Books published by Lexington Books

This edited collection investigates the mobilities, resettlement practices, and identities of North Korean defectors who have relocated to the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan, and South Korea. The contributors to this volume examine the complex nature of defection from North Korea, highlighting the ways in which defectors renegotiate their identities in order to adapt and settle in new societies as well as the implications these differing narratives have on future policy decisions.

The Caucasus region and Central Asia covers a large part of the Eurasian. Both regions, where Russia and China have a serious influence and visibility, also have a location that reflects the hegemonic expectations of both these actors. In this context, domestic political developments and even internal conflicts in the region can be linked to the policies of Russia and China to a certain extent and have the potential to affect the motives of these two powers. Although Central Asia is rich in natural resources, it is landlocked and has lagged other nations in terms of agricultural production and industrial development. Although the Caucasus is divided into the North, the territory of Russia, and the South, where three independent states are located, it is insufficient in terms of production and development. The Caucasus stands out especially with energy projects and its feature of being a commercial corridor.

Driven by a detailed hermeneutical investigation of the Quranic story of creation, this book questions the hybrid Biblical/Quranic narrative that gradually erased the lines that define the authentic Quranic account. Abla Hasan argues that humanitys divine status is the bedrock from which to investigate the meaning of human religiosity and address the problem of pain and suffering. The detailed analysis in this book answers many linguistic and logical pending questions in the Quran and is a serious departure from popular Muslim narratives that seek to alleviate our pain and suffering.

Health Communication and Sport: Connections, Applications, and Opportunities aggregates sport and health communication into a collective resource that advances scholarly inquiry at the intersection of these two fields. Through bringing together a collaborative of scholars and practitioners who are doing work in areas ranging from mental health, to media, to youth sports, and social media, this volume evaluates health communication issues in sport contexts and inspires work that will answer contemporary questions and problems.

The ongoing tension and hostility between China and Taiwan in Africa are a continuation of the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) between the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which remained in mainland China, and the Kuomintang (KMT) of the Republic of China (ROC) which fled to the island of Taiwan. In the intervening years, China has claimed Taiwan as part of its territory and through persistent and aggressive political and economic efforts convinced much of the world to accept her as the sole and legitimate seat of the Chinese people and government. Africa-China-Taiwan Relations, 1949-2020 provides a coherent account of why and how China was able to convince African governments to acquiesce to her claims which have resulted in the expulsion of and the diplomatic isolation of Taiwan on the African continent. This volume, edited by Sabella Ogbobode Abidde, also explains Taiwan's unsuccessful efforts at blunting China's maneuvers. It further discusses the endogenous and exogenous factors that swayed African governments to switch their diplomatic allegiance away from Taiwan-a country that was for many years an ally and dependable partner in their quest for growth and development. Finally, the book contains critical assessments of the role and place of China and Taiwan and their current relationship with states and societies on the African continent.

African Immigrants in the United States: The Gendering Significance of Race? examines recent trends and implications of the growth of African immigration to the United States. Mamadi Corra highlights several resulting sociodemographic processes underway, including the changing composition of the foreign-born and US Black populations. Corra also explores sociodemographic profiles of these "new African Americans" or "new Americans," highlighting the increasing diversity, yet also the racialized portrait of this group. Corra discusses key patterns including the shifting racial and gender composition of immigrants, with a growing proportion of "Black" and female African immigrants and a decreasing proportion of "White" and male immigrants. The book also compares socioeconomic profiles of African immigrants with other immigrant groups and Native American subgroups. Taken together, Corra discovers that the salience of race that is mediated by gender.

This book reveals how marginalized communities and women are underrepresented on our screens and, too often, depicted in stereotypical ways. This is doubly true for marginalized speakersthose who speak traditionally ';nonstandard' dialects. Lindsey Clouse examines the origins of linguistic prejudice and how our public schools perpetuate the myth of ';bad' English. By dissecting the 500 top-grossing films of the last 20 years, Clouse exposes how speakers of Black English, Southern U.S. English, Spanish-influenced English, and gendered speech patterns are represented, underrepresented, misrepresented, and mocked. Clouse analyzes hundreds of films and characters to reveal how filmmakers and audiences work together to reinforce negative beliefs about stigmatized dialects and the people who speak them and reveals how those beliefs stack up against decades of linguistic research. She concludes by showing that these portrayals translate to real-life linguistic discrimination and discusses the ways in which we can combat this often-hidden prejudice. Scholars of introductory sociolinguistics, american dialect studies, and media studies, will find this book of particular interest.

