Best of
Anthropology

2010

The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande


Ángela García - 2010
    In a luminous narrative, Angela Garcia chronicles the lives of several Hispanic addicts, introducing us to the intimate, physical, and institutional dependencies in which they are entangled. We discover how history pervades this region that has endured centuries of social inequality, drug and alcohol abuse, and material and cultural dispossession, and we come to see its experience of the opioid epidemic as a contemporary expression of these conditions, as well as a manifestation of the human desire to be released from them. With lyrical prose, evoking the Española Valley and its residents through conversations, encounters, and recollections, The Pastoral Clinic is at once a devastating portrait of immigration and addiction, a rich ethnography of place, and an eloquent call to political activists, politicians, and medical professionals for a new ethics of substance abuse treatment and care.

The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman


Davi Kopenawa - 2010
    Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest--a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry.In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road workers, cattle ranchers, and gold prospectors. He vividly describes the ensuing cultural repression, environmental devastation, and deaths resulting from epidemics and violence. To counter these threats, Davi Kopenawa became a global ambassador for his endangered people. The Falling Sky follows him from his native village in the Northern Amazon to Brazilian cities and finally on transatlantic flights bound for European and American capitals. These travels constitute a shamanic critique of Western industrial society, whose endless material greed, mass violence, and ecological blindness contrast sharply with Yanomami cultural values.Bruce Albert, a close friend since the 1970s, superbly captures Kopenawa's intense, poetic voice. This collaborative work provides a unique reading experience that is at the same time a coming-of-age story, a historical account, and a shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest.

Human Behavioral Biology


Robert M. Sapolsky - 2010
    How to approach complex normal and abnormal behaviors through biology. How to integrate disciplines including sociobiology, ethology, neuroscience, and endocrinology to examine behaviors such as aggression, sexual behavior, language use, and mental illness.36 hours lectures

'Illegal' Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders


Shahram Khosravi - 2010
    Interjecting personal experiences into ethnographic writing it is "a form of self-narrative that places the self within a social context."

Seeing in the Dark: Myths and Stories to Reclaim the Buried, Knowing Woman


Clarissa Pinkola Estés - 2010
    Clarissa Pinkola Estés refers to as “the one who knows”—the instinctive, intuitive nature. This, she teaches, is the source of creativity and understanding that lies out of sight in darkness, often called the unconscious.On Seeing in the Dark, we join the esteemed Jungian psychoanalyst and bestselling author to learn how to perceive through the eyes of the soul as well as through the eyes of the ego. This dual way of seeing, being, and acting, Dr. Estés explains, is the most direct way to reclaim the gifts of the “healing apothecary” set into each soul at birth. On two CDs of empowering insights, special blessing prayers, and original stories—told here for the first time—Dr. Estés inspires us to find our one-of-a-kind voice and trust in our ability to “see beyond the obvious, to see beyond the cultural,” as she introduces: “The Fire Owl””—an all-new tale about reclaiming the fire of enthusiasm when others would try to steal it away• “The Corpse Bride””—an all-new story about the hope which cannot die and the power of redemption• “The Erl König,” “The Rebbe in Prison,” “The Man Who Sought Treasure Afar,” and more“We are weakly linked or else severed from the wild and wise self,” says Dr. Estés. “Yet, deep creative life is informed by the realm of mystery, dreams, sudden knowings; the shadow.” Seeing in the Dark is an inspiring call to “mine the raw gems of spirit, soul, and creative life”—again, or for the very first time. Note: Portions of this program excerpted from the full-length audio course Mother Night.

The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions


Jaak Panksepp - 2010
    The Archaeology of Mind presents an affective neuroscience approach which takes into consideration basic mental processes, brain functions, and emotional behaviors that all mammals share to locate the neural mechanisms of emotional expression. It reveals for the first time the deep neural sources of our values and basic emotional feelings.This book elaborates on the seven emotional systems that explain how we live and behave. These systems originate in deep areas of the brain that are remarkably similar across all mammalian species. When they are disrupted, we find the origins of emotional disorders:- SEEKING: how the brain generates a euphoric and expectant response- FEAR: how the brain responds to the threat of physical danger and death- RAGE: sources of irritation and fury in the brain- LUST: how sexual desire and attachments are elaborated in the brain- CARE: sources of maternal nurturance- GRIEF: sources of non-sexual attachments- PLAY: how the brain generates joyous, rough-and-tumble interactions- SELF: a hypothesis explaining how affects might be elaborated in the brainThe book offers an evidence-based evolutionary taxonomy of emotions and affects and, as such, a brand-new clinical paradigm for treating psychiatric disorders in clinical practice.

Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology


David Abram - 2010
    Now Abram returns with a startling exploration of our human entanglement with the rest of nature.As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in our relation to the living land. For too long we’ve inured ourselves to the wild intelligence of our muscled flesh, taking our primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. This book subverts that distance, drawing readers ever deeper into their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the body and the breathing Earth.The shapeshifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in Abram’s investigation. He shows that from the awakened perspective of the human animal, awareness (or mind) is not an exclusive possession of our species but a lucid quality of the biosphere itself—a quality in which we, along with the oaks and the spiders, steadily participate.With the audacity of its vision and the luminosity of its prose, Becoming Animal sets a new benchmark for the human appraisal of our place in the whole.

Cross Bones / Break no Bones / Bones to Ashes


Kathy Reichs - 2010
    

Partner to the Poor: A Paul Farmer Reader


Paul Farmer - 2010
    Driven by his stated intent to "make human rights substantial," Farmer has treated patients—and worked to address the root causes of their disease—in Haiti, Boston, Peru, Rwanda, and elsewhere in the developing world. In 1987, with several colleagues, he founded Partners In Health to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. Throughout his career, Farmer has written eloquently and extensively on these efforts. Partner to the Poor collects his writings from 1988 to 2009 on anthropology, epidemiology, health care for the global poor, and international public health policy, providing a broad overview of his work. It illuminates the depth and impact of Farmer’s contributions and demonstrates how, over time, this unassuming and dedicated doctor has fundamentally changed the way we think about health, international aid, and social justice.A portion of the proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to Partners In Health.

The Religion Virus: Why We Believe in God: An Evolutionist Explains Religion's Incredible Hold on Humanity


Craig A. James - 2010
    By applying 'survival of the fittest' principles to religion, we can understand how religion became incredibly infectious to the average human, perfectly adapted to its 'environment' - your mind.

The First Thing and the Last


Allan G. Johnson - 2010
    Subject of an author interview on National Public Radio's Here and Now.In the middle of a horrific night, Katherine Stuart barely escapes being murdered by her abusive husband in the kitchen of their suburban Boston home. In the aftermath of utter loss and devastation, Katherine is sought out by Lucy Dudley, an elderly woman living on a family farm in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, who reads about Katherine in the news and is drawn to her by a closely guarded history of her own. Katherine, unable to bear the accusing eyes of her family, accepts Lucy’s invitation to come to Vermont, setting in motion a deepening relationship between the two women that frames a universal struggle to heal and reclaim what severe trauma takes from people’s lives. The First Thing and the Last is an inspiring, heartbreaking story of the resilience of the human spirit."This beautiful, brave, and liberating book is a triumph of the spirit. Engrossing and exquisitely written, it shines with rare courage and a tender, life-saving wisdom that comes only through facing the darkness we suffer or inflict on others. It is a marvelous story whose characters I am glad to have in my life." Joanna Macy Author, World as Lover, World as Self "Allan Johnson's illumination of the mind of a woman recovering from horrific abuse and loss is miraculous, carried by a story that is both gripping and inspiring. It is a stunning achievement." Jean Kilbourne Creator of the award-winning film series, Killing Us Softly "Allan Johnson's writing is moving, insightful, and deeply human. He takes us inside painful lives with courageous truth-telling, yet at the same time takes us inside of characters who can heal and thrive. This is a novel that rings true, and that we need urgently to take into our hearts." Lundy Bancroft Author, Why Does He Do That? "The First Thing and the Last portrays an extraordinary woman who is brutalized - but the abuse becomes her sorrow and not her identity in Allan Johnson's complex, masterful and exacting understanding of such a woman's life. His ability and willingness to see so deeply, to portray a woman and her story so profoundly, takes our breath away. Welcome this extraordinary and most original novelist to the ranks of American literature." Deena Metzger Poet, novelist, and author of Writing For Your Life"Read this book. Savor it. Allow it to work on your spirit and body and mind as only a well-told tale of high morality and beauty can. Share this book with those you love and those you don’t; suggest it to everyone and share it widely. This is the kind of book that culture depends on, and by culture I mean a shared sense of responsibility, and I mean shared community: civilization in the truest sense of the word. To truly be human and to truly be civilized, our public life is in desperate need of more works of art like this one. Share this book and, in whatever way possible, encourage the publication of more like it.” Charles Dickey Leftunder Books"The First Thing and the Last is a must-read for anyone working to end domestic and sexual violence and for those interested in educating themselves about the issue. Allan Johnson has deftly woven the issues of intimate-partner violence, trauma, and healing into a compelling novel that challenges the reader to question their own beliefs and assumptions about family violence. The First Thing and the Last firmly establishes Johnson as ally in the fight to end violence against women.” Erika Tindill, Esq.Executive Director of the Connecticut Coalition against Domestic Violence

Guns, Germs, and Steel


Frederic P. Miller - 2010
    Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1998 it won a Pulitzer Prize and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book. A documentary based on the book and produced by the National Geographic Society was broadcast on PBS in July 2005.

