bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Growing a Growth Mindset
Authors: Sheehan Kevin , Ryan Jessica
Published: December 2024

Growing a Growth Mindset: Unlocking Character Strengths through Children’s Literature provides teachers with an innovative approach to teaching children the positive psychology constructs that underlie self-belief, goal motivation, and happiness. Through selected children’s books, the book brings to life the latest research and strategies for developing growth mindset, hope, grit, character strengths, and happiness. Each of these positive psychology constructs is explored through a set of three picture book classics that makes the research understandable to even the youngest learner. The National Council for Social Studies inquiry approach drives each book-driven analysis of the selected stories. This inquiry-based approach is organized around a compelling question and provides a complete outline, including formative and summative questions and assessments, as well as extensions that share this vital learning with parents. Lessons in this book have been created by outstanding teachers and have been field tested in classrooms across the region with extraordinary results.
Stories from the Front of the Room
Authors: Harris Michelle , Sellers Sherrill L. , Clerge Orly , Gooding Frederick W.
Published: December 2024

Research demonstrates that faculty of color in historically white institutions experience higher levels of discrimination, cultural taxation, and emotional labor than their white colleagues. Despite efforts to recruit minority faculty, all of these factors undermine their scholarship, pedagogy, social experiences, promotion and retention. This edited volume builds upon the existing research on faculty of color, however, it also departs from the existing literature and unravels the socio-emotional experiences of being in front of the classroom, in labs, and in the Ivory Tower for faculty who are in multiple racialized social locations. In an effort to circulate the experiences of faculty of color more widely to academic and non-academic audiences, this edited volume replaces conventional scholarly technical papers with unconventionally accessible letters. Stories from the Front of the Room focuses on the boundaries which faculty of color encounter in everyday experiences on campus and presents a more complete picture of life in the academy - one that documents how faculty of color are tested, but also how they can not only overcome, but thrive in their respective educational institutions.
Clockwork
Authors: Snell Michael S.
Published: December 2024

Ever notice how some people around you seem to “do it all”? How their professional and personal lives just flow like clockwork? These people have mastered the juggling act of appointments, deadlines, and demands on their time … and you can, too! In Clockwork: Time-Saving Routines and Tested Strategies for Success, author Michael Snell shares the secrets behind the routines that give you control of your days, weeks, months and year. You’ll learn the benefit of implementing changes to your routines and practices that will ultimately give you more time to lead effectively at work and to be more effective in all other areas of your life. With quick tips for getting started and tangible guidance for today’s leaders, this book will help you make your professional and personal worlds flow like clockwork in no time.
Crossing the Finish Line
Authors: Seidman Alan
Published: December 2024

College student retention continues to be a vexing issue for colleges and universities. There are some very simple steps that a college or university can take to help students persist until they reach academic and/or personal goal attainment. This book is intended to give the reader the necessary tools, for all types of educational institutions and delivery systems, to implement a retention formula and success model that will actually help students meet their academic and personal goals and thus increase college retention and graduation rates. Regardless of the academic ability, socioeconomic status, gender, first generation, ethnicity of students, the retention formula and model presented will help each and every college type increase student retention and graduation rates.
A Fragile Enterprise
Authors: Brigham Nancy
Published: December 2024

A Fragile Enterprise recounts true stories the front lines of the struggle between the entitled few and the marginalized many in America’s public schools. In this book, you'll learn about the national narrative of education from the viewpoint of students and their families. You'll discover:

That despite the massive expenditure of public funds, large-scale national education improvement efforts have largely failed

That failing schools seldom have the resources and skills to implement the programs that are thrust upon them.

That the charter school solution leaves behind the students who need help the most.

How seldom families are involved in meaningful ways in the education of their children.

What the best teachers do and why they do it that way.
Overlooked
Authors: Collins LaVerne Hanes
Published: December 2024

American treatment systems overlook some of the most salient issues in Black mental health. The global social justice movement brought attention to obvious issues, but all challenges of living Black are not obvious. Much remains deeply embedded in overlooked historical factors, overlooked identity issues, overlooked clinical bias, overlooked losses, and overlooked strengths. LaVerne Collins brings those unspoken issues of Black life to the forefront of counseling conversations. The author looks deep into Black identities and unhides the psychological impact of Black racialization. The book considers the emotional weight of the historical presumption of guilt and the impact of shorter lifespans. Collins unearths the hidden sorrow, disenfranchised grief, and ambiguous losses imposed by racism. Each chapter brings overlooked and unspoken considerations into view; helping counselors develop culturally-sensitive case conceptualizations and interventions. The book invites counselors to reverse the deficit narratives associated with Black families, Black resistance, and the Black Church and see these as overlooked strengths.
The Social Media Diet
Authors: Wasserman Jim , Wasserman Jiab , Wasserman Komsamorn
Published: December 2024

