bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analyzing the Effect of Quality of Life Assessments on Healthcare Delivery Frameworks
Authors: Raje Vaishali V. , Debnath Manti , Prasad Dalai Siba , S RenukaJyothi. , Sharma Vandana
Published: February 2025

Introductions: Nowadays, evaluating how well healthcare is serving patients depends much on quality of life (QoL) assessments. Including quality of life (QoL) indicators into healthcare systems might enable individuals to make better decisions, provide patients better treatment, and develop new approaches of treating them. Focussing on how they influence patient outcomes and how well healthcare operates, this study investigates how quality of life (QoL) exams affect the methods of delivery of healthcare.Methods:  Using a mixed-methods approach, qualitative interviews with healthcare management and employees combined with quantitative patient data analysis. Electronic health records (EHRs) provided us with QoL ratings, which we examined in light of clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, and additionally conducted were interviews to learn people's opinions on and applications for QoL criteria in clinical settings.Findings:  reveal that by highlighting what matters to the patient and facilitating their communication with their healthcare providers, quality of life (QoL) assessments greatly increase the likelihood of tailored treatment. Using QoL data also helped make better decisions about how to use resources and what kind of care to give. There were, however, problems found when trying to add QoL data to current systems, mostly with standardising and communicating the data.Conclusion: Quality of life (QoL) surveys are a useful way to improve the way healthcare is delivered because they help with patient-centered care, making decisions, and allocating resources. Getting past integration problems can make them even more useful in professional settings.
Improving Quality of Life through the Synergistic Integration of Healthcare and Environmental Health Programs
Authors: Samantsinghar Pusparaj , Varma Pooja , Garg Ram , Kumar Singh Vinod , Bhanudas Hulwan Atul
Published: February 2025

Introduction: Environmental health and healthcare programs working together have gotten a lot of attention because they could make people and communities' lives better. Environmental factors like air quality, cleanliness, and access to green areas have a direct effect on health results. For long-term well-being, healthcare and environmental health must so cooperate.Method: This work applied a mixed-methods technique. Using numerical data, health variables from several locations were examined; qualitative data was obtained by interviewing and surveying healthcare professionals, environmental health specialists, and community people. Data on natural quality, public health results, and social variables of health were examined in order to ascertain how integrated initiatives impact quality of life.Findings: Key health indicators like fewer incidences of chronic illnesses, improved mental health outcomes, and generally better public health changed significantly in communities that merged their efforts on environmental and healthcare issues. Apart from that, these combined initiatives made communities more involved and resilient, which resulted in long-term improvement in health.Conclusion:   the study reveals that people's quality of life may be much raised by integrating public health with medical treatments. If several organisations cooperate successfully, communities can be healthier and more robust. Long-term public health and environmental improvement depend on legislators giving initiatives addressing both healthcare and environmental concerns top importance.
Insights into the Experiences of Family Caregivers in Intellectual Disability and Dementia
Authors: Patel Komal , Bikrant Kumar Prusty J , Bhatnagar Tarang , Mishra Abhinav , Jamuna KV , Kumar Lenka Ajit , Wagh Dhanaji
Published: February 2025

Research is based on interviews with prospective service users and their caregivers; this research lays the groundwork for developing a structure for designing supports and removing obstacles for people with intellectual impairment & dementia. It is essential to contain persons through intellectual impairments & dementia in accessibility inquiry because they have unique perspectives to offer. Research aims to use first-person and caregiver accounts to comprehend better the environment's impact on regular activity engagement among adults with intellectual impairments and dementia. Twelve family and professional caregivers attended five regular focus groups, while four persons with intellectual disability and dementia took part in two sessions of the fictitious group method. The results of sessions using the nominal group approach were studied through the lens of the environment, and the resulting transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis. Activity accessibility, caregiver help, social connections, duties, confidentiality, and wellness and health were highlighted as six essential themes by participants with intellectual disability and dementia. Caregiver involvement brought insight from more expansive ecosystem levels to their narrow, immediate-environment-focused viewpoints. These included dementia-friendly like medical facilities, healthcare facilities, group environments, conveyance, retains or retailers, individuals incorporated dementia-related knowledge, volunteer, and participation opportunities.
Strategi Kepemimpinan Kepala Madrasah dalam Era Digital: Meningkatkan Kinerja Pendidik dan Prestasi Siswa
Authors: Asyafi'iyah Nani , Nur Irawati
Published: February 2025

This study examines the role of madrasah heads in improving teacher performance at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah PSM Jerukgulung using a qualitative approach. The results of the study show that the head of the madrasah plays the role of educator, supervisor, leader, manager, motivator, and innovator. These roles are realized through involvement in teacher quality improvement, classroom visits, decision-making, cooperation, coordination, planning, awarding, and discipline enforcement. However, there are several obstacles such as human resource and time management, difficulty understanding teacher characteristics, and educational supervision
A Review of the Latest Separation Science Research in PFAS Analysis
Authors: Workman Jr. Jerome
Published: February 2025

