Order, planning, and reason—in the depths of the Great Depression, with the nation teetering on the brink of collapse, this was what was needed. And this, Kenneth J. Bindas suggests, was what the ideas and ideals of modernity offered—a way to make sense of the chaos all around. In Modernity and the Great Depression, Bindas offers a new perspective on the provenance and power of modernist thought and practice in early twentieth-century America.

In the midst of a terrible economic, social, and political crisis, modernism provided an alternative to the response of many traditional moralists and religious leaders. Promoting a faith based in reason, organization, and planning, modernists espoused a salvation that was not eternal but rather temporal, tangible, and, for a generation with so little to hold onto, eminently practical—one that found virtue in pleasure and private pursuits. After surveying the contested definitional terrain of “modernism” and “modernity,” Bindas tracks their course and influence through such government programs as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration; in the massive American Expositions and World's Fairs that heralded progress and a better future; on the efforts of women interior decorators to update and enhance the comforts of the modern home; and—thanks to the proliferation of electricity and radio—on the popular and high-culture musical recordings and broadcasts that reinforced a shift away from traditional modes of performance and reception.

In the transformation he describes, Bindas also locates the limits of modernism’s influence, as later generations confronted the spiritual shortcomings of its ultra-rationalist and materialist paradigm.

The authors in this collection examine and critique motherhood memoir, alongside the texts of their own lives, while seeking to transform mothering practice— highlighting revolutionary praxis within books, or, when none is available, creating new visions for social change. Many essays interrogate the tensions of maternal narrative—the negotiation of the historical location of writer and readers, narrative and linguistic constraints, and the slippery ground of memory—as well as the borders constructed between the “objective” scholar and the reader who engages with and identifies with texts through her intellect and her emotional being.

This volume of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change is divided into two parts. Part I presents a series of cases that tie together narratives of being, knowing and contestation surrounding the claiming of identity for the self or the categorization of the other. It does this by exploring narratives to claim identities and assert agency; showing us the dialectic between dominant forces and those who would challenge existing narratives about place, identity or space. Part II continues RSMCC’s tradition of cutting edge research in social movement formation, conflict and change. These chapters focus on a wide range of social organizations from immigrant movements, to the occupy struggle, to the narratives around the framing and counter-framing of the radical environmental movement. The volume concludes with two chapters focusing on more recent developments in data gathering and analysis to examine changes in how researchers collect and analyze data. Each of the nine chapters engages with notions of identity, whether in the examination of the subject or in the reference to the researcher him or herself.

Part of the series Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics

In today’s complex and interconnected world, scholars of international relations seek to better understand challenges spurred by intensified global communication and interaction. The complex connectedness of modern society and politics compels us to investigate the pattern of interconnections among actors who inhabit social and political spaces.

Gabriella Paár-Jákli's study aims to advance theory and practice by examining the networks used by specialists in North America and Europe to achieve their policy goals in the area of science and technology. Her book suggests that to overcome policy problems transnationally, three critical factors should be considered. First, as science and technology policy becomes increasingly critical to resolving global issues, it should be regarded as an integral element of the foreign policy process. Second, as liberal international relations theory argues, the increasing role of NGOs must be taken seriously alongside states as vital agents of policy reform. Third, as transatlantic relations remain center to maintaining the global order, they must be reconsidered. Paar-Jakli assesses the role of digital networks as facilitators of regional cooperation. Utilizing various techniques of social network analysis, her research indicates an active and structurally discernible network in cyberspace among transatlantic organizations, and demonstrates the role of virtual networks as facilitators of cooperative arrangements in transatlantic relations.

Paár-Jákli's original research uses social network analysis to investigate transatlantic cooperation, a new approach that will be noteworthy to network and transatlantic scholars as well as policymakers.

Hailed as the “American Chekhov” by the Times Literary Supplement, Raymond Carver is the most popular and influential American short-story writer since Ernest Hemingway. His works have been adapted to film and translated into more than twenty languages. Yet despite this international appeal, the critical attention to his writing has originated mostly in the US.

In an attempt to expand the scope and range of Carver criticism, Not Far From Here: The Paris Symposium on Raymond Carver – based on papers delivered at the International Conference of the Raymond Carver Society at the University of Paris XII on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the author’s death – offers an engaging conversation by both emerging and established international scholars from France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, and the US. Literary studies, biographical studies, film theory, textual editing, intertextual analysis, cultural studies, feminism, semiotics, mythology, existentialism, metafictional analysis, representationalism, symbolism, humanism, and Lacanian criticism all have some presence in this collection of essays. Not Far From Here provides readers and scholars alike with new and multinational insights into Carver’s poetry and fiction.

This colorfully illustrated book tells the inspiring story of a young weightlifter from Trinidad and Tobago, the first to win an Olympic medal in his division for the twin-island republic. The reader learns about the challenges that Lennox Kilgour overcame with the help of coaches, fellow athletes, and his community, and his own determination to succeed.