This chapter focuses on implementing transformative pedagogy as a solution to support students in their learning rather than feeding into their learning anxiety. The officers who join the Ecole de guerre (French War College) have been taught English through communicative and transactional methods, acquiring grammar and linguistics rather than the ability to communicate in the language. Provided in this chapter is a description of the implementation of a new approach, TLLT, based on learner autonomy and the lessons learned in the process: (1) the need for caution in analyzing the learning environment to avoid introducing a method without properly adapting it, (2) the transition from one method to another that allows the metanoic process and transformation to happen, and (3) all all the key players - the head of department/course designer, the faculty, the leadership of the college and, last but not least, the students experienced the metanoia. The most important lesson? When students realize that TLLT is about transforming their frame of reference and not re-setting who they are, their motivation rockets through the roof.

The integration of theories and practices from transformative learning into language learning and language teacher education contributes to a “shaking of the foundations.” Discussing transformative learning, the author, Rebecca Oxford, explains the meaning, purpose, and processes of Jack Mezirow's cognitive-analytic approach and John Dirkx's emotional-integrative approach. Oxford indicates how she used these two approaches in her language teacher education courses. She also shows that these approaches, although seemingly opposite, are in fact linked through neurobiological research, psychological research, and dynamic systems theory.

This essay develops a conceptual frame for the analysis of peace under a comparative area perspective. I discuss the main concepts (peace, violence, conflict) and assess them in relation to four main theoretical schools (realism, liberalism, cosmopolitanism, critical), demonstrating in the process how a global approach to peace resolves many of the difficulties these theoretical schools encounter by placing specific emphasis on the need to focus a lens on both international and national dynamics across cases. I also address the problem of reliable comparable date and suggest that a comparative area studies approach may be preferable as a means to measure the potential for and progress toward peace. I provide evidence for the added value of such a perspective based on an analysis of peace in Latin America. The concluding section discusses the necessity of a hybrid outlook on peace, which requires sustained action on the part of international and local actors toward reducing conditions of structural violence, and it formulates some avenues for future research.

The notion of “resilience” is rife with controversy, particularly when attempting to bridge theory across disciplines. In this paper, we propose one way to overcome some of the challenges with resiliency thinking that are often put forward by social scientists. We do this by applying relational theorizing to the concept. Here, we can understand resilience as the ways in which actors (human and non-human) associate into enduring, diverse, and equitable networks. We argue that diversity is an expression of capabilities for transformation and that such expressions become more possible with equity. Drawing on field work, we iteratively ground this relational approach to resilience in two co-operative network cases. It is recommended that future work continues to develop a less bounded and more relational view of resilience.

This prologue sets the scene by introducing the book’s main thesis that during the debt crisis, in particular, the years 2010-2012, the European Union has gone through a constitutional transformation. The transformation is characterised by a broadening of the currency union’s conception of stability. Its key manifestations are financial assistance for distressed member states and government bond purchases by the European Central Bank. The transformation can be understood through the lens of solidarity as this makes it possible to conceptualise the unity between the member states and to analyse how political leaders managed to uphold this unity during the crisis. And ultimately, it allows for an understanding of why instead of approving the transformation in Pringle and Gauweiler on the merits, the ECJ should have done so through silence.

Chapter 5 argues that preoccupation with travel, topography, and geography merely formed the basis for even more ambitious projects that did, however, show the limits of what practical patriotism might achieve. When combined with a providential belief in the potential of the land, the application of geographical and botanical knowledge to the countryside meant that spaces which had hitherto been considered ‘empty’ or ‘wild’ could be filled with new meaning. Reformers were concerned with the role of people (Indians, but also Europeans, Africans, and Caribbeans of African descent, as well as enslaved people) in managing landscapes. They increasingly discussed questions of what we might call ‘biopower’ after Foucault, conceiving of labour and the management of the population as a resource. In this, reformers paid particular attention to the possibility that humans might influence environments in more profound ways than just by building roads. They hoped that human errors that had made Caribbean environments ‘unhealthy’ in the past could be reversed by building better-ventilated settlements, or regulating military barracks to help soldiers behave like agricultural settlers and make this land productive.