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse group of synthetic chemicals that have gathered significant attention because of their persistence in the environment and potential health risks. Analytical methods for PFAS detection and quantification have been developed to address the complex nature of these compounds in various matrices such as water, soil, air, and biological samples. This review provides a brief yet comprehensive overview of the separation science methods utilized for PFAS analysis, including liquid chromatography (LC), gas chromatography (GC), ion chromatography (IC), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). Additionally, mass spectrometry (MS) detection techniques, sample preparation methodologies such as solid-phase extraction (SPE) and solid-phase microextraction (SPME) are discussed. Special emphasis is placed on the analytical challenges posed by the diversity of PFAS compounds and their occurrence in different environmental and biological contexts. This review aims to provide a summary of the most current analytical techniques and their applications in PFAS research, contributing to the ongoing efforts to monitor and mitigate PFAS contamination.
The Future of Digital Method Development: An Interview with Anne Marie Smith
Authors: Wetzel Will
Published: February 2025

Following the HPLC 2024 Conference in Denver, Colorado, LCGC International spoke with Anne Marie Smith of ACD/Labs about the new ICH Q14 guidelines and how they impact analytical scientists and their work.
New Record of a Phoretic Pseudoscorpion Species, Cheiridium museorum (Leach, 1817) (Pseudoscorpiones: Cheiridiidae) Associated with Pelage of the Indian Pipistrelle, Pipistrellus coromandra (Gray, 1838) (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in Lakhimpur-Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, India
Authors: Kumar Jitendra , Kanaujia Amita
Published: February 2025

Thirty seven pseudoscorpion specimens were collected from abdominal furs of the little Indian bat (Pipistrellus coromandra) captured from six different roosts in Lakhimpur-Kheri, Uttar Pradesh, India. Out of 25 captured bats, seven bats (two males and five females) were found to be associated with pseudoscorpions. Collected pseudoscorpion species was identified as Cheiridium museorum (Leach, 1817). It was a new record of phoretic association of pseudoscorpion species with pelage of the Indian Pipistrelle, Pipistrellus coromandra (Gray, 1838) (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). This phoretic association was found as commensalism and for the purpose of food and distribution.
Análisis cualitativo de la comunicación interna caso: gobiernos locales de Pasco, Perú
Authors: Rojas Chiara Ruben , Gamarra Bustillos Patricia Elisa , Tacza Ramírez David
Published: February 2025

El objetivo general de la investigación fue comprender cómo se gestiona la comunicación interna en las oficinas de comunicaciones de la provincia de Pasco, Perú. Se desarrolló un enfoque cualitativo, diseño fenomenológico, técnica de la entrevista a profundidad que registró las experiencias de los integrantes de la muestra. La población corresponde a las oficinas y unidades de imagen institucional y relaciones públicas de los 13 distritos de la provincia de Pasco, mientras que el muestreo fue no probabilístico intencional con tres unidades muestrales. Los participantes resaltaron sus experiencias principales y secundarias. El análisis de datos cualitativos se realizó de forma manual y a través de un software especializado, las entrevistas transcritas se codificaron y categorizaron. La investigación concluye en comprender la gestión de la comunicación interna en la oficina de relaciones públicas e imagen institucional de una de las municipalidades provinciales de Pasco, una oficina de imagen institucional distrital y la unidad de relaciones públicas de una comuna distrital y se recomienda a los relacionistas públicos, responsables de comunicaciones o de imagen institucional de los gobiernos locales que deberían dirigir sus estrategias y acciones hacía el público interno de la institución que son stakeholders relevantes en el proceso de la construcción de la imagen positiva de la organización, creándose un buen clima laboral, para promover un entorno donde los empleados se sienten motivados con el fin de aportar en el logro de los objetivos institucionales.
Talas Savaşı’nın Komutanı: Ziyâd b. Sâlih el-Huzâî
Authors: Topal Ramazan
Published: February 2025

