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Open Access
Education 2.0: Chronicles of Technological and Cultural Change in Egypt
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-11-17) Herrera, Linda
Education 2.0 offers a compelling portrait of Egypt’s bold attempt to overhaul its public education system amid sweeping political and technological transformation. Drawing on extensive oral history interviews, this book traces the launch and rollout of the ‘New Education System’ initiated by the Ministry of Education in 2018, designed to modernize curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment in the digital age and change the ‘culture of learning’. The volume moves fluidly from macro-level state planning to the lived experiences of teachers and students, exploring the promises and pitfalls of top-down reform. Conducted partly during the COVID-19 pandemic, the research captures Egypt’s first large-scale experiment with hybrid and distance learning. Interviews with key actors—from policymakers and tech developers to students and educators—reveal competing visions, unintended consequences, and the challenges of culturally transforming education systems in a middle-income country where private tutoring is rife, the sector is chronically under resourced, and politics overshadows policy. This book is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in education reform, digital transformation, and the role of the state in shaping learning futures in the Global South. It is also an excellent case study for courses in Middle East studies and comparative and international education.
Open Access
Perceptron
(punctum books, 2025-11-21) Dobson, James E.; Mosteirin, Rena J.
Perceptron is a work of experimental poetry and a critical biographical reading of Frank Rosenblatt (1928–1971) and his 1957 invention, the Perceptron. The Perceptron was the first widely publicized and used machine learning device and the origin of much contemporary neural network technology. Rosenblatt was a psychologist, a computer engineer, a musician, an amateur astronomer, a sailor, and a poet. The Perceptron was born from an interdisciplinary mix of ideas and was so far ahead of its time that it was widely misunderstood by other scientists and the public. This mechanical invention, imagined as an alternative to general purpose digital computers, and its algorithmic implementation as a simulation of the device was deeply rooted in mid-twentieth century neuroscience and psychological theories of behavior. Introduced to the world by one newspaper under the headline “Shades of Frankenstein!” in 1958, following a public demonstration in Maryland sponsored by the US Navy, the Perceptron was a radical new approach to designing computer systems. What made it different was its design as a simplified model of animal vision systems. The Perceptron could perform pattern recognition and matching from a collection of simple visual objects. It was innovative and impressive, but it was also constantly oversold by its financial supporters, the press, and by its inventor. Perceptron traces, contextualizes, and celebrates the ideas that would become embedded in this early thinking machine and that animated the excitement and promise that would eventually turn to frustration and failure during Rosenblatt’s tragically short lifetime.
Open Access
Allocation, Distribution, and Policy: Notes, Problems, and Solutions in Microeconomics
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-11-04) Bowles, Samuel; Chen, Weikai
Microeconomics has been transformed in recent decades by the increasing use of game theory, behavioral economics, evolutionary modeling, network economics, mechanism design and attention to limited competition and asymmetric information. Bowles and Chen provide problem sets and exam questions (with carefully explained solutions) based on the new microeconomics, engaging learners with applications to income distribution, limited competition in goods and labor markets, climate change, and other public policy topics. Background notes explain the underlying concepts, their origin in the thinking of the great economists of the past, applications to macroeconomics, and relevant empirical evidence. This work provides a problem-based and policy oriented approach to teaching microeconomics, development, labor, environment, public economics and topics in business, management and public policy to upper level undergraduates, masters and doctoral students.
Open Access
The Intertwined World of the Oral and Written Transmission of Sacred Traditions in the Middle East
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-11-06) Fedeli, Alba; Khan, Geoffrey; Lundberg, Johan
In the medieval Middle East, the scriptures of Christianity, Judaism and Islam were transmitted in written and oral form. The means of written transmission and the textualisation of the oral reading of these scriptures exhibit many parallels, which reflect cultural contact and convergence across the various religious communities. This volume is the outcome of a project, funded jointly by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, that aimed to bring together strands of research related to various aspects of the transmission of these sacred texts in order to reach a deeper understanding of the intertwined world of the three major religions of the Middle East at their formative periods of development during the early Islamic centuries.
