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Religion, Culture, and the Monstrous: Of Gods and Monsters explores the intersection of the emerging field of "monster theory" within religious studies. With case studies from ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary valleys of the Himalayas to ghost tours in Savannah, Georgia, the volume examines the variegated nature of the monstrous as well as the cultural functions of monsters in shaping how we see the world and ourselves. In this, the authors constructively assess the state of the two fields of monster theory and religious studies, and propose new directions in how these fields can inform each other. The case studies included illuminate the ways in which monsters reinforce the categories through which a given culture sees the world. At the same time, the volume points to how monsters appear to question, disrupt, or challenge those categories, creating an 'unsettling' or surplus of meaning.

This book highlights hidden unintentional biases, emotional defense mechanisms, and responses in haste. By revealing these preconceived notions present in message choices, Xiaowei Shi and Steve Mortenson demonstrate techniques to help prevent communication from becoming problematic. In a conversational style, the authors extend their interdisciplinary theoretic perspectives by introducing concepts and practices of supportive confrontation and argumentative interaction management. Through examining those automatic responses and reactions in our everyday conversation with friends, coworkers, and loved ones, this book engages the readers to confront their own hidden preferences and underlying beliefs about gender, relationships, and themselves with a new eye. The book moves beyond prior work on rational choice model in strategic communication by considering actual human attributes. Shi and Mortenson offer new insights into communication ';noises' and how to engage in communication during a difficult life event or on a difficult subject in a more skillful manner. Scholars of social psychology, interpersonal communication, and communication training and development will find this book of particular interest.

The Making of American Whiteness: The Formation of Race in Seventeenth-Century Virginia changes the narrative about the origins of race and Whiteness in America. With an exhaustive array of archival documents, Carmen P. Thompson demonstrates not only that Whiteness predates European expansion to the Americas as evidenced in their participation in the transatlantic slave trade since the fifteenth century, but more importantly that it was the principal dynamic in the settlement of Virginia, the first colony in what would become the United States of America. And just as the system of White supremacy was the principal framework that fueled the transatlantic slave trade, it likewise was the framework that drove the organization of civil society in Virginia, including the organization and structure of the colony's laws, social, political, and economic policies as well as its system of governance. The book shows what Whiteness looked like in everyday life in the early seventeenth century, in a way eerily prescient to Whiteness today.

Jin Yong's Martial Arts Fiction and the Kungfu Industrial Complex is an analysis of the role of Jin Yong's stories and characters in the construction of the "kungfu industrial complex"-a complicated, multi-dimensional cultural/business matrix related to the production and consumption of martial arts fiction, film, and legacy. The author first explicates the "kungfu cultural literacy" that makes Jin Yong's characters and stories intelligible and compelling to a wide audience and then argues that academic resistance to integrating his pop fiction into the canon of Chinese literature is overcome via the national character discourse. The author subsequently explores the role of actors, directors, and crews as they repeatedly adapted the novels for film and television and provided afterlives for Jin Yong's characters, stories, and tropes, both kicking off actors' careers and driving the globalization of kungfu action. Archetypical characters, multidimensional production and consumption of cultural capital and star power meet in a final analysis of the "Kung Fu Hustle Hustle," which balances critical reality and a hopeful vision for China's future.

This book invites readers on an exploratory journey through the intricate tapestry of China's history, culture, political climate, and social dynamics. At the heart of this exploration is the one-child policy, a revolutionary measure with far-reaching implications for the country's gender dynamics. By scrutinizing this policy and its repercussions, the book aims to uncover and interlink various elements of how the evolution, or in some instances, the stagnation of China's cultural and structural norms, has shaped and continues to influence women's lives and choices in contemporary China.

