Böcker utgivna av Lexington Books

Jewish Women Science Fiction Writers Create Future Females: Gender, Temporality-and Yentas, the fourth volume in Marleen S. Barr's Future Females critical feminist science fiction anthology series, is the first essay collection devoted to Jewish women science fiction writers. The anthology forges new alliances across disciplinary boundaries-feminist theory, science fiction, and Jewish Studies-by forming a scholarly force, consisting of established critical voices and cutting-edge, fresh perspectives. Acknowledging the growing cultural popularity of science fiction, Barr's goal is to showcase new vistas for exploring gender through Jewish women's science fiction visions. It is time for Jewish women science fiction writers to receive the focused critical examination they deserve.

This collection specifically and solely focuses on Young Adult literature texts where cancer plays a prominent role, including widely-read texts like John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, Nicholas Sparks' A Walk to Remember, and Jesse Andrews' Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The chapters present a variety of arguments, each developing a novel investigation into how these stories explore the effects cancer has on a person, a family, or on a relationship. As scientific studies continue to devlop new understandings of the biology behind cancer, and new sociological studies continue to uncover how a cancer diagnosis impacts the fabric of our culture(s), these collected essays continue to investigate how authors have woven cancer into the stories we write for young people. A number of distinct avenues are taken here, arguing for new approaches in crafting narrative, deeper appreciation for family support networks (or their absence), and what literary criticism can uncover when applied to cancer narratives.

In Pedagogies of the Enfleshed: Critical Communication Pedagogy Otherwise, Lore LeMaster proffers a historic account of the rise of education and, in turn, communication studies as a distinct field of study. In doing so, the author reconsiders communication's disciplinary origins with less of an emphasis on the mythos of the Ancient Greeks and, more accurately, relocates them within the historic context of U.S. settler colonial development and ever-expanding empire. LeMaster argues that the point of critical communication pedagogy otherwise isn't to instill critical sensibilities into our teaching, but to instead draw on lived experiences as grounds for more effective uses of communication to intervene in oppressive relations across (in)formal pedagogical contexts and in service of liberatory change. Where critical communication pedagogy calls for reform, critical communication pedagogy otherwise labors in service of liberation within the long arc of revolutionary change, beginning from y/our vantage as educators-as-learners. This is especially crucial, LeMaster posits, in the face of critical ongoing issues, including economic recessions, growing climate collapse, escalating fascisms, amassing white nationalisms, and U.S.-funded genocides, all amid an active pandemic. Ultimately, this book makes a compelling case for the need of new critical communication pedagogy tools or, at minimum, approaches to communication pedagogy that support critical worldmaking efforts beyond recognition and with resource support at the local level.

Precarious Domesticity and the British Novel: Space, Gender, and Empire investigates the ways domesticity shapes and threatens female characters in British fiction from the 1750s to the 1850s. Going far beyond the well-trod ground of the marriage plot, women writers in this period explored complicated issues such as sexual abuse, grief, and the way coverture and inheritance laws challenged women's survival. The author argues that women writers used the novel as a space where they could confront anxieties about the precarity of domesticity and the implicit threat of homelessness many women of the middle ranks faced. Precarious Domesticity explores the way female characters subvert these dynamics by reordering domestic space to enact ingenious and creative resistances to their marginalization in Jane Collier, Sarah Scott, Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Charlotte Brontë. The author also explores the implications of British imperialism's impact on domestic ideology, both in the consumer products imported into England and the wealth derived from plantation slavery and global trade made possible by enslaved labor.

The conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity, occurring in the golden glint of the sunset of the Ancient World, was not a concluding chapter but an opening one. The sequential conversion of the barbarian tribal invaders of the Empire and the subsequent conversion of those beyond the old imperial limes was the making of European culture, a prototypical Christendom. The process has been well studied from the perspective of kings, popes, and missionaries by some of the finest historians of our era. But the missing component in this civilizational change is that of the decisive influence of barbarian queens, Christian women who led their royal husbands in the dangerous journey from one religion to another. In recent years, much has been done to illuminate queenship in general, but a study focusing specifically on the queen's role in conversion is lacking. This book seeks to remedy that and provide a missing piece in women's history.

