Search results for ""Temple University Press,U.S.""

An in-depth examination of contemporary Chicana writers

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Examining the political economy of high-stakes educational testing

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Why do special interests defeat the majority's preference in elections and legislation?

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A persuasive argument against "forgive and forget"

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Fifteen gripping and inspiring stories told by young Vietnamese who came to the US after the fall of Saigon and during the "boat people" exodus are contextualized within a succinct history of Vietnam and the international politics of refugee resettlement

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Marc Stein's City of Sisterly and Brotherly Loves is refreshing for at least two reasons: it centers on a city that is not generally associated with a vibrant gay and lesbian culture, and it shows that a community was forming long before the Stonewall rebellion. In this lively and well received book, Marc Stein brings to life the neighborhood bars and clubs where people gathered and the political issues that rallied the community. He reminds us that Philadelphians were leaders in the national gay and lesbian movement and, in doing so, suggests that New York and San Francisco have for too long obscured the contributions of other cities to gay culture.

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Teenagers and Teenpics tells the story of two signature developments in the 1950s: the decline of the classical Hollywood cinema and the emergence of that strange new creature, the American teenager. Hollywood's discovery of the teenage moviegoer initiated a progressive "juvenilization" of film content that is today the operative reality of the American motion picture industry. The juvenilization of the American movies is best revealed in the development of the 1950s "teenpic," a picture targeted at teenagers even to the exclusion of their elders. In a wry and readable style, Doherty defines and interprets the various teenpic film types: rock 'n' roll pictures, j.d. films, horror and sci-fi weirdies, and clean teenpics. Individual films are examined both in light of their impact on the motion picture industry and in terms of their important role in validating the emerging teenage subculture. Also included in this edition is an expanded treatment of teenpics since the 1950s, especially the teenpics produced during the age of AIDS. Author note: Thomas Doherty is Associate Professor of American Studies and Chair of the Film Studies Program at Brandeis University. He is the author of two previous books, including Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934, which was a New York Times Notable Book for 1999.

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In this remarkable memoir, Tung Pok Chin casts light on the largely hidden experience of those Chinese who immigrated to this country with false documents during the exclusion era. Although scholars have pieced together their history, first-person accounts are rare and fragmented; many of the so-called \u0022Paper Sons\u0022 lived out their lives in silent fear of discovery. Chin's story speaks for the many Chinese who worked in urban laundries and restaurants, but it also introduces an unusually articulate man's perspective on becoming Chinese American. Chin's story begins in the early 1930s, when he followed the example of his father and countless other Chinese who bought documents that falsely identified them as children of Chinese Americans. Arriving in Boston and later moving to New York City, he worked and lived in laundries. Chin was determined to fit into American life and dedicated himself to learning English. But he also became an active member of key organizations -- a church, the Chinese Hand Laundrymen's Alliance, and the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association -- that anchored him in the community. A self-reflective and expressive man, Chin wrote poetry commenting on life in China and the hardships of being an immigrant in the United States. His work was regularly published in the China Daily News and brought him to the attention of the FBI, then intent on ferreting out communists and illegal immigrants. His vigorous narrative speaks to the day-to-day anxieties of living as a Paper Son as well as the more universal immigrant experiences of raising a family in modest circumstances and bridging cultures. Historian K. Scott Wong introduces Chin's memoir, discussing the limitations on immigration from China and what is known about Exclusion-era Chinese American communities. Set in historical context, Tung Pok Chin's unique story offers and engaging account of a twentieth-century Paper Son.

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On the surface, identity politics appears to promote polarization. To the contrary, political scientist Jose E. Cruz argues that, instead, fragmentation and instability are more likely to occur only when the differences are ignored and nonethnic strategies are employed. Cruz illustrates his claim by focusing on one group of Puerto Ricans and how they mobilized to demand accountability from political leaders in Hartford, Connecticut. The activities of the Puerto Rican Political Action Committee from 1983 to 1991 illustrate the power of ethnic mobilization and strategy in an urban setting. Cruz examines their insistence on their right to be included in the political process in the context of both a typical mid-sized American city and the unique attributes of Hartford's predominantly white-collar population. At the same time, this study acknowledges the limitations of the exercise of such power in the political process. Through extensive interviews Cruz brings to light the variety of ways in which politicians and political activists themselves view their own activities and achievements. This group of Puerto Rican activists attempted to penetrate the power structure of Hartford. Though their success was limited, their work constitutes a springboard for further change.

