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  The Experiences of Ghanaian Live-in Caregivers in the United States

  Martha Donkor

  Using the convergence of the impact of globalization and political turmoil in Ghana on Ghanaian women as a backdrop, this book examines the migration of the women to the US and their decisions to care for upper middle class white seniors who elected to stay in their homes to be cared for by private caregivers. The book explores the attraction of domestic care work, the women’s perceptions of their job, their relationships with their clients, and the dynamics of their relationships with their immediate families and families left behind in Ghana. It also analyzes the women’s interactions with the immigrant community from their remote work sites. The book examines widely-held beliefs about domestic work as undervalued, under-remunerated, and relegated to marginalized immigrant women of color.

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  Left Margins: Cultural Studies and Composition Pedagogy

  Karen Fitts and Alan W. France

  Left Margins offers an inside view of the cultural politics of knowledge in college-level composition classrooms. The basic question this book raises is whether or not we can continue to represent the writing process apolitically as the work of autonomous individuals recording their experiences or realizing their private objectives. Readers will get a front-row, classroom perspective on the confrontation between politically engaged writing teachers and largely resistant students, between critical pedagogy and the orthodoxies of American culture at the end of the twentieth century. The book presents classroom strategies that develop students' awareness of their own ideological subjectivities.

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  Who Am I?: Identity in the Age of Consumer DNA Testing

  Anita K. Foeman and Bessie Lee Lawton

  Have you ever wondered about the origins of your ancestors? Are you curious about your ethnicity or race? Have you heard or told stories about your family’s past? Would you like to know the science that can help to uncover some of these mysteries?
  In Who Am I? Identity in the Age of Consumer DNA Testing, communication scholars Anita Kathy Foeman and Bessie Lee Lawton present readers with the most comprehensive and cutting-edge research on DNA and identity construction. They investigate the modern trend of individuals using direct-to-consumer DNA test results to explore and negotiate their personal and social identities. This book explores the numerous misconceptions that exist with regard to race, culture, and ethnicity, and how DNA kits have changed the ways in which race and ethnicity are understood and acted upon in our everyday lives.
  Featuring groundbreaking research, illuminating case studies, and a compelling analysis of what makes us who we are, Who Am I? is an ideal book for courses in identity, diversity, and other social sciences, including intercultural communication, sociology, anthropology, and psychology.

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  Connections: Memoirs of an American Historian in the Communist East Bloc

  Claude R. Foster and Brenda Gaydosh

  Dr. Claude R. Foster, internationally acclaimed scholar of the German Reformation, a historian, a traveler, a poet. In Connections, he serves as a congenial tour guide through East Germany and other communist bloc countries during the height of the Cold War. Look through the eyes of an American history professor, travelling this region for over 50 years. Being fluent in the German language with extensive connections, he offers a level of insight rarely found by historians. His stories -- sometimes gripping, sometimes humorous and always memorable-- share his connections with German citizens, government officials, fellow scholars, and members of the clergy on both sides of the Berlin Wall. This book, filled with history, personal stories, and aptly placed anecdotes, poems and snippets from literary works with mass appeal. This extensive memoir collection was skillfully and carefully edited by Dr. Brenda Gaydosh into this publication.

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  Heirs of Roman Persecution: Studies on a Christian and para-Christian Discourse in Late Antiquity

