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Open Access
Executive Orders
(punctum books, 2025-06-09) Organism for Poetic Research; Wilson, Rachael Guynn; Gorin, Andrew Michael
After the election of Donald Trump in 2016, a group of poets, artists, and activists conceived of a project wherein they could respond to the sudden and seemingly relentless barrage of Trump’s dystopian executive orders with a series of their own orders. The project, titled “Executive Orders,” was envisioned as a collaborative, freeform, “emergency” prose poem that would generate real-time responses to current events and the emerging American political landscape. The result was a poetic catalog of the people’s executive orders—orders that are at turns serious, absurd, satirical, philosophical, critical, utopian, and so on. Executive Orders began as one community’s effort to cope with and respond to the tidal wave of reactionary policies enacted or proclaimed during the years of Trump’s first administration. As an index of historical happenings that charts events in rough chronological order (including the Muslim-country travel ban, Black Lives Matter protests, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, the youth climate march, the January 6th riot at the US Capitol, and many other events), it stands as a documentary record of this historical period from the perspective of artists, writers, leftists, progressives, and other contributors, many of them anonymous. Executive Orders is also an experiment in crowdsourced collaborative making that tells a story about the ways we can—and can’t—come together to form a collective that could have a voice in political deliberations.
Open Access
When Katherine Brewed, a Play: Telling the Story of the Peasants’ Revolt and Today’s New Radical Theatre
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-06-27) Cresswell, John
In the sweltering heat of 1381, England's feudal foundations trembled as the Peasants' Revolt erupted—a rebellion that would forever echo through history. Triggered by an oppressive poll tax but fuelled by deeper injustices, this uprising saw land workers, artisans, and commoners rise to challenge the authority of landowners, church, and crown. 'When Katherine Brewed' brings this momentous event to life on stage, blending historical fidelity with a bold, radical perspective. Drawing from chronicles and centuries of literary reinterpretation, this devised play reveals the struggles of the forgotten: those who dared to dream of a world free from exploitation and tyranny. Through the lens of class struggle and solidarity, the story of Wat Tyler, John Ball, and their fellow rebels unfolds, exposing the duplicity of rulers and the undying hope of those who resist. Echoing the spirit of radical theatre traditions, this play reimagines this medieval rebellion with contemporary relevance, urging audiences to reflect on enduring issues of inequality and power. Both an homage to the past and a rallying cry for the future, this production is as much a tribute to those who fought as it is an invitation to envision a world transformed. Witness history, and the lessons it still holds.
Open Access
Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry
(punctum books, 2025-06-17) Sachs, Lynne; Olesker, Lizzie
Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry is a collection of writings and images from a performance and film set within a neighborhood laundromat, a microcosm of service work within our urban reality. With a focus on the people who are paid to wash and fold, Hand Book explores the convergence of dirt, stains, money, identity, and desire. Informed by both theory and history, filmmaker-poet Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker construct a model for making a site-specific work incorporating both live performance and film. From conversations with workers in laundromats around New York City, they develop a play that magnifies forms of manual labor that often go unrecognized. The core of Hand Book is Sachs and Olesker’s hybrid play-script which grew out of documentary material they collected in New York City over several years. Within this theatrical construct, the actors themselves navigate the dynamic between their laundry worker characters and who they are in their own lives. Images also engage with text to create an evocative graphic experience. Turning a page becomes an interactive, quasi-cinematic encounter, calling to mind the intimacy of touching other people’s clothes, almost like a second skin, the textural care for things kept close to the body. Hand Book includes essays, interviews, memoirs, and poetry that look at the relationship between art and social engagement. Observation, historical research, and fiction intersect, creating a patchwork of “what is” with a speculative, imagined “what was.” Historian and author Tera Hunter speaks to the importance of The Washing Society, a group of 3,000 Black women laundry workers who organized in Atlanta in 1881 for better pay and working conditions. Feminist historian Silvia Federici engages in a conversation about the meaning of reproductive labor and its relationship to laundry. Two leaders of a grassroots organization share their experience of immigration and activism. A dancer creates a gestural map of her choreography. An actor deconstructs the charged significance of her Civil War-era costume. Ultimately, Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry presents an illuminating dialogue between the documentary arts, feminism, film, immigration, labor history, and theater. Throughout, a playwright and filmmaker contemplate how art-making can alter our understanding of the social structures of city life. Sachs and Olesker’s short documentary film The Washing Society will be available via QR code upon release of the book.