Abbâsîler 30 yılı aşkın sistemli ve gizli bir propaganda faaliyeti sonu-cunda Emevîler’i yıkıp iktidara geldiler. İhtilalin başarıya ulaşmasında bir-çok kişinin katkısı oldu. Ebû Seleme el-Hallâl (öl. 132/750), Süleyman b. Kesîr (öl. 132/750), Ebû Müslim el-Horasânî (öl. 137/755) ve Abdullah b. Ali (öl. 147/764) gibi isimler bunlara örnek olarak verilebilir. Zikredilen bu şahıslar ve diğerleri yeni devlette önemli görevler aldılar. Fakat sonrasında gelişen olaylarda Abbâsî hanedanı zikredilen bu kişileri çeşitli gerekçelerle ortadan kaldırdı. Bu çalışmada Ebû Müslim ve diğerleri gibi Abbâsî ihtilaline önemli katkılarda bulunan, başta Talas Savaşı komutanlığı olmak üzere bir-çok görevi başarıyla yerine getiren ve sonrasında öldürülen Ziyâd b. Sâlih el-Huzâî’nin hayatı incelenmektedir. Sonrasında modern dönemdeki bazı çalışma ve yazılarda Ziyâd b. Sâlih el-Huzâî ile Ziyâd b. Sâlih el-Hârisî’nin birbiriyle karıştırılması vakıası ele alınmakta ve bazı değerlendirmeler ya-pılmaktadır. Yapılan araştırma neticesinde Ziyâd’ın Abbâsî hanedanı ile Ebû Müslim’in arasındaki rekabetin bir kurbanı olarak öldürüldüğü söyle-nebilir. Bunun yanında özellikle Türkçe araştırmalarda iddia edildiği gibi Ziyâd’ın komutanlığını yaptığı Talas Savaşı hakkında ilk bilgi veren İslâm tarihçisinin İbn Tayfûr (öl. 280/893) değil, Fesevî’nin (öl. 277/890) olduğu anlaşılmaktadır. Fesevî’nin rivayetinde Türklerin Çin tarafında savaşa ka-tıldığı ve Ziyâd b. Sâlih’in savaş stratejisinin savaşın sonucunu etkilediğine dair kayıtlar bulunmaktadır. Bu da İslâm tarihi kaynaklarında Türklerden hiç bahsedilmediği ve Karlukların Çin ordusunu arkadan vurmasıyla sava-şın galibinin belirlendiği iddialarının yeniden değerlendirilmesi gerektiğini göstermektedir.
Infovis: um portal de visualização de dados para a análise da segurança pública na Bahia
Authors: Sá Italo Estrela de Souza , Santos Larissa Reis Sousa , Conceição Silvânia Ferreira
Published: February 2025

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Hubungan Pola Pemberian Makan dengan Kejadian Stunting pada Balita Usia 24-59 Bulan di Wilayah Kerja Puskesmas Mangoli Kepulauan Sula
Authors: Rahma Tunny
Published: February 2025

Based on the results of the 2022 Indonesian Nutrition Status (SSGI) survey by the Ministry of Health, the prevalence of stunting among children under five in Maluku Province reached 26.1%. This figure puts Maluku province in the 13th place nationally. It was recorded that Maluku province cut the number of stunted children under five by 2.6 points from the previous year. In SSGI 2021, the prevalence of stunting in Maluku reached 28.7%, but this figure is still relatively high because it exceeds the threshold set by WHO of 20%. The purpose of this study is: to determine the relationship between feeding patterns and the incidence of stunting in toddlers in the working area of the Mangoli Health Center, Sula Islands. This study is an analytical observational research using a cross sectional approach. The results of the chi-square test showed that there was a meaningful relationship between feeding patterns, namely the amount of food given to toddlers with a p value = 0.002. because the p value < 0.005 thus H0 is rejected and Ha is accepted, so there is a meaningful relationship between the provision of food to toddlers and the incidence of stunting in toddlers in the working area of the Mangoli Health Center in the Sula Islands Mangoli Health Center.
Pemberian Fisioterapi Dada dan Suction terhadap Perubahan Kadar Saturasi Oksigen pada Pasien Gagal Nafas
Authors: S Sukhifah  , N Sukesi  , R Winarti  , Wahyuningsih Wahyuningsih  , C Hadi  , W Heru
Published: February 2025

Background: Respiratory failure is a condition in which the respiratory system fails to perform the function of gas exchange, namely the entry of oxygen and the exit of carbon dioxide. Patients with respiratory failure are usually put on a ventilator. Patients who are put on a ventilator will experience a buildup of secretions, to overcome this, chest physiotherapy and suction will be performed. Chest physiotherapy is a procedure performed on patients who experience secretion retention and oxygenation disorders who require assistance to thin or remove secretions. While suction is the act of inserting a suction catheter tube through the mouth or nose or endotracheal tube (ETT) which aims to reduce sputum retention, free the airway and prevent lung infections. The purpose of this community service is to teach and understand changes in oxygen saturation levels in patients with respiratory failure in the ICU room of the Dr. Ario Wirawan Salatiga Lung Hospital after chest physiotherapy and suction interventions. The methods used are training, lectures and direct demonstrations. The number of patients in this community service is 4 patients. The results of this community service are the effect of increasing oxygen saturation after chest physiotherapy and suction. That is, before chest physiotherapy, the average oxygen saturation level was 93%, after chest physiotherapy for 3 days it became 97%. While before suction, the average saturation level was 95%, after suction for 3 days the 4th saturation became 100%. The conclusion is that there is an increase in oxygen saturation levels after chest physiotherapy and suction in patients with respiratory failure in the ICU Room of the Dr. Ario Wirawan Salatiga Lung Hospital.
The Lure of Hope
Authors: Stockey-Bridge Michaela
Published: February 2025

