Books published by Lexington Books

This book examines citizen engagement at the local level in Cuba through projects initiated by the community since the 1990s to provide an understanding of the relationship between citizens and the state in Cuba.

This is the story of the region where monotheism multiplied, where Christianity came into being, where Judaism reinvented itself, and where Islam won some of its greatest triumphs. This book tells the story of the monotheistic faiths in Galilee from Jesus and Josephus to the Crusades.

In Transforming Lives, Alexander Roedlach highlights the essential role that faith community nursing and health ministries play in local health and well-being. Roedlach argues that health systems and governments should partner with these programs in public health outreach efforts.

Exploring emotions as social relations through the lens of dramatic television serials, this book investigates the profound role emotions play in popular mediated narratives. E. Deidre Pribram argues that collective emotions, activated through aesthetic attributes, play a crucial role in cultural storytelling.

This book uses a theory of cyborg semiotics to explore the similarities between language and cyborgs in their formation, interpretation, and relationships. This intersectional theory provides a unique perspective on power and the human condition.

By examining non-fiction travel narratives and travel fictions in relationship to each other, Daniel Cooper Alarcón highlights the sophisticated ways that both types of writing have anticipated ideas central to critical studies of travel, tourism, and migration.

This bookexamines the simultaneous increase of informal sector employment and decreasing access to space for people making a living in the Panamanian informal economy.

This volume examines questions concerning the construction of gender and identity in the earliest days of what is now Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Methodologically explicit, the contributions analyze textual and material sources related to these religious traditions in their cultural contexts. The sources examined are predominantly products of patriarchal elite discourses requiring innovative approaches to unveil aspects of gender otherwise hidden. This volume extends the discussion represented in the volume Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020) and highlights the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research beyond anachronistic discipline distinctions.

This book studies the interactions between presidential candidates and hosts on broadcast late-night talk shows in the United States. Using Discourse Analysis, we develop a comprehensive understanding of the Entertainment-Political Interview as a cultural, interactional, and ideological genre.

This study leads the way to comprehend the need for further research on technology security in the fight against sex trafficking, exploring the ways the Internet and social media can both enable and combat against sex trafficking.

This book brings together essays on Orthodoxy and anarchism by prominent Orthodox theologians and scholars.

Exploring Caste and Sexuality in Indian English Writing: Outcast Subcultures examines the ways in which caste intersects and shapes matters of desire, gender, religion, and language. This book argues that the epistemology violence in contemporary India derives its strength from caste texts.

A Hindu-Jewish Conversation: Root Traditions in Dialogue is a historical, theological, and phenomenological engagement of the Hindu and Jewish traditions, two "root" traditions that give rise to other-in some ways very different-types of religious traditions. Rachel Fell McDermott and Daniel F. Polish explore conceptions of the divine, which are frequently cited as the most serious obstacle to a serious theological engagement between the two traditions; differences in attitude towards heroes, saints, and holy people; the religious resources and challenges experienced by Hindu and Jewish women; what can be learned about Hindu and Jewish spiritual outpouring by comparing Hindu devotional poetry and the Book of Psalms; the ways in which the two traditions address the fraught question of theodicy, or why bad things happen to good people; the status of "the land" and nationalist claims on it; and the uncomfortable question of caste and its possible social parallels in the Jewish tradition. The authors weave considerations of these topics into an ongoing conversation that offers students of both traditions new ways of thinking both about their intersections and about the history of religion in general. A coda explores these same issues by recounting an actual series of discussions convened between Hindu and Jewish practitioners.

This bookdiscloses the history of relations among members of the Quakers of Philadelphia and Japanese intellectuals, educators, and activists. Throughout the modern era, these ties, often between women, have transformed efforts for peace, equality, and women's rights in Japan and the United States.

Safe childbirth and midwifery occupied medical professional and government officials throughout the interwar and war years, but economic constraints and war preparation took precedence. Mothers and midwives made childbirth and professional decisions based on their desires and needs rather than at the direction of the local and central government.

This book examines the rituals and texts of the Hutsuls, who inhabit a small mountainous region located in today's Ukraine. The pages cover local affairs, habits, and dispositions as they manifested themselves in rituals and texts in the late nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century.

The book provides robust discussions on the ways in which Jamaicans are experiencing flawed democracy; the impact it has not just on the political system and their political participation but also economic development and socio-cultural challenges.

The US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and the return of international sanctions against Tehran turned out to have enormous implications for the Middle Eastern country's commercial interactions with its largest trading partner, China, affecting corrosively every aspect of economic, financial, and technological relationship between the two sides.

Sophos Ontology: On Post-Traditional Spirituality discusses religious plurality and post-traditional perspectives on emergent forms of sacred sensibility, particularly for those identifying as "spiritual but not religious." This book is divided into three parts. The first part is a retrospective account of multiple religious traditions, with emphasis on esoteric thought as influenced by mystical writings, covering western, eastern, and Native American traditions. The second part discusses the need for a new conceptualization of the "sacred" as expressed through multiple spiritual perspectives relevant to a pansentient, post-traditional process ontology. Other topics in this section include the importance of an ethically shaped spirituality, collective influences, dreams, imagination, and the role of pluralism in shaping beliefs. Part three explores the role of faith, redefined as spiritual commitment, mysticism as direct experiential knowledge, and transpersonal theory influenced by comparative studies in altered states of consciousness, paranormal research, and the metaphysics of discovery - all contributing to the development of present and future spirituality.