Was Edward Sapir's perspective on culture and personality groundbreaking, or should we regard it as just one more theory that reached a scientific dead-end? Culture and Subjectivity: Exploring the Interplay of Edward Sapir`s Anthropology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis introduces a fresh perspective to traditional anthropological discourse by exploring Edward Sapir's insights into culture and personality relationship alongside Jacques Lacan's theories on the individual and collective. This book reassesses the dynamics between subjective and social realms, paving the way for potentially a new anthropological model of subjectivity and the definition of Culture. Exploring the historical context of anthropology-psychoanalysis relationships, this book synthesizes diverse conceptions of culture and personality through an interdisciplinary lens. By leveraging Lacan's theoretical framework to interpret Sapir's bold ideas on culture-personality dyad, it assesses integrating Lacanian subjectivity into the culture-individual relationship, bridging commonalities between the two fields and introducing insights into their interdisciplinary interplay. This book summarizes key findings from Lacanian subjectivity theory and examines a new perspective on the process of cultural transmission and socialization by highlighting Sapir`s pioneering view on the relationship between the individual and society. It also addresses ontological, epistemological, and methodological questions in anthropology through Lacanian dynamics of desire.

From the television we watch and the films we consume to the experience of user-generated content, this volume explores various forms of popular culture as teaching tools. Teaching popular culture well hinges on the application, not the mere inclusion of popular culture artifacts. It is the nuance of praxis where theory meets practice, the artful marriage of academic knowledge with popular culture. In this volume, the authors leverage popular culture as a powerful teaching tool that is familiar and accessible. This tool provides a lens for approaching complex academic experiences and elucidating new concepts in applications that have been tested and applied in the classroom. Each essay outlines the theory that underpins elegant integrations of popular culture into learning.

Higher education helps students along a transformative path to citizenship by providing knowledge and experiences that help them become effective and responsible participants in democracy. The pedagogies discussed in this book vary in the student populations they target, the courses to which they are linked, and the nature of the democratic principles to which students are exposed; nevertheless, the authors maintain a unified commitment to preparing students for a life of democratic citizenship. By teaching students citizenship skills, including expressing opinions, working collaboratively, and participating in dialogue and civic reasoning, students prepare to discuss major issues that they face nationally and locally. The authors' discussions of scholarly and practical knowledge about pedagogical strategies, such as dialogic and deliberative pedagogies, civility, civic education, and the social contract, position educators to help students learn about democracy through experiences and teach them strategies for engaging in productive disagreement. These steps are essential for active democratic engagement beyond the classroom. This goal animates Encouraging College Students' Democratic Engagement in an Era of Political Polarization. Each chapter offers insight into how higher education can infuse modern democracy with diverse voices, engaged citizens, and a reframing of political talk.

Yasmine Hasnaoui's, The Western Sahara Deadlock: Understanding Algeria's Role and the Path to Resolution, investigates the extent of continuity and change in Algeria's foreign policy during the Western Sahara Conflict following Algerian independence in 1962. The deterioration of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Algeria is a result of a deep-rooted rivalry over the Western Sahara conflict. Morocco's diplomatic discourse over the last decade asserts that Algeria's direct involvement in the Western Sahara conflict is the main reason for its perpetuation. Algeria, on the other hand, denies such accusations, claiming instead that the Sahara conflict is a UN matter and labelling Morocco as the last colonizing power on the African continent. In order to verify the validity of these contradictory allegations, Hasnaoui examines major factors, including geographical continuity and security interaction, that have influenced the creation and implementation of Algerian foreign policy with respect to the Western Sahara conflict. Hasnaoui sheds light on the current atmosphere of Algerian-Moroccan relations, the role of Algeria in the Western Sahara conflict, and the consequences related to its failure to achieve a full Maghreb Integration.

