Search results for ""The University of Chicago Press""
The University of Chicago Press Inside Culture: Art and Class in the American Home
This volume takes the reader on a tour of 160 homes in and around New York City, from affluent townhouses on Manhattan's Upper East Side and rowhouses in blue-collar Brooklyn to the middle- and upper-class suburbs of Long Island. The result text gives a portrait of the use of cultural artifacts - fine art, photographs, religious art, in private lives.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press Doctors and Demonstrators: How Political Institutions Shape Abortion Law in the United States, Britain, and Canada
Since Roe v. Wade, abortion has been a continually divisive political issue in the United States. In contrast, it has remained primarily a medical issue in Britain and Canada despite the countries' shared heritage. "Doctors and Demonstrators" looks beyond simplistic cultural or religious explanations to find out why abortion politics and policies differ so dramatically in these otherwise similar countries. Drew Halfmann argues that political institutions are the key. In the United States, federalism, judicial review, and a private health care system contributed to the public definition of abortion as an individual right rather than a medical necessity. Meanwhile, Halfmann explains, the porous structure of American political parties gave pro-choice and pro-life groups the opportunity to move the issue onto the political agenda. A groundbreaking study of the complex legal and political factors behind the evolution of abortion policy, "Doctors and Demonstrators" will be vital for anyone trying to understand this contentious issue.
£40.00
The University of Chicago Press Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture
Jonathan M. Hall explores questions of ethnic and national identity in the context of ancient Greece in Hellenicity, drawing on an exceptionally wide range of evidence to determine when, how, why, and to what extent the Greeks conceived themselves as a single people. Hall argues that a subjective sense of Hellenic identity emerged in Greece much later than is normally assumed. For instance, he shows that the four main ethnic subcategories of the ancient Greeks - Akhaians, Ionians, Aiolians, and Dorians - were not primordial survivals from a premigratory period but emerged in precise historical circumstances during the eighth and seventh centuries BC. Furthermore, Hall demonstrates that the terms of defining Hellenic identity shifted from ethnic to broader cultural criteria during the course of the fifth century BC, chiefly due to the influence of Athens, whose citizens formulated a new Athenocentric conception of "Greekness."
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change?
Presents a powerful argument for the limitations of judicial action to support significant social reform—now updated with new data and analysis. Since its first publication in 1991, The Hollow Hope has spurred debate and challenged assumptions on both the left and the right about the ability of courts to bring about durable political and social change. What Gerald N. Rosenberg argued then, and what he confirms today through new evidence in this edition, is that it is nearly impossible to generate significant reforms through litigation: American courts are ineffective and relatively weak, far from the uniquely powerful sources for change they are often portrayed to be. This third edition includes new data and a substantially updated analysis of civil rights, abortion rights and access, women’s rights, and marriage equality. Addressing changes in the political and social environment, Rosenberg draws lessons from the re-segregation of public schools, victories in marriage equality, and new obstacles to abortion access. Through these and other cases, the third edition confirms the power of the book’s original explanatory framework and deepens our understanding of the limits of judicial action in support of social reform, as well as the conditions under which courts do produce change. Up-to-date, thorough, and thought-provoking, The Hollow Hope remains vital reading.
£85.00
The University of Chicago Press Can Ethics Be Christian?
Is there a special relation between religious beliefs and moral behavior? In particular, is there a distinctive Christian moral character and how is this manifested in moral actions? The influential theologian James M. Gustafson probes these questions and offers an analysis of the distinctively religious reasons of the "heart and mind" which constitute the basis for a Christian ethics. Professor Gustafson grounds his discussion in a concrete example of moral conduct which deeply impressed him. The incident—narrated in detail at the start and referred to throughout—concerns a nonreligious colleague who came to the aid of an intoxicated soldier. Although seemingly trivial, this incident, in the author's view, approximates the normal sorts of experiences in which individuals have to make moral decisions every day; it becomes a touchstone to investigate the logical, social, and religious elements in moral decision making.
£28.78
The University of Chicago Press Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa
In America, almost all the money in circulation passes through financial institutions every day. But in Nigeria's "cash and carry" system, 90 percent of the currency never comes back to a bank after it's issued. What happens when two such radically different economies meet and mingle, as they have for centuries in Atlantic Africa?The answer is a rich diversity of economic practices responsive to both local and global circumstances. In Marginal Gains, Jane I. Guyer explores and explains these often bewildering practices, including trade with coastal capitalism and across indigenous currency zones, and within the modern popular economy. Drawing on a wide range of evidence, Guyer demonstrates that the region shares a coherent, if loosely knit, commercial culture. She shows how that culture actually works in daily practice, addressing both its differing scales of value and the many settings in which it operates, from crisis conditions to ordinary household budgets. The result is a landmark study that reveals not just how popular economic systems work in Africa, but possibly elsewhere in the Third World.
