The Arabic Language and National Identity: A Study in Ideology
Considering the communicative and symbolic roles of language in
articulating national identity, Yasir Suleiman provides a fresh
perspective on nationalism in the Middle East. The links between
language and nationalism are delineated and he demonstrates how this
has been articulated over the past two centuries.
Straddling the domains
of cultural and political nationalism, Suleiman examines the Arab past
(looking at the interpretation and reinvention of tradition, and
myth-making); the clash between Arab and Turkish
cultural nationalism in the 19th and early 20th century; readings of
canonical treatises on the topic of Arab cultural nationalism, the
major ideological trends linking language to territorial nationalism;
and provides a research agenda for the study of language and
nationalism in the Arab context.
This the first full-scale study of this important topic and will be
of interest to students of nationalism, Arab and comparative politics,
Arabic Studies, history, cultural studies and sociolinguistics.
In this assessment of British imperialism, the underlying social, economic and political forces that facilitated expansion during the key period of 1870-1914 are examined. The book emphasizes that the British Empire was first and foremost established by predatory methods to fulfil the financial goals of imperial power without regard to the welfare of indigenous people. This short volume focuses upon the British empire and the development and growth of the country’s imperial system between 1870 and the outbreak of World War I, in the context of historically unprecedented global expansion by certain European powers.
This book integrates in a unique way all that is known about changing teachers' practice, the key to all educational development. All attempts to ` raise standards' or to 'make schools relevant to the 21st century' rest on helping teachers to develop new skills. The Professional Development of Teachers: Practice and Theory draws on the author's 30 years of experience, on a series of new empirical studies, and on the extensive literature on staff development to develop an integrated model of effective professional development.
Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain
The goal of computational cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain embodies the mind by using biologically based computational models comprising networks of neuronlike units. This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of the neocortex. Thus the text provides the student with knowledge of the basic biology of the brain as well as the computational skills needed to simulate large-scale cognitive phenomena.
The text consists of two parts. The first part covers basic neural computation mechanisms: individual neurons, neural networks, and learning mechanisms. The second part covers large-scale brain area organization and cognitive phenomena: perception and attention, memory, language, and higher-level cognition. The second part is relatively self-contained and can be used separately for mechanistically oriented cognitive neuroscience courses. Integrated throughout the text are more than forty different simulation models, many of them full-scale research-grade models, with friendly interfaces and accompanying exercises. The simulation software (PDP++, available for all major platforms) and simulations can be downloaded free of charge from the Web. Exercise solutions are available, and the text includes full information on the software.
Scientific American Special Edition: New Light on the Solar System
This special edition of Scientific American provides the latest developments about our corner of the cosmos, in articles written by the experts who are leading the investigations. Let the pages that follow guide your tour of our solar system, and savor the fact that you can visit these extraordinary nearby worlds and still be home for supper.
