Books published by Lexington Books

Lynching in American Literature and Journalism consists of twelve essays investigating the history and development of writing about lynching as an American tragedy and the ugliest element of national character. According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the United States, including 3,446 African Americans and 1,297 European Americans. More than 73 percent of the lynchings in the Civil War period occurred in the Southern states. The Lynchings increased dramatically in the aftermath of the Reconstruction, after slavery had been abolished and free men gained the right to vote. The peak of lynching occurred in 1882, after Southern white Democrats had regained control of the state legislators. This book is a collection of historical and critical discussions of lynching in America that reflects the shameful, unmoral policies, and explores the topic of lynching within American history, literature, and journalism.

Even though they are the largest sexual minority group in the United States, the lives, joys, and struggles of bi+ people, as well as the social structure of monosexism, are regularly overlooked in social scientific research and broader conversations about sexuality and gender. Mapping the Monosexual Imaginary interrupts this pattern of erasure by providing readers with a sociological examination of sexualities in society that places bi+ people and monosexism at the center of analysis. Through exploring bi+ peoples experiences navigating identity, community, and politics, the author argues that to understand and challenge gender and sexual inequalities, we must first recognize and interrogate the structure of monosexism. At a time when attacks on LGBTQ people are increasing, this book offers an incisive examination of how an often-overlooked group within the LGBTQ community makes sense of their place in the world and what we can learn from attending to the specific issues that bi+ people face in society.

A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic TitleOverworked and Undervalued: Black Women and Success in America is a collection of essays written by Black female scholars, educators, and students as well as public policy, behavioral, and mental health professionals. The contributors' share their experiences and frustrations with White America which continues to demand excessive labor and one-sided relationships of Black women while it simultaneously diminishes them. The book describes the ongoing struggle for women of color in general, but Black women in particular, which derives from the experience that only certain parts of our identities are deemed acceptable. The essays reflect on the events of the last few years and the toll the related stress has taken on each author. As a whole, the book offers its readers an opportunity to gain insight into these women's experiences and to find their place in supporting the Black women in their lives.

A Cultural History of Modern Korean Literature: The Birth of Oppa examines the cultural and social impact of Japanese colonialism and modernity on the wider aspects of everyday life in Korea. Selected as an outstanding work in 2004 by the National Academy of Sciences in South Korea, is by any measure a remarkable work. Lee considers a wide range of literary and cultural texts, exploring significant historical moments and phenomena while critically assessing personal experience and social life, mainly how modernity, colonialism, and total war shaped national and cultural identities. This text also reflects the complex and refractory legacy of Japanese colonialism and modernity. Lee's foray into the complex relationships between Korea, Japan, and the West offers a thoroughly engaging study of the origins of modern Korean culture and society during the first half of the 20th century. The first of its kind, Lee offers a richly vivid portrait of a rapidly changing landscape, fueled by modernity and technology, one that will appeal to general readers and students alike.

A Treatise in Phenomenological Sociology: Object, Method, Findings, and Applications provides the first systematic approach to phenomenological sociology. Carlos Belvedere claims that phenomenological sociology is a distinctive paradigm endowed with its peculiar object, method, and stock of knowledge. He defines phenomenological sociology as a science dealing with the natural attitude of groups. When it comes to its method, he describes the actual, centenary use of the epoché, the eidetic variation, and constitutional analysis in the practice of classical and contemporary social thinkers. Finally, he collects a wealth of precious findings in the history of phenomenological sociology, which starts with the ego agens as the substratum of social life, then goes on to consider higher level strata such as pragmata, habitualities, social personalities, and institutions. He argues that social behavior can take different forms, subjective as well as objective, because it can experience a wide range of transformations thanks to specific qualities of pragmata, such as reiterableness and transferability.

This book provides new answers to who and psychologically why individuals sometimes adopt conspiracy beliefs and thoughts of violence. Five conspiracy beliefs are considered: Government Malfeasance, Malevolent World Power, Extra-terrestrial Cover-up, Personal Well-being Threat, and Control of Information. Using a survey of 977 US citizens, the book compares thirteen possible demographic characteristics (who?) to see which ones are most associated with extreme beliefs. The book then evaluates a three-step psychological sequence (why?) in which individuals experiencing intense life stressors (health, money, or loneliness), combined with powerlessness (displayed as PTSD symptoms), have increased risk for extreme beliefs, perhaps because they offer a sense of understanding, strength, and community.