The Lure of Hope portrays a snap shot of the rise and fall of commercial surrogacy in India. By chance, the author’s fieldwork began around the same time NSW legislation in Australia extended its ban on commercial surrogacy to include overseas arrangements. Not long after returning from fieldwork in India, the Home Ministry of India changed the conditions of entry for intending parents (IPs) traveling to India for a surrogacy arrangement. From November 2013 IPs would have to apply for a medical visa, and could only obtain a medical visa for surrogacy if they had been married for at least two years. In 2016 the Indian Surrogacy (regulation) Act was introduced, commercial surrogacy was banned and foreigners were no longer able to enter into surrogacy arrangements in India. India was the first among a trail of ‘pop up’ reproductive destinations including Thailand, Nepal, Mexico, Cambodia and Laos. This book captures a moment in the recent history of the emerging global ‘surroscape’.Alongside the detailed account of the experiences of parents and surrogate mothers the author offers a careful analysis of regulatory systems governing surrogacy and embryo use in Australia and India. With the authors archival research in the UK she further analyses the regulation of surrogacy with cross cultural comparison of the relatively longer history of surrogacy regulation in the UK. Reproductive technologies and the many options these create are ahead of the law and while the law struggles to keep up we have a rich field of investigation. What do different regulatory systems tell us about how we see society, children, women’s bodies, reproduction and fecundity, kinship and family formation?
Minority Rights and Minority Protection in Europe
Authors: Agarin Timofey , Cordell Karl
Published: February 2025

In order to gain access to the EU, nations must be seen to implement formal instruments that protect the rights of minorities. This book examines the ways in which these tools have worked in a number of post-communist states, and explores the interaction of domestic and international structures that determine the application of these policies.

Using empirical examples and comparative cases, the text explores three levels of policy-making: within sub-state and national politics, and within international agreements, laws and policy blueprints. This enables the authors to establish how domestic policymakers negotiate various structural factors in order to interpret rights norms and implement them long enough to gain EU accession. Showing that it is necessary to focus upon the states of post-communist Europe as autonomous actors, and not as mere recipients of directives and initiatives from ‘the West’, the book shows how underlying structural conditions allow domestic policy actors to talk the talk of rights protection without walking the walk of implementing minority rights legislation on their territories.
A Human Right to Culture and Identity
Authors: Mende Janne
Published: February 2025

Is it desirable, or even necessary, to have distinct human rights for cultural identities? Do different conceptions of culture and identity, and their potential to frame human rights violations as culturally appropriate, complicate the question? How should a human right to collective identity be outlined?

Claims to human rights as applying to a whole (ethnic, religious or cultural) group, instead of the individual, prove to be complex. This book reveals the pitfalls, benefits and demands that surround the debate for and against culture and identity in human rights. It connects a continuous and nuanced theoretical debate with highly topical empirical findings about collective rights for indigenous groups, which for centuries have been suppressed and marginalized and now stand at the forefront of (successfully) demanding a human right to their own culture and distinct identity. This book shows the ambivalences of those demands and discusses solutions so that human rights neither exclude marginalized cultural groups nor reproduce rigid distinctions between seemingly exclusive cultures.
Mandela
Authors: Hain Peter
Published: February 2025

Mandela: His Essential Life chronicles the life and legacy of one of the twentieth century's most influential and admired statesmen. Charting his development from remote rural roots to city lawyer, freedom fighter, and then political leader, Peter Hain takes an in-depth look at Mandela's rise through the ranks of the African National Congress (ANC) and subsequent 27 years imprisonment on Robben Island, as increasingly vocal protests against the injustices of Apartheid brought his struggle against overwhelming prejudice and oppression to the eyes of the world.

This book encompasses Mandela’s inauguration as South Africa's first democratically elected president, his "retirement" campaigns for human rights, a solution to AIDS and poverty. It goes on to chronicle his later years and death. Throughout, the humanity and compassion of this extraordinary world leader shine through. The author concludes with a critical analysis of his and the ANC’s achievements, its leadership’s subsequent slide into corruption, and whether under new direction South Africa can reclaim the values and legacy of Mandela, and the ‘rainbow nation’ he created and led to such global acclaim.
Tomorrow's Silk Road
Authors: Pelkmans Jacques , Francois Joseph
Published: February 2025

This CEPS book comprises a first-ever economic and regulatory analysis of a possible Free Trade Area (FTA) between China and the EU, whose design is supposed to be 'deep and comprehensive'. It provides an overview of the global economic environment in which EU-Chinese economic relations have developed in recent years, including global value chains linking the two economies. The substance of the FTA design is then elaborated in nine, largely empirical and technical chapters ranging from tariff analysis (at the 6- and 8-digit level) and technical barriers to trade, to services, government procurement and investment. A third part comprises a CGE-model-based empirical simulation of the economic effects on GDP per member state (and on China), bilateral trade in goods and services, wages for workers with three distinct skill-levels and a series of goods and services sectors.

