Breaking Bad: Critical Essays on the Contexts, Politics, Style, and Reception of the Television Series, edited by David P. Pierson, explores the contexts, politics, and style of AMC's original series Breaking Bad. The book's first section locates and addresses the series from several contemporary social contexts, including neo-liberalism, its discourses and policies, the cultural obsession with the economy of time and its manipulation, and the epistemological principles and assumptions of Walter White's criminal alias Heisenberg. Section two investigates how the series characterizes and intersects with current cultural politics, such as male angst and the re-emergence of hegemonic masculinity, the complex portrayal of Latinos, and the depiction of physical and mental impairment and disability. The final section takes a close look at the series' distinctive visual, aural, and narrative stylistics. Under examination are Breaking Bad's unique visual style whereby image dominates sound, the distinct role and use of beginning teaser segments to disorient and enlighten audiences, the representation of geographic space and place, the position of narrative songs to complicate viewer identification, and the integral part that emotions play as a form of dramatic action in the series.

Violence is one of the most important challenges, not only for public health systems, but also for public mental health. Violence can have immediate as well as long-term and even transgenerational effects on the mental health of its victims. This book provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging assessment of the mental health legacy left by violence. It addresses the issues as they affect states, communities and families, in other words at macro-, meso- and microlevels, beginning by describing the impact of violence on neurobiology and mental health, as well as the spectrum of syndromes and disorders associated with different forms of violence.

The work moves on to tackle violence at the international and intranational level before zeroing in on the nature of violence in communities such as villages or city districts. It also examines the results of violence in the family. Each type of violence has distinct effects on mental health and in each chapter specific groups are explored in depth to demonstrate the heterogeneity of violence as well as the diversity of its outcomes in the realm of public mental health. Finally, the book addresses the notion of undoing violence by detailing case studies of effective interventions and prevention occurring in countries, communities and families. These cases give us pause to reflect on the nature of resilience and dignity in the context of violence and mental health.

All the chapters have been written by leading authors in the field and provide a state-of-the-art perspective. The authors, from different fields of expertise, facilitate interdisciplinary and international insights into the impact of violence on mental health."

Applying Anthropology to Gender-Based Violence: Global Responses, Local Practices addresses the gaps in theory, methods, and practices that are currently used to engage the problem of gender-based violence. This book complements the work carried out in the legal, human services, and health fields by demonstrating how a focus on local issues and responses can better inform a collaborative global response to the problem of gender-based violence. With chapters covering Africa, Asia, Latin and North America, and Oceania, the volume illustrates the various ways scholars, practitioners, frontline workers, and policy makers can work together to end violence in their local communities. The chapters in this volume provide ample evidence that top-down responses to violence have been inadequate, and that solutions are available when the local historical, political, and social context is taken into consideration. Applying Anthropology to Gender-Based Violence contains useful insights that, when combined with the efforts of other disciplines, offer solutions to the problem of gender-based violence.

This book is an academic work which reviews and critiques the research literature concerning violent games and their alleged effects on players. It examines the debates about the potential effects of these games and the divisions between scholars working in the field. It places the research on violent video games in the longer historical context of scholarly work on media violence. It examines research from around the world on the nature of video games and their effects. It provides a critique of relevant theories of media violence effects and in particular theories developed within the older media violence literature and then considers how useful this and newer scholarly work might be for policy-makers and regulators. The book identifies where gaps exist in the extent literature and where future research attention might be directed.

This edited collection highlights international research on domestic homicides and death reviews which are a rapidly growing intervention/prevention initiative in various countries. Chapters focus on: the impetus for the international development of such initiatives, the identification of risk factors and recommendations for improving systemic responses, the uptake and impact of these recommendations and, finally, the social and public policy implications of outcomes for developed and developing countries. Despite rapid growth, the current state of research and knowledge about domestic violence death review initiatives is limited, fragmented, and primarily descriptive, largely comprising annual public reports. The authors of this book bridge this significant gap by analysing the wide range of models currently in development and operation. A bold and important examination, this work will have a powerful impact on policy makers and scholars of social science theory, women's studies, and domestic violence.

The United States is not post-racial, despite claims otherwise. The days of lynching have been replaced with a pernicious modern racism and race-based violence equally strong and more difficult to untangle. This violence too often results in the killing of Black Americans, particularly males. While society may believe we have transcended race, contemporary history tells another story with the recent killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and others. While their deaths are tragic, the greater tragedy is that incidents making the news are only a fraction of the assault on communities of color in. This volume takes seriously the need for concentrated and powerful dialogue to emerge in the wake of these murders that illuminates the assault in a powerful and provocative way. Through a series of essays, written by leading and emerging academics in the field of race studies, the short "conversations" in this collection challenge readers to contemplate the myth of post-raciality, and the real nature of the assaults on communities of color. The essays in this volume, all under 2000 words, cut to the heart of the matter using current assaults as points of departure and is relevant to education, sociology, law, social work, and criminology.