This work explores the long-term evolutionary implications of the "Mobility Imperative: " the foundational nature of mobility for human beings and their societies. The author puts forward a parsimonious but comprehensive model based on Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) rationales. The selected case studies range from the emergence and expansion of humans to cattle domestication and beyond.

The past few decades have witnessed a proliferation of economic sanctions, yet there seem to be few examples of sanctions meeting sender states' goals. Under what conditions do sanctions fail to change the behavior of so-called international "pariah states," countries who violate various international norms? This book examines the impact of economic sanctions on target states' trading relationships through social network analysis, a method that has rarely been applied to the study of sanctions. Drawing on UN Comtrade data, Trading with Pariahs: Trade Networks and the Failure of Economic Sanctions shows that the imposition of sanctions can drastically change some states' trading networks, as states either find new trading partners (in the case of North Korea) or feel the sting of the sanctions from key trading partners (like Iran). Trading networks (such as Myanmar's) remain relatively stable over time as key trading partners refuse to impose sanctions. Through the theory of weaponized interdependence, Keith A. Preble and Charmaine N. Willis argue that the success or failure of sanctions to change target states' behavior depends on who imposes the sanctions. Sanctions imposed by the "right" sender states can be successful but also cannot rely solely on policies of isolation to achieve the goals of the sanctions.

D.H. Lawrence's Final Fictions: A Lacanian Perspective explores how literature thinks; more specifically, how the reading of fiction influences behavior. Lawrence writes passionately about our alienation from ourselves, from other people, and from the cosmos. He believes that we need to heed the voices of our unconscious, and he shows us how to meld body and mind so that, psychoanalytically speaking, Id and Ego can come together. In this endeavor there is a salient convergence between Lawrences writings and those of Jacques Lacan, the French psychoanalyst.In this book, Stoltzfus examines the poetics of seven major fictions that Lawrence wrote between 1925 and 1930, five productive years that are referred to as his fabulation period. In each of the books seven chapters, in tandem with Lacans writings, Stoltzfus analyzes seven major characters, four of whom move from alienation to the renewal of self and the cosmos. He argues that Lawrences fiction is simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive by showing us how to circumvent dysfunction. Stoltzfus brings literature and psychoanalysis together in readings that are both aesthetic and epistemological. They are recipes for curing the Anthropocene.

The Russian Revolution is typically studied from a perspective of power and authority. The shadow of Communism tends to portray the revolutionary character of 1917 as an ominous path toward totalitarianism. While the revolutionary story has been overshadowed by the authoritarianism of Stalinist regimes, the Revolution has much more complex underpinnings that tie back to the nineteenth century Russian populist movement and the women who were drawn into it. Nadezhda Krupskaya and the New View of Radical Society in Russia reexamines the fundamental ideas and moments that led to the revolution and its eventual bureaucratization from the perspective of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Vladimir Lenin's wife. Her involvement provides a new perspective in how we should consider the role of culture as opposed to ideology, particularly the subordination of Communism, as well as the women in Soviet politics. M.A. Iasilli provides a nuanced view of the Russian Revolution that demonstrates a Bolshevik legacy and connection with their populist ancestors, the Narodniks, and argues that the revolution wasn't merely Marxist fanaticism but something much deeper and emotional.

As countries recover from the coronavirus pandemic, they are confronted with an even more challenging debt crisis. Xavier Debrun argues in the foreword that in deciding where we go from here that there is no longer a consensus regarding the optimum design and enforcement of fiscal rules. Rather we must address a series of questions and challenges to the conventional wisdom. This book provides an opportunity for scholars to explore these questions from an international perspective, with reference to European countries, and emerging nations as well as the United States.

In this book, Mads Møller T. Andersen examines the methodological challenges that arise when studying creativity and creative processes in media industries, arguing that the field of media studies still has much to learn about how these industries facilitate their own creative processes. Andersen introduces and utilizes a theoretical framework of five traditions in creativity to guide readers through five different methods of approaching and understanding the concept of creativity, exploring whether media scholars should abandon current, romantic understandings of creativity in favor of more progressive and nuanced definitions. Ultimately, Andersen considers and offers examples of how, as a discipline, we can design studies of creative processes that also address what we still don't know about creativity in these contexts. Scholars interested in media studies, cultural studies, and research methods will find this book particularly useful.