The year-long study was led by Jacques Pelkmans of CEPS, and the research was carried out by a team of trade specialists at CEPS in partnership with another team of researchers led by Prof. Joseph Francois of the World Trade Institute (WTI) in Bern.
Royalty in Twenty-First Century Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Authors: Doughty Amie A.
Published: February 2025

Doughty examines contemporary children’s and young adult (YA) literature featuring royal characters through a folkloric lens and shows different ways authors transform the traditional royal characters from folktales and Disney films. She shows how princes and princesses are more progressive than their predecessors through expanding gender roles. She also demonstrates how different types of abdication work to transform readers’ expectations of royals and how they reach a happy ending different from traditional folktales and Disney. Finally, employing Rudine Sims Bishop’s ideas about mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, she explores how queer royals and royals of color offer new mirrors for children and young adults. Each chapter presents a typology of royal books related to the topic and explains how they work to transform the folktale tradition. Doughty concludes with a discussion of the transformational gaps remaining in royal children’s and YA literature.
Reconsidering Elizabeth Bowen's Shorter Fiction
Authors: Levy Heather
Published: February 2025

Reconsidering Elizabeth Bowen’s Shorter Fiction: Dead Reckoning focuses on Elizabeth Bowen's representations of violence against the self and others. Heather Levy examines the complicity of landscape and the implications of mayhem, murder, and suicide in The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen (2006) edited by Angus Wilson and The Bazaar and Other Stories (2008) edited by Alan Hepburn. It introduces five previously unpublished short story fragments and two nearly complete stories from The Elizabeth Bowen Collection at The Harry Ransom Research Center. Levy argues that Bowen's shorter fiction is a quixotic celebration of moral transgression, crime without punishment, and suicide without mourners. Bowen's compassionate response to offenders and violence anticipated the Perpetrator Trauma movement in the United States. Her innovations with the freedom of the short story produced an uncanny narration of violence. This book integrates the entirety of the scholarship on Bowen's short stories in a clear and original manner and offers a synthetic and compelling excavation of Bowen's unpublished short stories.
Four Quartets in the Light of the Chinese Jar
Authors: Chen Shudong
Published: February 2025

Titled Four Quartets in the Light of the Chinese Jar, this is the first book that discusses how Four Quartets should be explored afresh with a prosodic-philosophically sustained interdisciplinary and cross-cultural literary approach in ways as the often overlooked pivotal image of the Chinese jar so indicates in the great sequence; the pivotal image suggests the subtle but vital elixir from both “The ‘shores of Asia and the Edgware Road’ [which] are brought together as they had been brought together to The Waste Land.” With a steady focus on the function words-mediated and phonemes-facilitated, and “autochthonously” void-suggesting verbal transformation, the book shows how the verbal transformation, especially of the cases with “parts of speech” in the live context, makes Four Quartets truly a “rhythmical creation of [meaningful] beauty”; it demonstrates how the meaningful poetic beauty culminates in a quintessential state or being of poetry not merely being “poetic” particularly in terms of its prosodically sustained philosophical tenets, which are often so serendipitously transformed into “virtuoso mastery of verbal music.” As genuine poetry, the great sequence flows freely from inside out at once in accordance with and in spirt of any given rhythmical form or rhyming pattern.
Virginia Woolf As a Process-Oriented Thinker
Authors: Livert David
Published: February 2025

In A Psychology of Food, Cooks, and Cooking, David Livert employs current psychological research and theory to provide insights into the ubiquitous human behavior of cooking. Livert’s book provides a novel perspective, reviewing current research on cooks and cooking in both psychology and food studies. This book organizes and summarizes the large and diverse body of research and theory in psychology to better understand cooks and the behavior of cooking. This volume uniquely applies psychological research and theory to both domestic and commercial kitchens, taking advantage of Livert’s two decades of research and scholarship on the intersection of social psychology and food preparation. A Psychology of Food, Cooks, and Cooking illustrates the important insights that major psychological theories and concepts add to our understanding of cooks and cooking.
The Performative Representations of Masculinity in Quentin Tarantino's Cinema
Authors: Greene Justin Russell
Published: February 2025

In this book, Justin Russell Greene examines how Quentin Tarantino uses his auteur identity to further cement the masculine tropes of Hollywood – and ultimately, society – through language, visual aesthetics, and performative representations of masculinity in his films and media appearances. Greene posits that the careful crafting of his auteur persona allows Tarantino to project a consistent version of what it means to be a writer-director-artist, and that through his interview and speeches, he reveals the deeper intensions behind the representations his characters present in his films. However, although he is valorized by audiences, media personalities, and peers as an artistic genius, Tarantino traffics in many of the systemic issues embedded within the United States’ socio-cultural environment. Greene argues that although Tarantino promotes a political vision in his films and public appearances that illuminates the restrictions of hegemonic masculinity, this is not sufficiently effective at truly disrupting entrenched ideologies about masculinity in U.S. culture due to how Tarantino hides his critical takes within genre stereotypes. Scholars of film studies, gender studies, and popular culture will find this book of particular interest.
The Cross of Christ in African American Christian Religious Experience
Authors: Williams Demetrius K.
Published: February 2025

