The Pursuit Of Possibility

Are British research universities losing their way or are they finding a new way? Nigel Thrift, a well-known academic and a former Vice-Chancellor, explores recent changes in the British research university that threaten to erode the quality of these higher education institutions. He considers what a research university has now become by examining the quandaries that have arisen from a succession of misplaced strategies and false expectations. Challenging both higher education policy and leadership, he argues that the focus on student number growth and a series of research policy missteps has upset research universities’ priorities just at a point in the history of planetary breakdown when their research is most needed.

"In this book ... you will discover a powerful new way of understanding your language, your relationships, your results and - most importantly - yourself."--Back cover.

Jürgen Habermas is widely regarded as one of the outstanding intellectuals of our time. This collection focuses on the theory of law which can be distilled from his vast compendium of work. At the same time the collection places this theory in the context of Habermas' overall contribution to the theory of society, political theory and social philosophy. Volume I on 'The Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy' identifies the theoretical foundations. Volume II focuses on the critical debate of Habermas' discourse theory of law and democracy, on the challenges posed by the postnational constellation (Europeanization and processes of globalization) and on particular strands within his work, such as genetic technology and religion. Each volume is prefaced by a comprehensive introduction by the editors.

A “provocative and seductive debut” of desire and doubleness that follows the life of a young Palestinian American woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities as she endeavors to lead an authentic life (O, The Oprah Magazine). On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12–year–old Palestinian–American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother’s response only intensifies a sense of shame: “You exist too much,” she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East—from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine—Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought–after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious girlfriend and tries to content herself with their comfortable relationship. But soon her longings, so closely hidden during her teenage years, explode out into reckless romantic encounters and obsessions with other people. Her desire to thwart her own destructive impulses will eventually lead her to The Ledge, an unconventional treatment center that identifies her affliction as “love addiction.” In this strange, enclosed society she will start to consider the unnerving similarities between her own internal traumas and divisions and those of the places that have formed her. Opening up the fantasies and desires of one young woman caught between cultural, religious, and sexual identities, You Exist Too Much is a captivating story charting two of our most intense longings—for love, and a place to call home.

In this systematic historical analysis, Nino Langiulli focuses on a key philosophical issue, possibility, as it is refracted through the thought of the Italian philosopher Nicola Abbagnano. Langiulli examines Abbagnano's attempt to raise possibility to a level of prime importance and investigates his understanding of existence. In so doing, the author offers a sustained exposition of and argument with the account of possibility in the major thinkers of the Western tradition—Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Kierkegaard. He also makes pertinent comments on such philosophers as Diodorus Cronus, William of Ockham, Spinoza, Hobbes, and Hegel, as well as such logicians as DeMorgan and Boole. Nicola Abbagnano, who died in 1990, recently came to the attention of the general public as an influential teacher of author Umberto Eco. Creator of a dictionary of philosophy and author of a multiple-volume history of Western philosophy, Abbagnano was the only philosopher, according to Langiulli, to argue that "to be is to be possible." Even though the concept of probability and the discipline of statistics are grounded in the concept of possibility, philosophers throughout history have grappled with the problem of defining it. Possibility has been viewed by some as an empty concept, devoid of reality, and by others as reducible to actuality or necessity—concepts which are opposite to it. Langiulli analyzes and debates Abbagnano's treatment of necessity as secondary to possibility, and he addresses the philosopher's conversation with his predecessors as well as his European and American contemporaries. In the series Themes in the History of Philosophy, edited by Edith Wyschogrod.

Wall Street Journal bestseller | An indispensable guide to decision-making and risk-taking for anyone who finds themselves afraid of making a wrong choice in their career. This fresh, new approach comes from one of the most highly regarded and well-respected female tech executives in Silicon Valley, who made many wrong choices in her career, but learned how to turn those down moments into successes. Life is made up of a series of choices. What do you do if one of those choices turns out poorly, especially if it was carefully considered? How do you trust your instinctive decision-making skills and make the next right choice? How do you continue to take risks when, suddenly, your risks are not working out? Sukhinder Singh Cassidy is one of the most highly regarded and well-respected female tech executives in Silicon Valley, but she’ll be the first to admit that her path to success has been far from linear. She started three companies that have done exceedingly well, including theBoardlist (an organization designed to promote and place women onto corporate boards), and she just served as president of StubHub, which sold earlier this year for $4 billion. But she’s also encountered plenty of poor choices, misfires, unexpected headwinds, and all other types of pitfalls that she had to learn how to confront, analyze, navigate, and incorporate into her new path forward. From her own experience, she knows that personal success does not come from making one singular “correct” or “big” decision. Rather, long-range success comes from tackling numerous choices that are aimed to optimize future possibilities. Singh Cassidy’s “seven myths of success,” as well as her advice on how to make FOMO into your friend, multiply your “bets” in life, and understand why you shouldn’t be blinded by “passion bias,” all provide an entirely new way to approach risk-taking and achieve lasting success.

An examination of how intellectuals and artists conceptualized rhetoric as a medium of power in a dynamic age of democracy and empire In Rhetoric and Power, Nathan Crick dramatizes the history of rhetoric by explaining its origin and development in classical Greece beginning the oral displays of Homeric eloquence in a time of kings, following its ascent to power during the age of Pericles and the Sophists, and ending with its transformation into a rational discipline with Aristotle in a time of literacy and empire. Crick advances the thesis that rhetoric is primarily a medium and artistry of power, but that the relationship between rhetoric and power at any point in time is a product of historical conditions, not the least of which is the development and availability of communication media. Investigating major works by Homer, Heraclitus, Aeschylus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle, Rhetoric and Power tells the story of the rise and fall of classical Greece while simultaneously developing rhetorical theory from the close criticism of particular texts. As a form of rhetorical criticism, this volume offers challenging new readings to canonical works such as Aeschylus's Persians, Gorgias's Helen, Aristophanes's Birds, and Isocrates's Nicocles by reading them as reflections of the political culture of their time. Through this theoretical inquiry, Crick uses these criticisms to articulate and define a plurality of rhetorical genres and concepts, such as heroic eloquence, tragicomedy, representative publicity, ideology, and the public sphere, and their relationships to different structures and ethics of power, such as monarchy, democracy, aristocracy, and empire. Rhetoric and Power thus provides a foundation for rhetorical history, criticism, and theory that draws on contemporary research to prove again the incredible richness of the classical tradition for contemporary rhetorical scholarship and practice.

"Enough about me," goes the old saying, "what about you? What do you think about me?" Hence the pursuit of attention is alive and well. Even the Oxford English Dictionary reveals a modern coinage to reflect the chase in our technological age: "ego-surfing"--searching the Internet for occurrences of your own name. What is the cause of this obsessive need for others' recognition? This useful and popular volume, now in a second edition that features major new introductory and concluding essays, entertainingly ponders this question. Derber argues that there is a general lack of social support in today's America, one which causes people to vie hungrily for attention, and he shows how individuals will often employ numerous techniques to turn the course of a conversation towards themselves. Illustrating this "conversational narcissism" with sample dialogues that will seem disturbingly familiar to all readers, this book analyzes the pursuit of attention in conversation--as well as in politics and celebrity culture--and demonstrates the ultimate importance of gender, class, and racial differences in competing for attention. Derber shows how changes in the economy and culture--such as the advent of the Internet--have intensified the rampant individualism and egotism of today. And finally, in a new afterword, he focuses on solutions: how to restructure the economy and culture to humanize ourselves and increase the capacity for community, empathy, and attention-giving.