprehensive and coherent framework for sustainability, the book will empower readers to contribute meaningfully to global efforts for a more sustainable and resilient urban future.

Introduction to Cultural Geography makes the case for why thinking geographically about culture matters. Across its chapters, the book examines how cultural geographers have approached the relationship between geography and culture through topics from house floor plans and international migration to colonialism and digital geographies.

The book's first section develops a conceptual framework for studying cultural geography and its key concepts. From there, its chapters look at how and where people make and claim place across four spheres of our everyday lives: dwelling, moving, working, and playing. The book's final section addresses debates around materialities, assemblages, and artificial intelligence. Each chapter pairs theoretical engagement with concrete examples that enable readers to apply key concepts to the world around them.

Introduction to Cultural Geography:

• Features topics that resonate with students today, including artificial intelligence, social media, and contemporary cultural politics
• Presents complex ideas, theories and concepts in an accessible form
• Covers a wide range of themes such as tourism, memory and heritage, social movements, and pop culture with both historical and contemporary case studies

Written with multiple audiences in mind, Introduction to Cultural Geography is a great resource for instructors and scholars seeking a current survey of theoretical debates and a compelling way to help students understand the world around them. Written for both students who are new to cultural geography and scholars already familiar with the field, this book is an essential read for all human geographers.

Apartment City investigates the high-rise apartment boom that took place in post-war Toronto. After 1950, pro-growth politicians and business interests undertook a large-scale program of private rental apartment construction. By the end of the 1960s, an increasingly consolidated development industry had replaced a number of low-rise neighbourhoods with a radically different form of housing: high-rise apartment towers using modernist designs. The apartment boom had a major impact on the city's built form, planning system, housing market, and property rights.

Urban planning expert Paul Hess and historical geographer Robert Lewis argue that the apartment boom was the product of an institutional fix that worked to adjust property rights using tools such as zoning, construction finance, and planning oversight. Politicians and developers sought to achieve political and economic value from apartment projects using the twinned narratives of redevelopment and decay. Apartments became the focal point of an active ratepayer politics as residents fought developers looking to build apartments, many in middle-class areas of low-rise houses. Despite this resistance, pro-growth actors successfully redeveloped these neighbourhoods into high-rise apartment districts that became home to young professionals and the elderly.

In the process, Toronto was transformed from a small, parochial city in 1945 to the centre of a vibrant metropolis by the 1970s.

This book challenges the city-centered view of Europe by highlighting the importance of suburbs and peripheries, where millions live. It argues that Europe has long been shaped by suburbanization, which, since World War II, is closely linked to international immigration.

Through historical and geographical analysis, A Continent of Suburbs explores the diversity of suburban models across Europe and expands the 'post-suburban' concept to reflect blurred boundaries and evolving definitions. Social geographer Yannis Tzaninis and sociologist Lorenzo De Vidovich bring their expertise together to study the intersections of these disciplines. Case studies from the Amsterdam and Milan regions illustrate how demographic shifts, mobility, economic change, and land development have created new forms of suburban life. By connecting immigration and suburbanization to broader urban histories, the book offers fresh insights for urban studies, geography, planning, and European studies, and invites readers to see Europe's peripheries as central to understanding the continent's development and future.

In an era marked by polarization and social fracture, kindness and compassion are increasingly treated as liabilities rather than strengths. A Kinder World challenges this assumption, reminding us that human evolution and progress have been driven not by competition alone, but by collaboration, empathy, and care.

To build a healthy, resilient, and sustainable future, philosopher Ingrid Leman Stefanovic argues that society must renew a shared ethos of kindness, both individually and collectively. Dispelling the myth that kindness signals weakness, Stefanovic critiques the "selfish gene" narrative and reconsiders the roles of aggression and competition in human development. The book demonstrates instead how moral integrity, social justice, basic civility, and human progress are reinforced through the practice of kindness. These values find expression not only in interpersonal relationships, but also in social and cultural norms, environmental ethics, and the design of our towns and cities.

Positioning kindness as a guiding principle for the good life, A Kinder World also offers practical pathways for cultivating it in an increasingly unkind world. Drawing on educational tools and behavioural strategies, the book shows that kindness is not naive or incidental, but a deliberate practice - and the enduring foundation of human flourishing.

Since Tinder's launch in 2012, the app and its iconic swipe have sparked controversy, shaped the matchmaking industry, and changed how people date.

