Ultimate Sovereignty and the Flexibility of the Islamic Caliphate/Democracy

March’s exceptional book profoundly deals with the ideas of popular sovereignty and the Caliphate in modern Islamic political thought. While this book covers the concept of popular sovereignty in quite detail, March’s portrayal fails to convince the reader whether or not Islamic democracies are possible as a result. Based on previous work on medieval Islamic political thought and public attitudes towards the Caliphate, I argue that conceptions of Islamic government have differed according to context, place and time, and in the modern era the public views the Caliphate as a vehicle for justice and welfare. This implies that Islamic government can still be broadly based on the principles of modern Islamic political thought while the exact institutional configurations may still be able to differ according to place, time and context. In conclusion, while March’s book carefully synthesizes the theoretical debates, it might not have far-reaching practical implications for Islamic democracy.

The Book Cover as a Paratext: Biblia Germanicolatina in the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

The book cover of Biblia Germanicolatina (1565), which is held at the Rare Books and Manuscrips Unit of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, is analysed in this paper. This Bible was printed in a 20-volume collection in Wittenberg on request of August the Elect of Saxony (1526–1586). It was printed in the Latin and German languages. This Bible later became a part of various European libraries. Biblia Germanicolatina is analysed in the light of the paratext theory, which as a book history term is first used by French literary theorist Gerard Genette (1987). Genette used this term to describe objects and subjects surrounding the text: text spacing, lettering, book covers and even book advertisements. The analysis is performed using the provenance method, which leads to discovering the origins of the book’s binding and its primary sources. As of right now, five out of the 20 volumes from the collection are known to be held in Lithuanian memory institutions. As a result of this research, we were able to identify the bookbinder from Wittenberg who ordered the plate for tooling in 1564.

BuddhistRoadPaper 6.3 "Inside Out: The Social Life of a Pair of Inscribed Book Covers from Ancient Khotan"

This paper presents the preliminary findings of an in-depth investigation of a pair of wooden book covers, each inscribed on the inside, which a Russian diplomat brought from the Tarim Basin to St. Petersburg. Pinpointing the find-spot of the covers as a significant archaeological site to the east of Khotan, the present research analyses the inscriptions, sheds new light on the materiality of the covers, and suggests that they were probably used as votive objects. A salient aspect of the covers is that they bear testimony to a close connection between the monastery, to which they once belonged, and some prestigious monasteries known from Chinese and Tibetan sources. Based on a careful reconstruction of the ties between these monasteries and their socio-religious implications, a tentative hypothesis is ventured on the nature of the binary system of Buddhist monasteries in the Kingdom of Khotan (ca. 1st c.?–1006).

Change and Continuity in the Prehistoric Rock Art of East Siberia

The book offers a detailed study of large corpus of rock art which is little known to an international audience. The book covers not only a huge region of East Siberia but also a period spanning from Late Paleolithic to the Iron Age, providing detailed accounts of the regional archaeology and rock art through the perspective of ethnicity, identity, and symbolism.

The Ghost in the Image

The Ghost in the Image offers a new take on the place that supernatural phenomena occupy in everyday life by examining the horror genre in fiction, documentary, and participative modes. The book covers a variety of media: spirit photography, ghost-hunting reality shows, documentary and fiction films based on the Amityville and Enfield hauntings, found-footage horror movies, experiential cinema, survival games, and creepypasta. These works transform our interest in ghosts into an interactive form of entertainment. Through a transmedial approach to horror, this book investigates our expectations regarding the ability of photography and video to work as evidence. A historical examination of technology’s role in at once showing and forging truths invites questions about our investment in its powers, which is pertinent to the so-called post-fact scenario. Behind our obsession with documenting everyday life lies the hope that our cameras will reveal something extraordinary. The obsessive search for ghosts in the image, however, shows that the desire to find them is matched by the pleasure of calling out a hoax.

Introduction

The introductory chapter deals with the Byzantine Orthodox Holy Week and its hymnography. This section of the book covers the Great Lent, a forty-day fasting period preceding Holy Week, as a baptismal/penitential liturgical cycle. The focus shifts then to Holy Week which culminates with Pascha or Easter vigil. The chapter reconstructs briefly the history of the Byzantine Holy Week with its main moments (i.e., Mar Sabas and Constantinopolitan rites and Constantinopolitan-Sabaic synthesis/symbiosis) and primary sources of evidence, such as the pilgrim Egeria’s Diary (384 C.E.) on Jerusalem rite. A close examination of Holy Week (Holy Monday through Holy Saturday) as observed currently by Orthodox communities follows. The introduction concludes with a brief summary of Byzantine hymnography prescribed for Holy Week, along with some of the most famous hymnographers, such as Theodore the Studite.

