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A candid exploration of sadomasochistic practices driving contemporary culture, covering the demoralizing socioeconomic and political conditions that give rise to agonizing rituals of cruelty demonstrated at systemic, transnational, religious, familial, and even sexual spheres of human relations.

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Foreword PART I: REGULATING CONVENTIONAL CULTURE 1. Deconstructing Degradation Rituals 2. Degradation Rituals in Incarceration 3. Degradation Rituals in Biotechnology 4. Degradation Rituals in American Higher Education PART II: REGULATING ALTERNATIVE CULTURE 5. Degradation Rituals in Off-Road Motorcycling in Africa 6. Degradation Rituals in Mobile Squatting in Poland 7. Degradation Rituals in the Bedroom 8. Degradation Rituals in Ecological Sustainability PART III: REGULATING REGIME: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 9. Degradation Rituals in Chinese Cultural Museums 10. Degradation Rituals in German Holocaust Compensation 11. Degradation Rituals among Islamic Intellectuals of Egypt 12. Degradation Rituals in One World Governance

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"I am delighted that Lisiunia Romanienko has finally sat down to document, in pain-staking detail, the numerous societal cruelties we have witnessed and agonized over throughout the years. It is high time that her thoughtful observations of the aggressive patterns of behavior around the world are being brought to light in this timely and courageous book." - Alessandra Rusconi, Social Science Research Center Berlin, Germany

´People everywhere are yearning for the cessation of state and non-state cruelties. Lisiunia Romanienko has captured these unique demoralizing and paradoxically empowering processes. It is rare for an intellectual to engage both the heart and mind in the research process, yet in this way she enables her reader to gain a better understanding of the resilience of the human spirit in response to persistent depravity documented in this ground-breaking book.´ - Gideon Kressel, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

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Lisiunia A. Romanienko, (BA Rutgers University; MS New School University, PhD Wroclaw University) has received fellowships, grants, awards, and teaching appointments from Wroclaw University in Poland, Graz University in Austria, Suez Canal University in Egypt, Rutgers University, Louisiana State University School of Medicine, and Southern University of New Orleans [HBCU]. Her previous book Body Piercing and Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) received numerous awards from a variety of professional associations.

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