Bringing together contributors from both the university sector and business-centered research institutions, this comprehensive volume offers diverse perspectives on the impacts and consequences of globalization in different parts of the Asian region. Each chapter offers a substantial account of globalization within a particular nation-state or area in the region. Different understandings underpin the chapters. Some contributors perceive globalization as progress in the form of economically driven processes that have made nations mutually dependent in unprecedented and complex ways. Others emphasize the uneven outcomes of globalization, as well as the stakes for economic growth and social order in the global climate of deepening political and religious divisions since September 2001. General and specialist readers alike will gain an appreciation of the myriad emphases placed on globalization within different nations and from various vantage points. The book showcases diverse styles of discourse and serves to greatly broaden the scope of what can be discussed under the rubric of 'globalization' within a single volume.

Throughout history certain forms and styles of dress have been deemed appropriate - or more significantly, inappropriate - for people as they age. Older women in particular have long been subject to social pressure to tone down, to adopt self-effacing, covered-up styles. But increasingly there are signs of change, as older women aspire to younger, more mainstream, styles, and retailers realize the potential of the 'grey market'. Fashion and Age is the first study to systematically explore the links between clothing and age, drawing on fashion theory and cultural gerontology to examine the changing ways in which age is imagined, experienced and understood in modern culture through the medium of dress. Clothes lie between the body and its social expression, and the book explores the significance of embodiment in dress and in the cultural constitution of age. Drawing on the views of older women, journalists and fashion editors, and clothing designers and retailers, it aims to widen the agenda of fashion studies to encompass the everyday dress of the majority, shifting the debate about age away from its current preoccupation with dependency, towards a fuller account of the lived experience of age. Fashion and Age will be of great interest to students of fashion, material culture, sociology, sociology of age, history of dress and to clothing designers.

Between 1922 and 1996, over 10,000 girls and women were imprisoned in Magdalene Laundries, including those considered 'promiscuous', a burden to their families or the state, those who had been sexually abused or raised in the care of the Church and State, and unmarried mothers. These girls and women were subjected to forced labour as well as psychological and physical maltreatment. Using the Irish State's own report into the Magdalene institutions, as well as testimonies from survivors and independent witnesses, this book gives a detailed account of life behind the high walls of Ireland's Magdalene institutions. The book offers an overview of the social, cultural and political contexts of institutional survivor activism, the Irish State's response culminating in the McAleese Report, and the formation of the Justice for Magdalenes campaign, a volunteer-run survivor advocacy group. Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries documents the ongoing work carried out by the Justice for Magdalenes group in advancing public knowledge and research into Magdalene Laundries, and how the Irish State continues to evade its responsibilities not just to survivors of the Magdalenes but also in providing a truthful account of what happened. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, this book reveals the fundamental flaws in the state's investigation and how the treatment of the burials, exhumation and cremation of former Magdalene women remains a deeply troubling issue today, emblematic of the system of torture and studious official neglect in which the Magdalene women lived their lives. The Authors are donating all royalties in the name of the women who were held in the Magdalenes to EPIC (Empowering People in Care).

This volume explores how the interpretation of material from the ancient Near East is enriched through the application of diverse methodological and theoretical approaches to studying gender. The contributors to this collection include both established and up-and-coming scholars whose work brings gender studies theories-from Butler's theory of gender as a performance to more recent theories that consider gender as a spectrum-to bear on varied materials and contexts. Their essays increase the visibility of women in ancient history, untangle constructions of masculinity and femininity in diverse contexts, and grapple with big-picture questions, such as the suitability of applying third-wave or postfeminist theories to the ancient Near East. Studying Gender in the Ancient Near East points to a need for-and provides a model of-a more productive agenda for gender studies in furthering our understanding of ancient Near Eastern societies. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Julia M. Asher-Greve, Stephanie Lynn Budin, Megan Cifarelli, M. Erica Couto-Ferreira, Amy Rebecca Gansell, Katrien De Graef, Amelie Kuhrt, Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper, Brigitte Lion, Natalie N. May, Beth Alpert Nakhai, Martti Nissinen, Omar N'Shea, Maria Rosa Oliver, Frances Pinnock, Eleonora Ravenna, Allison Karmel Thomason, Luciana Urbano, Niek Veldhuis, and Ilona Zsolnay.