In this book, Ghanem Ayed Elhersh and Laeeq Khan critically examine the depiction of Arabs and Muslims in prominent Disney animated films through application of a rigorous, mixed-methods convergent parallel design. Blending framing analysis with quantitative textual analysis, Elhersh and Khan offer a comprehensive view of media portrayals and public perceptions and reveal how these films have frequently employed biased, negative, orientalist frames that associate Arabs and Muslims with violence, terrorism, and misogyny. Furthermore, they assess public reactions through advanced quantitative analysis of user reviews to uncover and analyze prevailing themes and sentiments in viewer feedback. By integrating interdisciplinary perspectives and meticulous methodology, this book provides an insightful exploration of the causative links between such portrayals and public attitudes, offering a vital resource for scholars, media professionals, and readers interested in the intersections of media, culture, and minority representation.

Amending our Pasts and Futures: Observing Media and Place as Means to Memory is an edited volume presenting original research from established and emerging scholars of public and collective memory. Contributors focus on topics including the memory of race and slavery, wars of oppression, and regional and ethnic identities to interrogate how we as collectives remember, commemorate, discuss, forget, and question what is historically revealed, appropriated, silenced, or concealed from public discourse. Through analyses of a wide range of cultural texts and contexts, contributors to this volume demonstrate the crucial role of communication and media in shaping public opinion-and our collective present more broadly-in an effort to amend our painful histories.

The Cruel and Reparative Possibilities of Failure brings together a variety of scholars and research across disciplines, with an emphasis on communication and gender studies, to work toward reimagining the idea of failure. Contributors consider failure as both a space for growth and repair and as a space from which hope can emerge. The collection is divided into five parts, investigating failure as consumption; failure as media; failure as pedagogy; failure as narrative; and finally, failure as transformation. Contributors spanning the fields of communication, gender, sexuality, performance, and media studies each employ unique disciplinary approaches to failure in their explorations of topics including queer counterpublics, corporeal commodification, misinformation, abolitionist principles, abuse and consent culture, and everyday organizing, among others. Looking to the future, the book takes these perspectives and experiences a step further to explore the reparative possibilities that may be found in failure.

Adam Mayer's Military Marxism: Africa's Contribution to Revolutionary Theory, 1957-2023 explores African Marxist theory to show how this school of thought has developed and impacted Sub-Saharan Africa from the Cold War to the present. The intellectual merits of Afro-Marxist schools of thought, and the efficacy of the movements that they influenced, are contested today. Through in-depth research, Mayer answers the following questions: Who were the African Marxist intellectuals? What happened to these intellectuals in the 1990s in NGO-administered, deindustrialized Africa? How are these theories inspiring popular rebellions and radical anti-Western military coups today? This book explores how Military Marxism, through its own rich and variegated African theory, has continued to inform and guide the practice of various political movements today.

Maternal Narratives in Public Contexts: Shaping Perspectives and Enacting Identities brings together critical research on the construction and enactment of mothering and motherhood in public spheres. The book is divided into two parts - in the first part, authors examine how prevailing ideals of motherhood influence twenty-first century culture by exploring iterations of maternal identity in various media forms, from Dr. Spock's self-help guide to film and small-screen entertainment. In the second part, the authors investigate how tropes of motherhood manifest and operate in academia, the workplace, and in political spheres. Ultimately, this book explores how maternal identities are both formed and articulated in public discourse, arguing that rhetorical influences inform the ways in which we define, recognize, and enact maternal identities and the sociocultural ramifications that result within communication contexts. Scholars of communication, media studies, film and television studies, cultural studies, rhetoric, and women's and gender studies will find this book of particular interest.

Enforcement of Actions in Corporate Law by Non-Shareholder Constituencies: Lessons for the Common Law World from South Africa advocates for a complementary enforcement regime for the current (and proposed) corporate legislative measures in the Anglo-American corporate law. Doing so would empower non-shareholder interests in corporate decision-making. Mongalo argues that corporate legislative initiatives ought to provide for non-shareholder constituencies' considerations in decision-making within corporate entities, and that failure to enforce such frameworks reduces the law to lip service. By offering a comprehensive critique of corporate constituency statutes and benefit corporation statutes in US and the enlightened shareholder value approach in the UK, Mongalo makes the case that a shift from the current enforcement philosophy in Anglo-American jurisdictions-which is based on the preference of those to whom fiduciary duties are currently owed-is necessary and that the Actionable Enlightened Shareholder Value (AESVA), with its origins in South Africa, should be preferred.