£25.16
The University of Chicago Press Zouk: World Music in the West Indies
With its irresistible dance beat, strong bass line, and straightforward harmonies and lyrics, zouk has become wildly popular in the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. This book—complete with a compact disc and numerous illustrations and musical examples—provides a thorough introduction to the sound, lyrics, choreography, and social milieu of this vibrant and infectious new music."This invigorating reference work and companion CD of the Antilles' sexy zouk dance sound will lift readers out of their easy chairs and their complacency about the nonreggae aspects of Caribbean pop. . . . [Zouk] is a landmark achievement."—Timothy White, Billboard
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press Tourist Attractions: Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil's Sexual Economy
While much attention has been paid in recent years to heterosexual prostitution and sex tourism in Brazil, gay sex tourism has been almost completely overlooked. In Tourist Attractions, Gregory C. Mitchell presents a pioneering ethnography that focuses on the personal lives and identities of male sex workers who occupy a variety of roles in Brazil's sexual economy. Mitchell takes us into the bath houses of Rio de Janeiro, where rent boys cruise for clients, and to the beaches of Salvador da Bahia, where African American gay men seek out hustlers while exploring cultural heritage tourist sites. His ethnography stretches into the Amazon, where indigenous fantasies are tinged with the erotic at eco-resorts, and into the homes of "kept men," who forge long-term, long-distance, transnational relationships that blur the boundaries of what counts as commercial sex. Mitchell asks how tourists perceive sex workers' performances of Brazilianness, race, and masculinity, and, in turn, how these two groups of men make sense of differing models of racial and sexual identity across cultural boundaries. He proposes that in order to better understand how people experience difference sexually, we reframe prostitution-which Marxist feminists have long conceptualized as sexual labor-as also being a form of performative labor. Tourist Attractions is an exceptional ethnography poised to make an indelible impact in the fields of anthropology, gender, and sexuality, and research on prostitution and tourism.
£26.96
The University of Chicago Press Bitter Fruit: Black Politics and the Chicago Machine, 1931-1991
William Grimshaw offers an insider's chronicle of the tangled relationship between the black community and the Chicago Democratic machine from its Great Depression origins to 1991. What emerges is a myth-busting account not of a monolithic organization but of several distinct party regimes, each with a unique relationship to black voters and leaders.
£27.87
The University of Chicago Press What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories
This study argues that much research of the emotions has been misguided. It attempts to show that "emotion" encompasses psychological states of very different, and thus not comparable, kinds. Some emotions, such as a brief flaring up of anger in response to some experience, are evolutionary ancient, reflex-like responses which appear insensitive to culture. Others, like moral guilt, differ importantly across cultures, despite their long history in humans, and affinity to behaviour seen in other species. Yet other emotions appear to be the acting-out of today's psychological myths, as ghost possession acted out the metaphysical myths of past centuries. These three kinds of responses have different evolutionary origins, different adaptive functions, different biological bases, and different roles in human psychology. The concept that binds them together, emotion, plays no useful role, since there is no object of scientific knowledge that corresponds to it. A detailed overview of the relevant theoretical approaches is provided in this text, assessing the relative merits of three main theoretical approaches: affect programme theory, evolutionary psychology, and social constructionism.
£28.78
The University of Chicago Press The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection
Roman Stoics of the imperial period developed a distinctive model of social ethics, one which adapted the ideal philosophical life to existing communities and everyday societal values. Gretchen Reydams-Schils's innovative book shows how these Romans - including such philosophers as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Hierocles, and Epictetus - applied their distinct brand of social ethics to daily relations and responsibilities, creating an effective model of involvement and ethical behavior in the classical world. "The Roman Stoics" reexamines the philosophical basis that instructed social practice in friendship, marriage, parenting, and community life. From this analysis, Stoics emerge as neither cold nor detached, as the stereotype has it, but all too aware of their human weaknesses. In a valuable contribution to current discussions in the humanities on identity, autonomy, and altruism, Reydams-Schils ultimately conveys the wisdom of Stoics to the citizens of modern society.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Of Prairie, Woods, and Water: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing
In the literary imagination, Chicago evokes images of industry and unbridled urban growth. But the tallgrass prairie and deep forests that once made up Chicago's landscape also inspired musings from residents and visitors alike. In "Of Prairie, Woods, and Water", naturalist Joel Greenberg gathers these unique voices from the land to present an unexpected portrait of Chicago in this often charming, sometimes heart-wrenching anthology of nature writing.These writings tell the tale of a land in transition - one with abundant, unique, and incredibly lush flora and fauna, a natural history quite elusive today. Drawing on archives he uncovered while writing his acclaimed "A Natural History of the Chicago Region", Greenberg hand-selected these first-person narratives, all written between 1721 and 1959. Not every author is familiar, but every contribution is distinctive. From a pioneer's hilarious notes on life in the Kankakee marsh to Theodore Dreiser's poignant plea for conservation of the Tippecanoe River to infamous murderer Nathan Leopold's charming description of a pet robin he kept in prison, the sources included are as diverse as the nature they describe.The excerpts conclude with insightful biographical essays and traverse a wide area of greater Chicagoland, from the Illinois River to southwest Michigan, from southern Wisconsin to the Limberlost swamp of northeastern Indiana. A fascinating record of Chicago's changing environmental history, "Of Prairie, Woods, and Water" captures the natural world in a way that will inspire its continued conservation.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press I'll Tell You Mine: Thirty Years of Essays from the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program
The University of Iowa is a leading light in the writing world. In addition to the Iowa Writers' Workshop for poets and fiction writers, it houses the prestigious Nonfiction Writing Program (NWP), which was the first full-time masters-granting program in this genre in the United States. Over the past three decades the NWP has produced some of the most influential nonfiction writers in the country. I'll Tell You Mine is an extraordinary anthology, a book rooted in Iowa's successful program that goes beyond mere celebration to present some of the best nonfiction writing of the past thirty years. Eighteen pieces produced by Iowa graduates exemplify the development of both the program and the field of nonfiction writing. Each is accompanied by commentary from the author on a challenging issue presented by the story and the writing process, including drafting, workshopping, revising, and listening to (or sometimes ignoring) advice. The essays are put into broader context by a prologue from Robert Atwan, founding editor of the Best American Essays series, who details the rise of nonfiction as a literary genre since the New Journalism of the 1960s. Creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing writing concentration in the country, with more than one hundred and fifty programs in the United States. I'll Tell You Mine shows why Iowa's leads the way. Its insider's view of the Iowa program experience and its wealth of groundbreaking nonfiction writing will entertain readers and inspire writers of all kinds.