Filipino Tattoos: Ancient to Modern


Lane Wilcken - 2010
    After many centuries of not being practiced in Europe, tattooing was re-introduced to the Western world through the inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean. Beginnning in the 16th century, European explorers came across many people who practiced tattooing as an integral part of their cultures. This is the first serious study of Filipino tattoos, and it considers early accounts from explorers and Spanish-speaking writers. The text presents Filipino cultural practices connected with ancestral and spiritual aspects of tattoo markings, and how they relate to the process and tools used to make the marks. In the Philippine Islands, tatoos were applied to men and women for many different reasons. It became a form of clothing. Certain designs recognized manhood and personal accomplishments as well as attractiveness, fertility, and continuity of the family or village. Facial tattoos occurred on the bravest warriors with names that denoted particular honor. Through the fascinating text and over 200 images, including color photographs and design drawings, the deep meanings and importance of these markings becomes apparent.

Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History


Thomas Barfield - 2010
    Thomas Barfield introduces readers to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnicgroups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them. He shows how governing these peoples was relatively easy when power was concentrated in a small dynastic elite, but how this delicate political order broke downin the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Afghanistan's rulers mobilized rural militias to expel first the British and later the Soviets. Armed insurgency proved remarkably successful against the foreign occupiers, but it also undermined the Afghan government's authority and rendered thecountry ever more difficult to govern as time passed. Barfield vividly describes how Afghanistan's armed factions plunged the country into a civil war, giving rise to clerical rule by the Taliban and Afghanistan's isolation from the world. He examines why the American invasion in the wake ofSeptember 11 toppled the Taliban so quickly, and how this easy victory lulled the United States into falsely believing that a viable state could be built just as easily. Afghanistan is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how a land conquered and ruled by foreign dynasties for morethan a thousand years became the graveyard of empires for the British and Soviets, and what the United States must do to avoid a similar fate.

The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations


Patrick Thaddeus Jackson - 2010
    The field of International Relations should pay closer attention to these methodological differences, and to their implications for concrete research on world politics. The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations provides an introduction to the philosophy of science issues and their implications for the study of global politics.

Indian Nations of North America


National Geographic Society - 2010
    Lakota, Cherokee, Navajo, Haida: these groups and many others are profiled in engaging entries and portrayed in magnificent images and maps that authentically evoke each tribe's history and character. Organized into eight geographical regions, this encyclopedic reference gives fascinating details about key tribes within each area: their beliefs, sustenance, shelter, alliances, interaction with nature, historic events, and more. Learn about the spiritual and cultural traditions of Native Americans across the continent...investigate how and when each tribe came into contact with Europeans, and how their lives changed. This is the definitive, insightful reference on Native Americans —captivating and informative for all who appreciate history, diverse cultures, stunning images, and the artistry of maps.

Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies


Kevin B. Anderson - 2010
    Analyzing a variety of Marx's writings, including journalistic work written for the New York Tribune, Anderson presents us with a Marx quite at odds with our conventional interpretations. Rather than providing us with an account of Marx as an exclusively class-based thinker, Anderson here offers a portrait of Marx for the twenty-first century: a global theorist whose social critique was sensitive to the varieties of human social and historical development, including not just class, but nationalism, race, and ethnicity, as well.Marx at the Margins ultimately argues that alongside his overarching critique of capital, Marx created a theory of history that was multi-layered and not easily reduced to a single model of development or revolution. Through highly-informed readings on work ranging from Marx's unpublished 1879-82 notebooks to his passionate writings about the antislavery cause in the United States, this volume delivers a groundbreaking and canon-changing vision of Karl Marx that is sure to provoke lively debate in Marxist scholarship and beyond.

The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II


Jacques Derrida - 2010
    As he moves back and forth between the two works, Derrida pursuesthe relations between solitude, insularity, world, violence, boredom and death as they supposedly affect humans and animals in different ways. Hitherto unnoticed or underappreciated aspects of Robinson Crusoe are brought out in strikingly original readings of questions such as Crusoe’s belief in ghosts, his learning to pray, his parrot Poll, and his reinvention of the wheel. Crusoe’s terror of being buried alive or swallowed alive by beasts or cannibals gives rise to a rich and provocative reflection on death, burial, and cremation, in part provoked by a meditation on the death of Derrida’s friend Maurice Blanchot.  Throughout, these readings are juxtaposed with interpretations of Heidegger's concepts of world and finitude to produce a distinctively Derridean account that will continue to surprise his readers.

Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present


Didier Fassin - 2010
    Didier Fassin draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela, and Palestine to explore the meaning of humanitarianism in the contexts of immigration and asylum, disease and poverty, disaster and war. He traces and analyzes recent shifts in moral and political discourse and practices — what he terms “humanitarian reason”— and shows in vivid examples how humanitarianism is confronted by inequality and violence. Deftly illuminating the tensions and contradictions in humanitarian government, he reveals the ambiguities confronting states and organizations as they struggle to deal with the intolerable. His critique of humanitarian reason, respectful of the participants involved but lucid about the stakes they disregard, offers theoretical and empirical foundations for a political and moral anthropology.

Black Feminist Archaeology


Whitney Battle-Baptiste - 2010
    Whitney Battle-Baptiste outlines the basic tenets of Black feminist thought and research for archaeologists and shows how it can be used to improve contemporary historical archaeology. She demonstrates this using Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, the WEB Du Bois Homesite in Massachusetts, and the Lucy Foster house in Andover, which represented the first archaeological excavation of an African American home. Her call for an archaeology more sensitive to questions of race and gender is an important development for the field.

Myth in Human History


Grant L. Voth - 2010
    Taking you from ancient Greece and Japan to North America and Africa to New Zealand and Great Britain, these 36 lectures reveal mythology's profound importance in shaping nearly every aspect of culture. You'll also discover the hidden connections between them - a comparative approach that emphasizes the universality of myths across cultures.Along with the stories themselves, you'll encounter fascinating characters, including Herakles, the ancient Greek hero whose life illustrates the idea that all heroic stories have a similar structure; Loki, the shape-shifting trickster who introduces the concept of time into the Norse realm of Asgard; and King Arthur, the Celtic lord and founder of the Knights of the Round Table.Myths, according to Professor Voth, are "gifts from the ancestors to be cherished." His enchanting lectures are the perfect way for you to celebrate these cherished gifts, inviting you to develop your own interpretations of these age-old tales, as well as to ponder the role that myths - both ancient and everyday - play in your own life.(Great Courses, #2332)

What On Earth Evolved? ... In Brief


Christopher Lloyd - 2010
    

Kanaval: Vodou, Politics and Revolution on the Streets of Haiti


Leah Gordon - 2010
    In Haiti, carnivals offer an opportunity for people to come together-to hang out, sing, dance, laugh and to generally let go. Light years away from the government- sponsored, tourist inspired carnival floats of so many other cultures, the Haitian carnival is particularly notable for its more sober political dimension, as a venue for Haitian peasants to discuss local politics, or older, nagging, historical problems dating back to the slave revolts-and as an occasion to commune with ancestors both personal and historical. With oral histories from participants, Karnaval is a fascinating combination of photography, cultural analysis and anthropology.

All That We Say Is Ours: Guujaaw and the Reawakening of the Haida Nation


Ian Gill - 2010
    It is also the ancient homeland of the Haida nation. In the 1970s, after decades of rapacious logging, the Haida joined forces with environmentalists in a high-profile struggle to save the islands. The battle found powerful expression through Giindajin Haawasti Guujaaw, the visionary artist, drummer and orator who would later become president of the Council of the Haida Nation.The victories over logging interests are just one highlight in the Haida's epic, decades-long struggle to take back control of their own destiny. In 2004, they filed suit against British Columbia and Canada, laying claim to their entire traditional territory. Combining first-person accounts with vivid prose, Ian Gill captures the excitement of their struggle, from high-octane logging blockades to defiant legal challenges. Guujaaw's audacity, eloquence, tactical skills and deep knowledge of his homeland put him at the heart of the struggle, and this book reveals the extraordinary role he played in this incredible story.In chronicling the Haida's political and cultural renaissance, Gill has crafted a gripping, multilayered narrative that will have far-reaching reverberations.

The Shaman's Oracle: Oracle Cards for Ancient Wisdom and Guidance


John Matthews - 2010
    Modern-day shaman John Matthews and shamanic artist Wil Kinghan have created a special deck of 52 cards inspired by cave art, and their unique system can help us find answers to life's most vital questions. The cards represent five archetypes—Spirits, Ancestors, Hunters, Dancers, and Shamans—each linked to a different aspect of human experience. The evocative images touch on ancestral memories and subconscious forces that influence us at the deepest level of being. Comes with an 88-page book and a fold-out cave plan for oracle readings.

Shamanism: A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing


Michael Winkelman - 2010
    This text contains crosscultural examinations of the nature of shamanism, biological perspectives on alterations of consciousness, mechanisms of shamanistic healing, as well as the evolutionary origins of shamanism. It presents the shamanic paradigm within a biopsychosocial framework for explaining successful human evolution through group rituals. In the final chapter,"the author compares shamanistic rituals with chimpanzee displays to identify homologies that point to the ritual dynamics of our ancient hominid ancestors.

The Day of the Dead: El dia los muertos


Jorge Alderete - 2010
    as well as in Mexico, Day of the Dead art is hugely influential on the tattoo and kustom scenes. This collection emphasizes contemporary graphics, where traditional folk art and current U.S. politics and culture collide�Mexican traditions are mixed with Hollywood hip, or the graphic tags of L.A.'s Latino gangs. Bursting with amazing visceral energy and riotous color, this collection features vanguard artists taking traditional elements of sugar skulls, flowers, and devils right to the edge. It will be a fantastic source of inspiration for graphic designers, tattoo artists, hot rodders, and t-shirt designers.