In this book, we describe the online world that youth begin to encounter, often without adult oversight. It is a critical time where they are first getting to know both the outside world and form their own identity. We explain the social forces and sways that influence kids’ attitudes and choices, from peers in social apps to influencers. We show how the online world suggests answers that may or may not be right for individuals. Each chapter we supplies lessons that teachers, parents, counselors, and others can use to make youth aware of these online sways.
Teaching World History Through Wayfinding, Art, and Mindfulness
Authors: Godwin Amber J.
Published: December 2024

Teaching World History Through Wayfinding, Art, and Mindfulness approaches world history instruction through standards-based arts- and story-telling prompts. Each chapter provides contextualization through stories along with unique pieces of art from around the globe along with inquiries for teachers to examine by themselves and/or with their students through a mindfulness lens. By providing frameworks that support social studies instruction as well as social and emotional skill development. This book uses a wayfinding methodology to explore world history stories through art and provides pathways for instruction through reciprocal dialogues, and art- and mindfulness-based experiences.
Against the Wind
Authors: Ball Donya
Published: December 2024

The transition to mid- and top-level educational leadership is often full of unexpected turbulence, confusing conversations, and mind-boggling navigational dilemmas that can send even the best leader into a tailspin. In her book, Against the Wind: Leadership at 36,000 Feet, Dr. Donya Ball helps administrators learn to face these challenges with courage and resilience. Several experienced top-level leaders join Dr. Ball in sharing their experiences, lessons, and advice. With hope, wisdom, and humor, they provide strategies for preventing problems, developing charisma, and facing adversity with confidence.
Essentials for New Principals
Authors: Sorenson Richard D.
Published: December 2024

Essentials for New Principals: Seven Steps to Becoming Successful – Key Expectations and Skills presents seven new principal steps revealing how first-year principals can develop into a successful school leaders. Moreover, essential leadership skills and key expectations are advanced to aid new principals.

Each of the seven steps are identified, clarified, exemplified, and amplified in what serves as a most informative, instructive, and compelling text.
The Unfinished Teacher
Authors: Lubelfeld Michael , Polyak Nick , Caposey PJ
Published: December 2024

The Unfinished Teacher: Becoming the Next Version of Yourself helps educators to take an introspective look at their growth and development. This topic is timely due partly to the national teacher shortage and the rampant levels of burnout being reported nationally, including by the National Educators Association.

The intent of this book is to help teachers reclaim their “why” and to provide prospective teachers with a view into their professional future. As we continue to reimagine the value of a teacher, we must provide a guide for those in the profession to help them to remain unfinished.

Written as a self-help and teacher-focused leadership book, this book does not follow the typical form of an instructional or pedagogical guidebook. This is not a lesson planning book, though the book addresses the need for individual personal, professional, and interpersonal development. Our focus is on helping you create the next version of yourself.
Taking Comedy Seriously
Authors: Donian Jennalee
Published: December 2024

This book explores stand-up comedy as a relevant sociological phenomenon from a contemporary perspective, as both a symptom of neoliberal capitalism and the locus specificus of socio-political critique in the era of Empire. It draws a feasible connection between the conspicuous rise in the art form’s popularity over the past number of years and the dehumanizing and fracturing processes of the current dispensation that are increasingly becoming the defining experience of life in the contemporary era, and to which, understood in terms of the traditional humor theory of relief (of which Sigmund Freud is key), comedy serves as an obvious palliative. More than this, Taking Comedy Seriously: Stand-Up’s Dissident Potential in Mass Culture, in the Context of the Neoliberal Domain of 'Empire' questions the possibility of a contemporary aesthetics of humor, given that much of the art form is disseminated and controlled by the mass media, and as such complicit in its work. In particular, it argues that the ideological situation of global capitalism poses an obvious predicament for the possibility of a socio-politically efficacious stand-up comedy in that ironic and skeptical distance is already characteristic of postmodern cynicism, incorporated into the social fabric itself, effectively rendering the comedic technique of satire (synonymous with so-called ‘political comedy’) altogether appropriated, or at least compromised, and subsequently impotent. From where then does a site of resistance emerge? Through an analysis of a range of contemporary televisual, digital and literary examples from the comedic routines of American comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, South African satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys, and South African born (and now American comedic talk-show sensation) Trevor Noah, this book argues that a contemporary ‘political comedy’ is reliant on a structuring aesthetic logic built around dissent, disruption and difference.
Possibility's Parents
Authors: Hrezo Margaret Seyford , Pappas Nicholas
Published: December 2024