MAGA and the White Social Conservative Worldview: The Rhetoric that Colonized the Republican Party examines how political narratives of the American myth created the road that Donald Trump used to colonize and take control of not only the Republican Party but the Republican base voter that was created through the political narratives of politicians including Thomas Jefferson, John Calhoun, Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Pat Buchanan, and Newt Gingrich. All of which culminated in the rhetoric and politics of the Tea Party and its subsequent champion Donald Trump. MAGA and the White Social Conservative Worldview examines how Trump benefited from decades of resentment, Southern Strategy politics and narratives within White social conservatism within the Republican Party. Donald Trump is the heir of the party, with the seismic party change of Strom Thurmond and a large bloc of Southern voters in reaction to Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s and the Republican's ultimate adoption of the politics of states' rights and fear of tyranny from the federal government. This book summarizes foundational rhetorical narratives of the Whitesocial conservative worldview that formed the basis for the rise of its newest incantation - Trumpism and how this newest iteration of ideas dating back to Jefferson and Calhoun colonized the modern Republican Party.

What happens when one empire or hegemon cedes the global stage to a rising power? Supplanting Empires: Power Transitions Across Human History argues that, historically, such power transitions tend to be relatively smooth, resulting in the preservation of the status quo with respect to the global order and institutions. This stems from the tendency of rising powers to be closely associated with declining powers, to the point that they generally support and perpetuate the old ways of governing. They maintain similar governing institutions, retain ties to the former empire's allies, and generally endorse the declining empire's ideology and norms. The violence involved in such transitions tends to be limited, and societies and economies are typically left undisturbed. To test this proposition, Kendall Stiles and his students undertake a systematic study of numerous power transitions across millennia of human history. The implications of these findings have considerable relevance with respect to the contemporary power struggle between the United States and China.

In Semantics and Poetics of the Righteous and the Wicked in the Psalms, Kevin Foth delves into the nuanced roles of the righteous and the wicked and explores their significance beyond conventional moral prototypes. The study argues that the figures of the righteous and the wicked should be considered as part of the conventions of Hebrew psalmody. By leveraging insights from lexical semantics of the terms ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ and ¿¿¿¿¿ throughout the Hebrew Bible, the study broadens the understanding of these terms in their multifaceted uses within poetic contexts. The analysis further employs narratological theories about character and characterization to elucidate how the contrast between the righteous and wicked functions within 18 individual psalms. By focusing on the specific contexts within psalms and embracing poetic diversity, this study enriches the understanding of how these figures contribute to the literary features and theological messages woven throughout the Book of Psalms.

The Future of Humanities: Perspectives from South Asian Cultural Studies offers a dynamic exploration of critical humanities, cultural practices, digital technologies, and globalization impacting Indian society. Exploring the convergence of human practices and technology, Vivek Singh espouses cultural preservation and addresses the urgent humanities crisis, fostering dialogue on contemporary complexities. By integrating theoretical perspectives, critical reflections, and folk traditions, this book seeks to facilitate intellectual engagement and stimulate dialogue on the intricate complexities of contemporary cultural practices and technological evolution.

Universitas: Why Higher Education Must Be International intervenes with urgency in the debate on the virtues, and pitfalls of internationalizing higher education. It unites voices of academics from around the globe with considerable experience with international higher education in a well-considered defense of the university as a public space transcending locality, counteracting parochialism, and defending the quality of scholarship. All authors writing in this volume have themselves followed international trajectories, across different parts of the world. At the same time, all are now settled academics. They have been observing the relevant trends in their work environments and have been actively involved in managing them. Universitas brings their informed auto-ethnographic reflections in conversation with each other and connects them into a systematic analysis that allows us to recognize and communicate the virtues of internationalizing higher education and to better navigate its challenges. At the same time, the auto-biographical subtexts of the contributions vividly illustrate how international experiences impact personal and professional development and help make the case for defending the internationalization of higher education against its detractors.