Open Access
Housing, Heritage and Urbanisation in the Middle East and North Africa
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-06-03) Makhloufi, Lilia
This book explores the interconnection between housing, heritage and urbanisation. Bringing together architects, archaeologists, urban sociologists, urban designers, urban planners and landscape architects, this multi-authored and interdisciplinary volume presents diverse case studies from the Middle East and North Africa, shedding light on the past, present and future of residential spaces. With its focus to traditional, modern and contemporary housing in Egypt, Iran, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia, Housing, Heritage and Urbanisation in the Middle East and North Africa explores the correlation between architecture, urban planning and society. The contributors critique the impact of rapid urbanisation and global architectural standardisation, which often goes beyond local identity. Instead, they advocate for a sustainable urban development rooted in community needs and cultural heritage. Ultimately, this volume argues that successful urban planning must balance modernity with tradition, ensuring that housing reflects the lived experiences of its inhabitants. A crucial read for scholars and practitioners, it reaffirms that sustainable cities must be shaped by local needs, not just global trends.
Open Access
Uncovering European Private Law: A Student Handbook
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-06-05) Bartl, Marija; Mak, Chantal; Burgers, Laura
Aimed at bridging a crucial gap in legal education, Uncovering European Private Law provides a comprehensive introduction to the evolving field of European private law. This innovative handbook addresses the interplay of national, European, and transnational rules governing relationships between private actors, including individuals and businesses. Designed with students in mind, this volume not only covers foundational concepts but also explores cutting-edge developments in areas such as contract, tort, property, and company law. What sets this handbook apart is its contextual approach. By integrating societal and theoretical perspectives, it encourages students to critically evaluate private law's role in addressing global challenges like digitalization, sustainability, and globalization. Gathering the expertise of over twenty international law scholars, the handbook reflects the expertise of academics deeply engaged in teaching and research. With structured chapters and accessible narratives, this handbook replaces piecemeal materials previously used in courses. It offers coherence and depth, making it an essential resource for understanding the legal frameworks that shape commerce, legal practice, and broader societal issues. Whether for mandatory or elective courses, this guide empowers students to navigate and critically assess the dynamic field of European private law providing an essential resource for the private lawyers of the future.
Open Access
Gender-Based Violence in Arts and Culture: Perspectives on Education and Work
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-06-23) Karttunen, Sari; Provansal, Mathilde; Buscatto, Marie
This book offers a groundbreaking exploration of the pervasive issue of gender-based violence (GBV) within the realms of art and cultural production. This collection of essays delves into both the overt and subtle forms of GBV. It spans sexual harassment, assault, and the everyday sexism ingrained in creative workplaces and art schools, in both professional and private dimensions. The book covers a wide array of artistic sectors—opera, visual arts, music, and theatre—across diverse global contexts, from Europe to Asia and North America. By incorporating feminist and sociological theories, the essays not only examine the structural power dynamics that perpetuate GBV but also highlight efforts to challenge and dismantle these systems. The book addresses both criminal acts of violence and the "ordinary" forms of sexism that pervade artistic spaces, making visible the normalized patterns of behavior that maintain gender inequality. The volume is divided into three parts: the production of GBV, its representations in cultural work, and the initiatives to counteract it. A crucial contribution to ongoing discussions of workplace and educational inequality, this timely volume fills a notable gap in research on gender-based violence within the arts. Its methodological rigor and international perspective ensure that it will serve as a key resource for scholars, practitioners, and advocates alike.
