We habitually categorize the world in binary logics of 'animate' and 'inanimate', 'natural' and 'supernatural', 'self' and 'other', 'authentic' and 'inauthentic'. The Inbetweenness of Things rejects such Western classificatory traditions – which tend to categorize objects using bounded notions of period, place and purpose – and argues instead for a paradigm where objects are not one thing or another but a multiplicity of things at once. Adopting an 'object-centred' approach, with contributions from material culture specialists across various disciplines, the book showcases a series of objects that defy neat classification. In the process, it explores how 'things' mediate and travel between conceptual worlds in diverse cultural, geographic and temporal contexts, and how they embody this mediation and movement in their form. With an impressive range of international authors, each essay grounds explorations of cutting-edge theory in concrete case studies. An innovative, thought-provoking read for students and researchers in anthropology, archaeology, museum studies and art history which will transform the way readers think about objects.

In 1970, Sunnie D. Kidd coined the term Inbetweenness to conceptualize the mystery of interconnectedness of all beings. Inbetweenness is the web that connects the cosmos and everything in it. It is, on a smaller scale, the nervous system, which connects our universe and holds it together. Inbetweenness is a shared resonating spiritual field of movement and vibration, which is the root of all spiritual experiences and scientific investigation. It is the common ground of all religions, which has been called the primordial om, akasha, prana, the quantum field, the music of the spheres and the thumbprint of God. Inbetweenness can be experienced, on the personal scale, as a shared spiritual dimension, which connects us to everyone and everything else. This is the same field of energy that saints, mystics, Buddhas, yogis, priests, shamans and seers have experienced by looking within themselves. Inbetweenness is unseen and unheard, yet is deeply experienced in interpersonal relationships, where authenticity characterizes the way that two or more persons are together. In the heart of Inbetweenness, two or more persons spiritual dimensions intermingle, and a new dimension emerges in each that did not exist prior to coming together in this way. This shared spiritual dimension is a central energizing quality and provides a sense of protection, support and caring. The new dimension that emerges involves an infinite spiritual dimension, where participating people are enabled to go where neither alone could go. Each person, in the relationship, takes the other person forward in life. Through both good and bad times and together, they enjoy an interpersonal transcendence, which enlivens, enriches and engenders compassion, care and solicitude. The spiritual dimensions, in each person, resonate, harmonize, reverberate together, and in so doing, set up a resonantial field of dynamic unity within where each person finds empathy, understanding and deep care. The interpersonal transcendence frees each person to, more fully, be oneself. It encourages each person to learn more and while comprehension grows, understanding and empathy deepens. The liberating quality, found in Inbetweenness, opens new possibilities for each person and is given back mutually so that each brings the other forward. When taken all together, the qualities found in this way of being, as oneself with the other and as a part of the other in an essential and meaningful way, continue to develop, deepen and grow until one person in the relationship is gone. If one person is gone, a part of oneself is experienced as being gone. This is the dimensional arc of Inbetweenness.

Homi Bhabha: An Introduction and Critique is a pathbreaking three-volume study of the postolonial scholar's work. McLaverty-Robinson translates Bhabha's difficult prose into plain English without losing its meaning. His incisive critique cuts through Bhabha's aura and tests whether his ideas work in practice - empirically or politically. This second volume examines the most influential aspects of Bhabha's work: his theories of colonialism, inbetweenness (or liminality), and marginal minority and migrant experiences. It explores his accounts of Indian history, the idea that migrants have a particularly radical point of view, and the concepts of hybridity, mimicry, difference and diversity. The text is livened up with inset boxes and images, including examinations of colonial history.