Open Access
A Portrait of Samuel Hartlib: In Search of Universal Betterment
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-11-07) Webster, Charles
The 2013 digitization of the vast Hartlib Papers archive highlighted the pressing need for a comprehensive modern study of Samuel Hartlib (1600–1662), a central figure in seventeenth-century intellectual life. Though educated in Eastern Europe, Hartlib spent his adult life in London, where he became a prolific correspondent and chronicler. His Ephemerides, spanning 1634 to 1660, and his extensive correspondence with leading thinkers across Britain and Protestant Europe offer an unparalleled window into the era’s religious, political, and scientific ferment. This volume goes beyond previous studies in both scope and depth, drawing extensively on archival sources and offering new interpretations of Hartlib’s network and influence. Organized chronologically, it explores the wide-ranging social, economic, and ideological pursuits of Hartlib and his collaborators—many of them renowned figures in their own right—and his close alignment with the Cromwellian cause. Providing the most complete portrait to date of the Hartlib circle’s emergence and impact, this study sets a new benchmark for scholarship and invites renewed engagement with one of the early modern period’s most visionary projects of knowledge, reform, and communication.
Open Access
A Place of Dreams: Desire, Deception and a Wartime Coming of Age
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-11-10) Twells, Alison
This book is a compelling blend of mystery, history, and creative non-fiction, that brings to life the wartime story of Norah Hodgkinson (1925-2009), a working-class schoolgirl, later clerical worker, and a prolific diarist. The book opens with a sailor’s letter of thanks for a pair of socks that Norah had knitted for the Royal Navy Comforts Fund in 1940―a gift that led to an exciting romance with the sailor’s dashing airman brother. But as the author pieces together Norah’s diary entries and the sailor’s letters, questions emerge about the men’s identities and intentions. 'A Place of Dreams' uncovers a dark tale of male rivalry and wartime anonymity, and a young woman’s appetite for life and love amidst unexpected dangers. Blending microhistory with family history and life-writing, the author navigates the challenges of Norah’s tweet-like diary entries. Inviting the reader into Norah’s world, she explores ways of uncovering the lives of ordinary women, so often absent from official archives. A Place of Dreams is a timely story in the era of #MeToo, juxtaposing Norah’s wartime experiences with contemporary feminist writing to pose questions―about sex, desire, modesty, and shame—that Norah could not voice in 1940s England. By reflecting on the relevance of history today, the story explores whether narratives like Norah’s can spark broader conversations about “intimate justice” and its connection to politics and cultural change. On a personal level, it delves into what Norah’s wartime experience means to the author as a historian, feminist, Norah’s great-niece, and a mother of girls. This volume will appeal to readers with an interest in women’s lives in the past, and academics and students in the fields of women’s and gender history, the history of sexuality, the social and cultural history of war/WW2 studies, diary studies, and the relationships of history, fiction and life-writing.
Open Access
Voix de Glace / Voice of Ice
(punctum books, 2025-11-26) Ifland, Alta
Voix de Glace/Voice of Ice is a series of prose poems about the estranged self living outside of one’s native land and away from one’s native tongue. Romanian poet Alta Ifland writes first in French, then translates her work into English, before returning to the original French for further revisions, a process of linguistic reconciliation as much as translation. Published in a bilingual, French–English edition, Ifland repeatedly turns to remembered images of her unnamed homeland to animate her unfamiliar home, creating, what poet Gary Young calls “a brilliant collection of prose poems document[ing] the quest for a coherent self, an authentic identity born out of the chaos of language and history." He continues, "Ifland's poems trace a radical process of de-creation—dismemberment of the body, dissolution of the ego, abandonment of the self—and the reinvention of a new identity, purified by the acid of tears. This new creation—tentative and rarified, “a child’s body of light”—earns a tenuous existence, but it proves to be enough to withstand the omnipresent threat of oblivion." Voix de Glace/Voice of Ice won the 2008 Prix Louis Guillaume du Poème en Prose/Louis Guillaume Prize for Prose Poetry. This title is a second revised and expanded edition, released as part of punctum’s Special Collections project.
