Communication plays a critical role in enhancing social, cultural, and business relations. Research on media, language, and cultural studies is fundamental in a globalized world because it illuminates the experiences of various populations. There is a need to develop effective communication strategies that will be able to address both health and cultural issues globally. Dialectical Perspectives on Media, Health, and Culture in Modern Africa is a collection of innovative research on the impact of media and especially new media on health and culture. While highlighting topics including civic engagement, gender stereotypes, and interpersonal communication, this book is ideally designed for university students, multinational organizations, diplomats, expatriates, and academicians seeking current research on how media, health, and culture can be appropriated to overcome the challenges that plague the world today.

Chinese Family Culture: Change, Continuity, and Counseling Implications enhances social sciences and counseling students' cultural understanding, sensitivity, and communication skills so they can provide competent and appropriate care for Chinese families around the world. The text focuses on cultural and historical characteristics of Chinese families and features illustrative stories and examples to facilitate greater cultural understanding. Readers examine Chinese families from indigenous perspectives of lived experiences of Chinese individuals and their families. Chinese meanings of family life, such as marriage, sexuality, love, gender, reproduction, intergenerational relations, disability, and death, are covered. Dedicated chapters explore cultural links between family collectivism, ancestor worship, and families' intimate relationship with the land; marriage's social role in expanding social networks and ensuring family continuity; the impact of China's one-child policy on reproductive behavior; the rule of rituals in handling family and clan disputes and conflict; illness and death in Chinese families; and more. Each chapter includes counseling implications to connect student learning with practice. Chinese Family Culture is a timely and essential textbook for programs and courses in the social sciences and counseling.

On December 4, 1957, Miles Davis revolutionized film soundtrack production, improvising the score for Louis Malle's Ascenseur pour l'echafaud. A cinematic harbinger of the French New Wave, Ascenseur challenged mainstream filmmaking conventions, emphasizing experimentation and creative collaboration. It was in this environment during the late 1950s to 1960s, a brief "golden age" for jazz in film, that many independent filmmakers valued improvisational techniques, featuring soundtracks from such seminal figures as John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington. But what of jazz in film today? Improvising the Score: Rethinking Modern Film Music through Jazz provides an original, vivid investigation of innovative collaborations between renowned contemporary jazz artists and prominent independent filmmakers. The book explores how these integrative jazz-film productions challenge us to rethink the possibilities of cinematic music production. In-depth case studies include collaborations between Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee (Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke), Dick Hyman and Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters), Antonio Sanchez and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Birdman), and Mark Isham and Alan Rudolph (Afterglow). The first book of its kind, this study examines jazz artists' work in film from a sociological perspective, offering rich, behind-the-scenes analyses of their unique collaborative relationships with filmmakers. It investigates how jazz artists negotiate their own "creative labor," examining the tensions between improvisation and the conventionally highly regulated structures, hierarchies, and expectations of filmmaking. Grounded in personal interviews and detailed film production analysis, Improvising the Score illustrates the dynamic possibilities of integrative artistic collaborations between jazz, film, and other contemporary media, exemplifying its ripeness for shaping and invigorating twenty-first-century arts, media, and culture.

What is the ocean's role in human and planetary history? How have writers, sailors, painters, scientists, historians, and philosophers from across time and space poetically envisioned the oceans and depicted human entanglements with the sea? In order to answer these questions, Soren Frank covers an impressive range of material in A Poetic History of the Oceans: Greek, Roman and Biblical texts, an Icelandic Saga, Shakespearean drama, Jens Munk's logbook, 19th century-writers such as James Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville, Jules Michelet, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, Jonas Lie, and Joseph Conrad as well as their 20th and 21st century-heirs like J. G. Ballard, Jens Bjorneboe, and Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen. A Poetic History of the Oceans promotes what Frank labels an amphibian comparative literature and mobilises recent theoretical concepts and methodological developments in Blue Humanities, Blue Ecology, and New Materialism to shed new light on well-known texts and introduce readers to important, but lesser-known Scandinavian literary engagements with the sea.

Intersectionality and Context across the Lifespan: Readings for Human Development helps students increase their understanding of the diverse factors that affect development at various life stages. Readers learn how culture, gender, ability, religion, sexual identity, nationality and immigration status, socioeconomic status, and other factors work together to continually influence our individual identities and worldviews throughout our lives. The anthology progresses in step with the lifespan, presenting global and contextual perspectives from conception to end of life. Each chapter presents critical readings about a variety of individual and family development issues that affect the lifespan. Throughout, readers are encouraged and challenged to appreciate the diversity across and within cultures. The text examines the ways in which systems of privilege, power, and oppression shape developmental trajectories while also introducing students to critical social theories. Intersectionality and Context across the Lifespan is part of the Cognella Series on Families and Social Justice, a collection of textbooks that support core curriculum within family-related disciplines with emphasis on issues related to social justice, diversity, and equity.