In the first book-length scholarly exploration of Tinder, Stefanie Duguay traces the app's debut, rise to popularity, and the complicated relationship that many people have with it. She examines shifting interpretations of Tinder's purpose - from hook-ups to finding true love - alongside changes in verifying users' authenticity, ensuring safety, and generating revenue. She argues that Tinder's prominence has set the stage for how intimacy operates online. While positive for some users, others experience hostility, which leaves them fielding malicious reporting, harassment, reduced algorithmic visibility, and other challenges in using a technology that has become focal to many people's partner-seeking. Duguay concludes that noticing how these conditions have formed on Tinder enables us to imagine new ways of dating digitally in the future.

Arriving when some have heralded the end of dating apps, this book illuminates how Tinder's legacy will continue to influence dating in the long term. It is essential reading for students and scholars in media and communication studies, sociology, gender and sexuality studies, and anyone who has ever thought of swiping right.

Now in its Second Edition, Visual Communication Insights and Strategies equips advanced undergraduates with five theoretical lenses-visual rhetoric, semiotics, visual metaphor, visual narrative, and visual symbolic convergence-for analyzing and producing visual content. Written by Fulbright awardee Janis Teruggi Page, the book applies its Research Evaluate Create approach to professional fields including advertising, marketing, public relations, journalism, and social media.

This updated edition includes more than 90 new visual images and expanded chapters on marketing, public relations, events, organizational communication, and a new chapter on social media and websites. Coverage of AI addresses both its strategic applications in brand marketing and data visualization and its role in faked imagery and misinformation.

Readers will also find:

• Evocative chapter-opening imagery that prompts discussion on how visuals shape social and mediated worlds and professional practice
• A three-part progressive structure moving from foundational visual communication theory through interpretation methods to career-focused professional applications
• Coverage of diversity, equity, and inclusion topics including immigrant rights, body image, gender equality, and LGBTQ+ identities throughout
• Intercultural communication content expanded globally to address visual meaning-making across cultural contexts and international audiences
• Rhetorical criticism paired with creative engagement, teaching students to recognize symbols, analogies, stories, fantasies, and gestalts in images

Designed for 300- and 400-level courses in visual communication, visual rhetoric, visual literacy, visual culture, and media criticism, this text serves advanced undergraduates preparing for careers in advertising, marketing, public relations, journalism, graphic design, and social media who need both analytical frameworks and applied creative skills. Refreshed practice activities close each chapter.

Replace intuition with evidence-based methods for executive hiring decisions

Over-reliance on resumes, references, and interviews leaves organizations unable to assess critical competencies like writing, presentation, and leadership skills, contributing to high rates of leadership failure. Beyond Interviews: Moving from Intuition to Evidence-Based Executive Assessment provides specific steps to designing systematic, skills-based assessment methods. Built on techniques refined over twenty years across over 300 executive placements, each chapter challenges readers to reconsider current practices.

The authors' February 2024 study found that over 96% of executives placed through their processes either remain in position, stayed at least five years, or received a promotion. The book applies a structured, research-grounded approach across chapters, moving practitioners from traditional hiring methods toward objective assessment with recommendations including a motivation-based model for finalist interviews.

Readers will also find:

• A systematic framework for evaluating practical, actionable leadership skills rather than the theoretical knowledge typically revealed through interviews alone
• Methods for generating objective assessment data on writing, presentation, and leadership competencies that complement professional intuition
• Structured guidance for designing selection processes tailored to senior management roles in mission-driven organizations and higher education
• Research-based techniques for reducing bias and improving consistency across every stage of the executive recruitment and evaluation process
• Practical tools for boards and hiring committees to assess candidates through skills-based demonstrations beyond traditional resume and reference review

Written for managers, CEOs, directors of mission-driven organizations, and academic administrators, this book also serves HR professionals, elected officials in local government, and non-profit board members. Beyond Interviews equips decision-makers with a proven system that directly reduces the risk of executive hiring failure.

This book offers the first in-depth account of Swedish techno-utopianism and its everyday practices. Drawing on eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, it follows transhumanists, biohackers, cryonicists, and adjacent communities who believe that emerging technologies can address humanity's greatest challenges and open radically transformed futures. Yet despite this expansive optimism, these groups often struggle to imagine futures that meaningfully diverge from the present, revealing a subtle tension between technological faith, everyday practice, and limited futural horizons.

