The concept of "scripture" as written religious text is reexamined in this close analysis of the traditions of oral use of the sacred writings of... religions around the world. Pointing out the central importance of the oral and aural experience of religious texts in the life of religious communities of both Eastern and Western cultures, William Graham asserts the need for a new perspective on how scripture has been appropriated and used by the vast majority of all people who have been religious, most of whom could neither read nor write.

Spiritual practice is not some kind of striving to produce enlightenment, but an expression of the enlightenment already inherent in all things: Such... is the Zen teaching of Dogen Zenji (1200–1253) whose profound writings have been studied and revered for more than seven hundred years, influencing practitioners far beyond his native Japan and the Soto school he is credited with founding. In focusing on Dogen's most practical words of instruction and encouragement for Zen students, this new collection highlights the timelessness of his teaching and shows it to be as applicable to anyone today as it was in the great teacher's own time. Selections include Dogen's famous meditation instructions; his advice on the practice of zazen, or sitting meditation; guidelines for community life; and some of his most inspirational talks. Also included are a bibliography and an extensive glossary.

According to Robert L. Suettinger, the 1989 military assault on student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square marked a critical turning point in U.S.-China... affairs. In Beyond Tiananmen, Suettinger traces the turbulent bilateral relationship since that time, with a particular focus on the internal political factors that shaped it.

Recent discussion about the role of civil society in democratic governance around the world and the decline of social capital in the US has raised... pressing theoretical and empirical questions about the character of contemporary societies and the social and institutional correlates of sound and dynamic democracies. This debate has reached a North American and European audience that extends well beyond academia.The predominant refrain in the debate, following Alexis de Tocqueville's 160-year-old analysis of democracy in America, attaches tremendous importance to the role of voluntary associations in contemporary democracies. Participation in such groups is said to produce social capital, often linked to high levels of social trust. Social capital in turn is conceived as a crucial national resource for promoting collective action for the common good.Beyond Tocqueville presents 21 varied essays on how civic engagement and political and economic cooperation are generated in contemporary societies, linking theoretical discourse with public policy and actual behaviors.

In essays written jointly by specialists on Soviet and German history, the contributors to this book rethink and rework the nature of Stalinism and... Nazism and establish a new methodology for viewing their histories that goes well beyond the now-outdated twentieth-century models of totalitarianism, ideology, and personality. Doing the labor of comparison gives us the means to ascertain the historicity of the two extraordinary regimes and the wreckage they have left. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, scholars of Europe are no longer burdened with the political baggage that constricted research and conditioned interpretation and have access to hitherto closed archives. The time is right for a fresh look at the two gigantic dictatorships of the twentieth century and for a return to the original intent of thought on totalitarian regimes - understanding the intertwined trajectories of socialism and nationalism in European and global history.

In essays written jointly by specialists on Soviet and German history, the contributors to this book rethink and rework the nature of Stalinism and... Nazism and establish a new methodology for viewing their histories that goes well beyond the now-outdated twentieth-century models of totalitarianism, ideology, and personality. Doing the labor of comparison gives us the means to ascertain the historicity of the two extraordinary regimes and the wreckage they have left. With the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, scholars of Europe are no longer burdened with the political baggage that constricted research and conditioned interpretation and have access to hitherto closed archives. The time is right for a fresh look at the two gigantic dictatorships of the twentieth century and for a return to the original intent of thought on totalitarian regimes - understanding the intertwined trajectories of socialism and nationalism in European and global history.