The Walsingham Gambit provides the reader with a new and unique insight into the hidden history associated with the regicide of Mary, Queen of Scots. This hidden history is revealed in great detail by R. Kent Tiernan, who describes how the English deception planners led by Sir Francis Walsingham designed, engineered, and executed a complex seven-year operation to expand Queen Elizabeth I's power by ending Mary's life. Tiernan presents a counterintelligence analytical approach utilizing conspiracies and deception between two religious mortal enemies. Historians have explained what happened during this tumultuous period, but this book tells how it happened. Whether interested in history or deception, the reader will be well rewarded with an enhanced understanding of both. This book is a timeless must read for anyone interested in how Mary Stuart was entrapped by Walsingham's gambit.

Who is the Pearl-poet? How do ideas about his life and interpretations of his poems shape our understanding of his work in late-medieval England--and beyond? In Becoming the Pearl-Poet: Perceptions, Connections, Receptions, readers can explore the world of this extraordinary, fourteenth-century writer. In Part I, "Perceptions," five scholars give insightful literary analyses of the narrative poems attributed to the poet: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and St. Erkenwald. In Part II, "Connections," six scholars examine connections between these diverse poems, focusing on authorship, ecology, material culture, sartorial adornment, shields, and the poet's pastoral theology. In Part III, "Receptions," scholars consider the illustrations of the Pearl Manuscript (British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x), the poet's cultural situatedness in the Northwest Midlands and Ricardian court, his religious contexts, later translations and paraphrases of his work, and his medieval and modern audiences. Intended for students and scholars alike, this book encourages readers to gain a deeper understanding of the Pearl-poet and his world, learning many new things and enjoying old things in a new way.

Ecology, Spirituality, and Cosmology in Edwidge Danticat: Crossroads as Ritual employs nature, literary tradition, and the cosmogram to examine Danticat's fiction as textual sites imbued with ritual and conducive for healing and clarifying Africana diasporic consciousness.

In Afro-Brazilians in Mass Media: Social, Political, and Economic Realities, Samantha Nogueira Joyce examines representations of Blackness on Brazilian TV, interrogating the role of mass media in developing racial equality and social change. Nogueira Joyce challenges assumptions that place the inclusion of Afro-Brazilians in mass media as a step towards racial progress while contextualizing media representation with the social, political, and economic realities of the Brazilian society at large, thus linking media representations to progressive gains and conservative backlashes in the Brazilian public sphere. This book joins conversations with other works on multiculturalism, Blackness, and whiteness within media studies, critical race and ethnic studies, and Latin American studies. This multilayered approach combines textual analysis with studies of political and economic systems and digital media activism to carefully unravel Brazilian racial dynamics.

Identity Orchestration illustrates the importance of identity balance in behavioral health as seen through a personality psychology lens. The contributors to this collection deeply engage the self and psychological strength by examining race, gender, class, and context with narratives that highlight the asset-based constructs of identity.

This collection, edited by Jim A. Kuypers, analyzes genres of public communication to examine how the pandemic has impacted specific areas of scholarship within the communication discipline. Contributors begin each chapter by acknowledging the parameters of their sub-discipline and then discussing key elements being affected by the pandemic and pandemic responses. Viewing the pandemic through the eyes of their sub-disciplines, contributors offer unique insights on the effects of the pandemic upon human communication in their specific area of focus, examining how the pandemic will continue to affect the teaching of their subject areas and providing suggestions for future research. Sub-disciplines represented in this collection include digital rhetoric, journalism & mass communication, free speech, public relations, sports communication, public address, health communication, spiritual communication, and popular culture. Scholars of communication, media studies, and education will find this book particularly useful.