Open Access
Joyce’s Choices: New Textual Parallels in James Joyce’s ‘Dubliners’, ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’, and ‘Ulysses'
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-11-10) Winnick, R. H.
This major new study of the textual parallels that permeate James Joyce’s three most widely read works––'Dubliners', 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man', and 'Ulysses'––documents and discusses some eight hundred instances, just over seven hundred of them in 'Ulysses' alone, of previously unrecognized, unidentified, or misidentified echoes, most of them verbatim, of antecedent texts ranging from major and minor works of English, Irish, Italian, French and other literatures to the poems, plays, popular songs, hymns, comic operas, triple-deckers, dime novels, penny dreadfuls, and print advertisements of his own day. By meticulously identifying hundreds of previously unknown instances of such intertextual echoes, such conscious or unconscious literary borrowings, Winnick’s study complements prior works on Joyce’s allusive practices by, among others, Weldon Thornton, Don Gifford, and, most recently and comprehensively, Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian, and John Turner, shedding important new light on Joyce’s reading, thematic intentions, and creative technique.
Open Access
Hylo Narrans: Echoes of Material Marronage
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-10-22) Toksöz Fairbairn, Kevin
This book explores the acoustic agency of brass as a vital medium through which histories of extraction, resistance, and collective creativity resonate. Blending metalwork, experimental instrument-building, and philosophical inquiry, the book listens closely to brass not just as material, but as storyteller—what the author calls hylo narrans, echoing Sylvia Wynter’s invocation of homo narrans. Grounded in their practice spanning artisanal craftsmanship and industrial labor, the author examines how materials respond, resist, and reshape meaning within the workshop, the concert hall, and the broader social fabric. By introducing chimeracords—hybrid sound objects forged from factory detritus—and their affordance for sonic experimentation, 'Hylo Narrans' challenges Western narratives of purity, utility, and control, inviting readers to consider alternative storylines posed by materials-in-flight. Weaving theories of marronage through situated acoustic knowledge, this book is essential reading for those working at the intersection of sound, matter, and community. It speaks to experimental musicians, sound artists, artistic researchers, and theorists interested in how sonic materiality relates to social space, cultural memory, and communal wellbeing. With a deep commitment to sonic collectivity and intermaterial dialogue, this volume reimagines the workshop as a site of resistance, resonance, and relational creativity.
Open Access
Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migrant Forms
(punctum books, 2025-10-03) Mukherji, Subha; Din-Kariuki, Natalya; Williams, Rowan
Crossings: Migrant Knowledges, Migrant Forms brings together activists, artists, scholars, and migrants with diverse histories to explore what the experience of migration does with, and to, knowledge, and how its own ways of knowing find expressive form. As the volume’s authors think about physical and imaginative crossings, and the traversals and transactions of knowledge they entail, the book itself crosses and complicates disciplinary and formal boundaries and the barriers between critical and creative intervention. Crucially, it brings together voices and forms emerging out of the experience of dislocation with responses to the encounters it generates. The volume’s discussions begin in the early modern world, and move freely across periods to dwell on the urgent experience of migrancy in our own times, while also responding to an urgent need to connect the local with the global experience of migrant knowledge and migrant aesthetics. Crossings stakes the claim that creative art, backed by humanities-based thinking, can meet the imaginative and ethical demands that the unknowable reality of mass displacement places on us, in a way that governments, institutions, and public discourse have calamitously failed to do. But aesthetic practice itself needs to be re-positioned if it is to rise to these political and human challenges, negotiating the points of friction between its own predilections and the matter of migration. Crossings offers “migrant forms” – art about migration, objects from migrant life shaped into artifacts, and migrant self-expressions – as the means of this imaginative re-orientation, and a tool for activating a radical alternative to economic models of social benefit. Crossings takes its place in an emergent ecology of migrant forms, both speaking to and participating in that ecology.
Open Access
Grammar of Etulo: A Niger-Congo (Idomoid) Language
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-10-20) Ezenwafor-Afuecheta, Chikelu I.