This book links the questions people ask about why things exist, why the world is the way it is, and whether and how it is possible to change their society or world with the societal myths they develop and teach to answer those questions and organize and bring order to their communal lives. It also is about the need for change in western societies’ current organizing concept, classical (Lockean) liberalism. Despite the attempts of numerous insightful political thinkers, the myth of classical liberalism has developed so many cracks that it cannot be put back together again. If not entirely failed, it is at this point unsalvageable in its present form. Never the thought of just one person, the liberal model of individual religious, political, and economic freedom developed over hundreds of years starting with Martin Luther’s dictum that every man should be his own priest. Although, classical liberalism means different things to different people, at its most basic level, this model sees human beings as individuals who exist prior to government and have rights over government and the social good. That is, the individual right always trumps the moral and social good and individuals have few obligations to one another unless they actively choose to undertake them. Possibility’s Parents argues that Lockean liberalism has reached the end of its logic in ways that make it unable to handle the western world’s most pressing problems and that novelists whose writing includes the form and texture of myth have important insights to offer on the way forward.
Freedom in the World 2017
Authors:   Freedom House
Published: December 2024

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide.

The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.
Historical Dictionary of Latvia
Authors: Purs Aldis , Plakans Andrejs
Published: December 2024

Latvia is located on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. After a brief period of independence between the two World Wars, Latvia was annexed by the USSR in 1940. It reestablished its independence in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Although the last Russian troops left in 1994. Latvia continues to revamp its economy for eventual integration into various Western European political and economic institutions. Since May 2004 Latvia is a member of the European Union.

This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Latvia contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Latvia.
Historical Dictionary of the Shakers
Authors: Paterwic Stephen J.
Published: December 2024

“Shakerism teaches God’s immanence through the common life shared in Christ’s mystical body.” Like many religious seekers throughout the ages, they honor the revelation of God but cannot be bound up in an unchanging set of dogmas or creeds. Freeing themselves from domination by the state religion, Mother Ann Lee and her first followers in mid-18th-century England labored to encounter the godhead directly. They were blessed by spiritual gifts that showed them a way to live the heavenly life on Earth. The result of their efforts was the fashioning of a celibate communal life called the Christlife, wherein a person, after confessing all sin, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, can travel the path of regeneration into ever- increasing holiness. Pacifism, equality of the sexes, and withdrawal from the world are some of the ways the faith was put into practice.

This second edition of Historical Dictionary of the Shakers contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on Shaker communities, industries, individual families, and important people. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Shakers.
Historical Dictionary of Yemen
Authors: Schmitz Charles , Burrowes Robert D.
Published: December 2024

Yemen has experienced wrenching changes that have transformed the country in yet unknown ways. The country exploded in a popular revolution against the long-time rule of Ali Abdallah Saleh. While the country appeared to slip toward civil war, Yemeni political elite rallied with international backers to put together a transitional government with a plan to revise the country’s constitution. The transitional government began with a cautious sense of optimism and the prospect of substantial change for the better, but ended in collapse because of a failure to govern. The politics of the street overran an ineffective transitional government that could not address the urgent concerns of Yemeni citizens for security and jobs. Instead, populist leaders exploited people’s dissatisfactions and threw the country into civil war. The Houthi organization covertly allied with its former enemy, Ali Abdallah Saleh, to overthrow the transitional government and declare war on the rest of the country. Saleh seems unable to conceive of life outside of the Presidential Palace and his Houthi allies appear to believe they are destined to rule. Unfortunately, those opposed to Saleh and the Houthi also seem unable to provide effective rule in spite of massive backing from the Gulf States. The incompetence, infighting, and incoherence of the Hadi government bode equally ill for the future of the country. The one hope may be that a new generation of Yemeni leaders emerges to displace the dismal failures of this one.

