* review forthcoming
ENGINEERING
Design of Experiments: An Introduction Based on Linear Models
By Max Morris, professor in the department of statistics and department of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, Iowa State University. Taylor and Francis, £33.99. ISBN 9781584889236
Offering an insight into the connections between design choice and the resulting statistical analysis, Morris explores how experiments are designed using linear statistical models to provide readers with an understanding of the impact of design selection on the information obtained in an experiment.
LANGUAGES AND LINGUISTICS
Researching Vocabulary: A Vocabulary Research Manual
By Norbert Schmitt, professor of applied linguistics, University of Nottingham. Palgrave, £60.00 and £19.99. ISBN 9781403985354 and 5361
Schmitt aims to provide advice for language researchers on a variety of methodologies ranging from pencil-and-paper tests of acquisition to the newest psycholinguistic techniques utilising fMRI scanning.
The Languages of Global Hip Hop
Edited by Marina Terkourafi, assistant professor in the department of linguistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Continuum, £85.00. ISBN 9780826431608
This volume looks at the linguistic, cultural and economic aspects of hip hop and offers a worldwide perspective in its consideration of the forces of top-down corporatisation and bottom-up globalisation. It engages with issues including code-switching, code-mixing, immigrant ideologies, the minority language versus standard language dynamic, and the discourse of political resistance.
The Origins of Grammar: An Anthropological Perspective
By Martin Edwardes, Fellow, Royal Anthropological Institute. Continuum, £65.00 and £19.99. ISBN 9781441114389 and 70989
Edwardes examines the origins of language and grammar as well as human nature, delving into the evolutionary sources of our self-recognition, culture, the social institutions and cognitive forms that lie behind our linguistic grammatical forms.
Academic Vocabulary in Learner Writing: From Extraction to Analysis
By Magali Paquot, postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium. Continuum, £75.00. ISBN 9781441130365
Paquot scrutinises the concept of "academic vocabulary" and proposes a corpus-driven procedure that could form part of a common-core academic vocabulary syllabus. She goes on to offer a thorough analysis of academic vocabulary in the International Corpus of Learner English and describes the factors that account for learners' difficulties in academic writing.
LITERARY STUDIES
Iris Murdoch: A Literary Life
By Priscilla Martin, tutor, English and Classics, St Edmund Hall, Oxford; and Anne Rowe, director, Centre of Iris Murdoch Studies, Kingston University. Palgrave, £50.00. ISBN 9781403948502
This chronological study of Murdoch's literary life examines her fledgling publications at Badminton School and the University of Oxford, before moving through the novels of the next four decades to conclude with an account of the biographical, critical and media attention given to her life and work since her death in 1999.
* Women Writers and Detectives in Nineteenth-Century Crime Fiction: The Mothers of the Mystery Genre
By Lucy Sussex, senior research Fellow, Melbourne University. Palgrave, £50.00. ISBN 97802302293
Arguing that early detective writing was as much a feminine as a masculine domain, this study looks at the work of the precursors to Agatha Christie, Sara Paretsky and P.D. James, to shed light on texts that had been largely forgotten.
On Bathos: Literature, Art, Music
Edited by Sara Crangle, lecturer in English, University of Sussex; and Peter Nicholls, professor of English, New York University. Continuum, £60.00. ISBN 9781441105073
This collection of essays considers how bathos has become central to literature, fine art and music. Assessing the consequences of this endemic inversion of aesthetic standards, it considers where artistic production could progress after hitting, and inhabiting, rock bottom.
Geoffrey Hartman: Romanticism after the Holocaust
By Pieter Vermeulen, postdoctoral researcher, University of Leuven. Continuum, £60.00. ISBN 9781441193247
Charting the trajectory of Hartman's career, Vermeulen seeks to demonstrate how the literary theorist's commitment to the potency of aesthetic mediation informs a unique position in current debates about ethics, media and memory.
MATHEMATICS
Nonparametric Statistical Inference
By Jean Dickinson Gibbons, Russell professor emerita of statistics, University of Alabama; and Subhabrata Chakraborti, Robert C. and Rosa P. Morrow faculty excellence Fellow and professor of statistics, University of Alabama. Taylor and Francis, £63.99. ISBN 9781420077612
The fifth edition of this text has been revised and updated to offer a substantial collection of time-tested and commonly used nonparametric techniques. Incorporating both hypothesis tests and confidence intervals, it also offers example applications appropriate for the social, behavioural and life sciences.
Access Control, Security, and Trust: A Logical Approach
By Shiu-Kai Chin, Meredith professor, and Susan Beth Older, associate professor, both in the department of electrical engineering and computer science, Syracuse University. Taylor and Francis, £57.99. ISBN 9781584888628
Using propositional modal logic to explain access control principles, this text seeks to provide the mathematical means to comprehend, analyse, create and verify the policies and control mechanisms used to protect resources.
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION STUDIES
Back to the Future
By Andrew Shail, lecturer in film, and Robin Stoate, doctoral candidate in English literature, both at Newcastle University. Palgrave, £9.99. ISBN 9781844572939
This British Film Institute Film Classics study of Back to the Future places the 1985 Hollywood blockbuster in the historical context of Reaganite America, as well as the cinematic context of Robert Zemeckis' film-making career and the "New New Hollywood".
POLITICS
Gender and the European Union
By Johanna Kantola, senior lecturer in political science, University of Helsinki. Palgrave, £65.00 and £22.99. ISBN 97802305423 and 2334
Kantola provides an assessment of the emergence of gender as a significant issue for the European Union's agenda as well as its impact on gender inequality. She examines the issues both in terms of specific gender-related policies and the gender dimensions of other policies.
The Critique of Instrumental Reason from Weber to Habermas
By Darrow Schecter, reader in the School of History, University of Sussex. Continuum, £60.00. ISBN 9780826487711
By exploring theoretical and political debates in the field, Schecter looks at what different kinds of reason are possible and which ones are the most appropriate for a legitimate, as opposed to a merely legitimated, state. The text also considers responses to Weber's view from theorists including Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault and Jurgen Habermas.
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Beyond Women's Empowerment in Africa: Exploring Dislocation and Agency
By Elinami Veraeli Swai, assistant professor in the department of women's and gender studies, University of Toledo. Palgrave, £55.00. ISBN 9780230102484
Swai's investigation, which focuses on the experiences of ordinary women in Tanzania, seeks to uncover new ground in understanding how modern society has shaped women's knowledge systems in Africa. It also looks to deconstruct long-held myths about the position of ordinary women in the construction of knowledge.