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Promoted Content
Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2024Neither use nor ornament
A cultural biography of clutter and procrastination
by Tracey Potts
Neither use nor ornament is a book about personal productivity, told from the perspective of its obstacles: clutter and procrastination. It offers a challenge to the self-help promise of a clutter-free life, lived in a permanent state of efficiency and flow. The book reveals how contemporary projections of the good, productive life rely on images of failure. Riffing on the aphorism 'less is more' - a dominant refrain in present day productivity advice - it tells stories about streamlining, efficiency and tidiness over a time period of around 100 years. By focusing on the shadows of productivity advice, Neither use nor ornament seeks to unravel the moral narratives that hold individuals to account for their inefficiencies and muddles.
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Humanities & Social SciencesDecember 2024Critical theory and Independent Living
by Teodor Mladenov
Critical theory and Independent Living explores intersections between contemporary critical theory and disabled people's struggle for self-determination. The book highlights the affinities between the Independent Living movement and studies of epistemic injustice, biopower, and psychopower. It discusses in depth the activists' critical engagement with welfare-state paternalism, neoliberal marketisation, and familialism. This helps develop a pioneering comparison between various welfare regimes grounded in Independent Living advocacy. The book draws on the activism of disabled people from the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) by developing case studies of the ENIL's campaigning for deinstitutionalisation and personal assistance. It is argued that this work helps rethink independence as a form of interdependence, and that this reframing is pivotal for critical theorising in the twenty-first century.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJune 2021Feeling the strain
A cultural history of stress in twentieth-century Britain
by Jill Kirby
Examining the popular discourse of nerves and stress, this book provides a historical account of how ordinary Britons understood, explained and coped with the pressures and strains of daily life during the twentieth century. It traces the popular, vernacular discourse of stress, illuminating not just how stress was known, but the ways in which that knowledge was produced. Taking a cultural approach, the book focuses on contemporary popular understandings, revealing continuity of ideas about work, mental health, status, gender and individual weakness, as well as the changing socio-economic contexts that enabled stress to become a ubiquitous condition of everyday life by the end of the century. With accounts from sufferers, families and colleagues it also offers insight into self-help literature, the meanings of work and changing dynamics of domestic life, delivering a complementary perspective to medical histories of stress.
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2024The second half of your life - a manual
Tips and strategies for successful ageing
by Dr. Petra Kiedaisch
In the middle of our lives, the cards are reshuffled: marriages are divorced, careers are questioned, friendships are ended, questions of meaning are asked, bodies change - and not just hormonally. At the same time, children leave home and parents become carers. From the age of 45, the majority of our population is at the centre of a second upheaval that affects all facets of our lives and leaves us at a loss in many ways. Not only in our daily lives, but also when it comes to planning for our own old age. This guide is designed to help us find our way. It presents the most important information from all areas relevant to a good life after 45. Leading experts from the fields of medicine, nutrition, philosophy, theology, psychology, care, law and finance give recommendations on what to look out for and what tools are needed to get through these challenging years unscathed. Useful checklists round off the articles. The book shows us the unique opportunity to see these challenges not as a crisis but as a source of strength. Not only can we come through this period of our lives healthy and happy, but we can also shape it so that the next age threshold is no longer frightening. During the second phase of adolescence, we lay the foundations for whether and how we will grow older. Be it in terms of health or living together with family and friends. With contributions from: Prof. Dr. Martin Gessmann (philosophy), Dipl. Psych. Claudia Kühner (psychology), Dr Suso Lederle (medicine), Dr Petra Forster (nutrition), Christian Hald, Anja Heine (law), Prof Dr Philipp Schreiber (finance), Prof Dr Thomas Klie (nursing care insurance), Georg Eberhardt (religion).
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Health & Personal DevelopmentLove The Way You Want To!