  Eric Fournier and Wendy Mayer

  The subject of this book is the discourse of persecution used by Christians in Late Antiquity (c. 300–700 CE). Through a series of detailed case studies covering the full chronological and geographical span of the period, this book investigates how the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity changed the way that Christians and para- Christians perceived the hostile treatments they received, either by fellow Christians or by people of other religions. A closely related second goal of this volume is to encourage scholars to think more precisely about the terminological difficulties related to the study of persecution. Indeed, despite sustained interest in the subject, few scholars have sought to distinguish between such closely related concepts as punishment, coercion, physical violence, and persecution. Often, these terms are used interchangeably. Although there are no easy answers, an emphatic conclusion of the studies assembled in this volume is that “persecution” was a malleable rhetorical label in late antique discourse, whose meaning shifted depending on the viewpoint of the authors who used it. This leads to our third objective: to analyze the role and function played by rhetoric and polemic in late antique claims to be persecuted. Late antique Christian writers who cast their present as a repetition of past persecutions often aimed to attack the legitimacy of the dominant Christian faction through a process of othering. This discourse also expressed a polarizing worldview in order to strengthen the group identity of the writers’ community in the midst of ideological conflicts and to encourage steadfastness against the temptation to collaborate with the other side.

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  The History of Genocide in Cinema: Atrocities on Screen

  Jonathan Friedman and William Hewitt

  The organization 'Genocide Watch' estimates that 100 million civilians around the globe have lost their lives as a result of genocide in only the past sixty years. Over the same period, the visual arts in the form of documentary footage has aided international efforts to document genocide and prosecute those responsible, but this book argues that fictional representation occupies an equally important and problematic place in the process of shaping minds on the subject. Edited by two of the leading experts in the field, The History of Genocide in Cinema analyzes fictional and semi-fictional portrayals of genocide, focusing on, amongst others, the repression of indigenous populations in Australia, the genocide of Native Americans in the 19th century, the Herero genocide, Armenia, the Holodomor (Stalin's policy of starvation in Ukraine), the Nazi Holocaust, Nanking and Darfur. Comprehensive and unique in its focus on fiction films, as opposed to documentaries, The History of Genocide in Cinema is an essential resource for students and researchers in the fields of cultural history, holocaust studies and the history of film.

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  The Highest Form of Wisdom: A Memorial Book in Honor of Professor Saul S. Friedman (1937-2013)

  Jonathan Friedman and Robert D. Miller II

  This compilation of scholarship by internationally known academicians in the fields of Jewish and Holocaust history is dedicated to the memory of Saul S. Friedman, who served as professor of Jewish history at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio and was one of the architects of Holocaust and Genocide education in the United States.Twelve scholars from across the globe have participated in this project in recognition of Friedman's importance to Jewish and Holocaust Studies.

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  Bernhard Lichtenberg: Roman Catholic Priest and Martyr of the Nazi Regime

  Brenda L. Gaydosh

  Bernhard Lichtenberg: Roman Catholic Priest and Martyr of the Nazi Regime is the definitive English biography of the martyred Nazi-era Berlin provost, Bernhard Lichtenberg. This work presents a broad overview of Bernhard Lichtenberg’s life (1875–1943) in the context of history. It discusses the areas of his life that had the greatest impact on how he dealt with situations during the Second Empire, the Weimar Republic, and the Third Reich, and it gives a detailed account of his resistance to the Nazis and his imprisonment and death. Appendices present a wealth of primary sources on Lichtenberg’s life, including a collection of his letters from prison which have not previously been made available in English.

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  Beyond the Corporate University: Culture and Pedagogy in the New Millennium

  Henry A. Giroux and Kostas Myrsiades

  A decade of budgetary, policy, and ideological contention has left American universities under the yoke of narrow-minded management models. As corporate culture increasingly invades educational and other public sectors, we as a nation have lost a clear vision of the public good and the necessary components of a vital democracy. Prominent scholars in this book seek to redress these trends. They move boldly beyond critique to show how and why the critical functions of a democratically informed civic education (not merely professional training) must become the core of the university's mission. They show why higher education must address what it means to relate knowledge to public life, and social responsibility to the demands of critical citizenship. Moreover, they show why democratic forms of education and various elements of a critical pedagogy are vital not only to individual students, but also to our economy and our democratic institutions and future leadership. They also suggest how we can move beyond the stagnation of current debates to more fully embrace the democratic possibilities of public education.