This book discusses how an internationally renowned ballet company sustained itself without financial support for years because of the energy and manipulations of its charismatic founder, Serge Diaghilev, while also reshaping modern ballet and music.

Astrophilosopy, Exotheology, and Cosmic Religion: Extraterrestrial Life in a Process Universe applies Alfred North Whitehead's process philosophy and the associated process philosophies of Henri Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin, and others to the interdisciplinary layers of astrobiology, extraterrestrial life, and the impact of discovery. This collection, edited by Andrew M. Davis and Roland Faber, asks questions such as "How have process thinkers imagined universal creative evolution and its implications for philosophies, theologies, and religions beyond earth?" and "How might their claims as to the primacy of organism, temporality, novelty, value, and mind enrich current discussions and debates across disciplines?"As experts in their fields, the contributors are informed by, but not limited to, process conceptualities. The chapters not only advance recent discussions in astrobiology, cosmology, and evolution but also consider a constellation of philosophical topics, from shared extraterrestrial knowledge and values to the possibilities or limitations afforded by A.I. technology, the Fermi Paradox, the Drake Equation, and the increasing need to nurture the cosmic dimensions of theological and religious traditions.

Kierkegaardian Phenomenologies offers a timely consideration of phenomenological engagements within the thought of Søren Kierkegaard. This collection not only reflects the current state of scholarly conversations in Kierkegaardian studies and phenomenological research, but also envisions new directions in which they should go.

In Donald J. Trump and the Politics of Mass Society, Albert P. Melone studies Trump's behavioral patterns in the fourth year of his presidential term and the three tumultuous years leading to the 2024 presidential election year.

In the past, a number of jihadists initiated processes of ideological de-radicalization and doctrinal revisions that transformed their stance towards violence. The book investigates the reasons why this does not happen among contemporary jihadists and posits that, once jihad ceased to be national and became global, it no longer had a set of features that made de-radicalization possible.

EU border externalization has tremendous consequences for people on the move and for social workers along migration routes. This unique volume explores theoretically and empirically the developments of social work in this context, approaching the topic with a clear positionality in defense of refugees and their human rights.

This work considers the evolution of American notions of motherhood through sitcoms, examining depictions of "good" and "bad" mothers alongside the ways these depictions have diversified over time.

Mixed Emotions and Indigenous Language Maintenance in Post-Disaster Reconstruction Communities examines the interplay between emotions and Indigenous language maintenance among Paiwan families after they relocated to post-disaster reconstruction communities in Taiwan. In the view of sociocultural theory, mixed emotions mediate social action by connecting language resources and family language maintenance experiences. Against the context of Indigenous families and reconstruction communities, the author utilizes orientation activities to investigate mixed emotions, language practices, and language socialization among Paiwan family members. This book also explores the multimodal space of emotions, language practices in Indigenous language, and the language repertoire from micro-level family practices to meso- and macro-level community mobilization. The results of this volume shed light on emotions in family language policy, family communication in the teaching of heritage knowledge in Indigenous societies, and most importantly, Indigenous language maintenance in the context of post-disaster reconstruction. This book contributes to the documentation of the Paiwan language in the reconstruction communities, language equality, and the maintenance of the Indigenous language in post-disaster reconstruction communities. It can be used to develop the conceptual underpinnings of Indigenous language policies, Indigenous education programs, and Indigenous language maintenance practices.

Feminist Perspective on Russia's War in Ukraine: Hear Our Voices aims to give voices to feminist scholars from Ukraine and the wider Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. This volume, recognizing the long-neglected nature of the war evolving since 2014, offers a compilation of essays contributed by scholars spanning diverse disciplines and practitioners alike. Employing a wide array of data sources and methodologies-encompassing archival research, media analysis, legal examination, surveys, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and feminist autoethnography-this book undertakes a broader exploration of how gender norms have been transgressed and cultural expectations of womanhood and manhood have evolved within the context of Ukraine from 2014-2023. Representing an early collaborative effort among Ukrainian and CEE feminist scholars, this compilation aims to showcase locally nurtured perspectives on Russia's invasion of Ukraine to a worldwide audience, with the overarching goal of sparking the development of fresh methodologies and approaches that can untangle the complex interconnection between gender and warfare.

When and why are right-wing populist parties electorally successful in developing democracies? What are the economic consequences of their electoral success? This book presents an original theoretical framework that is grounded in the socio-economic characteristics of developing countries to answer these questions and provides evidence for its theo

If God exists, why is there so much pain and suffering, and why isn't his existence more obvious? Philip Pegan develops a theodicy in answer to these questions that is consistent with theological determinism and with physicalism about all Earthly life and which promises eternal happiness for all creatures who have suffered.