bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Flexible Europe
Authors: Bellamy Richard , Kröger Sandra , Lorimer Marta
Published: September 2022

The European Union (EU) is often portrayed as sacrificing national diversity for European unity. This book explores the alternative of a flexible EU based on differentiated rather than uniform integration. The authors combine normative theory with empirical research on political party actors to assess the desirability and political acceptability of differentiated integration as a means of accommodating heterogeneity in the EU. They examine the circumstances and institutional design needed for flexibility to promote rather than undermine fairness and democracy within and between member states. Clear, balanced, and accessible, the book provides fresh thinking on the future of the EU.
Axis of Opposition: China, Russia and the West 1
Authors: Cox Michael
Published: September 2022

The most significant geopolitical change since the beginning of the 21st century has been one which many experts at first denied was likely to happen: an increasingly close partnership between Putin’s Russia and China. What caused this to happen, what led many analysts in the West to understate its significance and what should the West do to counter the new strategic partnership?
Populism, Trump and the Crisis of Globalization 1
Authors: Cox Michael
Published: September 2022

Like the Brexit vote in June 2016, the election of the outsider Donald Trump came as a shock to establishments around the world. But what led to this backlash against the status quo and what would it mean for the UK, Europe, the United States and the world as a whole? Were these two votes and the wider surge in support for populist parties a reaction to globalization, a loss of control or a demand for voice by those who saw themselves as marginal and voiceless in systems dominated by liberals? And would all this taken together strike a blow against the liberal world order.
Trump’s World: The Legacy
Authors: Cox Michael
Published: September 2022

Trump won nearly 75 million votes in November 2020 but still lost the election. Much of the world - and all of America’s allies in the world – breathed a huge sigh of relief. Even so, the threat of ‘Trumpism’ remained in a deeply divided America which had never been so polarized. Restoring American credibility and soft power following Trump would be a huge task.
Getting to Know the Apparatus
Authors: Fierke K.M.
Published: September 2022

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
Barriers to Service Access for Immigrant Families of Children With Developmental Disabilities: A Scoping Review
Authors: Xu Yue , Zeng Weiwen , Wang Yao , Magaña Sandy
Published: September 2022

This scoping review explores (a) barriers faced by immigrant families of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) when accessing healthcare-related services in the United States, (b) where research stands based on the health disparity research framework, and (c) implications for future health disparities research with this population. Our scoping review found 26 empirical studies published between 2000 and 2020 that met our inclusion criteria. Data were extracted and synthesized based on the stages of research outlined in the health disparity research framework. Overall, immigrant families experienced barriers on multiple levels including patient, provider, and healthcare system levels. Studies focusing on detecting and reducing disparities are emerging. We conclude with recommendations for future research and practice with immigrant families of children with IDD.
Femtosecond laser micromachining for stress-based figure correction of thin mirrors
Authors: Zuo Heng , Heilmann Ralf , Schattenburg Mark
Published: September 2022

The fabrication of a large number of high-resolution thin-shell mirrors for future space telescopes remains challenging, especially for revolutionary mission concepts such as NASA’s Lynx X-ray Surveyor. It is generally harder to fabricate thin mirrors to the exact shape than thicker ones, and the coatings deposited onto mirror surfaces to increase the reflectivity typically have high intrinsic stress that deforms the mirrors further. Since the rapid development of femtosecond laser technologies over the last few decades has triggered wide applications in materials processing, we have developed a mirror figure correction and stress compensation method using a femtosecond laser micromachining technique for stress-based surface shaping of thin-shell x-ray optics. We employ a femtosecond laser to selectively remove regions of a stressed film that is grown onto the back surface of the mirror, to modify the stress states of the mirror. In this paper, we present experimental results to create both isotropic and anisotropic stress states on thin flat silicon mirrors with thermal oxide (

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) films using femtosecond lasers. We show that equibiaxial stress can be generated through uniformly micromachined holes, while non-equibiaxial stress arises from the ablation of equally spaced troughs. We also present results from strength tests to show how this process minimally affects the strength of mirrors. These developments are beneficial to the high-throughput correction of thin-shell mirrors for future space-based x-ray telescopes.
Freeze all-first versus biopsy-first: A retrospective analysis of frozen blastocyst transfer cycles with preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy
Authors: Yu Eun Jeong , Park Eun-A. , Choe Seung-Ah , Lee Kyung-Ah , Kim You Shin
Published: September 2022