We habitually categorize the world in binary logics of 'animate' and 'inanimate', 'natural' and 'supernatural', 'self' and 'other', 'authentic' and 'inauthentic'. The Inbetweenness of Things rejects such Western classificatory traditions – which tend to categorize objects using bounded notions of period, place and purpose – and argues instead for a paradigm where objects are not one thing or another but a multiplicity of things at once. Adopting an 'object-centred' approach, with contributions from material culture specialists across various disciplines, the book showcases a series of objects that defy neat classification. In the process, it explores how 'things' mediate and travel between conceptual worlds in diverse cultural, geographic and temporal contexts, and how they embody this mediation and movement in their form. With an impressive range of international authors, each essay grounds explorations of cutting-edge theory in concrete case studies. An innovative, thought-provoking read for students and researchers in anthropology, archaeology, museum studies and art history which will transform the way readers think about objects.

Focusing on Greater Khartoum following South Sudanese independence in 2011, In-Betweenness in Greater Khartoum explores the impact on society of major political events in areas that are neither urban nor rural, public nor private. This volume uses these in-between spaces as a lens to analyze how these events, in combination with other processes, such as globalization and economic neo-liberalization, impact communities across the region. Drawing on original fieldwork and empirical data, the authors uncover the reshaping of new categories of people that reinforce old dichotomies and in doing so underscore a common Sudanese identity.

This study entails a theoretical reading of the Iranian modern history and follows an interdisciplinary agenda at the intersection of philosophy, psychoanalysis, economics, and politics and intends to offer a novel framework for the analysis of socio-economic development in Iran in the modern era. A brief review of Iranian modern history from the Constitutional Revolution to the Oil Nationalization Movement, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the recent Reformist and Green Movements demonstrates that Iranian people travelled full circle. This historical experience of socio-economic development revolving around the bitter question of “Why are we backward?” and its manifestation in perpetual socio-political instability and violence is the subject matter of this study. Michel Foucault’s conceived relation between the production of truth and production of wealth captures the essence of hypothesis offered in this study. Foucault (1980: 93–94) maintains that “In the last analysis, we must produce truth as we must produce wealth; indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place.” Based on a hybrid methodology combining hermeneutics of understanding and hermeneutics of suspicion, this monograph proposes that the failure to produce wealth has had particular roots in the failure in the production of truth and trust. At the heart of the proposed theoretical model is the following formula: the Iranian subject’s confused preference structure culminates in the formation of unstable coalitions which in turn leads to institutional failure, creating a chaotic social order and a turbulent history as experienced by the Iranian nation in the modern era. As such, the society oscillates between the chaotic states of socio-political anarchy emanating from irreconcilable differences between and within social assemblages and their affiliated hybrid forms of regimes of truth in the springs of freedom and repressive states of order in the winters of discontent. Each time, after the experience of chaos, the order is restored based on the emergence of a final arbiter (Iranian leviathan) as the evolved coping strategy for achieving conflict resolution. This highly volatile truth cycle produces the experience of socio-economic backwardness and violence. The explanatory power of the theoretical framework offered in the study exploring the relation between the production of truth, trust, and wealth is demonstrated via providing historical examples from strong events of Iranian modern history. The significant policy implications of the model are explored. This monograph will appeal to researchers, scholars, graduate students, policy makers and anyone interested in the Middle Eastern politics, Iran, development studies and political economy.

First published in 1999. The many available scholarly works on Italian-Americans are perhaps of little practical help to the undergraduate or high school student who needs background information when reading contemporary fiction with Italian characters, watching films that require a familiarity with Italian Americans, or looking at works of art that can be fully appreciated only if one understands Italian culture. This basic reference work for non-specialists and students offers quick insights and essential, easy-to-grasp information on Italian-American contributions to American art, music, literature, motion pictures and cultural life. This rich legacy is examined in a collection of original essays that include portrayals of Italian characters in the films of Francis Coppola, Italian American poetry, the art of Frank Stella, the music of Frank Zappa, a survey of Italian folk customs and an analysis of the evolution of Italian-American biography. Comprising 22 lengthy essays written specifically for this volume, the book identifies what is uniquely Italian in American life and examines how Italian customs, traditions, social mores and cultural antecedents have wrought their influence on the American character. Filled with insights, observations and ethnic facts and fictions, this volume should prove to be a valuable source of information for scholars, researchers and students interested in pinpointing and examining the cultural, intellectual and social influence of Italian immigrants and their successors.