This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Yemen contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Yemen.
Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema
Authors: Hutchings Peter
Published: December 2024

Horror is one of the most enduring and controversial of all cinematic genres. Horror films range from subtle and poetic to graphic and gory, but what links them together is their ability to frighten, disturb, shock, provoke, delight, irritate, and amuse audiences. Horror’s capacity to take the form of our evolving fears and anxieties has ensured not only its notoriety but also its long-term survival and international popularity. This second edition has been comprehensively updated to capture all that is important and exciting about the horror genre as it exists today. Its new entries feature the creative personalities who have developed innovative forms of horror, and recent major films and cycles of films that ensure horror’s continuing popularity and significance. In addition, many of the other entries have been expanded to include reference to the contemporary scene, giving a clear picture of how horror cinema is constantly renewing and transforming itself.

The Historical Dictionary of Horror Cinema traces the development of the genre from its beginnings to the present. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries. The entries cover all major movie villains, including Frankenstein and his monsters, the vampire, the werewolf, the mummy, the zombie, the ghost and the serial killer; film directors, producers, writers, actors, cinematographers, make-up artists, special-effects technicians, and composers who have helped shape horror history; significant production companies; major films that are milestones in the development of the horror genre; and different national traditions in horror cinema – as well as popular themes, formats, conventions, and cycles.
Historical Dictionary of World War II
Authors: Wells Anne Sharp
Published: December 2024

World War II was the largest and most costly conflict in history, the first true global war. Fought on land, on sea, and in the air, it involved numerous countries and killed, maimed, or displaced millions of people, both civilian and military, around the world. In spite of the alliances that bound many of the same participants, the war was essentially two separate but simultaneous conflicts: one involved Japan as the major antagonist and took place mostly in Asia and the Pacific; and the other, initiated by Germany and Italy, was contested mainly in Europe, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. This book focuses on the lesser known war, the war with Japan. It begins with Japan’s seizure of Manchuria from China in 1931 and covers Japan’s ambitious attacks on Pearl Harbor and other territories ten years later, the use of atomic bombs on Japan’s cities, and the end of the Allied occupation of Japan in 1952. Although Japan renounced war in its 1947 constitution, conflict continued across Asia, as former colonies fought for independence and civil war engulfed other areas.

Historical Dictionary of World War II: The War Against Japan, Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on the military, diplomatic, political, social, economic, and scientific aspects of the war, in addition to the lives of the people who participated in and directed the war. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the war against Japan during World War II.
Teen Fandom and Geek Programming
Authors: Rogers-Whitehead Carrie
Published: December 2024

Fandom and geek programming has exploded in libraries in recent years. From anime-themed library lock-in events, cosplay contests, and video game tournaments, to an annual Harry Potter Yule Ball, libraries have embraced their inner geek and are hosting a wide variety of fandom programs. For those librarians who have no idea about the importance of Doctor Who, or the Star Trek vs.Star Wars debate, planning for such programming can seem daunting.

Teen Fandom and Geek Programming: A Practical Guide for Librarians covers major fandom and program themes, as well as real-world event, club, and program ideas to help librarians provide this type of programming to their communities. Specifically, detailed coverage is provided for:

Major fandoms, including superheroes, anime, Harry Potter, Dr. Who, Sherlock, and video game fandoms including MMOGs, Nintendo, and RPGs

Fandom clubs

Fanfiction programming

Cosplay programming

STEM programming through fandoms (graphic design and art; video editing and design; 3D printing)

Large-scale geek events

Promoting inclusivity through geek programming

Use the tips and how-to knowledge in this practical guide to get more teens into your library!
Historical Dictionary of Angola
Authors: James W. Martin
Published: December 2024

Angola, slowly recovering from a twenty-seven year civil war, is becoming a regional super-power in southern Africa. This rise can be attributed to oil, diamonds, a battle-tested armed forces and a political system that is dominated by one party – the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola – MPLA). Problems remain to be solved. The vast wealth is in the control of the elite while the vast majority of the people live on less than two dollars per day. Corruption is rife, the health and education system in shambles, landmines remain a festering problem and the opposition is intimidated and split into various factions. President Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled Angola for almost thirty-eight years, has opted not to run for re-election in the August 2017 elections. Instead his hand-picked successor João Lourenço was elected president. Interestingly, dos Santos has not surrendered his presidency of the party.

This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Angola contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Angola.
Nigeria and the Nation-State
Authors: Campbell John
Published: December 2024

Nigeria matters. It is Africa’s largest economy, and it is projected to become the third most populous country in the world by 2050, but its democratic aspirations are challenged by rising insecurity. John Campbell traces the fractured colonial history and contemporary ethnic conflicts and political corruption that define Nigeria today. It was not—and never had been—a nation-state like those of Europe. It is still not quite a nation because Nigerians are not yet united by language, religion, culture, or a common national story. It is not quite a state because the government is weak and getting weaker, beset by Islamist terrorism, insurrection, intercommunal violence, and a countrywide crime wave.

