The Digital Shift and the Social Research: Methods and Practices

Paolo Diana, University of Salerno, Italy

'The Digital Shift and the Social Research: Methods and Practices' offers a comprehensive exploration of how the digital era, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, has transformed the field of social research. Drawing on both theoretical discussions and empirical studies, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of digital tools on research methods, behaviour, and interactions, while addressing the ethical challenges that arise in online contexts. The first part of the book examines the expansion of traditional research methods through digital platforms, with a focus on how these innovations shape social norms and practices. The second part shifts attention to education, presenting strategies to improve student engagement and foster collaborative learning in the virtual classroom. The third part highlights groundbreaking case studies from the University of Salerno, illustrating innovative pedagogical approaches in teaching social research methodology. By integrating insights from across the fields of digital research, pedagogy, and ethics, this work challenges researchers and educators alike to rethink conventional approaches and adapt to the rapidly changing digital environment. Ideal for students, educators, and professionals, it serves as both a reference and a practical guide for navigating the evolving landscape of social research. Original and timely, this book will appeal to academics, practitioners, and researchers in social sciences, providing not only theoretical perspectives but also hands-on solutions for digital research and learning environments.

Cultivating Dialogue, Language, and Literacy for Social Justice in Teacher Education

Edited by Adam Devitt, California State University

Within sociocultural traditions, language, dialogue, and social literacies play an institutional role in learning and human development. Discourse practices, however, go far beyond the traditional focus of using speaking and listening to support the learning of content knowledge. Teacher discourse practices ought to promote critical literacies and linguistic practices, and promote anti-racism and social and environmental justice. Classroom discourse, however, is missing from teacher education programs on a large scale in these significant ways. Teacher educators need to understand the social and political policies, pedagogical role, and multitude of practices for helping pre-service teachers and teacher practitioners learn to acquire and facilitate quality discursive practices in K-12 schools and understand related pedagogy. This book, ‘Cultivating Dialogue, Language, and Literacy for Social Justice in Teacher Education’, offers a variety of models for integrating discourse practices and pedagogies into the field of teacher education, including pre-service teaching, professional development, and even critiques on policy and subsequent affordances and consequences that inhibit or promote the quality of teacher discourse and the purposes for which teachers utilize classroom discourse. I would recommend this book for teacher education programs as well as professional developers who work with pre- and in-service teachers. Additionally, I recommend this book for researchers committed not only to classroom discourse analysis, but to promote speaking and listening among teachers and students in ways that enhance learning and development.

Russian Fractals in Indigenous Artifacts

Abdul Karim Bangura, American University Center for Global Peace and Leonid A. Zhigun, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Moscow, Russia; Financial University, Moscow, Russia

This book is the first comprehensive work on Russian Fractals in indigenous artifacts. While existing works focus on universal phenomena, such as liquid crystal or finance, none explore the intersection between Fractals and Russia. 'Russian Fractals in Indigenous Artifacts' therefore investigates how indigenous Russian cultures have a wonderful Fractal heritage that was originally tied to socially just and ecologically sustainable social practices, including those of indigenous northern groups such as the Yakut. Fractal designs originally allowed unalienated value, both human and nonhuman, to be visible, thereby enabling just and sustainable living. This book also examines how the tsarist elite encouraged the creation of unique creative masterpieces, developing and strengthening traditional crafts and art of indigenous people—hence, Fabergé, or imperial architecture. Today, the challenge for contemporary Russia is to reestablish the relationship between the social and ecological sustainability of indigenous cultures and practices, for which we can now provide modeling and analysis. Lay attempts at this have only limited success, as they have based the attempts on a purely religious basis, which recognizes the ecological aspects but often succumbs to authoritarian nationalism. However, the freely accession of indigenous peoples to Russia for the sake of national liberation has had a positive effect on enriching them with spirituality and creativity by Fractal artifacts through friendly exchanges with one another. In 'Russian Fractals in Indigenous Artifacts,' Bangura and Zhigun express why there is a need for a forward-thinking Fractal renaissance in Russia, bringing together contemporary computational and scientific analyses with these ecologically and socially sustainable traditions.