How a Flatworm can lead you to finding Happiness in Relationship
by Maja Storch
Love is blind – not just to a partner’s shortcomings and faults, but often to one’s own needs as well. How can personal needs be identified, while staying true to oneself, yet still showing empathy towards the partner? How can one tell if this is Mr. or Ms. Right? How compatible are thin and thick-skinned people? In this book, Maja Storch shows the reader how to find out what their own needs are, take them seriously, articulate them, and communicate them to those they love. There’s no doubt about it: a relationship is hard work. But with this self-help book it can be fun. Target Group: Everyone interested in long-term, happy relationships
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Humanities & Social SciencesAugust 2021Rules and ethics
Perspectives from anthropology and history
by Morgan Clarke, Emily Corran
This book investigates the pronounced enthusiasm that many traditions display for codes of ethics characterised by a multitude of rules. Recent anthropological interest in ethics and historical explorations of 'self-fashioning' have led to extensive study of the virtuous self, but existing scholarship tends to pass over the kind of morality that involves legalistic reasoning. Rules and ethics corrects that omission by demonstrating the importance of rules in everyday moral life in a variety of contexts. In a nutshell, it argues that legalistic moral rules are not necessarily an obstruction to a rounded ethical self, but can be an integral part of it. An extended introduction first sets out the theoretical basis for studies of ethical systems that are characterised by detailed rules. This is followed by a series of empirical studies of rule-oriented moral traditions in a comparative perspective.
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Business, Economics & LawMay 2024Governance, democracy and ethics in crisis-decision-making
The pandemic and beyond
by Caroline Redhead, Melanie Smallman
This book is a powerful addition to a developing literature informed by arts and humanities research carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Investigating the impacts of crisis governance and decision-making on people and populations, the book brings together microbial organisms and humans, children and data, decision-making and infection prevention, publics and process, global vaccine distribution and citizens' juries. Through its eight chapters, the book stimulates broadly-drawn discussions about exceptional executive powers in an emergency, the role of trust, and the importance of the principles of good governance - such as selflessness, ethics, integrity, accountability and honesty in leadership. The lessons drawn out in this book will support future decision-makers in both ordinary times and extra-ordinary emergencies.
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November 2016Coming to Terms with Life
by Matthias Wengenroth
Do you struggle with thoughts and feelings that make life difficult? Have you tried all sorts of ways of dealing with this without getting anywhere? Do you feel that life is passing you by? Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which this book describes in a clear and entertaining way, provides new and very enlightening insights into the causes of human suffering. At the same time, ACT shows how we can improve the way we handle the difficult aspects of being human, while also developing our abilities and strengths. This title shows how using the described simple but effective methods can lead you to a happier, better life. Target Group: people who want to utilize their potential more fully, people interested in acceptance and commitment therapy, people practicing or interested in psychotherapy (psychologists, doctors, coaches, social workers)
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2022Talking to Customersin Pharmacies
A conversation guidefor newcomers and old hands
by Dr Kirsten Lennecke, Illustrated by Barbara Kohm
The basis for successful advice is having a sound knowledge of the effect and application of medicines, but also an instinct for the individual needs and characteristics of the person asking for your help. This skill can be trained! Entertaining explanations and numerous case examples taken from everyday pharmacy practice help with this. They show how pharmacy staff can react empathetically, avoid misunderstandings, and manage delicate situations with confidence. The 5th edition has become more colourful! This applies not only to the illustrations, but also to the team and customers of our model pharmacy. A personality model with distinctive colours representing the different characters promises exciting insights. Good communication creates satisfied customers who want to come back again and again!
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Humanities & Social SciencesJuly 2025Unhappy mothers
Women, motherhood and social change in postwar Britain
by Sarah Crook
In the decades following the Second World War, mothers' experiences of loneliness, boredom and unhappiness were increasingly widely acknowledged. The language of postnatal depression came to be attached to this, but mothers organised around their own discontent in ways that challenged the medical model. Unhappy mothers draws attention to the social, political, and professional contexts within which knowledge about unhappy mothering developed. Drawing upon an extensive range of archival material, the book addresses themes around expertise, feminism, and the value given to lived experience.