£20.61
The University of Chicago Press Priests: A Calling in Crisis
For several years now, the Roman Catholic Church and the institution of the priesthood itself have been at the center of a firestorm of controversy. While many of the criticisms lodged against the actions of the Church - and a small number of its priests - are justified, the conventional wisdom that has gained currency as an explanation for these actions is, according to Andrew M. Greeley in Priests, often flat-out wrong. Neither liberal nor conservative, Priests offers nothing less than a portrait of the priesthood today. No stranger to controversy himself, Greeley challenges those analysts and the media who parrot them in placing the blame for recent Church scandals on the mandate of celibacy or a clerical culture that supports homosexuality. Drawing upon reliable national survey samples of priests, Greeley demolishes current stereotypes about the percentage of homosexual priests, the level of personal and professional happiness among priests, the role of celibacy in their lives, and many other issues. With Greeley's statistical evidence and provocative recommendations for change, Priests offers a new vision for American Catholics.
£14.28
The University of Chicago Press Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil
For many foreign observers, Brazil still conjures up a collage of exotic images, ranging from the camp antics of Carmen Miranda to the bronzed girl (or boy) from Ipanema moving sensually over the white sands of Rio's beaches. Among these tropical fantasies is that of the uninhibited and licentious Brazilian homosexual, who expresses uncontrolled sexuality during wild Carnival festivities and is welcomed by a society that accepts fluid sexual identity. However, in this cultural history of male homosexuality in Brazil, James Green shatters these exotic myths and replaces them with a complex picture of the social obstacles that confront Brazilian homosexuals. Ranging from the late-19th century to the rise of a politicized gay and lesbian rights movement in the 1970s, Green's study focuses on male homosexual subcultures in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. He uncovers the stories of men coping with arrests and street violence, dealing with family restrictions, and resisting both a hostile medical profession and moralizing influences of the Church. Green also describes how these men have created vibrant subcultures with alternative support networks for maintaining romantic and sexual relationships and for surviving in an intolerant social environment. He then goes on to trace how urban parks, plazas, cinemas and beaches are appropriated for same-sex erotic encounters, bringing us into the world of street cruising, male hustlers and cross-dressing prostitutes.
£40.00
The University of Chicago Press The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 1: Perceptions and Judgments, 1939-1944
Clement Greenberg is widely recognized as the most influential and articulate champion of modernism during its American ascendency after World War II, the period largely covered by these highly acclaimed volumes of "The Collected Essays and Criticism". "Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals" presents Greenberg's writings from the period between 1950 and 1956, while "Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance" gathers essays and criticism of the years 1957 to 1969. The 120 works range from little-known pieces originally appearing "Vogue" and "Harper's Bazaar" to such celebrated essays as "The Plight of Our Culture" (1953), "Modernist Painting" (1960), and "Post Painterly Abstraction" (1964). Preserved in their original form, these writings allow readers to witness the development and direction of Greenberg's criticism, from his advocacy of abstract expressionism to his enthusiasm for color-field painting.With the inclusion of critical exchanges between Greenberg and F. R. Leavis, Fairfield Porter, Thomas B. Hess, Herbert Read, Max Kozloff, and Robert Goldwater, these volumes are essential sources in the ongoing debate over modern art.
£25.16
The University of Chicago Press A Shared Future: Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy
Faith-based community organizers have spent decades working for greater equality in American society, and more recently have become significant players in shaping health care, finance, and immigration reform at the highest levels of government. In A Shared Future, Richard L. Wood and Brad R. Fulton draw on a new national study of community organizing coalitions and in-depth interviews of key leaders in this field to show how faith-based organizing is creatively navigating the competing aspirations of America's universalist and multiculturalist democratic ideals, even as it confronts three demons bedeviling American politics: economic inequality, federal policy paralysis, and racial inequity. With a broad view of the entire field and a distinct empirical focus on the PICO National Network, Wood and Fulton's analysis illuminates the tensions, struggles, and deep rewards that come with pursuing racial equity within a social change organization and in society. Ultimately, A Shared Future offers a vision for how we might build a future that embodies the ethical democracy of the best American dreams.