This deeply knowledgeable book is an antidote to those who would make the mistakes of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq—mistakes based on misunderstanding—in Nigeria. Up to now, such mistakes have largely been avoided, but Nigeria will soon—and Campbell argues already does—require much greater attention by the West.
Transforming Your Life through Self-Care
Authors: Brent Carolyn A.
Published: December 2024

More than ever before, people are living longer with the expectation of enjoying healthier and more vibrant lives. This motivational self-help book outlines the necessary self-care actions to become your own wellness advocate and achieve success in your new lifestyle and wellness journey. Carolyn A. Brent brings fresh perspectives and cutting edge research to areas such as undertaking blood type diets, revving up your immune system, dealing with stress, starting exercise programs based on body types, and more.

Brent’s step-by-step guide will have you excited with your life-changing results when you are tapping into your deep beauty and inner worth. It offers a blueprint for how to live your best life at any age, with vitality, wisdom, and grace. With clear and flexible examples, Transforming Your Life Through Self-Care will guide you to take ownership of your self-care and tap into those resources you may not know you have.
Baby Ever After
Authors: Starr Rebecca Fox
Published: December 2024

After perinatal or postpartum depression, the decision to have another baby can be fraught with emotion. Rebecca Fox Starr movingly shares her story and those of others who have decided to carry, adopt, or not have another child and helps readers explore their own feelings about their own baby ever after.

In her last book Beyond the Baby Blues: Anxiety and Depression During and After Pregnancy Rebecca Fox Starr gave a candid account of her battle with prenatal and postpartum anxiety and depression. Rebecca’s story has touched readers deeply and, as her own journey has continued, so has her story, having veered in an unexpected direction: the decision about a future baby.

What many people do not realize is that the idea of another pregnancy post-postpartum can be cripplingly frightening to a woman and her loved ones. Rebecca addresses this woefully in her first book, opening up about her sadness that her “shop is closed.” Having a baby was an option taken off the table, for a reason completely out of her control.

Until it wasn’t.

In 2017 Rebecca and her husband began exploring the idea of expanding their family, and, therefore consulted experts in the fields of obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, perinatal mental health, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, and grief (in coping with the idea that, despite all of the options, the most sound of all could be to not have another child). Books on the topic of pregnancy after postpartum depression are scarce, making it difficult to find support or advice.

This book, anchored in Rebecca’s story, offers an informative guide to the expert advice and insight, alongside current research, for women who want to explore pregnancy and other family expansion options after postpartum depression. With heartfelt stories, clinical data, and a consideration of the range of options and the emotions that along with them, Rebecca’s book fills a gaping hole in an area that leaves too many women feeling abjectly alone.
Historical Dictionary of Medieval Christian Nubia
Authors: Lobban Jr. Richard A.
Published: December 2024

Medieval Christian Nubia is often a neglected period of medieval African history. Because meaning is determined largely by context this work traces the Greco-Roman, Meroitic and Jewish precursors. The regional, historical and theological schisms within Christianity are also a highlight. The dynamics of the three Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Mukurra, and Alwa are the centerpiece of this book that covers mural arts, architecture, and the names of the leading kings and bishops. Another strength of the book is the analysis of the 700-year baqt peace treaty between Christian Nubia and Islamic Egypt; this is considered to be the longest lasting treaty in diplomatic history. The complex transition from Christianity to Islam in the 14th century is analyzed in great personal, political, and military detail.

Historical Dictionary of Medieval Christian Nubia contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture of the medieval Nubians. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Medieval Christian Nubia.
Brushed Aside
Authors: Charney Noah
Published: December 2024

Discover anew the herstory of art that Publishers Weekly calls "illuminating" and Foreword Reviews calls "spirited" for an enlightening art history read.

How many female artists can you name? Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marina Abramovic? How about female artists who lived prior to the Modern era? Maybe Artemisia Gentileschi and then… even a regular museum-goer might run out of steam. What about female curators, critics, patrons, collectors, muses, models and art influencers?

