Troubling Images explores how art and visual culture helped to secure hegemonic claims to the nation-state via the construction of a unified Afrikaner imaginary.

Troubling Images explores how art and visual culture helped to secure hegemonic claims to the nation-state via the construction of a unified Afrikaner imaginary Emerging in the late nineteenth century and gaining currency in the 1930s and 1940s, Afrikaner nationalist fervour underpinned the establishment of white Afrikaner political and cultural domination during South Africa’s apartheid years. Focusing on manifestations of Afrikaner nationalism in paintings, sculptures, monuments, buildings, cartoons, photographs, illustrations and exhibitions, Troubling Images offers a critical account of the role of art and visual culture in the construction of a unified Afrikaner imaginary, which helped secure hegemonic claims to the nation-state. This insightful volume examines the implications of metaphors and styles deployed in visual culture, and considers how the design, production, collecting and commissioning of objects, images and architecture were informed by Afrikaner nationalist imperatives and ideals. While some chapters focus only on instances of adherence to Afrikaner nationalism, others consider articulations of dissent and criticism. By ‘troubling’ these images: looking at them, teasing out their meanings, and connecting them to a political and social project that still has a major impact on the present moment, the authors engage with the ways in which an Afrikaner nationalist inheritance is understood and negotiated in contemporary South Africa. They examine the management of its material effects in contemporary art, in archives, the commemorative landscape and the built environment. Troubling Images adds to current debates about the histories and ideological underpinnings of nationalism and is particularly relevant in the current context of globalism and diaspora, resurgent nationalisms and calls for decolonisation.

As long as there have been formal curricula, there have been disappointing curricula. In an increasingly authoritarian world, problematic curricula are on the rise, leaving teachers in a bind. When faced with these problematic curricula, some teachers will submit and do as they are told, while other teachers will oppose the problematic curricula, and, in some cases, face the consequences. Instead, Seth McCall argues for reworking problematic curricula. Turning to the nearest bookshelf, he engages with his own troubling inheritance, a problematic curriculum: E. D. Hirsch et al.’s The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. As a gift from a beloved family member, that text proved too dear to discard and too problematic to accept unchanged. Drawing on examples of assemblage art, the author reworks the problematic curriculum through cutting, juxtaposing with other materials, and re-contextualizing in a different setting. Navigating in the wake of reactionary movements, A Troubling Inheritance: Reworking Problematic Curricula encourages teachers to find forms of subsistence while continuing to work toward a larger vision of social justice.

How should we understand biblical texts where God is depicted as acting irrationally, violently, or destructively? If we distance ourselves from disturbing portrayals of God, how should we understand the authority of Scripture? How does the often wrathful God portrayed in the Old Testament relate to the God of love proclaimed in the New Testament? Is that contrast even accurate? Disturbing Divine Behavior addresses these perennially vexing questions for the student of the Bible. Eric A. Seibert calls for an engaged and discerning reading of the Old Testament that distinguishes the particular literary and theological goals achieved through narrative characterizations of God from the rich understanding of the divine to which the Old Testament as a whole points. Providing illuminating reflections on theological reading as well, this book will be a welcome resource for any readers who puzzle over disturbing representations of God in the Bible.

Drawing from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives, the essays in Multiple Lenses, Multiple Images are oriented around the idea that images of childhood can be understood within three dimensions: time, space, and discipline. Time refers to both the chronological ages of the children under consideration and the historical timeframe in which that particular essay is suited. Space is a dimension that includes familial, community, institutional, and cultural spaces within which children live. The third dimension, discipline, names the specific and distinct areas of scholarship and research that define the ontology, epistemology, and methodology within which the contributors write. Multiple Lenses, Multiple Images is intended to deepen and expand the collaborative, interdisciplinary discourse on children and childhood through reflections not just on what is known about children, but on how it has been learned.

The late 1990s and early 2000s witnessed a surge in the publication and popularity of autobiographical writings about childhood. Linking literary and cultural studies, Contesting Childhood draws on a varied selection of works from a diverse range of authorsùfrom first-time to experienced writers. Kate Douglas explores Australian accounts of the Stolen Generation, contemporary American and British narratives of abuse, the bestselling memoirs of Andrea Ashworth, Augusten Burroughs, Robert Drewe, Mary Karr, Frank McCourt, Dave Pelzer, and Lorna Sage, among many others. Drawing on trauma and memory studies and theories of authorship and readership, Contesting Childhood offers commentary on the triumphs, trials, and tribulations that have shaped this genre. Douglas examines the content of the narratives and the limits of their representations, as well as some of the ways in which autobiographies of youth have become politically important and influential. This study enables readers to discover how stories configure childhood within cultural memory and the public sphere.

The Change Process in Psychotherapy During Troubling Times invites readers to consider what it is psychotherapists do that leads to change. The book highlights different theoretical approaches, questions old paradigms, and illustrates the change process when working with people facing a range of life challenges such as the survivors of childhood trauma, refugees, and people dealing with traumatic loss. Moving between consideration of micro-moments when working with individual clients and bigger questions about how to promote change in the face of current world problems, it addresses issues that touch us all. At the same time, the book acknowledges the unprecedented challenges in today’s world such as the pace of change, the thousands of displaced people who seek refuge in other countries, the illness and loss caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the impact of climate change on lifestyles and the environment. The book presents a topical consideration of the relevance of therapeutic assumptions, theories, and practices to current global crises. With the breadth of presenting issues considered and the examples of a variety of creative approaches supporting change, the book will be useful to psychotherapists in practice and in training working in a range of settings with different populations. It will also be of interest to others working in the helping professions.