Books published by Lexington Books

Through meticulous textual and contextual analysis of the sixteenth-century Chinese tale The Seven Brothers and its fifteen contemporary variants, Juwen Zhang unveils the ways in which the translation and illustration of folk and fairy tales can perpetuate racist stereotypes. By critically examining the conscious and unconscious ideological biases harbored by translators, adapters, and illustrators, the author calls for a paradigm shift in translation practices grounded in decolonization and anti-racism to ensure respectful and inclusive representation of diverse cultures. Translating, Interpreting, and Decolonizing Chinese Fairy Tales not only offers insights for translators, researchers, and educators seeking to leverage folktales and picture books for effective children's education and entertainment, but also challenges our preconceived notions of translated and adapted folk and fairy tales.

This volume applies the newest insights from cognitive psychology to the study of Russian literature. Chapters focus on writers and cultural figures from the Golden to the Internet Age including: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Sologub, Bely, Akhmatova, Nabokov, Baranskaya, and contemporary online discourse.

This book explores Bad Bunny as a multifaceted signifier whose meanings evolve depending on the generational, geographical, and sociopolitical perspectives framing the enigma.

In Crisis Cultures: Narratives of Western Modernity in the Digital Age, Nicholas Manganas argues that crisis should be understood not as a series of isolated events, but as a constitutive state intrinsic to modern Western societies. He explores how this perpetual state of crisis intensifies underlying societal tensions and reshapes cultural and political dynamics. Drawing on a diverse range of case studies, including the Capitol Hill riots in the United States, and analyses from countries such as Spain and Greece, Manganas explores how both digital and traditional media perpetuate crisis narratives that significantly influence contemporary cultural identities and shape political discourses. His analysis also engages with the emotional and temporal aspects of crises, particularly focusing on how digital environments, through their ambient influence, shape and sustain these states of crisis. By reinterpreting the concept of crisis through an interdisciplinary lens that includes historical, political and cultural analysis, the author offers a compelling analysis of its role in shaping the present and futures contours of Western societies.

Rorty, Public Reason, and Modernity's Crisis of Critique uses the work of Richard Rorty to discuss modernity's crisis of critique and the powers and limits of public reason to address this crisis. Arguing for a redefinition of philosophy, it elaborates a political epistemology view that defends a post-metaphysical culture.

This book delivers a systematic investigation of Native American princess pageants, exploring when and why they started, how they spread across and within Native American communities, the ways in which these pageants differ from other contests (such as Miss USA), the workings of the pageants themselves, and their socio-cultural costs and benefits.

This book is a comparative analysis of classic texts of the Western canon, with each text grounded on a modernist version of love. As the aesthetic of modernism is still an aesthetic of sublime, romance becomes a tale of beauty and terror.

This book analyzes contemporary representations of trauma in life writing across several media, interrogating the specificity of each medium. The author argues that the representation of trauma in these autobiographical media has created a new trauma aesthetics that is defined by a cautious (re)engagement with the real.

This book explores the challenges Islamic societies face due to globalization and the internationalization of Western values. Using Pakistani society as an example, it examines the differences between the Islamic value system and moral relativism, and the resulting ideological conflicts that lead to extreme polarization in societies.

War in the Taiwan Strait is neither imminent nor probable. However, Beijing, Taipei, and Washington each face the "Yizhou Dilemma" that neither action nor inaction would lead to desirable outcomes.

This book examines the representation of terrorists and terrorisms in films, television shows, books, video games, and other popular cultural formats aimed at children and young adults to reveal the messaging that future decision-makers receive via these media.

Assessing the social integration of people with disabilities in an intra-culturally valid yet cross-culturally replicable and comparative manner is a crucial but challenging tasks for policy makers across the EU. Stigma has been shown to interfere with the successful implementation of public policy and hinder the social integration of people with disabilities. Navigating Disability Stigma in Poland's Changing Cultural Landscape: An Ethnographic and Quantitative Exploration of Social Integration in the European Context employs a mixed method research approach to investigate the stigma toward people with disabilities in Poland. Using a novel approach to existing methods in the field of cognitive anthropology, the author develops a quantitative and potentially cross-culturally replicable assessment of this stigma, offering a vital tool for monitoring social integration. This book navigates the evolving cultural landscape of post state-socialist Poland, where the discourse on disability intersect with shifting societal values and tensions surrounding independence versus state care.

Through close readings of literary texts by Camara Laye to Ata Aidoo, via Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison, this book re-evaluates the issue of double consciousness originally raised by W.E.B. DuBois and, in doing so, problematize the role of the intellectuals in relation to their community.