Potential use of preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) is increasing. Patients who have excess embryos cryopreserved at the blastocyst stage may desire PGT-A but there is little data available on options for these patients. We compared the efficacy and safety of the timing on the cryopreservation and trophectoderm(TE) biopsy for preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy (PGT-A) program associated with the better outcomes after frozen blastocyst transfer. Retrospective analysis of patients who underwent PGT-A cycles from January 2016 to December 2019 was carried out. 2684 blastocysts from cycles were subjected to TE biopsy for performing array comparative genomic hybridization test and Next-generation sequencing. All cycles were divided into two according to the timing of biopsy: biopsy-first (n = 211 cases/ 232 transfers) versus freeze all-first (n = 327 cases/ 415 transfers). In the biopsy-first group, embryos were cultured to expanded blastocyst and proceed to TE biopsy on day 5 or day 6 followed by cryopreservation. In the freeze all-first, blastocysts were vitrified and warmed before biopsy. Rates of clinical pregnancy (52.3% vs. 38.7%, P = 0.09) and ongoing pregnancy (44.3% vs. 34.5%, P = 0.07) in biopsy-first were significantly higher than those in freeze all-first. Biopsy-first showed comparable miscarriage rate with freeze all-first (15.2% (33/217) vs.11.1% (10/90), respectively). Rate ratio (RR) for clinical pregnancy was lower in freeze all-first group (adjusted RR = 0.78, 95% confidence interval: 0.65, 0.93). The RRs for miscarriage and live birth was also lower but it did not reach statistical significance. Our result supported performing TE biopsy of blastocyst for PGT-A before vitrification and warming. This finding would contribute to more evidence-based decision in PGT-A cycles.
Correlation between postmortem microbial signatures and substance abuse disorders
Authors: Javan Gulnaz T. , Wells Tiara , Allen Jamese , Visona Silvia , Moretti Matteo , Tipton Craig , Scott Latia , Finley Sheree J.
Published: September 2022

The microbiota gut-brain-axis is a bidirectional circuit that links the neural, endocrine, and immunological systems with gut microbial communities. The gut microbiome plays significant roles in human mind and behavior, specifically pain perception, learning capacity, memory, and temperament. Studies have shown that disruptions in the gut microbiota have been associated with substance use disorders. The interplay of gut microbiota in substance abuse disorders has not been elucidated; however, postmortem microbiome profiles may produce promising avenues for future forensic investigations. The goal of the current study was to determine gut microbiome composition in substance abuse disorder cases using transverse colon tissues of 21 drug overdose versus 19 non-overdose-related cases. We hypothesized that postmortem samples of the same cause of death will reveal similar microbial taxonomic relationships. We compared microbial diversity profiles using amplicon-based sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene V4 hypervariable region. The results demonstrated that the microbial abundance in younger-aged cases were found to have significantly more operational taxonomic units than older cases. Using weighted UniFrac analysis, the influence of substances in overdose cases was found to be a significant factor in determining microbiome similarity. The results also revealed that samples of the same cause of death cluster together, showing a high degree of similarity between samples and a low degree of similarity among samples of different causes of death. In conclusion, our examination of human transverse colon microflora in decomposing remains extends emerging literature on postmortem microbial communities, which will ultimately contribute to advanced knowledge of human putrefaction.
Extrinsic and intrinsic drivers of parasite prevalence and parasite species richness in a marine bivalve
Authors: Mahony Kate E. , Lynch Sharon A. , de Montaudouin Xavier , Culloty Sarah C.
Published: September 2022

Parasite species richness is influenced by a range of drivers including host related factors (e.g. host size) and environmental factors (e.g. seawater temperature). However, identification of modulators of parasite species richness remains one of the great unanswered questions in ecology. The common cockleCerastoderma eduleis renowned for its diversity and abundance of parasites, yet drivers of parasite species richness in cockles have not been examined to investigate the association of both macro and microparasite communities. Using cockles as a model species, some of the key drivers of parasite prevalence and parasite species richness were investigated. Objectives of this 19-month survey were to determine the influence of the environment, host-parasite dynamics and parasite associations on parasite species richness and prevalence at two different geographic latitudes, chosen based on environmental differences. The highest parasite species richness was recorded in the northern sites, and this was potentially influenced by a range of interactions between the host, the pathogens and the environment. Parasite prevalence increased with host size and age, and parasite species richness increased with reduced salinity. A number of interactions between parasites, and between parasites and pathologies may be influencing parasite infection dynamics. New and concerning information is also presented regarding interactions between parasites and their environment. A number of parasites and potential pathogens (bacteria,Trichodinaciliates, metacercariae, trematode sporocysts) may be advantaged under climate change conditions (warming seas, increased precipitation), increasing disease incidence, which may prove detrimental not just for cockles, but for other bivalve species in the future.
Deep learning recommendation algorithm based on semantic mining
Authors: Huang Yongxin , Wang Hezheng , Wang Rui
Published: September 2022