In session 10, cultural syndromes are used as a means to explore catastrophic cognitions and distress associations. The session ends by encouraging the patient to do a transitional ritual. The patient is told of the next follow-up session, if that is planned.

In post-independent Africa, social transformation interweaves with other ideological goals such as African renaissance, decolonisation, indigenisation and black empowerment together with ideals for good governance, democracy, social and racial harmony, economic prosperity and political sovereignty, the goal of transformation. The postcolonial order is characterised by economic deterioration, political upheavals, poverty, dictatorship, civil strife, intra- and inter-territorial wars and tribal and racial distrust. These problems are increasing despite attempts to have them solved. Drawing from regional experiences, the chapter advances that using indigenous languages is among the best practices to ensure successful societal transformation. It examines the role that indigenous languages play in guaranteeing the participation of the masses, and in the development of indigenous languages to function in productive sectors of society. It argues that social transformation requires a comprehensive action programme to rid indigenous languages of technical challenges and recommends the use of digital language resources and human language technology among other necessary human, institutional and legal interventions.

South Africa’s approach to knowledge has been described as being ‘derivative, rather than leading (Leibowitz, 2017: xx). Academics from the global South tend to consume Western theories rather than generating their own theories (De Souza, 2007: 135) – hence, their engagement with calls to transform and ‘decolonise’ the curriculum. Questions that need answering include the following: How does decolonisation relate to content, pedagogy and assessment? What do we base our curricula on – epistemic practices developed elsewhere in the world? If so, how do we apply international best practices without ignoring indigenous and locally relevant research? Key to transforming the curriculum in Africa’s complex linguistic contexts is multilingualism, as embodied in the work of translators and interpreters. In South Africa post transition, for instance, interpreters in court, conference and educational contexts are vital to the functioning of South Africa as a multilingual country. But to what extent is this rich praxis reflected in research in interpreting in South Africa, and has it assisted academics to derive new theories? This chapter aims to describe trends observed in the field of Interpreting Studies in South Africa over the past ten years (2006–2016) on the premise that decolonisation must be preceded by a thorough description of the discipline.

The chapter further posits that the current language practices need to be addressed and the prestige of African languages in the South African banking industry needs to be revitalised as a matter of urgency. The chapter engages in a systematic literature review and qualitative methods, that is, the questionnaire, interviews and observations in the banks. These methods will assist the researcher to be able to analyse the multilingual language policies and their relationship with the everyday use of African languages in the South African banks.

The chapter sets out to critique and contextualise the largely monolingual language policies of universities in South Africa against the backdrop of transformation. The language question at higher education institutions in South Africa is explored with reference to the constitutional and legislative frameworks. The chapter argues that the trend towards enacting monolingual language policies at universities is mimicking the 2017 monolingual language of record directive for courts in South Africa. The chapter advances recent judgements, which serve as evidence that the judiciary, by finding that monolingual language policies are both constitutionally sound and ironically foster transformation based on access for all, is in fact pursuing an agenda that marginalises many people who do not have a functional knowledge of English. The authors grapple with the legal, sociopolitical and sociolinguistic complexities facing universities and how English is being portrayed as a language for all, yet the majority of the people speak an African language as their mother tongue. In conclusion, the authors propose recommendations for both the higher education institutions and the judiciary in South Africa.

Taves examines some approaches from the psychology of religion to religious experience, focusing on the psychology of religion as represented by researchers associated with the International Association for the Psychology of Religion and the American Psychological Association’s Division 36. She suggests that psychology of religion can treat its subject matter of religious experience as an object in its own right or as something related to another important state, such as depression.

The Introduction identifies some important questions about religious experience, and it considers Tolstoy's position that relates religious experience to the meaning of human life. It also comments on the relation between religious experience and evidence for God's existence and on the bearing of science on religious experience. In addition, it looks at the bearing of religious disagreement on religious experience. Finally, the Introduction offers summaries of the book's chapters.

Bowie focuses on some experiences that are self-described or described by others as being “religious,” in order to explore what qualifies an experience to be extraordinary and miraculous. She uses two case studies to illustrate the role experience plays in extraordinary and miraculous events and the relation they have to mystical experience, one involving a near-death experience and the other involving apparitions of Mary.