Refugees and Migrants in Contemporary Film, Art and Media

Migration in the 21st century is one of the pre-eminent issues of our present historical moment, a phenomenon that has acquired new urgency with accelerating climate change, civil wars, and growing economic scarcities. Refugees and Migrants in Film, Art and Media consists of eleven essays that explore how artists have imaginatively engaged with this monumental human drama, examining a range of alternative modes of representation that provide striking new takes on the experiences of these precarious populations. Covering prominent art works by Ai Weiwei and Richard Mosse, and extending the spectrum of representation to refugee film workshops on the island of Lesvos as well as virtual reality installations of Alejandro G. Iñárritu and others, the chapters included here focus on the power of aesthetic engagement to illuminate the stories of refugees and migrants in ways that overturn journalistic clichés.

Retrodicting the rise, spread, and fall of large-scale states in the Old World

Understanding the rise, spread, and fall of large-scale states in the ancient world has occupied thinkers for millennia. However, no comprehensive mechanistic model of state dynamics based on their insights has emerged, leaving it difficult to evaluate empirically or quantitatively the different explanations offered. Here I present a spatially- and temporally-resolved agent-based model incorporating several hypotheses about the behavior of large-scale (>200 thousand km2) agrarian states and steppe nomadic confederations in Afro-Eurasia between the late Bronze and the end of the Medieval era (1500 BCE to 1500 CE). The model tracks the spread of agrarian states as they expand, conquer the territory of other states or are themselves conquered, and, occasionally, collapse. To accurately retrodict the historical record, several key contingent regional technological advances in state military and agricultural efficiencies are identified. Modifying the location, scale, and timing of these contingent developments allows quantitative investigation of historically-plausible alternative trajectories of state growth, spread, and fragmentation, while demonstrating the operation and limits of the model. Under nominal assumptions, the rapid yet staggered increase of agrarian state sizes across Eurasia after 600 BCE occurs in response to intense military pressure from ‘mirror‘ steppe nomadic confederations. Nevertheless, in spite of various technological advances throughout the period, the modeled creation and spread of new agrarian states is a fundamental consequence of state collapse and internal civil wars triggered by rising ‘demographic-structural’ pressures that occur when state territorial growth is checked yet (warrior elite) population growth continues. Together the model’s underlying mechanisms substantially account for the number of states, their duration, location, spread rate, overall occupied area, and total population size for three thousand years.

The impact of Arab Spring Revolutions on the purposes of Islamic Sharia: أثر ثورات الربيع العربي على مقاصد الشريعة

This research aims to study the impact of the Arab Spring revolutions on the purposes of Sharia. I relied on the descriptive analytical method in writing this research, and it contained three sections, and I touched upon the effects of revolutions on the purpose of protection of Life, Lineage, and Intellect, also, I talked about the purpose of protection of religion in terms of moral values in the light Arab Spring. And this study also discussed the economic effects of the revolutions on the spring countries and their neighboring countries as well. After researching the effects of the Arab Spring, I concluded that the deterioration of the security and political conditions had a negative impact on various aspects of the religious, social and economic life of the countries of the Spring, and the purposes of Sharia are to preserve the reasons for which the revolutions took place, and that the Arab Countries Threatened with division due to the spread of sectarian and terrorist movements, as well as civil wars.

Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogies

Part 3: Beyond the Songs contains three chapters. “Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Pedagogies” presents summaries of these teaching approaches alongside strategies to responsibly integrate the repertoire into school curriculums. “Music in Central America” is a brief overview of the diverse and rich music genres of the region and how historic events introduced, shaped, and eradicated music traditions. Genres described include music in the classic Mayan period, folkloric dance, Spanish music, the marimba, Nueva Canción, Garifuna music, Miskitu music, and current traditions. “A Brief History of Central America” provides a historical context for the song collection. Beginning with the first civilizations and ending with current events, this chapter chronicles the political history of the region, including the involvement of the U.S. government in business affairs and civil wars. This overview allows the reader to develop an awareness of the effects of colonization, continued foreign involvement, current political situations, and a basic understanding of human migration patterns from Central America to North America.

The Wars of the 1860s and the Atlantic (Americas and Europe)

During the 1860s, widespread warfare beset the Americas and Europe. Fighting resulted from challenges to existing political accommodations, and evolved into civil wars or interstate violence. Concurrently, economic and technological transformations through the 1860s aided long-distance communications, such as the coming of the telegraph and a much faster spread of steam power that helped to disseminate news and share experiences. All over the Atlantic, the triumph of national unification was the most visible result of the bloodbath, expanding state capacities and reinforcing the role of national symbols as common elements of a shared identity. Political and administrative centralization affected the exercise of local power in different ways, mainly in its capacity to recruit members of communities for war; appealing to national values and identities gradually became central in the demands for cooperation and sacrifice. After the end of combat, national authorities established regimes founded either on new constitutions or on amendments added to existing documents, the goal of which was reordering society according to rules capable of regulating and institutionalizing regional conflicts, simultaneously incorporating demands for representation and liberalization. These same groups demonstrated less efficiency when dealing with ethnic and social conflicts, sources of deeper divisions in societies that pretended to be consistent, progressive, and unified.