Books published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

The year 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1965-a landmark decision that made the United States the diverse nation it is today. In The Law that Changed the Face of America, congressional journalist and immigration expert Margaret Sands Orchowski delivers a never before told story of how immigration laws have moved in constant flux and revision throughout our nation's history. Exploring the changing immigration environment of the twenty-first century, Orchowski discusses globalization, technology, terrorism, economic recession, and the expectations of the millennials. She also addresses the ever present U.S. debate about the roles of the various branches of government in immigration; and the often competitive interests between those who want to immigrate to the United States and the changing interests, values, ability, and right of our sovereign nation states to choose and welcome those immigrants who will best advance the country.

The Automated Self explores meta-theoretical issues in the philosophy of artificial intelligence, combining it with themes from philosophy of science and technology, media and communication studies, and ethics. Balsemão-Pires provides an integrated view of contemporary problems of AI including the theoretical premises and discussions on the meaning, functioning and social uses of cognitive machines, the recent ethical and legal challenges on privacy, interpretability, and data ownership, passing through a careful discussion of the media embedment of the new technologies, and the uses of algorithms in the production and consumption of art.

The concept of the subject remains one of the most important and debated notions in social theory and philosophy. Whether it is adopted as a central notion of personhood or rejected as a product of ideology or fiction, its usage has been a theme in a variety of political and speculative thought. Unfortunately, the prevalence of the term has often rendered its meaning opaque. Being Subjects examines the history of this notion from Descartes to the present and discusses its emergence as a philosophical category as well as its connection to related notions such as essence and being. Drawing from the tradition of Fanon's revolutionary existentialism and a historical materialist approach to thought, J. Moufawad-Paul argues that despite the rejection of the subject by thinkers such as Althusser and Foucault, thinking the subject remains a meaningful philosophical practice for a politics dedicated to radical social transformation. If we can think through the category of the subject, we can also think through the legacy of modernity which includes settler-colonialism, slavery, and capitalism. We can also think through a conception of transformative subjectivity and the path to a new personhood and collective agency beyond this legacy's weight of dead generations.

An Appeal to the World: Creolizing Domination in the Political Thought of Montesquieu, Fukuzawa, and Du Bois reconstructs how three distinguished political philosophers challenged transnational domination-namely, forms of arbitrary political and economic control across national borders-through distinct, but comparable, philosophical frameworks geared toward a range of global contexts. For Montesquieu, despotic formulations remain the most alarming kinds of domination but can effectively be resisted through an emphasis on contextualized forms of moderation. Fukuzawa's key concern with domination centers on dependent relations but can be resisted through an emphasis on contextualized forms of independence. Du Bois, for his part, remains primarily concerned with domination as it manifests in discriminatory ontologies, and he challenges these through an emphasis on contextualized solidarity and self-determination. An Appeal to the World creolizes these authors' reflections through three cases on Egypt, China, and England that feature across each author's writing, highlighting both shortcomings of each thinker's conclusions and how, collectively, they offer a more circumspect approach to resisting transnational domination. In so doing, An Appeal to the World challenges and seeks to conceptually and methodologically move beyond transnational good governance and developed/developing frameworks that continue to bedevil international organizations in the present.

Your Name Is Your Blessing: Hebrew Names and Their Mystical Meanings represents the first time that the secrets of the Kabbalah, the mystical teachings of Jewish spiritual leaders, were introduced to the general public for the purpose of explaining the profound meanings hidden in every person's name. Your Name is Your Blessing remains alone in its application of Kabbalistic teachings to the choice and understanding of one's name. A name tells a story that captures a person's character and personality, and in Your Name Is Your Blessing, Benjamin and Elaine Blech provide a guide to understanding what your name says about you and your life. The Blechs give the gematria-the total numerical value of a word, which is the starting point for kabbalistic analysis-for hundreds of names, as well as Biblical words, phrases, and blessings associated with this numerical value.

In Hope, Not Fear Benjamin Blech helps readers approach the end of life with calm. More than six years ago Blech was diagnosed with a fatal illness and given six months to live. Over the course of his career Rabbi Blech had counseled hundreds of people through the losses of loved ones and their own end of life, but when confronted with his own unexpected diagnosis he struggled with mortality in a new way. This personal and heartfelt book shares the answers people grappling with the end of life want to know-from what happens when we die to how we can live fully in the meantime. Drawing insights from many religious traditions as well as near death experiences, Hope, Not Fear shares the wisdom and comfort we all need to view death in an entirely new light.

"[An] exhaustively detailed account of the life of Madam C.J. Walker." Booklist, Starred Review - Madam C. J. Walker-reputed to be America's first self-made woman millionaire-has long been celebrated for her rags-to-riches story. This biography places this remarkable and large...

"[Sh]ould take a prominent place on the shelf of literature about the man who changed 20th century America." Publishers Weekly, Starred Review - In the first biography of Martin Luther King to look at his life through the prism of his evolving faith, Paul Harvey examines Mart...

The Historical Dictionary of the Financial System in China contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 300 cross-referenced entries.

Samuel R. Delany: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works contains a chronology, an introduction, an extensive bibliography, and previously unpublished Delany family photographs. The dictionary section has more than 200 cross-referenced entries addressing each of Delany's major novels, short stories, nonfiction, and theoretical texts.

Letters to Men and Women of Letters combines literary appreciation and criticism with elements of memoir in this non-fiction debut by a recently-retired Yale University professor of French and writing tutor.

Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement, Third Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on leaders, personalities, events, facts, movements, and beliefs of the Holiness Movement.

This book examines the roles and scriptural foundations of religion as a force in world politics.