During the five full years of his presidency (1964–1968), Lyndon Johnson initiated a breathtaking array of domestic policies and programs, including such landmarks as the Civil Rights Act, Head Start, Food Stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, the Immigration Reform Act, the Water Quality Act, the Voting Rights Act, Social Security reform, and Fair Housing. These and other “Great Society” programs reformed the federal government, reshaped intergovernmental relations, extended the federal government’s role into new public policy arenas, and redefined federally protected rights of individuals to engage in the public sphere. Indeed, to a remarkable but largely unnoticed degree,Johnson’s domestic agenda continues to shape and influence current debates on major issues such as immigration, health care, higher education funding, voting rights, and clean water, even though many of his specific policies and programs have been modified or, in some cases, dismantled since his presidency.

LBJ’s Neglected Legacy examines the domestic policy achievements of one of America’s most effective, albeit controversial, leaders. Leading contributors from the fields of history, public administration, economics, environmental engineering, sociology, and urban planning examine twelve of LBJ’s key domestic accomplishments in the areas of citizenship and immigration, social and economic policy, science and technology, and public management. Their findings illustrate the enduring legacy of Johnson’s determination and skill in taking advantage of overwhelming political support in the early years of his presidency to push through an extremely ambitious and innovative legislative agenda, and emphasize the extraordinary range and extent of LBJ’s influence on American public policy and administration.

The sacred landscape of imperial China was dotted with Buddhist monasteries, Daoist temples, shrines to local deities, and the altars of the mandarinate. Prominent among the official shrines were the temples in every capital throughout the empire devoted to the veneration of Confucius. Twice a year members of the educated elite and officials in each area gathered to offer sacrifices to Confucius, his disciples, and the major scholars of the Confucian tradition.

The worship of Confucius is one of the least understood aspects of Confucianism, even though the temple and the cult were highly visible signs of Confucianism's existence in imperial China. To many modern observers of traditional China, the temple cult is difficult to reconcile with the image of Confucianism as an ethical, humanistic, rational philosophy. The nine essays in this book are an attempt to recover the meaning and significance of the religious side of Confucianism. Among other subjects, the authors analyze the social, cultural, and political meaning attached to the cult; its history; the legends, images, and rituals associated with the worship of Confucius; the power of the descendants of Confucius, the main temple in the birthplace of Confucius; and the contemporary fate of temples to Confucius.

Wide-ranging and illustrated with twenty color images, Banjo Roots and Branches offers a wealth of new information to scholars of African American and folk musics as well as the worldwide community of banjo aficionados.

Contributors: Greg C. Adams, Nick Bamber, Jim Dalton, George R. Gibson, Chuck Levy, Shlomo Pestcoe, Pete Ross, Tony Thomas, Saskia Willaert, and Robert B. Winans.

Aimed at alumni and prospective students interested in the university's ongoing mission, as well as current faculty and students wishing to stay up to date on the work being done around them, An Illinois Sampler showcases the best, the most ambitious, and the most effective teaching practices developed and nurtured at one of the world's premier research universities.

Contributors are Nancy Abelmann, Flavia C. D. Andrade, Jayadev Athreya, Betty Jo Barrett, Thomas J. Bassett, Hugh Bishop, Antoinette Burton, Lauren A. Denofrio-Corrales, Lizanne DeStefano, Karen Flynn, Bruce W. Fouke, Rebecca Ginsburg, Julie Jordan Gunn, Geoffrey Herman, Laurie Johnson, Kyle T. Mays, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Audrey Petty, Anke Pinkert, Raymond Price, Luisa-Maria Rosu, D. Fairchild Ruggles, Carol Spindel, Mark D. Steinberg, William Sullivan, Richard I. Tapping, Bradley Tober, Agniezska Tuszynska, Bryan Wilcox, Kate Williams, Mary-Ann Winkelmes, and Yi Lu.

