"And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." The biblical story of the flood crystalizes--in its terrifying, dramatic simplicity--the universally recognized concept of divine punishment. For millennia human civilizations have relied on such beliefs to create moral order. People who commit crimes or other bad deeds, we are told, will suffer retribution, while rewards--abstract or material--await those who do good. This simple but powerful idea has long served to deter self-interest and achieve remarkable levels of cooperation. Indeed, as all societies seem to have found, these beliefs are so good at promoting cooperation that they may have been favored by natural selection. Today, while secularism and unbelief are at an all-time high, the willingness to believe in some kind of payback or karma remains nearly universal. Even atheists often feel they are being monitored and judged. We find ourselves imagining what our parents, spouse, or boss would think of our thoughts and actions, even if they are miles away and will never find out. We talk of eyes burning into the backs of our heads, the walls listening, a sense that someone or something is out there, observing our every move, aware of our thoughts and intentions. God Is Watching You is an exploration of this belief as it has developed over time and how it has shaped the course of human evolution. Dominic Johnson explores such questions as: Was a belief in supernatural consequences instrumental in the origins of human societies? How has it affected the way human society has changed, how we live today, and how we will live in the future? Does it expand or limit the potential for local, regional and global cooperation? How will the current decline in religious belief (at least in many western countries) affect our ability to live together? And what, if anything, will temper self-interest and promote cooperation if religion declines? In short, do we still need God? Drawing on new research from anthropology, evolutionary biology, experimental psychology, and neuroscience, Johnson presents a new theory of supernatural punishment that offers fresh insight into the origins and evolution of not only religion, but also human cooperation and society. He shows that belief in supernatural reward and punishment is no quirk of western or Christian culture, but a ubiquitous part of human nature that spans geographical regions, cultures, and human history.

God Is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human

Religion & Spirituality

Johnson, Dominic

Religious Studies

Oxford University Press

Theatre &amp; the Visual argues that theatre studies' preoccupation with problems arising from textual analysis has compromised a fuller, political consideration of the visual. Johnson examines the spectator's role in the theatre, exploring pleasure, difficulty and spectacle, to consider the implications for visual experience in the theatre.

Theatre and The Visual

Arts & Photography

Performing Arts

Methuen Drama

Do you have a complex technical job, like a software developer, scientist, lawyer, engineer, policy writer, economist or medical researcher? 
Master Expert is your guide to every business skill you need to succeed. 
740 pages and 50 chapters of toolkits, ideas, checklists, and new processes to help you surmount every one of the challenges faced by senior technical specialists: How do I pitch my ideas to make sense commercially and strategically? How do I understand my organisation's commercial context? How do I prioritise and engage stakeholders? How do I recalibrate failing relationships? How do I coach and delegate, and make my expertise understood by non-technical colleagues? How do I manage upward, talk to boards, and convince doubters? How do I manage my energy, workload and priorities day to day? How do I get better at presenting, intelligence gathering and networking? How do I understand where my skills are weak, and how to plan to improve them?\nWhy Master Expert? 
It's time technical specialists like yourself got the same deal as managers. 
From the very first day a new manager starts work, they're given a LOT of help. A career ladder. Appraisals, Mentoring. Networking. Capability frameworks. Support, connections - they're trained to deal with whatever business problems come along. 
Technical people don't get that kind of support. It's time they did. Master Expert details how to evaluate the performance of technical specialists, and includes a capability framework to understand your own, or your team's, progress toward Master Expert status. 
The authors, Alistair Gordon and Dominic Johnson, have been coaching developers, scientists, lawyers, engineers, policy writers, economists, medical researchers and other technical specialists for close to ten years now, and this book distils everything they've learned.\nLearn more at expertship.com

Master Expert: How to use Expertship to achieve peak performance, seniority and influence in a technical role

Business & Money

Gordon, Alistair

Job Hunting & Careers

Expertship Press

Glorious catastrophe: Jack Smith, performance and visual culture (Rethinking Art's Histories)

History & Criticism

Manchester University Press

Glorious catastrophe presents a detailed critical analysis of the work of Jack Smith from the early 1960s until his AIDS-related death in 1989. Dominic Johnson argues that Smith’s work offers critical strategies for rethinking art’s histories after 1960. Heralded by peers as well as later generations of artists, Smith is an icon of the New York avant-garde. Nevertheless, he is conspicuously absent from dominant histories of American culture in the 1960s, as well as from narratives of the impact that decade would have on coming years. Smith poses uncomfortable challenges to cultural criticism and historical analysis, which Glorious catastrophe seeks to uncover. The first critical analysis of Smith’s practices across visual art, film, performance and writing, the study employs extensive, original archival research carried out in Smith’s personal papers, and unpublished interviews with friends and collaborators. It will be essential reading for students and scholars interested in the life and art of Jack Smith, and the greater histories that he interrupts, including those of experimental arts practices and the development of sexual cultures.

Unlimited action: The performance of extremity in the 1970s (Theatre: Theory – Practice – Performance)

Unlimited action concerns the limits imposed upon art and life, and the means by which artists have exposed, refused, or otherwise reshaped the horizon of aesthetics and of the practice of art, by way of performance art. It examines the ‘performance of extremity’ as practices at the limits of the histories of performance and art, in performance art’s most fertile and prescient decade, the 1970s. Dominic Johnson recounts and analyses game-changing performance events by six artists: Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Genesis P-Orridge, Anne Bean, the Kipper Kids, and Stephen Cripps. Through close encounters with these six artists and their works, and a broader contextual milieu of artists and works, Johnson articulates a counter-history of actions in a new narrative of performance art in the 1970s, to rethink and rediscover the history of contemporary art and performance.

The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art

Across a series of twelve in-depth interviews with a diverse range of major artists, Dominic Johnson presents a new oral history of performance art. From uses of body modification and physical extremity, to the creation of all-encompassing personae, to performance pieces lasting months or years, these artists have provoked and explored the vital limits between art and life. Their discussions with Johnson give us a glimpse of their artistic motivations, preoccupations, processes, and contexts. Despite the diversity of art forms and experiences featured, common threads weave between the interviews: love, friendship, commitment, death and survival. Each interview is preceded by an overview of the artist's work, and the volume itself is introduced by a thoughtful critical essay on performance art and oral history. The conversational tone of the interviews renders complex ideas and theoretical propositions accessible, making this an ideal book for students of Theatre and Performance, as well as for artists, scholars and general readers.

Sports & Outdoors

Red Globe Press

Tatort Kongo - Prozess in Deutschland: Die Verbrechen der ruandischen Miliz FDLR und der Versuch einer juristischen Aufarbeitung

Schlindwein, Simone

Schmolze, Bianca

Links Christoph Verlag

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Books by Johnson, Dominic