Open Access
'Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By': Jews of Conscience on Palestine
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-06-25) Landau, Susan
This volume is a timely and powerful collection of Jewish dissent against Zionism and the impact of Israeli statehood on the indigenous Palestinian population. Bridging history, politics, theology, and conflict studies, this book traces a moral and intellectual tradition of resistance from within the global Jewish community—one rooted in values of justice, equality, and compassion. From early twentieth-century critics like Ahad Ha’am and Hannah Arendt to contemporary scholars, rabbis, journalists, and activists, the voices gathered here challenge the dominant narratives that conflate Judaism with Zionism. As violence escalates in Gaza and misinformation clouds public understanding, this book offers essential historical context and urgently needed counter-narratives. Through curated quotes, essays, and reflections, it documents how generations of Jews have spoken out—often at personal cost—against militarism, racism, and settler colonialism. In doing so, it reclaims an ethical tradition that links solidarity with Palestine with all struggles for justice throughout the world. This is an anti-war, anti-prejudice book for anyone seeking clarity amid polarization. In this unprecedented political moment, it is an essential resource for educators, activists, faith leaders, and all who value human rights. By amplifying voices of conscience, it deepens our understanding of Israel-Palestine relations and reminds us of the enduring power of moral dissent.
Open Access
The Singing Detainee and the Librarian with One Book: Essays on Exile
(punctum books, 2025-05-16) Beltran, Michael
In late 2019, journalist Michael Beltran found himself in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, deep in conversation with Filipino revolutionary leaders Jose Maria Sison and Julie de Lima. What was planned to be a feature article ended up as a collection of observations on what it means to live in exile. Sison and de Lima are maligned by governments and revered by activists worldwide, all while spending most of their time tucked away in a small Dutch neighborhood. What Beltran realized was that it was impossible to speak of their exile without understanding the history and community surrounding it. The Singing Detainee and the Librarian with One Book shares lesser known tales about two of the most well-known revolutionary exiles and their comrades. It speaks of a community and history behind the ordeal, weaving it into the Filipino diaspora. Sison passed away in December 2022, making this book a record of one of the last and arguably lengthiest interviews he ever gave. The essays track the couple’s prolonged stay as refugees, how the Philippine liberation movement found a home in Europe, and how migrants and activists alike gravitated toward each other while adrift from their homeland. “Exile,” Beltran says, “is imprisonment by displacement […] when people are condemned to leave their lands dressed in invisible chains.”
Open Access
Ontohackers: Radical Movement Philosophy in the Age of Extinctions and Algorithms, Part II: R/evolution Technologies
(punctum books, 2025-05-27) del Val, Jaym*/Jaime
Ontohackers redefines what movement, worlds, and bodies are through the sense of proprioception reconceptualized as formless fluctuation field, a movement matrix that is itself also thought, and which underlies all life forms and fields, including the inorganic. Our worlds are made of endless such entangled fields n-folding in neverending variation or enferance. The current planetary crisis has emerged due to an accidental evolutionary alignment, narrowing, and impoverishment of that matrix’s indeterminacy, that appeared gradually and eventually with bipedalism, and which created an imbalance between the larger proprioceptive field and its brain, and made the atrophied body extend itself technically in geometric fields gradually covering the planet, along with its fears, with disastrous consequences that are unleashing an unprecedented type of mass extinction and species suicide. The reply to this crisis – which is urgently due if we are to reduce even slightly the collapse coming up over the next decades – is in recovering a lost sensorimotor plasticity which is also cognitive, affective, and relational plasticity, through developing movement technes for cultivating Body Intelligence (BI), reversing and taking elsewhere the failed evolution culminating in AI, stepping down from humanist supremacist pedestals, undoing our dependency upon unsustainable killing machines of sedentary consumerism that impoverish experience, stopping the reproduction of a species that has become plague (by reversing heteronormative reproductive dogmas till we reach preagricultural population levels), and recovering the joys of moving with the world, in symbiotic mutation, towards unprecedented evolutionary variations: this is our cosmic responsibility