Volume 1, Issue 1 - November 2015
Do-It-Yourself Democracy
The Rise of the Public Engagement Industry
Caroline W. Lee
OUP USA
304 pages | 10 b/w halftones | 235x156mm
978-0-19-998726-9 | Hardback | 2015
Citizen participation has undergone a radical shift since anxieties about "bowling alone" seized the nation
in the 1990s. Many pundits and observers have cheered America's twenty-first century civic renaissancean explosion of participatory innovations in public life. Invitations to "have your say!" and "join the
discussion!" have proliferated. But has the widespread enthusiasm for maximizing citizen democracy led
to real change?
In Do-It-Yourself Democracy, sociologist Caroline W. Lee examines how participatory innovations have
reshaped American civic life over the past two decades…
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199987269.do
Paradox
Free Will
By Margaret Cuonzo
By Mark Balaguer
Overview
Overview
Thinkers have been fascinated by
paradox since long before
Aristotle grappled with Zeno’s. In this volume in The
MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Margaret
Cuonzo explores paradoxes and the strategies used
to solve them. She finds that paradoxes are more
than mere puzzles but can prompt new ways of
thinking.
A paradox can be defined as a set of mutually
inconsistent claims, each of which seems true.
Paradoxes emerge not just in salons and ivory
towers but in everyday life…
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/paradox
In our daily life, it really seems
as though we have free will,
that what we do from moment
to moment is determined by conscious decisions
that we freely make. You get up from the couch,
you go for a walk, you eat chocolate ice cream. It
seems that we’re in control of actions like these; if
we are, then we have free will. But in recent years,
some have argued that free will is an illusion. The
neuroscientist (and best-selling author) Sam
Harris and the late Harvard psychologist Daniel
Wegner, for example, claim that certain scientific
findings disprove free will. In this engaging and
accessible volume in the Essential Knowledge
series, the philosopher Mark Balaguer examines
the various arguments and experiments that have
been cited to support the claim that human beings
don’t have free will. He finds them to be
overstated and misguided.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/free-will
Beyond Individualism
The Challenge of Inclusive Communities
George Rupp
In many places around the world, relations between ethnic and religious groups
that for long periods coexisted more or less amicably are now fraught with
aggression and violence. This trend has profound international implications,
threatening efforts to narrow the gap between rich and poor. Underscoring the
need for sustained action, George Rupp urges the secular West to reckon with the continuing power of
religious conviction and embrace the full extent of the world's diversity…
George Rupp has served as dean of Harvard Divinity School and as president of Rice University,
Columbia University, and the International Rescue Committee. As an activist and educator, he is
committed to shaping fair institutions and building inclusive communities in both the developed and the
developing worlds. His articles have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and he is
the author of five books, most recently Globalization Challenged: Conviction, Conflict, Community.
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/beyond-individualism/9780231174282
Aha!The Moments of Insight that Shape Our World
William B. Irvine
OUP USA
376 pages | 178x127mm
978-0-19-933887-0 | Hardback | 2015
Great ideas often develop gradually after studying a problem at length—but not always.
Sometimes, an insight hits like a bolt from the blue. For Archimedes, clarity struck while he was taking a
bath. For Gustav Mahler, it came as the blades of his oars touched the water. And for Albert Einstein, it
emerged while he was talking to a friend. Why do these moments of insight strike so suddenly?...
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199338870.do
Thank you for your time and cooperation.
Panitza Library Staff