This book sets out to look at what language is and what languages are with a view to arriving not at one practical theory of language, but rather at ways of assembling practical ways of thinking about language, or understanding applied linguistics as a practical assemblage. Rather than thinking about applied linguistics in disciplinary or interdisciplinary terms, this view suggests the coming together of language-oriented projects (social or educational endeavours that involve language), practical theories of language (different ways of approaching linguistic questions) and critical appraisals (ethical, material and political concerns). As applied linguists, we have to start to take responsibility for the ways we think about language. Approaches to language that derive from attempts to describe language structures or to account for language use in structural terms may not be so useful. The terrain has changed from when applied linguistics was first seen as the application of linguistic knowledge to real-world contexts. We can now start to think seriously about practical theories of language or ways of thinking about language that derive from contexts of practice.

The avant-garde writers of the Hellenistic period demonstrate an acute sense of literary tradition. In the previous chapter we have already seen some of the ways in which Theocritus develops his distinctive fragmented and polyphonous voice in relation to the past. In the programmatic narrative of Idyll 7, the search for an exemplary voice recedes through a series of lost poets’ songs towards an always already distanced model of excellence. So in Idyll 11, the much-discussed Hellenistic technique of reversing and restructuring the phraseology of earlier writing finds a parallel in the appropriation and manipulation of a Homeric figure: the Cyclops is taken back to a green and loving youth, back to a time before Homer’s writing of him as a paradigm of monstrous brutality. Indeed, in Hellenistic poetry we see again and again a search for an original and originating moment in the past ’before Homer wrote’.

In this chapter, Michael McKinnie explores how methods drawn from the social sciences can help theatre scholars formulate different, and more systematic, ways to think about theatre and its place in the world. Social scientists make ‘moves’ with their material that theatre scholars are unlikely to make with theirs. When transposed to analysis of theatre, these moves suggest different, sometimes counter-intuitive, approaches. ‘Tricks’, an idea taken from sociologist Howard S. Becker, are formal procedures that help draw out theatre’s relationality at subsequent stages of the research process. Thinking about theatre’s place in the world poses a wide variety of problems that TaPS is not always equipped to tackle. Theatre scholars need to make different moves, and formulate new tricks, to begin to address them.

After many years during which indigenous laws were mostly absent from narratives of Latin American law, presently, legal historians wish to integrate them. However, to do so requires answering the question of what we know about indigenous laws and how we can approach them. Writing the history of indigenous laws from precolonial times is especially challenging not only because of the diversity of human groups that occupied the continent, but also because of the disparity of available sources, ranging from material vestiges and pictographic documents to texts produced in indigenous writing systems. Furthermore, the colonial period has left us with a wide range of alphabetic texts, diverse in authorship, languages, formats, degree of accuracy, and sources selected, that describe precolonial law. Indigenous peoples, mestizos, and Spaniards also wrote historical narratives and accounts of deeds and services; furthermore, they participated as litigants in lawsuits in which they expressed their vision of law and justice. What does this evidence tell us about precolonial normative orders and the way in which they intersected with colonial law after the Iberian imperial conquests? To answer this question, this chapter proposes an interdisciplinary approach, surveying what has been done, and what could still be done.

The book concludes with a discussion of the ways that virtue science can influence the discipline of psychology. First, it reiterates that virtue science is off to a good start. The success of virtue science calls the fact–value dichotomy into question because scientifically studying virtues is deeply imbued with value commitments. Virtue science is more interdisciplinary than psychology, and the value of working across disciplinary lines in virtue science recommends greater interdisciplinarity among psychologists. This interdisciplinarity in virtue science has helped to clarify the many philosophical contentions that tend to be ignored by psychologists or just built in as contentious assumptions. The STRIVE-4 Model clarifies how much improved conceptualization can enhance a research area, suggesting that psychology, as a discipline, can benefit from more systematic theory. Virtue science also calls for improved research, especially person-centered research and transcending self-report measures. Finally, virtue science calls for the recognition of the centrality of the aspiration to live well as human beings. Greater attention to this core aim can help psychologists to be much clearer and more direct about their objectives.

Castillo argues that one reason for the standstill in sector theorizing may be that theory-building has been too focused on anthropocentric constructs, for example, economic, organizational, and symbolic aspects of firms and societies. Instead, the author suggests moving from an egocentric to an ecocentric conceptualization of organizing by drawing from principles from biology and ecology to develop a framework to explain prosocial organizing. By shifting the analytical focus from economizing to ecologizing, the chapter offers a conceptual foundation for how a relational approach to exchange can reconcile sustainability tensions between now and later, individual and collective, and social and financial returns. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications for research, policy, and practice, suggesting relational biology as a plausible theoretical framework to move nonprofit theory beyond description toward concrete mathematical models.