This work provides the first detailed linguistic description of the grammar of Etulo, a language spoken in Nigeria by a minority group in Benue and Taraba states. This description establishes Etulo as a tone language characterised by a predominant SVO word order, non-inflectional morphology, prominent aspectual values, obligatory complement verbs and verb serialization, among other features. This grammar also serves as a foundation for further description of the Etulo grammar and for the development of pedagogical materials needed in Etulo language teaching. Within the Benue-Congo sub group of languages, Etulo is classified as an Idomoid language alongside seven other languages with which it shares striking linguistic similarities. These include Idoma, Igede, Yatye, Alago, Akweya, Akpa, and Eloyi, none of which has yet received a robust linguistic description in the form of a grammar. This work therefore serves as a reference work not only for Etulo, but also for other Idomoid languages yet to be described. This volume will be of interest to researchers of African linguistics in general and Idomoid languages in particular, as well as Africanists, comparative linguists and language typologists more generally.
Open Access
Ontohackers: Radical Movement Philosophy in the Age of Extinctions and Algorithms, Part III: Metahistories of Movement: Philosophies in Becoming
(punctum books, 2025-10-24) del Val, Jaym*/Jaime
Part III provides is a critical history of (movement) philosophies, exposing the rise of the mechanistic vision as dominant anomaly emerging from a variety of other older proposals which have continued to exist in the background, returning more strongly since the 19th century, while exposing the limitations of recent attempts to free movement from the metaphysical tradition, which the book associates to the rise of human supremacism and its associated mass extinction cycle. The book proposes that movement is the core hidden motif of philosophy and diagnoses philosophies following a metaphilosophical and metaformative methodology that considers the perceptual–kinetic frames and biases underlying them. It is both a sketch for future expansion and an appendix to the previous two volumes, which grounds RMP in a critical revision of the literature, exposing the differences, while undoing some errors, and rescuing philosophies like that of many Presocratics from the misreading stemming from Aristotle. Hereby a shift from philosophia to philokinesia is proposed, toward a thinking of the body in motion, reversing philosophy from a tool of human supremacism to an undoing of it and a regeneration of movement diversification – and with it life – in the Biosphere.
Open Access
Performance Research Methods: Interdisciplinary Methods for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-10-24) Groot Nibbelink, Liesbeth; Karreman, Laura
'Performance Research Methods' is the first comprehensive guide to contemporary methodologies in performance studies, offering a clear and structured overview of the tools currently shaping research in theatre, dance, and performance. While many volumes focus on individual methods, this book uniquely surveys a range of approaches, presenting their historical background, analytical potential, practical application, and interdisciplinary relevance. Designed with clarity and usability in mind, each chapter follows a consistent structure: introduction, contextual framing, practical application, case study demonstration, interdisciplinary expansion, and suggestions for further reading. This format enables readers to compare methods with ease and understand how each can be adapted to real-world research. Developed by scholars actively teaching these methods in graduate and undergraduate programs, this hands-on volume addresses a key gap in the field: the lack of explicit, accessible discussions of performance research methods. Responding to the societal, technological, and ecological contexts of contemporary performance, the book makes visible the knowledge practices that often remain confined to the classroom. Accessible to students, researchers, and arts professionals alike, this volume provides an essential resource for anyone looking to engage critically and creatively with performance in the twenty-first century.
Open Access
Xouth, The Ape: A Tale of Manners
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-10-28) Pitsipios, Iakovos
'Xouth, the Ape', published in 1848 by Iakovos Pitsipios is a pioneering and satirical Greek novel that deftly blends humour, cultural critique, and biting social commentary. The novel is set in the aftermath of the Greek War of Independence. The story follows a young Greek man, desperate to present himself as a European aristocrat, who finds himself entangled with Xouth—an ape who is, in fact, a German travel writer transformed as punishment for his vanity and prejudices. Through the interactions between the protagonist and the ape-valet, Pitsipios skewers the pretensions of Greece’s newly minted elites, exposing the often comical efforts to mimic Western manners and ideals. The novel lampoons the wave of Western travel writers who ‘discovered’ Greece, poking fun at their colonial attitudes and superficial observations. The figure of Xouth serves as both a mirror and a caricature, reflecting the absurdities of identity, authenticity, and cultural imitation in a society striving to define itself between East and West. Translated in English for the first time, with an expansive Introduction by Neo G. Christodoulides, the novel explores themes of national identity, the pitfalls of mimicry, and the complexities of cultural exchange. Rich with allusions to both Greek and European literary traditions, Pitsipios draws sharp parallels between his characters’ quests for legitimacy and the real historical debates around language, class, and belonging in 19th-century Greece. The novel’s polyglossic style—a blend of archaic, official, and colloquial Greek—further emphasises the layered and fractured nature of Greek identity at the time. Despite its initial obscurity, the novel’s relevance endures: its sharp satire and insightful social analysis make it not just a humorous adventure, but a revealing document of post-revolutionary Greece and its ongoing negotiations with modernity, Western influence, and self-perception. 'Xouth, the Ape' is a hidden gem that deserves renewed attention from readers, scholars, and anyone fascinated by the crossroads of cultures.