This paper proposes Deep Semantic Mining based Recommendation (DSMR), which can extract user features and item attribute features more accurately by deeply mining the semantic information of review text and item description documents recommend. First, the proposed model uses the BERT pre-training model to process review texts and item description documents, and deeply mine user characteristics and item attributes, which effectively alleviates the problems of data sparseness and item cold start; Then, the forward LSTM is used to pay attention to the changes of user preferences over time, and a more accurate recommendation is obtained; finally, in the model training stage, the experimental data are randomly divided into 1 to 5 points, 1:1:1:1:1. Extraction ensures that the amount of data for each score is equal, so that the results are more accurate and the model is more robust. Experiments are carried out on four commonly used Amazon public data sets, and the results show that with the root mean square error as the evaluation index, the error of DSMR recommendation results is at least 11.95% lower on average than the two classic recommendation models based only on rating data. At the same time, it is better than the three latest recommendation models based on review text, and it is 5.1% lower than the best model on average.
Social expectations and government incentives in Malaysia’s COVID-19 vaccine uptake
Authors: Abdul Aziz N. Izzatina , Flanders Sam , Nungsari Melati
Published: September 2022

High vaccination rates are integral to reducing infection and severity rates of COVID-19 infections within a community. We examine the role of social expectations in COVID-19 vaccination take-ups and its interaction with potential government actions in Malaysia. We find that individuals’ expectations of others in their social groups towards vaccination predicts those individuals’ vaccination registrations. Using a vignette experiment, we examine the extent of normative expectations in normalizing pro-vaccination behavior beyond an individual’s reference group. We find that unless moderated by a high level of public trust, individuals prefer punitive policies as a way to increase vaccination rates in their communities.
Traffic flow forecasting using natural selection based hybrid Bald Eagle Search—Grey Wolf optimization algorithm
Authors: R. Sivakumar , S. A. Angayarkanni , Y. V. Ramana Rao , Sadiq Ali Safaa
Published: September 2022

In a fast-moving world, transportation consumes most of the time and resources. Traffic prediction has become a thrust application for machine learning algorithms to overcome the hurdles faced by congestion. Its accuracy determines the selection and existence of machine learning algorithms. The accuracy of such an algorithm is improved better by the proper tuning of the parameters. Support Vector Regression (SVR) is a well-known prediction mechanism. This paper exploits the Hybrid Grey Wolf Optimization–Bald Eagle Search (GWO-BES) algorithm for tuning SVR parameters, wherein the GWO selection methods are of natural selection. SVR-GWO-BES with natural selection has error performance increases by 48% in Mean Absolute Percentage Error and Root Mean Square Error, with the help of Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS) open-source data and Chennai city traffic data for traffic forecasting. It is also shown that the increasing population of search agents increases the performance.
New Challenges in the Education of Managerial Economics
Authors: Balogh Attila , Baranyi Dániel Martin , Trautmann László
Published: September 2022

In this article, the authors summarise their panel presentation on the role of education in managerial economics, given at the Danube Cup in April, 2022. The main finding of the article and the presentation is that today's and tomorrow's economists need to think in a so-called global framework. A common commodity and energy policy is becoming an increasingly urgent issue that will significantly change the development path of international institutions and technologies. Therefore, the teaching of economics will also have to adapt to this new trend. Apart from the obvious point - teaching a professional ethos and the importance of international trade - the authors see a constructivist approach as the most viable way forward in pedagogy. According to this approach, secondary and university students should be given the experience of discovery in order to stimulate their interest in economic topics and contexts.
The Role of Education, in Particular Universities, in Encouraging Young People to Become Entrepreneurs
Authors: Kerékgyártó Gábor
Published: September 2022

The labour market is in constant transformation, requiring today's youth to prepare for increasingly dynamic career paths. In the European Union, including Hungary, the role of education in supporting young people's entrepreneurial development is becoming a matter of rising importance. Research findings only seem to agree that there is a complex and hardto- detect link between entrepreneurship education and the number of successful businesses started by young people. When going through the literature, it is important to distinguish between the impact on the entrepreneurial intention from the results achieved in real action, while also being able to identify the role of prior studies in the success of the enterprises launched by young people and to separate it from family and other external factors.
Human Wealth - Employment Policy - Competitiveness : Review of the Book Versenyképességi mozaik/Mosaic of Competitiveness (Edited by Magdolna Csath)
Authors: Vertetics Ádám
Published: September 2022

The Mosaic of Competitiveness is the work of several experienced authors coordinated by a respected editor with a clear vision. A mosaic is something that is made up of several elements, and the picture is complete when viewed from a slightly more distant perspective. This is a definition that this volume clearly meets. It takes a thorough look at the subject of competitiveness, giving scope to different perspectives within each study, but still presenting the different aspects within a coherent value framework. As the editor notes in the introduction, "As you can see from the topics, the book takes a thorough look at competitiveness, returning to the key messages - such as the importance of people, knowledge, innovation and learning. A conscious choice of values is also reflected in the book: an appreciation of performance, an emphasis on quality over quantity in all areas, and the importance of reliability, honesty and trust." (p.15) Hence, it is important to note that the conceptual framework of the book expands the general framework used in Hungarian higher education and highlights the need for economists to interpret concepts broadly and to move beyond the neoliberal worldview in order to contribute to the conceptual framework needed to address current global economic challenges. In this regard, the editor concludes her introductory thoughts with a quote from US President Theodore Roosevelt: "If education gives a man only knowledge, but not values, it is a danger to society." (p.15) After the general introduction, let us now move on to the 13 studies presented in the volume.
The Drum Is a Wild Woman
Authors: Lespinasse Patricia G.
Published: September 2022