The Malay Nobat: A History of Power, Acculturation, and Sovereignty explores the history and meaning of the nobat, a court ensemble that has performed music for courts in Malaysia and Brunei with roots in the Islamicate world since Abbassid times. Raja Iskandar Bin Raja Halid examines the nobat spread throughout the Muslim empire and its emergence as a symbol of power and sovereignty. The author argues that the nobat was an important symbol of Muslim power and analyzes the effect of the nobat's appropriation by colonial powers and of its induction as part of an invented tradition in the process of nation-building a modern Malay state. The author ultimately shows how existing nobat ensembles are the last living musical legacy of the Muslim world.

Communicating with Our Families: Continuity, Interruption, and Transformation examines how communication technologies are shaping childhood, parenthood, and families by exploring topics such as parental loneliness, family storytelling, family technology rules, mindful technology usage, multigenerational communication, and community. The scholars in this volume work from a human communication perspective and use various research modes of inquiry including quantitative, qualitative, and interpretive methods. Perhaps the most significant question implied by our contributors in this volume is whether the introduction of new communication technologies will fundamentally alter familial forms and if those new groupings that emerge will resemble what has been generally assumed for several millennia.

Towards Anti-Racist Educational Research: Radical Moments and Movements is a call for educational researchers and teachers to engage in the work needed to be anti-racist. In the academy, there is no place for neutrality when it comes to race. One either endorses the idea of a racial hierarchy or that of racial equality. Educators and researchers either believe problems are rooted in groups of people or locate the roots of problems in power and policies. Therefore, we can either allow racial inequities to continue or confront racial inequities. Delane Bender-Slack and Francis Godwyll work to confront those racial inequities in educational research. As they continue to grapple with their role in radical moments and movements--from various identities, perspectives, and positionalities--they strive to identify their intellectual, social, and cultural labor in their research, and in this writing, as anti-racist. The editors define what it could mean to be anti-racist in research methods, projects, and agendas, and they pose the following questions: How do we ask anti-racist research questions? How do we create anti-racist curricula? How do we design anti-racist policies? What does it mean to be racially humanizing educational researchers? How do we intentionally work towards racial justice?

In this book, Shannon O' Sullivan explores ';blue-collar frontier shows', a subgenre of reality television showcasing white, working-class men performing hazardous occupations in remote, wilderness settings. O'Sullivan argues that the proliferation of these programs represents a subtle yet potent reactionary veneration of white, rural, working-class men as ';real Americans' amid the Great Recession and social movements challenging white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and capitalism, nearly a decade before Donald Trump kicked off his presidential campaign. Through analyses of Deadliest Catch, Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers, and Gold Rush, O'Sullivan reframes dominant understandings of social class and challenges the neoliberal tendency to configure identity and social categories as stylized performances delinked from power relations. The author highlights the political significance of these series in relation to Donald Trump's rhetorical strategy and media narratives about his supporters. O'Sullivan also incorporates an analysis of Duck Dynasty, which exemplifies how affluent, white men take up stereotypical white, rural, working-class masculine performances to attain a public perception of masculine authenticity. Scholars of media studies, gender studies, television studies, communication, and political rhetoric will find this book of particular interest.

The Qur'anic verses 18:60-82 in Sūrat al-Kahf present the story of Khiḍr and Moses as a lesson on the modalities of being and of knowing. Traditionally, the story is seen from a variety of vantage points that include historical, textual, literary, and allegorical, each of which is framed differently depending on the religio-cultural context. This book, in addition to examining the theological sources, traces the story's mythical, mystical, and popular interpretations engendered by the Qur'anic story. The author argues that the story's major contribution is its ability to communicate the importance of cultivating humility--a fundamental goal for any person of faith. Despite his importance in the Qur'an, Moses is not the main hero in this story; instead, he is used to point to an even higher truth pertaining to the spiritual dimensions of faith. This book suggests that Khiḍr's Qur'anic story symbolizes these truths by providing a perspective on the tension between materiality and spirituality, the ẓāhir (exoteric) and the bāṭin (esoteric), and human and divine forms of knowledge. Additionally, in this work, the Khiḍr narrative is viewed as a source of nourishment for theories that speak to the intersectionality between Islam and other religious traditions.