Arrested Histories: Tibet, the CIA, and Memories of a Forgotten War


Carole McGranahan - 2010
    Their citizen army fought through 1974 with covert support from the Tibetan exile government and the governments of India, Nepal, and the United States. Decades later, the story of this resistance is only beginning to be told and has not yet entered the annals of Tibetan national history. In Arrested Histories, the anthropologist and historian Carole McGranahan shows how and why histories of this resistance army are “arrested” and explains the ensuing repercussions for the Tibetan refugee community.Drawing on rich ethnographic and historical research, McGranahan tells the story of the Tibetan resistance and the social processes through which this history is made and unmade, and lived and forgotten in the present. Fulfillment of veterans’ desire for recognition hinges on the Dalai Lama and “historical arrest,” a practice in which the telling of certain pasts is suspended until an undetermined time in the future. In this analysis, struggles over history emerge as a profound pain of belonging. Tibetan cultural politics, regional identities, and religious commitments cannot be disentangled from imperial histories, contemporary geopolitics, and romanticized representations of Tibet. Moving deftly from armed struggle to nonviolent hunger strikes, and from diplomatic offices to refugee camps, Arrested Histories provides powerful insights into the stakes of political engagement and the cultural contradictions of everyday life.

Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives: How Evolution Has Shaped Women's Health


Wenda Trevathan - 2010
    Howells Book Award of the American Anthropological AssociationHow has bipedalism impacted human childbirth? Do PMS and postpartum depression have specific, maybe even beneficial, functions? These are only two of the many questions that specialists in evolutionary medicine seek to answer, and that anthropologist Wenda Trevathan addresses in Ancient Bodies, Modern Lives.Exploring a range of women's health issues that may be viewed through an evolutionary lens, specifically focusing on reproduction, Trevathan delves into issues such as the medical consequences of early puberty in girls, the impact of migration, culture change, and poverty on reproductive health, andhow fetal growth retardation affects health in later life. Hypothesizing that many of the health challenges faced by women today result from a mismatch between how their bodies have evolved and the contemporary environments in which modern humans live, Trevathan sheds light on the power andpotential of examining the human life cycle from an evolutionary perspective, and how this could improve our understanding of women's health and our ability to confront health challenges in more creative, effective ways.

Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China


Thomas S. Mullaney - 2010
    Today the government of China recognizes just 56 ethnic nationalities, or minzu, as groups entitled to representation. This controversial new book recounts the history of the most sweeping attempt to sort and categorize the nation's enormous population: the 1954 Ethnic Classification project (minzu shibie). Thomas S. Mullaney draws on recently declassified material and extensive oral histories to describe how the communist government, in power less than a decade, launched this process in ethnically diverse Yunnan. Mullaney shows how the government drew on Republican-era scholarship for conceptual and methodological inspiration as it developed a strategy for identifying minzu and how non-Party-member Chinese ethnologists produced a “scientific” survey that would become the basis for a policy on nationalities.

Human Person


J. Brian Bransfield - 2010
    John Paul II's teaching on the Theology of the Body was his response to the resulting societal shifts. J. Brian Bransfield explores John Paul II's reactions to the challenges raised by these revolutions. Within this context, Bransfield then explores how Theology of the Body insights lead us to live the fullness of the Christian life.

An Anthropology of Biomedicine


Margaret M. Lock - 2010
    Focusing on the ways in which the application of biomedical technologies bring about radical changes to societies at large, cultural anthropologist Margaret Lock and her co-author physician and medical anthropologist Vinh-Kim Nguyen develop and integrate the thesis that the human body in health and illness is the elusive product of nature and culture that refuses to be pinned down.Introduces biomedicine from an anthropological perspective, exploring the entanglement of material bodies with history, environment, culture, and politics Develops and integrates an original theory: that the human body in health and illness is not an ontological given but a moveable, malleable entity Makes extensive use of historical and contemporary ethnographic materials around the globe to illustrate the importance of this methodological approach Integrates key new research data with more classical material, covering the management of epidemics, famines, fertility and birth, by military doctors from colonial times on Uses numerous case studies to illustrate concepts such as the global commodification of human bodies and body parts, modern forms of population, and the extension of biomedical technologies into domestic and intimate domains Winner of the 2010 Prose Award for Archaeology and Anthropology

Vera: The Art and Life of an Icon


Susan Seid - 2010
    An innovator and one of the most successful female entrepreneurs of her time, Vera built her company on a radical philosophy: fine art should be accessible to everyone, not just a select few. Known for her iconic images of cheerful flowers, trendy geometrics, and vibrant ladybugs, she believed people should surround themselves with beauty.   For the first time, Vera: The Art and Life of an Icon, tells her inspiring story through the art and designs she created. In this volume, richly illustrated with Vera’s original sketches, paintings, and photographs of her worldwide travels, readers are introduced to the amazing woman behind the dynamic designs that continue to inspire and influence art, design, and fashion.

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics


Alison Bashford - 2010
    Eugenics informed social and scientific policy across the political spectrum, from liberal welfare measures in emerging social-democratic states to feminist ambitions for birth control, from public health campaigns to totalitarian dreams of the perfectibility of man. This book dispels for uninitiated readers the automatic and apparently exclusive link between eugenics and the Holocaust. It is the first world history of eugenics and an indispensable core text for both teaching and research. Eugenics has accumulated generations of interest as experts attempted to connect biology, human capacity, and policy. In the past and the present, eugenics speaks to questions of race, class, gender and sex, evolution, governance, nationalism, disability, and the social implications of science. In the current climate, in which the human genome project, stem cell research, and new reproductive technologies have proven so controversial, the history of eugenics has much to teach us about the relationship between scientific research, technology, and human ethical decision-making.

From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874–1886


Edwin R. Sweeney - 2010
    government further deteriorated. In From Cochise to Geronimo, Edwin R. Sweeney builds on his previous biographies of Chiricahua leaders Cochise and Mangas Coloradas to offer a definitive history of the turbulent period between Cochise's death and Geronimo's surrender in 1886.Sweeney shows that the cataclysmic events of the 1870s and 1880s stemmed in part from seeds of distrust sown by the American military in 1861 and 1863. In 1876 and 1877, the U.S. government proposed moving the Chiricahuas from their ancestral homelands in New Mexico and Arizona to the San Carlos Reservation. Some made the move, but most refused to go or soon fled the reviled new reservation, viewing the government's concentration policy as continued U.S. perfidy. Bands under the leadership of Victorio and Geronimo went south into the Sierra Madre of Mexico, a redoubt from which they conducted bloody raids on American soil.Sweeney draws on American and Mexican archives, some only recently opened, to offer a balanced account of life on and off the reservation in the 1870s and 1880s. From Cochise to Geronimo details the Chiricahuas' ordeal in maintaining their identity despite forced relocations, disease epidemics, sustained warfare, and confinement. Resigned to accommodation with Americans but intent on preserving their culture, they were determined to survive as a people.

Ghosts of Revolution: Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran


Shahla Talebi - 2010
    With my eyes hurting from the strange light and anger in my voice, I assured him that I would. Suddenly I was pushed through the gate and the door was slammed behind me. After more than eight years, here I was, finally, out of jail . . . ."In this haunting account, Shahla Talebi remembers her years as a political prisoner in Iran. Talebi, along with her husband, was imprisoned for nearly a decade and tortured, first under the Shah and later by the Islamic Republic. Writing about her own suffering and survival and sharing the stories of her fellow inmates, she details the painful reality of prison life and offers an intimate look at a critical period of social and political transformation in Iran.Somehow through it all—through resistance and resolute hope, passion and creativity—Talebi shows how one survives. Reflecting now on experiences past, she stays true to her memories, honoring the love of her husband and friends lost in these events, to relate how people can hold to moments of love, resilience, and friendship over the dark forces of torture, violence, and hatred.At once deeply personal yet clearly political, part memoir and part meditation, this work brings to heartbreaking clarity how deeply rooted torture and violence can be in our society. More than a passing judgment of guilt on a monolithic "Islamic State," Talebi's writing asks us to reconsider our own responses to both contemporary debates of interrogation techniques and government responsibility and, more simply, to basic acts of cruelty in daily life. She offers a lasting call to us all."The art of living in prison becomes possible through imagining life in the very presence of death and observing death in the very existence of life. It is living life so vitally and so fully that you are willing, if necessary, to let that very life go, as one would shed chains on the legs. It is embracing, and flying on the wings of death as though it is the bird of freedom."

Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean


Basem L. Ra'ad - 2010
    Three religions ascribe their origins to this part of the world, appropriating and re-appropriating the "Holy Land" time and again. Hidden Histories offers a powerful corrective to common understandings. It emphasizes Palestine's long history and dispels many old and new myths – covering issues of religious origins and sacred sites, identity and self-colonization, and the retrieval of ancient heritage.

Origins: Human Evolution Revealed


Douglas Palmer - 2010
    "Origins" tells the incredible story of homo sapiens - where we came from, why we made it (and why 20 human-like species didn't) and what it means to be 'human' anyway. Part one takes us back through evolution to meet our ancestors. From the ape-like Proconsul who lived in Africa 17 million years ago to Homo floresiensis, the dwarf human species which survived on the Indonesian island of Flores until 18,000 years ago. The most accurate facial reconstructions available bring us up close with these familiar yet alien relatives, and artworks give a compelling insight into their lives - where they lived, what they wore, whether they spoke, what they ate, what animals existed. Graphical timelines untangle the relationships between the different species and highlight our remarkable evolutionary journey. The second part shows how humans spread across the planet to form the diverse races and peoples we know today, from our first steps out of Africa 100,000 years ago to our arrival in New Zealand as recently as 1,000 years ago.