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October 2024Renunciation and Freedom
Survivial in the future
by Jean-Pierre Wils
The situation in our society is precarious. The ecological shocks are omnipresent. The mere continuation of our lifestyles fixated on expansion and self-development has long since reached its limits. As if intoxicated by ourselves, we consume our world voraciously and without restraint. We need moderation and frugality that lead us out of the ecological and social dead ends and hold both the individual and Politics to account. We are by no means powerless and are perfectly capable of leading a life that offers prospects for a humane future. However, our idea of freedom needs urgent correction. For this endeavour to succeed, we need the courage to face reality and the willingness, in a spirit of solidarity, to say goodbye to a false life and join the alliance of renunciation and freedom. Then we will be free – differently and better.
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Biography & True StoriesMarch 2022Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos,
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.
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Biography & True StoriesMarch 2022Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos,
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.
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Trusted Partner
Biography & True StoriesMarch 2022Body Work
The Radical Power of Personal Narrative
by Melissa Febos,
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and writing guide, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storyteller's life and the challenges it presents. How do we write about the relationships that have formed us? How do we describe our bodies, their desires and traumas? What does it mean to have your writing, or living, dismissed as "navel-gazing"-or else hailed as "so brave, so raw"? And to whom, in the end, do our most intimate stories belong? Drawing on her journey from aspiring writer to acclaimed author and writing professor-via addiction and recovery, sex work and academia-Melissa Febos has created a captivating guide to the writing life, and a brilliantly unusual exploration of subjectivity, privacy, and the power of divulgence. Candid and inspiring, Body Work will empower readers and writers alike, offering ideas-and occasional notes of caution-to anyone who has ever hoped to see their true self reflecting back from the open page.
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2021Self-medication in Pregnancy and Breast-feeding
Counselling handbook
by Dr. Annette Abhau
Cough, hay fever or herpes are at least as troublesome during pregnancy and breast-feeding as under normal “conditions” - and yet everything is different. Physiological changes to the body in pregnancy and lactation, together with the vulnerability of the unborn baby or infant, set particular requirements when selecting the correct, safe medication. Especially in the area of self-medication, the needs of pregnant and breast-feeding women for information are great and call for competent advice! This comprehensive handbook is the key: General information about pharmacotherapy, supplementary measures, vaccinations, questions about diet and infections in pregnancy and lactation creates a broad knowledge base. The core feature of the book are the traffic light tables, with precise recommendations for medicinal products for all types of treatment. All the important indications for selfmedication in pregnancy and lactation are listed and the tables are supported by detailed explanations of the individual assessments. The sections “Advice from medical specialists” are particularly useful, with additional tips from gynaecologists and “Footnotes” with relevant information on the use of prescription- only medicines – and as the ultimate practical tool: the enclosed sales counter leaflets with all traffic light tables to enable quick reference for first-class advice!
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April 2021On the Purposes of Life and Whether They Exist
A philosophical fitting
by Axel Braig
The musician, doctor and philosopher Axel Braig considers philosophy a little like the weather: he looks for the right clothes for every situation. Braig is primarily concerned with practical, effective things from the two-and-a-half millennia fund of (Western) thinking, such as helpful approaches in existential crises. In this book, he introduces us to philosophical thinkers from Plato to Montaigne to Levinas and Feyerabend. Braig not only shares his own philosophical biography, but above all encourages us to philosophise ourselves.
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2023Rural quality of life
by Pia Heike Johansen, Anne Tietjen, Evald Bundgård Iversen, Henrik Lauridsen Lolle, Jens Kaae Fisker
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Humanities & Social SciencesJanuary 2024The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia
Engaging in everyday struggle
by Alexandrina Vanke
Despite the intense processes of deindustrialisation around the world, the working class continues to play an important role in post-industrial societies. However, working-class people are often stigmatised, morally judged and depicted negatively in dominant discourses. This book challenges stereotypical representations of workers, building on research into the everyday worlds of working-class and ordinary people in Russia's post-industrial cities. The urban life of workers in post-Soviet Russia is centred on the stories of local communities engaged in the everyday struggles that occur in deindustrialising settings under neoliberal neo-authoritarianism. The book suggests a novel approach to everyday life in post-industrial cities. Drawing on an ethnographic study with elements of arts-based research, the book presents a new genre of writing about workers influenced by the avant-garde documentary tradition and working-class literature.