£31.49
The University of Chicago Press Five Tales for the Theatre
For Count Carlo Gozzi (1720-1806), theater was a fabulous world apart, in which human beings, statues, and animals change places by magical transformations. Gozzi's stage becomes a multiscenic home for adventures, loves, enmities, and dazzling visual effects. This collection brings together for the first time modern English translations of five of Gozzi's most famous plays: The Raven, The King Stag, Turandot, The Serpent Woman, and The Green Bird, each annotated by the translators and preceded by the author's preface. Ted Emery's Introduction places Gozzi in his social and historical context, tracing his world view in both the content and the form of his tales. In the ten works he called fiable or fairy tales, Gozzi intermingled characters from the traditional and improvised commedia dell'arte with exotic figures of his own invention. During Gozzi's lifetime, Goethe and Schiller translated and produced some of his dramas at the Weimar Theatre. In our century, the dramas have reasserted themselves under the direction of Max Reinhardt, Vsevolod Meyerhold, George Devine, and Benno Besson, as well as in operatic adaptations by Puccini and Prokofiev. The powerful conflicts, the idyllic and fearsome settings, and the startling transformations in these plays offer exceptional opportunities to actors, directors, and designers. The lively translations are faithful to Gozzi's Italian, while being eminently playable for English-speaking audiences today. Two of the translations have already had highly successful stagings by Andrei Serban at the American Repertory Theatre and on tour.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press A Shared Future: Faith-Based Organizing for Racial Equity and Ethical Democracy
Faith-based community organizers have spent decades working for greater equality in American society, and more recently have become significant players in shaping health care, finance, and immigration reform at the highest levels of government. In A Shared Future, Richard L. Wood and Brad R. Fulton draw on a new national study of community organizing coalitions and in-depth interviews of key leaders in this field to show how faith-based organizing is creatively navigating the competing aspirations of America's universalist and multiculturalist democratic ideals, even as it confronts three demons bedeviling American politics: economic inequality, federal policy paralysis, and racial inequity. With a broad view of the entire field and a distinct empirical focus on the PICO National Network, Wood and Fulton's analysis illuminates the tensions, struggles, and deep rewards that come with pursuing racial equity within a social change organization and in society. Ultimately, A Shared Future offers a vision for how we might build a future that embodies the ethical democracy of the best American dreams.
£91.00
The University of Chicago Press Hearing Things: Voice and Method in the Writing of Stanley Cavell
What does philosophy have to do with the human voice? Has contemporary philosophy banished the "voice" from the field of legitimate investigation? This text examines these questions through the philosopher most responsible for formulating them, Stanley Cavell. It systematically treats the relation between Cavell's pervasive authorial voice and his equally powerful, though less discernible, impulse to produce a set of usable philosophical methods. Timothy Gould argues that a tension between voice and method unites Cavell's broad and often perplexing range of interests. From Wittgenstein to Thoreau, from Shakespeare to the movies, and from opera to Freud, Gould reveals the connection between the voice "within" Cavell's writing and the voices Cavell appeals to through the methods of ordinary language philosophy. Within Cavell's extraordinary productivity lies a new sense of philosophical method based on elements of the act of reading.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press Collision of Wills: How Ambiguity about Social Rank Breeds Conflict
Minor debts, derisive remarks, a fight over a parking space, butting in line—these are the little things that nevertheless account for much of the violence in human society. But why? Roger V. Gould considers this intriguing question in Collision of Wills. He argues that human conflict is more likely to occur in symmetrical relationships—among friends or social equals—than in hierarchical ones, wherein the difference of social rank between the two individuals is already established. This, he maintains, is because violence most often occurs when someone wants to achieve superiority or dominance over someone else, even if there is no substantive reason for doing so. In making the case for this original idea, Gould explores a diverse range of examples, including murders, blood feuds, vendettas, revolutions, and the everyday disagreements that compel people to act violently. The result is an intelligent and provocative work that restores the study of conflict to the center of social inquiry.
£26.96
The University of Chicago Press The Myth of the Litigious Society: Why We Don't Sue
Why do Americans seem to sue at the slightest provocation? The answer may surprise you: we don't! For every "Whiplash Charlie" who sees a car accident as a chance to make millions, for every McDonald's customer to pursue a claim over a too-hot cup of coffee, many more Americans suffer injuries but make no claims against those responsible or their insurance companies. The question is not why Americans sue but why we don't sue more often, and the answer can be found in how we think about injury and personal responsibility. With this book, David M. Engel demolishes the myth that America is a litigious society. The sobering reality is that the vast majority of injury victims more than nine out of ten rely on their own resources, family and friends, and government programs to cover their losses. When real people experience serious injuries, they don't respond as rational actors. Trauma and pain disrupt their thoughts, and potential claims are discouraged by negative stereotypes that pervade American television and popular culture. (Think Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, who keeps a box of neck braces in his office to help clients exaggerate their injuries.) Cultural norms make preventable injuries appear inevitable or the victim's fault. We're taught to accept setbacks stoically and not blame someone else. But this tendency to "lump it" doesn't just hurt the victims; it hurts us all. As politicians continue to push reforms that miss the real problem, we risk losing these claims as a way to quickly identify unsafe products and practices. Because injuries disproportionately fall on people with fewer resources, the existing framework creates a social underclass whose needs must be met by government programs all citizens shoulder while shielding those who cause the harm. It's time for America to have a more responsible, blame-free discussion about injuries and the law. With The Myth of the Litigious Society, Engel takes readers clearly and powerfully through what we really know about injury victims and concludes with recommendations for how we might improve the situation.