for all life on Earth. The book’s structure expresses Enferance Theory with regard to how processes of becoming have a triple movement: an incipiency unfolding the field (Part I), a condensation-expansion where the field acquires full consistency (Part II), and a resonance or memory of the field relating to other fields (Part III). Part II, subtitled R/evolution Technologies, includes Books 4, 5, and 6 and is by far the longest volume, elaborating in depth the book’s proposals in a triple movement. It first exposes the technologies of variation in nature (Book 4), followed by the technologies of reduction in the Algoricene (Book 5), and finally the possibilities for overcoming the reductive fold (Book 6). Book 4 proposes a swarming chaosmology as theory of orgiastic evolution, culminating in the concept of metabiosis: life as indeterminate, symbiotic mutation. Book 5 diagnoses the regimes that have formatted movement and presents the theory of the Algoricene, or Age of Extinctions and Algorithms. It exposes a kinetic ontology, genealogy, and dynamics of power. An interlude discusses post-, trans-, and metahumanism, and a second part of the book unfolds a radical critique of the Planetary Holocaust. Book 6 unfolds metaformance aesthetics and metahuman politics, including the theory of metaformativity, the ontohacking pragmatics, and a choral Dionysian ontology, where the author also discusses at length hir own techniques and art projects, involving a radical challenge to human supremacism to face the extinction challenge now threatening all life on Earth, toward an Earth liberation and regeneration.
Open Access
Oral Poetry
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-05-28) Finnegan, Ruth
This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the vast field of 'oral poetry,' encompassing everything from American folksongs, contemporary pop songs, and Inuit lyrics, to the heroic epics of Homer, biblical psalms, and epic traditions in Asia and the Pacific. Taking a broad comparative approach, it explores oral poetry across Africa, Asia, Oceania, Europe, and the Americas. Drawing on global research, Ruth Finnegan, the author of the seminal Oral Literature in Africa, sheds light on key debates such as the nature of oral tradition, the relationship between poetry and society, the differences between oral and written forms, and the role of poets in predominantly non-literate contexts. Written from a primarily anthropological and literary perspective, this study contributes to the socio-cultural aspects of verbal art while also engaging with the literary dimensions of poetry which happens at any given moment to be unwritten. Finnegan's clear, non-technical language and extensive use of translated examples make this work accessible to a wide audience, appealing not only to sociologists and anthropologists but also to those with an interest in poetry, in comparative literature, and in global folk traditions. The re-issue of this classic study is now augmented by further illustrations and a newly written Introduction and Conclusion, situating it in the context of the contemporary study of literature.
Open Access
Bioethics: A Coursebook
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-05-12) Collective, COMPOST; Moormann, Emma; Hens, Kristien; Buyst, Nele; Devos, Ina; Kenis, Daan; Meinen, Lisanne; Mertens, Mayli; Ratajczyk, Yanni; Vulliermet, Franlu; Stadlbauer, Christina; Vandeput, Bartaku; Paleri, Varsha Aravind; Villafuerte, Ilya Gordon; Struyf, Joke
This coursebook offers an expansive exploration of bioethics, an interdisciplinary field examining ethical, social, and legal dilemmas in medicine, life sciences, and beyond. It challenges conventional boundaries, embracing Van Rensselaer Potter’s vision of bioethics as a global, holistic ethics of life—integrating human health, environmental considerations, and transdisciplinary insights. Through engaging discussions, thought experiments, and case studies, the book empowers students to critically reflect on ethical questions without dictating rigid answers. Topics range from the historical roots of ethical thought to cutting-edge debates in molecular biology, such as epigenetics and exposomics, demonstrating how interconnected human, animal, and environmental health truly are. Central themes include the limits of scientific knowledge, the biases shaping research, and the evolving interplay between moral philosophy and empirical science. Students will encounter key philosophical frameworks—ontology, epistemology, and ethics—woven into practical bioethical applications. Feminist philosophy, experimental bioethics, and embedded ethics enrich this perspective, urging readers to question assumptions, embrace diverse viewpoints, and connect ethical principles with real-world science. Targeted at students in philosophy, biology, biomedical sciences, and bioengineering, this book is a toolkit for future thinkers, fostering a nuanced understanding of how ethical science advances humanity in a complex, ever-changing world.