Blue Crimes and International Criminal Law

Edited by Regina M. Paulose, International Criminal Law Attorney

'Blue Crimes and International Criminal Law' is a multi-author volume which explores the connection between criminal law and water (including our oceans and other bodies of water). The volume seeks to contribute to evolving discourse around water rights and water justice around the world. This novel volume surveys topics such as climate justice and blue crimes, water governance, illegal, unregulated, and underreported fishing, Rights of Nature, and examines the utility of ocean treaties and justice and accountability mechanisms within international criminal law, 'Blue Crimes and International Criminal Law' is a companion volume to 'Green Crimes and International Criminal Law.'

What Punk Taught Me

Edited by Gregory Blair, University of Southern Indiana and Jason Swift, University of West Georgia

From personal anecdotes to philosophical inquiries, ‘What Punk Taught Me’ gathers essays from fifteen different contributors whose lives have all been touched upon by punk culture in some meaningful way. Many years after hearing their first blast of distorted punk guitar as a youth or teenagers, these individuals (like so many others) have come to realize later in life that their experience of punk has provided them with an incredibly valuable tutelage in becoming an artist, writer, educator, or overall human being. For these contributors, the experience of punk has been the source of community and ethics, philosophy and aesthetics, or even an attitude and identity. This anthology explores how various individuals have connected with punk in a variety of distinctive ways—through music, venues, fashion, art, writing, activism, collecting culture, rebellion, subversion, or DIY projects. These essays document the lessons of punk, bringing together people from a wide array of backgrounds. Each of them shares their own unique story of what punk has taught them – how those experiences have been formative in their lives and how punk has supported their personal and professional development. These narratives serve as a reflection on the myriad influences of punk – as a methodology, a philosophy, an ontology, an aesthetic, a strategy, a cultural phenomenon, or a worldview. The culmination of this collection provides a deeper understanding of the individualized and personal influences of punk but also the wider arch and overall legacy of punk culture. Through this analysis, an explicit correlation is drawn between the world of punk, the educations it provides, and the ripples of its wider socio-cultural impact.

Community Engagement and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Affordances and Challenges of Service Learning in Crisis

Edited by Tawnya Azar, George Mason University

Community-engaged (CE) teaching is not a new concept. However, in the past several years, it has gained increased emphasis, as is evident by the changes to institution mission statements and the allocation of institution resources to support faculty development in CE teaching, as well as to support CE coursework and research. The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic forced many faculty members to pivot to an all-online instruction model, impacting community-engaged teaching and research in both predictable and unexpected ways. Community partners, facing similar struggles to serve their communities with restrictions on face-to-face interaction, were often too overwhelmed to work with higher education volunteers. Legally, universities could not ask students to risk their health with face- to-face community engagement. In fact, the number of CE courses decreased dramatically in 2020 and 2021 due to the unique challenges posed by the pandemic. At the same time, the pandemic presented some CE faculty with new opportunities for community-engagement. Some responded swiftly to the immediate needs of the local, regional, or national community with which they worked, taking advantage of the affordances of digital technology or capitalizing on the issues that the pandemic itself created or exacerbated. This collection captures the incredible work (of pivoting and innovating) in community-engaged teaching. With a primary focus on community-engaged teaching in higher education, this collection explores how faculty, students, and community partners navigated their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it raises important questions about how we might stay engaged with community during a crisis.

Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication

Edited by Laura Blount Carper, Texas A&M University-Texarkana

'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' provides in-depth research studies, literature reviews, and step-by-step instructions for a variety of health communication contexts to help improve overall satisfaction and the empowerment of others. 'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' is intended to be used in many health-related contexts including, but not limited to, the classroom, further research, and health care professionals. While some texts focus on narratives in public communication or on a specific population (such as women’s health), this volume applies narratives in a variety of health communication contexts. 'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' opens with a chapter about the different types of narrative research, entertainment education, and narrative persuasion. Next, the first section includes chapters on the “human experience” and narratives. These chapters include powerful and emotional topics relating to the use of narratives in critical care, reproductive loss, video gaming and cancer narratives, and the impacts of the infant formula shortages. The second section highlights how narratives can be used in university/college-aged participants. The two chapters analyze how narratives can be applied to both the mental health of college students and those partaking in risky behaviors. The third and final section comprises chapters discussing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of narratives. The section begins with a chapter highlighting the “Coming age” during the pandemic and relevant research relating to narratives. The following chapters will include a discussion of the impacts of COVID-19 on black communities, and the importance of narratives with frontline workers. All of these chapters provide unique applications and examples that use narratives in current and important research. Overall, 'Innovative Approaches to Narratives in Health Communication' aims to provide a diverse audience with unique tools and perspectives to broaden our understanding and applicability of narratives in health communication contexts.

World Cup! History, Politics, and Art of the Beautiful Game

Edited by Daniel Noemi Voionmaa, Northeastern University

This collection of essays provides a multidimensional, interdisciplinary, creative, and colorful view on the meanings and possibilities of thinking football—'the beautiful game'—and its paramount event: the World Cup. It is intended to appeal to academics as well as to everyday experts, those for whom football is more than a sport. But it also wants to be a source that stirs the interest of those who see football just as a curious experience; those who may have heard, in passing, that a new World Cup will be played in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in 2026. This book has, like a football team, eleven chapters. The approaches, styles, and perspectives differ considerably: From how football is a center piece in politics to its representations in poetry, from gender issues to nationalism, from fictitious wars to real ones provoked by a football match, and from exile to the neo-liberalization of the sport, the authors provide us a multicolor and global fresco of football and the World Cup. Likewise, the selection provides a global perspective on football and the World Cup: views from powerhouses such as England or Argentina, as well as from countries with a very incipient football tradition, such as India and Israel. 'World Cup! History, Politics, and Art of the Beautiful Game' is an invitation to continue to understand and think about one of the most important cultural manifestations of our times; a book that, particularly in the context of the next World Cup in 2026, will appeal to a broad readership, all around the world.

Arte y deporte en Hispanoamérica: La cultura deportiva en la literatura y el cine

Edited by Bruno Nowendsztern, Arizona State University and Ana Silvia Cervantes, Arizona State University

El deporte ha sido visto como una de las prácticas más importantes dentro de la constitución de muchas sociedades modernas. Así, tanto la práctica deportiva como la expectación generada en torno al deporte han derivado en dinámicas diversas que han conformado las identidades individuales y sociales. Dentro del mundo de habla hispana, específicamente, algunas narrativas ligadas a deportes han trascendido hasta construir identidades que tocan desde el plano social y político hasta el de la condición de género y las masculinidades. En este libro, titulado 'Arte y deporte en Hispanoamérica: La cultura deportiva en la literatura y el cine,' la meta es atender a los distintos espacios sobre la práctica y utilización del deporte dentro de las narrativas como la ficción literaria o el cine. Los trabajos de los investigadores que integran este volumen tienen como objetivo ofrecer un panorama contemporáneo sobre distintos aspectos de prácticas deportivas a lo largo de todo el mundo hispano: desde la literatura de fútbol en Sudamérica y la península española hasta los deportes y espectáculos de combate que forman parte de Norte y Centroamérica. Brevemente, las partes que componen el libro son la relación del fútbol con la identidad nacional, la relación del deporte con la creación de la identidad individual femenina y de inmigración, el análisis de personajes de ficción literaria que indagan en los pormenores del éxito y el fracaso personal dentro del deporte y, finalmente, algunos de los aspectos que trascienden más allá de lo que es la práctica o espectáculo deportivo, así como los recursos creativos que el lenguaje deportivo puede ofrecer a la literatura.

