First published in 2001, Achille Mbembe's landmark book, On the postcolony, continues to renew our understanding of power and subjectivity in Africa. This edition has been updated with a foreword by professor of African literature, Isabel Hofmeyr, and a preface by the author. In a series of provocative essays, Mbembe contests die hard Africanist and nativist perspectives as well as some of the key assumptions of postcolonial theory. Through his provocation, the `banality of power', Mbembe reinterprets the meanings of death, utopia and the divine libido as part of the new theoretical perspectives he offers on the constitution of power in Africa. He works with the complex registers of bodily subjectivity - violence, wonder and laughter - to contest categories of oppression and resistance, autonomy and subjection, and state and civil society that marked the social theory of the late twentieth century. On the postcolony, like Frantz Fanon's Black skins, white masks, will remain a text of profound importance in the discourse of anticolonial and anti-imperial struggles.

Criticality has attained the status of a buzz-word within academia, in particular, within the social sciences. Nowadays, every research project brazenly shouts its critical credentials from the roof-top. But what exactly is this sought-after, chimerical entity? Who is critical and who is performing criticality in order to keep up with the Joneses? Is criticality a perspective, a discursive practice, an ideology, an activity or as one student of mine once sneeringly put it, 'just a teenage temper tantrum'? Can it be formally taught or is it a series of life-events that has to be experienced? It is the argument of the present work that there are different varieties of criticality being taught, studied and practiced. The most radical, and therefore subversive, form aims to synthesise academic and everyday knowledge in a praxis aimed at emancipation. In this day and age, emancipation cannot be anything other than going beyond global capitalism and its numerous anti-working class, sexist, racist, disabilist, superstitious, alienating and homophobic tendencies. An introductory essay discusses different forms of criticality before it is demonstrated in topics ranging from psychotherapy to sociology of sport, sexuality, cinema, history and politics. The texts chosen for this anthology do not merely critique various aspects of capitalism- they aim to pose alternatives beyond it.

Sociologist Jeffrey Guhin spent a year and a half embedded in four high schools in the New York City area - two of them Sunni Muslim and two Evangelical Christian. At first pass, these communities do not seem to have much in common. But under closer inspection Guhin finds several common threads: each school community holds to a conservative approach to gender and sexuality, a hostility towards the theory of evolution, and a deep suspicion of secularism. All possess a double-sided image of America, on the one hand as a place where their children can excel and prosper, and on the other hand as a land of temptations that could lead their children astray. He shows how these school communities use boundaries of politics, gender, and sexuality to distinguish themselves from the secular world, both in school and online. Guhin develops his study of boundaries in the book's first half to show how the school communities teach their children who they are not; the book's second half shows how the communities use "external authorities" to teach their children who they are. These "external authorities" - such as Science, Scripture, and Prayer - are experienced by community members as real powers with the ability to issue commands and coerce action. By offloading agency to these external authorities, leaders in these schools are able to maintain a commitment to religious freedom while simultaneously reproducing their moral commitments in their students. Drawing on extensive classroom observation, community participation, and 143 formal interviews with students, teachers, and staff, this book makes an original contribution to sociology, religious studies, and education.

Guided by the thesis that literature can transform social reality, Tirana Modern draws on ethnographic and historical material to examine the public culture of reading in modern Albania. Formulated as a question, the topic of the book is: How has Albanian literature and literary translation shaped social action during the longue duree of Albanian modernity? Drawing on material from the independent Albanian publisher, Pika pa siperfaqe ("Point without Surface"), Tirana Modern provides a tightly focused ethnography of literary culture in Albania that brings into relief the more general dialectic between social imagination and social reality as mediated by reading and literature.

Guided by the thesis that literature can transform social reality, Tirana Modern draws on ethnographic and historical material to examine the public culture of reading in modern Albania. Formulated as a question, the topic of the book is: How has Albanian literature and literary translation shaped social action during the longue duree of Albanian modernity? Drawing on material from the independent Albanian publisher, Pika pa siperfaqe ("Point without Surface"), Tirana Modern provides a tightly focused ethnography of literary culture in Albania that brings into relief the more general dialectic between social imagination and social reality as mediated by reading and literature.

