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 | 15 January 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 renaissance-an 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…
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. ..
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.
Beyond Individualism
The Challenge of Inclusive Communities
George Rupp
- Read the Introduction
- Read "American Individualism Challenged," an article by 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.
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?...
Thank you for your time and cooperation.
Panitza Library Staff