Open Access
Польові зйомки: Оцифрування документальної спадщини у складних умовах
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-10-09) Баттерворт, Джоді; Пірсон, Ендрю; Сазерленд, Патрік; Фаркухар, Адам
Цей посібник обов'язково треба прочитати, якщо ви плануєте розпочати науковий проект з оцифрування. Посібник відповідає специфікаціям проєктів EAP (Програма збереження архівів, що перебувають під загрозою зникнення) Британської бібліотеки, він наповнений хорошими практичними рекомендаціями щодо планування та реалізації успішного проекту з оцифрування в потенційно складних умовах. «Польові зйомки» допоможе вам на кожному етапі вашої роботи, від визначення обсягу проєкту до практичних міркувань щодо обладнання, робочих процедур, підбору персоналу, обговорення місцевої специфіки та резервного копіювання даних і успішного завершення проєкту. Ця книга містить безліч корисних порад та підказок, отриманих з досвіду людей, які реалізовували проєкти в різних куточках світу - від Латинської Америки до Африки та Азії, змальовуючи виклики, з якими ви можете зіткнутися, та пропонуючи найкращі шляхи їх вирішення. В центрі уваги «Польових зйомок» - процес оцифрування, як за допомогою фотоапарата, так і сканера, тож посібник є вкрай корисним для тих, хто розглядає можливість реалізації подібного проєкту. Книга буде особливо корисною для тих, хто подає заявку на грант EAP, але поради на цих сторінках необхідні всім, хто цікавиться оцифруванням архівів.
Open Access
A Grammar of Jordanian Arabic
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-10-07) Herin, Bruno; Al-Wer, Enam
The present grammar is based on empirical data collected over more than three decades. It investigates the phonology and morphosyntax of Jordanian Arabic, with a focus on the traditional sedentary varieties of Central and Northern Jordan, locally known as Balgawi and Horani. Although theory-neutral, the description is typologically informed and should be accessible to anyone broadly acquainted with linguistics. The structure of the grammar follows the traditional division between phonology, morphology and syntax. The phonology chapter discusses both segmental and suprasegmental features. The morphology section investigates the structure of the major word classes, both open and closed, as well as minor classes such as interjections, discourse markers and other uninflected particles. The chapter on syntax explores the internal structure of noun and verb phrases and the syntax of simple and complex clauses as well as transversal phenomena such as agreement, negation and information structure. The book also includes a section devoted to the social dialectology of Jordan, and a discussion of the data upon which the grammar is based and three transcribed and translated texts belonging to the traditional dialect.
Open Access
The Negated Institution: Report from a Psychiatric Hospital
(punctum books, 2025-10-31) Basaglia, Franco
The Negated Institution: Report from a Psychiatric Hospital was first published in 1968 in Italian and caused an immediate sensation. It was an instant bestseller and was translated into numerous languages, but never into English. Edited by the Venetian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia, the book is a collection of writings, interviews, and debates which tell the story of the transformation of the Psychiatric Hospital in Gorizia, on the northeast border of Italy, into an open and “negated” institution. This story of an historically unique process of de-institutionalization—with the elimination of walls and barriers, the humanization of the hospital, the introduction of debates and meetings, the unlocking of wards, and the questioning of the very basis of all psychiatric hospitals—struck a nerve with the student and worker movements of 1968. It also gave a voice to the patients themselves, telling their stories of violence but also of liberation. The Negated Institution was highly sensitive to the contradictions of this project of opening up and negation, and called for the abolition of the entire system of psychiatric asylums, as well as new ways of understanding and contextualising mental illness and mental health. It led to debates in many countries within and outside of psychiatry and played a part in the 1978 “Basaglia law,” which eventually closed down the entire psychiatric hospital system in Italy—the first example of such total closure in the world, which endures to our contemporary moment. This is the first translation into English of this seminal text. The translator, John Foot, is an expert in the life and work of Franco Basaglia and has added notes and a critical introduction.