Language as a Local Practice


Alastair Pennycook - 2010
    It questions assumptions about languages as systems or as countable entities, and suggests instead that language emerges from the activities it performs. To look at language as a practice is to view language as an activity rather than a structure, as something we do rather than a system we draw on, as a material part of social and cultural life rather than an abstract entity.Language as a Local Practice draws on a variety of contexts of language use, from bank machines to postcards, Indian newspaper articles to fish-naming in the Philippines, urban graffiti to mission statements, suggesting that rather than thinking in terms of language use in context, we need to consider how language, space and place are related, how language creates the contexts where it is used, how languages are the products of socially located activities and how they are part of the action.Language as a Local Practice will be of interest to students on advanced undergraduate and post graduate courses in Applied Linguistics, Language Education, TESOL, Literacy and Cultural Studies.

HIV is God's Blessing: Rehabilitating Morality in Neoliberal Russia


Jarrett Zigon - 2010
    Russia has one of the fastest-growing rates of HIV infection in the world—80 percent from intravenous drug use—and the Church remains its only resource for fighting these diseases. Jarrett Zigon takes the reader into a Church-run treatment center where, along with self-transformational and religious approaches, he explores broader anthropological questions—of morality, ethics, what constitutes a “normal” life, and who defines it as such. Zigon argues that this rare Russian partnership between sacred and political power carries unintended consequences: even as the Church condemns the influence of globalization as the root of the problem it seeks to combat, its programs are cultivating citizen-subjects ready for self-governance and responsibility, and better attuned to a world the Church ultimately opposes.

Sri Rudram


Dayananda Saraswati - 2010
    The Book contains Sri Rudram,a hymn from the Vedas,the sacred book of the Hindus.Diving deeply into the book brings Isvara into one's life so that one comes out with namah on one's lips and Isvara in one's heart.

Born at Home: Cultural and Political Dimensions of Maternity Care in the United States


Melissa Cheyney - 2010
    It focuses on conditions in the US. It places the issue within the context of the continuing health care crisis in this country and poses surprisingly traditional alternatives to the mechanized and impersonal care delivery that accompanies that crisis and indeed arises from it. BORN AT HOME is brief and inexpensive - indeed free when bundled- and designed to be used in an introductory Anthropology class with a core textbook or in an upper division course alongside additional readings. It offers an intimate look at an emerging movement that runs counter to established medical practice and yet poses a viable alternative to that practice. The writing is direct and personal and filed with numerous individual accounts. It is designed to inspire discussion - indeed to provoke controversy - and yet set on sound scholarly principles.

The Evolution of Language


W. Tecumseh Fitch - 2010
    It appears that no communication system of equivalent power exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Any normal human child will learn a language based on rather sparse data in the surrounding world, while even the brightest chimpanzee, exposed to the same environment, will not. Why not? How, and why, did language evolve in our species and not in others? Since Darwin's theory of evolution, questions about the origin of language have generated a rapidly-growing scientific literature, stretched across a number of disciplines, much of it directed at specialist audiences. The diversity of perspectives - from linguistics, anthropology, speech science, genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology - can be bewildering. Tecumseh Fitch cuts through this vast literature, bringing together its most important insights to explore one of the biggest unsolved puzzles of human history.

The Sociolinguistics of Globalization


Jan Blommaert - 2010
    The world has become a complex 'web' of villages, towns, neighbourhoods and settlements connected by material and symbolic ties in often unpredictable ways. This phenomenon requires us to revise our understanding of linguistic communication. In The Sociolinguistics of Globalization Jan Blommaert constructs a theory of changing language in a changing society, reconsidering locality, repertoires, competence, history and sociolinguistic inequality.

Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Identity in the Appalachian Coalfields


Rebecca R. Scott - 2010
    Peaks are flattened and valleys are filled as the coal industry levels thousands of acres of forest to access the coal, in the process turning the forest into scrubby shrublands and poisoning the water. This is dangerous and environmentally devastating work, but as Rebecca R. Scott shows in Removing Mountains, the issues at play are vastly complicated.In this rich ethnography of life in Appalachia, Scott examines mountaintop removal in light of controversy and protests from environmental groups calling for its abolishment. But Removing Mountains takes the conversation in a new direction, telling the stories of the businesspeople, miners, and families who believe they depend on the industry to survive. Scott reveals these southern Appalachian coalfields as a meaningful landscape where everyday practices and representations help shape a community's relationship to the environment.Removing Mountains demonstrates that the paradox that faces this community-forced to destroy their land to make a wage-raises important questions related not only to the environment but also to American national identity, place, and white working-class masculinity.

Evolutionary Behavioral Ecology


David Westneat - 2010
    Chaptersare written by leading experts in the field, providing a core foundation, a history of conceptual developments, and fresh insight into the controversies and themes shaping the continuing development of the field. Essays on adaptation, selection, fitness, genetics, plasticity, and phylogeny as theypertain to behavior place the field in the broader context of ecology and evolution. These concepts, along with a diversity of theoretical approaches are applied to the evolution of behavior in a many contexts, from individual decision-making of solitary animals through to complex socialinteractions.Chapters integrate conceptual and theoretical approaches with recent empirical advances to understand the evolution of behavior, from foraging, dealing with risk, predator avoidance, and an array of social behaviors, including fighting and cooperation with conspecifics and conflict and cooperationbetween the sexes. The material emphasizes integrative and novel approaches to behavior, including cognitive ecology, personality, conservation biology, the links between behavior and evolution, the evolution of human social behavior, and ways in which modern genetic analyses can augment the studyof behavior.

El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace: Crime, Uncertainty, and the Transition to Democracy


Ellen Moodie - 2010
    The accord between the government and the Farabundo Mart� National Liberation Front (FMLN) has been lauded as a model post-Cold War peace agreement. But after the conflict stopped, crime rates shot up. The number of murder victims surpassed wartime death tolls. Those who once feared the police and the state became frustrated by their lack of action. Peace was not what Salvadorans had hoped it would be. Citizens began saying to each other, It's worse than the war.El Salvador in the Aftermath of Peace: Crime, Uncertainty, and the Transition to Democracy challenges the pronouncements of policy analysts and politicians by examining Salvadoran daily life as told by ordinary people who have limited influence or affluence. Anthropologist Ellen Moodie spent much of the decade after the war gathering crime stories from various neighborhoods in the capital city of San Salvador. True accounts of theft, assaults, and murders were shared across kitchen tables, on street corners, and in the news media. This postconflict storytelling reframed violent acts, rendering them as driven by common criminality rather than political ideology. Moodie shows how public dangers narrated in terms of private experience shaped a new interpretation of individual risk. These narratives of postwar violence--occurring at the intersection of self and other, citizen and state, the powerful and the powerless--offered ways of coping with uncertainty during a stunted transition to democracy.

The Forgotten Japanese: Encounters with Rural Life and Folklore


Tsuneichi Miyamoto - 2010
    This collection of photos, vignettes, and life stories from pre- and postwar rural Japan is the first English translation of his modern Japanese classic. From blowfish to landslides, Miyamoto's stories come to life in Jeffrey Irish's fluid translation.

Streets of Memory: Landscape, Tolerance, and National Identity in Istanbul


Amy Mills - 2010
    Mills analyzes these places in a street-by-street ethnographic tour. She looks at how memory is conveyed and contested in Kuzguncuk’s built environment, whether through the popular television programs filmed on location there or in the cross-class alliance that sprung up to advocate the preservation of an old market garden. Overall, she finds that the neighborhood’s landscape not only connotes feelings of “belonging and familiarity” connected to a “narrative of historic multiethnic harmony” but also makes these ideas appear to be uncontestably real, or true. The resulting nostalgia bolsters a version of Turkish nationalism that seems cosmopolitan and benign. This study of memories of interethnic relationships in a local place examines why the cultural memory of tolerance has become so popular and raises questions regarding the nature and meaning of cosmopolitanism in the contemporary Middle East. A major contribution to urban studies, human geography, and Middle East studies, Streets of Memory is imbued with a sense of genuine connection to Istanbul and the people who live there.

World Prehistory and Archaeology: Pathways Through Time


Michael Chazan - 2010
    It provides the tools to allow for a lifelong engagement with archaeology, and draws students into the process of archaeological research and discovery. The author, Michael Chazan, brings students to the cutting edge of archaeological research by presenting the most recent discoveries and theoretical perspectives. For h"ow "we know the past is inseparable from" what" we know of the past. His text allows students to see that archaeology is a dynamic field in which knowledge is continually refined through scientific inquiry--while providing a sense of the relevance of archaeology in the contemporary world. The cornerstone of this book presents an integrated picture of prehistory as an active process of discovery--where methodological issues are not relegated to the opening chapters alone. While the introduction to archaeological methods in the first two chapters is necessary, the questions of "how "we know the past are not abandoned at that point. In fact, a number of key features--"found within every chapter"--have been especially developed for this text in order to draw together an integrated presentation of prehistory for students. "So what are you waiting for?" Contact your local publisher's representative today for YOUR review copy and see how "World Prehistory and Archaeology" will be able to draw YOUR students into the amazing world of archaeological reserach and discovery!