Open Access
Qur’an Translations in the Eastern Bloc and Beyond
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-05-21) Pink, Johanna; Yakubovych, Mykhaylo; Kulieva, Elvira
This book offers the first comprehensive exploration of Qur’an translations across the diverse landscapes of the former Eastern Bloc, from Uzbekistan to the German Democratic Republic. With a focus on how Islamic texts have been shaped by state policies, ideological shifts, and religious identities, it traces connections between these regions and the wider world, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and China. This volume draws on perspectives from both Sunni and Shia traditions, as well as contributions by non-Muslim scholars. Through archival research and close textual analysis, the contributors demonstrate how translations of the Qur’an have served not only as religious texts but also as reflections of profound transformations in national and religious identities in communist and post-communist societies. Qur’an translations have gained prominence within the modern Muslim publishing world, and their analysis reveals a dynamic interplay between local politics and global Islamic discourse. They have become symbols of religious resurgence, cultural renewal, and intellectual exchange—but also objects of persecution and contestation. Based on multilingual sources, this collection is an essential resource for understanding Qur’an translations as a significant scholarly and cultural phenomenon in the modern era.
Open Access
The Social Properties of Concrete
(punctum books, 2025-05-09) Rubaii, Kali; Elinoff, Eli
Concrete is a ubiquitous part of our world. It composes our dwellings and shapes our infrastructures. It unites and divides urban space and is used to wage both war and peace. Concrete is simultaneously an indicator of freedom and development and is an essential part of the carceral apparatus. The Social Properties of Concrete begins from the premise that concrete is as richly social as it is densely material. Just as concrete’s materiality permeates our everyday life, our political projects, social practices, religious concepts, environmental transformations, and ethical questions suffuse concrete structures. Like concrete itself, The Social Properties of Concrete is an aggregate: it draws together essays by social scientists, historians, architects, artists, and urban planners who each blend social theory, material science, and empirical analysis to explore the ways in which social life is embedded within concrete and to inquire about how concrete shapes social life. Across forty globally situated chapters, these essays open new conversations around our relationships with anthropogenic stone and serve as a teachable introduction to the social and political lives of materials. By taking this approach, this volume develops a conceptual language and methodological approach that should inform new understandings of material politics and our built environment. The social properties of concrete are neither metaphors nor are they simple reflections of the social. Instead, they are modes of materially enacting social, economic, and political life itself.
Open Access
Imagery of Hate Online
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-05-02) Scheiber, Marcus; Jensen, Uffa; Becker, Matthias J.
This edited volume explores the evolving role of visual and multimodal expressions in spreading hate ideologies within digital communication. In digital spaces, hate speech is increasingly conveyed through memes, images, and videos, blending textual and pictorial elements to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and other exclusionary narratives. While historical perspectives on hate imagery are well-documented, this collection emphasises the pressing need for contemporary analysis of visual and multimodal communication in digital environments. Featuring contributions from interdisciplinary experts, this volume investigates the content, structure, and dynamics of normalisation of visual hate speech. By examining memes, manipulated images, and other visual artifacts, it reveals how hateful content gains traction in digital public spheres, often blurring traditional boundaries of acceptability. Through rigorous case studies and theoretical insights, the anthology provides a comprehensive understanding of how multimodality shapes hate discourse and its societal impact. Grounded in empirical research, this collection also addresses the challenges of defining and analysing hate ideologies, offering nuanced frameworks for distinguishing legitimate critique from hate-based narratives. Decoding Visual Hate is an essential resource for scholars, policymakers, teachers, and digital communicators seeking to combat the proliferation of visual hate and foster more inclusive online spaces.