Archaeology as a Weapon: Long-lasting legacies of colonialism and nationalism in Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and Greece

Marie-Louise Winbladh

In Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and Greece, the reconstruction of the past through archaeology has been used to strengthen national identity. Narratives about the past and origin myths have been constructed for political purposes. Cyprus and Palestine have both suffered from British colonialism since the early twentieth century, which has had a profound influence on their cultural heritage. Through nationalism, archaeology has been exploited by far-right movements and political parties to claim ownership of heritage and has become an efficient political tool. In Israel, archaeology and religion have been exploited to construct the Israeli state and still play a crucial role. The country claims to be the conqueror of Palestine under the protection of God, who they believe gave them possession of the land. Western religious groups are convinced that it is the religious duty of Christians to support the modern nation-state of Israel. Biblical archaeology has become an ultra-religious American speciality, marked by fraud and pseudoresearch. Notorious smuggling scandals were staged by American Christian multibillionaires buying artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq and other countries. Looting, plundering and blacklisting are among the most serious problems in Cyprus, causing irreparable damage to artefacts, monuments and society. Palestine’s rich archaeological, historical, and religious heritage has been undermined by occupation and land confiscation. Hundreds of sites have been looted during the Israeli occupation, and an illegal trade of ancient artefacts has occurred on a large scale. Populism is frequently associated with extreme nationalism and racism. Over the past few years, white nationalists and supremacists have seized the history of Greece and Rome. White nationalists and neo-Nazis in the US have used the slogan “Classics Made Great Again” showing their obsession with ancient sculptures and their alleged whiteness. When visiting Jerusalem, the Trump administration promoted an evangelical program where the politics of moral superiority is associated with white Christian supremacy.

Queer Representation in Literature and Popular Culture

Edited by Dhishna Pannikot, National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India and Tanupriya, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR

'Queer Representation in Literature and Culture' offers a timely and critical exploration of how queerness is depicted, negotiated, and resisted across diverse literary and cultural texts. Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, the volume examines queer identities, desires, and politics through the lenses of decoloniality, and intersectionality. With contributions that span literature, cinema, digital media, and popular culture, this book foregrounds voices and narratives that challenge heteronormative, and patriarchal frameworks. Accessible yet scholarly, it is an essential resource for those interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, culture, and power in contemporary discourse.

Emerging from the Rubble: Asian/American Writings on Disasters

Edited by Yasuko Kase, University of the Ryukyus, Japan and Eliko Kosaka, Hosei University, Japan

With a focus on the transpacific and transnational relationship between North America and Asia, 'Emerging from the Rubble: Asian/American Writings on Disasters' explores Asian/Americans’ complex and nuanced involvement in disastrous events. Included in this purview of disaster are not only the damages and threats of current ongoing climate change but also the long-lasting ruining effects inflicted by imperialism, neo/colonialism, wars, and these historical components’ entanglement with global capitalism that have generated both spontaneous and slow and/or prolonged violent effects. Moreover, disasters can be acknowledged as manifestations of the Anthropocene — an epoch shaped by human activity — or what scholars like Jason W. Moore and Donna J. Harraway term the ‘Capitalocene,’ a paradigm where nature and capitalist society are deeply intertwined, co-creating an intricate web of life. Asian/American involvement in such a web has never been simple but convoluted: some of them have experienced tremendous losses, whereas others have perpetuated obfuscation of the truth and/or induced violence, often contingently with or without acknowledging the facts. When considering Asian migrants including refugees from Southeast Asia who had little option but to seek asylum in the U.S., and Asian Americans who have pursued their “happiness” under the U.S.’s capitalist premise of constant progress, protection of “human rights,” and freedom of “choice,” it is important to note that Asian migrants and Asian ‘Americans’ have become simultaneously active players and exploited individuals within the context of U.S. racial capitalism. Acknowledging the impossibility of clearly differentiating natural and human-made disasters, scholars who contribute to this volume note the reciprocal influences between nature and civilization. They examine how the entanglements of natural and human-made disasters lead to the acceleration and expansion of damage. This volume explores how Asian Americans’ connections with their ancestral origins along with their particular racial positions, social classes, and socio-historical backgrounds in North American societies force them to experience and witness disastrous events differently from the mainstream discourse on eco-crises.

