Best of
Humanities

2012

A History of the World


Andrew Marr - 2012
    A Short History of the World takes readers from the Mayans to Mongolia, from the kingdom of Benin to the court of the Jagiellonian kings of Poland. Traditional histories of this kind have tended to be Eurocentric, telling mankind's story through tales of Greece and Rome and the crowned heads of Europe's oldest monarchies. Here, Marr widens the lens, concentrating as much, if not more on the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Instead of focusing on one episode of history taking place in one place, he draws surprising parallels and makes fascinating connections, focusing on a key incident or episode to tell a larger story: for instance, the liberation of the serfs in Russia, which took place at the same time as the American Civil War, which resulted in the abolition of slavery in the U.S.  But he begins the account with an episode in the life of Tolstoy, who racked up huge gambling debts and had to sell land and slaves as a result. Fresh and exciting, this is popular history at its very best.

The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning


Iain McGilchrist - 2012
    In particular, McGilchrist suggests, the left hemisphere's obsession with reducing everything it sees to the level of minute, mechanistic detail is robbing modern society of the ability to understand and appreciate deeper human values. Accessible to readers who haven't yet read "The Master and His Emissary" as well as those who have, this is a fascinating, immensely thought-provoking essay that delves to the very heart of what it means to be human.

One Way Out: The Inside History of the Allman Brothers Band


Alan Paul - 2012
    Interviewees include band members Gregg Allman, Dickey Betts, Jaimoe, Butch Trucks, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Oteil Burbridge, Chuck Leavell, Jack Pearson, Jimmy Herring, David Goldflies, and the late Allen Woody; plus Eric Clapton, Tom Dowd, Phil Walden, Billy Gibbons, Dr. John, and many other band friends and associates. One Way Out is the most complete exploration of the Allman Brothers music yet written, tracking the band's career from its 1969 formation through its historic 40th-anniversary star-studded Beacon run, right on up to today. Filled with musical and cultural insights that only these insiders can provide, it includes the most in-depth look at the acrimonious 2000 parting with founding guitarist Dickey Betts; an intense discussion of Betts and Duane Allman's revolutionary guitar styles; and thorough behind-the-scenes information on the recording of At Fillmore East, Layla, Eat a Peach, and other classic albums. You will not find this information anywhere else. The book also includes a highly opinionated discography with short reviews of over 50 albums, plus a bonus list of essential Southern rock albums.

The Secret Life of Words: English Words and Their Origins


Anne Curzan - 2012
    Discover the secrets behind the words in our everyday lexicon with this delightful, informative survey of English, from its Germanic origins to the rise of globalization and cyber-communications. Professor Curzan approaches words like an archaeologist, digging below the surface to uncover the story of words, from the humble "she" to such SAT words as "conflagration" and "pedimanous." In these 36 fascinating lectures, you'll discover the history of the dictionary and how words make it into a reference book like the Oxford English Dictionary; survey the borrowed words that make up the English lexicon; find out how words are born and how they die; expand your vocabulary by studying Greek and Latin "word webs"; and revel in new terms, such as "musquirt," "adorkable," and "struggle bus." English is an omnivorous language and has borrowed heavily from the many languages it has come into contact with, from Celtic and Old Norse in the Middle Ages to the dozens of world languages in the truly global 20th and 21st centuries. You'll be surprised to learn that the impulse to conserve "pure English" is nothing new. In fact, if English purists during the Renaissance had their way, we would now be using Old English compounds such as "flesh-strings" for "muscles" and "bone-lock" for "joint." You may not come away using terms like "whatevs" or "multislacking" in casual conversation, but you'll love studying the linguistic system that gives us such irreverent - and fun - slang, from "boy toy" to "cankles."

The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire


Leo Panitch - 2012
    Globalization had appeared to be the natural outcome of this unstoppable process. But today, with global markets roiling and increasingly reliant on state intervention to stay afloat, it has become clear that markets and states aren’t straightforwardly opposing forces.In this groundbreaking work, Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin demonstrate the intimate relationship between modern capitalism and the American state, including its role as an “informal empire” promoting free trade and capital movements. Through a powerful historical survey, they show how the US has superintended the restructuring of other states in favor of competitive markets and coordinated the management of increasingly frequent financial crises.The Making of Global Capitalism, through its highly original analysis of the first great economic crisis of the twenty-first century, identifies the centrality of the social conflicts that occur within states rather than between them. These emerging fault lines hold out the possibility of new political movements transforming nation states and transcending global markets.

