Cultural Representation of the Second Wife: Literature, Stage, and Screen, is a multifaceted, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural work that provides insights into the realities of second wives the world over. This book allows the reader a three-dimensional view of the second wife experience. It asks: What does it mean, and what does it feel like, to be a second wife in a polygamous union or in a monogamous partnership? Is there a difference? Together, the writers in this book cleverly create...

This essay collection examines the cultural and personal world of girls and women at a time when their lives, their person, their realities, and their status are about to change forever. Together, the chapters cleverly create an in-depth study of the subject, and look at several cultural forms to offer a different approach to the popularly-held views of the bride. The critical essays in this edited collection are thematically driven and include global perspectives of the portrayals of the ...

Hosting an assemblage of highly respected scholars, Jo Parnell analyzes depiction of stepmothers in pop culture narratives from various points across the globe, including the United States of America, France, Maghreb, Algeria, Germany, England, Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Nigeria, and South Korea.From ancient times to the present, the stepmother has been likened to her folktale and fairy tale counterpart. In present times, with the rapid increases of global modernizat...

Edited by Eric M. Bridges, Sheila Smith McKoy, and LaJuan Simpson-Wilkey, The Wisdom of Ifá: An Ancient Paradigm for the Twenty-First Century and Beyond explores Yoruba spirituality and the complex ways in which the acknowledgement of Ifá as a wisdom source can be used to address the needs of humanity in the twenty-first century and beyond. Through rituals and practices that honor nature's rhythms, the contributors explore how Ifá guides us towards sustainable coexistence with our...

For the first time in history, the majority of the world's population lives in cities, the result of a rapid process of urbanization that started in the second half of the twentieth century. 'Megacities' around the world are rapidly becoming the scene for deprivation, especially in the global South, and the urban excluded face the brunt of what in many cases seems like low-intensity warfare.Featuring case studies from across the globe, including Latin America, the Middle East and A...

With recent advances in digital technology, a number of exciting and innovative approaches to writing lives have emerged, from graphic memoirs to blogs and other visual-verbal-virtual texts. This edited collection is a timely study of new approaches to writing lives, including literary docu-memoir, autobiographical cartography, social media life writing and autobiographical writing for children. Combining literary theory with insightful critical approaches, each essay offers a serious stud...

For many, Johannesburg resembles the imagined spectre of the urban future. Global anxieties about catastrophic urban explosion, social fracture, environmental degradation, escalating crime and violence, and rampant consumerism alongside grinding poverty, are projected onto this city as a microcosm of things to come. Decision-makers in cities worldwide have attempted to balance harsh fiscal and administrative realities with growing demands for political, economic and social justice. This bo...

Daily Bread is the Bible reading guide that aims to help you hear from God as you read the Bible. If you've ever asked the question, 'What possible relevance can this verse have for me today?' or 'What difference does this passage make to my life?' then read on...

This book is a comprehensive study of some ways of treating the subject that demonstrate new and unusual perspectives, and provides a different approach to the popularly-held views of mothers-in-law; and that further address these works as popular culture; and as texts in their own right from within the framework of literary theory; and as works that demonstrate the ability to reach and connect with, and satisfy, both the general reader, the student, and the scholar, from all levels and wa...

Writing Australian History On-screen: Television and Film Period Dramas "Down Under" reveals the depths of Australian history from convict times to the present day. The essays in this book are thematically driven and take a rounded historical-cultural-sociological-psychological approach in analyzing the various selected productions. In their analyses and interpretations of the topic, the contributors interrogate the intricacies in Australian history as represented in Australian filmic peri...

This book addresses up-to-date urban health issues from a systems perspective and provides an appealing integrated urban development strategy based on a 10-year global interdisciplinary research programme created by the International Council for Science (ICSU), and sponsored by the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) and the United Nations University (UNU). The unique feature of this book is its “systems approach” to urban health and wellbeing: solution-oriented for science and society and not ...