Neuroteología católica

Andrew Newberg, Thomas Jefferson University and Mary Clare Smith, Sisters of Notre Dame

El tema de la neuroteología ha visto incrementada su popularidad en los ámbitos académicos, religiosos y divulgativos. Este campo de estudio investiga la intersección entre el cerebro y el fenómeno espiritual y religioso. Sin embargo, no se ha intentado de manera exhaustiva explorar específicamente cómo el pensamiento y la experiencia católica pueden estar relacionados con la neuroteología. El propósito de 'Neuroteología Católica' es abordar íntegramente esta área inexplorada. Los temas se relacionan con un enfoque neuroteológico de creencias fundamentales del catolicismo derivadas de la Escritura y la Tradición, una exploración de los diversos elementos del catolicismo, de los rituales y prácticas católicas, así como una revisión de la espiritualidad y el misticismo católico. Se ha tenido en consideración a diferentes académicos especializados en cuanto a la relación entre sus ideas o enseñanzas y los distintos procesos mentales. En 'Neuroteología Católica' se abordan estos temas de una manera accesible, incorporando aspectos científicos, religiosos, filosóficos y teológicos dentro del campo emergente de la neuroteología. Al revisar estos conceptos a través de argumentos sencillos y, a la vez, complejos, los lectores, sin importar su contexto, serán capaces de entender las dificultades y la amplitud de la neuroteología desde una perspectiva católica. Para profundizar, se abordan cuestiones como: una revisión de la neurociencia y las técnicas neurocientíficas; las experiencias religiosas y espirituales; el desarrollo y análisis teológico; el ritual y la liturgia; la filosofía, epistemología y ética; y las implicaciones sociales, todo desde el punto de vista del catolicismo.

Entangled and Empowered: Agency in Multispecies Communities

Edited by Keri Stevenson, University of New Mexico-Gallup

'Entangled and Empowered: Agency in Multispecies Communities' is a collection that approaches the inevitable reality of entanglement between humans and other beings from a perspective of action and wonder. It argues that actors as diverse as bacteria, snakes, butterflies, ducks, and cacao trees can help us enact joy in fields as different as art, cinema, literature, and anthropology. While acknowledging the imminent reality of climate change, the sixth extinction, and other overwhelming threats to the Earth, this book argues that humans continue to live, and so do the beings whose lives are entwined with ours, for whom we can acknowledge and work to improve their existence. The nine essays in this volume trace that acknowledgment and work through three sections centered on visual media, queer and feminist readings of empowerment, and movements beyond the boundaries enacted by anthropocentric Western society. Drawing on theories such as new materialism, posthumanism, and ecofeminism, and with an international perspective from authors working at American, South Asian, and East Asian universities, 'Entangled and Empowered' finds hope in the shadow of despair. It engages with work by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing on entanglement, Donna Haraway on kin-making and multispecies communities, and Karen Barad on intra-actions, among others, while also showing how critiques of these ideas can make the world both more promising and more endangered. This collection will be useful for scholars working in all subfields of environmental humanities, especially those intersecting with the theories described above and as an archive of examples analyzing practical aspects of agency in diverse multispecies communities. Scholars studying texts as well-known as 'The Handmaid’s Tale' and as obscure as the codices of the Mopan Maya will find value in having both under one cover.

God: A brief philosophical introduction V

K.H.A. Esmail, University of Oxford and University of Cambridge

This is a clear and concise and original investigation of God’s nature and existence. First of all, it considers (among other things) two of God’s traditional properties: being all-knowing and being all-powerful. It argues he cannot possess these properties. But, it argues this is in accord with him being worthy of worship. Secondly, it introduces the notion of evil being “overridden”. It argues he has to bring about other free living things and it is plausible they have to be liable to experience evil due to their conditions. But, it argues the evil in this world is “overridden”. Thirdly, it considers the principal arguments for the claim he does not exist. (They refer to the evil in the world.) It argues they do not establish sufficient grounds for this claim. Finally, it considers some well-known arguments for the claim he exists. It argues they face difficulties. It sets out other arguments: eg, some arguments to increase any degree of belief one has that God can exist. It includes a number of Appendices: Some remarks on God’s sovereignty; Are there sufficient grounds for the claim that, very probably, God does not exist?; Theodicy and some theodicies; Some further remarks on God and time; Some further remarks on a living thing which possesses the power to do this or that freely; Some remarks on God being simple; Some remarks on God being present in a spatial realm and God being present in a non-spatial realm; ... . It covers as a whole the principal parts of the Philosophy of Religion. It unifies these parts to a significant degree. It proceeds regularly by way of formal and clear arguments. It will be of interest to advanced students and specialists in Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Theology. Given its explanation of key terms, its jargon-free language, its clarity and brevity.... , it will be of interest to others, too.