Japan has often been portrayed as a mysterious, sexless, troubled land. Birth rates and marriage rates have been decreasing for decades, and national surveys show that Japanese people are simply having less sex overall. But Japan is not so different from anywhere else--it's simply on the leading edge of worldwide demographic shifts. Because of rigid norms around gender, marriage, childbearing, and work, and relatively strict immigration policies, Japan is also experiencing these shifts more acutely. In The Relationship People, Erika R. Alpert starts by exploring some of the factors that have contributed to later and less marriage and childbearing in Japan and elsewhere. Alpert then goes on to explore the disjuncture between what Japanese singles report as preventing them from getting married and popularly proposed solutions to this problem. Japanese singles point to economic factors, such as low income, as one of their most significant barriers to marriage. However, much of the popular discourse aimed at Japanese singles elides these economic concerns; instead, it encourages them to exert more personal effort to meet people in order to get married. These "marriage activities" (konkatsu) may take the form of signing up with a professional matchmaker, using an online dating site, or going to singles' parties. By examining konkatsu from the perspective of matchmakers, clients, and online daters, Alpert looks at the linguistic processes of connection that underpin konkatsu and its successes--or more often, failures. Institutions of matchmaking and technological structures such as databases and online profiles give shape to the ways singles connect. As this research shows, understanding this linguistic connective tissue enables us to answer questions about what constitutes "attractive" and "marriageable" in Japan, what kind of consciousness konkatsu is supposed to instill in singles, and what role Japan's various partner matching industries might be able to play in alleviating the country's demographic crisis.

Plato, in the Protagoras, suggests that the virtues are profoundly unified yet also distinct. In Plato on the Unity of the Virtues: A Dialectic Reading, Rod Jenks argues that the way in which virtues are both one and many is finally ineffable. He shows how Plato countenances ineffability throughout his corpus. Jenks's interpretation of Protagoras accounts for the otherwise-inexplicable inability of both Socrates and Protagoras to identify the bone of contention between them. Not only can the thesis not be argued for; it can't even be properly stated. In this book, Jenks shows how the long exegesis on the Simonides poem is philosophically relevant. Further, he shows that both the parts-of-the-face analogy and the gold analogy are inadequate, arguing that Plato intends them to be so. Jenks explains why the unity thesis is supported by what most scholars agree are terrible arguments: that the virtues are both one and many. He explains why, despite the unity claim being profoundly elusive, Plato believes it to be crucial that we come to appreciate how virtue, which really does have parts, can also be profoundly one.

Why do representatives of different religious traditions find the transhumanist vision of the future not only theologically compatible but even inspiring? Transhumanism is a global movement seeking radical human enhancement. The trans in transhumanism marks the transition from the present stage in human evolution into the future, namely, post-human existence. Containing chapters written by adherents to a variety of religious traditions, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics provides first-hand testimony to the value of the transhumanist vision perceived by the religious mind. In addition, the contributors critique both secular and religious transhumanism in light of realistic science and commitment to social justice.

Kurds and their Struggle for Autonomy: Enduring Identity and Clientelism is a comprehensive study of the roots of Kurdish identity, the processes of identity formation among the Kurds, and the Kurds' seemingly never-ending struggle for self-determination. By relying on a hybrid theoretical model of identity politics, this book offers a thorough treatment of the origins, characteristics, and evolution of Kurdish culture in general, and political culture in particular. It also examines the historical explanations and nuances of Kurdish struggles for some form of autonomy, assesses economic imperatives that shape the potentials and challenges of Kurdish social and political life, and offers a critical review of the contemporary Kurdish institutional and policy dynamics in Iraq and Syria.

How do military organizations learn? This book covers an important instance of military learning in which the United States military systematically examined the lessons of Israel's decisive victory in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and applied those lessons towards major doctrinal and equipment changes. The book relies heavily on Paul Senge's model of learning organizations outlined in his seminal work, The Fifth Dimension. Using Senge's model, the book examines the Departments of the Army, Air Force, and Navy's reactions to the Yom Kippur War and how they organizationally incorporated--or ignored--the lessons of the conflict within their force. Using source documents, including personal memoirs, doctrinal publications, and individual reflections, the book offers a vital examination of how militaries can use foreign conflicts to make substantive and necessary organizational changes. The Yom Kippur War, particularly the Israeli experience in that conflict, provided the American military a battle laboratory in which to develop new warfighting concepts and assess new weapons acquisitions. In its conclusion, the book offers a cautionary tale that suggests learning and change do not come automatically to military organizations. If they are to be successful in the future, military organizations must embrace learning structures.