Localizing Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities after Mass Violence


Rosalind Shaw - 2010
    But when local responses to transitional justice destabilize these assumptions, the result can be a troubling disconnection between international norms and survivors' priorities.Localizing Transitional Justice traces how ordinary people respond to—and sometimes transform—transitional justice mechanisms, laying a foundation for more locally responsive approaches to social reconstruction after mass violence and egregious human rights violations. Recasting understandings of culture and locality prevalent in international justice, this vital book explores the complex, unpredictable, and unequal encounter among international legal norms, transitional justice mechanisms, national agendas, and local priorities and practices.

The Modulated Scream: Pain in Late Medieval Culture


Esther Cohen - 2010
    It could be encouragement to lead a moral life, a punishment for wrong doing, or a method of healing. Exploring the varied depictions and descriptions of pain—from martyrdom narratives to practices of torture and surgery—The Modulated Scream attempts to decode this culture of suffering in the Middle Ages.   Esther Cohen brings to life the cacophony of howls emerging from the written record of physicians, torturers, theologians, and mystics. In considering how people understood suffering, explained it, and meted it out, Cohen discovers that pain was imbued with multiple meanings. While interpreting pain was the province only of the rarified elite, harnessing pain for religious, moral, legal, and social purposes was a practice that pervaded all classes of Medieval life. In the overlap of these contradicting attitudes about what pain was for—how it was to be understood and who should use it—Cohen reveals the distinct and often conflicting cultural traditions and practices of late medieval Europeans. Ambitious and wide-ranging, The Modulated Scream is intellectual history at its most acute.

Prospect Theory: For Risk and Ambiguity


Peter P. Wakker - 2010
    The book presents models, primarily prospect theory, that are both tractable and psychologically realistic. A method of presentation is chosen that makes the empirical meaning of each theoretical model completely transparent. Prospect theory has many applications in a wide variety of disciplines. The material in the book has been carefully organized to allow readers to select pathways through the book relevant to their own interests. With numerous exercises and worked examples, the book is ideally suited to the needs of students taking courses in decision theory in economics, mathematics, finance, psychology, management science, health, computer science, Bayesian statistics, and engineering.

Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance


D. Soyini Madison - 2010
    Madison presents the neglected yet compelling and necessary story of local activists in South Saharan Africa who employ modes of performance as tactics of resistance and intervention in their day-to-day struggles for human rights. The dynamic relationship between performance and activism are illustrated in three case studies: Act One presents a battle between tradition and modernity as the bodies of African women are caught in the cross-fire. Act Two focuses on 'water democracy' as activists fight for safe, accessible public water as a human right. Act Three examines the efficacy of street performance and theatre for development in the oral histories of Ghanaian gender activists. Unique to this book is the continuing juxtaposition between the everyday performances of local activism and their staged enactments before theatre audiences in Ghana and the USA. Madison beautifully demonstrates how these disparate sites of performance cohere in the service of rights, justice, and activism.

Pigeon Trouble: Bestiary Biopolitics in a Deindustrialized America


Hoon Song - 2010
    Though initially drawn by a widely publicized antipigeon shoot protest by animal rights activists, the author quickly finds himself traversing into a territory much stranger than clashing worldviews--an uncanny world saturated with pigeon matters, both figuratively and literally.What transpires is a sustained meditation on self-reflexivity as the author teeters at the limit of his investigation--his own fear of birds. The result is an intimate portrayal of the miners' world of conspiracy theory, anti-Semitism, and whiteness, all inscribed one way or another by pigeon matters, and seen through the anguished eyes of a birdphobe. This bestiary experiment through a phobic gaze concludes with a critique on the visual trope in anthropology's self-reflexive turn.An ethnographer with a taste for philosophy, Song writes in a distinctive descriptive and analytical style, obsessed with his locale and its inhabitants, constantly monitoring his own reactions and his impact on others, but always teasing out larger implications to his subject.

The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding


Severine Autesserre - 2010
    Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003–2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention.

Pimsleur French Level 1: Learn to Speak and Understand French with Pimsleur Language Programs


Pimsleur Language Programs - 2010
    You’ll learn vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation together through conversation. And our scientifically proven program will help you remember what you’ve learned, so you can put it into action. Why Pimsleur? • Quick + Easy – Only 30 minutes a day. • Portable + Flexible – Core lessons can be done anytime, anywhere, and easily fit into your busy life. • Proven Method – Works when other methods fail. • Self-Paced – Go fast or go slow – it’s up to you. • Based in Science – Developed using proven research on memory and learning. • Cost-effective – Less expensive than classes or immersion, and features all native speakers. • Genius – Triggers your brain’s natural aptitude to learn. • Works for everyone – Recommended for ages 13 and above. What’s Included? • 30, 30-minute audio lessons • 60 minutes of reading instruction to provide you with an introduction to reading French and designed to teach you to sound out words with correct pronunciation and accent • in total, 16 hours of audio, all featuring native speakers • A digital Reading Booklet What You’ll Learn In the first 10 lessons, you’ll cover the basics: saying hello, asking for or giving information, scheduling a meal or a meeting, asking for or giving basic directions, and much more. You’ll be able to handle minimum courtesy requirements, understand much of what you hear, and be understood at a beginning level, but with near-native pronunciation skills. In the next 10 lessons, you’ll build on what you’ve learned. Expand your menu, increase your scheduling abilities from general to specific, start to deal with currency and exchanging money, refine your conversations and add over a hundred new vocabulary items. You’ll understand more of what you hear, and be able to participate with speech that is smoother and more confident. In the final 10 lessons, you’ll be speaking and understanding at an intermediate level. More directions are given in French, which moves your learning to a whole new plane. Lessons include shopping, visiting friends, going to a restaurant, plans for the evening, car trips, and talking about family. You’ll be able to speak comfortably about things that happened in the past and make plans for the future. Whether you want to travel, communicate with friends or colleagues, reconnect with family, or just understand more of what’s going on in the world around you, Pimsleur will help you learn French and expand your horizons and enrich your life.

Breaking Ranks: Iraq Veterans Speak Out Against the War


Matthew C. Gutmann - 2010
    Based on extensive interviews with each of the six, the book relates why they enlisted, their experiences in training and in early missions, their tours of combat, and what has happened to them since returning home. The compelling stories of this diverse cross section of the military recount how each journey to Iraq began with the sincere desire to do good. Matthew Gutmann and Catherine Anne Lutz show how each individual's experiences led to new moral and political understandings and ultimately to opposing the war.

Society of the Dead: Quita Manaquita and Palo Praise in Cuba


Todd R. Ochoa - 2010
    Narrated as an encounter with two teachers of Palo, the book unfolds on the outskirts of Havana as it recounts Ochoa's attempts to assimilate Palo praise of the dead. As he comes to terms with a world in which everyday events and materials are composed of the dead, Ochoa discovers in Palo unexpected resources for understanding the relationship between matter and spirit, for rethinking anthropology's rendering of sorcery, and for representing the play of power in Cuban society. The first fully detailed treatment of the world of Palo, "Society of the Dead" draws upon recent critiques of Western metaphysics as it reveals what this little known practice can tell us about sensation, transformation, and redemption in the Black Atlantic.

Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory (Behavioral and brain sciences, 34(02))


Hugo Mercier - 2010
    However, much evidence shows that reasoning often leads to epistemic distortions and poor decisions. This suggests that the function of reasoning should be rethought. Our hypothesis is that the function of reasoning is argumentative. It is to devise and evaluate arguments intended to persuade. Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given the exceptional dependence of humans on communication and their vulnerability to misinformation. A wide range of evidence in the psychology of reasoning and decision making can be reinterpreted and better explained in the light of this hypothesis. Poor performance in standard reasoning tasks is explained by the lack of argumentative context. When the same problems are placed in a proper argumentative setting, people turn out to be skilled arguers. Skilled arguers, however, are not after the truth but after arguments supporting their views. This explains the notorious confirmation bias. This bias is apparent not only when people are actually arguing but also when they are reasoning proactively from the perspective of having to defend their opinions. Reasoning so motivated can distort evaluations and attitudes and allow erroneous beliefs to persist. Proactively used reasoning also favors decisions that are easy to justify but not necessarily better. In all these instances traditionally described as failures or flaws, reasoning does exactly what can be expected of an argumentative device: Look for arguments that support a given conclusion, and, ceteris paribus, favor conclusions for which arguments can be found.

The Trouble with Unity the Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity


Cristina Beltrán - 2010
    Situated at the intersection of political theory and Latino studies, The Trouble with Unity is a nuanced critique of civic Latinidad and the Latino electoral and protest politics that work to erase diversity and debate in favor of images of commonality. Cristina Beltr n looks at key moments in U.S. Latino political history through the lens of political, feminist, and cultural thought to provide a theoretically driven account of the many ways in which Latinos lay claim to the public realm. In its innovative approach to the realities of Latino protest politics, The Trouble with Unity advances both social movement and democratic political theory.

Mission to Tibet: The Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Account of Father Ippolito Desideri S. J.


Ippolito Desideri - 2010
    The italian missionary was most notably the first european to learn about Buddhism directly with Tibetan schol ars and monks - and from a profound study of its primary texts. while there, Desideri was an eyewitness to some of the most tumultuous events in Tibet's history, of which he left us a vivid and dramatic account. Desideri explores key Buddhist concepts including emptiness and rebirth, together with their philosophical and ethical implications, with startling detail and sophistication. This book also includes an introduction situating the work in the context of Desideri's life and the intellectual and religious milieu of eighteenth-century Catholicism.