There is a longstanding need for valid, reliable measurements of interpreting competence. Although rubrics and checklists are commonly used in both academic and employment settings, a review of available rubrics indicates that many do not focus on interpreting performance. Traditional metrics for sign language interpreting often conflate language proficiency with interpreting proficiency. Conflating fundamental aspects of language in use—vocabulary, grammar, and prosody— with fundamental aspects of interpretation—content, intent, and monitoring—compromises the valid assessment of interpreting proficiency. Beyond Equivalence: Reconceptualizing Interpreting Performance Assessment argues for a shift toward more nuanced and evidence-based conceptualizations of interpreting, communication, and meaning to improve the creation and use of rubrics for assessment in interpreter education, certification, and professional development.

       This inaugural volume in the Currents series introduces a rubric and accompanying scale, which can be used to assess both simultaneous and consecutive interpreting performance in terms of both process and product, in both signed and spoken language interpreting, and in a variety of settings. Beyond Equivalence offers an appreciation of the multivarious nature of meaning in the interpreting process and presents a new paradigm for the measurement of interpreting proficiency.

This book moves scholarly debates beyond the old question of whether or not international institutions matter in order to examine how they matter, even in a world of power politics. Power politics and international institutions are often studied as two separate domains, but this is in need of rethinking because today most states strategically use institutions to further their interests. Anders Wivel, T.V. Paul, and the international group of contributing authors update our understanding of how institutions are viewed among the major theoretical paradigms in international relations, and they seek to bridge the divides. Empirical chapters examine specific institutions in practice, including the United Nations, International Atomic Energy Agency, and the European Union. The book also points the way to future research. International Institutions and Power Politics provides insights for both international relations theory and practical matters of foreign affairs, and it will be essential reading for all international relations scholars and advanced students.

In this collection, Amy Louise Wood and Natalie J. Ring present nine groundbreaking essays about the carceral system and its development over time. Topics range from activism against police brutality to the peculiar path of southern prison reform to the fraught introduction of the electric chair. The essays tell nuanced stories of rapidly changing state institutions, political leaders who sought to manage them, and African Americans who appealed to the regulatory state to protect their rights.

Contributors: Pippa Holloway, Tammy Ingram, Brandon T. Jett, Seth Kotch, Talitha L. LeFlouria, Vivien Miller, Silvan Niedermeier, K. Stephen Prince, and Amy Louise Wood

Nearly four decades ago Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene, famously reducing humans to “survival machines” whose sole purpose was to preserve “the selfish molecules known as genes.” How these selfish genes work together to construct the organism, however, remained a mystery. Standing atop a wealth of new research, The Society of Genes now provides a vision of how genes cooperate and compete in the struggle for life.

Pioneers in the nascent field of systems biology, Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher present a compelling new framework to understand how the human genome evolved and why understanding the interactions among our genes shifts the basic paradigm of modern biology. Contrary to what Dawkins’s popular metaphor seems to imply, the genome is not made of individual genes that focus solely on their own survival. Instead, our genomes comprise a society of genes which, like human societies, is composed of members that form alliances and rivalries.

In language accessible to lay readers, The Society of Genes uncovers genetic strategies of cooperation and competition at biological scales ranging from individual cells to entire species. It captures the way the genome works in cancer cells and Neanderthals, in sexual reproduction and the origin of life, always underscoring one critical point: that only by putting the interactions among genes at center stage can we appreciate the logic of life.

This volume brings to English-language readers the results of an important long-term project of historians from China and Japan addressing contentious issues in their shared modern histories. Originally published simultaneously in Chinese and Japanese in 2006, the thirteen essays in this collection focus renewed attention on a set of political and historiographical controversies that have steered and stymied Sino-Japanese relations from the mid-nineteenth century through World War II to the present.

These in-depth contributions explore a range of themes, from prewar diplomatic relations and conflicts, to wartime collaboration and atrocity, to postwar commemorations and textbook debates—all while grappling with the core issue of how history has been researched, written, taught, and understood in both countries. In the context of a wider trend toward cross-national dialogues over historical issues, this volume can be read as both a progress report and a case study of the effort to overcome contentious problems of history in East Asia.