This book provides a 360 degree look at the role, influence, and empowerment of women through art—including women artists, but going beyond those who have taken up a brush or a chisel. In 1971, Linda Nochlin published a famous essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” This book responds to it by showing that not only have there been scores of great women artists throughout history, but that great women have shaped the story of art. The result is a book that sheds light on the art world in a very new way, finally celebrating the great women artists and influencers who deserve to be much better known. The entire history of art can be told as a herstory of art.
Adoption Unfiltered
Authors: Easterly Sara , Vander Vliet Ranyard Kelsey , Holden Lori
Published: December 2024

Reveals the candid thoughts and feelings of those most directly involved in adoptions: adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents.

Adoption Unfiltered authors Sara Easterly (adoptee), Kelsey Vander Vliet Ranyard (birth parent), and Lori Holden (adoptive parent) interview dozens of adoptees, birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, therapists, and other allies—all sharing candidly about the challenges in adoption. While finding common ground in the sometimes-contentious space of adoption may seem like a lofty goal, it reveals the authors’ optimistic aim: working together with truth and transparency to move toward healing.

Healing isn’t possible, though, without first uncovering the hurts—starting with adoption’s central players: adoptees, who are so often in pain, suffering from what the latest brain science validates as the long-term emotional effects of separation trauma. By encouraging others to vulnerably share their stories, the authors discover that adoptees aren’t the only ones in the adoption constellation who are hurting. Birth parents regularly shut down after being shut out by adoptive parents. Adoptive parents often struggle with unique parenting challenges and hidden insecurity, feeling the need to hide the fact that they are not the Super Parents they led the agency to believe they would be. Across the industry as a whole, misinformed and even unethical practices abound.

Adoption Unfiltered models the importance of adults in adoption working together in the spirit of curiosity and empathy—to better support adoptees and their first and adoptive families.
The NFT Book
Authors: Charney Noah , Schachter Kenny
Published: December 2024

NFTs, non-fungible tokens, as collectible, digital, blockchain-secured files became an international sensation in 2020, with the trend in trading them peaking in the fall of 2021. Many sold for millions, and one even sold for $69 million. And yet what exactly are they, and why do they have value? This is the definitive book on NFTs in the story of art and collecting.

It is co-authored by an art historian who has written often on the value of art and the history of collecting. NFTs caught Noah Charney’s attention and fascinated him. He, too, felt that initial knee-jerk reaction that so many who hear of a $69 million sale do: how is this digital image different from me clicking “right-click save” on my touchpad and downloading it to my computer? Why would anyone pay $69 million for something that’s not f*cking there?

This book provides answers to these questions and far more. Charney sees in NFTs a direct parallel to the history, sociology and psychology of art collecting. He was recently a “normee” but he’s now halfway inside the club—he is also an acknowledged authority on the history of art and collecting. He knows all there is to know about humans collecting things of no practical value but that we just really want. But then he worked for a period with two crypto-related companies, and got to know this world from within.

He’s not alone on this ride. The second half of this book is written by someone who knows just about all there is to know about NFTs: Kenny Schachter. Kenny is an artist, collector, curator, professor, columnist and NFT influencer. In fact, he was listed in the fall of 2021 as among the 30 most influential people in the world of NFTs. He even coined (and trademarked) a term, NFTism. While Charney is an art historian considering the NFT phenomenon from the thoughtful but remote perch of his couch, examining NFTs historical and within the context of collecting and the value of art, Kenny has been “in the field” more than anyone, even during the pandemic, zipping from London to Zurich to Art Basel Switzerland to Art Basel Miami. He has his finger on the virtual, digital pulse of this fascinating, bizarre, hugely lucrative phenomenon.

Welcome to the definitive book on NFTs.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategies
Authors: Biswas Masudul , Bland Dorothy
Published: December 2024

Exploring DEI initiatives and practices at U.S. college and university journalism and mass communication (JMC) programs this book puts forward ideas and strategies for ensuring diversity, equity, and inclusion in a great variety of academic units. Building on multicultural education research, this book advances a diversity education framework that entails that works with a program’s culture, students, faculty & staff, curriculum, and teaching in the context of JMC programs.

The book reflects on the increase in DEI programming following the racial injustice protests of 2020 as well as the politically motivated restrictions some US states are implementing against DEI initiatives. With the wisdom of experienced professors and program directors as well as industry professionals, the book explores the ultimate efficacy of diversity education and offers practical recommendations for developing and implementing a DEI plan.