Theology of the Soul examines the possibility of a concept of the soul in modern theology. This study contains clear and carefully detailed overviews of concepts of the soul in Theology, Philosophy, and Biblical Studies and offers a constructive systematic theological proposal to speak of the soul in today's theological and cultural contexts.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776 decreed that all men were created equal and were endowed by their Creator with "certain unalienable Rights." Yet, U.S.-born free and enslaved Black people were not recognized as citizens with "equal protections under the law" until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Even then, White supremacists impeded the equal rights of Black people as citizens due to their beliefs in the inferiority of Black people and that America was a nation for White people. White supremacists turned to biblical passages to lend divine justification for their views. A Womanist Reading of Hebrew Bible Narratives as the Politics of Belonging from an Outsider Within analyzes select biblical narratives, including Noah's curse in Genesis 9; Sarah and Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21; Mother in Israel in Judges 5; and Jezebel, Phoenician Princess and Queen of Israel in 1 and 2 Kings. This analysis demonstrates how these narratives were first used by ancient biblical writers to include some and exclude others as members of the nation of Israel and then appropriated by White supremacists in the antebellum era and the early twentieth century to do the same in America. The book analyzes the simultaneously intersecting and interconnecting dynamics among race, gender, class, and sexuality and biblical narratives to construct boundaries between "us versus them," particularly the politicization of motherhood to deny certain groups' inclusion.

For Christians, memories of God given in the Christian Bible are juxtaposed, echoed, and expanded within and outside Christian communities of faith. In Saving Memory and the Body of Christ, Sedgwick argues, Christians are attuned to the polyphony that is the voice of God calling those who have ears to hear into the love and grace of God in life together.Sharing together in the Eucharist, he goes on to describe, Christians remember, celebrate, and are drawn into life in God as imaged in the Greek word 'kenosis,' meaning emptying oneself. Christian faith is accordingly what the Latin word 'credo' means: to give one's heart to God, hence, to give oneself in faith and fidelity to the memory of God.In the memory of God, Christian faith is a practical piety. In prayer and worship Christians remember and respond to the call of God to life lived in the grace and love of God, in the glory of creation, in birth and death, in sickness and health, in compassion and care for one another in creation. This is the birth of moral conscience, hearing in the voice of others what claims those who have faith and calls for response.

How do Israel's Scriptures inform the account of Jesus's cruciform death in the Gospel of John? What does it mean for John's portrayal of Jesus's death to be "according to the Scriptures"? The Use of the Jewish Scriptures in the Johannine Passion Narrative: That the Scripture May Be Perfected argues that they are the focal element of the Johannine portrayal, and without them, John's Passion Narrative simply makes no sense. Whether through the evangelist's appeal to the fulfilment of Scripture (with such fulfilment accompanying the very moment of Jesus's death) or whether through allusions to the narratives of Creation or Passover, Israel's Scriptures provide the Passion Narrative's veritable heartbeat. This book also considers the impact of John's scriptural usage on the very concept of Scripture itself, contending that Scripture is brought to perfection by Jesus's actions and to a new standing or status in this regard. David M. Allen examines how the use of Scripture in the Passion account impacts the Fourth Gospel's own self-understanding, arguing that its capacity to pronounce on Scripture's fulfilment attests to the Gospel's own self-avowed, scriptural credentials.

Martin Luther's Theology of Two Kingdoms in Buddhist and Christian Communities examines the principle of separation through Martin Luther's model of two distinct but interconnected systems between religion and politics in the context of religious communities to give constructive advice and criticism for the health of all human beings.

Immigrant Moroccan Women in Spain: Honor and Marriage provides an ethnographic study of Moroccan Muslim immigrant women in Spain, capturing the predicaments and strategies they use in their adaptation to Spanish society. Working as domestic workers and agricultural laborers in Spain, Moroccan immigrant women illuminate the problems associated with gender, labor, modernity, and globalization.