The acceleration of economic globalization and the rapid global flows of people, cultural goods, and information have intensified the importance of developing transnational understandings of contemporary issues. Transnational feminist perspectives have provided a unique outlook on women's lives and have deepened our understanding of the gendered nature of global processes.Transnational Feminism in the United Statesexamines how transnational perspectives shape the ways in which we produce, consume, and disseminate knowledge about the world within the United States, and how the paradigm of transnational feminism is affected in nuanced ways by national narratives and public discourses within the country itself.An innovative theoretical project that is both deconstructive and constructive, this bookinterrogates the limits of feminist thought, primarily through case studies that illustrate its power to create entirely new fields of research out of traditionally interdisciplinary lines of inquiry. Leela Fernandes discusses ways to approach, analyze, and capture processes that exceed and unsettle the nation-state within the transnational feminist paradigm. Examining the links between power and knowledge that bind interdisciplinary theory and research, she shines new light on issues such as human rights and the United States war on terror as well as academic debates about transnational feminist perspectives on global issues. A commanding and thought-provoking analysis, Transnational Feminism in the United Statespowerfully contributes to central debates in the field of Women's Studies and related cross-disciplinary scholarship on feminist theory and gender from a global perspective.Leela Fernandesis Professor of Women's Studies and Political Science at the University of Michigan, and author ofIndia's New Middle Class: Democratic Politics in an Era of Economic Reform;Producing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Classand Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills; andTransforming Feminist Practice.

Li Ang (1952-) is a famous and prolific feminist writer from Taiwan who challenges and subverts sociocultural traditions through her daring explorations of sex, violence, women's bodies and desire, and national politics. As a taboo-breaking writer and social critic, she uses fiction to expose injustice and represent human nature. Her political engagement further affords her a visionary perspective for interrogating the problematic intersection of gender and politics. The ambivalence in her fictional representations invites controversies and debates. Her works have thus helped raise awareness of the problems, open up discussions, and bring about social and intellectual changes. Some of her works have been translated into such foreign languages as English, French, German, and Japanese. In her career spanning over forty years, she has won numerous literary awards. Li Ang's Visionary Challenges to Gender, Sex, and Politics is the first collection of critical essays in English on Li Ang and some of her most celebrated works. Contributing historians examine her vital roles in the Taiwanese women's movement and political arenas, as well as the social influence of her publications on extramarital affairs. Contributing literary scholars investigate the feminist controversy over her 1983 award-winning novel, Shafu (Killing the Husband; translated as The Butcher's Wife); offer alternative interpretative strategies such as looking into figurations of "biopower" and relationship dynamics; dissect the subtle political significance in her magnificent novel Miyuan (The labyrinthine garden; 1991) and explosive political fiction, Beigang xianglu renren cha (Everyone sticks incense into the Beigang censer; 1997) from the perspective of gender and national identity; scrutinize the multiple discursive levels in her superb novel Qishi yinyuan zhi Taiwan/Zhongguo qingren (Seven prelives of affective affinity: Taiwan/China lovers; 2009); and analyze the "(dis)embodied subversion" accomplished by her fantastic Kandejian de gui (Visible ghosts; 2004). As the first volume in English to examine Li Ang's trail-blazing discourse on gender, sex, and politics, this work will inspire more studies of her oeuvre and contribute usefully to the fields of modern Taiwanese and Chinese literature, feminist studies, and comparative literature.

Foluke Joyce Omosule never forgot the love she received as a child and all the kindhearted people she grew up with in the southwestern part of Nigeria.

Raised by her grandparents, her parents were always in her life, and their caring and concern gave her the strength to overcome the many challenges she faced as she fought to get an education.

Her hard work paid off in the form of opportunities--and one of them was the chance to go to the United States to continue her education. Even after leaving home, she was constantly reminded of who she was and where she came from, and trust and intuition helped her move from one stage of life to the next.

Whether you're seeking to fit into a new place or trying to create a better life for yourself, you can find inspiration in the challenges, fears, and pain that Foluke overcomes in Behind the Glass Door.

