This chapter explores the influence of Confucian culture on the political culture of the CCP, with a particular focus on the latter’s attempt to establish a revolutionary morality. Having analysed different views of Confucius within the Party leadership, it reviews the debate among intellectuals about Confucianism, which reached its peak in the early 1960s. By the Cultural Revolution, Confucian values had come under fierce attack. It explores the CCP’s relation to specific Confucian values, such as loyalty, family relations, filial piety, benevolence, ‘conscience’, hard work, and the pursuit of wealth. It rejects the idea of the CCP as a ‘Confucian Leninist party’, concluding that its appropriation of elements in the Confucian tradition was often unconscious and always fraught with tension.

This chapter examines the regulation of Protestantism through the Three-Self Movement. Liberal Protestants, like progressive Buddhists, tended to view the Communist accession to power fairly positively, even though it meant that foreign missionaries were expelled. Indigenous denominations were more hostile to the CCP. Things were considerably worse for Roman Catholics, at least for those who were unwilling to break their tie with the Vatican. The Patriotic Catholic Church proved difficult to establish, and no sooner had it been set up in 1957 than its priests and bishops found themselves caught up in the surge of anti-religious leftism. The chapter shows how the Socialist Education Movement tried to use techniques honed during land reform, such as ‘speaking bitterness’, to split insular Catholic villages along class lines. The chapter shows how at the grassroots both Protestant and Catholics fell back on informal networks as churches were closed and clerics arrested. In the case of the Protestant houses, the grassroots movement actually grew during Cultural Revolution.

As SLA diversifies in scope and scale, key questions remain open over the nature, development and use of a second (or third and additional) language. In this chapter, we evaluate the use of specific methods for different paradigms, while making the case for building inclusive and transdisciplinary connections to sustain the strength of the field. The chapter starts with research methodologies for investigating the development of L2 morpho-syntactic knowledge, as the traditional foundation of SLA. We distinguish between internal formal/cognitive questions around L2 linguistic representation and processing, typically focusing on group trends in quantitative findings, and external socially mediated research into L2 use, often focusing on exploratory individual experiences and motivation through qualitative data. We then present research into L2 phonology (L2 speech), complementing L2 morphosyntax in its focus on form, but often neglected in coverage of SLA research methodology. We finish by looking at implications for future SLA research, driven by greater interest in methodological rigor, replicability and open science, and the opportunities provided by the technological and social media revolution of recent years, e.g., using corpora, online/mobile platforms, and big data.

Now in its second edition, this handbook is a current overview of second language (L2) research, providing state-of-the-art synopses of recent developments in each subarea of the field and bringing together contributions by emerging scholars and experts in second language acquisition (SLA). Since the first edition, broad sociopolitical movements, alternative views of bilingualism, emergence of global markets, vast expansion of electronic resources, the development of social media and the availability of big data have transformed the discipline, and this edition has been thoroughly updated to address these changes. It is divided into six main parts: Part I situates SLA in terms of research and practice; Part II explores individual cognitive, age-related and neurolinguistic similarities and differences; Part III outlines external, sociocultural and interactive factors; Part IV presents profiles of bilinguals who take differing paths of acquisition; Part V describes interlanguage properties; and Part VI comprises clear models of L2 development.

This chapter explores the influence on folk religion of China’s ‘Three Teachings’ – Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. Their influence was most apparent in the solemn community rituals that are conducted by priests, monks, and other ritual specialists. It reviews the argument that Daoism provided the ritual framework for folk religion. The chapter demonstrates that the jiao and other rites did not disappear completely until the mid 1960s. In relation to Buddhism, the chapter explores merit-making rituals and funerary rites and the growth of women-led sutra-reading groups and groups to recite the Buddha’s name, the latter an expression of the increasing feminization of folk religion during the Mao era. It also examines the role of pilgrimage in folk religious culture. The last two sections explore Confucianism in its popular forms, especially in relation to folk entertainment and folk morality, as evinced in morality books and precious scrolls.

Complex fluids can be found all around us, from molten plastics to mayonnaise, and understanding their highly nonlinear dynamics is the subject of much research.

