The Making and Breaking of Minds: How social interactions shape the human mind

Isabella Sarto-Jackson, Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Austria

December 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-331-6
Availability: In stock
292pp. ¦ $63 £47 €54

The human brain has a truly remarkable capacity. It reorganizes itself, flexibly adjusting to fluctuating environmental conditions – a process called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity provides the basis for wide-ranging learning and memory processes that are particularly profuse during childhood and adolescence. At the same time, the exceptional malleability of the developing brain leaves it highly vulnerable to negative impact from the surroundings. Abusive or neglecting social environments, as well as socioeconomic deprivation and poverty, cause toxic stress and complex traumas that can severely compromise cognitive development, emotional processing, self-perception, and executive brain functions. The neurophysiological changes entailed impair emotional regulation, lead to heightened anxiety, and afflict attachment and the formation of social bonds. Neuroplastic changes following severely adverse experiences are not something that a person grows out of and gets over. These experiences alter the neurobiological and biochemical makeup and cause people to live in an emotionally relabeled world in which the evaluation of any social cue, their behavior, cognition, and state of mind are biased towards the negative. Even more worrying, detrimental neurophysiological consequences are not limited to the traumatized individual but are often transmitted to subsequent generations through a process of social niche construction, thereby creating a vicious cycle. Thus, the making and breaking forces of the brain are epitomized by parents, alloparents, peers, and our socioeconomic niche. This book expounds on the formative role that the social environment plays in healthy brain development, especially during infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Based on scientific findings, the book advocates for bold measures and responsible stewardship to combat child abuse, maltreatment, and child poverty. By bringing together insights from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and social education work, it lays out a fact-based, transdisciplinary endeavor that aims at rising to the societal challenge of providing a rewarding perspective to youth at risk. It will be a valuable resource for academics from social education, pedagogy, cognitive science, neuroscience, as well as professionals in the fields of social work, pedagogy, education, child welfare.

Art Judgements: Art on Trial in Russia after Perestroika

Sandra Frimmel, University of Zurich

November 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-277-7
Availability: In stock
318pp. ¦ $69 £50 €57

An unusually large number of court cases against art, artists, and curators have taken place in Russia since the turn of the century. In reference to two of the most prominent, against the organizers of the exhibitions 'Caution, Religion!' and 'Forbidden Art 2006', the author examines the ways in which the meaning of art and its socio-political effects are argued in court: How do these trials attempt to establish a normative concept of art, and furthermore a binding juridical understanding of art? How is the discussion of what is permissible in art being framed in Russia today? Research into the post-Soviet art trials has been mainly journal-driven until today. Only the fairly recent trials of the Pussy Riot activists and Pyotr Pavlensky provoked lengthy publications, but these are mostly concerned with explicitly political and activist art rather than its particular discourse when on trial. This book, however, takes a scholarly approach towards (Russian) art on trial. It puts the cases in a national-historical context, which is compared from international perspectives, and particularly focuses on the way in which these proceedings have intensified juridical power over artistic freedom (of speech) in the production of art in Russia. This book will appeal to academics and students in the areas of art history, cultural science, sociology, and Slavic studies, as well as jurists, curators and museum specialists, researchers and employees in cultural institutions.

Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature

Edited by Rakibul Islam, Aligarh Muslim University Centre at Jangipur Murshidabad, West Bengal, India and Jakir Hossain, Chitta Mahato Memorial College,Purulia, West Bengal, India

February 2022 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-349-0
Availability: In stock
204pp. ¦ $70 £55 €61