A spiritual and knowledgeable woman once told me that I was a Sacred Prostitute. She explained that a Sacred Prostitute is someone who soothes, nurtures and heals another and then sends them on their way to find their true destiny, a better, more emotionally complete person for the experience. I was initially confused, but eventually relieved and elated by this possibility. I sometimes felt guilty because it wasn't possible for me to ignore a woman who was strong or beautiful or talented or sweet. I had many deep but relatively short lived relationships. I was in love with many of these women. I respected and admired every single one of them. I found them simply amazing. I was never looking for notches on a bedpost, only searching for my one true Love. Many left me and moved on, found another. I was left alone, again and again, wondering...But maybe there was a reason for such an active lovelife. Maybe I really am a Sacred Prostitute After all, very few of the women seemed to hate me when we parted. And most were married shortly after their time spent with me. I can't tell you why I was chosen as a Sacred Prostitute. I can't tell you how to become one yourself. But, in this book, I share the journeys, the thoughts and passions of 89 women that loved one, in their own words.

Deaths by suicide are high: every 40 seconds, someone in the world chooses to end their life. Despite acknowledgement that suicide notes are social texts, there has been no book which analyzes suicide notes as discursive texts and no attempt at a qualitative discourse analysis of them. Discourses of Men's Suicide Notes redresses this gap in the literature. Focussing on men and masculinity and anchored in qualitative discourse analysis, Dariusz Galasinski responds to the need for a more thorough understanding of suicidal behaviour. Culturally, men have been posited to be 'masters of the universe' and yet some choose to end their lives. This book takes a qualitative approach to data gathered from the Polish Corpus of Suicide Notes, a unique repository of over 600 suicide notes, to explore discourse from and about men at the most traumatic juncture of their lives. Discussing how men construct suicide notes and the ways in which they position their relationships and identities within them, Discourses of Men's Suicide Notes seeks to understand what these notes mean and what significance and power they are invested with.

Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures is an homage to a constellation of women writers, feminists, and creators whose voices draw a map of our current global political-environmental crisis and the interlinked massive violence, enabled by the denigration of life and human relationships. In a world, in which ""a woman's voice"" exists in bodies called in to occupy important positions in corporations, government, cultural and academic institutions, to work in factories, to join the army, but whose bodies are systematically rendered vulnerable by gender violence and by the double burden imposed on us to perform both productive and reproductive labor, I ask what is the task of thought and form in contemporary feminist situated knowledge? Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures is a collection of essays rethinking feminist issues in the current context of the production of redundant populations, the omnipresence of the technosphere and environmental devastation, toxic relationships, toxic nationalisms, and more. These reflections and dialogues are an urgent attempt to resist the present in the company of the voices of women like bell hooks, Sarah Ahmed, Leslie Jamison, Lina Meruane, Leanne Simpson, Chris Kraus, AlaIde Foppa, Lorena Wolffer, Sayak Valencia, Pip Day, Veronica GonzAlez, Eimear McBride, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Poniatowska, Susan Sontag, Margaret Randall, Simone Weil, Arundhati Roy, Marta Lamas, Paul B. Preciado, Dawn Paley, Raquel GutiErrez, etc. Toxic Loves, Impossible Futures continues the discussion on how to undo misogyny and dismantle heteropatriarchy's sublimating and denigrating tricks against women, which are intrinsically linked to colonialism and violence against the Earth.

Arlette Noirclerc was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and spent her early childhood playing at the royal Chateau de Versailles. Those factors did not, however, lead to the life of leisure and luxury that she might have expected. Growing up in occupied France, Arlette learned early to fear the almighty German army, a fear that she was not released from until she witnessed American soldiers rescue France when they stormed Normandy on D-Day. It was on that day that her interest in America was piqued.

Throughout her life, Arlette has always felt guided spiritually. She grew curious about people and their spiritual philosophy and set out on her lifelong career in fashion, seemingly by chance, when a visit to London landed her a short stint as a representative for the House of Dior. Before long, she was offered a long-term position and the chance to live where her dreams carried her-America.

Arlette faced a series of peaks and valleys, from fame as a fashion designer and courtship by a Moroccan prince to life-threatening surgery and financial wipeouts. All of these things have contributed to her awakening about the laws of the Universe. In her memoir, Arlette's spiritual journey unfolds, demonstrating how, through it all, she was always able to make things work.