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Recent scandals, including questionable fun-raising tactics by the current administration, have brought campaign finance reform into the forefront of the news and the public consciousness. Dollars and Votes goes beyond the partial, often misleading, news stories and official records to explain how our campaign system operates. The authors conducted thorough interviews with corporate \u0022government relations\u0022 officials about what they do and why they do it. The results provide some of the most damning evidence imaginable. What donors, especially business donors, expect for their money is \u0022access\u0022 and access means a lot more than a chance to meet and talk. They count on secret behind-the-scenes deals, like a tax provision that applies only to a \u0022corporation incorporated on June 13, 1917, which has its principal place of business in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.\u0022 After a deal is worked out behind closed doors, one executive explains, \u0022it doesn't much matter how people vote afterwards.\u0022 Ordinary contributions give access to Congress; megabuck \u0022soft money\u0022 contributions ensure access to the President and top leaders. The striking truth revealed by these authors is that half the soft money comes from fewer than five hundred big donors, and that most contributions come, directly or indirectly, from business. Reform is possible, they argue, by turning away from the temptation of looking at specific scandals and developing a new system that removes the influence of big money campaign contributors.

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Cultural changes over the past two decades have led to a proliferation of new social movements in Europe and the United States. New social movements such as ecology, peace, ethnicity, New Age philosophies, alternative medicine, and gender and sexual identity are among those that are emerging to challenge traditional categories in social movement theory. Synthesizing classic and modern perspectives, the contributors help to redefine the field of social movements and advance an understanding of them through cross-cultural research, comparison with older movements, and an examination of the dimensions of identity individual, collective, and melding of the two. Enrique Larana is Titular Professor of Sociology at the University of Madrid, Spain. Hank Johnston is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at San Diego State University. Joseph R. Gusfield is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego.

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Ranging across two centuries of American history, Crossing Great Divides argues that the habit of construing city and country as opposites is at the root of our current environmental and political disorder.This oversimplifying dualism has distorted how we planned cities, our patterns of production and consumption, how we deal with waste, and how urban and rural populations perceive each other. Conventional urban environmental reform has made modern city life possible, but it has done little to limit the despoliation of distant places. Nevertheless, the successes of urban environmental reform remind us of what is possible. John Fairfield concludes with a case study of Phoenix, Arizona to demonstrate this dysfunctional relationship between city and country while developing a sympathetic critique of the Green New Deal. He suggests how we might bridge the “great divide” as we face the daunting challenges the twenty-first century is pressing upon u

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Yes Gawd! explores the effects of religious belief and practice on political behavior among the LGBT community, a population long persecuted by religious institutions and generally considered to be non-religious. Royal Cravens deftly shows how faith impacts the politics of LGBT people. He details how the queer community creates, defines, and experiences spirituality and spiritual affirmation as well as the consequences this has for their identity, socialization, and political development. Cravens also demonstrates the mobilizing power of faith for LGBT people by contrasting the effects of participation in faith and secular communities on political activism. He explores how factors such as coming out, race, and LGBT-affirming churches influence political attitudes and behavior and explains how the development of LGBT politico-religious activism provides opportunities for LGBT people to organize politically. Ultimately, Cravens provides a cohesive account of how religion acts as a catalyst for and facilitator in the political development of LGBT people in the United States. In the process, he shows that there is room for both religion in LGBT communities and LGBT people in religious communities.

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There has been an increase in testimonies from women politicians who have been targets of violence and from survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. The editors and contributors to of Gender and Violence against Political Actors seek to understand how gender influences both physical and psychological forms of violence and how sexual violence affects both men and women. Chapters focus on theoretical approaches demonstrating how different disciplinary starting points—e.g., politics, violence and gender—give rise to different lenses. Essays examine violence carried out during conflict and peacetime, and relate to the continuum of violence—physical, sexual, psychological, and online. In addition, six country case studies reveal how different types of political actors have been targets of violence. Gender and Violence against Political Actors ends by providing various approaches to responding to the problem of gendered violence in politics while also evaluating policy responses. Contributors: Kerryn Baker, Julie Ballington, Gabrielle Bardall, Gabriella Borovsky, Cheryl N. Collier, Sofia Collignon, Maria Eriksson Baaz, Eleonora Esposito, Nicole Haley, Rebekah Herrick, Sandra Håkansson, Roudabeh Kishi, Anne-Kathrin Kreft, Mona Lena Krook, Rebecca Kuperberg, Robert U. Nagel, Louise Olsson, Jennifer M. Piscopo, Tracey Raney, Juliana Restrepo Sanín, Paige Schneider, Maria Stern, Sue Thomas, and the editors

