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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2020

        Disciplined Agency

        by Patrícia Matos, Alexander Smith

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2021

        Disciplined agency

        Neoliberal precarity, generational dispossession and call centre labour in Portugal

        by Patrícia Alves de Matos

        Since the mid-2000s, the harsh reality of call centre employment for a generation of young workers in Portugal has been impossible to ignore. With its endless rows of small cubicles, where human agents endure repetitive telephone conversations with abusive clients under invasive modes of technological surveillance, discipline and control, call centre work remains a striking symbol of labour precarity, a condition particularly associated with the neoliberal generational disenchantment that 'each generation does better than its predecessor'. This book describes the emergence of a regime of disciplined agency in the Portuguese call centre sector. Examining the ascendancy of call centres as icons of precarity in contemporary Portugal, this book argues that call centre labour constitutes a new form of commodification of the labouring subject. De Matos argues that call centres represent an advanced system of non-manual labour power exploitation, due to the underestimation of human creativity that lies at the centre of the regimented structures of call centre labour. Call centres can only guarantee profit maintenance, de Matos argues, through the commodification of the human agency arising from the operators' moral, relational and social embedded agentive linguistic interventions of creative improvisation, decision-making, problem-solving and ethical evaluation.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Fiction
        November 2022

        WAY WAY OUT THERE

        by Cat S.

        Are you going somewhere, Big Bear? Way Way Out There is where big things reside. They're so big - they cast shadows impossible to ignore. It's a long way away, but sometime big things come to shore on White Cliff to watch fascinating little things. Jules is an aspiring Big Bear born in White Cliff. He's been dreaming big from an early age, but has yet to figure it out. How does one grow Big? Where does one find directions? Who do you listen to? Can one so small really get There? To take one giant's advice--you'd have to see it for yourself. Way Way Out There.A wonderful fable told from the point of view of a small mind mapping out a path that would lead to something beautiful, good and true.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        March 2019

        Emotional Intelligence in Tourism and Hospitality

        by Erdogan Koc

        Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capability to recognize one's own emotions and those of others. The use of emotional information guides thinking and behavior, allowing adjustment of emotions to adapt to environments. As tourism and hospitality services are produced and consumed simultaneously, with a high level of contact between employees and customers, the development of EI of employees in tourism and hospitality establishments is vital. This book has a skills-based approach and explains how emotional intelligence can be developed in tourism and hospitality students and employees.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner

        La faim justifie les moyens (Hunger justifies the means)

        by Gilka

        Elo the crocodile finds himself in a small dilemma: he must choose between his stomach and his heart. But hungry for several days, he will not hesitate long.

      • Trusted Partner
      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2016

        A matter of intelligence

        by Charmian Brinson, Richard Dove

      • Trusted Partner
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      • Trusted Partner
        Mind, Body, Spirit

        The Way of Inanna

        A Heroine’s Guide to Living Unapologetically

        by Seana Zelazo

        Myth Made ManifestOver 4000 years ago in ancient Sumer, some of the first mythographers inscribed the stories and myths of the Goddess Inanna on clay tablets in cuneiform. These incredible findings were unearthed, and the fragments were painstakingly pieced together and translated. What they discovered were the ways Inanna was heralded as a goddess who embodies polarities: impatient and deliberate, an attentive lover and fierce warrior, connected to fertility as well as death-making her an accessible, relatable, and inspiring representation of the Divine Feminine as she stands in her power and multidimensionality. The Way of Inanna is a field guide to heart-centered living through the wisdom of the Sumerian Goddess of Love. Each chapter deconstructs sacred narratives in which the Goddess navigates the seven gates of her soul's journey from awakening to ascension. More than a simple retelling, the book is myth made manifest in which Inanna becomes a means to accessing our own ascension and alchemical magic within our modern, contemporary context.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2017

        Images of Africa

        by Julia Gallagher

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2012

        Authorship and authority

        The writings of James VI and I

        by Jane Rickard

        James VI of Scotland and I of England participated in the burgeoning literary culture of the Renaissance, not only as a monarch and patron, but as an author in his own right, publishing extensively in a number of different genres over four decades. As the first monograph devoted to James as an author, this book offers a fresh perspective on his reigns in Scotland and England, and also on the inter-relationship of authorship and authority, literature and politics in the Renaissance. Beginning with the poetry he wrote in Scotland in the 1580s, it moves through a wide range of his writings in other genres, including scriptural exegeses, political, social and theological treatises and printed speeches, concluding with his manuscript poetry of the early 1620s. The book combines extensive primary research into the preparation, material form and circulation of these varied writings, with theoretically informed consideration of the relationship between authors, texts and readers. The discussion thus explores James's responses to, and interventions in, a range of literary, political and religious debates, and reveals the development of his aims and concerns as an author. Rickard argues that, despite the King's best efforts to the contrary, his writings expose the tensions and contradictions between authorship and authority. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of the reign of James VI and I, the literary and political cultures of late sixteenth-century Scotland and early seventeenth-century England, the development of notions of authorship and the relationship between literature and politics. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        May 2012