The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry


Rupert Sheldrake - 2012
    The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In this book, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The 'scientific worldview' has become a belief system. All reality is material or physical. The world is a machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls. Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and more fun.In The God Delusion Richard Dawkins used science to bash God, but here Rupert Sheldrake shows that Dawkins' understanding of what science can do is old-fashioned and itself a delusion.

First Flight


J.L. Pawley - 2012
    Then my body started changing. Growing. I realized I wasn’t normal. I’m not even human.Rejected, terrified, confused, all I could do was run away, find somewhere safe to hide and figure things out. Then I discovered I wasn’t alone.We have only one way to survive.Fly.When teenager Tyler Owen develops a bit of back pain, he doesn’t think much of it at first. Even the strange swelling and growths that follow can’t prepare him for the sudden emergence of his brand new wings that at the same time save and destroy his life. On the run from everyone from the sinister Evolutionary Corporation to the religious Angelist cult, he unintentionally attracts others the same as he is, like Miguel and Victoria whose lives have also been turned upside down.Together they form the Flight, finding out the hard way what it means to be the first in a new species, when all they want to do is learn how to spread their wings...

A Cultural History of Physics


Karoly Simonyi - 2012
    P. Snow delivered his famous 1959 lecture, "The Two Cultures."In A Cultural History of Physics, Hungarian scientist and educator Karoly Simonyi succeeds in bridging this chasm by describing the experimental methods and theoretical interpretations that created scientific knowledge, from ancient times to the present day, within the cultural environment in which it was formed. Unlike any other work of its kind, Simonyi's seminal opus explores the interplay of science and the humanities to convey the wonder and excitement of scientific development throughout the ages.These pages contain an abundance of excerpts from original resources, a wide array of clear and straightforward explanations, and an astonishing wealth of insight, revealing the historical progress of science and inviting readers into a dialogue with the great scientific minds that shaped our current understanding of physics.Beautifully illustrated, accurate in its scientific content and broad in its historical and cultural perspective, this book will be a valuable reference for scholars and an inspiration to aspiring scientists and humanists who believe that science is an integral part of our culture.

Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt


Richard Holloway - 2012
    By twenty-five he had been ordained and was working in the slums of Glasgow. Throughout the following forty years, Richard touched the lives of many people in the Church and in the wider community. But behind his confident public face lay a restless, unquiet heart and a constantly searching mind. Why is the Church, which claims to be the instrument of God's love, so prone to cruelty and condemnation? And how can a man live with the tension between public faith and private doubt? In his long-awaited memoir, Richard seeks to answer these questions and to explain how, after many crises of faith, he finally and painfully left the Church. It is a wise, poetic and fiercely honest book.

Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique


Sally Haslanger - 2012
    In these previously published essays, Sally Haslanger draws on insights from feminist and critical race theory to explore and develop the idea that gender and race are positions within a structure of social relations. On this interpretation, the point of saying that gender and race are socially constructed is not to make a causal claim about the origins of our concepts of gender and race, or to take a stand in the nature/nurture debate, but to locate these categories within a realist social ontology. This is politically important, for by theorizing how gender and race fit within different structures of social relations we are better able to identify and combat forms of systematic injustice.Although the central essays of the book focus on a critical social realism about gender and race, these accounts function as case studies for a broader critical social realism. To develop this broader approach, several essays offer reworked notions of ideology, practice, and social structure, drawing on recent research in sociology and social psychology. Ideology, on the proposed view, is a relatively stable set of shared dispositions to respond to the world, often in ways that also shape the world to evoke those very dispositions. This looping of our dispositions through the material world enables the social to appear natural.Additional essays in the book situate this approach to social phenomena in relation to philosophical methodology, and to specific debates in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. The book as a whole explores the interface between analytic philosophy and critical theory.

Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins


Ian Tattersall - 2012
    Yet something about our species distinguished it from the pack, and ultimately led to its survival while the rest became extinct. Just what was it that allowed Homo sapiens to become masters of the planet? Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, takes us deep into the fossil record to uncover what made humans so special. Surveying a vast field from initial bipedality to language and intelligence, Tattersall argues that Homo sapiens acquired a winning combination of traits that was not the result of long-term evolutionary refinement. Instead, the final result emerged quickly, shocking our world and changing it forever.

