This book is the first systematic cross-disciplinary survey on the use of Jamaican English in Ethiopia, describing the dynamics of language acquisition in a multi-lectal and multicultural context. It is the result of over eight years’ worth of research conducted in both Jamaica and Africa, and is a recognition of the trans-cultural influence of the “Repatriation Movement” and other diasporic movements. The method and materials adopted in this book point to a constant spread and diffusion of Jamaican culture in Ethiopia. This is reinforced by the universalistic appeal of Rastafarianism and Reggae music and their ability to transcend borders. The data gathered here focus on how an Anglophone-based Creole has developed new speech-forms and has been hybridized and cross-fertilized in contact situations and by new media sources. The book focuses on the use of Jamaican English in four particular domains: namely, school, street, family, and the music studio. Its findings are drawn from an exceptional range of sources, such as field-work and video-recordings, interviews, web-mediated communication, artistic performance and relevant transcriptions. These sources highlight five topics of relevance—language acquisition and choice; English and Jamaican speech forms; hegemonic and minority groups, Rastafarian culture and Reggae music—which are explored in further detail throughout the book. These salient features, in turn, interface with the dynamics of influencing factors, reinforcing circumstances, significance and change. The book represents a journey to the “extreme-outer circle” of English language use, following a circular route away from Africa and back again, with all the languages used (and lost) along the slavery route and inside the plantation complex developing into creolized speech forms and Creoles. Such language use is now making its way back to Africa, with all the incendiary creativity of Reggae and resonant with Rastafarian language.

“Who hasn't wondered what alternate versions of their lives might look like?...As relatable as it is suspenseful cleverly exploring adulthood, identity, and shifting realities.” —Margarita Montimore, USA Today bestselling author of Oona Out of Order An inventive page-turner about the choices we make and the ones made for us. One minute Kelly’s a free-spirited artist in Chicago going to her best friend’s art show. The next, she opens a door and mysteriously emerges in her Michigan hometown. Suddenly her life is unrecognizable: She's got twelve years of the wrong memories in her head and she's married to Eric, a man she barely knew in high school. Racing to get back to her old life, Kelly's search leads only to more questions. In this life, she loves Eric and wants to trust him, but everything she discovers about him—including a connection to a mysterious tech startup—tells her she shouldn't. And strange things keep happening. The tattoos she had when she was an artist briefly reappear on her skin, she remembers fights with Eric that he says never happened, and her relationships with loved ones both new and familiar seem to change without warning. But the closer Kelly gets to putting the pieces together, the more her reality seems to shift. And if she can't figure out what happened on that fateful night, the next change could cost her everything...

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes a deeply personal memoir full of fascinating adventures as he travels everywhere from the Mayan pyramids to Kilimanjaro. Fueled by a powerful curiosity—and by a need to see, feel, and hear, firsthand and close-up—Michael Crichton's journeys have carried him into worlds diverse and compelling—swimming with mud sharks in Tahiti, tracking wild animals through the jungle of Rwanda. This is a record of those travels—an exhilarating quest across the familiar and exotic frontiers of the outer world, a determined odyssey into the unfathomable, spiritual depths of the inner world. It is an adventure of risk and rejuvenation, terror and wonder, as exciting as Michael Crichton's many masterful and widely heralded works of fiction.

In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Included here are more than twenty original photographs as well as a meticulously annotated discography. The result is one of the most thoughtful, and most entertaining, investigations of contemporary music available today.

'The Impact of School Infrastructure on Learning: A Synthesis of the Evidence provides an excellent literature review of the resources that explore the areas of focus for improved student learning, particularly the aspiration for “accessible, well-built, child-centered, synergetic and fully realized learning environments.†? Written in a style which is both clear and accessible, it is a practical reference for senior government officials and professionals involved in the planning and design of educational facilities, as well as for educators and school leaders. --Yuri Belfali, Head of Division, Early Childhood and Schools, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills This is an important and welcome addition to the surprisingly small, evidence base on the impacts of school infrastructure given the capital investment involved. It will provide policy makers, practitioners, and those who are about to commission a new build with an important and comprehensive point of reference. The emphasis on safe and healthy spaces for teaching and learning is particularly welcome. --Harry Daniels, Professor of Education, Department of Education, Oxford University, UK This report offers a useful library of recent research to support the, connection between facility quality and student outcomes. At the same time, it also points to the unmet need for research to provide verifiable and reliable information on this connection. With such evidence, decisionmakers will be better positioned to accurately balance the allocation of limited resources among the multiple competing dimensions of school policy, including the construction and maintenance of the school facility. --David Lever, K-12 Facility Planner, Former Executive Director of the Interagency Committee on School Construction, Maryland Many planners and designers are seeking a succinct body of research defining both the issues surrounding the global planning of facilities as well as the educational outcomes based on the quality of the space provided. The authors have finally brought that body of evidence together in this well-structured report. The case for better educational facilities is clearly defined and resources are succinctly identified to stimulate the dialogue to come. We should all join this conversation to further the process of globally enhancing learning-environment quality! --David Schrader, AIA, Educational Facility Planner and Designer, Former Chairman of the Board of Directors, Association for Learning Environments (A4LE)