This book starts out from the deep concern with contemporary tendencies towards depoliticisation of public issues and popular interests and makes a case for rethinking more democratic popular representation. It outlines a framework for popular representation, examines key issues and experiences and provides a policy-oriented conclusion.

What is symbolic representation? Since Hanna Pitkin’s seminal The Concept of Representation, the symbolic has been the least studied dimension of political representation. Innovatively adopting a discursive approach, this book - the first full-length treatment of symbolic representation - focuses on gender issues to tackle important questions such as: What are women and men symbols of, and how is gender constructed in policy discourse? It studies what functions symbolic representation fulfils in the construction of gender, what social roles get legitimized in policy discourse, and how this affects power constellations, ultimately revealing much about the relation between symbolic, descriptive, and substantive representation. Emanuela Lombardo and Petra Meier draw on theories of symbolic representation and gender, as well as rich primary material about political debates on labour and care issues, partnership and reproductive rights, gender violence, and quotas. Using this original data, the authors show that reconsidering symbolic representation from a discursive perspective makes explicit issues of (in)equality embedded within particular constructions, as well as their consequences for political representation and gender equality. This important exploration raises relevant new questions regarding the representation of gender that form valuable contributions to the fields of political science, political theory, sociology, and gender studies.

Symbol Use and Symbolic Representation: Developmental and Comparative Perspectives is the proceedings of a workshop held at Emory University in 2002 to discuss the difficult and age-old issue of what makes a symbol symbolic. The issue shifts towards exploring the relation between apparent symbolic behavior and actual symbolic insight on the part of the user or recipient. The workshop discussed the pitfalls of inferring symbolic understanding from apparently symbolic behaviors and possible criteria that would enable us to ascertain when a symbol is being employed in an intentional, communicative, representational manner. Broken down into three parts, this volume: *focuses on the factors that influence the emergence of symbolic behavior in young, typically developing children; *turns to an examination of individual and population differences in symbolic development and the ways variability in symbol use can inform the cognitive mechanisms underlying symbolic insight; and *explores symbolic understanding in non-human animals. The text ends with a synthesis of recurring themes, questions, concerns, and conclusions, and offers a new perspective on the process of understanding the relation between symbol use and symbolic insight.

Language is not simply a tool for communication - symbolic power struggles underlie any speech act, discourse move, or verbal interaction, be it in face-to-face conversations, online tweets or political debates. This book provides a clear and accessible introduction to the topic of language and power from an applied linguistics perspective. It is clearly split into three sections: the power of symbolic representation, the power of symbolic action and the power to create symbolic reality. It draws upon a wide range of existing work by philosophers, sociolinguists, sociologists and applied linguists, and includes current real-world examples, to provide a fresh insight into a topic that is of particular significance and interest in the current political climate and in our increasingly digital age. The book shows the workings of language as symbolic power in educational, social, cultural and political settings and discusses ways to respond to and even resist symbolic violence.

Offers photograph illustrations and essays on numerous symbols and symbolic imagery, exploring their archetypal meanings as well as cultural and historical context for how different groups have interpreted them.

Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a deep insight and comprehension of the world of Art. Contents: What is Art? The Structure of Art Significance of Materials Used in Art Describing Art - Formal Analysis, Types, and Styles of Art Meaning in Art - Socio-Cultural Contexts, Symbolism, and Iconography Connecting Art to Our Lives Form in Architecture Art and Identity Art and Power Art and Ritual Life - Symbolism of Space and Ritual Objects, Mortality, and Immortality Art and Ethics

Connections and Symbols provides the first systematic analysis of the explosive new field of Connectionism that is challenging the basic tenets of cognitive science. Does intelligence result from the manipulation of structured symbolic expressions? Or is it the result of the activation of large networks of densely interconnected simple units? Connections and Symbols provides the first systematic analysis of the explosive new field of Connectionism that is challenging the basic tenets of cognitive science. These lively discussions by Jerry A. Fodor, Zenon W. Pylyshyn, Steven Pinker, Alan Prince, Joel Lechter, and Thomas G. Bever raise issues that lie at the core of our understanding of how the mind works: Does connectionism offer it truly new scientific model or does it merely cloak the old notion of associationism as a central doctrine of learning and mental functioning? Which of the new empirical generalizations are sound and which are false? And which of the many ideas such as massively parallel processing, distributed representation, constraint satisfaction, and subsymbolic or microfeatural analyses belong together, and which are logically independent? Now that connectionism has arrived with full-blown models of psychological processes as diverse as Pavlovian conditioning, visual recognition, and language acquisition, the debate is on. Common themes emerge from all the contributors to Connections and Symbols: criticism of connectionist models applied to language or the parts of cognition employing language like operations; and a focus on what it is about human cognition that supports the traditional physical symbol system hypothesis. While criticizing many aspects of connectionist models, the authors also identify aspects of cognition that could he explained by the connectionist models. Connections and Symbols is included in the Cognition Special Issue series, edited by Jacques Mehler.