In their introduction to Beyond Tracking, Jeannie Oakes and Marisa Saunders offer a sobering assessment of American high schools: Evidence abounds that... high schools simply don t work very well: witness strikingly high dropout rates, large percentages of graduates unprepared to succeed in college or career, education gaps that jeopardize African American and Latino students life chances, and widespread student disengagement. This pervasive dysfunction exacts a high price from students and from the nation s social, economic, and civic welfare. Beyond Tracking responds to this dilemma by delineating and promoting an innovative and well-defined notion of multiple pathways. The book s authors clearly distinguish their use of the term multiple pathways from any updated version of the tracking system that marked so many American high schools during the past century, and from career and technical education programs. Instead, Oakes and Saunders propose a system of multiple pathways that will provide both the academic and real-world foundations that students need for advanced learning, training, and preparation for responsible civic participation. All multiple pathways schools will have four main components: a college-preparatory core; a professional/technical core; field-based learning and realistic workplace simulations; and additional support services to meet the particular needs of students and communities. In this conception of multiple pathways, students and their families choose from among a variety of options, all of which lead students to the same destination: preparation to succeed in both college and career, not one or the other. In its detailed and innovative examination of multiple pathways, Beyond Tracking makes a crucial contribution to current discussions about high school reform and the educational challenges of the 21st century.

In recent years, our understanding of how children learn to read has undergone monumental change. Looking beyond the "visible" (print) system involved... in learning to read, researchers have made exciting discoveries about the critical role of "invisible" (linguistic and cognitive) systems. Although the instructional implications of these discoveries are extraordinary, these research findings have not yet become part of our general cultural knowledge. And, as inevitably happens when deeply-rooted, traditional belief systems are challenged, the backlash has begun.In Beyond Traditional Phonics, Margaret Moustafa fills you in on these exciting new research discoveries of how children learn to read and relates them to reading instruction. This book gives a comprehensive yet accessible picture of how children learn to read, describing: the origins of our traditional assumptions about beginning reading and problems research has uncovered about these assumptions discoveries about the linguistic processes children use to figure out unfamiliar print words discoveries about how children learn letter-sound correspondencesdiscoveries about how children begin their journey into literacya new method of teaching phonics based on children's natural learning strategiessuggestions on creating a research-based infrastructure to support reading instruction. Moustafa maintains that learning to read doesn't have to be hard or frustrating. It can and should be a joyous adventure. The key is to make that journey a happy and successful one.

Beyond Training Ain't Performance Fieldbook provides a clear and concise roadmap for anyone wishing to implement human performance principles in their... organization. It is a direct answer to fans of the 2004 book, Training Ain't Performance, who asked for implementation guidance in the same whimsical, informative, and entertaining format as the original book. You will find useful worksheets and assessments, tools and practical advice that will speed your organization toward realizing the value of a performance approach. To make your job even easier, the book includes accompanying digital material (available via download) with all the needed worksheets and tools to get you started today.

"We need training for everyone in the organization on the importance of high-quality customer service -- immediately!" With requests like these... pouring in from managers and executives, it's no wonder so many training departments are trapped in a flurry of activity. Moving from project to project, departments get sapped of the time and energy required to shift their focus from making isolated ""quick fixes"" to becoming drivers of long-term, demonstrable human performance improvements. Now there's real help for making this important jump. Celebrated as the groundbreaking manual when it was first published in 1996, this completely revised second edition of "Beyond Training and Development" takes you step by step through a transformation process that will change the way you think about training and development. The book unlocks the extraordinary potential of Human Performance Enhancement (HPE), a systematic, holistic, results-based approach that focuses on accomplishments instead of behavior. Packed with eye-opening examples, ready-to-use self-assessment tools and worksheets (also available on the accompanying CD-ROM), easy-to-read charts and tables, concise summaries of the existing literature, and original data from a recent survey of training and development professionals, "Beyond Training and Development" guides you through the HPE process, including how to: * Build a convincing business case for change and assess the competencies your staff will need in their expanded roles. * Gather and analyze information on the current level of performance in your organization. * Envision what should be happening by conducting the often neglected step of environmental scanning--then comparing the results with your internal appraisal. * Clarify present and future performance gaps, either working as a solitary analyst or adopting a team approach that empowers stakeholders. * Identify the underlying causes of a performance gap -- the most important and difficult step in HPE -- with a focus on both fixing problems and seizing previously undetected performance enhancement opportunities. * Use a variety of powerful, proven HPE strategies to narrow or close human performance gaps at every level: the organizational environment, the work environment, the work, and the workers. * Demonstrate the bottom-line benefit of enacting HPE strategies in your organization. This is your one-stop action manual for transforming training and development into an indispensable driver of human performance improvements."