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Richard III will always be central to English disability history as both man and myth—a disabled medieval king made into a monster by his nation’s most important artist.In Richard III’s Bodies from Medieval England to Modernity, Jeffrey Wilson tracks disability over 500 years, from Richard’s own manuscripts, early Tudor propaganda, and x-rays of sixteenth-century paintings through Shakespeare’s soliloquies, into Samuel Johnson’s editorial notes, the first play produced by an African American Theater company, Freudian psychoanalysis, and the rise of disability theater. For Wilson, the changing meanings of disability created through shifting perspectives in Shakespeare’s plays prefigure a series of modern attempts to understand Richard’s body in different disciplinary contexts—from history and philosophy to sociology and medicine.While theorizing a role for Shakespeare in the field of disability history, Wilson reveals how Richard III has become an index for some of modernity’s central concerns—the tension between appearance and reality, the conflict between individual will and external forces of nature and culture, the possibility of upward social mobility, and social interaction between self and other, including questions of discrimination, prejudice, hatred, oppression, power, and justice.

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Many of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP) plays Paul Gagliardi analyzes in All Play and No Work feature complex portrayals of labor and work relief at a time when access to work was difficult. Gagliardi asks, what does it mean that many plays produced by the FTP celebrated forms of labor like speculation and swindling? All Play and No Work directly contradicts the promoted ideals of work found in American society, culture, and within the broader New Deal itself. Gagliardi shows how comedies of the Great Depression engaged questions of labor, labor history, and labor ethics. He considers the breadth of the FTP’s production history, staging plays including Ah, Wilderness!, Help Yourself, and Mississippi Rainbow. Gagliardi examines backstage comedies, middle-class comedies, comedies of chance, and con-artist comedies that employed diverse casts and crew and contained radical economic and labor ideas. He contextualizes these plays within the ideologically complicated New Deal, showing how programs like the Social Security Act straddled progressive ideals and conservative, capitalist norms. Addressing topics including the politicization of theatrical labor and the real dangers of unchecked economic con artists, the comic plays of the FTP reveal acts of political resistance and inequality that reflected the concerns of their audiences.

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Colleges and universities in urban centers have often leveraged their locales to appeal to students while also taking a more active role in addressing local challenges. They embrace civic engagement, support service-learning, tailor courses to local needs, and even provide university-community collaborations such as lab schools and innovation hubs. Engaging Place, Engaging Practices highlights the significant role the academy, in general, and urban history, in particular, can play in fostering these critical connections.The editors and contributors to this volume address topics ranging from historical injustices and affordable housing and land use to climate change planning and the emergence of digital humanities. These case studies reveal the intricate components of a city’s history and how they provide context and promote a sense of cultural belonging.This timely book appreciates and emphasizes the critical role universities must play as intentional—and humble—partners in addressing the past, present, and future challenges facing cities through democratic community engagement.

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In Transnational Nationalism and Collective Identity among the American Irish, Howard Lune considers the development and mobilization of different nationalisms over 125 years of Irish diasporic history (1791–1920) and how these campaigns defined the Irish nation and Irish citizenship. Lune takes a collective approach to exploring identity, concentrating on social identities in which organizations are the primary creative agent to understand who we are and how we come to define ourselves. As exiled Irishmen moved to the United States, they sought to create a new Irish republic following the American model. Lune traces the construction of Irish American identity through the establishment and development of Irish nationalist organizations in the United States. He looks at how networks—such as societies, clubs, and private organizations—can influence and foster diaspora, nationalism, and nationalist movements. By separating nationalism from the physical nation, Transnational Nationalism and Collective Identity among the American Irish uniquely captures the processes and mechanisms by which collective identities are constructed, negotiated, and disseminated. Inevitably, this work tackles the question of what it means to be Irish—to have a nationality, a community, or a shared history.

