Higher Education in the UK and the US: Converging University Models in a Global Academic World? edited by Sarah Pickard addresses the key similarities and differences in higher education between the two countries over the last thirty years, in order to ascertain whether there exists a specific 'Anglo-Saxon model'. This interdisciplinary book is divided into three thematic parts dealing with current fundamental issues in higher education within neoliberal Great Britain and the United States: economics and marketisation of higher education; access and admittance to universities; and the student experience of higher education. The contributors are all higher education specialists in diverse academic fields - sociology, political sciences, public policy studies, educational studies and history - from either side of the Atlantic. Contributors are: Bahram Bekhradnia, James Cote, Marie-Agnes Detourbe, John Halsey, Magali Julian, Kenneth O'Brien, Cristiana Olcese, Anna Mountford-Zimdars, Sarah Pickard, Chris Rust, Clare Saunders, Christine Soulas, and Steven Ward. *Higher Education in the UK and the US: Converging University Models in a Global Academic World? is now available in paperback for individual customers.

Marx Matters is an examination of how Marx remains more relevant than ever in dealing with contemporary crises. This volume explores how technical dimensions of a Marxian analytic frame remains relevant to our understanding of inequality, of exploitation and oppression, and of financialization in the age of global capitalism. Contributors track Marx in promoting emancipatory practices in Latin America, tackle how Marx informs issues of race and gender, explore current social movements and the populist turn, and demonstrate how Marx can guide strategies to deal with the existential environmental crises of the day. Marx matters because Marx still provides the best analysis of capitalism as a system, and his ideas still point to how society can organize for a better world. Contributors are: Jose Bell Lara, Ashley J. Bohrer, Tom Brass, Rose M. Brewer, William K. Carroll, Penelope Ciancanelli, Raju J. Das, Ricardo A. Dello Buono, David Fasenfest, Ben Fine, Lauren Langman, Alfredo Saad-Filho, Vishwas Satgar, and William K. Tabb.

Introduction to Sociology: An Anthology provides students with a curated collection of readings that help them develop a foundational understanding of sociological concepts and how these concepts operate in the real world. The volume provides them with an introduction to a variety of social problems and the processes by which social change occurs. The text is organized into six distinct units, which explore core concepts in sociology; socialization, social interaction, and social change; stratification; politics, deviance, and social control; families and intimate relationships; and the environment, social movements, and social change. Students learn about cultural structures, sex and gender, the safety of women and girls in educational settings, crime and control, intimate partner violence, power dynamics and relationships, and more. Each unit features an editor's introduction to provide students with meaningful context and end-of-unit discussion questions to inspire critical thought and support retention of the material. Developed to help students better understand how culture, institutions, stratification, and inequality structure our lives, Introduction to Sociology is an ideal resource for foundational courses within the discipline.

East, South and Southeast Asia are home to two-thirds of the world's hungry people, but they produce more than three-quarters of the world's fish and nearly half of other foods. Through integration into the world food system, these Asian fisheries export their most nutritious foods and import less healthy substitutes. Worldwide, their exports sell cheap because women, the hungriest Asians, provide unpaid subsidies to production processes. In the 21st century, Asian peasants produce more than 60 percent of the regional food supply, but their survival is threatened by hunger, public depreasantization policies, climate change, land grabbing, urbanization and debt bondage.

Sociocultural and Family System Perspectives: Families Who Have Children with Disabilities helps readers acknowledge and appreciate the unique and diverse experiences of families caring for children with a range of disabilities. Among various aspects of supporting children with developmental, medical, or educational needs, the text explores the everyday challenges and opportunities families may experience. Throughout the text, readers develop insight into the responses and resilience of family who have children with disabilities with several theoretical perspectives; the laws and practices of the professionals involved; and the culturally appropriate responses and support available for families. In addition to presenting the historical, political, and educational aspects of disability in the United States, the book is written with consideration of the intersection of race/ethnicity, language, gender, sexuality, disability, social class, and culture. Readers are encouraged to read key articles, watch suggested films, and participate in reflections and activities to instill learnings and cultivate empathy. Sociocultural and Family System Perspectives is an ideal textbook for courses in family studies and child development, especially those with focus on children with disabilities and their families.

Beholding Beauty: Sa'di of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry explores the relationship between sexuality, politics, and spirituality in the lyrics of Sa'di Shirazi (d. 1292 CE), one of the most revered masters of classical Persian literature. Relying on a variety of sources, including unstudied manuscripts, Domenico Ingenito presents the so-called "inimitable smoothness" of Sa'di's lyric style as a serene yet multifaceted window into the uncanny beauty of the world, the human body, and the realm of the unseen. The book constitutes the first attempt to study Sa'di's lyric meditations on beauty in the context of the major artistic, scientific and intellectual trends of his time. By charting unexplored connections between Islamic philosophy and mysticism, obscene verses and courtly ideals of love, Ingenito approaches Sa'di's literary genius from the perspective of sacred homoeroticism and the psychology of performative lyricism in their historical context.

Mobile is simultaneously a typical and unique city in the postwar United States. It was a quintessential boomtown during World War II. That prosperity was followed by a period of rapid urban decline and subsequent attempts at revitalizing (or gentrifying) its downtown area. As in many other US cities, urban renewal, integration, and other socioeconomic developments led to white flight, marginalized the African American population, and set the stage for the development of LGBTQ+ community building and subculture. Yet these usually segregated segments of society in Mobile converged once a year to create a common identity, that of a Carnival City. Carnival in Alabama looks not only at the people who participated in Mardi Gras organizations divided by race, gender, and/or sexual orientation, but also investigates the experience of "marked bodies" outside of these organizations, or people involved in Carnival through their labor or as audiences (or publics) of the spectacle. It also expands the definition of Mobile's Carnival "tradition" beyond the official pageantry by including street maskers and laborers and neighborhood cookouts. Using archival sources and oral history interviews to investigate and analyze the roles assigned, inaccessible to, or claimed and appropriated by straight-identified African American men and women and people who defied gender and sexuality normativity in the festivities (regardless of their racial identity), this book seeks to understand power dynamics through culture and ritual. By looking at Carnival as an "invented tradition" and as a semiotic system associated with discourses of power, it joins a transnational conversation about the phenomenon.

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.