While the insights in this book are gathered from JMC programs, they offer pertinent recommendations and calls to action for related academic programs in liberal arts and professional studies.
Davide Rondoni
Authors: Pell Gregory M.
Published: December 2024

In this monograph, Gregory M. Pell provides a full-length study on the poetry of Davide Rondoni, one of Italy’s most active contemporary writers and thinkers. This book includes comparative studies of Jorie Graham, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Charles Wright, John Ashbery, Patrizia Fazzi, and Mario Luzi. As the first book in English on Davide Rondoni’s poetry, this study explores how the Italian poet deals with art, and the places of art, in a way that transcends the notion of ekphrasis (or, verbal representation of pictorial art) to see poetry as the transcription of an experience with art, thus becoming a sort of anti-ekphrasis, or an atmospheric ekphrasis. The social and religious aspects of art take precedence over aesthetic concerns, without discounting them, in Rondoni’s unsentimental poetry, which takes the form of recitative theatrical monologues. Thus, art becomes more than simple visual representation or the subject of an art history catalogue. Instead, in certain poets, such as Rondoni, we experience life through art’s complete process: from the artist’s originary idea to the work’s execution to our interaction with it in the here and now.
John Banville
Authors: Murphy Neil
Published: December 2024

John Banville offers a close analysis of most of Banville’s major novels, as well as the ‘Quirke’ crime novels he has written under the pseudonym, Benjamin Black and his dramatic adaptations of Heinrich von Kleist’s plays. From the beginning, Banville’s work has been marked both by the presence of a complex, embedded discourse about the significance of art and by a concurrent self-conscious obsession with its own status as art. His novels perpetually reveal an overt fascination with the visual arts, in particular, and with the aesthetic principle of literature as art. This study argues that, as a whole, Banville’s work presents an elaborate and richly-textured coded account of his relationship with art and with the self-referential fictional world that his novels have conjured. It is from this critical context that John Banville’s central argument is derived. This book asserts that Banville’s fiction can be viewed both as an extended interrogation into the meaning and status of art as well as itself being a representative of the type of art that is admired in the pages of the novels. As such, it also represents an extremely sophisticated enactment of the novel form that goes beyond the “self-reflexivity” of late twentieth-century fiction to chart new developments in the literary arts. The book’s critical process involves several specific reference points. Firstly, Banville’s own theoretical statements about art in interviews, essays, reviews and journalistic writing over the past 40 years are synthesized into a coherent interpretation of the author’s artistic vision which is thereafter used as a conceptual touchstone when considering his major works of fiction. This is done in conjunction with investigating specific theoretical perspectives about the relationship between literature and art by critics such as Denis Donoghue and Susan Sontag, and by philosophers of art, Graham Gordon, Etienne Gilson, Peter Lamarque, and Susanne Langer.
Women’s Artistic Dissent
Authors: Flanagan Brenda  A. , Waisserová Hana
Published: December 2024

To survive Totalitarianism and retain their humanity, Czech women writers went underground to write, paint, sculpt, and create supportive communities. This book explores fiction, poetry, and life-sustaining activities of Eva Švankmajerová, “Mother of Czech Surrealism,” and Eda Kriseová, journalist, fiction writer, essayist, and activist who served in President Václav Havel’s first Cabinet, among other Czech women who wrote and engaged in dissent during the years when Czechoslovakia ached under Soviet rule.

Women’s Artistic Dissent: Repelling Totalitarianism in pre-1989 Czechoslovakia highlights and unearths the work of women that is often undervalued and unacknowledged. Flanagan and Waisserová carefully detail the variety of ways in which women resisted through literature and ecological activities, shedding new light on the ways in which individuals and communities can retain their humanity even as they resist and repel dictatorial regimes in their countries.
The Architecture of Survival
Authors: Trump Erik , Parcell Jake
Published: December 2024

The Architecture of Survival: Setting and Politics in Apocalypse Films offers a compelling exploration of how popular films and TV series from the past two decades use architectural spaces to comment on socio-political issues. The authors harness varied theoretical perspectives to demonstrate how, through set design, these works suggest that certain kinds of architecture support human development, community, and freedom, while other kinds separate us from our fellow humans and make democratic politics impossible. The clean lines of modernist design serve in films such as Contagion and Ex Machina as a metaphor for the sanitized, sterile politics that drive disaster. In The Walking Dead apocalypse survivors favor traditional architectural styles when rebuilding society, a choice that symbolically affirms their democratic principles. The massive walls and super-gentrification as seen in Elysium and Army of the Dead divide humanity, with those on one side wielding illegitimate power. Empty streetscapes intensify loneliness, alienation, and the destruction of civil norms. "Smart cities," offering a blend of high-tech surveillance and big data, erode social capital and community in Her and Transcendence. The book concludes with a somewhat hopeful glimpse into architecture’s potential to mitigate the catastrophic adverse effects of climate change, as seen in films like Zootopia.
Sing Romantic Music Romantically
Authors: Friddle David
Published: December 2024