‘Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature’ explores the claustrophobic shadow of discrimination hanging over Indian women and lower caste people from ancient times. It examines how different literary figures paint a vivid and descriptive picture of the physical and psychological oppression faced throughout India. The book traces feminist resistance, subaltern resistance, and resistance during the anti-colonial struggle, with the literary outputs discussed working as socio-political activity against dominant ideologies. The volume further talks about the responsibility, not only of those oppressed, but also of us as human beings, to speak out against the violation of human rights and for justice. So, the book focuses on the literary writers who always dream of a better India where all people, regardless of their caste, class and gender, can live and breathe freely. The book is divided into three parts. Part I describes the plight of women, their commodification and the politics around them, and how they fight hard to regain their faded identity. Part II depicts the interesting findings on gender-caste intersections and discrimination. Part III explores the struggle of the low caste, specifically male members of Dalit community, along with their history. It further portrays how orthodoxy in rituals creates the burden of traditional and existential crises. ‘Rewriting Resistance: Caste and Gender in Indian Literature’ re-visits Indian literary texts in terms of what they reveal about the resistance registered through the suffering of human beings (women and Dalits) at the hands of fellow human beings, and further links the discussion to our contemporary situation. The book has a unique quality in that it is not only a detailed study of select Indian English texts, but also delves into an in-depth analysis of texts from Bengali, Urdu, and Hindi literature. The work is likely to affect and appeal to students, scholars and academics, and can be adopted for classroom teaching and research purposes as well.

Searching for a Self: Identity in Popular Culture, Media and Society

Arthur Asa Berger, San Francisco State University

November 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-328-5
Availability: In stock
192pp. ¦ $46 £34 €38

How do people turn out the way they do? How do they “arrive” at themselves and attain an identity? How are our identities affected by our birth order, our hair color, how tall or short we are, our intelligence, our occupation, our race, our religion, our nationality, the socio-economic level of our parents (or our being raised in a single-parent family), where we are born and where we grow up, the language we learn, the way we use language, our fashion tastes, our gender, our education, our psychological makeup, chance experiences we have, the people we marry (if we marry), and countless other factors? There are numerous matters to consider when dealing with identity, which, as Nigel Denis, the author of 'Cards of Identity', reminds us, “is the answer to everything.” 'Searching for a Self' takes a deep dive into the question of identity formation from various perspectives; it is written in a reader-friendly accessible style and makes use of insightful quotations from seminal thinkers who have dealt with the topic. Split into two parts, the first “Theories of Identity,” offers evaluations of identity from semioticians, psychologists, sociologists and Marxists while the second, “Applications,” offers case studies on topics such as Russian identity, Donald Trump’s identity, fashion and identity, LGBTQIA+ identity, Orthodox Jewish identity, elite university education and identity, tattoos and identity, travel and identity, and politics and identity. Covering a wide array of subject areas, this book will be a valuable resource for undergraduate students taking courses in identity, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and other related fields.

The Faces and Stakes of Brand Insertion

Edited by Sébastien Lefait, Aix-Marseille University, France and Sandrine Villers, Paris 8 University, France

December 2021 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-795-6
Availability: In stock
256pp. ¦ $83 £65 €72

With traditional forms of advertisement facing increasing challenges, brand placement - the integration of a product or brand in a work of art - has exploded. It has become a lucrative phenomenon whose goal is to produce a reaction of purchase in the mind of the receiver (reader, viewer or listener). This volume seeks to complement extant studies of product placement strategies by introducing a methodology more systematically related to the field of cultural studies, especially where the reception and impact of product placement are concerned. It explores the many iterations of brand placement in popular culture, with a consideration of the crossover between advertisement and art in everything from Wes Anderson, "Blade Runner" and the "Fast and Furious" franchise, to music videos, late night shows and plastic art. The book considers the impact of brand placement in TV series on teenagers, as well as the evolution of such placement in literature. The originality of this volume is that, when the impact of the placement is mentioned, it is to be understood as an intended aesthetic impact at least as much as a prompt to buy a product. Consequently, the placement of consumer goods in a cultural production, the book suggests, may both increase the sales of specific products and positively impact the production’s ratings. This book is perfect for researchers and students interested in marketing, brand placement, mass media, art, film, and cultural studies.