In The Cross of Christ in African American Christian Religious Experience: Piety, Politics, and Protest, Demetrius K. Williams examines and explores the ideational importance and rhetorical function of cross language and terminology in Black religious experience through an ideological lens. Williams argues that for the first time in Christian history, the European nation of Portugal under the guidance of Prince Henry used the theology of the cross to justify and sustain an exclusive trade of Sub-Saharan African peoples. Claiming that Jesus died on the cross only “to save lost souls” provided a convincing rational for Henry’s exploratory voyages of discovery to West African to exclusively enslave Black bodies. With the confirmation of Catholic Popes and the competition of other European nations, this same rationale would inspire empire building, colonization, and slave-trading, justified on their newly constructed ideological narrative of compassionate evangelism “to save lost souls”. Over time, with massive conversions to the faith of their enslavers, Black people’s Christian religious experiences would articulate a response to the world that held them in thralldom. That response would be articulated most consistently and effectively through their understanding of the cross of Christ. Williams affirms Howard Thurman’s claim that by “some amazing but vastly creative spiritual insight the slave undertook the redemption of a religion that the master had profaned in his midst.”
Lithuania’s Quest for Self-Determination
Authors: Bryer Thomas A. , Butkeviciene Egle , Rauleckas Rimantas , Vaidelyte Egle , Vaiciuniene Jolanta , Budryte Paulina
Published: February 2025

Self-determination in the European Union rests on the strength and skills of a country’s representatives to manage and leverage relationships with other nations, and for individuals it rests on the ability to use autonomy and freedom wisely. To flourish, an individual must consciously determine their own path. Similarly, we can say a country can flourish. Self-determinism for a country is conditioned on the forces that facilitate or hinder its ability to succeed as a society. The same forces that can help a nation to flourish might also accelerate the decision to emigrate among a nation’s people. This is the paradox, and it is the quest: national and individual self-determination, to allow choice for emigration but to have strength of culture, civics, and institutions to discourage it, or to encourage return migration for those who have left. In this book, we address this paradox and this quest using the case of Lithuania. More specifically, we examine how municipalities can and do respond to ongoing population shrinking due to emigration in Lithuania, the non-economic factors that facilitate decisions to emigrate, and the opportunities for local governments to shrink smartly or reverse shrinkage.
North Korea, Nuclear Risk-Taking, and the United States
Authors: Hwang Jihwan
Published: February 2025

Jihwan Hwang analyzes Pyongyang’s nuclear policy changes over the last three decades under Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un. Why did a weaker North Korea take the risk of standing up against the much stronger U.S. with its nuclear weapons program, even escalating the crisis to the point of a war? Later, why did North Korea change its course of action amid the crisis even though the security environment remained essentially the same? Hwang draws on the main tenets of prospect theory in international relations and argues that Pyongyang becomes either risk-acceptant or risk-averse toward the U.S., depending on the situation it faces. When Pyongyang perceived the status quo to be deteriorating, it framed its situation as a loss and chose a risk-acceptant of confrontation to restore the status quo. Equally, when Pyongyang perceived the situation to be improving, it chose a risk-averse engagement in the domain of gain. In contrast, when Pyongyang perceived an extreme loss such as military confrontation against the United States, it would rather choose a risk-averse policy to avoid the catastrophic outcome of war. The issues of risk are central to an understanding of Pyongyang’s nuclear policy decision-making.
Spectral Lives by Luke and Philostratus
Authors: Williams Robert Lee
Published: February 2025

In the first century CE, the Jewish Jesus, his followers, and the Pythagorean Apollonius journeyed widely, each to spread their good news. Spectral Lives by Luke and Philostratus: Journeying of Holy Men argues that the biographers, Luke and Philostratus felt ethically compelled from divine specters to show and tell that good news to help their world. Post-Enlightenment developments in historiography have expanded understanding of ancient texts with a “third dimension,” a “transhuman habitat” evident in ancient texts. In this book, Robert Lee Williams investigates how affect theory has sensitized interpreters to emotional responses.
Foucault's Critical Philosophy of History
Authors: Takács Adam
Published: February 2025

Foucault's Critical Philosophy of History: Unfolding the Present provides a comprehensive interpretation of Foucault’s work by focusing on its methodological, procedural, and epistemological elements. Adam Takács argues that despite all its thematic and analytical diversity, Foucault’s procedure can be understood within a unified framework based on the historical problematization of the present. This procedure, triggered by current social issues and aiming at a diagnostic screening of the present through a constructive exploration of the past, thus sets in motion not only a specific philosophical vision of history and a research practice often related to the procedures of historiography, but also new ways of critical analysis of social phenomena. This book subjects all these elements to a systematic analysis, demonstrating that within this framework, Foucault’s often debated views on historical realism and constructivism—his methodological choices and ontological commitments—take on a coherent profile, culminating in a timely social critical project of “liberation of knowledge” and “political subjectivation.”
Moral Hermeneutics and Technology
Authors: Kudina Olya
Published: February 2025

In Moral Hermeneutics and Technology: Making Moral Sense through Human-Technology-World Relations, Olya Kudina explores the role of technology in the way people arrive at their moral intuitions and choices and revise their moral commitments, a phenomenon she calls “moral hermeneutics.” This book considers technology as a mediator of human relations and questions the traditional anthropocentric view of morality. Drawing on the philosophical traditions of postphenomenology and pragmatism and empirical explorations from multiple case studies, Kudina shows how values co-evolve with the dynamic human-technology-world environment and even change in response to it. Consequently, Kudina presents morality as a dynamic practice of sense-making, where people, technologies, and the cultural setting all play an active role. This book explores the implications of such a technologically mediated moral hermeneutics for the informed use, design, and governance of technologies, while accounting for the intimate connection between values and technologies.
Intermedial Ecocriticism
Authors: Bruhn Jørgen , Salmose Niklas
Published: February 2025