There is a paucity of material regarding how choral music specifically was performed in the 1800s. The Historically Informed Performance (HIP) movement has made remarkable advancements in choral music of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical periods, with modest forays into the music of Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and other early nineteenth-century composers; however, there are no sources with a comprehensive examination of how choral music was performed. Using more than one-hundred musical examples, illustrations, tables, and photographs and relying on influential, contemporaneous sources, David Friddle details the performance practices of the time, including expressive devices such as articulation, ornamentation, phrasing, tempo, and vibrato, along with an in-depth discussion of period pronunciation, instruments, and orchestral/choral placement. Sing Romantic Music Romantically: Nineteenth-Century Choral Performance Practices fills a gap in choral scholarship and moves forward our knowledge of how choral music sounded and was performed in the nineteenth century. The depth of research and abundance of source material makes this work a must-have for choral professionals everywhere.
Eric Voegelin on China and Universal Humanity
Authors: Liu Muen
Published: December 2024

Eric Voegelin on China and Universal Humanity: A Study of Voegelin’s Hermeneutic Empirical Paradigm aims to speak to comparative political theorists, philosophers, historians, sinologists, and anyone interested in understanding our current disorders and exploring a culturally non-specific paradigm for understanding equivalent practices and patterns in the global age, especially China and the West.

Specifically, this book looks at Eric Voegelin’s (1901–1985) Theory of Order. It focuses on Voegelin’s interpretation of order/disorder, his penetration of the Tianxia (the Chinese Ecumene), and his comparison of two representative heterogenous Ecumenes in the ancient West and East. In doing so, the book explores the issue of universal humankind and the nature of order-searching.
The Urban Planetary and Tokyo Modernity
Authors: Thouny Christophe
Published: December 2024

The Urban Planetary and Tokyo Modernity: Dwelling in Passing analyzes everyday experiences in Tokyo during the 1910s and 1920s, showing how urban literature and urban ethnography both tried to come to terms with an emerging planetary situation defined by both ongoing movement and an intensification of local experiences. This book argues that modern urban experiences are not primarily a question of alienation, consumerism, or national life but first one of dwelling, and in particular “a dwelling in passing”. Looking at the work of the Japanese urban ethnographer Kon Wajirō in relation to early 20th century literary mappings of Tokyo in Japanese literature such as Mori Ōgai’s 1912 novel Youth to Tayama Katai’s 1916 The Tokyo Near-Suburb, Christophe Thouny argues for the need to reconsider these texts in terms of a speculative genealogy of local answers to an insistent planetary situation.
Portrayals of Masculinity in Nigerian Plays
Authors: Onuoha Beatrice Nwawuloke
Published: December 2024

Portrayals of Masculinity in Nigerian Plays explores Nigerian people's notions of masculinity as portrayed in twelve Nigerian plays, written by three generations of Nigerian playwrights. She argues that hegemonic masculinity and other forms, which are referred to as “alternative masculinities,” exist in traditional Nigerian society. By analyzing plays written by first, second, and third-generation Nigerian playwrights, Onuoha tracks how notions about masculinity have evolved over the years. Further, she discusses the malleability of masculinity by exploring how women manifest qualities associated with masculinity within Nigerian plays. Through a review of critical studies on gender constructions, Onuoha examines not only the negative experiences of women within an African patriarchal system, but also the negative experiences of the men who are also direct or indirect victims of such a system.
Unrealized Digital Democracy
Authors: Pierman Garrett
Published: December 2024

Garrett Pierman argues that the Internet, as it is structured today, is inhospitable to democracy. What began as a government-funded defense project became, with the commercialization of the Internet in the early 1990s, a network that makes it simultaneously easier for falsehoods to spread and more difficult for people to lose touch with reality. Many millions of Internet users have not encountered the online world as many scholars had hoped, as a place for careful democratic deliberation. The Internet is now a platform in which their fears and anxieties are exploited by corporations that have carved up digital fiefdoms. In these digital fiefdoms, fake news and lies are shared and consumed at speeds that far exceed our ability to sort fact from fiction, leading to instances of political violence once people’s lie-based fears overcome their better judgement. It should be of no surprise that the current Internet enables and encourages political violence: scared and overwhelmed users are the ideal denizens of digital fiefdoms.