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press Philip Sparrow Tells All: Lost Essays by Samuel Steward, Writer, Professor, Tattoo Artist
Samuel Steward (1909-93) was an English professor, a tattoo artist for the Hells Angels, a sexual adventurer who shared his considerable range of experiences with Alfred Kinsey, and a prolific writer of everything from scholarly articles to gay erotica (under the penname Phil Andros). Given this biography, he sounds like a most unlikely contributor to a trade magazine like the Illinois Dental Journal. Yet from 1944 to 1949, writing under the name Philip Sparrow, Steward produced monthly columns for the journal that were full of wit and flourish and that constituted a kind of disguised autobiography, with their reflections on his friendships and experiences and their endless allusions to his trove of multifarious knowledge. For Philip Sparrow Tells All, Jeremy Mulderig has gathered thirty of Steward's most playful and insightful columns, which together paint a vivid portrait of 1940s America. In these essays we spend time with Steward's friends like Gertrude Stein, Andre Gide, and Thornton Wilder (who was also Steward's occasional lover). We hear of his stint as a holiday sales clerk at Marshall Field's (where he met and seduced Rock Hudson), his roles as an opera and ballet extra in hilariously shoddy costumes, his hoarding tendencies, his disappointment with the drabness of men's fashions, and his dread of turning forty. We go along with him to a bodybuilding competition and a pet cemetery, and together we wander the boulevards of Paris and the alleys of Algiers. Throughout, Mulderig's entertaining annotations identify Steward's often obscure allusions and tie the essays to the people and events of the day. Many decades later, Steward's writing feels as stylistically fresh and charming as it did in his time. With richly detailed introductions to the essays that situate them in the context of Steward's fascinating life, Philip Sparrow Tells All will bring this unusual and engaging writer to a fresh readership beyond the dental chair.
£19.00
The University of Chicago Press How to Succeed in College (While Really Trying): A Professor's Inside Advice
After years of preparation and anticipation, many students arrive at college without any real knowledge of the ins and outs of college life. They've been focused on finding the right school and have been carefully guided through the nuances of the admissions process, but too often they have little knowledge about how college will be different from high school or what will be expected of them during that crucial first year and beyond. Written by an award-winning teacher, "How to Succeed in College (While Really Trying)" provides much-needed help to students, offering practical tips and specific study strategies that will equip them to excel in their new environment. Drawing on years of experience teaching at a variety of campuses, from large research universities to small liberal arts colleges, Jon B. Gould gives readers the lay of the land and demystifies the college experience. In the course of the book, students will learn how to identify the best instructors, how to choose classes and settle on a major, how to develop effective strategies for reading and note taking, and how to write good papers and successfully complete exams. Because much of the college experience takes place outside of the classroom, Gould also advises students on how to effectively manage their co curricular activities, work obligations, and free time, as well as how to take advantage of the typically untapped resources on every campus. With candid advice and insights from a seasoned insider, this guide will leave students better prepared not only to succeed in college but to enjoy it as well.
£48.00
The University of Chicago Press The Pseudoscience Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe
Properly analyzed, the collective mythological and religious writings of humanity reveal that around 1500 BC, a comet swept perilously close to Earth, triggering widespread natural disasters and threatening the destruction of all life before settling into solar orbit as Venus, our nearest planetary neighbor. Sound implausible? Well, from 1950 until the late 1970s, a huge number of people begged to differ, as they devoured Immanuel Velikovsky’s major best-seller, Worlds in Collision, insisting that perhaps this polymathic thinker held the key to a new science and a new history. Scientists, on the other hand, assaulted Velikovsky’s book, his followers, and his press mercilessly from the get-go. In The Pseudoscience Wars, Michael D. Gordin resurrects the largely forgotten figure of Velikovsky and uses his strange career and surprisingly influential writings to explore the changing definitions of the line that separates legitimate scientific inquiry from what is deemed bunk, and to show how vital this question remains to us today. Drawing on a wealth of previously unpublished material from Velikovsky’s personal archives, Gordin presents a behind-the-scenes history of the writer’s career, from his initial burst of success through his growing influence on the counterculture, heated public battles with such luminaries as Carl Sagan, and eventual eclipse. Along the way, he offers fascinating glimpses into the histories and effects of other fringe doctrines, including creationism, Lysenkoism, parapsychology, and more—all of which have surprising connections to Velikovsky’s theories. Science today is hardly universally secure, and scientists seem themselves beset by critics, denialists, and those they label “pseudoscientists”—as seen all too clearly in battles over evolution and climate change. The Pseudoscience Wars simultaneously reveals the surprising Cold War roots of our contemporary dilemma and points readers to a different approach to drawing the line between knowledge and nonsense.
£26.06
The University of Chicago Press Conjugations: Marriage and Form in New Bollywood Cinema
Bollywood movies have been long known for their colorful song-and-dance numbers and knack for combining drama, comedy, action-adventure, and music. But when India entered the global marketplace in the early 1990s, its film industry transformed radically. Production and distribution of films became regulated, advertising and marketing created a largely middle-class audience, and films began to fit into genres like science fiction and horror. In this bold study of what she names "New Bollywood", Sangita Gopal contends that the key to understanding these changes is to analyze films' evolving treatment of romantic relationships. Gopal argues that the form of the conjugal duo in movies reflects other social forces in India's new consumerist and global society. She takes a daring look at recent Hindi films and movie trends - the decline of song-and-dance sequences, the upgraded status of the horror genre, and the rise of the multiplex and multi-plot - to demonstrate how these relationships exemplify different formulas of contemporary living. A provocative account of how cultural artifacts can embody globalization's effects on intimate life, "Conjugations" will shake up the study of Hindi film.