Philosophy, Language, and Literature in an African Context investigates the link between philosophy and language in African literature. Wilfred Lajul and the contributors argue that African literature is more than the desire of literary writers to entertain or provoke thought, but rather a stylistic means through which they convey important information and philosophy. This book also probes into theories, contexts, and moral language in African literature, exploring their implications for language use. The contributors analyze linguistic, philosophical, and cultural worldviews of the African literary writers shown within their poetry, novels, and plays. This book provides new ways of understanding the relationship between philosophy and language in African literature.

In Misinformation Studies and Higher Education in the Postdigital Era: Beyond Fake News, Paul Cook argues that the epistemological complexity of the postdigital age demands a new, metadisciplinary approach to information and media - misinformation studies. Cook posits that institutions of higher education can work toward regaining the public's trust and reinvigorating general education programs by developing a metadiscipline that directly addresses the problem of misinformation in all its various and dangerous forms. This book outlines how such a curricular pivot may be accomplished in an age saturated with generative AI, algorithmic manipulation, ubiquitous networked computing, and information overload, coupled with the myriad challenges higher education faces from seemingly all sides. Ultimately, this book makes a compelling case that universities and colleges can instead harness the fragmentation caused by this 'perfect storm' currently facing higher education so they can not only weather the crisis, but also emerger stronger because of it.

A Shift in the Portrayal and Reception of Homosexuality from the Victorian to the Modern Period explores how the reception of homosexuality in literature evolved and morphed greatly from the late 19th century to the 20th century and how the gender of the author played a particularly import role. Victorian society scorned and punished gay men to a harsher degree due to the subversive, taboo, and "emasculating" nature of male homosexuality, as evident in the reception of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. In contrast, the Modern period saw a positive portrayal and reception of homosexuality in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Modern society as well as Victorian society accepted same-sex female relationships under the assumption that women were incapable of engaging in sexual acts-an assumption influenced by Queen Victoria. Thus, on the surface, both societies tolerated female homosexuality in literature. However, this distorted tolerance was a limiting and silencing force. Darby Dyer compares the homosexuality in the works and lives of Wilde and Woolf to other authors during their time periods to address how far queer representation has come in literature and other arts. She concludes with a call to action that the fight is not over.

In Populism, Territories, Name Disputes, and Hyperreality: Greek Nationalism and the Macedonian Case, Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis examines how and why societal actors may use different names to refer to the same territory. Karyotakis demonstrates the enormous symbolic power that the names of places can hold through a study of the Macedonian name dispute (MND), arguing that territorial names can be symbolic and crucial for constructing nation-states through imbued influential meanings affecting citizens' hearts and minds. These symbolic name disputes (SNDs), he posits, offer societal elites the opportunity to further their own personal ambitions, which can include winning electoral power and spreading hatred against non-supporters. Karyotakis then delineates how some disputes have maintained a seemingly improved version of reality that strongly attaches the conflict to a dogmatized dominant narrative which exploits the nationalistic ideas of the nation-state and blurs territorial borders (hyperreal symbolic name disputes), while other disputes are firmly attached to actual territorial claims that arise from a disagreement over control of a well-defined physical territory (referential symbolic name disputes). Pointing to several persistent territorial name disputes - such as the Arabian/Persian Gulf, Kurdistan, the Kuril Islands/Northern Territories, Macedonia, Navasa Island/La Navase, and Western Sahara, among others - this book provides a model for a novel categorization that broadens our understanding of these conflicts.

In the 21st century, political debates appear to center on fundamental conflicts between "the people" and "elites." Most of these discussions emphasize strategies to protect and empower the oppressed masses against a predatory ruling class. Much of classical political thought, however, was written from an aristocratic point of view: that is, it ascribed paramount importance to the question of elite formation. Assuming inequality as a permanent feature of human associations, what virtues would elites need to have, what institutions and traditions would cultivate the best qualities in members of the ruling class, and curb their extravagances. Aristocratic Voices: Forgotten Arguments about Virtue, Authority, and Inequality consists of essays by political theorists who explore these questions in the works of aristocratic thinkers, both ancient and modern. The volume includes analyses of aristocratic virtues, interpretations of aristocratic assemblies and constitutions, both historic and contemporary, as well as critiques of liberal virtues and institutions. Essays on Plutarch, Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilius of Padua, Sir Thomas Elyot, John Henry Newman, Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl, Henry Adams, Friedrich Nietzsche, Irving Babbitt, Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola, and Robert Nisbet explore ways of preserving and adapting the valuable aspects of the aristocratic ethos to the needs of modern societies.