We know of the blood and tears provoked by the projects of transformation of the world through war or revolution. Starting from the essay published in 1921 by Walter Benjamin, twentieth century philosophy has been committed to the criticism of violence, even when it has claimed to follow noble ends. But what do we know of the dilemmas, of the "betrayals," of the disappointments and tragedies which the movement of non-violence has suffered? This book tells a fascinating history: from the American Christian organizations in the first decades of the nineteenth century who wanted to eliminate slavery and war in a non-violent way, to the protagonists of movements-Thoreau, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Capitini, M. L. King, the Dalai Lama-who either for idealism or for political calculation flew the flag of non-violence, up to the leaders of today's "color revolutions."

This invaluable resource is written by leading international experts of policing and terrorism prevention. The contributors provide an in-depth analysis of the dilemmas, challenges, and solutions faced by police departments and law enforcement bodies in their efforts to counter local and global terrorism. The chapters cover terrorism and the policing of terrorism in various countries, such as the US, Palestine, Columbia, Turkey, Korea, and Malta. Table of Contents: Female Perpetrators of Palestinian Terrorist Attacks with a Special Reference to Their Socio-Cultural Position: An Exploratory Empirical Examination * The Concept of Social Equilibrium and Its Application to Policing Terrorism in the United States * Policing Terrorism in Colombia * Dynamics of Terrorism in Turkey * Threat from and Policing against Global Salafi Terrorism in the Republic of Korea: A Story from the Eastern Front * Policing Terrorism in Malta * Post-9/11 United States' Airport Security Changes and Displacement * Situational Crime Prevention Applied to Ricin and Bioterrorism. (Series: Israel Studies in Criminology - Vol. 11)

Globalization, Gender, and Media tackles the emergence of "sexy violence" imagery and the coalescence of the sexual and violent meanings in contemporary global mainstream news, television, film, and social media. Tuija Parikka analyzes how such imagery advances particular interpretations of globalization, and the role of gender in such projects. Cases range from serious news journalism and film to social media spectacles, brought under the umbrellas of media production, contents, and perception. These versatile cases introduce issues revealing the limits of Western freedom discourse in the social media; universalizing an idea of motherhood and ethnicity in news production; time, home, and class in the formation of global imbalances of power online and in reality TV; instability of sex and gender in discourses of rape and porn; politicizing majority-minority relations in the social media. Globalization, Gender, and Media emphasizes the need to consider the interconnectedness and material - discursive aspects of globalization and the reality of gender in the media.

"This fascinating, massive, wide-ranging collection that editors Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes have gathered together into William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion will soon be recognized as one of those rare critical books for which that egregiously overused term 'groundbreaking' is fully justified." -Larry McCaffery, from the preface of William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion The essays in this collection make a case for regarding William T. Vollmann as the most ambitious, productive, and important living author in the US. His oeuvre includes not only outstanding work in numerous literary genres, but also global reportage, ethical treatises, paintings, photographs, and many other productions. His reputation as a daring traveler and his fascination with life on the margins have earned him an extra-literary renown unequaled in our time. Perhaps most importantly, his work is exceptional in relation to the literary moment. Vollmann is a member of a group of authors who are responding to the skeptical ironies of postmodernism with a reinvigoration of fiction's affective possibilities and moral sensibilities, but he stands out even among this cohort for his prioritization of moral engagement, historical awareness, and geopolitical scope. Included in this book in addition to twelve scholarly critical essays are reflections on Vollmann by many of his peers, confidantes, and collaborators, including Jonathan Franzen, James Franco, and Michael Glawogger. With a preface by Larry McCaffery and an afterword by Michael Hemmingson, this book offers readings of most of Vollmann's works, includes the first critical engagements with several key titles, and introduces a range of voices from international Vollmann scholarship.

This book provides a detailed and comprehensive look at the primary players, acts, motivations, and methods of the Army of God in their quest to make abortion illegal in the United States. The Army of God may not be widely known, but they are well established as an extremist Christian organization united in their belief that abortion must be stopped at all costs, including the use of violence or force. Who are the primary players in this underground terrorist group, what acts are they responsible for, and what are the motivations behind their quest to make abortion illegal in the United States? Armed for Life: The Army of God and Anti-Abortion Terror in the United States addresses these questions and more, drawing upon never-before-published interviews with members of the Army of God and their own writings to reveal the details of this grossly understudied organization-and to document what its existence and expansion says about our society. Includes interviews, selections from the Army of God manual, essays and books by members, web postings, and written correspondence Provides a chronology of attacks claimed by or attributed to the Army of God against abortion providers Examines the response by the political and law enforcement community to the Army of God

This book examines the research and theoretical bases for the creation of a risk-needs management instrument for violent adolescents and young adults. The proposed instrument includes risk indicators beginning pre-natally, pari-natally, at-birth, then through infancy, early childhood, middle childhood and, finally, adolescence. The main purpose of the instrument is to assist case managers responsible for providing positive interventions to families and children, at all childhood and adolescent life stages, in order to reduce the likelihood of violent behaviors. The case intervention strategy is based on the assumption that the earlier resources are provided, the more effective they will be. The data instrument will be structured so that the risk information is gathered cumulatively across age domains and can be used to match specific interventions with particular needs profiles of a family and child, adolescent or young adult. This book is of interest to researchers, policy-makers, and government and non-government agency workers who are involved with policies, programs and instruments focused on the prevention of youth and young adult violence. It can be used as an advanced text book in upper level undergraduate courses and graduate courses in psychology, criminology, social work and educational counseling which deal with the child and youth violence, especially its causes and preventive interventions.

