The face, being prominent and visible, is the foremost marker of a person’s identity as well as their major tool of communication. Facial disfigurements, congenital or acquired, not only erase these significant capacities, but since ancient times, they have been conjured up as outrageous and terrifying, often connoting evil or criminality in their associations – a dark secret being suggested "behind the mask," the disfigurement indicating punishment for sin. Complemented by an original poem by Kenneth Sherman and a plastic surgeon’s perspective on facial disfigurement, this book investigates the exploitation of these and further stereotypical tropes by literary authors, filmmakers, and showrunners, considering also the ways in which film, television, and the publishing industry have more recently tried to overcome negative codifications of facial disfigurement, in the search for an authentic self behind the veil of facial disfigurement. An exploration of fictional representations of the disfigured face, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, cultural and media studies, American studies and literary studies with interests in representations of disfigurement and the Other.

Beginning with Casino Royale (2006) and ending with No Time to Die (2021), the Daniel Craig era of James Bond films coincides with the rise of various justice movements challenging deeply entrenched systems of inequality and oppression, ranging from sexism, racism, and immigration to 2SLGBTQIA+ rights, reproductive justice and climate change. While focus is often placed on individual actions and institutional policies and practices, it is important to recognize the role that culture plays within these systems. Mainstream film is not simply 'mindless' entertainment but a key part of a global cultural industry that naturalizes and normalizes power structures. Engaging with these issues, Resisting James Bond is a multidisciplinary collection that explores inequality and oppression in the world of 007 through a range of critical and theoretical approaches. The chapters explore the embodiment and disembodiment of power and privilege across the formal, narrative, cultural and geopolitical elements that define the revisionist-reversionist world of Daniel Craig's Bond.

This book explores the stark stratification and struggles over classifications in US academia from a relational perspective, looking beyond material differences and tracing its roots to symbolic power relations. Based on a mixed methods study drawing on both interview and quantitative data, it offers an account of the workings of academia, shedding light on the structures that permit elite departments to define categories and impose legitimate scientific definitions, to which the non-elite must adhere. With a focus on two scientific disciplines, the author shows how the translation of objective structures into mental structures establishes a relationship of power with regard to the definition of scientific categories, thus determining access to resources and opportunities to participate and move within the academic field. A study of the unequal intrusion of economic logics into the academic domain, this volume will appeal to scholars, policy makers and institutional leaders with interests in higher education, inequality within science, academic careers, power relationships and competition in the academy.

Humairah and Kamaludeen examine contemporary Malay national identity in Singapore and Malaysia through the lens of ‘primordial modernity’, taking on a comparative transnational perspective. How do Malays in Singapore and Malaysia conceptualise and negotiate their ethnic identity vis-à-vis the state’s construction of Malay national identity? Humairah and Kamaludeen employ discourse analyses of both elite and mass texts that include newspaper editorials, school textbooks, political speeches, novels, movies, and letters in local newspapers. Extending current notions of Malay identity, the authors offer a comprehensive overview of Malay identity that takes into consideration both primordial dimensions and the more modern aspects such as their cosmopolitan sensibilities and their approach to social mobility. A valuable resource for scholars of Southeast Asian culture and society, as well as Sociologists looking at wider issues of ethnic and national identity.

Governing Human Lives and Health in Pandemic Times looks into the instruments and the type of reasoning involved when large-scale social control strategies were implemented worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The repertoires of institutional and administrative governance tools used during the pandemic are studied in their unique institutional, socio-geographic, and cultural settings, in order to form an understanding of the political climates and the values inscribed in current societal contracts. The book is intended for academic audiences interested in policy research, health governance, and civil societal issues. It will be of great relevance and use for a wide audience of policymakers, public officials, and health care planners as well as students in a broad range of disciplines.

The New Sociology of Ageing explores the challenges and opportunities of ageing as a global force. Alongside globalisation, urbanisation, new technology, climate change, and global pandemics, ageing is transforming life in the twenty-first century. Through the eyes of a young sociology student and her multigenerational family, this book sets out a new sociological framework to interpret ageing societies. It explores how the ‘New Old’ – the baby boomer generation – might be mobilised as an agency of social change in transforming later life. It proposes this generation as the co-architects of a new intergenerational social contract for the era ahead, rather than as the recipients of a post-war twentieth-century social contract that society can no longer support. Taking Britain as a case study and societies across the world as examples, Slattery explores emerging revolutions in work and retirement, potential crises in pensions, healthcare and housing, as well as transformations in family life and in our attitudes to sex and death in later life. This book provides a clear overview of the sociology of ageing. It introduces students to demography as a sociological force of the future, and to the perils and the promises of longevity as societies across the world approach the Hundred-Year Life. This book will be of interest to undergraduate students and early scholars in the social sciences, particularly in sociology, gerontology, social policy, and public health.

The monograph The Paradigm of Social Interaction presents a paradigmatic synthesis in sociology. This is a reaction to the growing paradigmatic divisions in the discipline and an attempt at fostering the cumulative development of sociological knowledge. The suggested conceptual fusion includes micro-sociological interaction theories, recent theories of organizational interactions and the experience from the study on global trends. The intention is to support the building and explanatory application of middle-range theories in all action spheres and at all micro-, mezzo- and macro-social structural levels. The paradigmatic synthesis is developed around five analytical concepts of the determinants of social interactions: environmental, technological, economic, political and cultural complexes. Another conceptual framework fostering explanations consists of social actors, relations and processes as key parameters of the social interaction paradigm. The book also examines the COVID pandemic as a multidimensional crisis, applying the synthetic paradigm as a heuristic tool and knowledge-organizing framework. It is used in the studies on social innovations, societal transformations and global social trends as well. The book will be of interest to researchers, university teachers and doctoral and master's students in the fields of sociology, social theory, critical sociology, philosophy of social sciences, innovation and societal transformation studies.