Increasingly, scholars from many disciplines have begun to incorporate various modalities from the humanities and arts – novels, films, artwork, and other forms of expression – to help connect students with the experience of aging in deeply meaningful and person-centered ways. This collection examines how these approaches are incorporated into gerontology and geriatrics education. Rather than focusing solely on measurable outcomes, such as changes in learning over time – which is the purview of empirical pedagogy – chapters focus on strategies for successfully incorporating a specific work into the classroom, descriptions of humanities and/or arts exercises with students or older adults, and other ways that explore how the humanities and arts can be applied successfully and meaningfully in educational settings. This book was originally published as a special issue of Geronotology & Geriatrics Education.

This dissertation begins with the premise that the founding assumptions undergirding the interdisciplinary field of Tourism Studies have necessarily, if not inevitably, engendered a set of critical lacunae around race and ethnicity. Specifically, these assumptions have functioned to circumscribe any racial paradigm in which people of color are anything but the objects of touristic inquiry. "When the 'other' is ourselves: imperial legacies, tourist imaginaries, and the representation of difference in Chicana/o travel writing and cultural production" asks what subjectivities are (re)formed when the supposed "Other" is doing the touring, particularly when that someone encounters what she senses is an exoticized or fetishized reflection of herself. Through an examination of Chicana/o memoirs, visual art, and fiction that center Mexican-American (actual and imagined, factual and fictionalized) experiences of touristic mobility, this study considers new and different questions about identity, difference, and representation in literary and cultural discourses.

NOW a NETFLIX series entitled Special from Executive Producer JIM PARSONS starring RYAN O‘CONNELL as himself. From the beloved blogger turned voice of an online generation, an unforgettable and hilarious memoir-meets-manifesto exploring what it means to be a millennial gay man living with cerebral palsy, which VICE calls “a younger, gay version of Mary Karr's Lit.” People are obsessed with Ryan O’Connell’s blogs. With tens of thousands reading his pieces on Thought Catalog and Vice, watching his videos on YouTube, and hanging on to each and every #dark tweet, Ryan has established himself as a unique young voice who’s not afraid to dole out some real talk. He’s that candid, snarky friend you consult when you fear you’re spending too much time falling down virtual k-holes stalking your ex on Facebook or when you’ve made the all-too-common mistake of befriending a psycho while wasted at last night’s party and need to find a way to get rid of them the next morning. But Ryan didn’t always have the answers to these modern-day dilemmas. Growing up gay and disabled with cerebral palsy, he constantly felt like he was one step behind everybody else. Then the rude curveball known as your twenties happened and things got even more confusing. Ryan spent years as a Millennial cliché: he had dead-end internships; dabbled in unemployment; worked in his pajamas as a blogger; communicated mostly via text; looked for love online; spent hundreds on “necessary” items, like candles, while claiming to have no money; and even descended into aimless pill-popping. But through extensive trial and error, Ryan eventually figured out how to take his life from bleak to chic and began limping towards adulthood. Sharp and entertaining, I’m Special will educate twentysomethings (or other adolescents-at-heart) on what NOT to do if they ever want to become happy fully functioning grown-ups with a 401k and a dog.

Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.

From the "New York Times"-bestselling author of "The Jane Austen Book Club," the story of an American family, ordinary in every way but one--their close family relative was a chimpanzee.

Charles Taylor's latest book sets out to define the modern identity by tracing its genesis.

Is this all you're living for? For years, pastor Paul Tripp understood we were "hardwired for forever." But he didn't understand that it was more than a valuable insight. It is a practical tool to help us face the disappointment of everyday life. Now he knows, and he can help you discover how to survive and thrive in the middle of your story, with the final chapter of heaven in view. Instead of embracing the world's motto--"you only live once"--follow Tripp as he unpacks the biblical truth of the world as a broken place, longing for a second chance. And come alive as you discover the meaning and redemption all this brokenness can bring to your life today. With practical insights on how eternity impacts your relationships, your job, your kids, and your deepest struggles, you'll be encouraged to relax into the eternal story God is writing for you. You really are hardwired for eternity, and this book reveals how you can begin to view all that happens in your life as preparation for Forever.

You think that your choices and behaviors are driven by your individual, personal tastes, and opinions. Our own personal thoughts and opinions is patently obvious. Right? Wrong. Other people's behavior has a huge influence on everything we do, from the mundane to the momentous. Berger integrates research and thinking from business, psychology, and social science to focus on the subtle, invisible influences behind our choices as individuals

The author of Self-Compassion follows up her groundbreaking book with new ideas that expand our notion of self-kindness and its capacity to transform our lives, showing women how to balance tender self-acceptance with fierce action to claim their power and change the world. Kristin Neff changed how we talk about self-care with her enormously popular first book, Self-Compassion. Now, ten years and many studies later, she expands her body of work to explore a brand-new take on self-compassion. Although kindness and self-acceptance allow us to be with ourselves as we are, in all our glorious imperfection, the desire to alleviate suffering at the heart of this mindset isn't always gentle, sometimes it's fierce. We must also act courageously in order to protect ourselves from harm and injustice, say no to others so we can meet our own needs, and motivate necessary change in ourselves and society. Gender roles demand that women be soft and nurturing, not angry or powerful. But like yin and yang, the energies of fierce and tender self-compassion must be balanced for wholeness and wellbeing. Drawing on a wealth of research, her personal life story and empirically supported practices, Neff demonstrates how women can use fierce and tender self-compassion to succeed in the workplace, engage in caregiving without burning out, be authentic in relationships, and end the silence around sexual harassment and abuse. Most women intuitively recognize fierceness as part of their true nature, but have been discouraged from developing it. Women must reclaim their power in order to create a healthier society and find lasting happiness. In this wise, caring, and enlightening book, Neff shows women how to reclaim balance within themselves, so they can help restore balance in the world.

John Quincy Adams warned Americans not to search abroad for monsters to destroy, yet such figures have frequently habituated the discourses of U.S. foreign policy. This collection of essays focuses on counter-identities in American consciousness to explain how foreign policies and the discourse surrounding them develop. Whether it is the seemingly ubiquitous evil of Hitler during World War II or the more complicated perceptions of communism throughout the Cold War, these essays illuminate the cultural contexts that constructed rival identities. The authors challenge our understanding of “others,” looking at early applications of the concept in the eighteenth century to recent twenty-first century conflicts, establishing how this phenomenon is central to decision making through centuries of conflict.