"This is not only a new philology but a new American linguistic philology. . . . Becker's harvest over a lifetime will be widely welcomed and... respected." -Paul Friedrich, University of Chicago". . . a book of extraordinary quality and importance." -James Boyd White, University of MichiganHow does Ralph Waldo Emerson sound in Kawi?In this collection of essays A. L. Becker develops a new approach to translation he calls modern philology, an approach that insists, beyond translation, on the sorting out of ambiguities and contexts of meaning. Becker describes how texts in Burmese, Javanese, and Malay differ profoundly from English in all the ways they have meaning: in the games they play, the worlds they constitute, the memories they evoke, and the silences they maintain. In each of these dimensions there are excesses and inadequacies of meaning that make a difference across languages.Drawn from over three decades of studying, teaching, translating and writing about Southeast Asian languages and literatures, the essays collected here for the first time are particular accounts of Becker's experiences in attempting to translate into or out of Burmese, Javanese, and Malay a variety of texts. They describe such things as the building of a Javanese shadowplay, how a Sanskrit story about the language of animals has been used in Indonesia, and some of the profound semantic silences a translator faces in taking an anecdote by Gregory Bateson from English into Malay.In linguistics, the essays emphasize important kinds of nonuniversality in all aspects of language and look toward a new theory of language grounded in American pragmatism. In anthropology, the essays demonstrate that much of culture can be described in terms of text-building strategies. And for the comparativist, whether in literature, history, rhetoric, music, or psychology, the essays provide a new array of tools of comparison across distant languages and cultures.A. L. Becker is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology, University of Michigan.

This important study explores various dimensions of trauma from an integrative, interdisciplinary perspective. Articles by international experts... examine cultural intricacies and the moral and political nuances that shape individuals' responses to particular traumatic situations.

The quest for extraterrestrial life doesn't happen only in science fiction. This book describes the startling discoveries being made in the very real... science of astrobiology, an intriguing new field that blends astronomy, biology, and geology to explore the possibility of life on other planets. Jeffrey Bennett takes readers beyond UFOs to discuss some of the tantalizing questions astrobiologists grapple with every day: What is life and how does it begin? What makes a planet or moon habitable? Is there life on Mars or elsewhere in the solar system? How can life be recognized on distant worlds? Is it likely to be microbial, more biologically complex--or even intelligent? What would such a discovery mean for life here on Earth? Come along on this scientific adventure and learn the astonishing implications of discoveries made in this field for the future of the human race. Bennett, who believes that "science is a way of helping people come to agreement," explains how the search for extraterrestrial life can help bridge the divide that sometimes exists between science and religion, defuse public rancor over the teaching of evolution, and quiet the debate over global warming. He likens humanity today to a troubled adolescent teetering on the edge between self-destruction and a future of virtually limitless possibilities. Beyond UFOs shows why the very quest to find alien life can help us to grow up as a species and chart a course for the stars. In a new afterword, Bennett shares the most recent developments in extrasolar research, and discusses how they might further our quest to find alien life.

This revised edition updates and extends theory and research on nonuniversal developmental domains and related topics. New chapters include a summary of... ten years of additional research on the transitions model, as well as introductions to new work on the development of expertise, creativity, and cultural organisms. In this second edition, the author argues that developmental science has transformed since the first edition, consistent with the proposed changes for the field introduced in the first volume. Efforts are also made in this edition to bring the work into closer contact with cognitive science, educational research, contextual frameworks, and applied fields.