Cambria Press
Anticipating and managing crime, crisis, and violence in our schools; a practical guide.
Currently an assistant superintendent for an urban school district in the Midwest, Campbell has some 30 years of experience in public education as a teacher, curriculum facilitator, principal, and national presenter. She offers a practical guide to help school administrators prepare for various possible crises in schools, including how to train staff so they can react in a purposeful and effective manner during various types of crisis situations, how to take care of all involved after a crisis, and how to properly document the crisis. No subject index. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Application of the SCOR model in supply chain management.
Drawing on a study of 80 companies in Europe, North America, and Asia, Poluha (director, SAP America) provides an overview of the supply chains operations reference (SCOR) model and discusses the operational possibilities for analysis and measurement of the performance potential of supply chains. Sixty pages of appendices include questionnaires and performance measures used in the study, examples of performance measures, and other results. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Christianity online; response to The Da Vinci code as impression management.
The authors (professors of journalism and mass communications at Murray State U.) explore Christian church reactions to the novel The Da Vinci Code and its subsequent movie adaptation, which challenged church doctrine through positing the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and fictionally describing a conspiracy involving the secretive Catholic organization Opus Dei and the bloodline of the descendants of Jesus. Looking at sources found online during 2006, they frame their discussion within the field of mass communication theories, particularly those relating to crisis management and public impression management on the part of the Church. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Missionary practices on the Gold Coast, 1832-1895; discourse, gaze, and gender in the Basel Mission in pre-colonial West Africa.
Quartey (German, Washington and Jefferson College) details the experiences of both missionaries and the potentially converted on the coast of Africa, at a time when missionaries were the first Westerners to arrive. Quartey takes as his case studies a pair of German missionaries, male and female and a male missionary of mixed Danish and African descent, providing insights as to how each operated within what was a very structured world. Focusing on the Basel Mission, Quartey describes how Riss, the male German, he finds evidence of not only discourse on superiority by race but by gender; in Widmann, the woman he finds not-so-subtle applications of gender roles; and in Reindorf, the man of mixed heritage, he finds closely drawn boundaries that altered Reindorf's image of himself as tentative European if active Christian. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Narrating the prison; role and representation in Charles Dickens's novels, twentieth-century fiction, and film.
Looking at the depiction of British and American institutions that hold captives, Alber (English, University of Freiburg) investigates the ways in which Charles Dickens' mature fiction, prison novels of the 20th century, and prison films narrate the prison, and argues that Dickens' fiction anticipates the representation of prisons in 20th century novels and films. He discusses the role of prison metaphors in the representation of the prison experience, and explores questions concerning similarities, differences, and continuities between these narratives. By showing what associations the prison evokes and by illustrating what aspects of the prison are highlighted in prison metaphors, he attempts to gain a deeper understanding of how the prison has entered the cultural subconscious. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Oedipal rejection; echoes in the relationships of gay men.
Practitioner Rose works from his experiences with a clinical population of gay men who have consistent difficulties with intimate relationships with other gay men. The men tend to have short-term relationships without much commitment and have difficulty expressing emotional needs with their partners, along with a plethora of other issues, and they report having felt different from other boys early in their lives. Rose finds their concerns stem from their perceptions of what it is to be male. He traces the evidence from the male figures in the lives of proto-gay boys, fathers' functions with pre-oedipal sons and the development of a sense of masculine identity, the critical importance of other boys, attachment theory and three dimensions of experience. In a series of intensive case studies and narratives he tests his theories and develops a range of unconscious fantasies linked to adolescence, which he considers the second individualization process. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Online social support; the interplay of social networks and computer-mediated communication.
Can online support networks provide the same benefits of face-to-face social support while avoiding conventional limitations of material resources, proximity, and temporality? Bambina (Center on Organizational Innovation, Columbia U.) investigates this question by examining two weeks of discussion on an online cancer support forum in order to understand patterns of relations that develop and the impact they have on the availability and transmission of social support. She identifies what types of support are offered and requested in the online forum and explores their relative frequencies, finding that companionship (chatting, humor/teasing, and "groupness") is transmitted most often, followed in order by emotional support (understanding/empathy, encouragement, affirmation/validation, sympathy, and caring/concern) and then informational support (advice, referrals, and teaching). She also examines the network's social structure and its impact on the transmission of support, discusses types of online actors, and develops a theory of optimal matching to explore how and why social support is transmitted within the network's social structure. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Police beat; the emotional power of music in police work.
How can you make Australian cops appear to be more approachable and human to their communities? According to Dennis (anthropology, U. of Southern Queensland) a popular method is to create a police band that serves at functions within the community. In this interesting example of how multidisciplinary approaches are working in scholarship today, Dennis does not merely count noses at concerts or parades but performs ethnologies of the emotions of the musician/cops and their audiences, noting the power of music on emotion. She finds that the position of power assumed by most police officers also influences the music they chose and the emotions they wish to raise in their audience. She finds the equations formed of materiality, emotion and power-laden memories associated with music are incredibly complex, particularly to the performers. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
