Now in its second edition, Seeing the Bigger Picture examines the ways movies and popular culture can foster a deeper awareness of the political dilemmas and debates shaping our world.
Reviewing commercial films and documentaries, the text illustrates the myriad ways that film and popular culture shape our understanding of capitalism and democracy, war and terrorism, civil rights and social justice, campaigns and elections and the presidency.
This updated edition includes new chapters on media, human rights and the environment. In the aftermath of the American invasion of Iraq,...

This book has received the AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award 2012.
The essays in School Food Politics explore the intersections of food and politics on all six of the inhabited continents of the world. Including electoral fights over universally free school meals in Korea, nutritional reforms to school dinners in England and canteens in Australia, teachers and doctors work on school feeding in Argentina, and more, the volume provides key illustrations of the many contexts that have witnessed intense struggles defining which children will...

Conceptions of Islamic Education: Pedagogical Framings argues that madaris (Muslim schools) cannot exclusively be held responsible for the cultivation of extremism. Islamic education can most appropriately be framed according to three interrelated concepts: tarbiyyah (rearing or nurturing), ta lim (learning/ instruction), and ta dib (good action). These three phenomena are explored along the lines of a minimalist-maximalist continuum that guides practices and institutions differently. A minimalist understanding of Islamic education does not necessarily...

This book analyzes Web page design from a visual communication perspective. Visual communication is an emerging field which draws on numerous disciplines concerned with the creation, perception, and interpretation of visual messages. The transdisciplinary nature of the field allows us to see the sites examined from new visual vantage points metaphorical, cultural, and rhetorical; cognitive, perceptive, and evaluative. With an introduction and eight essays by visual communication scholars, the book also includes an insightful interview with Hillman Curtis, one of the foremost Web page...

Following the Threads: Bringing Inquiry Research into the Classroom integrates several strands related to inquiry research. Historians, artists, and educators are interviewed about carrying out research, and teachers who regularly conduct projects, expeditions, and other student-centered research strategies discuss their work. Complete with lesson and unit suggestions and further resources, this book is a tapestry of ideas for teachers, woven from the work and wisdom of educators and artists who follow the threads of their own questions and their students', bringing passion, depth, and...

This important, timely, and thought-provoking reader is a collection of original chapters by authors from five different countries, each of whom explores a facet of transformative leadership. Transformative leadership is fundamentally a critical approach to leadership that goes well beyond the tenets of most current leadership theories to focus on social transformation as the basis for both individual and collective achievement. The text clarifies and elaborates the concept, linking it to other theories including ways of thinking about curriculum and pedagogy to prepare leaders for a more...

Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism capitalizes upon the popularity of zombies, exploring the relevance of the metaphor they provide for examining the political and pedagogical conditions that have produced a growing culture of sadism, cruelty, disposability, and death in America. The zombie metaphor may seem extreme, but it is particularly apt for drawing attention to the ways in which political culture and power in American society now operate on a level of mere survival. This book uses the metaphor not only to suggest the symbolic face of power: beginning and...

Autobiography, Ecology, and the Well-Placed Self expands the field of autobiography studies by describing an emergent genre, natural biography, that embeds the human subject in a more-than-human world. Through an ecocritical analysis of three contemporary U.S. authors William Kittredge, Terry Tempest Williams, and Mary Clearman Blew Nathan Straight illustrates how ecologically situated life writing bridges the human/nature divide and responds to the pressing environmental and communal demands of our times. In his exploration of the well-placed self he challenges traditional concepts of...

Over the past two decades, much attention has been given to the new media culture of video games, due to their unique features and pervasive nature among young people. This book critically examines the role of video games in education, arguing that they encourage strategic thinking, planning, communicating, negotiation skills, multi-tasking and group decision-making. It is also observed that video games promote higher levels of attention and concentration among players. The book contains multiple perspectives and presents thought-provoking ideas, innovative approaches, systemic exploration,...

This critical collection covers a broad spectrum of works, both literary and cinematic, and issues from writers, directors, and artists who claim the science fiction, speculative fiction, and Afro-futurist genres. The anthology extends the discursive boundaries of science fiction by examining iconic writers like Octavia Butler, Walter Mosley, and Nalo Hopkinson through the lens of ecofeminist veganism, post-9/11 racial geopolitics, and the effect of the computer database on human voice and agency. Contributors expand what the field characterizes as speculative fiction by examining for the...