What are the different contours of defining a subject? How does a subject form in the act of resilience? This multi-author book explores the concept of a wandering subject, especially in the context of resilience. The wandering subject can be understood as an ever-forming subject through different mobilities. This movement is not just the physical movement compelled by a certain agency but also the various mobilities of the selves of the subject, mobilities through spaces, the interconnections formed with other subjects, and the fluidity between the subject/object/spaces at most times compelled by the spirit of resilience. Each chapter of the book delves into the myriad modalities of movement in spaces that are imagined or real. The space is always one of contestation, be it emerging from gender conflict, or that of a nation or a trauma inflicted by war. In this mode of displacement, either physical, emotional or spiritual (and at times, a seepage of all), the subject evolves and defines itself beyond the boundaries of binaries. It questions available definitions of self, subjecthood and identity and prompts one to imagine ways of comprehending and elucidating the concept of subject. In this sense, the book not only illuminates multiple perspectives on the subject but also compels the reader to formulate their own mode of grappling with this complex idea of the subject. It renders itself as an aid to current and future scholars to re-imagine and re-configure the subject.

Few things get our compassion flowing like the sight of suffering. But our response is often shaped by our ability to empathize with others. Some people respond to the suffering of only humans or to one person’s plight more than another’s. Others react more strongly to the suffering of an animal. These divergent realities can be troubling—but they are also a reminder that trauma and suffering are endured by all beings, and we can learn lessons about their aftermath, even across species. With Phoenix Zones, Dr. Hope Ferdowsian shows us how. Ferdowsian has spent years traveling the world to work with people and animals who have endured trauma—war, abuse, displacement. Here, she combines compelling stories of survivors with the latest science on resilience to help us understand the link between violence against people and animals and the biological foundations of recovery, peace, and hope. Taking us to the sanctuaries that give the book its title, she reveals how the injured can heal and thrive if we attend to key principles: respect for liberty and sovereignty, a commitment to love and tolerance, the promotion of justice, and a fundamental belief that each individual possesses dignity. Courageous tales show us how: stories of combat veterans and wolves recovering together at a California refuge, Congolese women thriving in one of the most dangerous places on earth, abused chimpanzees finding peace in a Washington sanctuary, and refugees seeking care at Ferdowsian’s own medical clinic. These are not easy stories. Suffering is real, and recovery is hard. But resilience is real, too, and Phoenix Zones shows how we can foster it. It reveals how both people and animals deserve a chance to live up to their full potential—and how such a view could inspire solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our time.

Corballis argues that mind-wandering has many constructive and adaptive features. These range from mental time travel?the wandering back and forth through time, not only to plan our futures based on past experience, but also to generate a continuous sense of who we are--to the ability to inhabit the minds of others, increasing empathy and social understanding. Through mind-wandering, we invent, tell stories, and expand our mental horizons. Mind wandering , hardly the sign of a faulty network or aimless distraction, actually underwrites creativity, whether as a Wordsworth wandering lonely as a cloud, or an Einstein imagining himself travelling on a beam of light. Corballis takes readers on a mental journey in chapters that can be savored piecemeal, as the minds of readers wander in different ways, and sometimes have limited attentional capacity.

This book contains contributions from the conference Salzburger Anstosse 2010 that was devoted to the multidisciplinary exploration of resilience and unemployment. Resilience is a universal phenomenon, albeit it is differentially distributed within the human species in terms of its modes of expression and effects. One might refer to it as a fundamental element in the adaptive survival make-up of persons and social groups. The book contains a range of illustrations of resilient adaptation in the context of unemployment, one of the fundamental problems of our time. (Series: Perspectives on Social Ethics - Vol. 4)

Resilience and Riverine Landscapes presents contributed chapters from global experts in Riverine Landscapes, making it the most comprehensive reference available on the topic. The book explores why rivers are ideal landscapes to study resilience and why studying rivers from a resilience perspective is important for our biophysical understanding of these landscapes and for society. The book focuses on the biophysical character of resilience in riverine landscapes, providing an interdisciplinary perspective of the structure, function, and interactions of riverine landscapes and the ecosystems they contain. The editors conclude by proposing a research agenda for the future, emphasizing the need for transdisciplinary research across a range of spatial and temporal scales and research domains. Presents the resilience of rivers with both a theoretical and applied focus Includes case studies from a wide geographical base, allowing for a full range of viewpoints Showcases how resilience is being incorporated into the study and management of riverine landscapes Includes a transdisciplinary focus on riverine landscapes, from theory to applied, and from biophysical to social-ecological systems

Only the most naïve or tendentious among us would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one hold, consistently with the common view of suffering in the world, that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that one can. Wandering in Darkness first presents the moral psychology and value theory within which one typical traditional theodicy, namely, that of Thomas Aquinas, is embedded. It explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons. Eleonore Stump also makes use of developments in neurobiology and developmental psychology to illuminate the nature of such union. Stump then turns to an examination of narratives. In a methodological section focused on epistemological issues, the book uses recent research involving autism spectrum disorder to argue that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. Using the methodology argued for, the book gives detailed, innovative exegeses of the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham and Isaac, and Mary of Bethany. In the context of these stories and against the backdrop of Aquinas's other views, Stump presents Aquinas's own theodicy, and shows that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. She concludes by arguing that this explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering.

Irritable Bodies and Postmodern Subjects in Pynchon, Puig, Volponi examines the recurrence of violent body figuration in the fiction of Pynchon, Puig, and Volponi, and also in the fiction of several other postmodern authors who published their literature during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Different as they may be, these authors engage in analogous representative strategies, as their prose is frequently and similarly disrupted by obscene images of wounded, torn, or deformed bodies. In their mix of irony and morbidity, in the hyper-reality of their depiction, in the unwarranted, apparently random nature of their occurrence, these shocking outbreaks exemplify an uncompromisingly «irritable» style which is one fundamental element of postmodernist representation. The author argues how through their fascination with obscene material, these writers address burning issues about the significance of the corporeal in a seemingly discourse-defined universe. This book is a great resource for literary graduate students who are interested in a comparative approach to contemporary literature.