Why do our night-time cities seem to mix pleasure with violence? This is the time and place when cities are taken over by young men in search of alcohol, drugs, another club or a fight. Current public policy has patently failed to keep on top of the new trends in both consumption and destruction which make urban centres simultaneously seductive and dangerous. Violent Night uses powerful insider accounts to uncover the underlying causes and meanings of violence. Interviews with the police, the perpetrators and the victims of violence reveal the complex emotions that surround both the perpetration and resolution of crime. Violent Night shows that a new approach is needed to successfully rehabilitate a culture struggling and failing to deal with nihilism and escalating hostility.

This title provides a candid exploration of sadomasochistic practices driving contemporary culture, covering the demoralizing socioeconomic and political conditions that give rise to agonizing rituals of cruelty demonstrated at systemic, transnational, religious, familial, and even sexual spheres of human relations.

Whitewashing the South is a powerful exploration of how ordinary white southerners recall living through extraordinary racial times-the Jim Crow era, civil rights movement, and the post-civil rights era-highlighting tensions between memory and reality. Author Kristen Lavelle draws on interviews with the oldest living generation of white southerners to uncover uncomfortable memories of our racial past. The vivid interview excerpts show how these lifelong southerners reflect on race in the segregated South, the civil rights era, and more recent decades. The book illustrates a number of complexities-how these white southerners both acknowledged and downplayed Jim Crow racial oppression, how they both appreciated desegregation and criticized the civil rights movement, and how they both favorably assessed racial progress while resenting reminders of its unflattering past. Chapters take readers on a real-world look inside The Help and an exploration of the way the Greensboro sit-ins and school desegregation have been remembered, and forgotten. Digging into difficult memories and emotions, Whitewashing the South challenges our understandings of the realities of racial inequality.

Focusing on a number of contemporary research themes and placing them within the context of palpable changes that have occurred within football in recent years, this timely collection brings together essays about football, crime and fan behaviour from leading experts in the fields of criminology, law, sociology, psychology and cultural studies.

This is the first study to bring space into conversation with religious competition, conflict and violence in the contemporary world. Lily Kong and Orlando Woods argue that because space is both a medium and an outcome of religious activity, it is integral to understanding processes of religious competition, conflict and violence. The book explores how religious groups make claims to both religious and secular spaces, and examines how such claims are managed, negotiated and contested by the state and by other secular and religious agencies. It also examines how globalisation has given rise to new forms of religious competition, and how religious groups strengthen themselves through the development of social resilience, as well as contribute to resilient societies. Throughout the book, case studies from around the world are used to examine how religious competition and conflict intersect with space. The case studies include topical issues such as competing claims to the Temple Mount/Haram el-Sharif in Jerusalem, opposition to the "Ground Zero mosque" in New York City, and the regulation of religious conversion in India and Sri Lanka. By helping readers develop new perspectives on how religion works in and through space, Religion and Space: Competition, Conflict and Violence in the Contemporary World is an innovative contribution to the study of religion.

Authors from a variety of disciplines dealing with diverse historical cases engage with the spatial deployment of violence and the possibilities for memory and resistance in contexts of state sponsored violence, enforced disappearances and regimes of exception. Contributors include Aleida Assmann, Jay Winter and David Harvey.

What are the psychical mechanisms that underlie a given social formation? (Post)apartheid Conditions investigates this question by exploring a series of psychosocial topics - the body, space-identity, whiteness, racism and nostalgia - within a specific socio-historical context. The South African situation, one of both social transformation and historical stasis, provides the opportunity to explore how a number of psychoanalytic concepts - the uncanny, fantasy, melancholia, working through, retroaction - function at a societal level, at turns impeding and facilitating political change. Drawing on material collected by the Apartheid Archive Project, and the writings of Sara Ahmed, Steve Biko, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Zižek, this book is of interest both to a general Psychosocial Studies audience and to readers interested in the cultural history of South Africa.

This survey of various African and Asian conflicts examines people's experiences on territorial borders and the ways they affect political configurations. By focusing on individuals' routines and daily life, these contributions treat borderland dynamics as actual political units with their own actions and outcomes.

Vandalism and Anti-Social Behaviour forwards a new typology of vandalism. The authors argue that in order to fully understand vandalism and anti-social behaviour, a culturally criminological perspective should be fostered, which accounts for the emotional and experiential aspects of crime.