This text introduces a common theoretical framework for understanding and predicting the flow behavior of complex fluids. This framework allows for results including a qualitative understanding of the relationship between a fluid’s behavior at the microscale of particles or macromolecules, and its macroscopic, viscoelastic properties. The author uses a microstructural approach to derive constitutive theories that remain simple enough to allow computational predictions of complicated macroscale flows.

Readers develop their intuition to learn how to approach the description of materials not covered in the book, as well as limits such as higher concentrations that require computational methods for microstructural analysis.

This monograph’s unique breadth and depth make it a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students in fluid mechanics.

During Reconstruction, Bieral navigated shifting political landscapes, aligning with Republicans while maintaining ties to Democratic vice networks. His role in the Fisk–Stokes–Mansfield triangle and the Erie Railroad conflicts exemplifies the entanglement of personal vendettas, corporate power, and political violence. Bieral’s marriage to a Black woman suggests he embraced his ambiguous racial identity and repudiated his former support for white supremacy. The chapter explores the limits of reform and the endurance of patronage, highlighting Bieral’s ability to adapt and survive amid institutional change. His career reflects the uneasy coexistence of legality and lawlessness in Gilded Age America.

This chapter focuses on the perhaps most recently developed worldview examined in the book, transhumanism. The transhumanist core conviction is that, by utilizing biotechnology and AI, we should radically change, improve, or refine humanity, even to the extent of creating a new species, the posthuman.

Now in its second edition, this handbook is a current overview of second language (L2) research, providing state-of-the-art synopses of recent developments in each subarea of the field and bringing together contributions by emerging scholars and experts in second language acquisition (SLA). Since the first edition, broad sociopolitical movements, alternative views of bilingualism, emergence of global markets, vast expansion of electronic resources, the development of social media and the availability of big data have transformed the discipline, and this edition has been thoroughly updated to address these changes. It is divided into six main parts: Part I situates SLA in terms of research and practice; Part II explores individual cognitive, age-related and neurolinguistic similarities and differences; Part III outlines external, sociocultural and interactive factors; Part IV presents profiles of bilinguals who take differing paths of acquisition; Part V describes interlanguage properties; and Part VI comprises clear models of L2 development.

Chapter 6 explores supernatural rumours as a form of supernatural politics, a means whereby the uneducated put their fears and concerns about the accession of the CCP to power into the public domain. The chapter focuses on two particular ‘epidemics’ of rumour, the first of which told how the Soviet government had asked Mao Zedong for the hearts, livers, eyes, testicles, and breasts of 20,000 Chinese people in order to make an atom bomb; the second of which occurred in the wake of the famine and told of a conversation that had been heard between two toads which predicted that the elderly would not survive unless the young baked them buns in the shape of toads. The chapter explores the meanings of both rumours, analyses their disseminators, evaluates the effectiveness of the CCP’s response, and asks how far they were acts of resistance.

Chapter 6 opens with a discussion of some of the letters Keats sent his brother and sister-in-law after they migrated to America in the summer of 1818. It explores the paradox that letters can at times generate a sense of intimacy not so much in spite of distance but because of it. It looks at the way in which Keats can find people ‘pressing’ on him, and even oppressive, such that he can seem to value the prosthetic sense of presence offered by a letter and the personal space it can allow a different kind of intimacy. The second half of the chapter considers letters as ‘touching’, particularly in relation to Keats’s love letters to Fanny Brawne, where he seems particularly attuned to the physical touch of a letter and the way that a letter can be emotionally ‘touching’ precisely because it is distanced, mediated, and delayed.

Bieral’s service in the Civil War, particularly at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, transformed his public image from thug to hero. The chapter chronicles his bravery, injuries, and subsequent court martial, revealing tensions between his violent past and military discipline. Bieral’s postwar activities – supporting Reconstruction, working in customs, and engaging in political violence – illustrate the persistence of private coercion in public life. His association with figures such as Boss Tweed and involvement in the Erie Railroad wars underscore the continuity of corruption and brutality. The chapter situates Bieral within the contested terrain of postbellum governance and reform.