Neglected Social Theorists of Color: Deconstructing the Margins provides a novel contribution to the ongoing debates concerning the canon in contemporary sociological theory. In particular, the editors argue that many scholars whose work may hold significant potential for contributions to contemporary debates in social theory go unrecognized. Still others, while not completely ignored, have fallen victim to a cultural and political climate not receptive to their work. Feminist scholars have been in the forefront of these debates, arguing that many insightful social theorists have been marginalized because of their gender. More recently, studies of individual theorists of color have appeared, but these have been limited to African American scholars such as W.E.B. Du Bois. In the present text, the editors extend this approach to include a broad diversity of theorists of color, including those of African American, Afro-Caribbean, Latinx, Asian, Asian American, and Native American backgrounds. In addition, the editors also include the work of authors who come from academic fields outside of sociology and others who are journalists, activists, or independent writers. The work has a unique format, where the authors of each chapter provide a theoretical analysis of their subject and a discussion of the contemporary significance of their work, lending to a rich discussion of underappreciated sociological scholars.

From the concrete experience of war, Michael S. Yandell constructs a phenomenology of "negative revelation" in which false or distorted claims of goodness and justice disintegrate, becoming meaningless. Yandell argues that the disintegration of meaning in war is itself a meaningful experience; "revealing" comes to signify the presence of goodness and justice through the profound experience of their absence. The heart of this work adds a layer of complexity or depth to the term "moral injury" as a negative revelation. Yandell emphasizes the context and logic of war itself beyond the actions of individuals, paying specific attention to the U.S. led Global War on Terror. Moral injury as a negative revelation is a disintegration of false normative claims of goodness and justice, as well as a disintegration of one's sense of self oriented toward those normative claims. This disintegration is prompted by the recognition of life in the midst of war's diminishment of life.

Moral evaluations of actions are only appropriate for actions within the moral domain. Actions outside of the moral domain are amoral actions. In Why Suicide Is Amoral: A Philosophical Account, Robyn Gaier emphasizes the role of agency in determining whether an action is within the moral domain. If an agent lacks either deliberative agency or moral agency, then their action is amoral. An agent lacks deliberative agency if they cannot evaluate and act upon reasons, and moral agency if they cannot act upon moral reasons. Actions in which such agencies are compromised are also amoral actions. In treating actions of suicide, while granting their diversity, this book traces them to the loss or threat of loss of basic psychological needs. Gaier argues that when basic psychological needs are lost or under threat, an agent's deliberative agency, moral agency, or both are either lacking or compromised. Hence, actions of suicide are amoral, and it is a conceptual mistake to attempt the moral evaluation of actions of suicide. Furthermore, when we regard actions of suicide as within the moral domain, we perpetuate a social stigma against suicide.

';Hey, that was kind of racist.'';Im not a racist! I have Black friends.'This exchange highlights a problem with how people in the United States tend to talk about racially tricky situations. As Racist, Not Racist, Antiracist: Language and the Dynamic Disaster of American Racism explores, such situations are ordinarily categorized as either racist or not racist (or, in other cases, as antiracist). The problem is, there are often situations that are racially not good, but that we do not want to categorize as racist, either. However, since we don't have the language to describe this in-between, we are forced to fall back on the racist/not racist/antiracist trinary, which tends to shut down productive discussion. This is especially true for white people, who tend to take claims of racismbe they interpersonal or institutionalas a personal attack. This is problematic, not only because it means that white people never learn about their own racially troubling behaviors, but also because such fragility keeps them from being able to engage in productive discussions about systemic racial oppression. Leland Harper and Jennifer Kling demonstrate how expanding our racial vocabulary is crucial for the attainment of justice equally enjoyed by all.

Performing Craft in Mexico examines how Mexican artisans and diverse actors perform as translators of aesthetics, politics, and history through the field of craft. The contributors build from historical and ethnographic archives and direct engagement with makers to reassemble an expanded vision of artisanal production and the complicated classifications that surround Mexican popular art-making--from the Anglo term "craft" to the Spanish term "artesanía." This book also homages Dr. Janet Brody Esser's research on the Blackmen masquerades of Michoacán, exploring African history and presence in Mexico. The contributors provide wide-ranging insight into the agency, history, and contemporary world of Mexican makers and other entangled actors in the field of craft.

Silence, Civility, and Sanity addresses the reclamation of civil communication and healthy public conversation at a time when people are very divided. Throughout this book, Stephanie Bennett focuses on the importance of silence to temper speech and embrace the art of listening to foster a more positive dialogue and civil society. Throughout this book, the author addresses the place of silence as a communicational good, intrapersonal silence in the history of contemplative prayer, the importance of attentive silence, the reflective use of silence, the ethical dimensions of silence, and the abuses of silence. This book also delves into the layers of technological advancement that obscure perception and act as noise that poses as silence, phantom silence. Bennett offers readers an alternative to the false binaries of culture-warring that plague our relationships, institutions, and public sphere. Scholars of communication, rhetoric, and media studies will find this book of particular interest.

