Change And The Politics Of Certainty

Author : Jenny Edkins
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781526147264
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Change and the Politics of Certainty written by Jenny Edkins and published by . This book was released on with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the imperative for change in a world of persistent inequality, racism, oppression and violence, difficulties arise once we try to bring about a transformation. As scholars, students and activists, we may want to change the world, but we are not separate, looking in, but rather part of the world ourselves. The book demonstrates that we are not in control: with all our academic rigour, we cannot know with certainty why the world is the way it is, or what impact our actions will have. It asks what we are to do, if this is the case, and engages with our desire to seek change. Chapters scrutinise the role of intellectuals, experts and activists in famine aid, the Iraq war, humanitarianism and intervention, traumatic memory, enforced disappearance, and the Grenfell Tower fire, and examine the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time, space and materiality, and ideas of the human and sentience. Plays and films by Michael Frayn, Chris Marker and Patricio Guzmán are considered, and autobiographical narrative accounts probe the author's life and background. The book argues that although we might need to traverse the fantasy of certainty and security, we do not need to give up on hope.

Author : Jenny Edkins
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 1526119048
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Change and the politics of certainty written by Jenny Edkins and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. How do we transform the world when we are ourselves inescapably part of it? If we cannot know what makes the world the way it is, or what impact our actions will have, where do we begin? Renowned politics scholar Jenny Edkins explores the imperative for change in a world filled with inequality, violence, persecution, and injustice - and the difficulties faced in bringing it about. Over the course of ten chapters Change and the politics of certainty examines our varied responses to questions such as aid in times of famine; opposition to the Iraq War; humanitarian intervention; the memorialisation of 9/11; enforced disappearance; and calls for justice after the Grenfell Tower fire. Drawing on insights from the author’s life and on the work of playwrights and filmmakers, the book interrogates the ideas of thinkers including Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Eric Santner, Elaine Scarry, Carolyn Steedman and Slavoj Žižek. Tackling themes such as the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time and space, and ideas of humanity and sentience, this accessible book is essential reading for all who strive for a better world.

Author : Paul Kelly
Publisher : Allen & Unwin
ISBN 13 : 1741754984
Total Pages : 794 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The End of Certainty written by Paul Kelly and published by Allen & Unwin. This book was released on 2008 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold, invigorating analysis of the decade that revolutionised Australian politics - the 1980s.

Author : Charles Handy
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1448108721
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Beyond Certainty written by Charles Handy and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade, change has accelerated violently. The Thatcher/Regan years were a time of certainty, when greed was good, more meant better, and the Western world rejoiced to see George Orwell's dismal prophecy for 1984 confounded. But there is a curvilinear logic in the universe. Prosperity cannot last forever. Empires and organisations must flounder. The world must be reinvented. We can now be certain only of uncertainty, and to plan for the future we must think differently. Compromise may be the way forward, and organisations must give more freedom to individuals to preserve commitment and creativity. In this challenging and exhilarating collection of pieces, Charles Handy, Britain's foremost business guru, takes us on an intellectual journey through a changing world, in order to see how we must adapt to make our future work.

Author : Shirley Robin Letwin
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780865971943
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Pursuit of Certainty written by Shirley Robin Letwin and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By examining the thought of four seminal thinkers, Shirley Robin Letwin in The Pursuit of Certainty provides a brilliant record of the gradual change in the English-speaking peoples' understanding of "what sort of activity politics is." As Letwin writes, "the distinctive political issue since the eighteenth century has been whether government should do more or less." Nor, as many historians argue, did this issue arise because of the Industrial Revolution or "new social conditions [that] aggravated the problem of poverty" but, Letwin believes, because of the "profoundly personal reflection" of major thinkers, including Hume, Bentham, Mill, and Webb. David Hume, for example, believed that to "reach for perfection, to seek an ideal, is noble, but dangerous, and is therefore an activity that individuals or voluntary groups may pursue, but governments certainly should not." By the end of the nineteenth century, as Letwin observes, Beatrice Webb came to "equate the triumph of reason over passion with the rule of science over human life." Thus did the "pursuit of certainty" displace the traditional English understanding of the limitations of human nature--hence the necessity of limits to governmental power and programs. Consequently, in our time, "Politics was no longer one of several human activities and at that not a very noble one; it encompassed all of human life" in quest of philosophical "certainty" and social perfection. The Liberty Fund edition is a reprint of the original work published by Oxford in 1965. Shirley Robin Letwin (1924-1993) was a Professor of Political and Legal Philosophy at Harvard, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes.