Between the Spreadsheets

Dirty data is a problem that costs businesses thousands, if not millions, every year. In organisations large and small across the globe you will hear talk of data quality issues. What you will rarely hear about is the consequences or how to fix it.<br><br><i>Between the Spreadsheets: Classifying and Fixing Dirty Data</i> draws on classification expert Susan Walsh's decade of experience in data classification to present a fool-proof method for cleaning and classifying your data. The book covers everything from the very basics of data classification to normalisation, taxonomies and presents the author's proven <b>COAT</b> methodology, helping ensure an organisation's data is <b>Consistent</b>, <b>Organised</b>, <b>Accurate</b> and <b>Trustworthy</b>. A series of data horror stories outlines what can go wrong in managing data, and if it does, how it can be fixed. <br><br>After reading this book, regardless of your level of experience, not only will you be able to work with your data more efficiently, but you will also understand the impact the work you do with it has, and how it affects the rest of the organisation.<br><br>Written in an engaging and highly practical manner, <i>Between the Spreadsheets</i> gives readers of all levels a deep understanding of the dangers of dirty data and the confidence and skills to work more efficiently and effectively with it.

Iconographies of ‘Childness’ and the Contemporary British Novel: Book Covers, Discourses, and Cultural Models

A sizeable segment of the contemporary British fiction market for adult readers consists of novels that focus on children and childhood. In accordance with interdisciplinary Childhood Studies, such texts can be understood as contributions to the social construction of children and childhood, or ‘childness’. Such constructions appear to be in particular demand in this phase of late modernity, when childhood is conceptualized as an antidote to the many uncertainties contemporary post-industrial societies are faced with. While on the level of societies, public constructions of childhood are best understood in terms of a Foucauldian notion of discourse, discourses are not what individual readers and book-buyers actually have in their minds when choosing a title. Rather, this article argues that the cover illustrations of these novels both activate and reinforce cultural models of ‘childness’ that readers have stored as schemata shared with their cultural community. On the basis of this alignment of discourse theory with a concept from cognitive anthropology, the article demonstrates that book covers play a role in maintaining particular conceptions of ‘childness’, and in feeding them back into the minds of the readers. Furthermore, the relevance of the book as a material artefact is once again acknowledged.1

Coserian peripatetics Book review: Eugeniu Coșeriu – Vocația universalității Edited and coordinated by Gheorghe Popa Știința Publishing House, Chișinău

Eugenio Coșeriu’s Monumental Centenary Event ‒ 100 years since his birth, is successufully celebrated both in the space of his native lands and abroad. A series of scientific and cultural events are organized. In this context, Știința Publishing House launches the Eugeniu Coșeriu – Vocația universalității / Vocation of Universality book collection under the coordination of Gheorghe Popa. The book covers the protagonist’life in thematic section: in the field of linguistics, literature, interviews ‒ dialogues with and about Eugenio Coseriu, evocations ‒ confessions and reconstructions, reflections on the great coserian model, and, of course, at the end, the iconographic compartment that makes accessible the life in images of master Coseriu.

A training on digital book production for teachers at Lab School of UPI, Purwakarta

The Community Service Program (PkM) is designed to provide practical training on digital book production for teachers at Lab School of UPI, Purwakarta. This project was conducted offline with 9 participants, under the COVID-19 health protocol. The material was presented in 3 forms, termed face-to-face, Zoom video conferencing and the training video. Also, 4 open-source web-based softwares were explored, including Canva for book covers, Vocaroo as an audio explainer and Animaker for motion graphics-based videos. The results of these three applications were combined by Sigil into an EPUB-formatted digital book. Subsequently, the training employed an interactive format, with a combination of classical and practical activities. Based on the overall results, the participants were known to obtain extensive knowledge and hands-on experience in digital book compilation. These teachers were able to operate the digital tools to create book covers, online audio recording and animated videos, as well as integrate the independent copies into digital books. Furthermore, the material content, delivery method and practical implementation showed a satisfactory outcome by 86.2, 85 and 88%, respectively. Therefore, the newly acquired skills are expected to reflect on the teaching materials for online learning at SD Lab School of UPI Purwakarta, during the COVID-19 pandemic.