        The agency phenomenon in the European Union

        Emergence, institutionalisation and everyday decision-making

        by Madalina Busuioc, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Martijn Groenleer, Simon Bulmer, Jarle Trondal, Andrew Geddes, Peter Humphreys

        This volume offers a comprehensive analysis of the agency phenomenon in the European Union. It takes stock of the emergence and development of EU agencies, providing insight into the characteristics as well as the consequences of the ongoing EU agencification process. The volume traces the varied roots of and routes to agency emergence and institutionalisation. It also analyses everyday decision-making processes within EU-level agencies, notably the management of such agencies, their role in the creation of network structures in European executive governance and in the implementation of EU legislation at the member state level, and the varied sources of agency accountability. The ambition of this volume is to offer an even-handed assessment and explanation of agency creation, design, and evolution at the EU level. The volume is targeted to academics, post-graduate students and practitioners. Chapter authors include Deirdre Curtin, Renaud Dehousse, Morten Egeberg and Thomas Gehring. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        November 2011

        Im Bureau

        Erzählungen

        by Robert Walser

        Das Gesetz des Büros prägt unser Leben von A bis Z. Als der junge Robert Walser um 1900 zu schreiben anfing, war das noch ganz anders gewesen. Als Auszubildender in einer Bank hatte er das Bureau als etwas irritierend Neues erfahren. Es erscheint als Inbegriff eines fremdbestimmten und sinnentleerten Lebens und bildet zugleich den Ort, an dem die Fantasien und Träume ansetzen, mit denen sich der Dichter die Wirklichkeit aneignet. Wie die Bürokratie-Satiren von Melville, Gogol oder Kafka werfen auch Robert Walsers hier erstmals versammelten Erzählungen über Angestellte ein ebenso erhellendes wie erheiterndes Licht auf das, was uns im Innersten zusammenhält: die Rationalisierung der Arbeitswelt.

      • Trusted Partner
        October 2011

        Im Bureau

        Aus dem Leben der Angestellten

        by Robert Walser, Reto Sorg, Lucas Marco Gisi

        Das Gesetz des Büros prägt unser Leben von A bis Z. Als der junge Robert Walser um 1900 zu schreiben anfing, war das noch ganz anders gewesen. Als Auszubildender in einer Bank hatte er das ›Bureau‹ als etwas irritierend Neues erfahren. Es erscheint als Inbegriff eines fremdbestimmten und sinnentleerten Lebens und bildet zugleich den Ort, an dem die Fantasien und Träume ansetzen, mit denen sich der Dichter die Wirklichkeit aneignet. Wie die Bürokratie-Satiren von Melville, Gogol oder Kafka werfen auch Robert Walsers hier erstmals versammelten Erzählungen über Angestellte ein ebenso erhellendes wie erheiterndes Licht auf das, was uns im Innersten zusammenhält: die Rationalisierung der Arbeitswelt.

      • Trusted Partner
        November 2011

        Im Bureau

        Erzählungen

        by Robert Walser, Reto Sorg

        Das Gesetz des Büros prägt unser Leben von A bis Z. Als der junge Robert Walser um 1900 zu schreiben anfing, war das noch ganz anders gewesen. Als Auszubildender in einer Bank hatte er das ›Bureau‹ als etwas irritierend Neues erfahren. Es erscheint als Inbegriff eines fremdbestimmten und sinnentleerten Lebens und bildet zugleich den Ort, an dem die Fantasien und Träume ansetzen, mit denen sich der Dichter die Wirklichkeit aneignet. Wie die Bürokratie-Satiren von Melville, Gogol oder Kafka werfen auch Robert Walsers hier erstmals versammelten Erzählungen über Angestellte ein ebenso erhellendes wie erheiterndes Licht auf das, was uns im Innersten zusammenhält: die Rationalisierung der Arbeitswelt.

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