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  Family Matters in the British and American Novel

  Andrea O'Reilly Herrera, Elizabeth M. Nollen, and Sheila Reitzel Foor

  Contributors examine the literature that challenges widely held assumptions about the form of the family, familial authority patterns, and the function of courtship, marriage, and family life from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Topics include: the family as a microcosm of the larger political sphere in Charlotte Smith, Jane West, Elizabeth Fenwick, Mrs. Opie, and Mary Shelley, and alternatives to the nuclear patriarchal family in Charlotte Brontë, Harriet Jacobs, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Mary Louisa Molesworth.

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  A Reference Guide to Modern Fantasy for Children

  Helen M. Hill and Pat Pflieger

  A very thorough guide to the fantasies and fantasists selected, this is unlike any other guide to the genre. Only English and American authors of full-length fantasies are included, just 36, with entries for titles, characters, places, and magical objects, and of course the authors. Authors' entries describe major themes of all their full-length works, following biographical notes. Book-title entries give plot synopses and information about the first editions of the books. People who remember something of a fantasy sequence and want to find it again will find this the most helpful guide to fantasies. Choice

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  Power and Public Reason

  Zachary Hoskins and Joan Woolfrey

  This volume of Social Philosophy Today contains a selection of papers presented at the 33rd International Social Philosophy Conference (2016), an annual event sponsored by the North American Society for Social Philosophy. The theme of the conference was "Power and Public Reason"; this volume invites wider discussion of the issues explored at the conference. Contributors include Noëlle McAfee, Gerald Gaus, and Paul B. Thompson.

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  Catheters, Slurs, and Pickup Lines: Professional Intimacy in Hospital Nursing

  Lisa C. Huebner

  In Catheters, Slurs, and Pickup Lines, Lisa Ruchti carefully examines this fragile relationship between intimacy and professional care, and provides a language for patients, nurses, and administrators to teach, conduct, and advocate for knowledgeable and skilled intimate care in a hospital setting. She also recommends best training practices and practical and effective policy changes to handle conflicts. Ruchti shows that "caring" is not just a personality characteristic but is work that is structured by intersections of race, gender, and nationality.

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  Theorizing Ethnicity and Nationality in the Chick Lit Genre

  Erin Hurt

  Scholars and readers alike need little help identifying the infamous Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw. While it is no stretch to say that these fictional characters are the most recognizable within the chic lit genre, there are certainly many others that have helped define this body of work. While previous research has focused primarily on white American chick lit, Theorizing Ethnicity and Nationality in the Chick Lit Genre, takes a wider look at the genre, by exploring chick lit novels featuring protagonists from a variety of ethnic backgrounds set both within and outside of the US.

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  Edward Stratemeyer and the Stratemeyer Syndicate

  Deidre Johnson

  Deidre Johnson's biography of Edward Stratemeyer leaves little, if anything, to be desired. His entire history is covered here with, of course, special emphasis on his incredible "Syndicate" - a Syndicate which produced the most influential juvenile fiction of the 20th century (Tom Swift, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew to mention but a few) and whose influence is still felt to this day.

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  Contingency, Exploitation, and Solidarity: Labor and Action in English Composition

  Seth Kahn, William B. Lalicker, and Amy Lynch-Biniek

  Composition has been a microcosm of the corporatization of higher education for thirty years, with adjuncts often handling the hard work of writing instruction. We've learned enough to know that change is needed. Influenced by the efforts of organizations such as New Faculty Majority, Faculty Forward, PrecariCorps, and national faculty unions, this collection highlights action, describing efforts that have improved adjunct working conditions in English departments. The editors categorize these efforts into five threads: strategies for self-advocacy; organizing within and across ranks; professionalizing in complex contexts; working for local changes to workload, pay, and material conditions; and protecting gains.