Chieftains, Lamas, and Warriors: A History of Kham 1904-1961 explores the region of Kham, situated between Central Tibet and China. By highlighting Kham's pivotal role in Sino-Tibetan relations and frontier dynamics, this book challenges the traditional focus of scholarly research that treat Kham as a mere transit point. Yudru Tsomu argues for the significance of frontier regions in shaping historical narratives and power structures. Tsomu explores how Kham forged its own identity amidst the assimilation pressures exerted by Central Tibet and China. Supported by a wealth of original sources in Chinese, Tibetan, and Western languages-including previously untapped personal and archival collections in China-this book offers a compelling reassessment of Kham's historical agency and significance.

Through meticulous research, interviews, and documentation,Gullah Geechee Muslims in America: Exploring Islamic Identity in the African Diaspora presents a unique and significant contribution to religious studies, Africana studies, and anthropology by shedding light on a previously understudied aspect of the Gullah/Geechee community and culture. Previous studies of enslaved African Muslims have claimed that Islam, as a conscious practice, vanished by the eve of the Civil War. However, Muhammad Fraser-Rahim highlights the continuity of Islamic belief and practice in the Lowcountry. For scholars who have spent decades researching the retention of African culture among the enslaved and their descendants, this book reveals certain challenges and poses new avenues of research.

This volume calls for a reevaluation of internationalization, focused on faculty and curriculum design of interdisciplinary perspectives on sustainability education. The contributing authors reflect on the transformative intercultural experiences that drove their internationalized course redesigns. The chapters provide a blueprint for interdisciplinary course designs-many of which employ Collaborative Online Intercultural Learning (COIL)-which embed intercultural experiences into their pedagogies. Building on Zhang and Gee's (2023) theory of learning as a Design Experience, the contributors describe active pedagogies which create a culture of community and caring to address perspectives on global and local issues. Chapter topics include intercultural collaborations with West Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Central and South America, Australia, and Asian Pacific Rim countries. From sustainable marketing and communication design to conversations on water, the authors reflect on intriguing course designs which engage intercultural collaborations for solving real-life issues. These chapters situate disciplinary knowledge within a global mindset and provide a roadmap for internationalization at home. Aligned with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) call to educate citizens to honor inclusiveness, peace, and sustainability, the contributions to this book present considerations for university coursework supporting internationalization, which build respect for both the Earth and our global inhabitants.

Pursuing Transformative Inclusion in Higher Education shares the story of the Becoming Community Initiative, a multi-year effort to pursue transformative inclusion on college campuses. The concept of transformative inclusion posits that true inclusion across higher education requires dismantling oppressive structures and an ongoing process of co-creating community. The contributors share the vision of transformative inclusion and Becoming Community, grounding theoretical frameworks, and how they implemented and communicated this inspiring vision. The book then highlights three main prongs of change through Professional Development Practitioner Certificate Programs, Research and Practice Projects, and Dialogue and Contemplative Action Groups, along with inclusive evaluation. Through this work, Amanda Macht Jantzer, Anna Mercedes, and Brandyn Woodard hope to inspire others to engage a broad coalition of changemakers and to establish an ongoing web of influence to begin to dismantle oppression and foster inclusive community formation in colleges and universities.