By most accounts, Europe has been mired in a "demographic crisis" since about 1970. By a demographic crisis is meant that Europe's dependency ratio is increasing, and the net result has been declining populations and fewer workers to sustain society. However, there are certain issues that need attention. Two topics seem to capture some of these issues: The implications of the possible crisis, and the crisis' assessment. The present volume is organized around both topics (implications and assessment). There are at least three contributions being made by the proposed volume. To begin with, while there are other issues related to the demographic crisis in Europe the present volume should motivate additional research. Secondly, the research in the proposed volume does not necessarily assume that there is a demographic crisis in Europe nor that it is consistent across national lines. Thus, each chapter, in essence, examines a different issue associated with the proposal that there is a crisis. Finally, the present volume makes several methodological contributions. For example, the chapter by David Swanson uses non-Bayesian modeling in studying infant mortality. Richard Verdugo examines the dependency ratio and selected factors on economic growth in selected European nations, Kposowa and Ezzat conduct an assessment, Martins examines variation in the path toward a crisis, Johnson examines humanitarian migration and the crisis, Edmonston examines the association between geopolitics and the crisis.

Written expressly for undergraduate courses, An Introduction to the Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication provides students with a comprehensive yet approachable introduction to the nature, functions, antecedents, and outcomes of dark side events and behaviors in close relationships. The book features a balance of relatable examples and academic, theoretical, research-based approaches to help students thoughtfully and critically consider interpersonal processes and their impacts on relationships and communication. After a general introduction to the dark side perspective, the book discusses a number of events-and potential responses-that can arise within interpersonal relationships, including relationship transgressions such as hurtful communication, jealousy, deception, infidelity, aggression and violence, stalking, teasing, destructive conflict, and more. Students learn about the vital role of communication in these instances and how, in select cases, constructive communication practices can mitigate the incidences and the effects of dark side events in interpersonal relationships. Chapter introductions, vignettes, discussion questions, and theoretical considerations enhance the student learning experience and provide ample opportunities for in-class dialogue and critical thought. An Introduction to the Dark Side of Interpersonal Communication is an innovative and insightful textbook well suited for undergraduate courses in communication.

Technology has been hailed as one of the catalysts toward economic and human development. In the current economic era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, information acquisition, transformation, and dissemination processes are posed to be the key enablers of development. However, in the context of developing countries, there is a need for more evidence on the impact that ICT has on addressing developmental issues. Such evidence is needed to make a case for investments in ICT-led interventions to improve people's lives in developing countries. Perspectives on ICT4D and Socio-Economic Growth Opportunities in Developing Countries is a collection of innovative research on current trends that portray the ICT and development nexus (ICT4D) from economic and human development perspectives within developing countries. While highlighting topics including mobile money, poverty alleviation, and consumer behavior, this book is ideally designed for economists, government officials, policymakers, ICT specialists, business professionals, researchers, academicians, students, and entrepreneurs.

Consciousness and the Study of Society: Towards a New Perspective on Sociology introduces students to the fundamentals of sociology while also emphasizing the idea that perceptions based on one's level of consciousness shape the world in which we live. The text is organized into five distinct sections. The chapters in Unit 1 discuss the theoretical, analytical, and methodological groundwork for the study of sociology, including a brief consideration of the human constitution. Unit 2 examines the basic ideas that underscore sociology including culture, society, socialization, and how we make sense of everyday life. In Unit 3, students learn about issues of social identity that can perpetuate social differentiations and, at times, conflict between groups. These chapters cover social stratification and class, race, ethnicity, gender, deviance and social control, and sexuality. Unit 4 investigates the six primary social structures that provide the foundation of any society: family, politics, economics, religion, education, and health and medicine. The final unit looks to the future, proposing that upheavals in our current society will lead to an evolution of our society and a new cycle of human experience. Compelling, comprehensive, and designed to help students better understand themselves and the world around them, Consciousness and the Study of Society is an excellent textbook for foundational courses in sociology.

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.

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.

Social Justice: Critical Readings in Relevant Theory and Contemporary Life Issues presents students with a collection of multidisciplinary readings that discuss a variety of issues related to justice and society. Readers are invited to read diverse perspectives on what constitutes a just society and how inequities can be resolved. They are then challenged to think critically about what they've learned and how they can apply the lessons to their future careers and their lives. The opening section introduces students to two perspectives on justice-societal justice and distributive justice. Additional sections feature readings that discuss utilitarianism, libertarianism, communitarianism, ecological living and environmental justice, and human rights and restorative justice. Students read about war and its consequences, including articles on the war on terror and human rights; the rights of refugees, displaced individuals, and war-affected women; and acts of genocide. Dedicated sections discuss solitary confinement; race and ethnicity, and the causes of inequality; and issues related to gender expression and disabilities. Closing readings explore social justice and the future of fairness in society. Featuring contemporary, relevant research, Social Justice is an ideal anthology for courses in sociology and social justice.