The Drum Is a Wild Woman: Jazz and Gender in African Diaspora Literature defines a counter-tradition within women’s writing that involves the reinvention and reclamation of a modern jazz discourse. Despite their alienation from bebop, women have found jazz music empowering and have demonstrated this power in various ways. The Drum Is a Wild Woman explores the complex relationship between women and jazz music in recent African diasporic literature. The book examines how women writers from the African diaspora have challenged and revised major tropes and concerns of jazz literature since the bebop era in the mid-1940s. Black women writers create dissonant sounds that broaden our understanding of jazz literature. By underscoring the extent to which gender is already embedded in jazz discourse, author Patricia G. Lespinasse responds to and corrects narratives that tell the story of jazz through a male-centered lens. She concentrates on how the Wild Woman, the female vocalist in classic blues, used blues and jazz to push the boundaries of black womanhood outside of the confines of respectability. In texts that refer to jazz in form or content, the Wild Woman constitutes a figure of resistance who uses language, image, and improvisation to refashion herself from object to subject.
“You Must Believe Me”
Authors: Harris Curtis M.
Published: September 2022

The interplay between the stardom of LeBron James and the fandom of Northeast Ohio requires a reconsideration of his athleticism, philanthropy, pride, and the expectations of deliverance and the specter of failure. After nearly two decades, James, a one-time teen prodigy, may have finally arrived at an answer for what he means to the region. Thus, despite any lingering animus, there is a fairytale-like quality to the story of a kid from Akron ending Northeastern Ohio’s decades-long championship drought.
I Desire Him So Much He Repulses Me
Authors: Brick Carlton
Published: September 2022

Pronounced interest in English footballer David Beckham as a symbolic point of reference for academic study has been shaped by wider social, political, and economic trends that have elevated sporting celebrities to the status of spectacular cultural intermediaries. But why David Beckham matters so much to celebrity culture is indicative of the logical consequence of the politics of identity and the result of increasingly fragmented and relativistic frameworks of understanding and social engagement. In a culture where signs are so abundant yet so fragmented and unstable, the ability to ascribe meaning becomes fragmented and partial and brings to the fore both the “depthless” nature of social relations and the fragmented, partial, and narcissistic nature of the postmodern subject.
Shoot-Pass-Slam
Authors: Mcintosh Andrew
Published: September 2022

This chapter examines the ebbs and flows of Shaquille O’Neal’s presence in popular culture, particularly his presence in the advertising market. O’Neal’s usefulness as a pitchman never waned despite a souring relationship between O’Neal and the Orlando sports media and an arguably underrated career as a rap artist.
A Notorious Spectacle
Authors: Butryn Ted M. , Masucci Matthew A. , Johnson Jay
Published: September 2022

This chapter looks at the marketing surrounding the 2017 match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. The pre-fight “World Tour” featuring the two fighters devolved into a war of words featuring racialized, homophobic, and misogynist language which only served to increase the fight’s visibility in mainstream sport media circles. The authors tie the toxic atmosphere into the parallel spectacle surrounding the 2016 Presidential Election in the United States.
Imagining Gotham
Authors: Joyce Stephen
Published: September 2022

Gotham exemplifies what Jonathan Raban calls a “soft city,” as the central city in the Batman universe is defined by the actions of its inhabitants. In this chapter, Stephan Joyce explores the Dark Knight film trilogy and the Arkham series of video games and suggests that the key “superpower” in the Batman universe is an intimate knowledge of Gotham. To challenge Batman in his urban arena means to understand Gotham’s spatial logic. Joyce connects this interplay between superheroes and villains to the real world, as urbanites do not know how cities and their infrastructures function, which puts city dwellers at the mercy of the urban spaces they inhabit and the asymmetrical power structures that undergird them.
Cities of the Dead
Authors: Weinstock Jeffrey Andrew
Published: September 2022

In his chapter, Jeffrey Weinstock explores Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive and Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home at Night, set in Detroit, USA, and fictional Bad City, Iran, respectively. The two cities, Weinstock argues, are necropolises—cities of the dead. Linked to one another by cool cars, the resources needed to produce and make them run, and environmental damage caused by fossil fuels and big industry, the two cities mirror one another, as they have been sucked dry by corporate greed. Ironically, in both movies, the vampires are more alive than humans, who have been sucked as dry as they cities they exist in. Weinstock thus demonstrates that these two vampire movies critique capitalist consumption, as oil, greed, and consumer culture form a kind of toxic acid bath that dissolves cities and breeds monsters.
Ecological Plant-Based Urban Planning Makes Eleanor Cameron’s The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet Real
Authors: Barr Marleen S.
Published: September 2022