Tracing the historical and cultural roots of Swedish techno-optimism-from welfare-state modernism to Silicon Valley transhumanism and global techno-utopian networks-the book examines how hopes for progress are enacted through bodily experimentation, mundane routines, and references to ancient narratives such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Offering rare empirical insight into an understudied Scandinavian context, it illuminates how technological imaginaries shape collective understandings of progress, possibility, politics, and the human future.

This landmark study follows the Nour family - a Moroccan immigrant couple and their eight French-born children - for more than a decade, offering an intimate and unflinching portrait of migration, resilience and inequality.

Through sustained ethnographic observation and life-story interviews with family members, neighbours, teachers, magistrates and social workers, Catherine Delcroix demonstrates the extraordinary analytical power of the in-depth case study. Drawing on Norbert Elias' concept of configuration, she illuminates intergenerational and gender dynamics within the family, while revealing how public policy shapes - and often distorts - the lives of those it purports to serve.

A classic text, this book has been translated in several languages but never made available in English until now. It will appeal to anyone who seeks a richer understanding of the immigrant experience - and makes a compelling case for life-story narratives as an indispensable tool in qualitative social research.

There are many books on the First World War, ranging from serious academic analyses to works aimed at a more general readership. There are also many books about rugby. But there are very few detailed academic analyses of the intersection between these two fields. This edited collection aims to address that gap, by presenting a range of analyses that explore how rugby was used and developed during and after the Great War. It presents these analyses in a specifically international and socio-political framework, and considers a number of aspects of the relationship between rugby and World War One, such as: how rugby was used to support the war, by being a tool for recruitment and for training; the significant role rugby played on the home front; the consequences of the war for the development and expansion of rugby in the post-war era; and the long-lasting social and political implications arising out of the role played by rugby during the war.

Avatars are everywhere - from virtual environments and social media filters to AI companions and deepfakes.

In Avatars, media psychologist Rabindra Ratan draws from two decades of pioneering research to explain how avatars shape the way we think, feel, and connect in an increasingly mediated world. Through accessible theory and compelling examples, Ratan defines what avatars are across digital and physical forms, explores how people relate to them as extensions and partners of the self, and reveals how avatars influence human behavior - often in ways we do not consciously recognize. Moving from the psychology of identification and customization to the power of avatars for persuasion and influence, this book charts the past, present, and emerging future of human-avatar relationships.

Combining rigorous analysis with personal insight from a career at the forefront of avatar research, this book offers a clear and engaging framework for understanding how our virtual selves are transforming not just media, but what it means to be human. Avatars is essential reading for students and researchers in Media, Communication, STS, Game Studies, Applied Psychology, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Human-Computer Interaction.

Digital technologies have transformed the way we live, work and connect. But have they fundamentally changed society?

In this provocative new book, leading social theorist Theodore R. Schatzki challenges assumptions underlying claims that digitalization is revolutionizing society, arguing that some of the most important features of social life remain unchanged.

Modifying his previous groundbreaking social ontology, Schatzki explores how digitalization is reshaping culture, materiality, space, associations and time. He argues that its most profound effects lie not in creating virtual or immaterial spaces, a global present, multiple times or new values, but in transforming the material conditions and social associations that underpin or mark everyday life.

A major contribution to social theory, this book offers a bold new framework for understanding what digitalization changes, what it does not change and why it matters.

This book examines one of the central paradoxes of contemporary global politics: why does a governance system that has contributed to maintaining a stable, interoperable, and globally connected internet remain persistently contested by both authoritarian challengers and democratic partners? Addressing this question, it develops a novel framework for understanding the evolution, resilience, and contestation of the U.S.-led multistakeholder model of internet governance.

The book conceptualizes the multistakeholder model as a U.S.-led governance order that emerged through the construction of technological infrastructures, institutional arrangements, and normative frameworks that enabled global coordination of cyberspace. It traces how this order evolved through the establishment of critical internet institutions, the diffusion of governance norms, and the consolidation of legitimacy through institutional reforms and multistakeholder participation.

The main themes include the politics of internet governance, digital sovereignty, legitimacy and authority in global internet governance, technological competition, and the relationship between infrastructure and political order. The book argues that contestation to the US emerges not simply from external geopolitical rivalry, but from internal dynamics embedded within the governance order itself. The same institutional arrangements and normative assumptions that contributed to stability and expansion also generated legitimacy deficits, asymmetries of authority, and forms of exclusion that continue to produce political friction.