Democratic Disunity: Rhetorical Tribalism in 2020 addresses that while attention has recently and rightly been paid to the tribal bifurcation of the GOP, the Democratic Party is similarly divided. Americans live in a democratic republic rather than a direct democracy and choices regarding governing concerns are configured through communicative action. These choices include those made between and within American political parties. Without rhetorical mediation and intervention, toxic partisan tribalism within the two major American political parties is likely to destabilize the nations' federalist system of government. Kelley argues that intraparty tribalism poisons public life and consumes public space within which electoral politics, including discussion, deliberation and compromise, should be thriving. Democratic Disunity considers intraparty tribalism as a rhetorical form, uniquely positioned within the twenty-first century. Details are provided regarding language-in-use strategies with which to anchor a rhetoric of governing through a mindful, deliberative dialogue which diminishes the effect of political partisanship, including its toxic variations both between and within American political parties. Scholars and students of rhetoric, political communication, and political science will find this book particularly interesting.

The authors argue that the potential threat of a resurgence of fascism has been consistently exaggerated from 1945 until present day; that the ongoing lack of conceptual and definitional clarity with respect to terms like fascism, the radical right, the alt right, white supremacism, populism, racism, etc., has enabled ill-informed or dishonest commentators to distort their meaning and abusively misapply those labels so as to delegitimize their political opponents; and that the political and economic elites in charge of contemporary Western societies are now deliberately exaggerating and exploiting the threat posed by the domestic radical right in order to facilitate vilifying, harassing, de-platforming, censoring, canceling, and repressing disgruntled citizens (no matter where they may lie along the political spectrum) who openly criticize and vigorously oppose their agendas. The authors also advocate the use of well-established scholarly methods for carrying out research on the right and provide precise definitions of various terms in order to facilitate the development of more accurate categorizations.

The films of Sofia Coppola have moved and entranced audiences with her minimalist style, moody soundscapes, and commitment to centering the lives and experiences of women and girls. A Critical Companion to Sofia Coppola explores the implications of her stories, images, and convictions in a comprehensive study of all eight of her major works. Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, each chapter offers a fresh, interdisciplinary reading of one of Coppola's films and her treatment of core themes like masculinity, sexual politics, bodies, and love. Rigorously researched and unique, the arguments presented within this volume shed new light on one of the most important women filmmakers in film history.

John Stuart Mill and Epistemic Democracy explores the epistemic, or cognitive, character of democratic institutional practices and the protection of basic liberties in Mills political thought. Mapping Mills theory of representative democracy and critically engaging Mills more controversial issues, Ivan Cerovac identifies the epistemic criteria within these proposals and uses them as a basis for unifying Mills political thought. The book addresses the epistemic role of wide democratic participation on the one hand and institutional mechanisms used to filter the public willsuch as political representation, plural voting proposals, partisanship, division of epistemic and political laboron the other, and it analyzes how Mill tries to resolve the conflict between political and epistemic values. Characterizing Mill as both a political instrumentalist and an epistemic democrat, Cerovac sets Mills theory in a broader explanatory framework and compares it with contemporary accounts of epistemic justification. Emphasizing Mills normative considerations regarding franchise and the exercise of political power over others, this book discusses how to implement the epistemic ideal in real-world politics. It will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in democratic decision-making.

Building on various feminist theories of ethos, the authors in this collection explore how North American Catholic women from various periods, races, ethnicities, sexualities, and classes have used elements of the group's positionality to make change. The women considered in the book range from the earliest Catholic sisters who arrived in the United States to women who held the Church hierarchy accountable for the sexual abuse scandals. The book analyzes women such as those in an African American order who developed an ethos that would resist racism. Chapters also consider better known Catholic women such as Dolores Huertas, Mary Daly, and Joan Chittister.