£26.96
The University of Chicago Press Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform: Mothers' Pensions in Chicago, 1911-1929
Exploring the origins of welfare in the context of local politics, this book examines the first welfare policy created specifically for mother-only families. Chicago initiated the largest mothers' pension programme in the United States in 1911. Evolving alongside movements for industrial justice and women's suffrage, the mothers' pension movement hoped to provide "justice for mothers" and protection from life's insecurities. However, local politics and public finance derailed the policy, entangling it in a social hierarchy of entitlements and exclusions. Widows were more likely to receive penisons than deserted women and unwed mothers; and African-American mothers were routinely excluded because they were proven breadwinners yet did not compete with white men for jobs. This revealing study shows how assumptions about women's roles have historically shaped public policy, and seeks to shed light on the ongoing controversy of welfare reform.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press The Autobiography of Maud Gonne
£25.16
The University of Chicago Press Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers: Adolescent Development, Discrimination, and Consent Law
When we consider the concept of sexual abuse and harassment, our minds tend to jump either towards adults caught in unhealthy relationships or criminals who take advantage of children. But the millions of maturing teenagers who also deal with sexual harassment can fall between the cracks. When it comes to sexual relationships, adolescents pose a particular problem. Few teenagers possess all of the emotional and intellectual tools needed to navigate these threats, including the all too real advances made by supervisors, teachers, and mentors. In Sexual Exploitation of Teenagers, Jennifer Drobac explores the shockingly common problem of maturing adolescents who are harassed and exploited by adults in their lives. Reviewing the neuroscience and psychosocial evidence of adolescent development, she explains why teens are so vulnerable to adult harassers. Even today, in an age of increasing public awareness, criminal and civil law regarding the sexual abuse of minors remains tragically inept and irregular from state to state. Drobac uses six recent cases of teens suffering sexual harassment to illuminate the flaws and contradictions of this system, skillfully showing how our current laws fail to protect youths, and offering an array of imaginative legal reforms that could achieve increased justice for adolescent victims of sexual coercion.
£44.00
The University of Chicago Press The Meaning of Shakespeare, Volume 1
In two magnificent and authoritative volumes, Harold C. Goddard takes readers on a tour through the works of William Shakespeare, celebrating his incomparable plays and unsurpassed literary genius.
£27.87
The University of Chicago Press The Transformation of Family Law: State, Law, and Family in the United States and Western Europe
Mary Ann Glendon offers a comparative and historical analysis of rapid and profound changes in the legal system beginning in the 1960s in England, France, West Germany, Sweden, and the United States. The text also brings interpretation and critical thought to bear on the explosion of legislation in the 1990s.
£32.41
The University of Chicago Press The Comparative Reception of Darwinism
£50.00
The University of Chicago Press In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America
In this provocative book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr. makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience - and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude's mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African American politics.According to Glaude, Dewey's pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life - or what we often speak of as the blues - can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, "In a Shade of Blue" seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Glaude argues that only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied, an argument echoed in the recent rhetoric and optimism of Barack Obama's presidential campaign."In a Shade of Blue" is a remarkable work of political commentary, and to follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their cultural and political history - and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first century.
£20.61
The University of Chicago Press Agglomeration Economics
When firms and people are located near each other in cities and in industrial clusters, they benefit in various ways, including by reducing the costs of exchanging goods and ideas. One might assume that these benefits would become less important as transportation and communication costs fall. Paradoxically, however, cities have become increasingly important and even within cities, industrial clusters remain vital. "Agglomeration Economics" brings together a group of essays that examine the reasons why economic activity continues to cluster together despite the falling costs of moving goods and transmitting information. The studies cover a wide range of topics and approach the economics of agglomeration from different angles. Together they advance our understanding of agglomeration and its implications for a globalized world.
£85.50
The University of Chicago Press Stigma and Culture – Last–Place Anxiety in Black America
In Stigma and Culture, J. Lorand Matory provocatively shows how ethnic identification in the United States-and around the globe-is a competitive and hierarchical process in which populations, especially of historically stigmatized races, seek status and income by dishonoring other stigmatized populations. And there is no better place to see this than among the African American elite in academia, where he explores the emergent ethnic identities of African and Caribbean immigrants and transmigrants, Gullah/Geechees, Louisiana Creoles, and even Native Americans of partly African ancestry. Matory describes the competitive process that hierarchically structures their self-definition as ethnic groups and the similar process by which middle-class African Americans seek distinction from their impoverished compatriots. Drawing on research at universities such as Howard, Harvard, and Duke and among their alumni networks, he details how university life-while facilitating individual upward mobility, touting human equality, and regaling cultural diversity-also perpetuates the cultural standards that historically justified the dominance of some groups over others. Combining his ethnographic findings with classic theoretical insights from Frantz Fanon, Fredrik Barth, Erving Goffman, Pierre Bourdieu and others-alongside stories from his own life in academia-Matory sketches the university as an institution that, particularly through the anthropological vocabulary of culture, encourages the stigmatized to stratify their own.