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  Activism and Rhetoric: Theories and Contexts for Political Engagement

  Seth Kahn and JongHwa Lee

  This volume examines the role of rhetoric in today’s culture of democratic activism. The volume takes on two of the most significant challenges currently facing contemporary rhetorical studies: (1) the contested meanings and practices of democracy and civic engagement in global context, and (2) the central role of rhetoric in democratic activist practices. In presenting a variety of political and rhetorical struggles in their specific contexts, editors Seth Kahn and JongHwa Lee allow contributors to reflect on and elaborate possibilities for both activist approaches to rhetorical studies, and rhetorical approaches to activist projects, facilitating better understanding the socio-political consequences of this work.

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  Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip

  Lisa Kirschenbaum

  In 1935, two Soviet satirists, Ilia Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, undertook a 10,000 mile American road trip from New York to Hollywood and back accompanied only by their guide and chauffeur, a gregarious Russian Jewish immigrant and his American-born, Russian-speaking wife. They immortalized their journey in a popular travelogue that condemned American inequality and racism even as it marvelled at American modernity and efficiency. Lisa Kirschenbaum reconstructs the epic journey of the two Soviet funnymen and their encounters with a vast cast of characters, ranging from famous authors, artists, poets and filmmakers to unemployed hitchhikers and revolutionaries. Using the authors' notes, US and Russian archives, and even FBI files, she reveals the role of ordinary individuals in shaping foreign relations as Ilf, Petrov and the immigrants, communists, and fellow travelers who served as their hosts, guides, and translators became creative actors in cultural exchange between the two countries.

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  International Communism and the Spanish Civil War: Solidarity and Suspicion

  Lisa A. Kirschenbaum

  International Communism and the Spanish Civil War provides an intimate picture of international communism in the Stalin era. Exploring the transnational exchanges that occurred in Soviet-structured spaces – from clandestine schools for training international revolutionaries in Moscow to the International Brigades in Spain – the book uncovers complex webs of interaction, at once personal and political, that linked international communists to one another and the Soviet Union. The Spanish civil war, which coincided with the great purges in the Soviet Union, stands at the center of this grassroots history. For many international communists, the war came to define both their life histories and political commitments. In telling their individual stories, the book calls attention to a central paradox of Stalinism – the simultaneous celebration and suspicion of transnational interactions – and illuminates the appeal of a cause that promised solidarity even as it practiced terror.

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  Small Comrades: Revolutionizing Childhood in Soviet Russia, 1917-1932

  Lisa A. Kirschenbaum

  Small Comrades is a fascinating examination of Soviet conceptions of childhood and the resulting policies directed toward children. Working on the assumption that cultural representations and self-representations are not entirely separable, this book probes how the Soviet regime's representations structured teachers' observations of their pupils and often adults' recollections of their childhood. The book draws on work that has been done on Soviet schooling, and focuses specifically on the development of curricula and institutions, but it also examines the wider context of the relationship between the family and the state, and to the Bolshevik vision of the "children of October."

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  The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941–1995: Myth, Memories, and Monuments

  Lisa A. Kirschenbaum

  The siege of Leningrad constituted one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II, one that individuals and the state began to commemorate almost immediately. Official representations of “heroic Leningrad” omitted and distorted a great deal. Nonetheless, survivors struggling to cope with painful memories often internalized, even if they did not completely accept, the state’s myths, and they often found their own uses for the state’s monuments. Tracing the overlap and interplay of individual memories and fifty years of Soviet mythmaking, this book contributes to understandings of both the power of Soviet identities and the delegitimizing potential of the Soviet Union’s chief legitimizing myths. Because besieged Leningrad blurred the boundaries between the largely male battlefront and the predominantly female home front, it offers a unique vantage point for a study of the gendered dimensions of the war experience, urban space, individual memory, and public commemoration.

