A young woman’s search for connection with her estranged father, her family’s past, and the Palestinian homeland she can never visit

“[A] definitive work in the genre of Palestinian memoirs that will not only attract readers of Said or Kanafani, but also fans of Joan Didion, Hisham Matar, Ocean Vuong, or James Baldwin." —The New Arab

“Serhan’s memoir, crafted in magnificent prose. . . . is something which is truly cinematic in quality, whose delights and heartbreaks tumble out before the reader as naturally as images fall from a screen. . . . utterly vivid and compelling.” —Jhalak Review

Mai Serhan lives in Cairo and has never been to Palestine, the country from which her family was expelled in 1948. She is twenty-four years old when one morning she receives a phone call from her estranged father. His health is failing and he might not have long to live, so he asks her to join him in China where he runs a business empire about which Mai knows nothing. Mai agrees to go in the hopes that they will become close, but this strange new country is as unknowable to her as her father. There, the ghosts of the Nakba come to haunt them both. With this grief comes violence, and a tragic death brings a whole new meaning to the word erasure.

In a narrative made rich by its layers of fragmentation, as befitting the splintered and disordered existence of exile over generations, this courageous memoir spans Egypt, Lebanon, Dubai, China and, of course, Palestine. It is filled with bitter tragedy and loss and woven through with an understated humor and much grace.

An eloquent and moving story about the value and the pleasures of intellectual exploration—and why it matters beyond the classroom.
 
At a time when college students and their parents often question the "return on investment" from humanities courses, accomplished feature writer and English professor Carlo Rotella invites us into the minds of a group of skeptical first-year students who are ultimately transformed by a required literature class. 

In What Can I Get Out of This? he follows thirty-three students through his class to provide an intimate look at teaching and learning from their perspectives as well as his own. The students' reluctance—"How does this get me a job?"—transforms into insight as they wrestle with challenging books, share ideas, discover how to think critically, and form a community. In all these ways, they learn how to extract meaning from the world around them, an essential life skill. Confronting skeptics of higher education, this compassionate and inspiring book reveals the truth of what students actually experience in college.

Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory critically examines the emergent field of podcasting in academia, revealing its significant impact on scholarly communication and approaches to research and knowledge creation.

This collection presents in-depth analyses from scholars who have integrated podcasting into their academic pursuits. The book systematically explores the medium's implications for teaching, its effectiveness in reaching broader audiences, and its role in reshaping the dissemination of academic work. Covering a spectrum of disciplines, the contributors detail their engagement with podcasting, providing insight into its use as both a research tool and an object of analysis, thereby illuminating the multifaceted ways in which podcasting intersects with and influences academic life.

The volume provides substantive evidence of podcasting's transformative effect on academia, offering reflections on its potential to facilitate a more accessible and engaging form of scholarly output. By presenting case studies and empirical research, Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory underscores the originality of podcasting as an academic endeavor and its utility in expanding the reach and impact of scholarly work. It serves as a key resource for academics, researchers, and practitioners interested in the application and study of podcasting as a novel vector for knowledge creation and distribution.

Anti-racist movements have continued to grow worldwide after the death of George Floyd in 2020. Following the BLM protests, many promises were made to deal with the impact of structural discrimination. While this led to more talk than action, there has also been meaningful change, some of which has gone under the radar. The US media focused primarily on the backlash that resulted in book bans and laws against having DEI offices in universities.

In contrast, this book, a follow-up to Terri E. Givens’s bestselling book Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides, highlights the promises that were delivered. It focuses on hope and taking action and creating a positive environment including the use of the radical empathy approach to empower ongoing change.

Peacekeepers, effective deterrent or potential cause of ultimate disaster? Understanding what nuclear weapons are for has never been more essential.

Dr Patricia Shamai traces the history of nuclear weapons from their first use in 1945 when they brought the Second World War to an end, through the Cold War when they gave rise to peace movements and disarmament efforts to the ominous nuclear landscape today.

Shamai shows how nuclear weapons have, to date, been a deterrent by raising the stakes of war and thereby reducing the chances of certain kinds of conflict. But, she warns, this is not a permanent situation – its continuation depends on the world’s reaction to this threat and ongoing vigilance.