Open Access
A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning: Theoretical, Methodological, Practical, and Ethical Considerations for an Interdisciplinary Field
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-05-09) Lew-Levy, Sheina; Asatsa, Stephen
This volume addresses the critical gaps in developmental research on childhood learning by advocating for a more inclusive and cross-cultural approach. Recent studies highlight a concerning over-reliance on data from post-industrialized western countries, raising questions about the broader applicability of findings. This book seeks to provide a comprehensive solution, bridging the gap between theory and practice. It offers a unique guide for researchers by combining interdisciplinary perspectives from anthropology, psychology, education, and beyond. With over 60 contributors from 21 countries, the book weaves together diverse cultural insights, challenging the narrow scope of traditional research. Each chapter features multiple perspectives, creating a coherent and thoughtful discussion of essential topics such as cultural learning, childhood, and the historical and social forces shaping development. 'A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning' goes beyond theoretical discussions by offering practical advice on fieldwork, ethics, and engaging policymakers. By centering marginalized voices and emphasizing community agency, it strives to democratize developmental research. The format is innovative, merging the breadth of encyclopedic entries with the depth of cohesive chapters. Moreover personal reflections and photographs embedded in the book will give readers a window into the experiences of those involved in cross-cultural research on children. This accessible, academically rigorous volume is a must-read for scholars seeking to advance inclusive and sustainable research on childhood learning, and anybody interested in child development in a worldwide perspective.
Open Access
Active Speech: Critical Perspectives on Teresa Deevy
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-07) Kealy, Úna; McCarthy, Kate
'Active Speech' is a groundbreaking collection of scholarly essays and practitioner interviews focused on the work of Irish playwright Teresa Deevy. Acts of recovery in the 1980s and 1990s challenged Deevy’s exclusion from the literary canon, reclaiming her contributions as significant to Irish drama and theatre. The recent resurgence of scholarship and productions evidences that, as a deafened woman and Irish playwright, Deevy’s creative power continues to disrupt and tilt the canon of Irish drama, theatre, and performance. Essays within the collection explore how Deevy’s work interrogates early to mid-twentieth century Irish social norms and ideologies and provide a rich context for understanding her plays. The collection highlights the interdisciplinary nature of research on Deevy and offers insights on her work through archival research, literary analysis, and practitioner perspectives from Deaf and hearing theatremakers. One of the collection's strengths lies in its collaborative and inclusive approach, showcasing diverse methodologies and rigorous scholarship. The chapters on archival research and practitioner perspectives offer compelling models and avenues for future studies. This volume is an essential resource for scholars, educators, and theatremakers alike.
Open Access
Improvising Otherwise: A Decolonial Feminist Approach to Improvisation in Early Modern English Culture
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-30) Lahham, Fatima
This volume redefines how we approach early music and cultural histories, intertwining feminist, decolonial, and creative perspectives. Fatima Lahham delves into the improvisational practices of early modern England, situating them within a rich tapestry of musical sources, theological texts, travel narratives, and natural histories. Inspired by Sara Ahmed’s notion of the “feminist ear,” the book amplifies voices and histories often unheard, re-examining the cultural interplay between England and the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century. This groundbreaking study bridges disciplines and engages with critical race studies to explore decolonial methodologies. Lahham challenges traditional historiographies, integrating improvisation studies and early modern creativity to transform our understanding of historical performance and inspire new practices today. Tracks from her album punctuate the text, fostering an innovative, multi-modal reading experience, while creative prompts invite readers to craft their own improvisations. At once scholarly and imaginative, this book expands the boundaries of historically informed performance and cultural studies. By mobilizing improvisation as a tool for understanding and re-imagining history, Imagining Otherwise offers a vital contribution to early music, feminist theory, and the study of England’s global engagements.
