This collection seeks to move noncombatant perspectives to center stage, acknowledging their importance, destabilizing the primacy of the combatant, and explaining or undermining the staging of warfare as a singular and acontextual production.

This collection seeks to move noncombatant perspectives to center stage, acknowledging their importance, destabilizing the primacy of the combatant, and explaining or undermining the staging of warfare as a singular and acontextual production.

This book explores how African youth are depicted in contemporary literature and popular culture, and discusses the different ways by which they attempt to construct personal and cultural identities through popular culture and social media outlets. The contributors approach the subject from an interdisciplinary perspective, looking at images in children’s and adolescent literature from Africa, and the African diaspora, from Nollywood and Hollywood movies, from popular magazines, and from youth cultures encountered directly through field experiences. The findings reveal that there are many stereotypes about Africa, African youth and black cultures, and that African youth are aware of these. Since they juggle multiple identities shaped by their ethnicities, race and religion, it is often a challenge for them to define themselves. As they also share a global youth culture that transcends these cultural markers, some take advantage of media outlets to voice their concerns and participate in political struggles. Others simply use these to promote their personal interests. Contributors ponder the challenges involved in constructing unique identities, offering ideas on how African youth are doing so successfully or not in different parts of the continent and the African diaspora, and thus offer new possibilities for youth studies.

Tragically, violence and armed conflict have become commonplace in the lives of many children around the world. Not only have millions of children been forced to witness war and its atrocities, but many are drawn into conflict as active participants. Nowhere has this been more evident than in Sierra Leone during its 11-year civil war. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and focus groups with former child soldiers of Sierra Leone's rebel Revolutionary United Front, Myriam Denov compassionately examines how child soldiers are initiated into the complex world of violence and armed conflict. She also explores the ways in which the children leave this world of violence and the challenges they face when trying to renegotiate their lives and self-concepts in the aftermath of war. The narratives of the Sierra Leonean youth demonstrate that their life histories defy the narrow and limiting portrayals presented by the media and popular discourse.

In this pioneering study, Ingrid de Zwarte examines the causes and demographic impact of the Dutch 'Hunger Winter' that occurred in the Netherlands during the final months of German occupation in the Second World War. She offers a comprehensive and multifaceted view of the socio-political context in which the famine emerged and considers how the famine was confronted at different societal levels, including the responses by Dutch, German and Allied state institutions, affected households, and local communities. Contrary to highly-politicized assumptions, she argues that the famine resulted from a culmination of multiple transportation and distribution difficulties. Although Allied relief was postponed for many crucial months and official rations fell far below subsistence level, successful community efforts to fight the famine conditions emerged throughout the country. She also explains why German authorities found reasons to cooperate and allow relief for the starving Dutch. With these explorations, The Hunger Winter offers a radically new understanding of the Dutch famine and provides a valuable insight into the strategies and coping mechanisms of a modern society facing catastrophe.

This collection provides readers with a comprehensive overview of postwar representations of Nazism in popular culture, documenting and critiquing their enormous impact and importance. From Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator to the depiction of Nazis in the Raiders of the Lost Ark to other various literature, comic books, video games, television programs, and pop music, Nazism has maintained a constant presence in popular culture after World War II. Why are representations of Nazism—which are often used to depict the ultimate expression of human evil—so entrenched in our culture? Each chapter in this book examines this multifaceted topic from different angles, highlighting the different incidences of Nazistic representations in the post-1945 period. The diverse subject matter in this text ranges from analysis of recent allo-historical novels, to the music of the "neo-folk" movement, to fetishes and pornography. Readers will gain insight on how the imagery and symbology of Nazism in popular culture has changed over time and understand how the disconnect between representations of Nazism and the historical record have developed, particularly with regard to the genocide that resulted from Nazi politics.

The present study adds to TEFL discourse in several ways. First of all, it contributes to the widening of the canon as it focuses on Ugandan childrens fiction. Secondly, the research connects to the few empirical studies that exist in the field. It provides further implications for cultural and global learning and literary didactics in TEFL derived from insights into the mental processes of a group of Year 9 students in Germany engaging with Ugandan childrens fiction within the scope of an extensive reading project.