£26.96
The University of Chicago Press Puccini: His International Art
Giacomo Puccini's operas are among the most widely performed in the world, and include such masterpieces as "La Boheme", "Tosca" and "Madama Butterfly". Yet although critical studies of individual operas have appeared, very few books have examined Puccini's works as a whole from an analytical perspective. Michele Girardi remedies this lack, providing detailed analyses of all of Puccini's operas, complete with 196 musical examples. Writing in clear and lively prose accessible to scholar and passionate opera enthusiast alike, Girardi considers Puccini's musical and dramatic techniques together, demonstrating how his manipulation of dense networks of themes, sophisticated harmonic techniques and masterly orchestrations work to arouse the audience's emotions. Girardi also discusses the question of Puccini's assimilation of influences from composers as diverse as Verdi, Wagner, Bizet, Richard Strauss, Debussy and Stravinsky, showing how Puccini attempted to reconcile Italian techniques with those of European musical theatre as a whole to make Italian opera a truly international art.
£99.00
The University of Chicago Press Planning Matter: Acting with Things
City and regional planners talk constantly about the things of the world-from highway interchanges and retention ponds to zoning documents and conference rooms-yet most seem to have a poor understanding of the materiality of the world in which they're immersed. Too often planners treat built forms, weather patterns, plants, animals, or regulatory technologies as passively awaiting commands rather than actively involved in the workings of cities and regions. In the ambitious and provocative Planning Matter, Robert A. Beauregard sets out to offer a new materialist perspective on planning practice that reveals the many ways in which the nonhuman things of the world mediate what planners say and do. Drawing on actor-network theory and science and technology studies, Beauregard lays out a framework that acknowledges the inevitable insufficiency of our representations of reality while also engaging more holistically with the world in all of its diversity-including human and nonhuman actors alike.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Tunnel Visions: The Rise and Fall of the Superconducting Super Collider
Starting in the 1950s, US physicists dominated the search for elementary particles; aided by the association of this research with national security, they held this position for decades. In an effort to maintain their hegemony and track down the elusive Higgs boson, they convinced President Reagan and Congress to support construction of the multibillion-dollar Superconducting Super Collider project in Texas-the largest basic-science project ever attempted. But after the Cold War ended and the estimated SSC cost surpassed ten billion dollars, Congress terminated the project in October 1993. Drawing on extensive archival research, contemporaneous press accounts, and over one hundred interviews with scientists, engineers, government officials, and others involved, Tunnel Visions tells the riveting story of the aborted SSC project. The authors examine the complex, interrelated causes for its demise, including problems of large-project management, continuing cost overruns, and lack of foreign contributions. In doing so, they ask whether Big Science has become too large and expensive, including whether academic scientists and their government overseers can effectively manage such an enormous undertaking.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New Chicago
During the Great Recession, the housing bubble took much of the blame for bringing the American economy to its knees, but commercial real estate also experienced its own boom-and-bust in the same time period. In Chicago, for example, law firms and corporate headquarters abandoned their historic downtown office buildings for the millions of brand-new square feet that were built elsewhere in the central business district. What causes construction booms like this, and why do they so often leave a glut of vacant space and economic distress in their wake? In From Boom to Bubble, Rachel Weber debunks the idea that booms occur only when cities are growing and innovating. Instead, she argues, even in cities experiencing employment and population decline, developers rush to erect new office towers and apartment buildings when they have financial incentives to do so. Focusing on the main causes of overbuilding during the early 2000s, Weber documents the case of Chicago's "Millennial Boom," showing that the Loop's expansion was a response to global and local pressures to produce new assets. An influx of cheap cash, made available through the use of complex financial instruments, helped transform what started as a boom grounded in modest occupant demand into a speculative bubble, where pricing and supply had only tenuous connections to the market. Innovative and compelling, From Boom to Bubble is an unprecedented historical, sociological, and geographic look at how property markets change and fail-and how that affects cities.
£39.00
The University of Chicago Press Blood Talk: American Race Melodrama and the Culture of the Occult
The United States has seldom known a period of greater social and cultural volatility, especially in terms of race relations, than the years from the end of Reconstruction to the First World War. In this study, Susan Gillman explores the rise during this period of a remarkable genre - the race melodrama - and the way in which it converged with literary trends, popular history, fringe movements, and mainstream interest in supernatural phenomena. "Blood Talk" shows how race melodrama emerged from abolitionist works such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and surprisingly manifested itself in a set of more aesthetically and politically varied works, such as historical romances, sentimental novels, the travel literature of Mark Twain, the regional fiction of Kate Chopin and George Washington Cable, and the work of W.E.B. Du Bois. Gillman then uses the race melodrama to show how racial discourses in the United States became entangled with occultist phenomena, from the rituals of the Klu Klux Klan and the concept of messianic second-sight to the production of conspiracy theories and studies of dreams and trances. A work of ambitious scope and compelling cross-connections, "Blood Talk" sets new agendas for students of American literature and culture.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press Rendering unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America
Nowhere has the relationship between state and church been more volatile in recent decades than in Latin America. This book explains why Catholic leaders in some countries came to oppose dictatorial rule and, equally important, why many did not. Using historical and statistical evidence from 12 countries, Gill for the first time uncovers the causal connection between religious competition and the rise of progressive Catholicism. In places where evangelical Protestantism and "spiritist" sects made inroads among poor Catholics, Church leaders championed the rights of the poor and turned against authoritarian regimes to retain parishioners. Where competition was minimal, bishops maintained good relations with military rulers. Applying economic reasoning to an entirely new setting, the book offers a theory of religious competition that dramatically revises our understanding of church-state relations.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press The Theological Origins of Modernity
Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests. Taking as his starting point the collapse of the medieval world, Gillespie argues that from the very beginning, moderns sought not to eliminate religion but to support a new view of religion and its place in human life. He goes on to explore the ideas of such figures as William of Ockham, Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, and Hobbes, showing that modernity is best understood as a series of attempts to formulate a new and coherent metaphysics or theology.