Author : C.W. Anderson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190492368
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Apostles of Certainty written by C.W. Anderson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From data-rich infographics to 140 character tweets and activist cell phone photos taken at political protests, 21st century journalism is awash in new ways to report, display, and distribute the news. Computational journalism, in particular, has been the object of recent scholarly and industry attention as large datasets, powerful algorithms, and growing technological capacity at news organizations seemingly empower journalists and editors to report the news in creative ways. Can journalists use data--along with other forms of quantified information such as paper documents of figures, data visualizations, and charts and graphs--in order to produce better journalism? In this book, C.W. Anderson traces the genealogy of data journalism and its material and technological underpinnings, arguing that the use of data in news reporting is inevitably intertwined with national politics, the evolution of computable databases, and the history of professional scientific fields. It is impossible to understand journalistic uses of data, Anderson argues, without understanding the oft-contentious relationship between social science and journalism. It is also impossible to disentangle empirical forms of public truth telling without first understanding the remarkably persistent Progressive belief that the publication of empirically verifiable information will lead to a more just and prosperous world. Anderson considers various types of evidence (documents, interviews, informational graphics, surveys, databases, variables, and algorithms) and the ways these objects have been used through four different eras in American journalism (the Progressive Era, the interpretive journalism movement of the 1930s, the invention of so-called "precision journalism," and today's computational journalistic moment) to pinpoint what counts as empirical knowledge in news reporting. Ultimately the book shows how the changes in these specifically journalistic understandings of evidence can help us think through the current "digital data moment" in ways that go beyond simply journalism.

Author : Mark Schaefer
Publisher : Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1532653433
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Certainty of Uncertainty written by Mark Schaefer and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2018-08-23 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is full of people who are very certain—in politics, in religion, in all manner of things. In addition, political, religious, and social organizations are marketing certainty as a cure all to all life’s problems. But is such certainty possible? Or even good? The Certainty of Uncertainty explores the question of certainty by looking at the reasons human beings crave certainty and the religious responses we frequently fashion to help meet that need. The book takes an in-depth view of religion, language, our senses, our science, and our world to explore the inescapable uncertainties they reveal. We find that the certainty we crave does not exist. As we reflect on the unavoidable uncertainties in our world, we come to understand that letting go of certainty is not only necessary, it’s beneficial. For, in embracing doubt and uncertainty, we find a more meaningful and courageous religious faith, a deeper encounter with mystery, and a way to build strong relationships across religious and philosophical lines. In The Certainty of Uncertainty, we see that embracing our belief systems with humility and uncertainty can be transformative for ourselves and for our world.

Author : Wendy James
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 9780415107907
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Pursuit of Certainty written by Wendy James and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the effect of anthropology's inherited tradition of tolerance and cross-cultural understanding has on the new pursuits of truth.

Author : Ilya Prigogine
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684837056
Total Pages : 248 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The End of Certainty written by Ilya Prigogine and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1997-08-17 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine discusses the irreversibility of time and his findings impact on the laws of physics.

Author : Ian Scoones
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000163407
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Politics of Uncertainty written by Ian Scoones and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why is uncertainty so important to politics today? To explore the underlying reasons, issues and challenges, this book’s chapters address finance and banking, insurance, technology regulation and critical infrastructures, as well as climate change, infectious disease responses, natural disasters, migration, crime and security and spirituality and religion. The book argues that uncertainties must be understood as complex constructions of knowledge, materiality, experience, embodiment and practice. Examining in particular how uncertainties are experienced in contexts of marginalisation and precarity, this book shows how sustainability and development are not just technical issues, but depend deeply on political values and choices. What burgeoning uncertainties require lies less in escalating efforts at control, but more in a new – more collective, mutualistic and convivial – politics of responsibility and care. If hopes of much-needed progressive transformation are to be realised, then currently blinkered understandings of uncertainty need to be met with renewed democratic struggle. Written in an accessible style and illustrated by multiple case studies from across the world, this book will appeal to a wide cross-disciplinary audience in fields ranging from economics to law to science studies to sociology to anthropology and geography, as well as professionals working in risk management, disaster risk reduction, emergencies and wider public policy fields.