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  Psychological Operations American Style: The Joint United States Public Affairs Office, Vietnam and Beyond

  Robert J. Kodosky

  Psychological Operations American Style examines the historical use of PSYOP by the Unites States in the twentieth century. Over six years into its War on Terrorism, and over thirty years removed from the Vietnam War, the United States continues to cling to its traditional style of PSYOP. It has remained a tangential weapon in the otherwise conventional arsenal employed by Unites States officials in the War on Terrorism. To the extent that Americans have utilized PSYOP, they have remained wedded to the notion of its use as a tactical offensive weapon meant to instill terror in their enemies. While often successful in the short term for securing defection and surrender, this type of PSYOP does little to win hearts and minds over the long haul. As experience in Vietnam demonstrates, using PSYOP only as a tactical weapon possesses the potential to undermine the nation's position by eroding its credibility. It offers civilian officials and military commanders the means to blur the distinction between information and persuasion in order to achieve immediate and demonstrable results. The use of such tactics by the Joint U.S. Public Affairs Office in Vietnam destroyed trust in the information given even at official press conferences. Psychological Operations American Style is ideal for military and diplomatic historians and scholars of the Vietnam War.

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  The Nile Swim Club of Yeadon: A History

  Robert J. Kodosky

  America's Oldest Black Swim Club

  When it opened in July of 1959, the Nile Swim Club welcomed over one thousand people to its pool. The only problem that day, remembers Bill Mellix, then 13, "None of us knew how to swim." In the 1930s, an African American middle class began moving into Yeadon, leading to one of the nation's first Black suburban enclaves. By the end of the 1950s, Ebony magazine dubbed Yeadon Philadelphia's "Black Mainline." The town remained majority white however, and strict racial segregation was enforced, including the local pool. Typical for the time, white residents maintained it as a private swim club to avoid public desegregation laws. The response of Yeadon's African Americans proved unique. They built their own pool and opened it to all, regardless of race. It attracted members from the Philadelphia area, including New Jersey and offered a variety of programming. Celebrities such as Harry Belafonte and members of the Supremes visited. Decades later, hip hop icon D.J. Cash Money and actor Will Smith started out at the Nile as MCs. Join author Robert Kodosky as he reveals the incredible history and legacy of the Nile Swim Club and the vibrant landmark it remains today.

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  Tuskegee in Philadelphia: Rising to the Challenge

  Robert J. Kodosky

  At the outbreak of World War II, Philadelphians heeded the call, including the valiant airmen and women of Tuskegee. Although trained in Alabama, the prestigious unit comprised dozens of Philadelphia-area natives, second only to Chicago in the country. They served as fighter pilots, bombers, nurses and mechanics, as well as in many other support roles. The African American service members had to overcome racism and sexism on the homefront in order to serve with great distinction. Their battle for equality didn't end at the war's conclusion. Tuskegee alumni continued to serve their nation by working to secure civil rights and serve their community back home in Philadelphia. Author Robert Kodosky presents the trials and triumphs of Philadelphia's Tuskegee airmen and women.

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  Nature's Transcendence and Immanence: A Comparative Interdisciplinary Ecstatic Naturalism

  Marilynn Lawrence and Jea Sophia Oh

  What does it mean for nature to be sacred? Is anything supernatural or even unnatural? Nature’s Transcendence and Immanence: A Comparative Interdisciplinary Ecstatic Naturalism discusses nature’s divinizing process of unfolding and folding through East-West dialogues and interdisciplinary methodologies. Nature’s selving/god-ing processes are the sacred that is revealed as nature’s transcendent and immanent dimensions. Each chapter of Nature’s Transcendence and Immanence: A Comparative Interdisciplinary Ecstatic Naturalism shares a part of nature’s sacred folds that are complexes within nature that have unusual semiotic density. These discussions serve to help restore a better relationship to nature as a whole through an innovative combination of research and ideas from a variety of traditions and disciplines. This collection not only introduces ecstatic naturalism and deep pantheism as sacred practices of philosophy and theology, but also invites a broader audience from a wide range of academic disciplines such as neuro-psychoanalysis, aesthetics, mythology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence (AI).