A committed Lutheran excommunicated from his own church, a friend to Catholics and Calvinists alike, a layman who called himself a “priest of God,” a Copernican in a world where Ptolemy still reigned, a man who argued at the same time for the superiority of one truth and the need for many truths to coexist—German astronomer Johannes Kepler was, to say the least, a complicated figure. With The Pursuit of Harmony, Aviva Rothman offers a new view of him and his achievements, one that presents them as a story of Kepler’s attempts to bring different, even opposing ideas and circumstances into harmony. Harmony, Rothman shows, was both the intellectual bedrock for and the primary goal of Kepler’s disparate endeavors. But it was also an elusive goal amid the deteriorating conditions of his world, as the political order crumbled and religious war raged. In the face of that devastation, Kepler’s hopes for his theories changed: whereas he had originally looked for a unifying approach to truth, he began instead to emphasize harmony as the peaceful coexistence of different views, one that could be fueled by the fundamentally nonpartisan discipline of mathematics.

The author tells of his own development as a student, "of how he and his intrepid colleagues were converted to chamber music ... [and of how] four individualists master and then overcome the confining demands of ensemble playing."--Jacket.

Focusing on the role of harmony in Chinese international relations (IR) theory, this book seeks to illuminate Chinese understandings of world politics and foreign policy. Taking a decolonial approach and rooted in China's cultural and epistemic terms, the title first describes three traditions of the concept of harmony in ancient Chinese thought and then analyses three strands of contemporary Chinese IR theory that draw upon this traditional thinking. Despite their similarities in advocating a radical deepening of China's relations with other countries and intense interdependence as essential for global peace and prosperity, these Chinese IR theories understand the concept of harmony in different ways and present different recommendations for achieving harmonious relations. Based on this framework of harmonious IR, Chinese social scientists also argue for new directions in Chinese foreign policy in a manner that is complementary with China's policymaking system. In the case-study section, the authors apply harmonious IR perspectives to the Belt and Road Initiative and demonstrate how a better understanding of Chinese IR theories can shed light on motivations behind Chinese foreign policy. This work will be a valuable reference for scholars, students, policymakers, and general readers interested in Chinese politics, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese IR theory, and ancient Chinese philosophy.

The Heian court of the late ninth and early tenth centuries represents one of the most innovative and influential periods in the history of Japanese poetry. It witnessed the creation of entirely new forms of verse in poetry matches, screen poems, and officially sponsored anthologies, none of which had a precedent in earlier times. At the apex of these phenomena lay compilation of the Kokin wakashu (Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern), whose status as the first imperial anthology of native poetry would make it integral to Japanese court culture for centuries afterward. Despite the enormous historical significance of these new forms of poetry and the marked interest displayed by powerful individuals in patronizing them, however, little sustained attention has been paid to the ties between the practices of producing and performing verse and processes of economic, ideological, political, and social change in this period. This book is intended to address such issues through an investigation of the ways in which different members of the court community deployed poems in the pursuit of power.

Conflicts happen, and the workplace can be a cacophony for competing interests. Consider that organizational culture is an ensemble of shared values, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, and norms. Organizations are not solos. They are an accompaniment of individuals, departments, and divisions, and each is competing for scarce resources. Measure in a little power imbalance and organizational political posturing. Then, scale in the fact that today’s managers are faced with diversity and cultural issues ranging from race and gender to individual ethnicity, principles, and philosophies, about which employees are more vocal. All this discord can strike a sharp note of dissonance. However, effective resolutions can change this discord to harmony. Consider that music is not a single note. Rather, it is the silence between the notes that makes beautiful music, and conflict is that silence. Unfortunately, conflict has a bad reputation, and it is often labeled as disagreement, fighting, or arguing that leads to stress, retaliation, and resentment. Some managers spend a disproportionate amount of their workdays dealing with conflicts. They have not learned what causes conflicts or how to productively manage them. As a result, they often avoid or force outcomes causing discord, fractured relationships, loss of productivity, and even lawsuits. Learning to fine tune inevitable conflicts will help managers orchestrate a more harmonious workplace. From Discord to Harmony: Making the Workplace Hum is largely evidence-based, and many of the chapters contain cutting-edge research by experts in their respective fields.

Very often we find ourselves struggling and disconnected from the person who we are called to be. We go looking for solutions in different places, only to find that sustained progress and growth does not seem to come. Meanwhile, as our lives seem more compartmentalized and arranged, we slowly begin to slip away from the holistic existence that all of us desire. We seek happiness in circumstances that don't endure, and settle for superficiality that does little more than get us through our day. But deep inside of us, a yearning remains-one that desires to deeply embrace our physical, psychological, social, and spiritual dimensions in raw form as one being. And right through the heart of it runs this curious story of Christianity, as radical now as it was two thousand years ago. Although encounters with this yearning may be brief and uncertain, denying its presence only leaves us further confused. So we settle for less, and linger unfulfilled. Wholiness is a book dedicated to a deeper understanding of this reality. Through restless seeking, it strives to bring together collective wisdom and authentic experiences in a way that engages the reader in the questions of, "Just who are we?" and "Where do we want to go?"

Monograph on, and catalogue of the most extensive collection in the West of the famed Chinese Ming Dynasty painter Bada Shanren.