Marleen S. Barr’s piece looks at contemporary urban practices prefigured by Eleanor Campbell’s The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, a 1954 children’s science fiction novel. Claiming that Campbell’s most important message was not that space flight was possible, but that “organic matter matters,” Barr surveys contemporary art projects, architecture, and even packaging production to highlight Campbell’s impact on the present moment. Barr thus demonstrates how fantastic futures have infiltrated everyday urban realities.
Travel, Domestic and Abroad
Authors: Karpf Juanita
Published: September 2022

This chapter considers the interwoven dynamics of race, gender and class as they effected Hackley while traveling by train. Hackley visited virtually every African American community and school as a touring artist, conductor, teacher and lecturer. In addition to domestic travels, she sailed to Europe three times and to Cuba twice. While overseas she encountered more cordial race relations and these experiences inspired her to become a race leader in the struggle to improve travel accommodations for U.S. blacks. In response to humiliating conditions she endured on Jim Crow train cars, she filed lawsuits against the railroad industry and earned a reputation as an outspoken advocate for better conditions for black travelers, especially women.
Writing and Uplift
Authors: Karpf Juanita
Published: September 2022

A set of letters exchanged between Hackley and James Weldon Johnson reveal her aspirations to become a published author. These letters provide a contextual framework for a discussion of Hackley as a writer. Although she had contributed articles to newspapers and periodicals and had published pamphlets, she remained frustrated that she had not been able to secure a publisher for several more substantial works upon which she had been working. She turned to Johnson for advice, also hoping to obtain his services as an editor. Her works-in-progress included accounts of her struggles with racist treatment on railroads, her memories as a concert artist, and her etiquette book, Colored Girl Beautiful. Even with Johnson’s empathy and support, only her etiquette book appeared in print.
The Goddess Myth in Contemporary Literature and Popular Culture
Authors: Magoulick Mary J.
Published: September 2022

Goddess characters are revered as feminist heroes in the popular media of many cultures. However, these goddess characters often prove to be less promising and more regressive than most people initially perceive. Goddesses in film, television, and fiction project worldviews and messages that reflect mostly patriarchal culture (included essentialized gender assumptions), in contrast to the feminist, empowering levels many fans and critics observe.
Building on critiques of other skeptical scholars, this feminist, folkloristic approach deepens how our remythologizing of the ancient past reflects a contemporary worldview and rhetoric. Structures of contemporary goddess myths often fit typical extremes as either vilified, destructive, dark, and chaotic (typical in film or television); or romanticized, positive, even utopian (typical in women’s speculative fiction). This goddess spectrum persistently essentializes gender, stereotyping women as emotional, intuitive, sexual, motherly beings (good or bad), precluded from complex potential and fuller natures. Within apparent good-over-evil, pop-culture narrative frames, these goddesses all suffer significantly.
However, a few recent intersectional writers, like N. K. Jemisin, break through these dark reflections of contemporary power dynamics to offer complex characters who evince “hopepunk. ” They resist typical simplified, reductionist absolutes to offer messages that resonate with potential for today’s world. Mythic narratives featuring goddesses often do, but need not, serve merely as ideological mirrors of our culture’s still problematically reductionist approach to women and all humanity.
Origins, Prehistory, and Attending to Science
Authors: Magoulick Mary J.
Published: September 2022

This chapter surveys some history of goddess culture and scholarship, examining basic beliefs of scholars like Marija Gimbutas (20th c. archaeologist who popularized a gynecocracy, or goddess-oriented “Old Europe”). Time is devoted as well to listening to contemporary archaeologists (many of them women), and what they reveal about some of the most famous so-called “Venus” figurines from prehistory. Details of specific examples show that prehistory was more varied, complex, and different from most people’s assumptions. Taking the time to listen to experts can reveal much about Paleolithic and Neolithic figurines. We learn details of some characteristic, most famous examples of ancient images that represent women. Experts’ explanations and understanding differs from most contemporary, popular concepts of Goddesses or Goddess Culture.
Eudora Welty’s Visionary Modernity
Authors: Trefzer Annette
Published: September 2022

This chapter explores Eudora Welty's experimentation with photography using modern technology. She photographed Mississippi when photography as an art form was still a controversial topic. Welty rejected the earlier conventions of photography with poses and backdrops. The chapter also includes Doris Ulmann's argument against pictorialism as she was also against choreographed photography. It gives comparisons between Ulmann and Weltry's style of photography in terms of subject, light, and framing. Welty's style of photography is referred to as snapshot. She has been compared to Berenice Abbott as they both photograph cityscapes. However, Welty was into recording cultural history, while Abbott mainly focused on architectural history.
Epilogue
Authors: Trefzer Annette
Published: September 2022

