"This volume explores and calls into question certain commonly held assumptions about writing and technological advancement in the Islamic tradition. In particular, it challenges the idea that mechanical print naturally and inevitably displaces handwritten texts as well as the notion that the so-cal
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led transition from manuscript to print is unidirectional. Indeed, rather than distinct technologies that emerge in a progressive series (one naturally following the other), they frequently co-exist in complex and complementary relationships – relationships we are only now starting to recognize and explore. The book brings together essays by internationally recognized scholars from an array of disciplines (including philology, linguistics, religious studies, history, anthropology, and typography) whose work focuses on the written word – channeled through various media – as a social and cultural phenomenon within the Islamic tradition." (Publisher description)
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"Engagement with Christian manuscripts – Eastern and Western – and with ancient and rare printed books makes evident a growing interest in material and codicological aspects of our book heritage. In other words, it evinces an emerging curiosity about the non-textual realities of books – at lea
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st of ancient books. This shift is particularly true for manuscript studies. The question of materiality remains unavoidable, however, even today, when we decide to edit a book in hard copy along with electronic or digital versions. As has always been the case, there is a direct correlation between the quality of materials used, the production/confection techniques and the external appearance of a book. Normally, one would not expect to find the finest inks, paper or parchment in the hands of less-skilled scribes or illuminators. This article sets alongside immediate material aspects corresponding, and usually expensive, issues like sewing and binding techniques, layout (mise-en-page) and decoration. They too condition our assessment – even unconsciously – when we meet religious books." (Abstract)
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"In both visual and linguistic forms, graphic narratives reveal representational strategies to encounter the sacred in all its ambivalence. Through close readings and critical inquiry, these essays contemplate the intersections between religion and comics in ways that critically expand our ability t
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o think about religious landscapes, rhetorical practices, pictorial representation, and the everyday experiences of the uncanny. Organized into four sections--Seeing the Sacred in Comics; Reimagining Sacred Texts through Comics; Transfigured Comic Selves, Monsters, and the Body; and The Everyday Sacred in Comics--the essays explore comics and graphic novels ranging from Craig Thompson's Habibi and Marvel's X-Men and Captain America to graphic adaptions of religious texts such as 1 Samuel and the Gospel of Mark." (Publisher description)
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"AMECEA Gaba Publications was founded in 1958 in Gaba, Uganda, by the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa (AMECEA) bishops [...] Its main publications are the African Ecclesial Review (AFER) journal and Spearhead monograph book series. The concern of this case study was tha
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t AMECEA Gaba Publications (AGP), which has been in the business for a relatively longer time than most publishers in the region, and with the influence it has across all of the East and Central Africa thanks to the support of AMECEA bishops, should by all estimates be doing better or at least competing favourably with the other players in the field of publishing in the region. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Over the years, Gaba Publications has witnessed a great reduction in its subscription, readership sales and authorship contributions. What is Gaba Publications not doing to stay competitive and in keeping with the publishing trends in the region? What is the Publications doing wrong? This study sought to answer these questions by examining the current publishing status of AMECEA Gaba Publications, identifying some of the opportunities available for Gaba Publications to improve its current financial status and assessing the capacity of Gaba Publications to engage in e-publishing. From the study findings, it was established that Gaba Publications, being an evangelical publishing firm, may never fully achieve self-sustainability. However, the findings of the study also indicated that a number of opportunities are available for Gaba Publications to attract business opportunities and help it make steps towards improving its current publishing status. The key lessons that this study has yielded are that a publishing company must have a product that has a distinct quality, genre and style, it must have a mission and goals that consumers can relate to, and be able to effectively sell its goods and services." (Abstract)
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"Have you ever picked up a volume of theology, read the first page, and decided you would rather scrub the bathroom floor than read another page? Theology does not need to be abstract, dull, boring, tedious, dense, inconsequential, trivial, remote, immaterial, or unimportant. Theology should not lea
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ve readers feeling bewildered and lost. Expressing Theology challenges writers of theology to craft engaging, compelling, and beautiful prose that grabs readers' attention and makes reading a pleasure. Expressing Theology provides writers of theology–academics, aspiring, and published–with perspectives and writing techniques to write theology that readers want to read." (Publisher description)
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"As Europeans began to travel to all corners of the earth beginning in the 15th century, they were determined not only to conquer new lands but also to spread their faith. From Johann Gutenberg they had learned the power of the printed word, and were determined to use this revolutionary new technolo
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gy to christianize Asia. The impact of these efforts varied depending on a number of circumstances. The two most significant variables were the ability to wield control as a colonial power (e.g. in the Philippines, but not in Japan or China) and the pre-existence of a widespread print culture (e.g. in China), or lack thereof (e.g. in India and Malaya). This summary account of missionary printing also suggests that the principal difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant presses was the emphasis placed by the former on the exposition of Christian doctrine and the printing of catechetical treatises, and the early concentration by the latter on the preparation of partial or complete versions of the Bible in local languages." (Page 114)
