Images provoke! This volume explores the role of images in contemporary Islam by turning to the act of provocation. Moving beyond a common focus within the study of religious visuality on art, aesthetic value, and perceptions of beauty or coherence, it shows how, when, and why images dare, shock, terrorize, confront, challenge, mock, shame, taunt, and offend, either intentionally or unintentionally, and as such lead to both confrontation and affective religious engagement. Exploring and experimenting with the relationship between text and image, the chapters draw attention simultaneously to the messiness of everyday life and to highly targeted, disruptive interventions that mark religious contestation in an era of escalating mobility and digital multiplicity. Ranging broadly from visual jihad to nudity, from public scandal to ‘multicultural clumsiness’, they ultimately converge to illuminate a phenomenon that has received little attention so far: intense provocation as being among religion’s most significant mediations.

Mobility of mankind has increased enormously in the past few decades. People leave their homes and native countries for business and study, for vacation or to flee from unsafe conditions like wars and natural disasters. In all cases the sojourner faces a dual challenge of breaking with the familiar home environment and adjusting to new surroundings. This book deals with the psychological and health consequences of leaving the familiar home and the process of creating a new one. The focus is mainly on acculturation stress and homesickness, which both are relevant to those who travel. Acculturation refers to the process and outcome of a person’s encounter with, and adaptation to, a culturally new and different environment. Homesickness is defined as a depression-like reaction to leaving one’s home. The contributions in this book present empirical data as well as theoretical and conceptual discussions. Causes, consequences, moderating variables, and theoretical explanations are discussed. Both short-term (e.g., vacations) and long-term (e.g. immigration) separations from home receive attention. By combining these different but related topics, this book provides a valuable overview for researchers, teachers, students and professionals working with people who present with problems related to migration or traveling.

Public diplomacy enables private citizens to be involved in international relations either through initiatives sponsored by governments or through direct people-to-people contacts in areas such as culture, business, education, tourism and sport. Public Diplomacy in Ireland and Japan traces the evolution of this growing branch of diplomacy and examines the role it has played in the foreign policies of Ireland and Japan, and in their bilateral relationship. It concludes that public diplomacy has contributed significantly to strengthening the links between the two countries.

Every nation in Asia has dealt with COVID-19 differently and with varying levels of success in the absence of clear and effective leadership from the WHO. As a result, the WHO’s role in Asia as a global health organization is coming under increasing pressure. As its credibility is slowly being eroded by public displays of incompetence and negligence, it has also become an arena of contestation. Moreover, while the pandemic continues to undermine the future of global health governance as a whole, the highly interdependent economies in Asia have exposed the speed with which pandemics can spread, as intensive regional travel and business connections have caused every area in the region to be hit hard. The migrant labor necessary to sustain globalized economies has been strained and the security of international workers is now more precarious than ever, as millions have been left stranded, seen their entry blocked, or have limited access to health services. This volume provides an accessible framework for the understanding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia, with a specific emphasis on global governance in health and labor.

Flexible Polyurethane (PUR) foams, in use since the 1950s and familiar from furniture upholstery and other domestic textiles, can be found in museum collections in numerous art and design objects. However, these exhibits pose severe conservation problems due to the ageing of the foam caused by photo-oxidation, leading to discoloration, loss of strength and fl exibility, and fi nally the crumbling of the object. This defi nitive work outlines the most up-to-date methods of restoring fl exibility of older foams and protecting new foams from degradation by coating them with stabilising systems acting effectively as a ‘sunblock’. The author, an experienced conservator, describes the research involved in developing the new methods and their impact on the visual, textural and chemical properties of treated PUR foams. One of the chapters details the preparation and application of the light stabilizing system to PUR foams.

The Pursuit of Justice is the first book to examine three separate instances of soldiers risking their lives during wartime to protest injustices being perpetrated by military authorities: within the United States Army during the American Civil War, the Australian Imperial Force during World War I, and the British Army during World War II. Nathan Wise explores the three events in detail and reveals how-despite the vast differences in military forces, wars, regions of the world, and eras-the soldiers involved all shared a common sense of justice and responded in remarkably similar ways.