This chapter expounds on Eudora Welty's visionary modernity. It highlights Welty's similar principles of photography to William Eggleston, such as the significance of the visible and invisible meaning of the photograph. Landscapes and photographs share an existence as material objects and social processes in photographs. Moreover, Welty was informed and opinionated about photography, thus, she rejected pictorialism and took a liking to candid snapshots instead. Anticipating transformation and questioning social boundaries, Welty's vision of place in her photographs is regarded as mobile and modern. The chapyer concludes that the book traces Welty's visual sense of place to explore the contextual and historical definitions that saturate her photographic representations of southern cultural landscapes.
From Wallflowers to Bulletproof Families
Authors: Meyer Abbye E.
Published: September 2022

With play and complication between adolescence and disability, young adult disability narratives demonstrate their inherent political and literary possibilities; the power that disability-centered readings offer young adult literature evolves through five types of representation: as the voice of adolescence itself, as a literary metaphor, as a catalyst for growth, as a politicized identity, and as a powerful, familial identity. Marked by traumatic events and language, adolescent narrators display unmistakable symptoms of mental illness, which can be traced back to Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and Plath’s The Bell Jar. Following analyses examine representations of disability in young adult literature—and more importantly, the ways that young adult narratives are able to expose these tropes and explicitly challenge the harmful messages they reinforce. Traditionally, two-dimensional characters allow literary metaphors to work, while forcing texts to ignore reality and reinforce harmful assumptions; when metaphors combine adolescence with disability, their complexity enables radical retellings of familiar stories. In young adult narratives, freak characters—marked as disabled, which are generally used for the self-realization and self-congratulation of others—are able to push boundaries, experiment with identities, and at times, destroy them. Further, the derided genre of problem novels become texts that empower disabled characters and introduce the goals of disability-rights movements. Ultimately, these analyses include narratives in other, digital media, which are able combine elements of literary criticism, narrative expression, disability theory, and political activism to create and represent the powerful solidarity of family-like communities.
Wallflowers
Authors: Meyer Abbye E.
Published: September 2022

In “Wallflowers: Disability as the Young Adult Voice,” readings begin with influential novels in the mid-1900s to find the distinctive young adult voice. Marked by traumatic events and language, adolescent narrators display unmistakable symptoms of mental illness, which can be traced back to Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963). Simply, the voice of adolescence and the voice of disability are inseparable; they form the young adult literary voice. Because Holden’s and Esther’s voices, which echo each other, reign as archetypically adolescent voices, effectively and authentically voiced young adult narrators may also be considered mentally ill—or at the very least, they demonstrate qualities of the mentally ill archetypes. Like Holden and Esther, literary young adult narrators are: intelligent, urgent, and solitary; judgmental and overly sensitive; obsessed with sex, death, and truth; existentially distressed by adolescence; and symptomatic of mental illness.
Introduction
Authors: Aitchison David , Aitchison David
Published: September 2022

The “Introduction” to The School Story: Young Adult Narratives in the Age of Neoliberalism introduces and defines the book’s key talking points—young identity, school experience, and neoliberalism—and the need to understand how these are represented in popular stories for print and film from around the world. Drawing on contemporary theories from political science, cultural studies, and education, this introduction figures neoliberalism as a complex of attitudes, economic policies, and ideologies hostile to public education as a democratic good. It makes a case for reassessing the school story, a genre too often cast as a form that lived and died with the British Empire, rather than an evolving, contemporary form speaking profoundly to mounting crises in childhood education and development.
Giving Education a Bad Name
Authors: Aitchison David , Aitchison David
Published: September 2022

Chapter 2, “Giving Education a Bad Name: Bookish Boys in Contemporary American School Stories,” looks at school stories that seem to tout the merits of education. Concentrating on Andrew Clements’s Frindle (1996) and Tommy Greenwald’s Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to Not Reading (2011), this chapter discusses upbeat and mischievous protagonists who thrive on cheating, lying, and avoiding schoolwork but nevertheless figure as models of success. Both books reveal a common problem in terms of hierarchical forms, according to which authors pit marketplace readiness against liberal education in a strict binary, as if the one prevails only at the expense of the other. Situating such works in ongoing debates over literacy, learning, class, and race in the USA, this chapter sheds light on the ways in which the school story raises critical questions about the role of formal education in preparing young people for civic and professional life in the twenty-first century.
Joe Glaser
Authors: Hatschek Keith
Published: September 2022