Posthuman Southeast Asia: Ecocritical Entanglements Across Species Boundaries explores the posthuman in Southeast Asia from various ecocritical perspectives and encourages further and deeper entanglements between ecocritics and the bountiful, but also threatened, multispecies ecologies of this region. Southeast Asia is an area where humans and nonhumans have always been deeply entangled, from the indigenous and ancient traditions of animism to the variegated and blooming creativity of contemporary literature, art, music, drama, film, and other media. This book expands and enriches Southeast Asian ecocritical scholarship by incorporating posthumanist and new materialist perspectives. Across twelve chapters, this volume explicitly engages with Southeast Asian texts, cultural practices, and environmental issues from the broadly conceived theoretical framework of posthuman ecocriticism. They provide a uniquely inflected perspective on the literary, multimedia, and artistic dimensions of contemporary nature-cultures in Southeast Asia, as part of a concerted effort to disclose the complex entanglements of humans and nonhumans across the region.

In this book, Valerie Kretz utilizes examples from pop culture and everyday life to provide an examination of current research on romantic relationships and media, with an emphasis on entertainment and digitally-mediated communication. By dividing the book into two major sections - relationship trajectories and different aspects of relationships - Kretz establishes a framework through which to explore relevant theoretical and empirical findings, drawing on established literature, examples in the media, and the lived experiences of interview participants. Kretz covers a wide range of topics through these frameworks, including online dating, representations of love in film and television, social media and romantic jealousy, parasocial romance, and digital breakups, among others. Ultimately, Kretz argues that all available evidence demonstrates the complexity of this intersection, due to the separate roles that several distinct factors like medium, content, social context, frequency of use, and individual differences all play a role in how these intersections are constructed in the real world. Finally, the book identifies potential directions for future research as scholars continue to unpack this complex relationship.

The Fight of Exiled Journalist and Anti-Communist Activist Josef Josten: For Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights (1948-1985) explores the life and work of exiled Czech journalist Josef Josten (1913-1985) and his fight against the communist Soviet regime in his homeland. Josten was a tireless journalist, activist, and organizer of campaigns and initiatives to expose communist strategy and tactics. During his exile, he set up the Free Czechoslovakia Information Service, which issued the regular bulletin Features and News from Behind the Iron Curtain. His work culminated in the Free Czechoslovakia Campaign, and the establishment of the British Committee for the Defense of the Unjustly Prosecuted. This book offers insight into the Soviet directives regarding their relationship with Great Britain, the struggles of the Czech exile community, and the infiltration of the exile movement by Soviet secret agents.

This study examines the development of anti-capital punishment sentiment in antebellum American Literature. Drawing on republican criminal reform theories, prominent American authors and social reformers advocated for the abolition of the gallows, justice, and criminal reform for the diverse citizens of the young republic.

Breaking the Cycle of Structural Violence in Northern Mexico: Toward Integral Peace explores how large-scale economic interests and local power dynamics all play a role in creating a climate of violence against women, migrants, and other stigmatized groups in Northern Mexico. By using case studies and interviews, Juan Jaime Loera Gonzalez and Horacio Almanza Alcalde analyze the asbestos industry's role in causing cancer, structural gender violence, the high levels of risk faced by migrants, and how the government fails to address malnutrition among indigenous people. This book investigates conditions and the manifestations of structural violence and illuminates how these issues interconnect and perpetuate systemic injustices. This volume also offers a comprehensive framework for action by proposing strategies to dismantle oppressive structures and foster genuine peace.