Geoengineering, the idea of addressing climate change through large-scale technological projects, stands out among contested technologies in the degree to which its scope of possibilities and its premise are characterized by global existential risks. Despite controversy, this field has been shifting toward mainstream consideration. Geoengineering Discourse Confronting Climate Change: The Move from Margins to Mainstream in Science, News Media, and Politics examines the trajectory of geoengineering through critical discourse analysis of three key genres: science policy reports, news journalism, and congressional hearings. Brynna Jacobson explores how reports from distinguished scientific societies have constructed certain notions of legitimacy around geoengineering, how narratives within news coverage have reflected and shaped the public discourse and understanding of geoengineering, and how geoengineering has garnered political support from both major political parties in the United States. Through analysis of discursive conventions within these genres, the author reveals the evolution of notions of normalcy, legitimacy, and imperative around the field of geoengineering.

Movies and television series are excellent tools for teaching political science and international relations. Understanding how stories in various film and television genres illustrate political ideas can better assist students and fans understand and appreciate the political subtext of these media products. This book examines politics through five film genres and their variants. Gangster movies focus on American and other organized crime. They reached their zenith in the films of Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. Political thrillers express paranoia about secrecy and political conspiracies, while action movies channel anger at foreign and domestic threats to order. Superhero films and TV present modern characters who seek to serve society as they face personal struggles about their individual identities. War movies promote positive images of wars when conflicts are perceived as successful, but often include antiwar messages when wars turn out badly. Western movies fell out of favor in the 1970s and 1980s but have undergone a renaissance since the 1990s. Westerns can be taken as either political parables, or as meditations on policing, anarchy, community organization. The author argues that while these genres all offer escape, they also offer important political lessons.

In The Intersectional Other, Alex Rivera deconstructs the history of power in the United States, critiquing the white colonialism and heteronormativity evident in psychological and medical literature and rejecting the deficiencies projected onto queer Black, Indigenous, and Other People of Color (BIPOC). Rivera compels her readers to envision a world where Intersectional Others hold not just power, but the capacity to evoke societal transformations through creativity, self-love, and revolution. The Intersectional Other boldly reimagines the margins, creating a radical space for readers to de-vilify Otherness and conjure a better future.

The American Dream and Dreams Deferred: A Dialectical Fairy Tale shows how rival interpretations of the Dream reveal the dialectical tensions therein. Exploring often neglected voices, literatures, and histories, Carlton D. Floyd and Thomas Ehrlich Reifer highlight moments when the American Dream appears both simultaneously possible and out of reach. In so doing, the authors invite readers to make a new collective dream of a better future, on socially just, multicultural, and ecologically sustainable foundations.

Romantic relationships and health are fundamental for society, but what happens to a person's well-being when he or she chooses the "wrong" partner? Interracial Romance and Health: Bridging Generations, Race Relations, and Well-Being tackles this growing public health issue, which impacts millions of people in interracial relationships, especially young adults. With a particular focus on a group of young adults whom he calls the Bridge Kids, Byron Miller provides a critical examination of how racial identity, socialization, and the partner selection process influence whether a person becomes interracially involved. For those that do cross racial lines for romance, Miller reveals that the race of one's partner can have a significant impact on their lived experiences and health outcomes. Opposing the idea that interracial relationships are bad for society and an individual's health, Miller argues that interracial romance has health benefits for some, is generally good for society, and that what is truly detrimental is the unnecessary stress people in interracial relationships feel due to their experiences with stigma, racism, and discrimination. Miller concludes that as the prevalence of interracial romance grows, so does the urgency to address these issues to protect the well-being of the Bridge Kids and others in interracial romantic partnerships.

Happiness in Kant's Practical Philosophy: Morality, Indirect Duties, and Welfare Rights examines the role and normative implications of Kants understanding of happiness for his moral, political, and legal philosophy. Kant's underlying assumptions about happiness are rarely overtly discussed or given much detail in his works. By bringing these assumptions to the fore, Alice Pinheiro Walla sheds light on some puzzling claims and on the scattered, sometimes contradictory remarks Kant makes about happiness. The book shows that happiness shapes or indirectly influences Kant's methodology and many of his conclusions, including his views on the nature of practical rationality, meta-ethics, the role of the state, and of political justification. The challenge with happiness is that it is impossible to know for certain what will make us happy, and what we take to be happiness changes over our lifetime. The book argues that Kant offers a distinctive strategy for dealing with this indeterminacy of happiness, one rooted in understanding our duties to ourselves and others. Happiness in Kant's Practical Philosophy provides a map of the areas in which the concept of happiness or considerations about the happiness of individuals appear in Kant's practical works and analyses the way they relate to central themes of his practical theory.