Armstrong’s larger than life manager could have been a character in a Damon Runyon novel. He had once worked for mobster Al Capone in Chicago running speakeasies and bordellos and maintained an iron grip over Armstrong’s career. Glaser’s booking agency also represented many of the top jazz artists of the day including the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The Brubecks solicited Glaser’s support for the musical, which he never fully gave, although he did offer some advice and introductions to others who might do so.
Reception and Reactions
Authors: Hatschek Keith
Published: September 2022

The audience and critics agreed that the Monterey premiere of The Real Ambassadors was a singular event in the festival’s history. Critics praised the music and noted how Armstrong gave a brilliant performance when afforded the opportunity to dig into challenging new material. The five audience members who attended the 1962 premiere that were interviewed for the book offer their own first person recollections of the emotions that flowed between the performers and fans. Album reviews were also positive and applauded the fact that high profile jazz musicians were taking a stand on the issue of equality.
Ghost Channels
Authors: Lawrence Amy
Published: September 2022

Between 2004 and 2019, over seventy programs dealing with the paranormal have appeared on US television. “Paranormal reality” series (as distinct from scripted programs with paranormal subjects) combine the traits of the horror genre with the documentary style of reality television. Despite being widely derided, these programs have important things to tell us about America: economic and social pressures affecting the American middle class; the perceived failure of institutions; the persistence of racial and ethnic exclusion; and the way assumptions about what it means to be a man or a woman resist change and, occasionally, give way to new possibilities. These issues are explored not only through the lens of the paranormal (encounters with ghosts, demons, and other unexplainable phenomena) but through interactions with technology. Devices ranging from consumer-grade digital cameras to specialized temperature gauges, “night-vision” infra-red cameras and EMF detectors are used to identify the presence of -- and enable communication with -- hostile or friendly spirits, thus validating the otherwise inexplicable experiences of ordinary people. Questions about technology’s reliability, its association with science and reason and its usefulness to “average” Americans, expand to include television itself as the medium is interrogated in a variety of ways.In-depth analyses of over thirty paranormal television series provide insight into the paranormal reality television genre, its development and place in cable television, and reveals the things Americans fear in the first two decades of the twenty-first century.
Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes
Authors: Benson Josef , Singsen Doug
Published: September 2022

American comics have for most of their existence reflected the white-supremacist culture out of which they arose. Superheroes and comic books in general are products of whiteness that both signal and hide its presence, blending into the cultural landscape as myths that serve to buttress and sustain white supremacy. Even when comics creators and publishers sought to advance an anti-racist agenda, very often a lack of awareness of their own whiteness and the ideological baggage that goes along with it undermined their efforts. Even the sacred cows of the industry, such as Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Jack Jackson, William Gaines, Stan Lee, Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, and Frank Miller, have not been able to distance themselves from the problematic racism embedded in their narratives regardless of their intentions or explanations. Since ideologies of whiteness and white supremacy can be found across all types of comics, The Invisible Costume examines many genres, including western, horror, crime, funny animal, underground comix, autobiography, literary fiction, and historical fiction. This exciting and groundbreaking book assesses industry giants, highlights some of the most important episodes in American comic books history, and demonstrates how they relate to one another and form a larger pattern often in unexpected and surprising ways.
Introduction
Authors: Stoner Andrew E.
Published: September 2022

The introduction establishes the baseline similarities between the Donald Trump and George Wallace presidential campaigns and outlines the rhetorical strategies to be analyzed in the following chapters. Though vast differences exist, the commonalities tied to the demagogic rhetoric of the two men provides a framework to understand these times—and perhaps a valuable warning about what is possible in our highly digitized information society.
Politics of Victimhood and Privilege
Authors: Stoner Andrew E.
Published: September 2022

Chapter three explores the promotion of ideas of in-group members as victims of powerful forces poised against them, muddling issues of privilege. Victims are praised as benevolent individuals who have responded to victimization with patience and kindness, a patience that has run dry. Special emphasis is placed upon articulating problems and the impact of those upon in-group members; also included are attacks upon those offering solutions, ridiculing them as cowards caving in to exotic minority demands. Minorities and the media attention they generate further fuels such feelings of victimhood. This type of demagogic rhetoric requires claims that the triumph of in-group members or “good people” is ultimately pre-determined.
Politics of Spectacle
Authors: Stoner Andrew E.
Published: September 2022

This chapter studies the emphasis on the role “spectacle” plays in media and political discourse and media reliance upon hot or controversial imagery. Politics of instinct over intellect are also explored. Candidates display a commitment to controversy as support for counter subversive activities; moral passions are inflamed and threats are increased. There is an emerging role of new media in Wallace’s era (television) and Trump’s era (social media) in interpreting culture, society and politics. “Performance” or role-playing by the candidate becomes paramount in an era of low-information voters who quickly categorize candidates and ignore intricacies of issues and policies. Campaign rallies form a central aspect of the spectacle and provide a choreographed stage for the candidate’s performance. The author examines the role of the media as a co-conspirator in keeping the “show” or “spectacle” alive to maintain readers/audience.
The Green Mister Rogers
Authors: Lindey Sara , King Jason
Published: September 2022