The rise of interdisciplinary and no-boundary engagement has created a need to train the next generation of No-Boundary Thinking (NBT) scholars and practitioners. So it is essential that students be provided with NBT experiences in the classroom and through group-based research experiences. Our no-boundary community has offered a first generation of classes to provide an environment where students can engage in no-boundary projects and exercises, and reflect upon the nature of this type of thinking and problem solving. The following five classes were first offered in fall 2015 through spring 2018 at four institutions for undergraduate and graduate students. The experience has been enriching for both students and faculty. In all cases the courses have been well received by the students and institutions, and most instructors plan to continue to provide the classes as permanent offerings. We describe the early offerings of each class.

The current sharing economy suffers from system-wide deficiencies even as it produces distinctive benefits and advantages for some participants. The first generation of sharing markets has left us to question: Will there be any workers in the sharing economy? Can we know enough about these technologies to regulate them? Is there any way to avoid the monopolization of assets, information, and wealth? Using convergent, transdisciplinary perspectives, this volume examines the challenge of reengineering a sharing economy that is more equitable, democratic, sustainable, and just. The volume enhances the reader’s capacity for integrating applicable findings and theories in business, law and social science into ethical engineering design and practice. At the same time, the book helps explain how technological innovations in the sharing economy create value for different stakeholders and how they impact society at large. Reengineering the Sharing Economy is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This chapter has two purposes. First, to offer a vision of environmental humanities as an interdisciplinary endeavour that involves the core disciplines of the humanities, as well as their connections with other disciplines and ways of working within the academy and beyond. Second, to draw some conclusions from that vision for the kinds of issues of politics, dialogue and ethics that arise from the real-world problems on which environmental humanities bear. In other words, the chapter attempts to operationalise some of the key messages that the environmental humanities might have to propose in the real-world situation of today. This is a matter first of characterising that situation. Environmental humanities can help us make sense of the challenges that arise, albeit not in isolation. The point of the exercise is to seek appropriate forms of integration between a realm of humanities or humanistic thinking about environmental challenges with a scientific mode of thinking. Second, the chapter considers how humanities thinking can bear on action issues that arise from the situation as thus characterised. What kind of action? How can it be justified? Through which practical mechanisms can it be pursued?

There is an enduring connection within the human consciousness between forests and climate, whereby forests are understood to influence climate and that clearing the woods or planting trees changes climate. From several centuries, this idea exploded onto public awareness with the belief that clearing forests improved climate. The drive for climate betterment gave way to concern for a decline in rainfall as the forests were cleared, and the nineteenth century saw repeated calls in all reaches of the world to reforest denuded lands to increase rainfall. Meteorologists, however, dismissed an influence of forests on climate, and the science of forest meteorology was forgotten. Now, forests are again recognized for their climate benefits. Like our forebears, we again talk of purposely using forests to improve climate. Protecting existing forests, restoring degraded forests, and planting new forests are seen as critical to solving the climate problem. That the biosphere is fundamental to, not separate from, climate is a core tenet of the newly emerging Earth system science. This realization is not new. It is borne from the long, controversial chronicle of forests and climate change.

Forests regulate climate through exchanges of energy and materials with the atmosphere. The idea that forests affect climate is not new. A vigorous debate about deforestation, reforestation, and climate change began during European settlement of the Americas, spreading to all regions of the world before collapsing in the early 1900s. The story of forests and climate change is told as being scientifically wrong and advanced for political, economic, or cultural reasons, but it has not been told from a modern scientific perspective. In fact, it represents the foundation for the interdisciplinary study of Earth as a system. Many of the questions posed in today’s study of climate change and climate solutions have their origins in the forest-climate question. The multicentury controversy over forests and climate change is a narrative in which purposeful modification of climate is longstanding, but by felling or planting trees. Earth system science is a centuries old idea, conceived in the long-held belief that forests influence climate and doomed to fail by the disciplinary specialization of the sciences. Narrow-mindedness prevented a vision of the world as an interconnected system.

Research on society and environment has a rich history that is challenging to access. We define socio-environmental research as structured inquiry about the reciprocal relationships between society and environment. It has evolved from early observational expeditions to today’s data-intensive, interdisciplinary work. We assemble readings from the late 1700s to the mid-1990s to showcase this legacy and organize readings into chapters. Each chapter is introduced by a prominent scholar, who discusses the context key insights. Considered over time, readings suggest certain research themes have endured, forming lineages: a focus on populations and their resource bases, sustainable management of common-pool resources, society and land, technology, and systems. As a guide, this anthology can help new researchers gain a basic vocabulary and overview of different research traditions. Current researchers can learn different ways to conceptualize society–environment relationships, supporting interdisciplinary teams. For specialists in socio-environmental research, the readings can stimulate new questions and illuminate the historic nature of contemporary ideas and concerns.