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.

In this fifth edition of the best-selling core introductory textbook, Pete Alcock and Lee Gregory provide a comprehensive and engaging introduction to social policy. Continuing with the unbeaten narrative style and accessible approach of the previous editions, the authors explore the major topics of social policy in a clear and digestible way. By breaking down the complexities behind policy developments and their outcomes, the book demonstrates the relationship between core areas of policy and the society we live in. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover the impact of Brexit and contains reflections on the implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for social policy. Each chapter contains comprehension activities to aid understanding, as well as helpful summary points and suggestions for further reading.

History loves a villain.

Across the entire span of human civilisation, certain people and groups have been identified as being responsible for the ills of the world, and have remained hated for it. In his continuing desire to separate out the facts from the fiction of history, Otto English looks at how these legacies were constructed and who told us that they were evil.

From how Bloody Mary became the figurehead of uppity women and how Judas's betrayal became a template for religious tensions for centuries to what the Peasants Revolt and the Illuminati shows us about power struggles throughout the ages, English exposes the agendas behind the 'truths' we've been told to believe. And in looking at how xenophobia was weaponised during the 'Spanish' Flu, he reveals how our past sometimes bleeds into the present day.

Fascinating and fearless, Notorious will re-examine some of the history's biggest villains and change the way you see the world forever.

Currently, the nation's attention is concentrated on the long-standing sexual misdeeds conducted by prominent political, sports, and entertainment figures, which has been succinctly captured by the "#Me Too" movement. This movement has spread to call into question the actions of leaders in religious institutions and organizations, providing the context for research that examines the experiences of individuals and groups as they engage in their daily activities within these establishments. #MeToo Issues in Religious-Based Institutions and Organizations is an essential research book that provides comprehensive research into the effects of the #MeToo movement on institutions and organizations with a significant religious basis and reveals challenges and issues of welcoming gender and diversity. Readers will gain insights and tools for improving social conditions in their personal lives, in places of worship, in organizations, and in academic or other institutional environments. Highlighting a range of topics including diversity, gender equality, and Abrahamic religions, this book is ideal for religious officials, church leaders, psychologists, sociologists, professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.

The realm of higher education, much like everything else in a global and mobile world, has rapidly altered in the last few decades. More and more universities and seats of higher education are using strategies towards ' 'internationalization'; by increasing heterogeneity in rank, student composition, resource endowments, faculty profiles, and their social spaces. The essays in this volume take a critical look at universities across South Asia, more specifically, at the dynamics of student mobility and mobilizations existing in such localized social spaces, and compares these with their counterparts in universities across the world. While elite universities in South Asia, as elsewhere, have been caught in a stiff international competition and are aspiring for the highest ranks, students from the most excluded communities and remote parts of the country seek entry to badly endowed universities, facing obstacles during their courses, and upon seeking entry into employment. The volume evaluates such universities as spaces for mobility opportunity and mobilizations in a globally networked world. It combines local and international perspectives with thorough observations of the dynamics in localized university spaces while embedding them in transnational processes.

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.

*Once again a New York Times bestseller! First the original edition, and now the new Final Edition* An essential new edition revised and updated from cover to cover of one of the most important books of the last two decades, by Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein More than 2 million copies sold Since the original publication of Nudge more than a decade ago, the title has entered the vocabulary of businesspeople, policy makers, engaged citizens, and consumers everywhere. The book has given rise to more than 400 "nudge units" in governments around the world and countless groups of behavioral scientists in every part of the economy. It has taught us how to use thoughtful "choice architecture"-a concept the authors invented-to help us make better decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society. Now, the authors have rewritten the book from cover to cover, making use of their experiences in and out of government over the past dozen years as well as an explosion of new research in numerous academic disciplines. To commit themselves to never undertaking this daunting task again, they are calling this the "final edition." It offers a wealth of new insights, for both its avowed fans and newcomers to the field, about a wide variety of issues that we face in our daily lives-COVID-19, health, personal finance, retirement savings, credit card debt, home mortgages, medical care, organ donation, climate change, and "sludge" (paperwork and other nuisances we don't want, and that keep us from getting what we do want)-all while honoring one of the cardinal rules of nudging: make it fun!