Second Star to the Right: Essays on Leadership in Star Trek

Edited by Jason A. Kaufman, Minnesota State University, Mankato and Aaron M. Peterson, Converse University

'Star Trek' provides an opportunity to explore the final frontier of leadership through its nearly six decades of series and films. With its basis in Enlightenment thinking (reason coupled to compassion) and its encouragement of diversity in its myriad forms, 'Star Trek' offers guidance on how to improve the human condition that has application in leadership across academic and professional fields. Leaders are constantly called upon to solve problems, direct institutional growth, and, on occasion, even solve humanitarian crises. Leadership development need not be complicated or overly staid. It should be engaging. 'Star Trek' provides us a venue through which to make it so. This book explores the application of 'Star Trek' to the practice of leadership across a diverse array of professional and academic fields. 'Second Star to the Right: Essays on Leadership in Star Trek' provides a set of exceptional chapters from a diverse range of scientists, professionals, writers, and thinkers. It will help you to utilize the wealth of 'Star Trek' canon applied across a robust array of fields to broadly inform the practice of leadership for a better world.

Mysteries and Dreams: the French in Oceania

Edited by Sylvie Largeaud-Ortega, University of French Polynesia, Tahiti, French Polynesia and Lorenz Gonschor, University of the South Pacific, Fiji

Oceania has been the source of mysteries and dreams from the first contact with Europe onwards, both for Indigenous Oceanians and outsiders. 'Mysteries and Dreams: The French in Oceania' is a collection of cross-disciplinary essays that explore the mysteries, allures and questionings raised by Indigenous Oceanians and French people about their mutually different worldviews, as well as their dreams, aspirations or disillusions as they navigate their relationships. With a strong focus on reciprocity, this original project analyzes diverse forms of French association with Oceania and the responses engendered by Indigenous communities, authors and artists as they reshape French narratives. Organized along three lines – history, literature and arts – this innovative lens offers unprecedented examinations of hitherto unexplored Oceanian and French figures involved in Oceania, bringing to the fore Marist missionary Xavier Montrouzier, influential politicians Charles de Varigny and Auguste Marques, playwrights and artists Pierre Gope and Greg Semu, and filmmakers Sima Urale and Édouard Deluc. It also offers fresh postcolonial approaches to better-known figures such as Paris Communard convicts Louis Michel and Henri Rochefort, prominent authors like Titaua Peu, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Teresia Teaiwa, Vilsoni Hereniko and Édouard Glissant, and widely-discussed artists like Yuki Kihara. It also critically engages individuals representing the colonial gaze, such as Pierre Loti, Allan Hughan and Paul Gauguin. Spanning across Oceania, from the Solomon Islands to Rapa Nui, Hawai‘i to Aotearoa-New Zealand, Tahiti and Kanaky-New Caledonia, it shows the wide impacts of the French on this vast region. Bridging together Anglophone and Francophone Oceania, this volume is an authoritative and enlightening reference to scholars and students in postcolonial Pacific Island studies, to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Oceanians wishing to discover interactive processes of change in their region’s past and present, and, more generally, to all outsiders who might, some day, have felt inclined to fall under the spell of an imaginary Oceania.