Political Philosophy


Steven B. Smith - 2012
    Today we ask the same crucial questions about law, authority, justice, and freedom that Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Tocqueville faced in previous centuries.In this lively and enlightening book, Professor Steven B. Smith introduces the wide terrain of political philosophy through the classic texts of the discipline. Works by the greatest thinkers illuminate the permanent problems of political life, Smith shows, and while we may not accept all their conclusions, it would be a mistake to overlook the relevance of their insights.

Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventure from Chess to Role-Playing Games


Jon Peterson - 2012
    From a vast survey of primary sources ranging from eighteenth-century strategists to modern hobbyists, Playing at the World distills the story of how gamers first decided fictional battles with boards and dice, and how they moved from simulating wars to simulating people. The invention of role-playing games serves as a touchstone for exploring the ways that the literary concept of character, the lure of fantastic adventure and the principles of gaming combined into the signature cultural innovation of the late twentieth century.

The Last Enemy: Preparing to Win the Fight of Your Life


Michael E. Wittmer - 2012
    However, the reality of the matter remains the same—we are all going to die at some point in time. Written with creativity and honesty, The Last Enemy speaks to Christians facing death or troubled by its inevitability. It brings clarity and hope to the subject of death and dying by exploring our emotions and reactions, the pain imposed by the enemy, and Jesus’ triumph over sin and death. The Last Enemy encourages readers to focus on what matters most and prepare for ultimate victory.

Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society


Kevin Evans - 2012
    Tales Of The San Francisco Cacophony Society is a retelling in period images and words of the history of the most influential underground cabal that you have never heard of. Rising from the ashes of the mysterious and legendary Suicide Club, The Cacophony Society, at its zenith, hosted chapters in over a dozen major cities, and influenced much of what was once called the underground. Flash Mobs, Urban Exploration, and Culture Jamming are a few of the pop culture trends that Cacophony helped kick off. Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, Burning Man and Internet social networking powerhouse Laughing Squid were informed and inspired by Cacophony. The Burning Man Festival actually began as a Cacophony event as did the annual, and now world-wide SantaCon. Cacophony events could range from something as simple as climbing the Golden Gate Bridge or having a discussion over drinks about a movie seen together, to something as elaborate as The Atomic Caf�(c) - an event involving a hundred bedraggled "nuclear holocaust Survivors" mounting elaborate costumed rituals throughout the bowels of a massive abandoned tooth paste factory. Yes.... Cacophony was that strange. Cacophony's heyday was concurrent with the rise of the internet. The story of this group is of historical significance for this reason. Information about upcoming pranks, street theater and other events hosted by Cacophony was spread by paper flyers posted on telephone poles and left in coffee shops, by the Societies mailer "Rough Draft" and by word of mouth. Then, with the genesis of personal computing and social networking, the jokers, artists and troublemakers of Cacophony were among some of the first non-geeks to explore the power of this new and world changing way of communicating. Burning Man, Urban Exploration, flash mobs and the like were avenues of creativity with their roots in Cacophony, that spread like wildfire through the mechanism of these new communication technologies. This book is a large format, full color, hardbound homage to this protean group. Tales of San Francisco Cacophony is replete with original art, never before published photographs, original documents, incredulous news accounts and is beautifully laid out by Carrie Galbraith with color illustrations by Kevin Evans and end plates by noted artist and Cacophonist Winston Smith.

Fascist Voices: An Intimate History of Mussolini's Italy


Christopher Duggan - 2012
    He examines the extraordinary personal relationships that millions of Italians had with Mussolini, explores the religious dimensions of totalitarianism, and discusses why the 'cult of the Duce' still resonates in contemporary Italy. Fascist Voices is a fresh and disturbing look at a country in thrall to a charismatic dictator.

