Reading the Shape of Nature

Reading the Shape of Nature PDF Author: Mary P. Winsor
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226902142
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Reading the Shape of Nature vividly recounts the turbulent early history of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard and the contrasting careers of its founder Louis Agassiz and his son Alexander. Through the story of this institution and the individuals who formed it, Mary P. Winsor explores the conflicting forces that shaped systematics in the second half of the nineteenth century. Debates over the philosophical foundations of classification, details of taxonomic research, the young institution's financial struggles, and the personalities of the men most deeply involved are all brought to life. In 1859, Louis Agassiz established the Museum of Comparative Zoology to house research on the ideal types that he believed were embodied in all living forms. Agassiz's vision arose from his insistence that the order inherent in the diversity of life reflected divine creation, not organic evolution. But the mortar of the new museum had scarcely dried when Darwin's Origin was published. By Louis Agassiz's death in 1873, even his former students, including his son Alexander, had defected to the evolutionist camp. Alexander, a self-made millionaire, succeeded his father as director and introduced a significantly different agenda for the museum. To trace Louis and Alexander's arguments and the style of science they established at the museum, Winsor uses many fascinating examples that even zoologists may find unfamiliar. The locus of all this activity, the museum building itself, tells its own story through a wonderful series of archival photographs.

Comparison

Comparison PDF Author: Rita Felski
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421409127
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
An extended volume of New Literary History that considers the practice of comparison in literary studies and other disciplines within the humanities. Writing and teaching across cultures and disciplines makes the act of comparison inevitable. Comparative theory and methods of comparative literature and cultural anthropology have permeated the humanities as they engage more centrally with the cultural flows and circulation of past and present globalization. How do scholars make ethically and politically responsible comparisons without assuming that their own values and norms are the standard by which other cultures should be measured? Comparison expands upon a special issue of the journal New Literary History, which analyzed theories and methodologies of comparison. Six new essays from senior scholars of transnational and postcolonial studies complement the original ten pieces. The work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Ella Shohat, Robert Stam, R. Radhakrishnan, Bruce Robbins, Ania Loomba, Haun Saussy, Linda Gordon, Walter D. Mignolo, Shu-mei Shih, and Pheng Cheah are included with contributions by anthropologists Caroline B. Brettell and Richard Handler. Historical periods discussed range from the early modern to the contemporary and geographical regions that encompass the globe. Ultimately, Comparison argues for the importance of greater self-reflexivity about the politics and methods of comparison in teaching and in research.

10 New Actual, Official LSAT Preptests with Comparative Reading

10 New Actual, Official LSAT Preptests with Comparative Reading PDF Author: Law School Admission Council
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780984636006
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Features full-length examinations with writing samples and answer keys that were previously administered by the association between 2007 and 2010, along with a test overview, test-taking strategies, and an explanation of the score.

The Great Mental Models, Volume 1

The Great Mental Models, Volume 1 PDF Author: Shane Parrish
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593719972
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

Adjectives

Adjectives PDF Author: Patricia Cabredo Hoffher
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255369
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Adjectives are comparatively less well studied than the lexical categories of nouns and verbs. The present volume brings together studies in the syntax and semantics of adjectives. Four of the contributions investigate the syntax of adjectives in a variety of languages (English, French, Mandarin Chinese, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, and Serbocroatian). The theoretical issues explored include: the syntax of attributive and predicative adjectives, the syntax of nominalized adjectives and the identification of adjectives as a distinct lexical category in Mandarin Chinese. A further four contributions examine different aspects in the semantics of adjectives in English, French, and Spanish, dealing with superlatives, comparatives, and aspect in adjectives. This volume will be of interest to researchers and students in syntax, formal semantics, and language typology.

Handbook of Reading Research

Handbook of Reading Research PDF Author: P. David Pearson
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780805824162
Category : Reading
Languages : en
Pages : 1108

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Book Description
"The Handbook of Reading Research is the research handbook for the field. Each volume has come to define the field for the period of time it covers ... When taken as a set, the four volumes provide a definitive history of reading research"--Back of cover, volume 4.

Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese

Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese PDF Author: Leo Tak-hung Chan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131764123X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Translated fiction has largely been under-theorized, if not altogether ignored, in literary studies. Though widely consumed, translated novels are still considered secondary versions of foreign masterpieces. Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese recognizes that translated novels are distinct from non-translated novels, just as they are distinct from the originals from which they are derived, but they are neither secondary nor inferior. They provide different models of reality; they are split apart by two languages, two cultures and two literary systems; and they are characterized by cultural hybridity, double voicing and multiple intertextualities. With the continued popularity of translated fiction, questions related to its reading and reception take on increasing significance. Chan draws on insights from textual and narratological studies to unravel the processes through which readers interact with translated fiction. Moving from individual readings to collective reception, he considers how lay Chinese readers, as a community, 'received' translated British fiction at specific historical moments during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Case studies discussed include translations of stream-of-consciousness novels, fantasy fiction and postmodern works. In addition to lay readers, two further kinds of reader with bilingual facility are examined: the way critics and historians approach translated fiction is investigated from structuralist and poststrcuturalist perspectives. A range of novels by well-known British authors constitute the core of the study, including novels by Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, John Fowles, Helen Fielding and J.K. Rowling.

Comparative Textual Media

Comparative Textual Media PDF Author: N. Katherine Hayles
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452940584
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
For the past few hundred years, Western cultures have relied on print. When writing was accomplished by a quill pen, inkpot, and paper, it was easy to imagine that writing was nothing more than a means by which writers could transfer their thoughts to readers. The proliferation of technical media in the latter half of the twentieth century has revealed that the relationship between writer and reader is not so simple. From telegraphs and typewriters to wire recorders and a sweeping array of digital computing devices, the complexities of communications technology have made mediality a central concern of the twenty-first century. Despite the attention given to the development of the media landscape, relatively little is being done in our academic institutions to adjust. In Comparative Textual Media, editors N. Katherine Hayles and Jessica Pressman bring together an impressive range of essays from leading scholars to address the issue, among them Matthew Kirschenbaum on archiving in the digital era, Patricia Crain on the connection between a child’s formation of self and the possession of a book, and Mark Marino exploring how to read a digital text not for content but for traces of its underlying code. Primarily arguing for seeing print as a medium along with the scroll, electronic literature, and computer games, this volume examines the potential transformations if academic departments embraced a media framework. Ultimately, Comparative Textual Media offers new insights that allow us to understand more deeply the implications of the choices we, and our institutions, are making. Contributors: Stephanie Boluk, Vassar College; Jessica Brantley, Yale U; Patricia Crain, NYU; Adriana de Souza e Silva, North Carolina State U; Johanna Drucker, UCLA; Thomas Fulton, Rutgers U; Lisa Gitelman, New York U; William A. Johnson, Duke U; Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, U of Maryland; Patrick LeMieux; Mark C. Marino, U of Southern California; Rita Raley, U of California, Santa Barbara; John David Zuern, U of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

Comparative and International Education

Comparative and International Education PDF Author: C. C. Wolhuter
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1787434613
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This book explores the evolution and current state of the scholarly field of comparative and international education over 200 years of development. Experts in the field explore comparative and international education in each of the major world regions.

How to Read a Book

How to Read a Book PDF Author: Mortimer J. Adler
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439144834
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
With half a million copies in print, How to Read a Book is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader, completely rewritten and updated with new material. A CNN Book of the Week: “Explains not just why we should read books, but how we should read them. It's masterfully done.” –Farheed Zakaria Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text. Also included is instruction in the different techniques that work best for reading particular genres, such as practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science works. Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests you can use measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension, and speed.