This book offers new insights into power, legitimacy, and institutional change in cyberspace. It targets scholars of international relations, internet governance, cybersecurity, digital politics, and policymakers engaged in technology governance and digital diplomacy.

In modern culture, the term "melodrama" has lost its original meaning. We use it in our everyday assessments of human behaviour; our understanding of melodramatic gestures and behavioural codes now extends far beyond the theatrical environment. Today, we see the melodramatic mode employed in contemporary political discourse, media texts, and militaristic propaganda. What is it about melodrama that attracts a person of the twenty-first century? What explains the genre's remarkable resilience over time?

The essays in this volume examine these questions by focusing on Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet melodrama, applying modern theories of melodrama to the analysis of melodramatic discourse in Russian culture. Russian studies professors Marina Balina and Daisuke Adachi explore new directions in the study of melodramatic discourse and address emerging spheres of mass culture, such as the communicative space of the internet. This collection significantly expands the scope of research: alongside the traditional genres of the melodramatic mode - literature, poetry, and film - the contributors examine melodrama and its deconstructions in interviews, egodocuments, young adult literature, and television series.

The collection offers a historically multifaced but conceptually coherent analysis of melodrama, exposing the roots of its remarkable persistence in Russian culture.

Many criticisms of young people in the West excoriate a self-obsessed, 'snowflake' generation and the indulgent parents and teachers who enable them, cowed by fears of upsetting or alienating the kids. But, as sociologists Jennie Bristow and Ellie Lee show, pressure to affirm young people's views of themselves is applied by wider political and cultural dynamics, which corrode organic adult-child relationships. Consequently, young people's ability to develop a rounded, grounded sense of themselves suffers - as does their relationship with the adults who care for them.

The obsession with personal identity incites teenagers and emerging adults to short-circuit the dynamic process of growing up by adopting fashionable badges of self-presentation. But these stymie young people's access to the intimate intergenerational relationships that have historically provided the basis for development into maturity. Older people often find themselves positioned defensively on 'the wrong side of history', while young people's insecurity is intensified by an aggressive focus on the present.

How can we restore strong ties between the generations? In this sensitive, optimistic and ambitiously broad intervention, Bristow and Lee advocate a cultural narrative that supports adults' authority to say 'no' to our children, with love.

Why the idea of English unmusicality arose and how the English sought to uphold national honor in the face of it

Why, while touting their superiority in other spheres, did the English develop an idea of themselves as musically inferior to their neighbors? Historian Amy Dunagin shows that as the English musical marketplace expanded after 1660, evolving beliefs about the effects of climate on national character led the English to identify musicality-along with excess, passion, and effeminacy-as characteristic of a "southern" temperament from which they were eager to distance themselves.

Once established, the idea proved difficult to excise, and the ascendancy of foreign music, especially Italian opera, seemed to confirm it. Eighteenth-century English commentators disagreed about how best to present the state of their national music and developed competing narratives that resonated with Tory, Establishment Whig, and Patriot political ideologies, with profound implications for English cultural identity.

Dunagin traces the idea of English unmusicality as it emerged in the late Stuart period and shows how it became a contested national narrative-one that reflected broader anxieties about identity, virtue, and cultural engagement with Europe.

Klagen ueber ≫Hypermoral≪, ≫Wokeness≪ oder ≫Tugendterror≪ praegen die politische Debatte. Was frueher Anspruch war, erscheint heute als Bedrohung: Die Moralisierung der Politik gilt vielen als Gefahr fuer die demokratische Ordnung. Doch was ist dran an der Diagnose einer uebermoralisierten Gesellschaft?

Cord Schmelzle analysiert praezise das Verhaeltnis von Politik und Moral und zeigt, unter welchen Bedingungen moralische Argumente fuer unsere politischen Auseinandersetzungen unverzichtbar sind und wann sie in problematischen Moralismus umschlagen. Waehrend sich die Kritik an der Moral als Versuch der Konservierung der bestehenden (Macht-)Verhaeltnisse erweist, sind moralische Interventionen ein wichtiger Faktor zur Selbstkorrektur von Gesellschaften ? der gelegentlich uebers Ziel hinausschiesst. Entscheidend ist nicht, Moral aus der Politik zu verbannen, sondern besser moralisch zu streiten.

Why do we keep returning to the Weimar Republic as a focal point for queer and trans histories, and why are images so crucial to our understanding of this period? This volume brings together research from disciplines including history, art history, literature, film, performance, and gender studies to explore the ongoing resonances of visual and narrative queer mythologies from Weimar Germany, often considered a "golden age" for queer culture and a period of relative rights and freedoms.