The German philosopher Karl Jaspers was moved by the possibilities of global understanding throughout his life and penetrated it more deeply than any other thinker before him. Anton Hügli argues that Jaspers' petition to not proclaim a new doctrine,-but to continue thinking along the path taken by the great philosophers of the past,-is itself an expression of his unconditional will to communicate. The limits of communication that Jaspers shows us are not accidental psychological and sociological obstacles to understanding, but limits that we humans encounter as humans: we want to communicate what cannot be communicated. Instead of an understanding based on a truth that can be understood by all, there is a struggle between the powers of faith. How we can communicate with one another and work for peace and unity in the world? This ultimate question requires a twofold clarification: on the one hand, of the nature of the objects that have always been considered inexpressible, the human's individual existence and God as the ultimate One, and on the other hand, of the faculty in us that allows us to think things that cannot be thought.

The Politics of Death in Anti-colonial Praxis by Gregory Maxaulane explores the political conditions necessary for revolution and freedom. At the intersection of continental philosophy and Black studies, this book examines the political economy of death within the Black experience in South Africa by theorizing death as a productive and generative process. Maxaulane provides a deeper understanding of the politics of death by focusing on how continental philosophy and Black studies treat the problem of praxis as well as the parallels and convergences between the models of praxis they sustain. This book is a comprehensive exploration of these fields, providing critical engagements with the evolution of ideology and the anti-colonial praxis in South African history. Challenging liberal democratic doctrines that have undermined the claims of Black radical imagination, Maxaulane argues that the political economy of death allows us to break from tradition through a concept of freedom not grounded in transcendentalism.

Political Economy of COVID-19: Understanding the Dynamics of a Global Pandemic, provides a theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach to the understanding of the pandemic through multiple case analyses. It produces and discusses COVID-19 research with interdisciplinary perspectives by addressing how the pandemic distinctly impacted the local and global economy and how numerous stakeholders responded. The book is truly global and interdisciplinary, through chapter contributions and case analysis from practitioners and emerging and established scholars. The ideas raised in this book have the potential to take central elements of post-pandemic political, social and economic thinking to a new line of inquiry and provide more compelling nuances. The book will be essential reading for researchers, students and scholars interested in development studies, political economy, historicity of the pandemic, conspiratorial debates and country specific policy response.

To tackle the paucity of adequate housing in the Muslim World, Strategic Rebuilding and Affordable Housing in the Muslim World brings together a cohort of essays that deal with the the latest approaches, policy discussions, attendant research methodologies and recommendations. The volume's multidisciplinary contributors- academics, practitioners, architects, planners, researchers, urbanists, economists-offer valuable insights and critical analysis on strategic rebuilding of affordable and adequate housing, as well as the continuous improvement of living conditions. Each chapter broadens our understanding of the 'house' as a source of stability and security for individuals or families because one's house is the center of emotional life, with its ability to provide serenity, safety, and self-worth. Therefore, weaving the many aspects of this argument together the contributors of this volume purport a point of view that is carefully well-thought-out to expand the focus from just addressing individual and family needs to looking at the wider community benefits. Furthermore, adequate housing will increasingly become the focus of re-settlement, urban renewal and re-investment, primarily to deal with the homeless conditions that already exist-the influx of refugees and internally displaced people (IDP's) as the result of natural disasters (earthquakes and floods) and the collateral damage caused by war.