Francophone Literature After the Postcolonial Age argues that Francophone literature extends beyond the postcolonial critical landmarks that helped define the field since the late 1980s. Today Francophone literature maps out different paths that highlight its emancipation from both the Francophonie's cultural ascendency and postcolonial theory's scholarly hegemony. Farid Laroussi's argument is that three main forces have reshaped the French postcolonial in the twenty-first century: digital globalization, intertextuality, and ecocriticism. With digital globalization, Francophone literature finds new voices, unfettered from former aesthetic, print and distribution diktats. Home and the exilic paradigm are redefined in the postcolonial subject's own terms. Intertextuality reconnects with poetic dialogism, sans the mimicry burden. The intertextuality challenge showcases a new writers' community, across time and cultures. The old anxiety around one's own poetic voice now provides valid responses to literary reconfigurations. The book's study cases operate around three specific pairings: Segalen/Glissant, Kafka/Maghreb literature, and Morrison/Miano. Lastly, ecocriticism, along the decolonial discourse, comes to discuss the place of the postcolonial home as well as the responsibility category. The author contends that the attention to the land cannot be separated from imaginaries, collective and individual. Francophone writers stand at the crossroads of activism and poetics moving further away from French metropolitan preoccupations.

This book explores the making of futuristic memory through cinematic symbols relating to future relationships between humans and artificial intelligence (AI). Amar Singh examines how audiences are being prepared for possible future scenarios where they may find themselves entangled with intelligent objects through developing relationships with them, and if so, how they might react when confronted by an intelligent species. Through this research, Singh focuses on both the complications and flaws of science fiction depictions of AI as well as more abstract works that, while not directly connected, contribute to a better understanding of these emerging technologies. Scholars of film, media, memory, posthuman, transhuman, and cultural studies will find particular value in this book, along with those focusing on literary and critical theory, arts and aesthetics, political sociology, and advanced research in AI.

What have depictions of the working class in popular culture added to our understanding of the professional lives of Americans? Scenes from the American Working Class: This Hard Land offers twelve unique and profound answers from some of the most impactful and timeless novels (O! Pioneers, Ann Vickers, and Native Son), films (Blue Collar, Wall Street, and Other People's Money), television shows (The Wire and Mad Men), songs (the work of Bruce Springsteen), and poems (Natasha Tretheway's "Drapery Factory, Gulfport, Mississippi, 1956"). Key themes include the turn from agrarianism to industrialism and post-industrialism; the challenges particular to women, new immigrants, and workers of color; and the relationship between the demands of the workplace and the responsibilities of citizens in a democracy. Also explored is the extent to which having a productive and fulfilling working life is essential to living a life of meaning and purpose. Although there is a significant gap between the rhetoric and the reality of the "American dream," these portrayals all give a glimpse into the resiliency and optimism of workers and why the country continues to be a land of hope.

This book is a provocative and fresh look into how Black women display an authentic identity in the face of constant negative images and portrayals of themselves in the media over time. Idrissa N. Snider explores noteworthy occurrences when prominent Black women, including First Lady Michelle Obama, Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis, and Grammy-winning songstress Beyonce Knowles, have used their platforms and notoriety to push back against age-old stereotypes used to justify their subjugation and mistreatment, such as the mammie, angry black woman, jezebel, or the tragic mulatto. Snider emphasizes and honors how Black women uniquely identify as a form of resistance and positive self-actualization and argues that both everyday and socially elite Black women and girls can - and do - utilize self-definition to disrupt and reject inauthentic and harmful representations of themselves.

In the wake of the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Abortion in International Popular Culture: The Decision Heard Round the World examines representations of abortion and reproductive justice across a wide range of popular culture artifacts, literary texts, and activist movements across the world. Contributors analyze examples from Chile, Italy, Malta, Sweden, Canada, France, the U.K., Argentina, Ireland, and Poland to consider the relationships between art and public policy, the impact of American policy on global policy and pro-choice movements, and the transnational influence of cultural representations of abortion.

Creative Responses to Environmental Crises and Aesthetics in Nordic Art and Literature gives a broad perspective on artistic responses to climate change and other environmental crises in the Nordic countries. Showcasing examples of environmental literature, visual art and entertainment from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, the chapters of the volume reflect the complex interplay of the local, regional and global in environmental art and activism. Authored by established and notable scholars in the field of Nordic ecocriticism, the volume highlights the complex and vital role art, literature, and other creative activities assume in times of crisis.

