Structured as “a read-aloud book of poetry for adults who still act like petulant children”, Pandumbic! is a scathingly sarcastic, philosophical powerhouse book of humorous poetry that explores and illustrates a different aspect of the Covid-19 outbreak for each letter. The perfect selection for anyone with moderate to liberal beliefs about the events of 2020, it’s the best way to gather up those last, stubborn Trump supporters you know for snack-and-story-time and explain it to them, page-by-page, like they’re five years old.

Written by leading scholars and activists from Brazil, Chile, Greece, Italy, Malta, the UK, and the USA, this book shows how vitally important education is in addressing the complex social and political problems which have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic. The growing protest and demonstrations worldwide, including the Black Lives Matter and environmental movements, have served as platforms to unmask the embedded racism, sexism, classism, and discrimination which are rooted in neo-colonial forms of exploitation. People are recognizing the intensification of the genocide of black youth, indigenous peoples, peasants and traditional communities in the global ghettos. The rising level of conscientization reached through these protests and demonstrations makes it clear that critical educators must refuse the return to neoliberal “normality” after pandemic. The chapters cover the tensions and contradictions that fuel debates in education concerning social distancing, collective illness, increasing social and economic inequality and privatization reforms. The contributors argue for social and environmental justice, the importance of educators and teacher unions, the role of environmental education, the need to guarantee cultural diversity and the strengthening of ancestral cultures. The book includes chapters by Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman and Henry A. Giroux and a Foreword by Antonia Darder.

Following the most solemn moments in recent American history, comedians have tested the limits of how soon is “too soon” to joke about tragedy. Comics confront the horrifying events and shocking moments that capture national attention and probe the acceptable, or “sayable,” boundaries of expression that shape our cultural memory. In Tragedy Plus Time, Philip Scepanski examines the role of humor, particularly televised comedy, in constructing and policing group identity and memory in the wake of large-scale events. Tragedy Plus Time is the first comprehensive work to investigate tragedy-driven comedy in the aftermaths of such traumas as the JFK assassination and 9/11, as well as during the administration of Donald Trump. Focusing on the mass publicization of television comedy, Scepanski considers issues of censorship and memory construction in the ways comedians negotiate emotions, politics, war, race, and Islamophobia. Amid the media frenzy and conflicting expressions of grief following a public tragedy, comedians provoke or risk controversy to grapple publicly with national traumas that all Americans are trying to understand for themselves.

This book explores the concept of Coronaspeak, the language adopted by the global community as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; it involves jokes, slang, public health slogans, cliché, and coronalit (corona related literature). In Coronaspeak we see new vocabulary and coinage like solomoon (honeymoon without the honey), elbow bump or Coronafussgruss (German, ‘corona foot-greeting’), variant labelling in the Greek alphabet (omicron and delta), new drug naming (AstraZeneca), medical jargon (pathogen, R number), semi-technical (spillover, variant) and common expressions (stale air, rebound), and informal speech, dialect and nonce words (jab, jag, and ‘the lurgi’). The book highlights the capacity of words to adapt to shock and social disorder, and argues that they are part of disaster management, with entries from Italian, French, Japanese, German and Korean, taken from scholarly articles and print and internet sources.

Structured as "a read-aloud book of poetry for adults who still act like petulant children", Pandumbic! is a scathingly sarcastic, philosophical powerhouse book of humorous poetry that explores and illustrates a different aspect of the Covid-19 outbreak for each letter. The perfect selection for anyone with moderate to liberal beliefs about the events of 2020, it's the best way to gather up those last, stubborn Trump supporters you know for snack-and-story-time and explain it to them, page-by-page, like they're five years old.

Suffering from budget cuts, layoffs, and a growing suspicion that his search for the truth has become obsolete, veteran war correspondent Mark Scribner is about to throw in the towel on journalism when he discovers that his hard-earned knowledge can save his career and make him wealthy and famous. All he has to do is pivot to social media and, with a few cynical twists, abandon everything he cares about most.

In view of the current rhetoric surrounding the global migrant crisis – with politicians comparing refugees with animals and media reports warning of migrants swarming like insects or trespassing like wolves – this timely study explores the cultural origins of the language and imagery of dehumanization. Situated at the junction of literature, politics, and ecocriticism, Wolves at the Door traces the history of the wolf metaphor in discussions of race, gender, colonialism, fascism, and ecology. How have 'Gypsies', Jews, Native Americans but also 'wayward' women been 'wolfed' in literature and politics? How has the wolf myth been exploited by Hitler, Mussolini and Turkish ultra-nationalism? How do right-wing politicians today exploit the reappearance of wolves in Central Europe in the context of the migration discourse? And while their reintroduction in places like Yellowstone has fuelled heated debates, what is the wolf's role in ecological rewilding and for the restoration of biodiversity? In today's fraught political climate, Wolves at the Door alerts readers to the links between stereotypical images, their cultural history, and their political consequences. It raises awareness about xenophobia and the dangers of nationalist idolatry, but also highlights how literature and the visual arts employ the wolf myth for alternative messages of tolerance and cultural diversity.