NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST NPR “BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR” SELECTION NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE A virtuosic debut from a gifted violinist searching for a new mode of artistic becoming How does time shape consciousness and consciousness, time? Do we live in time, or does time live in us? And how does music, with its patterns of rhythm and harmony, inform our experience of time? Uncommon Measure explores these questions from the perspective of a young Korean American who dedicated herself to perfecting her art until performance anxiety forced her to give up the dream of becoming a concert solo violinist. Anchoring her story in illuminating research in neuroscience and quantum physics, Hodges traces her own passage through difficult family dynamics, prejudice, and enormous personal expectations to come to terms with the meaning of a life reimagined—one still shaped by classical music but moving toward the freedom of improvisation.

Biodiversity change is the biggest environmental problem of our time. It leads to much more than species extinctions, affecting the food we eat, the diseases we face, our vulnerability to fire and flood, and our ability to adapt to climate change. Our Uncommon Heritage explores the many dimensions of human-driven biodiversity change. It integrates ecology, economics and policy to examine the causes and consequences of changes in ecosystems, species and genes, and to identify better ways to manage those changes. It explores the place of biodiversity in the wealth of nations, the rights and responsibilities people have for natural resources at local, regional, national and international levels, and the challenges faced in protecting the common good at the global level. This is an important book for students and researchers in the fields of conservation and sustainability science, ecology, natural resource economics and management. It also has much to say to those engaged in international conservation, health, agriculture, forestry and fisheries policy.

Includes 8 sheets of colored card stock following page 144.

Most people believe that science arose as a natural end-product of our innate intelligence and curiosity, as an inevitable stage in human intellectual development. But physicist and educator Alan Cromer disputes this belief. Cromer argues that science is not the natural unfolding of human potential, but the invention of a particular culture, Greece, in a particular historical period. Indeed, far from being natural, scientific thinking goes so far against the grain of conventional human thought that if it hadn't been discovered in Greece, it might not have been discovered at all. In Uncommon Sense, Alan Cromer develops the argument that science represents a radically new and different way of thinking. Using Piaget's stages of intellectual development, he shows that conventional thinking remains mired in subjective, "egocentric" ways of looking at the world--most people even today still believe in astrology, ESP, UFOs, ghosts and other paranormal phenomena--a mode of thought that science has outgrown. He provides a fascinating explanation of why science began in Greece, contrasting the Greek practice of debate to the Judaic reliance on prophets for acquiring knowledge. Other factors, such as a maritime economy and wandering scholars (both of which prevented parochialism) and an essentially literary religion not dominated by priests, also promoted in Greece an objective, analytical way of thinking not found elsewhere in the ancient world. He examines India and China and explains why science could not develop in either country. In China, for instance, astronomy served only the state, and the private study of astronomy was forbidden. Cromer also provides a perceptive account of science in Renaissance Europe and of figures such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. Along the way, Cromer touches on many intriguing topics, arguing, for instance, that much of science is essential complete; there are no new elements yet to be discovered. He debunks the vaunted SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project, which costs taxpayers millions each year, showing that physical limits--such as the melting point of metal--put an absolute limit on the speed of space travel, making trips to even the nearest star all but impossible. Finally, Cromer discusses the deplorable state of science education in America and suggests several provocative innovations to improve high school education, including a radical proposal to give all students an intensive eighth and ninth year program, eliminating the last two years of high school. Uncommon Sense is an illuminating look at science, filled with provocative observations. Whether challenging Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions, or extolling the virtues of Euclid's Elements, Alan Cromer is always insightful, outspoken, and refreshingly original.

First published in 1991, An Uncommon Tongue explores the theme of usage in its widest sense: usage as what we say or write; usage as a social question; usage as a literary convention; usage and creativity. The book reflects on the practice and status of the English language in the modern world and the demands it makes on its academic disciplines. It puts forward the argument that the study of usage transcends both the ‘prescriptive’ and ‘descriptive’ and is ultimately ‘constructive’, displaying the resources of language and exploring their use.

Uncommon Tongues explores the tension between the political value of eloquence and its classical definition in sixteenth-century English literature, locating eccentricity and unfamiliarity at the heart of pedagogical, rhetorical, and literary culture.

Seeing into Screens: Eye Tracking and the Moving Image is the first dedicated anthology that explores vision and perception as it materializes as viewers watch screen content. While nearly all moving image research either 'imagines' how its audience responds to the screen, or focuses upon external responses, this collection utilizes the data produced from eye tracking technology to assess seeing and knowing, gazing and perceiving. The editors divide their collection into the following four sections: eye tracking performance, which addresses the ways viewers respond to screen genre, actor and star, auteur, and cinematography; eye tracking aesthetics which explores the way viewers gaze upon colour, light, movement, and space; eye tracking inscription, which examines the way the viewer responds to subtitles, translation, and written information found in the screen world; and eye tracking augmentation which examines the role of simulation, mediation, and technological intervention in the way viewers engage with screen content. At a time when the nature of viewing the screen is extending and diversifying across different platforms and exhibitions, Seeing into Screens is a timely exploration of how viewers watch the screen.