Everyday life in the far outposts of empire can be static, empty of the excitement of progress. A pervading sense of banality and boredom are, therefore, common elements of the daily experience for people living on the colonial periphery. Saikat Majumdar suggests that this impoverished affective experience of colonial modernity significantly shapes the innovative aesthetics of modernist fiction.

Prose of the World explores the global life of this narrative aesthetic, from late-colonial modernism to the present day, focusing on a writer each from Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and India. Ranging from James Joyce's deflated epiphanies to Amit Chaudhuri's disavowal of the grand spectacle of postcolonial national allegories, Majumdar foregrounds the banal as a key instinct of modern and contemporary fiction -- one that nevertheless remains submerged because of its antithetical relation to literature's intuitive function to engage or excite.

Majumdar asks us to rethink the assumption that banality merely indicates an aesthetic failure. If narrative is traditionally enabled by the tremor, velocity, and excitement of the event, the historical and affective lack implied by the banal produces a narrative force that is radically new precisely because it suspends the conventional impulses of narration.

As the Leaves Turn Gold focuses on the experiences of aging among women and men of Asian origin—both immigrants and citizens—in the contemporary U.S. Drawing on interviews and survey data, the book discusses the experiences of different groups of Asian Americans to analyze how ideologies, interactions, and institutional arrangements shape racialized, gendered, and classed aging in contemporary America.

"This book focuses on primary education in India and interrogates what schooling means and does to children from weaker sections of Indian society and which values underpin the school system. It examines whether the concept of "education for all" is justa mechanically conceived policy target to chasing enrolment and attendance or whether it a larger social goal and a deeper political statement about the need for attacking entrenched social inequalities, and above all an affirmation of the idea that schooling has a liberating potential. Drawing on original data collected in the two states of Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, the authors first present the multiple ways in which social class impinges on the educational system, educational processes and educational outcomes. In the second part of the book, issues around autonomy and accountability are explored via an analysis of the position of teachers within the educational hierarchy, and by looking at the various possibilities of making teachers accountable. The last part centres on the learning process, with a particular focus on the classroom. The conclusion includes recommendations that are related to the necessity for a larger debate and normative framework, which includes private schools as possible partners in the pursuing of a public good for which a public entity should take some responsibility, and in conjuncture to that, the necessity to move from government action and responsibilities to a broader concept of public action"-- Provided by publisher.

Provided by publisher.

As climate change takes hold, there is an ever-growing need to develop and apply strategies that optimize the use of natural resources, both on land and in water. This book covers a huge range of strategies that can be applied to various sectors, from forests to flood control. Its aim, as with resource management itself, is to combine economics, policy and science to help rehabilitate and preserve our natural resources.Beginning with papers on carbon sequestration, including the practice of artificial desertification, the topics move on to cover the use of distributed modeling and neural networks in estimating water availability and distribution. Further chapters look at uncertainty analysis applied to the spatial variation of hydrologic resources, and finally the book covers attempts at estimating meteorological parameters in the context of hydrological variables such as evapo-transpiration from stream flow.Within the next decade, the effects of climate change will be severe, and felt by ordinary human beings. This book proposes a raft of measures that can mitigate, if not reverse, the impact of global warming on the resources we have all come to depend on.

Majumdar (English, Whitman College) examines the work of three very different postcolonial artists: writers James Joyce and Salmon Rushdie and filmmaker Satyajit Ray. He looks at them in terms of an anti-colonial aesthetics in which traditional forms are bent or shattered. As a standard from which to deviate, Majumdar selects John Ruskin, the nineteenth century arbiter of artistic taste. Ruskin's belief in a modulated unity in art along with refined British sensibility being the pinnacle of aesthetics is a perfect foil for the iconoclasm of Majumdar's subjects. Joyce is seen as an example of indecorous partiality and unsanctioned language. Rushdie demonstrates a "non-narcissistic gesture" and the "shock of the grotesque". The films by Ray show a "figural wandering". All of these redefine the aesthetic into something not bound by national strictures, a truly migrant form. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Sport has become more than a simple physical expression or game – it now pervades all societies at all levels and has become bound up in nationalism, entertainment, patriotism and culture. Now a global obsession, sport has infiltrated into all areas of modern life and despite noble ideals that sport stands above politics, religion, class, gender and ideology, the reality is often very different.

These essays by leading academics and rising new talent consider the phenomenon of modern sport and its massive influence over global society. Together, this collection is also a tribute to the pioneering and inspirational work of Professor J.A. Mangan on the political, religious, class and gender-based aspects of modern sport, from academics greatly influenced by him and his writing.

This book was previously published as a special issue of The International Journal of the History of Sport.

This book provides a comprehensive, unified tutorial covering the most recent advances in the emerging technology of free-space laser communications (FSLC), where interest and attention continue to grow along with the number of technical challenges. This book is intended as an all-inclusive source to serve the needs of those who require information about the basics of FSLC, as well as up-to-date advanced knowledge of the state-of-the-art in the technologies available today. Topics covered include a combination of atmospheric effects for laser propagation and FSCL systems performance and design, and are intended as a valuable resource for engineers, scientists and students interested in better understanding laser communication systems designed for the atmospheric optical channel.

Articles on the life and work of a painter from India.