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The whiteness of mainstream environmentalism often fails to account for the richness and variety of Latinx environmental thought. Building on insights of environmental justice scholarship as well as critical race and ethnic studies, the editors and contributors to Latinx Environmentalisms map the ways Latinx cultural texts integrate environmental concerns with questions of social and political justice. Original interviews with creative writers, including Cherríe Moraga, Helena María Viramontes, and Héctor Tobar, as well as new essays by noted scholars of Latinx literature and culture, show how Latinx authors and cultural producers express environmental concerns in their work. These chapters, which focus on film, visual art, and literature—and engage in fields such as disability studies, animal studies, and queer studies—emphasize the role of racial capitalism in shaping human relationships to the more-than-human world and reveal a vibrant tradition of Latinx decolonial environmentalism.Latinx Environmentalisms accounts for the ways Latinx cultures are environmental, but often do not assume the mantle of “environmentalism.”

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Employing history, social theory, and a detailed contemporary case study, Knowledge for Social Change argues for fundamentally reshaping research universities to function as democratic, civic, and community-engaged institutions dedicated to advancing learning and knowledge for social change. The authors focus on significant contributions to learning made by Francis Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, Seth Low, Jane Addams, William Rainey Harper, and John Dewey—as well as their own work at Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships—to help create and sustain democratically-engaged colleges and universities for the public good. Knowledge for Social Change highlights university-assisted community schools to effect a thoroughgoing change of research universities that will contribute to more democratic schools, communities, and societies. The authors also call on democratic-minded academics to create and sustain a global movement dedicated to advancing learning for the “relief of man’s estate”—an iconic phrase by Francis Bacon that emphasized the continued betterment of the human condition—and to realize Dewey’s vision of an organic “Great Community” composed of participatory, democratic, collaborative, and interdependent societies.

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Launched in middle schools in the fall of 2005, the "Writers Matter" approach was designed to discover ways to improve the fit between actual English curricula, district/state standards and, more recently, the Common Core Curriculum Standards for writing instruction. Adapted from Erin Gruwell's successful Freedom Writers Program, "Writers Matter" develops students' skills in the context of personal growth, understanding others, and making broader connections to the world. Empowering Young Writers explains and expands on the practical aspects of the "Writers Matter" approach, emphasizing a focus on free expression and establishing connections between the curriculum and students' personal lives. Program creator Robert Vogel, and his co-authors offer proven ways to motivate adolescents to write, work diligently to improve their writing skills, and think more critically about the world. This comprehensive book will help teachers, administrators, and education students apply and reproduce the "Writers Matter" approach more broadly, which can have a profound impact on their students' lives and social development.

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How neoliberal politics appropriates sports for its own ends

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“Do you know your real parents?” is a question many adoptees are asked. In In Reunion, Sara Docan-Morgan probes the basic notions of family, adoption, and parenthood by exploring initial meetings and ongoing relationships that transnational Korean adoptees have had with their birth parents and other birth family members. Drawing from qualitative interviews with adult Korean adoptees in the United States and Denmark, as well as her own experiences as an adoptee, Docan-Morgan illuminates the complexities of communication surrounding reunion. The paradoxes of adoption and reunion—shared history without blood relations, and blood relations without shared history—generate questions: What does it mean to be “family”? How do people use communication to constitute family relationships? How are family relationships created, maintained, and negotiated over time? In Reunion details adoptive and cultural identities, highlighting how adoptees often end up shouldering communicative responsibility in their family relationships. Interviews reveal how adoptees navigate birth family relationships across language and culture while also attempting to maintain relationships with their adoptive family members. Docan-Morgan details the challenges, rewards, and contradictions of reunion. She also offers practical recommendations for transnational adoptees in reunion, adoptees considering reunion, adoptive families, and adoption practitioners. In tracing the stories of the intercultural dynamics inherent in adoptees’ reunions, Docan-Morgan demonstrates the effort, flexibility, empathy, self-reflection, and time required to navigate long-term relationships with birth families.

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African philosopher Gyekye defines the main principles of a distinct African philosophy

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