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"As primeiras cópias da Bíblia Sagrada chegaram ao Brasil no início do século XIX. Os missionários protestantes estabelecidos posteriormente somente implementaram a sua distribuição. Mas, até o final da Segunda Guerra Mundial, as bíblias eram impressas no exterior e sua distribuição depen
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dia dos esforços da Sociedade Bíblica Britânica Estrangeira ou da Sociedade Bíblica Americana. A Sociedade Bíblica do Brasil (SBB) foi fundada em 1948 após a junção das sociedades estrangeiras que operaram no País por mais de 100 anos. Porém, o boom de publicação de bíblias se deu após 1995, com o estabelecimento da “Gráfica da Bíblia”. Desde então, a SBB imprimiu 100 milhões de exemplares, os quais foram distribuídos no Brasil, em países de fala portuguesa, e exportados para outros 105 países. Nesse período, o mercado de bíblias se tornou crescentemente competitivo e diversificado. As editoras especializadas em bíblias passaram a usar as ferramentas do marketing no tratamento de seu principal e único produto - a Bíblia - submetendo-o às leis do mercado e as necessidades e demandas dos seus consumidores." (Resumo)
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"Die vorliegende Studie erläutert grundlegend die aktuelle Ausgangssituation im religiösen Buchmarkt und zeigt weiterhin Trends und Entwicklungen auf, die für den Handel mit religiösen Büchern und Medien wesentlich sein können. Anhand dieser Betrachtungen konzipieren wir sechs verschiedene Mod
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elle, wie die Verbreitung religiöser Literatur künftig weiterhin gelingen kann. Dabei werden drei wesentliche Stoßrichtungen eingeschlagen: 1. eine Fokussierung auf veränderte und erweiterte Zielgruppen; 2. der religiöse Buchhandel im Verbund; 3. eine Stärkung der Warengruppe Religion/Lebenshilfe/Sinnsuche im christlichen Verständnis im allgemeinen Sortimentsbuchhandel. Alle sechs Modelle sind in unterschiedlichen Situationen und an verschiedenen Standorten gut einzusetzen. Wesentliche Unterschiede gibt es dabei im Kapitaleinsatz durch übergeordnete Stellen. So sollten Modelle wie die „religiöse Familienbuchhandlung“ und der „Verbund mit anderen Branchen im Concept Store“ ohne finanzielle Unterstützung von außen betriebswirtschaftlich erfolgreich agieren können. Die Konzepte „Vernetztes Modell der Bistumsbuchhandlung“, das „Franchise-Modell“, das „Förderpaket für Gründer“ und evtl. auch das Shop-in-shop-Konzept (je nach Zielgruppenausrichtung) jedoch wären in unterschiedlicher Höhe auf finanzielle Unterstützung durch einzelne Diözesen oder den VDD angewiesen." (Zusammenfassung, Seite 50)
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"Much work has been done to map out the contours of Islamic intellectual production in West Africa before the twentieth century. However, we still do not understand very well the process by which ideas and texts circulated in the region. Lists of specific books imported by West Africans during the n
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ineteenth century are rare (although one such compilation helps frame this paper), and the particular books memorized and/or copied by individual students on particular subjects usually fail to tells us much about their mentors’ libraries. As a result, the reconstruction of a trans-Saharan, much less the east-west Sahelian book trade, if these existed in any formal sense, must be subject to some speculation. Clearly, there was a steady demand in West Africa for Arabic texts; libraries and literary capital have long been understood as an important component of religious authority. But our knowledge of what might have been the actual texts sought in a book trade, is limited. We can deduce something about the distribution of books in West Africa from the authors and subjects studied in particular venues, and from analyses of the citations used in particular scholarly works written by West Africans. But both the works studied and the analysis of citations tell us about books that were known to individual scholars rather than works that were actually in demand. This paper seeks to describe the books—by author and title—that were in heaviest demand by doing an inventory of the contents of a cross-section of West African libraries." (Introduction)
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"This dissertation discusses interactions between politics and book publishing by missions and colonial governments in areas of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia over approximately 200 years [...] From its inception, book publishing in the Pacific Islands has been a significant instrument of ideo
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logical power [...] Far from portraying a unidirectional flow, wherein only foreigners have published information and instructed Pacific Islanders, this dissertation argues that some islanders have sought to participate in book publishing so as to express their views and/or those of their associates or communities, and this in turn has contributed to persuading and influencing other people, sometimes even across the Pacific. The organization of mission societies around publications, for example in biblical material, schoolbooks, or laws, often reinforced indigenous power, but it also eased the imposition of colonial rule. Ironically, command of text culture assisted islanders to negotiate with new and sometimes stronger political forces. The colonial era has reinforced the role of text culture in the organization of society, and published reiteration of particular languages, customs, and geographical boundaries has helped to shape and reshape polities that have endured well into the age of independent nation-states." (Abstract)
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"Wer sich heute auf eine Reise in die malaiische Welt (Indonesien, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam) begibt, wird beobachten, dass sich das Angebot in den Buchhandlungen von Land zu Land zum Teil erheblich unterscheidet. In Indonesien etwa, das mit seinen zur Zeit etwa 230 Millionen Einwohnern fast 90% d
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er malaiischen Welt ausmacht, scheinen Bücher mit islamischen Themen besonders populär zu sein."
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