It's Not PMS, It's You!: A Totally Non-hormonal Analysis of Male Behavior


Deb Amlen - 2010
    Beginning with a completely scientific, fairly non-hormonal look at the history of the term “on the rag” and ending with the “Diary of a Break Up in One Full Menstrual Cycle,” this lighthearted guide looks at: - Who should fund the medical research into why men do what they do. (Hint: It's definitely NOT the government) - Why men hate to talk about their feelings (with four separate mentions of the word “penis”) - An absolutely foolproof method for sustaining a long-term relationship, and why it could kill you

Both Hands Tied: Welfare Reform and the Race to the Bottom in the Low-Wage Labor Market


Jane L. Collins - 2010
    Grounded in the experience of thirty-three women living in Milwaukee and Racine, Wisconsin, it tells the story of their struggle to balance child care and wage-earning in poorly paying and often state-funded jobs with inflexible schedules—and the moments when these jobs failed them and they turned to the state for additional aid.   Jane L. Collins and Victoria Mayer here examine the situations of these women in light of the 1996 national Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and other like-minded reforms—laws that ended the entitlement to welfare for those in need and provided an incentive for them to return to work. Arguing that this reform came at a time of gendered change in the labor force and profound shifts in the responsibilities of family, firms, and the state, Both Hands Tied provides a stark but poignant portrait of how welfare reform afflicted poor, single-parent families, ultimately eroding the participants’ economic rights and affecting their ability to care for themselves and their children.

Imperialist Canada


Todd Gordon - 2010
    Todd Gordon interweaves histories of indigenous dispossession in Canada with the cold facts of Canadian capital's oppression of peoples in the global South. The book digs beneath the surface of Canada's image as global peacekeeper and promoter of human rights, revealing the links between the corporate pursuit of profit and Canadian foreign and domestic policy. Drawing on examples from Colombia, the Congo, Sudan, Haiti and elsewhere, Imperialist Canada makes a passionate plea for greater critical attention to Canada's role in the global order.

Fair Trade and Social Justice: Global Ethnographies


Sarah Lyon - 2010
    Consumers pay a "fair price" for Fair Trade items, which are meant to generate greater earnings for family farmers, cover the costs of production, and support socially just and environmentally sound practices. Yet constrained by existing markets and the entities that dominate them, Fair Trade often delivers material improvements for producers that are much more modest than the profound social transformations the movement claims to support.There has been scant real-world assessment of Fair Trade's effectiveness. Drawing upon fine-grained anthropological studies of a variety of regions and commodity systems including Darjeeling tea, coffee, crafts, and cut flowers, the chapters in Fair Trade and Social Justice represent the first works to use ethnographic case studies to assess whether the Fair Trade Movement is actually achieving its goals.Contributors: Julia Smith, Mark Moberg, Catherine Ziegler, Sarah Besky, Sarah M. Lyon, Catherine S. Dolan, Patrick C. Wilson, Faidra Papavasiliou, Molly Doane, Kathy M'Closkey, Jane Henrici

Fifty Key Anthropologists


Robert J. Gordon - 2010
    The entries, written by an international range of expert contributors, represent the diversity of thought within the subject, incorporating both classic theorists and more recent anthropological thinkers. Names discussed include: Clifford Geertz Bronislaw Malinowski Zora Neale Hurston Sherry B. Ortner Claude Lévi-Strauss Rodney Needham Mary Douglas Marcel Mauss This accessible A-Z guide contains helpful cross-referencing, a timeline of key dates and schools of thought, and suggestions for further reading. It will be of interest to students of anthropology and related subjects wanting a succinct overview of the ideas and impact of key anthropologists who have helped to shape the discipline.

Where Hornbills Fly: A Journey with the Headhunters of Borneo


Erik Jensen - 2010
    As a young man Erik Jensen settled in Sarawak where he lived with the Iban for seven years, learning their language and the varied rites and practices of their lives. In this compelling and beautifully-wrought memoir, Erik Jensen reveals the challenges facing the Iban as they adapt to another century, whilst fighting to preserve their identity and singular place in the world. Haunting, yet hopeful, Where Hornbills Fly opens a window onto a vanishing world and paints a remarkable portrait of this fragile tribe, which continues to survive deep in the heart of Borneo.

Monasteries


Markus Hattstein - 2010
    Monasteries are places of spirituality, closely binding faith and learning. This book examines the traditions of Christian; Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic monastic architecture from its early beginnings to the present. In introducing the world of the monasteries with its unique artistic and architectural forms, this book asks such questions as what were the rules that governed life in the monasteries and convents? What were the ideals that inspired - and continue to inspire - the form taken by monastic buildings?

Organizational Behaviour and Work: A Critical Introduction


Fiona Wilson - 2010
    This engagingly written textbook introduces students to key topics, ideas, and research in organizational behavior. Without assuming prior knowledge of the subject, the student is nevertheless encouraged to critically assess and question the traditional approach to the study of organizational life.The text introduces students to both traditional and non-traditional areas of research, acting as a springboard for further research and critical thinking. The range of themes and topics explored provides a rich picture of the realities of organizational life, and of the varied contributions that make up the study of organizational behavior. For example, the concept of alienation is discussed in relation to both assembly lines and to call centres, leading into a discussion about the meaning of work.The new edition takes the reader from critical perspectives on classic organizational topics--including new chapters on Personality and Perception--to the core of the critical approaches, including power, resistance, and alternative forms of organization. The Introduction also provides more detail on the different implications of taking a functionalist or critical approach to the study of organizational behavior--a theme which runs throughought the book.The third edition also includes enhanced pedagogy, ensuring that the book is highly accessible. Questions, further reading suggestions, and annotated examples of films and novels that illustrate themes and topics from each chapter, help students to interact with the text, and support instructors to prepare. "Stop and Think" boxes encourage students to engage with and reflect on the text by drawing on their own experiences and perspectives, and numerous and varied examples and cases, drawn from both research and organizational life, bring the text to life and add depth.

Women Of The Tagore Household


Citra Deba - 2010
    Like its men, the women of this illustrious family have had a great and enduring influence on the life and people of Bengal. Women of the Tagore Household portrays several generations of connoisseurs, aesthetes and lovers of literature who were nurtured under the umbrella of cultural richness and spiritual freedom that the extended family provided. We meet Rabindranath's wife Mrinalini and his sister-in-law Kadambari, who had considerable influence on the young poet; the progressive Jnandanandini who sailed alone to England in the nineteenth century, presenting to ordinary women a vision of courage and daring; and Sushama, who broke out of the confines of music, literature and culinary arts, to tread the path of women s empowerment. This book reveals hitherto unknown aspects of women's emancipation in Bengal in which the women of the Jarasanko Tagore family were at the forefront—Chandramukhi and Kadambini were the first two female graduates of India, Protiva opened up music and dramatics to women by preparing musical notations for Brahmo sangeet and Hindustani classical music, and Pragya's prefaces to her cookbooks are still considered storehouses of not only recipes but also homemaking skills.

Persistent Memories: Pyramiden - a Soviet Mining Town in the High Arctic


Hein Bjerck - 2010
    The remarkably abrupt abandonment left behind a mining town devoid of humans, but it was still filled with items constituting a modern industrial settlement. Today, the well-equipped Pyramiden survives as a conspicuous Soviet-era ghost town in pristine Arctic nature. Based on fieldwork studies, Persistent Memories examines how people lived and coped in this marginal town. The book is also concerned with Pyramiden's post-human biography and the way the site provokes more general reflections on possessions, heritage, and memory. Challenging the traditional scholarly hierarchy of text over images, this book stands out by using art photography as a means to address these issues and to mediate the contemporary archaeology of Pyramiden.

Islam in Focus


Hammudah 'Abdal al 'Ati - 2010
    One of the best introductions to the basic teachings of Islam written by a scholar with rich scholastic achievements from Al Azhar, McGill and Princeton universities and practical Islamic field work in Egypt, USA and Canada.

Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith


Emma Tarlo - 2010
    Why is dress such an important issue for Muslims? Why is it such a major topic of media interest and international concern?This timely and important book cuts through media stereotypes of Muslim appearances, providing intimate insights into what clothes really mean to the people who design and wear them. It examines how different ideas of fashion, politics, faith, freedom, beauty, modesty and cultural diversity are articulated by young British Muslims as they seek out clothes which best express their identities, perspectives and concerns. It also explores the wider social and political effects of their clothing choices on the development of transnational cultural formations and multicultural urban spaces.Based on contemporary ethnographic research, the book is an essential read for students and scholars of religion, sociology, cultural studies, anthropology and fashion as well as anyone interested in cultural diversity and the changing face of cosmopolitan cities throughout the world.

Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology


Arthur W. Frank - 2010
    But they do not merely entertain, inform, or distress us—they show us what counts as right or wrong and teach us who we are and who we can imagine being. Stories connect people, but they can also disconnect, creating boundaries between people and justifying violence. In Letting Stories Breathe, Arthur W. Frank grapples with this fundamental aspect of our lives, offering both a theory of how stories shape us and a useful method for analyzing them. Along the way he also tells stories: from folktales to research interviews to remembrances.Frank’s unique approach uses literary concepts to ask social scientific questions: how do stories make life good and when do they endanger it? Going beyond theory, he presents a thorough introduction to dialogical narrative analysis, analyzing modes of interpretation, providing specific questions to start analysis, and describing different forms analysis can take. Building on his renowned work exploring the relationship between narrative and illness, Letting Stories Breathe expands Frank’s horizons further, offering a compelling perspective on how stories affect human lives.

Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Labor to the World


Robyn Magalit Rodriguez - 2010
    In a visit to the United States in 2003, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo even referred to herself as not only the head of state but also “the CEO of a global Philippine enterprise of eight million Filipinos who live and work abroad." Robyn Magalit Rodriguez investigates how and why the Philippine government transformed itself into what she calls a labor brokerage state, which actively prepares, mobilizes, and regulates its citizens for migrant work abroad. Filipino men and women fill a range of jobs around the globe, including domestic work, construction, and engineering, and they have even worked in the Middle East to support U.S. military operations. At the same time, the state redefines nationalism to normalize its citizens to migration while fostering their ties to the Philippines. Those who leave the country to work and send their wages to their families at home are treated as new national heroes. Drawing on ethnographic research of the Philippine government’s migration bureaucracy, interviews, and archival work, Rodriguez presents a new analysis of neoliberal globalization and its consequences for nation-state formation.

The Bushman Way of Tracking God: The Original Spirituality of the Kalahari People


Bradford P. Keeney - 2010
    In spite of colossal challenges and never-ending crises, they have survived for over 60,000 years with joy and peace—yet their spiritual teachings, the source of their enduring wisdom, have never been fully presented. For the first time, these ancient oral traditions have been put down onto paper taking you through the veil of original spirituality, connecting the fragments of world religions to a source that is unlike any other. Through this wisdom, you can find the deepest meaning, fullest purpose, and highest joy in life. The Bushman’s Way to Tracking God is articulated through twelve original mysteries, including: activating the non-subtle universal life force (what the Bushmen call n/om), heightening emotional experience, vibratory interaction, direct downloading and absorption of sacred knowledge, extraordinary healing, activation of the ecstatic “pump,” spontaneous ways of rejuvenation, attending the spiritual classrooms, so-called telepathy, an uncommon range of mystical experiences, and last but not least, total bliss.

What Is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good from the Person Up


Christian Smith - 2010
    But, Christian Smith here argues, it also lies at the center of the social scientist’s quest to interpret and explain social life. In this ambitious book, Smith presents a new model for social theory that does justice to the best of our humanistic visions of people, life, and society.Finding much current thinking on personhood to be confusing or misleading, Smith finds inspiration in critical realism and personalism. Drawing on these ideas, he constructs a theory of personhood that forges a middle path between the extremes of positivist science and relativism. Smith then builds on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, and William Sewell to demonstrate the importance of personhood to our understanding of social structures. From there he broadens his scope to consider how we can know what is good in personal and social life and what sociology can tell us about human rights and dignity.Innovative, critical, and constructive, What Is a Person? offers an inspiring vision of a social science committed to pursuing causal explanations, interpretive understanding, and general knowledge in the service of truth and the moral good.

Tribe: Endangered Peoples Around the World


Piers Gibbon - 2010
    Author Piers Gibbon describes some of the last existing tribal communities and shows them as intimate groups that are part of the wider world. We see their homes, celebrations and all that makes each tribe a unique thread in the fabric of humanity.This comprehensive book details:Life stages from birth to deathLearning, histories and how tribes interpret the world around themBelief systemsMedicine, shamanism, prayerSurvival skillsComing of age ceremoniesDress and adornmentSex, gender and relationshipsMoney, trade and wealthLaw and orderLeisure, sport, music and artOutside contact now and in the pastTribal futuresThe book also corrects the notion that an aboriginal tribe is invariably cut off from the rest of the world. The author's personal interviews with the world's leading anthropologists explore the future of these tribes and examine what unmet need fuels our endless fascination with tribal societies. Tribe is an inspiring, eye-opening and sometimes poignant exploration of some of the least known and most endangered peoples of the world.

Major Transitions In Evolution


NOT A BOOK - 2010
    

Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Function


Jacquelin Perry - 2010
    Jacquelin Perry is encompassed and detailed in the world renowned text, Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Function . The medical, healthcare, and rehabilitation professions key text for over 18 years on gait….Now available in a much anticipated New Second Edition Dr. Jacquelin Perry is joined by Dr. Judith Burnfield to present today's latest research findings on human gait. Gait Analysis, Second Edition has been updated and expanded to focus on current research, more sophisticated methods, and the latest equipment available to analyze gait.What is New:• A new chapter covering running• Synergy of motion between the two limbs• A new chapter covering pediatrics • A new chapter covering stair negotiation• New and updated clinical examples• A section on power inside each chapter covering normal gait• New methods and equipment to analyze gaitThis Second Edition to Gait Analysis offers a re-organization of the chapters and presentation of material in a more user-friendly, yet comprehensive format. Essential information is provided describing gait functions, and clinical examples to identify and interpret gait deviations. Learning is further reinforced with images and photographs.Features:• Six sections cover the fundamentals, normal gait, pathological gait, clinical considerations, advanced locomotor functions, and gait analysis systems• Clinical significance of the most common pathological gait patterns• Over 470 illustrations and photographs, as well as 40 tables• Patient examples to illustrate elements of normal and pathological gaitTens of thousands of orthopedic, orthotic and prosthetic, physical therapy, and other rehabilitation professionals have kept a copy of Gait Analysis by their side for over 18 years…join the thousands more who will bring the Second Edition into their clinics, classrooms, and personal collections.

A Reader in Medical Anthropology: Theoretical Trajectories, Emergent Realities


Byron J. Good - 2010
    The editors' comprehensive introductions evaluate the historical lineages of these approaches and their value in addressing critical problems associated with contemporary forms of illness experience and health care. Presents a key selection of both classic and new agenda-setting articles in medical anthropology Provides analytic and historical contextual introductions by leading figures in medical anthropology, medical sociology, and science and technology studies Critically reviews the contribution of medical anthropology to a new global health movement that is reshaping international health agendas

Creating Autoethnographies


Tessa Muncey - 2010
    It is suitable for all social science students, both graduate and upper level undergraduate. The book is structured to mirror the process of writing about experience, from establishing an idea through to the process of writing and the development of creative writing skills, and provides detailed worked examples of the whole process. The final two chapters are devoted to exploring two cases in which readers can see the principles discussed in action. There are also a wide range of case studies drawn from a wide a range of social science disciplines and exercises throughout the text.

The Secret: Love, Marriage, and HIV


Jennifer S. Hirsch - 2010
    The Secret situates marital HIV risk within a broader exploration of marital and extramarital sexuality in five diverse settings: Mexico, Nigeria, Uganda, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea. In these settings, the authors write, men's extramarital sex is an officially secret but actually widespread (and widely acknowledged) social practice, rather than something men do because their bodies demand it and women can't stop them.Drawing on research conducted as part of an innovative comparative ethnographic study, and modeling a novel approach to collaborative anthropological scholarship, the authors show men's extramarital sex to be a fundamental aspect of gendered social organization. Through theoretically sophisticated yet lucid writing and vivid ethnographic description, drawing on rich data from the marital case studies conducted by research teams in each country, they trace how extramarital opportunity structures, sexual geographies, and concerns about social risk facilitate men's participation in extramarital sex. Also documented throughout is the collision between traditional ways and the new practices of romantic companionate marriage.

Cultural Encounters in the Arab World: On Media, the Modern and the Everyday


Tarik Sabry - 2010
    He adopts a dynamic, ethnographically based approach to the meanings of modernness in the Arab context and, within a relational framework, focuses on structures of thought, everydayness and self-referentiality to explore the process of building a bridge that rejoins the modern in Arab thought with the modern in Arab lived experience. In bringing together modernity as a philosophical category with the bridging spaces of Arab everyday life, Sabry is offering fresh methods of comprehending the question of what it means to be modern in the Arab world today.

The Origins of Life


David Deamer - 2010
    How the first self-replicating systems emerged from prebiotic chemistry and evolved into primitive cell-like entities is an area of intense research, spanning molecular and cellular biology, organic chemistry, cosmology, geology, and atmospheric science. Written and edited by experts in the field, this collection from Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology provides a comprehensive account of the environment of the early Earth and the mechanisms by which the organic molecules present may have self-assembled to form replicating material such as RNA and other polymers. The contributors examine the energetic requirements for this process and focus in particular on the essential role of semi-permeable compartments in containment of primitive genetic systems. Also covered in the book are new synthetic approaches for fabricating cellular systems, the potentially extraterrestrial origin of life's building blocks, and the possibility that life once existed on Mars. Comprising five sections Setting the Stage, Components of First Life, Primitive Systems, First Polymers, and Transition to a Microbial World it is a vital reference for all scientists interested in the origin of life on Earth and the likelihood that it has arisen on other planets

The People of the Eye: Deaf Ethnicity and Ancestry


Harlan Lane - 2010
    Arguing against the common representation of ASL signers as a disability group, the authors discuss the many challenges to Deaf ethnicity in this first book-length examination of these issues.Stepping deeper into the debate around ethnicity status, The People of the Eye also describes, in a compelling narrative, the story of the founding families of the Deaf World in the US. Tracing ancestry back hundreds of years, the authors reveal that Deaf people's preference to marry other Deafpeople led to the creation of Deaf clans, and thus to shared ancestry and the discovery that most ASL signers are born into the Deaf World, and many are kin.In a major contribution to the historical record of Deaf people in the US, The People of the Eye portrays how Deaf people- and hearing people, too- lived in early America. For those curious about their own ancestry in relation to the Deaf World, the figures and an associated website presentpedigrees for over two hundred lineages that extend as many as three hundred years and are unique in genealogy research. The book contains an every-name index to the pedigrees, providing a rich resource for anyone who is interested in Deaf culture.