Child Activist Literature at the Turn of the 2020s: From Kids You Read About to Kids You Read looks at how today's child activists are not just followers in their forekids' footsteps, but blazers of new pathways, employing sophisticated rhetorical strategies that invert and subvert conventional thinking on the roles of children in politics. These young activists situate their work within a dense web of texts-the ones they read, the ones they write, and the ones that they expect adults to deploy to dismiss them. Nance-Carroll analyzes texts authored by child activists alongside narratives of youth activism in literature and media and the stories activists tell about themselves and their work, exploring issues of influence, inspiration, and authorship in child activist literature, as a growing body of work challenges not just adults' assumptions about children and politics, but also some fundamental disciplinary tenets of children's and young adult literature.

The United States is a bastion of commercial surrogacy. Intended parents from all over the globe travel to the United States seeking to build a family. However, they must navigate a complicated, convoluted industry that consists of hundreds of fertility clinics, surrogacy, and egg donor agencies, as well as new forms of business that have appeared to ease the efficiency of a long, drawn-out process. Mobility in North American Surrogacy: A Fertile Global Industry examines the multiple players involved in global surrogacy contracts between international intended parents who opt to create a family with the help and labor of surrogates from the United States. This market remains the final frontier of commercial surrogacy, while other reproductive hubs only allow for altruistic surrogacy. The author considers the mobility and immobility experienced by intended parents, egg donors, surrogates, and professionals whose intimate labor fosters connections across economic, geographic, and social divisions. Based on four years of ethnographic research that also spans the globe, the author argues for a more nuanced consideration of the ethics of surrogacy.

The Indigenous musicians from the surrounding pueblos de indios took on a leading role in urban musical activity. Musical Practices and Mobility in Asunción: Indigenous Musicians in Colonial Paraguay sheds light on dynamics that go beyond the studies centered on the doing of Jesuits in missionary contexts and provides a more thorough comprehension of the urban musical models that were imposed and adapted. Indigenous musicians were transferred to the city from the Jesuit reductions and the pueblos under the care of secular and Franciscan priests for festivals and celebrations. Without them, and without the mobilities that placed them in both contexts, Laura Fahrenkrog Cianelli argues the urban institutional-musical model would not have been possible to maintain in that distant corner of the empire. By transcending the city limits imposed by urban approaches, this book enables a novel reading of musical practices in a city connected with its hinterland, revealing the different musical physiognomies of the empire in distant contexts.

Folkloric Horror in Medieval Literature: New Discussions and Approaches focuses on the medieval and early modern precursors of what is now frequently described as Folk Horror. Part of the argument staged in this book stems from an observation that much of what is currently excluded from the conversation about folk horror, if not all horror generally, could be considered folkloric or folkloresque in many cases and would be worthy of inclusion in the discussion. The argument here is that the recurrent use of medieval literature and tropes as elements of the modern Folk Horror revival in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries stems in part from a modern repulsion and fascination with the premodern. It is also an outgrowth of traditional narrative fascinations with the abject and the rejected sense of past and place which is present in recognizable forms in premodern literatures globally.

Sectarian Roots of Jihad: Religious Conflicts in the Middle East examines the sectarian dimension of jih¿d and delves into the under-researched sectarian-inspired discursive employment of the notion by radical Islamist groups. It explores the transformation of the basic Islamic principle of "striving in the Path of God" into a radical foundation upon which some of the most fanatic and atrocious organizations are based in terms of thought, ideology, discourse and course of action. This book investigates sectarian-based interpretations and connotations of jih¿d as a concept and practice by means of exploring similarities and differences between Sunni and Shia approaches to the notion and its fundamental principles. It analyzes the way sectarian-guided Islamist organizations employ jih¿d in their propaganda activities and exploit it as a brand to religiously legitimize their cause and emotionally manipulate the recipients of their ideological discourse. It also delves into the development of sectarianism, Islamism, Salafism and Jihadism in order to scrutinize and analyze the rise of sectarian-guided extremism in the Middle East.