£25.16
The University of Chicago Press Cultural Boundaries of Science: Credibility on the Line
Why is science so credible? Usual answers centre on scientists' objective methods or their powerful instruments. This text argues that a better explanation for the cultural authority of science lies downstream, when scientific claims leave laboratories and enter courtrooms, boardrooms, and living rooms. On such occasions, we use "maps" to decide who to believe - cultural maps demarcating "science" from pseudoscience, ideology, faith, or nonsense. Thomas F. Gieryn looks at episodes of boundary-work: Was phrenology good science? How about cold fusion? Is social science really scientific? Is organic farming? After centuries of disputes like these, Gieryn finds no stable criteria that absolutely distinguish science from non-science. Science remains a pliable cultural space, flexibly reshaped to claim credibility for some beliefs while denying it to others. In an epilogue, Gieryn finds this same controversy at the heart of the raging "science wars".
£85.00
The University of Chicago Press Scientific Perspectivism
Many people assume that the claims of scientists are objective truths. But "Scientific Perspectivism" argues that the acts of observing and theorizing are both matters of perspective - which makes scientific knowledge contingent. Using the example of color vision in humans to illustrate how his theory of 'perspectivism' works, Ronald N. Giere argues that colors do not actually exist in objects; rather, color is the result of an interaction between aspects of the world and the human visual system. Giere extends this argument into a general interpretation of human perception and, more controversially, to scientific observation, conjecturing that the output of scientific instruments is perspectival. Furthermore, as Giere posits, complex scientific principles - such as Maxwell's equations describing the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields - by themselves make no claims about the world, but models based on those principles can be used to make claims about specific aspects of the world.
£25.16
The University of Chicago Press Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850-1920
The German-American relationship was special long before the Cold War; it was rooted not simply in political actions, but also long-term traditions of cultural exchange that date back to the nineteenth century. Between 1850 and 1910, the United States was a rising star in the international arena, and several European nations sought to strengthen their ties to the republic by championing their own cultures in America. While France capitalized on its art and Britain on its social ties and literature, Germany promoted its particular breed of classical music. Delving into a treasure trove of archives that document cross-cultural interactions between America and Germany, Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht retraces these efforts to export culture as an instrument of nongovernmental diplomacy, paying particular attention to the role of conductors and uncovers the remarkable history of the musician as a cultural symbol of German cosmopolitanism. Considered sexually attractive and emotionally expressive, German players and conductors acted as an army of informal ambassadors for their home country, and Gienow-Hecht argues that their popularity in the United States paved the way for an emotional elective affinity that survived broken treaties and several wars and continues to the present.
£30.59
The University of Chicago Press The Theater of Devotion – East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages
In this interdisciplinary study of drama, arts, and spirituality, Gail Gibson provides a reappraisal of 15th-century England through a detailed portrait of the flourishing cultures of Suffolk and Norfolk. By emphasizing the importance of the Incarnation of Christ as a model and justification for late medieval drama and art, Gibson challenges currently held views of the secularization of late medieval culture.
£26.96
The University of Chicago Press Judicial Reputation: A Comparative Theory
Judges are society's elders and experts, our masters and mediators. We depend on them to dispense justice with integrity, deliberation, and efficiency. Yet judges, as Alexander Hamilton famously noted, lack the power of the purse or the sword. They must rely almost entirely on their reputations to secure compliance with their decisions, obtain resources, and maintain their political influence. In Judicial Reputation, Nuno Garoupa and Tom Ginsburg show how reputation is not only an essential quality of the judiciary as a whole, but also of individual judges. Perceptions of judicial systems around the world range from widespread admiration to utter contempt, and as judges participate within these institutions some earn respect, while others are scorned. Transcending the conventional lenses of legal culture and tradition that are used to analyze this variation, Garoupa and Ginsburg approach the subject through their long-standing research on the economics of judiciary information and status, examining the fascinating effects that governmental interactions, multi-court systems, extrajudicial work, and the international rule-of-law movement have on the reputations of judges in this era.
£80.00
The University of Chicago Press Continuing the Reformation: Essays on Modern Religious Thought
Modern Christian religious thought, B. A. Gerrish argues, has constantly revised the inherited faith. In these twelve essays, written or published in the 1980s, a historical theologian examines the changes that occurred as the Catholic tradition gave way to the Reformation and an interest in the phenomenon of believing replaced adherence to unchanging dogma. Gerrish devotes three essays to each of four topics: Martin Luther and the Reformation; religious belief and the Age of Reason; Friedrich Schleiermacher and the renewal of Protestant theology; and Schleiermacher's disciple Ernst Troeltsch, for whom the theological task was to give a rigorous account of the faith prevailing in a particular religious community at a particular time. Gerrish shows how faith itself has become a primary object of inquiry, not only in the newly emerging philosophy of religion but also in a new style of church theology which no longer assumes that faith rests on immutable dogmas. For Gerrish, the new theology of Protestant liberalism takes for its primary object of inquiry the changing forms of the religious life.
£40.00