This open access book brings together an international team of experts, The Middle Ages in Modern Culture considers the use of medieval models across a variety of contemporary media - ranging from television and film to architecture - and the significance of deploying an authentic medieval world to these representations. Rooted in this question of authenticity, this interdisciplinary study addresses three connected themes. Firstly, how does historical accuracy relate to authenticity, and whose version of authenticity is accepted? Secondly, how are the middle ages presented in modern media and why do inaccuracies emerge and persist in these works? Thirdly, how do creators of modern content attempt to produce authentic medieval environments, and what are the benefits and pitfalls of accurate portrayals? The result is nuanced study of medieval culture which sheds new light on the use (and misuse) of medieval history in modern media. This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched.

This book studies the Dutch mathematician Simon Stevin (1548-1620) as a new type of 'man of knowledge'. Traditionally, Stevin is best known for his contributions to the 'Archimedean turn'. This innovative volume moves beyond this conventional image by bringing many other aspects of his work into view, by analysing the connections between the multiple strands of his thinking and by situating him in a broader European context. Like other multi-talents ('polymaths') in his time (several of whom are discussed in this volume), Stevin made an important contribution to the transformation of the ideal of knowledge in early modern Europe. This book thus provides new insights into the phenomenon of 'polymaths' in general and in the case of Stevin in particular.

Green tea, imported from China, occupies an important place in the daily lives of Malians. They spend so much time preparing and consuming the sugared beverage that it became the country's national drink. To find out how Malians came to practice the tea ritual, this study follows the beverage from China to Mali on its historical trade routes halfway around the globe. It examines the circumstances of its introduction, the course of the tea ritual, the equipment to prepare and consume it, and the meanings that it assumed in the various places on its travel across geographical regions, political economies, cultural contexts, and religious affiliations.

This book provides a novel approach to the understanding and realization of the values of art. It argues that art has often been instrumentalized for state-building, to promote social inclusion of diversity, or for economic purposes such as growth or innovation. To counteract that, the authors study the values that artists and audiences seek to realize in the social practices around the arts. They develop the concept of cultural civil society to analyze how art is practiced and values are realized in creative circles and co-creative communities of spectators, illustrated with case-studies about hip-hop, Venetian art collectives, dance festivals, science-fiction fandom, and a queer museum. The authors provide a four-stage scheme that illustrates how values are realized in a process of value orientation, imagination, realization, and evaluation. The book relies on an interdisciplinary approach rooted in economics and sociology of the arts, with an appreciation for broader social theories. It integrates these disciplines in a pragmatic approach based on the work of John Dewey and more recent neo-pragmatist work to recover the critical and constructive role that cultural civil society plays in a plural and democratic society. The authors conclude with a new perspective on cultural policy, centered around state neutrality towards the arts and aimed at creating a legal and social framework in which social practices around the arts can flourish and co-exist peacefully.

White Privilege: The Persistence of Racial Hierarchy in a Culture of Denial approaches the discussion of racism by focusing on majority group advantage, or white privilege. The book explores the construct of race and the definition of white privilege and then examines the ways in which white privilege manifests in economy, education, criminal justice, and especially within media and pop culture. The book balances scholarly research on racial discrimination and disparity with narratives that provide the reader with highly personal accounts of injustice. Dedicated chapters demonstrate how microaggressions emerge in unexpected places and situations, as well as how they contribute to the development and maintenance of institutional racism. Intersectionality sections throughout the book explore how class, gender, and sexual orientation shape how white privilege is experienced by individuals. Finally, the text offers a myriad of strategies and approaches to end injustice and cultivate anti-racist practices. The revised first edition features a new final chapter, which brings the text's content up to date and addresses healthcare and white privilege; #BlackLivesMatter, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and justice; implicit bias and systemic racism; white terrorism; COVID-19 and economic sexism; and anti-Asian violence. White Privilege is an ideal supplementary resource for courses on race, diversity, and social inequality.