Open Access
Interprofessional Approach to Refugee Health: A Practical Guide for Interdisciplinary Health and Social Care Teams
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-09-09) Jalovcic, Djenana; McGowan, Emer; Quinn, Sarah
As global displacement reaches unprecedented levels, health and social care professionals increasingly find themselves supporting people with refugee experience whose health and wellbeing needs are complex, urgent, and often unmet. This timely and practical book provides essential guidance for professionals—particularly those new to working in this context—on how to deliver compassionate, culturally responsive, and effective care to forcibly displaced individuals and communities. Drawing on personal narratives of displacement, international research, global best practices, and firsthand professional experience, this volume addresses the many challenges refugees face in accessing appropriate health and social care, including trauma, chronic illness, mental health conditions, housing insecurity, and language barriers. Contributions from a diverse range of professionals—across nursing, occupational therapy, psychology, psychotherapy, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, and more—highlight the interprofessional collaboration necessary to meet these multifaceted needs. Through real-life case studies, reflective prompts, and a strong focus on person-centred, equitable care, this book centres the lived experiences of refugees and emphasizes the importance of listening, learning, and adapting care to each individual’s story. A vital resource for practitioners, students, policymakers, and educators, this book bridges the gap between evidence and practice and empowers professionals to build inclusive and responsive systems of care for those affected by forced migration.
Open Access
Models in Political Economy: Collective Choice, Voting, Elections, Bargaining, and Rebellion
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-09-12) Osborne, Martin J.
This volume explores topics that lie at the core of political economy: collective choice, voting, elections, bargaining, and rebellion. It presents the main formal models used to study the behavior of individuals and groups in political contexts, from choosing public policies and participating as voters and candidates in elections, to staging revolutions. Complete mathematical proofs are provided, to clarify the assumptions and deepen understanding. Part I presents models of collective choice. The main question is whether methods exist for selecting a reasonable compromise when individuals’ preferences differ. Models of voting are studied in Part II. Included are models in which the individuals differ in their preferences as well as ones in which they differ in their information. One chapter considers the implications of individuals having ethical concerns, and another studies a model of sequential voting. Models of electoral competition, under the assumption of various motivations for the candidates, are discussed in Part III. One chapter is devoted to the application of these models to the study of redistributive policy. The book concludes with Part IV, which covers models of bargaining and rebellion. The book offers a rigorous yet accessible foundation for understanding how formal tools can illuminate political phenomena.
Open Access
Representation Theory: A Categorical Approach
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-09-22) Grabowski, Jan E.
This volume offers a fresh and modern introduction to one of abstract algebra’s key topics. Guiding readers through the transition between structure theory and representation theory, this textbook explores how algebraic objects like groups and rings act as symmetries of other structures. Using the accessible yet powerful language of category theory, the book reimagines standard approaches to topics such as modules and algebras in a way that unlocks modern treatments of more advanced topics such as quiver representations and even representations of Hopf algebras and categories. Aimed at undergraduate students with prior exposure to linear algebra and basic group theory, the book introduces categories early and uses them throughout, providing a cohesive framework that mirrors current mathematical research. Though technically sophisticated, it also includes examples and exercises designed to develop intuition and understanding. Grabowski’s inclusion of computational tools such as SageMath offers a valuable and traditionally underdeveloped bridge between abstract theory and hands-on exploration. This is a uniquely valuable guide for students ready to stretch their understanding of the subject’s conceptual depth and evolving frontiers.