This collection of essays revises contemporary trauma theory, from Freudian/Caruthian and post-structuralist perspectives. While Western trauma theory is often theorized according to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), this volume discusses different forms of trauma that target decolonisation theories in Arab-Maghrebean and Afro-American contexts and Chinese narratives on courtesans. The contributors to this book also scrutinize the artistic representation of trauma in poetry and drama, adopting a cross-cultural approach to trauma theory.

Nationalism appears to be rising in a renascent Asia and stoking tensions, aspirations, and identity politics while amplifying grievances and raising questions about prospects in what is touted as the Asian century. This book provides a broad overview and introduction to nationalism in Asia. Leading experts in their fields succinctly convey key information and critical analysis useful to students in a range of courses across disciplines. Part I presents thematic chapters, mostly cross-national studies, that elucidate the roots and consequences of nationalism in these societies and the varying challenges they confront. Part II presents concise country case studies in Asia, providing an overview of what is driving contemporary nationalism and surveys the domestic and international implications. Approaching Asia from the perspective of nationalism facilitates a comparative, interdisciplinary analysis that helps readers better understand each society and what the ramifications of nationalism are for contemporary Asians, and the worlds that they (and we) participate in. Asian Nationalisms Reconsidered is an invaluable textbook for undergraduate courses and graduate seminars related to international relations, Asian Studies, political science, government, foreign policy, peace and conflict, and nationalism.

The Holy Roman Empire has often been anachronistically assumed to have been defunct long before it was actually dissolved at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The authors of this volume reconsider the significance of the Empire in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Their research reveals the continual importance of the Empire as a stage (and audience) for symbolic performance and communication; as a well utilized problem-solving and conflict-resolving supra-governmental institution; and as an imagined political, religious, and cultural "world" for contemporaries. This volume by leading scholars offers a dramatic reappraisal of politics, religion, and culture and also represents a major revision of the history of the Holy Roman Empire in the early modern period.

Debate surrounds the significance of stressful events in determining the nature and course of mental illness. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the focus of psychiatry shifted to neurobiological causes of illness thereby reducing the importance of the research of stress and trauma as major causes of disorders. With the classification of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the theory of traumatic exposure as a major etiological agent of psychiatric symptoms was reasserted. In the twenty years following the diagnosis of PTSD, a large amount of data has been collected and this research has presented some important challenges to the mental health field. It is now clear that PTSD is a serious public health problem, yet this disorder is not the inevitable outcome of trauma. An important development in the field of traumatology has been the recent findings pertaining to the biology of trauma and PTSD. The demonstration of a distinct set of biological models correlating with the symptoms of the disorder has been a critical validation of the concept of PTSD. Also, this evidence has lead the field towards pharmacological treatment of this disorder. The final sections of this volume research the rationale for medical intervention as well s non-biological treatment of trauma and PTSD through cognitive and behavioral therapy. For a section of psychiatric medicine that has undergone recent significant change, Psychological Trauma addresses these advances in a critical and thorough approach. The practicing physician will find this volume an indispensable addition to the existing literature.

This collection revises subjectivity in the light of postmodern theories of the subject. The contributors gathered here present and discuss a number of different, but interrelated, subjectivities. As such, they reconceptualize the theory of subjectivity according to various texts and contexts, such as the subjectivity of discourses, the subject under subjugation, and the intersubjective construction of the other. It introduces a dynamic subjectivity to minority literature, colonial/postcolonial texts, and travel literature, to name but a few. The dynamics of intersubjectivity provide a space for subjectivities to negotiate and interrelate. Moreover, this collection shows that intersubjectivity is hybrid, yet flexible, by nature.

This new study analyzes Soviet political and economic policies toward East Germany from 1945 to 1955, focusing on the transition from ambivalence to support. In her introduction Phillips outlines the postwar situation and reviews differing interpretations of Soviet policy. She reviews the issues of postwar settlement relating to East Germany and describes the conflicts within the Soviet leadership over German policy. Discussing Soviet economic exploitation of Germany and the harsh reparations policy, she contrasts these developments with the relatively moderate Soviet policies of socialization implemented in the same period, including improved consumption, economic aid, and toleration of private trade and production. She analyzes the factors that undermined the stability of the Ulbricht regime and culminated in the June 1953 uprising, creating an abrupt change of direction in Soviet policy toward the German Democratic Republic and East European bloc that existed prior to 1953. She argues that Soviet policies during the immediate postwar period were ambivalent, serving a mix of political and economic goals that were often incompatible, and that the Soviet commitment to incorporate East Germany into the Soviet bloc was not evident until after mid-1953.

Side-by-side, time-lapse photos and interviews, separated by twenty-five years, of people serving life sentences in prison, by the bestselling author of The Little Book of Restorative Justice “Shows the remarkable resilience of people sentenced to die in prison and raises profound questions about a system of punishment that has no means of recognizing the potential of people to change.” —Marc Mauer, senior adviser, The Sentencing Project, and co-author (with Ashley Nellis) of The Meaning of Life “Life without parole is a death sentence without an execution date.” —Aaron Fox (lifer) from Still Doing Life In 1996, Howard Zehr, a restorative justice activist and photographer, published Doing Life, a book of photo portraits of individuals serving life sentences without the possibility of parole in Pennsylvania prisons. Twenty-five years later, Zehr revisited many of the same individuals and photographed them in the same poses. In Still Doing Life, Zehr and co-author Barb Toews present the two photos of each individual side by side, along with interviews conducted at the two different photo sessions, creating a deeply moving of people who, for the past quarter century, have been trying to live meaningful lives while facing the likelihood that they will never be free. In the tradition of other compelling photo books including Milton Rogovin’s Triptychs and Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters, Still Doing Life offers a riveting longitudinal look at a group of people over an extended period of time—in this case with complex and problematic implications for the American criminal justice system. Each night in the United States, more than 200,000 men and women incarcerated in state and federal prisons will go to sleep facing the reality that they may die without ever returning home. There could be no more compelling book to challenge readers to think seriously about the consequences of life sentences.