Here is a sober report by fifteen of the nations leading experts on desegregation, the product of an American Academy study group that met to assess the radically changed character of the urban school desegregation struggle over the quarter century since the Supreme Court”s landmark decision. The distinguished contributors differ sharply in their ideas about the nature of this vexing social problem and in their proposed remedies. They grapple with the range of relevant issues, from the effects of desegregation on children to societal attitudes, demographic developments, “white flight,” resegregation, incentives and other policy options, individual versus group rights, and ethical and legal considerations.

This is a book that reaches beyond the old disputes about busing to consider the issue in new ways and to suggest new options. If there are no quick solutions to the schooling problems in the nation’s big cities, neither is there any excuse for ignorance about this matter. Rich in its implications for the future, Race and Schooling in the City offers fresh assessments of one of the country’s most visible and intractable controversies.

Contributors: Ruth H. Chung, Jae Ran Kim, Jung Ha Kim, Rebecca Kim, Sharon Kim, Okyun Kwon, Sang Hyun Lee, Anselm Kyongsuk Min, Sharon A. Suh, Sung Hyun Um, and David K. Yoo

The thirteen essays in this volume underscore the unity and diversity of music research today. Ranging in topic from Gregorian chant to Russian lament, Chinese opera to American spirituals, the essays span the early ninth to the late twentieth centuries and move geographically from East Asia to Europe, North America, and the Pacific. The essays focus on some of the central issues in current musicological and ethnomusicological research: the change and continuity in musical traditions, tune identity and metamorphosis, and the nature and function of musical notation.

Owing to the musical material, the diverse cultural contexts, and the different approaches and methodologies employed, the same theoretical issues are formulated and addressed in various ways. It is through variations that themes grow in significance and beauty. The unity in and coherence of modern musicological discourse, though still elusive, are within reach in this volume.

Pakistan, which since 9/11 has come to be seen as one of the world’s most dangerous places and has been referred to as “the epicenter of international terrorism,” faces an acute counterterrorism (CT) challenge. The book focuses on violence being perpetrated against the Pakistani state by Islamist groups and how Pakistan can address these challenges, concentrating not only on military aspects but on the often-ignored political, legal, law enforcement, financial, and technological facets of the challenge.

Edited by Moeed Yusuf of the US Institute of Peace, and featuring the contributions and insights of Pakistani policy practitioners and scholars as well as international specialists with deep expertise in the region, the volume explores the current debate surrounding Pakistan’s ability—and incentives—to crack down on Islamist terrorism and provides an in-depth examination of the multiple facets of this existential threat confronting the Pakistani state and people.

The book pays special attention to the non-traditional functions of force that are central to Pakistan’s ability to subdue militancy but which have not received the deserved attention from the Pakistani state nor from western experts. In particular, this path-breaking volume, the first to explore these various facets holistically, focuses on the weakness of political institutions, the role of policing, criminal justice systems, choking financing for militancy, and regulating the use of media and technology by militants. Military force alone, also examined in this volume, will not solve Pakistan’s Islamist challenge. With original insights and attention to detail, the authors provide a roadmap for Western and Pakistani policymakers alike to address the weaknesses in Pakistan’s CT strategy.

Speaking about Chinese writing entails thinking about how writing speaks through various media. In the guises of the written character and its imprints, traces, or ruins, writing is more than textuality. The goal of this volume is to consider the relationship of writing to materiality in China’s literary history and to ponder the physical aspects of the production and circulation of writing. To speak of the thing-ness of writing is to understand it as a thing in constant motion, transported from one place or time to another, one genre or medium to another, one person or public to another.

Thinking about writing as the material product of a culture shifts the emphasis from the author as the creator and ultimate arbiter of a text’s meaning to the editors, publishers, collectors, and readers through whose hands a text is reshaped, disseminated, and given new meanings. By yoking writing and materiality, the contributors to this volume aim to bypass the tendency to oppose form and content, words and things, documents and artifacts, to rethink key issues in the interpretation of Chinese literary and visual culture.