Lawyers of the Old Left: Morris Hillquit, Seymour Stedman & Charles Recht

Eric B. Easton, University of Baltimore School of Law

'Lawyers of the Old Left' contains professional profiles of the three most important – if not the most famous – lawyers of the American Left in the first quarter of the twentieth Century. These men were involved in some of the most significant cases of the tumultuous era that surrounded World War I, and they all commanded the respect of both their contemporary colleagues and adversaries. Morris Hillquit was practically synonymous with the Socialist movement that flourished in New York City. Not only was he a prolific chronicler of the movement, but he also ran for political office several times under the Socialist banner. Hillquit took a leadership role in the defense of antiwar activists during wartime and the repression that followed. In time, he would become one of the nation’s pre-eminent labor lawyers. Seymour Stedman was a leader, with Eugene Debs and Victor Berger, of the home-grown Socialist movement that prevailed in Chicago, Milwaukee, and other midwestern cities. He rose to prominence at the national level, ultimately becoming the Party’s vice-presidential candidate in Debs’ campaign for the presidency in 1920. Charles Recht was unquestionably the most important American lawyer representing the Soviet Union, both before and after that country was recognized by the United States. He also participated in many important civil liberties cases, including the IWW and other anarchist-related cases. Recht also pursued a second career as a novelist, poet, and theatrical translator. Anyone interested in radical politics, the labor movement, and civil liberties law should be interested in reading this book. While these men played an outsized role in their time, they are largely forgotten today and appear only peripherally in the period literature. This book provides a perspective on the era that is otherwise largely unavailable.

Uncovering Possible: Pedagogies for Apocalyptic Times

Edited by Cara Berg Powers, Clark University and Nastasia Lawton-Sticklor, Climate Disobedience Center

'Uncovering Possible: Pedagogies for Apocalyptic Times' is an edited volume that holds our experiences as educators, activists, and community members navigating the global pandemic of the past several years. This pandemic is situated within the context of ongoing interconnected crises: oppressive systems, worsening climate, and economic urgency, all at an unsustainable pace. The work in this volume confronts the grief, loss, and injustice that apocalypse brings, while also engaging with the possibility and intentional, resilient joy necessary to build a better world. This volume is an invitation to explore both the impacts of this and many other apocalyptic events in learning spaces, as well as (re)imagine what’s essential to learning in community. Through research, storytelling, reflections from the field, poetry, and interactive activities, this volume shares lessons from those on the front lines of apocalyptic learning, inviting the reader to find their place in building the more equitable communities we need and deserve. This apocalypse is situated within a social context that extends beyond this single event. For many, apocalypse has, and continues to happen, through colonial white-supremacist capitalism. What we carry forward must include the collective knowledges capable of carrying us not just through this apocalypse but the apocalypses ahead.

Gender, Law, and Religion During the COVID-19 Health Crisis

Edited by Montserrat Gas Aixendri and Adelaide Madera

Looking at COVID-19 infection through a gendered lens reveals its deep impact on individuals in vulnerable positions, especially women. It raised new concerns about gender equity and inclusion, particularly when gender intersects with other identity markers such as religious affiliation. This intersection creates a “double vulnerability,” heightening the risk of discrimination, violence, hate speech, and harassment against women. In various legal contexts, women bear multiple roles and responsibilities. The interaction between gender, law, religion, and the pandemic has often resulted in disempowerment in shaping female identity. This is evident both in Western countries—where migrant women struggle for full integration—and in their countries of origin, where they often face the consequences of normative pluralism and insufficient state legal responses. The pandemic has generated not only a health crisis but also exacerbated social and economic issues, including increased gender-based violence in family settings and growing inequalities in access to fundamental rights such as healthcare, education, employment, and justice. In this complex framework, religious leaders face new challenges and must provide effective responses. Female leadership within religious contexts can play a crucial role in advocating for new paradigms that address evolving social, cultural, and legal needs. Religious actors are thus called upon to offer both guidance and support to vulnerable and marginalized members of their communities and to collaborate with governments in shaping a future where religious freedom, gender equality, gender justice, and freedom from discrimination are upheld. This volume aims to investigate the pandemic’s impact on women within faith communities, examine emerging balances between female religious/cultural claims and public welfare imperatives, and develop gendered, intersectional perspectives that promote women’s full integration, equality, and participation in civil society.