The Green Mister Rogers: Environmentalism in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood centers on the show's environmentalism, primarily expressed through his themed week “Caring for the Environment,” produced in 1990 in coordination with the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day. Unfolding against a trash catastrophe in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Rogers advances an environmentalism for children that secures children in their family homes while extending their perspective to faraway places, from the local recycling center to Florida’s coral reef. It uses imagination, art, music, puppets, field trips, toys, games, and puzzles to engage children. Rogers depicts animal wisdom and uses puppets to voice anxiety and hope and shows an interconnected world where each part of creation is valued and love is circulated in networks of care. Ultimately, Rogers cultivates a practical wisdom that provides a way for children to confront the environmental crisis through action and hope and, in doing so, develop into adults who deliver greater care for the environment and possess a capacious imagination for solving the ecological problems we face.
Playthings and Creativity
Authors: Lindey Sara , King Jason
Published: September 2022

In Chapter 4 the authors catalogue the homemade toys in “Caring for the Environment” to analyze how play can realize and thematize recycling. For Rogers, discarded household objects and scrap wood and paper are no longer trash but can be reused as toys in a child’s joyful world. For example, Rogers’ toy blocks and wooden puzzle evokes reflections on the complex interactions within us and outside of us. The toy is a conduit that links the inner life of the child to the puzzle, to the trees, and to the people who made the toy. Environmental activism for children is domestic and playful, providing them with the power to build a better world in harmony with creation, in essence, to co-create.
The Geographies of African American Short Fiction
Authors: Rambsy Kenton
Published: September 2022

A history of short stories by Black writers is long overdue. The Geographies of African American Short Stories reveals the importance of thinking about character situated in locales and key cultural settings when engaging short fiction by Black writers. In the process of composing multiple brief narratives, Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Cade Bambara, Alice Walker, Edward P. Jones, and more plotted a diverse range of characters across multiple locations—small towns, a famous metropolis, city sidewalks, rural wooded areas, apartment buildings, theaters, prisons, and more. Ultimately, black short story writers made the depiction of Black characters in varied places and spaces integral to the art of storytelling. The history of short stories also involves the circulation of compositions across dozens of literary collections for nearly a century. Anthology editors, who reprinted hundreds of writers, solidified the significance of a core group of short story writers, whom we might refer to as the Big 7. Using quantitative data and extensive bibliographies, this project reveals how editorial practices shaped the canonical formation of African American short fiction.
Writing the South
Authors: Rambsy Kenton
Published: September 2022

Chapter two explains why depicting the dramas of homegrown characters in southern settings was so crucial to short fiction by Chesnutt, Hurston, and Wright. The presentation of native southerners gave these writers’ opportunities to explore local dimensions of the region. They composed narratives that incorporate black vernacular speech and conflicts between a variety of characters. Telling stories that featured southern culture and locales empowered Chesnutt, Hurston, and Wright to create enriching compositions. Their stories testify to the power of homegrown characters and southern landscapes.
The Films of Delmer Daves
Authors: Horlock Douglas
Published: September 2022

While postwar film criticism has secured more prestigious recognition for some American directors such as John Ford and Howard Hawks, the films of Delmer Daves have tended to be undervalued or dismissed. This chapter contends that his films warrant more sustained attention and makes the case for his consideration as a serious, distinctive, and enlightened artist. It examines how he was able to navigate the politics of the Hollywood Studio System and the restrictions and conservatism of the ‘Production Code’ to which studios adhered, and argues that his themes were consistent with the ideals of American Progressivism. The chapter maintains that Daves had a clear vision of a more fair and equal America and highlighted impediments to the realisation of the ideals inherent in that vision.
Práticas discursivas e identitárias em blogs femininos
Authors: Freitas Leila Karla Morais Rodrigues
Published: September 2022

Face à relevância que a problemática da(s) identidade(s) goza nos dias atuais, em decorrência da emergência de novas práticas discursivas viabilizadas pelos ambientes virtuais, este trabalho visa abordar os processos de produção identitária e os modos de constituição do sujeito, configurados discursivamente em blogs femininos. Acredita-se que o rastreamento e a análise dos discursos que a mulher faz circular sobre si mesma contribuirão para uma compreensão mais acurada acerca da mulher contemporânea. Pretende-se ainda aludir à questão das condições de produção que possibilitam a aparição de novas práticas/discursos sobre a identidade feminina nesse momento autorizando à mulher a adentrar na ordem do (desse) discurso, considerando a relação entre discurso, história e memória. Para tanto, reportamo-nos ao Método Arqueológico de Foucault que consiste basicamente na descrição do modo como os saberes de uma época se formam, determinando as condições de instituição de “verdades”.