An inquiry into the philosophical implications of climate change and its associated uncertainties.

Climate, God and Uncertainty brings together the philosophical approaches of pragmatism and (neo-) Kantianism in transcendental naturalism. The new approach is based on combining an expansive concept of “nature” with an emphasis on the separate ontological status of transcendental values. This book moves beyond Bruno Latour’s thought to understand what climate change means for philosophical anthropology and wider culture.

Referring mainly to works by Latour, William James, and Heinrich Rickert, this book develops a cultural philosophical approach called “transcendental naturalism.” This approach reinterprets the interface between science and politics in the context of climate change, highlighting, for instance, issues such as the religious disenchantment of nature, the scientific disbelief in a plurality of value-laden perspectives, and the disregard for non-modern worldviews in politics. In developing its argument, the book makes a methodological intervention on the sort of naturalism that guides both Latour’s work and a large part of the academic field called “science and religion.”
 

A collection of research and findings from the Thomas Coram Research Unit.

For fifty years, researchers at UCL’s Thomas Coram Research Unit have been undertaking ground-breaking policy-relevant social research. Their main focus has been social issues affecting children, young people, and families and the services provided for them. Social Research for our Times brings together different generations of researchers from the Unit to share some of the most important results of their studies.

Two sections focus on the main findings and conclusions from research into children and children services and on family life, minoritized groups, and gender. A third section is devoted to the innovative methods that have been developed and used to undertake research in these complex areas. Running through the book is a key strategic question: what should be the relationship between research and policy? Or put another way, what does “policy-relevant research” mean? This perennial question has gained new importance in the post-COVID, post-Brexit world that we have entered, making this text a timely intervention for sharing decades of experience. Taking a unique opportunity to reflect on the research context as well as research findings, this book will be of interest to researchers, teachers, students, and those involved in policy-making both in and beyond dedicated research units, and it can be read as a whole or sampled for individual standalone chapters.
 

Early childhood education and care has been a political priority in England since 1997, after a long period of neglect. Public funding has increased, and political parties aim to outbid each other in their offerings to families at each election. Transforming Early Childhood in England argues that, despite this attention, the system of early childhood services remains flawed and dysfunctional. National discourse is dominated by questions of the cost and availability of childcare, while a devalued workforce is characterized by a culture of quantifiable targets and measurement. With such deep-rooted problems, Claire Cameron and Peter Moss argue, early childhood education in England needs more than minor improvements. In the context of austerity measures affecting many young families, transformative change is urgent.
 
Transforming Early Childhood in England offers a critical analysis of the current system and proposes change based on a universal right to education. The book calls for revisions built on democratic principles, where all learning by all children is visible and recognized, educators are trusted and respected, and outcomes-driven targets are replaced. Combining criticism and hope, and drawing on inspiring research, the book is essential reading for students, educators, practitioners, parents, academics, and policymakers.
 

A detailed exploration of the governance of urban design around Europe.

Urban Design Governance takes a deep dive into the governance of urban design around Europe. It examines interventions in the means and processes of designing the built environment as devised by public authorities and other stakeholders across the continent, paying particular attention to the use of soft powers and allied financial mechanisms to influence design quality in the public interest. In doing so, the book traces the scope, use, and effectiveness of the range of informal, non-regulatory urban design governance tools that governments, municipalities, and others have at their disposal.
 

An argument for taking the craft work of surface enrichment of buildings more seriously in architectural history.
 
Architectural history has tended to marginalize the many types of refinement and enrichment of surfaces in stone, wood, and plaster that were fundamental aspects of early modern architecture. Enriching Architecture aims to retrieve and rehabilitate surface achievement as a vital element of early modern buildings in Britain and Ireland, arguing for the historical legitimacy of creative craft skill as a primary agent in architectural production. The contributors draw upon the major rethinking of craft and materials within the wider cultural sphere in recent years to deconstruct traditional, oppositional ways of thinking about architectural production. The book explores broad themes of surface treatment such as wainscot, rustication, plasterwork, and staircase embellishment, along with chapters focused on virtuoso buildings and set pieces that illuminate these themes.

Distinguished scholars contextualize and critically assess Jeremy Bentham’s writings on Australia.

This volume considers Jeremy Bentham’s Australian writings. In the first part of the volume, Bentham’s works are placed in their historical contexts, while the second part provides a critical assessment of the historical accuracy and plausibility of Bentham’s arguments against transportation from the British Isles. In the third part, attention turns to Bentham’s claim that New South Wales was founded illegally and to the imperial and colonial constitutional ramifications of that claim. The authors also discuss Bentham’s work of 1831 in which he supports the establishment of a free colony on the southern coast of Australia. In the final part, the authors shed light on the history of Bentham’s panopticon penitentiary scheme, his views on the punishment and reform of criminals and what role, if any, religion had to play in that regard, and discuss apparently panopticon-inspired institutions built in the Australian colonies.
 
This collection will appeal to readers interested in Bentham’s life and thought, the history of transportation from the British Isles and of British penal policy more generally, colonial and imperial history, Indigenous history, legal and constitutional history, and religious history.

Networks, Labour and Migration Among Indian Muslim Artisans provides an ethnography of life, work, and migration in a North Indian Muslim-dominated woodworking industry. It traces artisanal connections within the local context, during migration within India, and to the Gulf, examining how woodworkers utilize local and transnational networks, based on identity, religiosity, and affective circulations, to access resources, support, and forms of mutuality. However, the book also illustrates how liberalization, intensifying forms of marginalization and incorporation into global production networks have led to spatial pressures, fragmentation of artisanal labor, and forms of enslavement that persist despite geographical mobility and connectedness. By working across the dialectic of marginality and connectedness, Thomas Chambers thinks through these complexities and dualities by providing an ethnographic account that shares everyday life with artisans and others in the industry.
 