This clear, readable introduction to philosophy presents a traditional theistic view of the existence of God. There are many fine introductions to philosophy, but few are written for students of faith by a teacher who is sensitive to the intellectual challenges they face studying in an environment that is often hostile to religious belief. Many introductory texts present short, easy-to-refute synopses of the traditional arguments for God's existence, the soul, free will, and objective moral value rooted in God's nature, usually followed by strong objections stated as if they are the last word. This formula may make philosophy easier to digest, but it gives many students the impression that there are no longer any good reasons to accept the beliefs just mentioned. Philosophy, Reasoned Belief, and Faith is written for philosophy instructors who want their students to take a deeper look at the classic theistic arguments and who believe that many traditional views can be rigorously defended against the strongest objections. The book is divided into four sections, focusing on philosophy of religion, an introduction to epistemology, philosophy of the human person, and philosophical ethics. The text challenges naturalism, the predominant outlook in the academic world today, while postmodernist relativism and skepticism are also examined and rejected. Students of faith-and students without faith-will deepen their worldviews by thoughtfully examining the philosophical arguments that are presented in this book. Philosophy, Reasoned Belief, and Faith will appeal to Christian teachers, analytic theists, home educators, and general readers interested in the classic arguments supporting a theistic worldview.

Up in Arms provides an illustrative and timely window onto the ways in which guns shape people's lives and social relations in Texas. With a long history of myth, lore, and imaginaries attached to gun carrying, the Lone Star State exemplifies how various groups of people at different historical moments make sense of gun culture in light of legislation, political agendas, and community building. Beyond gun rights, restrictions, or the actual functions of firearms, the book demonstrates how the gun question itself becomes loaded with symbolic firepower, making or breaking assumptions about identities, behavior, and belief systems. Contributors include: Benita Heiskanen, Albion M. Butters, Pekka M. Kolehmainen, Laura Hernandez-Ehrisman, Lotta Kahkoenen, Mila Seppala, and Juha A. Vuori.

Robert Kirkman (b. 1978) is probably best known as the creator of The Walking Dead. The comic book and its television adaptation have reinvented the zombie horror story, transforming it from cult curiosity and parody to mainstream popularity and critical acclaim. In some ways, this would be enough to justify this career-spanning collection of interviews. Yet Kirkman represents much more than this single comic book title. Kirkman's story is a fanboy's dream that begins with him financing his irreverent, independent comic book Battle Pope with credit cards. After writing major titles with Marvel comics (Spider-Man, Captain America, and X-Men), Kirkman rejected companies like DC and Marvel and publicly advocated for creator ownership as the future of the comics industry. As a partner at Image, Kirkman wrote not only The Walking Dead but also Invincible, a radical reinvention of the superhero genre. Robert Kirkman: Conversations gives insight to his journey and explores technique, creativity, collaboration, and the business of comics as a multimedia phenomenon. For instance, while continuing to write genre-based comics in titles like Outcast and Oblivion Song, Kirkman explains his writerly bias for complex characters over traditional plot development. As a fan-turned-creator, Kirkman reveals a creator's complex relationship with fans in a comic-con era that breaks down the consumer/producer dichotomy. And after rejecting company-ownership practices, Kirkman articulates a vision of the creator-ownership model and his goal of organic creativity at Skybound, his multimedia company. While Stan Lee was the most prominent comic book everyman of the previous era of comics production, Kirkman is the most prominent comic book everyman of this dynamic, evolving new era.

Animated by a singularly subversive spirit, the fiendishly intelligent works of Stuart Gordon (1947-2020) are distinguished by their arrant boldness and scab-picking wit. Provocative gems such as Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dolls, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Dagon consolidated his fearsome reputation as one of the masters of the contemporary horror film, bringing an unfamiliar archness, political complexity, and critical respect to a genre so often bereft of these virtues. A versatile filmmaker, one who resolutely refused to mellow with age, Gordon proved equally adept at crafting pointed science fiction (Robot Jox, Fortress, Space Truckers), sweet-tempered fantasy (The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit), and nihilistic thrillers (King of the Ants, Edmond, Stuck), customarily scrubbing the sharply drawn lines between exploitation and arthouse cinema. The first collection of interviews ever to be published on the director, Stuart Gordon: Interviews contains thirty-six articles spanning a period of fifty years. Bountiful in anecdote and information, these candid conversations chronicle the trajectory of a fascinating career-one that courted controversy from its very beginning. Among the topics Gordon discusses are his youth and early influences, his founding of Chicago's legendary Organic Theatre (where he collaborated with such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Mamet), and his transition into filmmaking where he created a body of work that injected fresh blood into several ailing staples of American cinema. He also reveals details of his working methods, his steadfast relationships with frequent collaborators, his great love for the works of Lovecraft and Poe, and how horror stories can masquerade as sociopolitical commentaries.