Chapters contribute new readings of classic Weimar art and film while significantly expanding the archive of queer Weimar by examining new or previously overlooked visual materials and relations: from occult practices to the vagaries of human-animal love, and from trans representations on film to the ambiguous tensions of forbidden intergenerational desire. Taken together, this volume generates a deep understanding of the twentieth-century emergence of queer and trans subjects through visual media; it develops methods that give prominence to the voices and perspectives of the historical subjects of sexual science; and it critically interrogates past practices of sexual knowledge production for understandings of LGBTQI lives today.

What can art and science learn from each other? What happens when science meets arts? Drawing on concrete cases, this book explores the diverse forms of science-art interactions through an interdisciplinary lens, highlighting insights and experiences.

This book originates from the Palettes research project at KU Leuven, an interdisciplinary initiative supported by Methusalem funding, one of Belgium's most prestigious long-term research grants awarded to internationally recognized scholars. As the development of the chapters is coordinated within the project and supported by close collaboration across disciplines, the book maintains a clear and shared focus, namely: what makes these art- science interactions in their specific case contexts 'meaningful', and what others can learn from them. At the same time, it embraces an interdisciplinary perspective that reflects the diversity of approaches and perceptions within the project, allowing the individual cases to generate broader, transferable insights. Across the chapters, the leading question is what makes these interactions and collaborations both meaningful and challenging. It offers an in-depth understanding of integrating art in scientific research as a distinct way of knowing and engaging with the world, rather than as a mere instrument or tool, while providing guidance for navigating challenges.

This book is the first monograph to cover the subject of D. H. Lawrence and censorship in its entirety. It examines Lawrence's experiences of censorship throughout his career, from his earliest experiences of editorial bowdlerization to the end of his life, drawing attention to under-researched instances of censorship such as the 1922 prosecution of Women in Love. It considers how Lawrence resisted censorship through his use of private publication, as well as the ways in which censorship continued to shape Lawrence's work and reputation after his death.

This book examines one of the most contested questions in contemporary bioethics: should religion be permitted a seat at the table of bioethics? To address this question, it brings secular and religious bioethicists into structured confrontation across core topics including abortion, conscientious objection, medically assisted dying, circumcision, and human enhancement. Contributors present contrasting arguments, enabling systematic comparison of their underlying assumptions, methods, and normative commitments. Structured to facilitate critical engagement rather than synthesis, the volume critically examines the claimed epistemic authority and public legitimacy of religious reasoning in bioethics, and the conditions under which such perspectives may - or may not - meet the standards of public reason, inclusivity, and rational justification. The book will interest bioethicists, philosophers, theologians, clinicians, and policymakers concerned with the limits of moral authority in medicine and biomedical science.

Chapter "Should religion be permitted a seat at the table of bioethics? The case of abortion" is available open access under a Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

In his documentary trilogy, Peter Nicks explores the structurality of political and social issues by placing cameras inside and outside three government institutions in the City of Oakland, California: The Waiting Room (2012) depicts 24 hours of work and life at the Highland Hospital. The Force (2017) investigates the Oakland Police Department over two years, and Homeroom (2021) accompanies a graduating class at Oakland High.

This essay considers Nicks' films as audiovisual participants in the #blacklivesmatter discourse, which discusses racism, classism, and sexism as structural issues. As such, these issues are only visible through symptoms of an invisible structure that allows them to pertain and to be (re)produced. This essay asks how film, as an audiovisual medium, relates to the in/visibility of structural issues.

Analyzing Nicks' trilogy chronologically, the essay demonstrates how these films explore a particular mode of audiovisual experience. They enable a reflection upon structural racism not through an attempted visualization of invisible structures but through affects of Unbehagen, allowing for an audiovisual experience that reflects upon issues of framing the in/visible.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

This book provides a critical reflection on the relationship between education, conflict, war and peace and the global actors and practitioners that have devised strategies to engage and support education systems in conflict-affected contexts.

Exploring a wide range of issues from development assistance to education, peacebuilding, de-radicalisation programmes and global governance, it evidences the challenges and the promises of education's complex relationship to war and peace. The book highlights the field's entanglements with geopolitics and imperial interventions, which have shaped its actions and undermined and limited its potential to support social transformation towards peace with social justice.