Open Access
Coral Conservation: Global Evidence for the Effects of Actions
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-22) Thornton, Ann; Morgan, William H.; Bladon, Eleanor K.; Smith, Rebecca K.; Sutherland, William J.
Coral Conservation: Global evidence for the effects of actions provides an essential resource for anyone dedicated to conserving or restoring corals. This comprehensive synthesis of global scientific evidence examines the effectiveness of conservation and restoration actions targeting stony, soft and cold-water coral species inhabiting a diverse range of marine habitats in tropical, temperate and arctic waters from shallow coasts to the deep sea. Addressing the urgent threats posed by climate change, invasive species, overfishing, and habitat destruction, this work summarizes evidence from actions in three core themes: protecting healthy reefs, mitigating human impacts, and undertaking active restoration. From establishing Marine Protected Areas to innovative techniques like coral gardening, the synopsis summarizes the evidence for practical actions and offers insights into their outcomes and applicability. Designed to guide decision-makers—resource managers, conservationists, policymakers, and local advocates—as well as those curious to learn about actions that could help corals, this accessible guide provides succinct information to support evidence-based conservation. By identifying the existing evidence and highlighting gaps in the knowledge, Coral Conservation can support practitioners and policymakers to allocate resources effectively by prioritising actions that work. By doing more of what works, we can reverse the loss of coral species and restore these vital habitats for the benefit of current and future generations. The authors consulted an international group of coral experts and conservationists to produce this synopsis. Funding was provided by A.G. Leventis Foundation and Oceankind. Coral Conservation is the 25th publication in the Conservation Evidence Series Synopses, and is freely available from the online Conservation Evidence database (www.conservationevidence.com) ensuring that users have ongoing access to updated research and assessments. Others in the series include Eel Conservation in Inland Habitats, Biodiversity of Marine Artificial Structures, Sub-tidal Benthic Invertebrate Conservation, Marine and Freshwater Mammal Conservation, and Marine Fish Conservation.
Open Access
Tragedy and the Witness: Shakespeare and Beyond
(Open Book Publishers, 2025-04-15) Parker, Fred
As he dies, Hamlet pleads with Horatio to ‘report me aright … tell my story’. This book deals with the task of bearing witness to anguish, atrocity, and madness, as these are staged in the tragic theatre. Focusing on the relationship between the protagonist and the onlooker or witness, it explores how the tragic figure, often and understandably viewed as alien or culpable or profoundly strange, struggles to be understood. Centred on Shakespeare, its wide-ranging approach also introduces works by (among others) the Greeks, Racine, Ibsen, Pirandello, Kafka, Beckett, and Kane. The discussion intersects with trauma studies and with psychoanalytic theory, especially around how subjective experience is ‘held’ by others. The challenge of entering into such difficult experience is likened to the offering of hospitality to the foreigner or stranger: the challenge of overcoming xenophobia. Another large concern is with how tragedy represents madness, and how far such states of mind may be shared with an audience, particularly through the lens of King Lear. Written in an accessible style, this book grounds tragedy in matters that resonate in common experience, from mental breakdown and our need to be heard to questions around grieving, trauma, and the ethics of telling someone’s story.
Open Access
A Cyborg's Father: Misreading Donna Haraway
(punctum books, 2025-04-04) Brennan, Dave
When his daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as an infant and became dependent on technology to stay alive, Dave Brennan set off in search of a vision: what does it mean to live as a cyborg? And how might he best help his daughter navigate the relationship between machine and flesh? Beginning with a line plucked from Donna Haraway’s “A Cyborg Manifesto” — “Their fathers, after all, are inessential” — A Cyborg’s Father blends memoiristic poetic fragments with lyric essays that look toward music and literature by women artists who have embraced the technological as a metaphorical or literal means of investigating and owning their experience as women. Traversing the intersecting paths of feminism, chronic illness, disability studies, transhumanism, interdependence, and more, this is the tale of a father whose greatest hope is to be rendered inessential.