A dialogue among leading figures in history education research and practice.

The “knowledge turn” in curriculum studies has drawn attention to the central role that the knowledge of the disciplines plays in education and the need for fresh perspectives on knowledge-building. Knowing History in Schools explores these issues in the context of the discipline of history through a dialogue between the eminent sociologist of curriculum Michael Young, and leading figures in history education research and practice from a range of traditions and contexts. Focusing on Young’s “powerful knowledge” theorization of the curriculum, and on his more recent articulations of the “powers” of knowledge, this dialogue explores the many complexities facing history education. The book attempts to clarify how educators can best conceptualize knowledge-building in history education, and it will be of interest to history education students, history teachers, teacher educators, and history curriculum designers, as they navigate the challenges that knowledge-building processes pose for learning history in schools.
 

Introduces the system for planning and consenting Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects in England.

Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) are the major UK projects involving power stations and large renewable energy schemes, motorways, railways, and a range of other high profile, high impact, and sometimes controversial development schemes, including some closely linked to the United Kingdom’s transition to Net Zero. This book explains where the separate system for governing major infrastructure came from and how it operates in practice, with a particular focus on the relationship between planning, consent, and delivery of these infrastructure projects.

Detailed case studies of the A14 highway, Thames Tideway super sewer, Galloper offshore windfarm, and Progress Power station, drawing on research by the authors, illustrate issues of the often-overlooked continuing role of local government, the engagement of local communities and stakeholders, and the modification of schemes between consent and construction.
Confronting ongoing government planning reform, increased concern about climate change, and still unresolved consequences of Brexit, as well as timeless debates like over national need versus local impact, this timely book offers rich detail on the particular approach to major infrastructure planning in England but also speaks to wider issues around the governance of development and implementation of government policy under late capitalism.
 

An interdisciplinary approach to invisibility through the lens of the arts and sciences.

Picturing the Invisible presents different disciplinary approaches to articulating the invisible, that which is not known or not provable. The challenge is how to articulate these concepts, not only to those within a particular academic field but beyond, to other disciplines and society at large. As our understanding of the complexity of the world grows incrementally, so does our realization that issues and problems can rarely be resolved within neat demarcations. Therefore, the authors argue, the importance of finding means of communicating across disciplines and fields must become a priority. This book brings together insights from leading academics from a wide range of disciplines, including art and design, curatorial practice, literature, forensic science, medical science, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, philosophy, astrophysics, and architecture, who share an interest in exploring how in each discipline we strive to find expression for the invisible or unknown and to draw out and articulate some of the explicit and tacit ways of communicating those concepts that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries.

The first book dedicated to media and mediation in domains of public guruship and devotion.

Illuminating the mediatization of guruship and the guruization of media, this book bridges the gap between scholarship on gurus and the disciplines of media and visual culture studies. It investigates guru iconographies in and across various time periods and also the distinctive ways in which diverse gurus engage with and inhabit different forms of media: statuary, games, print publications, photographs, portraiture, films, machines, social media, bodies, words, graffiti, dolls, sound, verse, tombs, and more.

The book’s interdisciplinary chapters advance, both conceptually and ethnographically, our understanding of the function of media in the dramatic production of guruship and reflect on the corporate branding of gurus and on mediated guruship as a series of aesthetic traps for the captivation of devotees and others. They show how different media can further enliven the complex plurality of guruship, for instance in instantiating notions of “absent-present” guruship and demonstrating the mutual mediation of gurus, caste, and Hindutva.

Gurus and Media foregrounds contested visions of the guru in the development of devotional publics and pluriform guruship across time and space. Thinking through the guru’s many media entanglements in a single place, this book contributes new insights to the study of South Asian religions and to the study of mediation more broadly.
 

A collection of essays examining secular discourse in contemporary media spheres.

Diverse media ranging from print publications and TV series to social media platforms are crucial for producing and participating in the secular public sphere, setting the stage for debates, controversies, and activism related both specifically and non-specifically to atheistic discourse. Global Sceptical Publics brings together contributions that analyze the diverse ways in which a variety of religious skeptics, doubters, and atheists engage with different forms of media as the framework for understanding contemporary communication and the formation of nonreligious publics. With authors from diverse backgrounds and disciplines, the book contributes new insights to the growing field of nonreligion studies, in particular, by demonstrating how skeptical groups can unsettle preconceived expectations of the public sphere.

The first-ever study of Leonora Bernardi’s life along with a modern edition of her recently discovered literary corpus.

Leonora Bernardi (1559–1616), a gentlewoman of Lucca, was a highly regarded poet, dramatist, and singer. She was active in the brilliant courts of Ferrara and Florence at a time when creative women enjoyed exceptional visibility in Italy. Like many such figures, she has since suffered historical neglect. Drama, Poetry and Music in Late-Renaissance Italy presents the first-ever study of Bernardi’s life along with a modern edition of her recently discovered literary corpus, which mostly exists in manuscripts. Her writings are presented in the original Italian with new English translations, scholarly notes, and critical essays. Based on new archival research, the substantial opening section reconstructs Bernardi’s unusually colorful life. The second major section presents her pastoral tragicomedy Clorilli, one of the earliest secular dramatic works by a woman. The third section presents Bernardi’s secular and religious verse, which engaged with new trends in lyric and poetry for music, and was set by various key composers across Italy. The volume thus firmly positions Leonora Bernardi as a distinctive voice and dynamic player in the extraordinarily rich social, cultural, and geo-political networks of late-Renaissance Italy.