This book examines Saudi women's novels through a genetic structuralist lens, tracing how themes evolve alongside societal changes. It highlights how these narratives reflect Saudi women's experiences within shifting socio-historical contexts in their society, offering profound insights into their collective consciousness and aspirations.

A History of Homebuilders from Early Modern to Modern Times provides a diachronic account of homebuilders' more than 500 years history in the Anglosphere nations of the U.S., Britain, Canada, and Australia.

Anatomy of Local Government in Bangladesh delves deep into the heart of governance in this vibrant nation, exploring its local government institutions' intricacies, challenges, and evolution. As a foundational layer of governmental hierarchy, these Local Government Institutions (LGIs) are a vital component of field administration, as enshrined in the country's constitution. With an unwavering commitment to a qualitative approach, this comprehensive study takes readers on a journey through the very essence of local government in Bangladesh, focusing on its structure, functions, and the hurdles it confronts. Leveraging an array of secondary data sources, the book unveils the inner workings of LGIs, painting a clear picture of their historical development, present organization, and financial dynamics. The chapters in this book lay bare the patron-client relationship between national and local governments, urging a shift towards greater autonomy and genuine representation of local citizens' needs. The path to democracy, decentralization, and enhanced local administration is illuminated, with insights drawn from foreign donors and citizen activism. This compelling book is a scholarly exploration and a guide for policymakers and activists, offering valuable lessons and suggestions for the future.

This book investigates the complex social, cultural, economic, and legal factors that perpetuate gender-based violence in Sub-Saharan Africa, by exploring the intersecting identities of class, migration, and sexuality.

This book investigates cannabis use among those born between 1954 and 1965. Combining quantitative data and qualitative personal narratives, it explores the ways in which demographic, psychological, and sociological factors drive cannabis use in this cohort's later life.

This book examines Catholic Native American Boarding Schools run by Catholic Sisters between 1847 and 1918. Using previously unexplored archival material, Elisabeth C. Davis examines how Catholic Sisters established authority over their students and the local indigenous community.

This book invokes the relationship between nature and urban contexts as powerful storytellers through a timely contribution to the historical understanding of our mechanisms of production of narratives about nature, therefore breaking new ground for current and future research for locally situated and globally shared environmental concerns.

Using Karanga/Kalanga concepts of cosmology and philosophy as well as local narratives, this book provides new perspectives on the cultural landscape of Great Zimbabwe and contributes to the reformation of the practice, interpretation, and construction of archaeological narratives in Africa.

Tod S. Chambers argues that the descriptions bioethicists present of moral problems serve as rhetorical support for the solutions they propose and examines seven rhetorical strategies to reveal how the various choices in descriptions are driven by the theoretical perspective of the bioethicist.

Embodying Normalcy: Women's Work in Neoliberal Times examines how women in the United States do a type of unpaid work to embody the latest trends for the purpose of achieving success in neoliberal culture.

This book, the culmination of the life's work of noted oral historian Fran Leeper Buss, combines interviews, memoir, theory, and analysis to explore the ways in which some women are able to redeem memories of traumatic experiences by going on to become social justice activists.

The book critically examines the making of German-Jewish musical heritage and its location and dubious non-location within the German cultural sector and larger Jewish community in Germany. It further theorizes on the intersection of Jewish heritage and cultural sustainability by employing thoughts and ideas of critical heritage studies.

The Abraham Accords: National Security, Regional Order, and Popular Representation is a pioneering effort in discussing and analyzing the Abraham Accords. It draws attention to the multitude of factors that shape Gulf Cooperation Council state postures concerning normalization with Israel.

This book provides a rhetorical analysis of HOPE VI, a federal mixed-income, public housing program. The author addresses the phenomenon of participatory capture that worsened inequality, prompting a reconsideration, rhetorical and otherwise, of what it means to participate in America's cities.

In the era of big data, knowledge about machine learning and artificial intelligence is becoming crucial for communication researchers navigating the landscape of digital media. This book provides foundational knowledge and techniques to empower researchers to leverage ML and AI at the intersection of communication and data science.

Focusing on minoritized and marginalized groups around the world, this interdisciplinary project aims to shed light on the misinterpretation, misrepresentation, and erasure of the lives and deaths of the most vulnerable members of society.

This book addresses the lack of research on harassment by offering a thorough linguistic analysis of the social phenomenon. By applying interactional pragmatics, the author sheds light on the key elements of harassment, which includes hostile and unethical communication, malicious intentions, power imbalance, and harm caused to the victim.