Humanity: Texts and Contexts is a record of the 2007 Singapore “Building Bridges” seminar, an annual dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars cosponsored by Georgetown University and the Archbishop of Canterbury. This volume explores three central questions: What does it mean to be human? What is the significance of the diversity that is evident among human beings? And what are the challenges that humans face living within the natural world? A distinguished group of scholars focuses on the theological responses to each of these questions, drawing on the wealth of material found in both Christian and Islamic scriptures. Part one lays out the three issues of human identity, difference, and guardianship. Part two explores scriptural texts side by side, pairing Christian and Islamic scholars who examine such themes as human dignity, human alienation, human destiny, humanity and gender, humanity and diversity, and humanity and the environment. In addition to contributions from an international cast of outstanding scholars, the book includes an afterword by Archbishop Rowan Williams.

Evolution and Human Culture argues that values, beliefs, and practices are expressions of individual and shared moral sentiments. Much of our cultural production stems from what in early hominins was a caring tendency, both the care to share and a self-care to challenge others. Topics cover prehistory, mind, biology, morality, comparative primatology, art, and aesthetics. The book is valuable to students and scholars in the arts, including moral philosophers, who would benefit from reading about scientific developments that impact their fields. For biologists and social scientists the book provides a window into how scientific research contributes to understanding the arts and humanities. The take-home point is that culture does not transcend nature; rather, culture is an evolved moral behavior.

Human-Machine Shared Contexts considers the foundations, metrics, and applications of human-machine systems. Editors and authors debate whether machines, humans, and systems should speak only to each other, only to humans, or to both and how. The book establishes the meaning and operation of "shared contexts between humans and machines; it also explores how human-machine systems affect targeted audiences (researchers, machines, robots, users) and society, as well as future ecosystems composed of humans and machines. This book explores how user interventions may improve the context for autonomous machines operating in unfamiliar environments or when experiencing unanticipated events; how autonomous machines can be taught to explain contexts by reasoning, inferences, or causality, and decisions to humans relying on intuition; and for mutual context, how these machines may interdependently affect human awareness, teams and society, and how these "machines" may be affected in turn. In short, can context be mutually constructed and shared between machines and humans? The editors are interested in whether shared context follows when machines begin to think, or, like humans, develop subjective states that allow them to monitor and report on their interpretations of reality, forcing scientists to rethink the general model of human social behavior. If dependence on machine learning continues or grows, the public will also be interested in what happens to context shared by users, teams of humans and machines, or society when these machines malfunction. As scientists and engineers "think through this change in human terms," the ultimate goal is for AI to advance the performance of autonomous machines and teams of humans and machines for the betterment of society wherever these machines interact with humans or other machines. This book will be essential reading for professional, industrial, and military computer scientists and engineers; machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) scientists and engineers, especially those engaged in research on autonomy, computational context, and human-machine shared contexts; advanced robotics scientists and engineers; scientists working with or interested in data issues for autonomous systems such as with the use of scarce data for training and operations with and without user interventions; social psychologists, scientists and physical research scientists pursuing models of shared context; modelers of the internet of things (IOT); systems of systems scientists and engineers and economists; scientists and engineers working with agent-based models (ABMs); policy specialists concerned with the impact of AI and ML on society and civilization; network scientists and engineers; applied mathematicians (e.g., holon theory, information theory); computational linguists; and blockchain scientists and engineers. - Discusses the foundations, metrics, and applications of human-machine systems - Considers advances and challenges in the performance of autonomous machines and teams of humans - Debates theoretical human-machine ecosystem models and what happens when machines malfunction

Perhaps no concept has become dominant in so many fields as rapidly as the Anthropocene. Meaning "The Age of Humans," the Anthropocene is the proposed name for our current geological epoch, beginning when human activities started to have a noticeable impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems. Long embraced by the natural sciences, the Anthropocene has now become commonplace in the humanities and social sciences, where it has taken firm enough hold to engender a thoroughgoing assessment and critique. Why and how has the geological concept of the Anthropocene become important to the humanities? What new approaches and insights do the humanities offer? What narratives and critiques of the Anthropocene do the humanities produce? What does it mean to study literature of the Anthropocene? These are the central questions that this collection explores. Each chapter takes a decidedly different humanist approach to the Anthropocene, from environmental humanities to queer theory to race, illuminating the important contributions of the humanities to the myriad discourses on the Anthropocene. This volume is designed to provide concise overviews of particular approaches and texts, as well as compelling and original interventions in the study of the Anthropocene. Written in an accessible style free from disciplinary-specific jargon, many chapters focus on well-known authors and texts, making this collection especially useful to teachers developing a course on the Anthropocene and students undertaking introductory research. This collection provides truly innovative arguments regarding how and why the Anthropocene concept is important to literature and the humanities.

Context in Literary and Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary volume that deals with the challenges of studying works of art and literature in their historical context today. The relationship between artworks and context has long been a central concern for aesthetic and cultural disciplines, and the question of context has been asked anew in all eras. Developments in contemporary culture and technology, as well as new theoretical and methodological orientations in the humanities, once again prompt us to rethink context in literary and cultural studies. This volume takes up that challenge. Introducing readers to new developments in literary and cultural theory, Context in Literary and Cultural Studies connects all disciplines related to these areas to provide an interdisciplinary overview of the challenges different scholarly fields today meet in their studies of artworks in context. Spanning a number of countries, and covering subjects from nineteenth-century novels to rave culture, the chapters together constitute an informed, diverse and wide-ranging discussion. The volume is written for scholarly readers at all levels in the fields of Literary Studies, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, Art History, Film, Theatre Studies and Digital Humanities.

This volume presents the reader with a stimulating tapestry of essays exploring the nature of personal autonomy, self-determination, and agency, and their role in human optimal functioning at multiple levels of analysis from personal to societal and cross-cultural. The starting point for these explorations is self-determination theory, an integrated theory of human motivation and healthy development which has been under development for more than three decades (Deci & Ryan, 2000). As the contributions will make clear, psychological autonomy is a concept that forms the bridge between the dependence of human behavior on biological and socio-cultural determinants on the one side, and people’s ability to be free, reflective, and transforming agents who can challenge these dependencies, on the other. The authors within this volume share a vision that human autonomy is a fundamental pre-condition for both individuals and groups to thrive, and that without understanding the nature and mechanisms of autonomous agency vital social and human problems cannot be satisfactory addressed. This multidisciplinary team of researchers will collectively explore the nature of personal autonomy, considering its developmental origins, its expression within relationships, its importance within groups and organizational functioning, and its role in promoting to the democratic and economic development of societies. The book is aimed toward developmental, social, personality, and cross-cultural psychologists, towards researchers and practitioners’ in the areas of education, health and medicine, social work and, economics, and also towards all interested in creating a more sustainable and just world society through promoting individual freedom and agency. This volume will provide a theoretical and conceptual account of the nature and psychological mechanisms of personal motivational autonomy and human agency; rich multidisciplinary empirical evidence supporting the claims and propositions about the nature of human autonomy and capacities for self-regulation; explanations of how and why different psychological and socio-cultural conditions may play a role in promoting or undermining people’s autonomous motivation and well-being, discussions of how the promotion of human autonomy can positively influence environmental protection, democracy promotion and economic prosperity.

"The rights of women, refugees, child laborers, and political prisoners are among the issues debated in this collection of articles and essays ... Contributors from many sides include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Midge Decter, Katha Pollitt, Jimmy Carter, Amnesty International, and the China Internet Information Center ... There are fine bibliographies to stiumulate students' further reading." Booklist.