Intermedial Ecocriticism: The Climate Crisis Through Art and Media provides an extensive understanding of the climate crisis as it is represented in a number of medial forms, including scientific reports, popular science, graphic novels, documentaries, websites, feature films, and advertising. Theoretically, this is the first book that combines two important theories from the humanities: ecocriticism and intermedial studies. The book carefully develops Intermedial Ecocriticism as a method of investigating how climate crisis is represented and communicated through diverse media types. The chapters each include a comparative analysis of two or three specific media products and how they mediate the climate crisis.
Retooling Study Abroad
Authors: Granda Carmen
Published: February 2025

Study abroad is the ideal option for world language students to immerse themselves in the target language and culture. However, circumstances beyond control may make travel challenging, evenimpossible. Technology has the potential to engage students and provide an opportunity for linguistic and cultural immersion from home. In addition to immersing students in the target language and culture, Carmen Granda shows that technology can be implemented in all world language courses to foster connections and comparisons and, most importantly, create community in and outside of the classroom. She demonstrates that digital tools have the power to make language learning inclusive of and accessible to all students, fulfilling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals of higher education.
Recovering the Ecumenical Bonhoeffer
Authors: Garcia Javier A.
Published: February 2025

In Recovering the Ecumenical Bonhoeffer, Javier Garcia explores the possibilities for Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology to revitalize interest in the ecumenical movement and Christian unity today. Although many commentators have lamented the waning interest in the ecumenical movement since the 1960s, the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017, coupled with recent in-roads such as the ecumenical efforts of Pope Francis, have opened new possibilities for the ecumenical project. In this context, Garcia presents Bonhoeffer as a helpful model for contemporary ecumenical dialogue. He finds important points of convergence between Bonhoeffer and Calvin, thereby establishing potential areas of rapprochement between the Lutheran and Reformed traditions. Beyond examining the state of ecumenism and unfolding the ecumenical promise of Bonhoeffer’s thought, Garcia assesses the future of ecumenical engagement in a secular age. Altogether, he proposes a recovery of the ecumenical Bonhoeffer for envisioning new possibilities for church unity in our day.
The Young Against the Old
Authors: Welborn L.L.
Published: February 2025

The so-called First Epistle of Clement has long intrigued historians of early Christianity. It responds to a crisis in the Corinthian church by enjoining an ethic of subordination especially to the presbyteroi and episkopoi, but the exact nature of that conflict has eluded scholars. L. L. Welborn sets out a clear methodology for reconstructing the historical situation behind the letter, then examines the conventions of its deliberative rhetoric, its blending of citations from the Old Testament and Paul’s letters, and its reliance on topoi from Greco-Roman civic discourse. He then presents a compelling argument for the letter’s occasion. First Clement assails a “revolt” among the youth against their elders, invoking epithets and characterizations that were, as Welborn demonstrates at length, common in political discourse supporting the status quo. At length, Welborn proposes two possible scenarios for the precise nature of the “revolt” in Corinth— a revolt possibly inspired by memories of the apostle Paul— and details the replacement of a Pauline ethic with a strict code of subordination.
St. Cyprian of Carthage and the College of Bishops
Authors: Safranski Benjamin
Published: February 2025

This book assesses episcopal cooperation as envisioned by the third-century bishop Cyprian of Carthage. It outlines and assesses the interactions between local bishops, provincial groups of bishops, and the worldwide college. Assessing these interactions sheds light on the relationship between Cyprian’s strong sense of local autonomy and the reality that each bishop was responsible to the world-wide college. Episcopal consensus was the sine qua non, for Cyprian, for a major issue of faith or practice to become one that defined membership in the college and, ultimately, the Church.

The book brings this assessment into a modern scholarly debate by concluding with an evaluation of the ecclesiology of the Orthodox scholar Nicolas Afanasiev and his critiques of Cyprian. Afanasiev lamented Cyprian as the father of universal ecclesiology and claimed that Cyprian’s college wielded authority above that of the local bishop. This book argues that Afanasiev fundamentally misconstrued Cyprian’s understanding of collegiality. It is shown that, for Cyprian, collegiality was the framework for the common ministry of the bishops and did not infringe on the sovereignty of the local bishop. Rather, it was the college’s collective duty to define the boundaries of acceptable Christian belief and practice.
Miracles and the Kingdom of God
Authors: Shinall Myrick C.
Published: February 2025