Forensic Anthropology


Rebecca Stefoff - 2010
    Forensic Science Investigated takes young readers inside this fast-growing field, showing them how crime scene investigators and forensic specialists gather evidence, solve crimes, and even liberate innocent people who have been mistakenly imprisoned.

Lessons from a Quechua Strongwoman: Ideophony, Dialogue, and Perspective


Janis B. Nuckolls - 2010
    Nuckolls reveals a complex language system in which ideophony, dialogue, and perspective are all at the core of cultural and grammatical communications among Amazonian Quechua speakers.This book is a fascinating look at ideophones—words that communicate succinctly through imitative sound qualities. They are at the core of Quechua speakers’ discourse—both linguistic and cultural—because they allow agency and reaction to substances and entities as well as beings. Nuckolls shows that Luisa Cadena’s utterances give every individual, major or minor, a voice in her narrative. Sometimes as subtle as a barely felt movement or unintelligible sound, the language supports an amazingly wide variety of voices.Cadena’s narratives and commentaries on everyday events reveal that sound imitation through ideophones, representations of dialogues between humans and nonhumans, and grammatical distinctions between a speaking self and an other are all part of a language system that allows for the possibility of shared affects, intentions, moral values, and meaningful, communicative interactions between humans and nonhumans.

The Darwinian Tourist: Viewing the World Through Evolutionary Eyes


Christopher Wills - 2010
    Others, like his experience of being hammered by a severe earthquake off the island of Yap while sixty feet down in the ocean, filming manta rays, stand far outside the ordinary. With his own stunning color photographs of the wildlife he discovered on his travels, Wills not only takes us to these far-off places but, more important, draws out the evolutionary stories behind the wildlife and shows how our understanding of the living world can be deepened by a Darwinian perspective. In addition, the book offers an extensive and unusual view of human evolution, examining the entire sweep of our evolutionary story as it has taken place throughout the Old World. The reader comes away with a renewed sense of wonder about the world's astounding diversity, along with a new appreciation of the long evolutionary history that has led to the wonders of the present-day. When we lose a species or an ecosystem, Wills shows us, we also lose many millions of years of history.Published to coincide with the International Year for Biodiversity, The Darwinian Tourist is packed with globe-trotting exploits, brilliant color photography, and eye-opening insights into the evolution of humanity and the natural world.

Science Exhibitions: Communication and Evaluation


Anastasia Filippoupoliti - 2010
    With over 20 essays from leading practitioners in the field, and over 650 pages, it provides an authoritative, stimulating overview of new, innovative and successful initiatives in the field. The essays draw on cutting-edge experience throughout the world, and include contributions from Australia, Canada, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Mexico - as well as the UK and USA. The book is edited by Dr Anastasia Filippoupoliti, Lecturer in Museum Education at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece: "I wanted to examine the narratives generated in science exhibitions and tackle some of the challenges museums experience in transforming scientific concepts or events into three-dimensional exhibits." Among the twenty essays included are: Art in Science Centres; The Interpretation of Dinosaurs in Museums; Forming a Museum of Mathematics; Critical Listening: An Essential Element in Exhibit Design; and Dioramas: Dusty Relics or Essential Tools?

Ritual, Belief and the Dead in Early Modern Britain and Ireland


Sarah Tarlow - 2010
    From the theological discussion of bodily resurrection to the folkloric use of body parts as remedies, and from the judicial punishment of the corpse to the ceremonial interment of the social elite, this book discusses how seemingly incompatible beliefs about the dead body existed in parallel through this tumultuous period. This study, which is the first to incorporate archaeological evidence of early modern death and burial from across Britain and Ireland, addresses new questions about the materiality of death: what the dead body means, and how its physical substance could be attributed with sentience and even agency. It provides a sophisticated original interpretive framework for the growing quantities of archaeological and historical evidence about mortuary beliefs and practices in early modernity.

Chimpanzee Behavior in the Wild: An Audio-Visual Encyclopedia [With DVD]


Toshisada Nishida - 2010
    Until now, there has been no comprehensive glossary with illustrations upon which systematic behavioral comparisons could be based. Combining recent video footage with decades worth of documented across- and within-population variations in behavior, this volume is the first to compile an extensive ethogram of a single species of mammal. The wild chimpanzees of the Mahale Mountains and Gombe National Park, Tanzania, have been observed in particular, as well as those at other long-term fields in equatorial Africa. The book describes all aspects of chimpanzee behavior patterns, from locomotion and posture to feeding, facial expression, gestures, grooming, and vocal communication.

Human Brain Evolution: The Influence of Freshwater and Marine Food Resources


Stephen Cunnane - 2010
    This book discusses the emergence of human cognition at a conceptual level, describing it as a process of long adaptive stasis interrupted by short periods of cognitive advance. These advances were not linear and directed, but were acquired indirectly as part of changing human behaviors, in other words through the process of exaptation (acquisition of a function for which it was not originally selected). Based on studies of the modem human brain, certain prerequisites were needed for the development of the early brain and associated cognitive advances. This book documents the energy and nutrient constraints of the modern brain, highlighting the significant role of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFA) in brain development and maintenance. Crawford provides further emphasis for the role of essential fatty acids, in particular DHA, in brain development, by discussing the evolution of the eye and neural systems.This is an ideal book for Graduate students, post docs, research scientists in Physical/Biological Anthropology, Human Biology, Archaeology, Nutrition, Cognitive Science, Neurosciences. It is also an excellent selection for a grad student discussion seminar.

Earth into Property: Colonization, Decolonization, and Capitalism


Anthony J. Hall - 2010
    Beginning with Christopher Columbus's inception of a New World Order in 1492, Anthony Hall draws on a massive body of original research to produce a narrative that is audacious, encyclopedic, and transformative in the new light it sheds on the complex historical processes that converged in the financial debacle of 2008 and 2009.

Arctic


Bruce Parry - 2010
    This full-color companion to a BBC2 series takes us on a seven-month journey around the Arctic with bestselling author Bruce Parry. Traversing Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia, Parry immerses himself in the lives of fishermen, oil workers, native hunters, bush pilots, miners, firefighters, and scientists--providing a human focus on the cultural and environmental upheavals that are shaking the Arctic today, and which are being felt throughout the globe.

Anarchism & Socialism: Reformism or Revolution?


Wayne Price - 2010
    This informs his coherent takes on such issues as the relation between class and non-class oppressions, productive engagement with reformist movements, technology and primitivism, and the worldwide economic crash of 2008-2009. Price's recurrent theme is how revolution can possibly be made out of our collective struggles as workers and other marginalized peoples— and how such revolution can avoid the "successes" of Leninist revolutions of China, Cuba and the Soviet Union.Finally, Price's engagement with the trends of anti-authoritarian marxist and anarchist thought serve as a critical introduction to dozens of other essential writers in these traditions, such as Cornelius Castoradis, Ellen Wood, Hal Draper and Paul Goodman.Wayne Price is also the author of What is Class Struggle Anarchism & The Relation Between Class and Non-Class Oppressions.

Craving Earth: Understanding Pica--The Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk


Sera L. Young - 2010
    They also crave starch, ice, chalk, and other unorthodox items of food. Some even claim they are addicted and "go crazy" without these items, but why?Sifting through extensive historical, ethnographic, and biomedical findings, Sera L. Young creates a portrait of pica, or nonfood cravings, from humans' earliest ingestions to current trends and practices. In engaging detail, she describes the substances most frequently consumed and the many methods (including the Internet) used to obtain them. She reveals how pica is remarkably prevalent (it occurs in nearly every human culture and throughout the animal kingdom), identifies its most avid partakers (pregnant women and young children), and describes the potentially healthful and harmful effects. She evaluates the many hypotheses about the causes of pica, from the fantastical to the scientific, including hunger, nutritional deficiencies, and protective capacities. Never has a book examined pica so thoroughly or accessibly, merging absorbing history with intimate case studies to illuminate an enigmatic behavior deeply entwined with human biology and culture.

The Event of Postcolonial Shame


Timothy Bewes - 2010
    In this book, Timothy Bewes argues that shame is a dominant temperament in twentieth-century literature, and the key to understanding the ethics and aesthetics of the contemporary world.Drawing on thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Frantz Fanon, Theodor Adorno, and Gilles Deleuze, Bewes argues that in literature there is an event of shame that brings together these ethical and aesthetic tensions. Reading works by J. M. Coetzee, Joseph Conrad, Nadine Gordimer, V. S. Naipaul, Caryl Phillips, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Zo� Wicomb, Bewes presents a startling theory: the practices of postcolonial literature depend upon and repeat the same structures of thought and perception that made colonialism possible in the first place. As long as those structures remain in place, literature and critical thinking will remain steeped in shame.Offering a new mode of postcolonial reading, The Event of Postcolonial Shame demands a literature and a criticism that acknowledge their own ethical deficiency without seeking absolution from it.

Salvia Divinorum: Doorway to Thought-Free Awareness


J.D. Arthur - 2010
    A member of the Mint family, Salvia divinorum--“diviner’s sage”--offers a new doorway to the visionary pursuit of higher spiritual and meditative states. With repeated sessions using salvia over the course of several years, J. D. Arthur began returning each time to the same inner landscape where he found himself entering a unique state of thought-free, or “thoughtless,” awareness. There he accessed a mode of “dream language” that communicated an exquisite constellation of detailed meanings swiftly and flawlessly. His repeated immersion in these states of trance, as well as his analysis of their approach and withdrawal, led to a profound reassessment of the nature of normal perception and a reevaluation of what we refer to as the real world. With true-life descriptions of salvia-induced visionary states, this book offers a detailed experiential analysis for those interested in exploring salvia in their quest for higher knowledge.