Vox Eurydice: The Ascent of the Female Rescuer in German-Language Opera is a mythological and depth psychological analysis written from a feminist perspective, on the emergence of the theme of rescue stories, and specifically plots where a female heroine saves a male character, which arose in German-language opera during the roughly one hundred years that spanned the lifetimes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Richard Wagner. Margaret Ann Mendenhall argues that the German-language works of these three musical giants grew out of the rescue story paradigm, as an extension of Italian opera buffa and French opéra comique. This is reflected in Mozart's Singspiele and Beethoven's one completed opera, Fidelio, considered the epitome of the German-language rescue opera. The author then examines Wagner's oeuvre, not only his ten mature masterpieces, but also three earlier operas and his unfinished pieces. The author also posits that the need for the ascent of the female rescuer in German-language opera was unconsciously tied into the desire of the people of the German-speaking territories for a homeland, and how the presence of this archetype subsided soon after a German nation was established in 1871.

Geoliturgy and Ecological Crisis: The Spiritual Practice of Caring for Creation examines sources and select practices within Christian tradition-Scripture, the Nicene Creed, the Eucharist, and fasting-from an ecological perspective in order to develop a practical spirituality for living in an ecologically responsible way in the world. This spirituality, which Jeffrey S. Lamp labels Geoliturgy, describes a way to read the Bible ecologically and to understand the doctrinal content of the Nicene Creed in ecological terms. Lamp then examines the Eucharist and fasting as liturgical and devotional practices that form the structure of a spirituality that extends from church services into the daily lives of the faithful. The resulting vision of this study is the reclamation of the biblical mandate for human beings to function as benevolent priestly co-rulers with God in creation to prepare creation to become the dwelling place of God.

Edward FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Revisited: The Wine, the Vine, and the Rose examines an overlooked masterpiece which was a phenomenon in its day. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, translated by Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883), sold millions of copies between its first publication in 1859 and World War II, becoming one of the best-selling books of all time, only to disappear from the public eye until the age of the Internet revived interest in the work. Russell Brickey synthesizes scholarship and close reading in the first monograph dedicated to the Rubáiyát, taking into account the original poetry of Omar Khayyám (1038-1141), a polyglot who lived in medieval Persia, and the western poetic tradition that informed FitzGerald's creative palimpsest. These include the Song of Solomon, 17th century Cavalier Poetry, the Sonnet Sequence, and the poems of Alfred Tennyson, William Wordsworth, and others. This book looks at the offshoots of Omar Khayyám and Edward FitzGerald's poetic brotherhood, the pulp-novels, movies, and poems their poem inspired.

History is storytelling. History is the selection of facts, placed in a specific order, to result in a specific conclusion. It's the choice of facts, the prioritization of facts, and the ignoring of facts, that creates the narrative of history -- the narrative of the American story. The American story is the creation of specific historical events and the meanings that have been applied to them. Since America is defined by ideas and not ethnicity, it matters what narratives of America that Americans accept, support, and defend. White Narratives Matter: The Whitewashing of the American Story and How Racial Narratives Explain the Development of Trumpism uses original speeches and writings of politicians and other social leaders, from Thomas Jefferson to Tucker Carlson to explore how the White social conservative worldviewnarrative of American history developed over the past two centuries. White Narratives Matter explores how this process of fact selection, prioritization, and development of White social conservative rhetoric of the American story has defined American politics and policies, which culminated in the rise of Donald Trump and Trumpism within the American political landscape.

Turkish-American relations have been considered a model partnership between a great and middle power during the Cold War due to the positive nature of relations, being advantageous to both sides. While the United States took advantage of Türkiye's geopolitical position and military strength against the USSR, Türkiye benefited from American economic power and military technology. However, with the end of the Cold War and the emergence of new regional and global developments, a stable framework to clarify and shape Turkish-American relations has not yet been crafted. Additionally, crises such as the non-approval of the 1 March memorandum in 2003 to support the American war effort in Iraq and the 15 July 2016 coup attempt in Türkiye further distanced these two historical allies. To discuss these issues frankly and to provide some suggestions to improve the two countries' relations in many different regions/fields including Syria, Iraq, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Caucasus, the defense industry, the energy sector, and much more; Turkish-American Relations in the 21st Century aims to bring important experts on Turkish foreign policy and Turkish-American relations together.