In the last decade or so, scholarship on the miracles of Jesus has shifted from reconstructions of the historical Jesus to the questions of why and to what end early Jesus-followers told stories about miracles. Myrick Shinall contends that Mark and Q contain two distinct ways of remembering Jesus’s miracles in relation to his proclamation of the kingdom of God. He compares three cases of Mark-Q overlaps which feature miracles: the Beelzebul controversy, the commissioning of the disciples, and the testing or “temptation” narratives, and finds that in Mark, the miracles and the kingdom of God both point to Jesus’ identity as a divine figure, whereas in Q, Jesus and the miracles point instead to the coming kingdom of God. Shinall further argues that these different views represent different strategies for creating group identities for Jesus’ followers, strategies that came into conflict as the movement’s identity coalesced. At length, he shows that the mix of “high” and “low” Christology in the Synoptic tradition requires reframing of the current debate over how early a “high” Christology developed in the nascent Jesus movement.
Gender in the Rhetoric of Jesus
Authors: Parks Sara
Published: February 2025

Examining the hypothetical earliest layer of Jesus’ sayings known as Q, Sara Parks argues that Jesus deliberately crafted parabolic teachings regarding the basileia of God to appeal to both male and female adherents. For a century after Q, vestiges of gender-paired teachings popped up in multiple independent texts related to Jesus, from Mark to Paul to the Synoptics and John—making it more likely that this inclusion of women originated with Jesus himself. In Gender and the Rhetoric of Jesus, Parks engages the divided scholarship on the meaning of gendered pairs for an evaluation of the gender politics of Q, arguing that even though Q’s peculiar rhetoric of gender equality was an innovation, it was also a product of its time, as evidenced in other contemporaneous texts which struggled with ambiguous equalities, from Philo to Musonius Rufus to Joseph and Aseneth. In addition, she shows that Jesus’ rhetoric of gender, as remembered in Q constitutes some of the earliest evidence for the study of first-century Jewish women, and women in Christian origins.
Augustinian and Ecclesial Christian Ethics
Authors: Long D. Stephen
Published: February 2025

What is the relationship between the command to love one’s enemies and the use of violence and/or other coercive political means? This work examines this question by comparing and contrasting two important contemporary approaches to Christian ethics, neoAugustinian and the ecclesial or neoAnabaptist. It traces the complicated conversation that has taken place since John Howard Yoder took on Reinhold Niebuhr’s interpretation of the Anabaptists in the 1940’s. It consists of three parts. The first part traces the development of the Augustinian-Niebuhrian approach to ethics from Niebuhr through those who have advanced his work including Paul Ramsey, Timothy Jackson, Charles Mathewes, Eric Gregory, and Jennifer Herdt. It also examines the Augustinian ethics of Oliver O’Donovan, John Milbank and Nicholas Wolterstorff. Along with tracing the Augustinian approach and its trajectories through agapism, theology and the interpretation of Augustine, it identifies fifteen criticisms that this approach brings against the neoAnabaptists. The second part traces the origin of the ecclesial or neoAnabaptist approach, and then examines its relationship to, and criticism of, agapism, what theological doctrines are central and its interpretation of Augustine. Its purpose is primarily constructive by explaining the role that ecclesiology, Christology and eschatology have among the neoAnabaptists. The third part addresses the criticisms levied by Augustinians against the neoAnabaptists by drawing on the constructive theology in the second part. It intends to show where the Augustinian critics are correct, where they have missed key theological teachings, and where they misrepresent. It also assesses the summons to the nationalist project the Augustinians put to the neoAnabaptists. If this work is successful, this third part will not be defensive. It will instead illumine the reasons for the criticisms and suggest means by which the conversation that began between Yoder and Niebuhr can continue and possibly bear fruit for theological ethics in both its ecclesial and nationalist projects for generations to come.
The Walls of Babylon
Authors: Arthur David
Published: February 2025

The Walls of Babylon is a radically revisionist reading of the Revelation to John, offering startling insights into the historical roots of Gnosticism, the social dynamics of early Christianity, and the shattering impact of apocalyptic eschatology. Based on a careful analysis of the text, David Arthur argues that the motivating circumstance for Revelation was provided not by external Roman oppression but by a fierce internal dispute between gnostic and proto-orthodox factions within the early church. In the ensuing controversy, John did not side with ecclesiastical officials, as might be expected, but instead took up the cause of the persecuted outcasts. Following the precedent of the classical prophets, he speaks as a champion for the downtrodden and dispossessed––represented, for him, by the gnostic heretics. The book he has left us presents a fiery symbolic rebuke of proto-orthodox Christianity, and by extension, challenges normative religious paradigms at every level of belief and praxis.
Radical Hospitality for a Prophetic Church
Authors: Quantz Amanda D.
Published: February 2025

Anchored in Scripture and Tradition, Radical Hospitality for a Prophetic Church conveys Amanda D. Quantz’s firsthand experiences as a chaplain working with emerging ministries that meet people where they are. Building on the biblical concept that all wisdom was present in the mind of God before creation, Quantz argues that this wisdom has filtered into the world’s varied religious traditions, so that Christians have much to gain approaching others from different religious or spiritual creeds and learning about their faith traditions and values. Whether seekers are experimenting with open Communion, “church without walls,” or ancient but little-known Christian practices, this book is a resource for those who feel stuck in outdated ideas about what it means to be a church.