The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust


Marianne Hirsch - 2012
    Children of survivors and their contemporaries inherit catastrophic histories not through direct recollection but through haunting postmemories--multiply mediated images, objects, stories, behaviors, and affects passed down within the family and the culture at large.In these new and revised critical readings of the literary and visual legacies of the Holocaust and other, related sites of memory, Marianne Hirsch builds on her influential concept of postmemory. The book's chapters, two of which were written collaboratively with the historian Leo Spitzer, engage the work of postgeneration artists and writers such as Art Spiegelman, W.G. Sebald, Eva Hoffman, Tatana Kellner, Muriel Hasbun, Anne Karpff, Lily Brett, Lorie Novak, David Levinthal, Nancy Spero and Susan Meiselas. Grappling with the ethics of empathy and identification, these artists attempt to forge a creative postmemorial aesthetic that reanimates the past without appropriating it. In her analyses of their fractured texts, Hirsch locates the roots of the familial and affiliative practices of postmemory in feminism and other movements for social change. Using feminist critical strategies to connect past and present, words and images, and memory and gender, she brings the entangled strands of disparate traumatic histories into more intimate contact. With more than fifty illustrations, her text enables a multifaceted encounter with foundational and cutting edge theories in memory, trauma, gender, and visual culture, eliciting a new understanding of history and our place in it.

Million Dollar Gift


Ian Somers - 2012
    Ross also has the gift of telekinesis but has always kept it hidden, even from those closest to him. That all changes when he learns of The Million Dollar Gift, a contest in which the organisers have challenged anyone to prove they have a superhuman skill. Any applicant who is successful will receive one million dollars prize money. Ross can't let this opportunity go by and enters the contest. He stuns the organisers by passing every test and wins the prize money. All does not go according to plan though; Ross's identity was supposed to be kept secret but when his test videos are leaked onto the internet he becomes a sensation. Within twenty four hours the entire world knows his name and what he can do. But fame is not all he has to deal with. He has attracted the attentions of others who have the gift, and not all of them are happy about his arrival on the scene.

The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China


John Bellamy Foster - 2012
    Although the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, hopes for a new phase of rapid economic expansion were quickly dashed. Instead, growth has been slow, unemployment has remained high, wages and benefits have seen little improvement, poverty has increased, and the trend toward more inequality of incomes and wealth has continued. It appears that the Great Recession has given way to a period of long-term anemic growth, which Foster and McChesney aptly term the Great Stagnation.This incisive and timely book traces the origins of economic stagnation and explains what it means for a clear understanding of our current situation. The authors point out that increasing monopolization of the economy—when a handful of large firms dominate one or several industries—leads to an over-abundance of capital and too few profitable investment opportunities, with economic stagnation as the result. Absent powerful stimuli to investment, such as historic innovations like the automobile or major government spending, modern capitalist economies have become increasingly dependent on the financial sector to realize profits. And while financialization may have provided a temporary respite from stagnation, it is a solution that cannot last indefinitely, as instability in financial markets over the last half-decade has made clear.

Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb


Feroz H. Khan - 2012
    Fascinated with the new nuclear science, the young nation's leaders launched a nuclear energy program in 1956 and consciously interwove nuclear developments into the broader narrative of Pakistani nationalism. Then, impelled first by the 1965 and 1971 India-Pakistan Wars, and more urgently by India's first nuclear weapon test in 1974, Pakistani senior officials tapped into the country's pool of young nuclear scientists and engineers and molded them into a motivated cadre committed to building the 'ultimate weapon.' The tenacity of this group and the central place of its mission in Pakistan's national identity allowed the program to outlast the perennial political crises of the next 20 years, culminating in the test of a nuclear device in 1998.Written by a 30-year professional in the Pakistani Army who played a senior role formulating and advocating Pakistan's security policy on nuclear and conventional arms control, this book tells the compelling story of how and why Pakistan's government, scientists, and military, persevered in the face of a wide array of obstacles to acquire nuclear weapons. It lays out the conditions that sparked the shift from a peaceful quest to acquire nuclear energy into a full-fledged weapons program, details how the nuclear program was organized, reveals the role played by outside powers in nuclear decisions, and explains how Pakistani scientists overcome the many technical hurdles they encountered. Thanks to General Khan's unique insider perspective, it unveils and unravels the fascinating and turbulent interplay of personalities and organizations that took place and reveals how international opposition to the program only made it an even more significant issue of national resolve.Listen to a podcast of a related presentation by Feroz Khan at the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation.

A Whisper in the Reeds: 'The Terrible Ones' - South Africa's 32 Battalion at War


Justin Taylor - 2012
    

Eating Bitterness: Stories from the Front Lines of China's Great Urban Migration


Michelle Dammon Loyalka - 2012
    Award-winning journalist Michelle Dammon Loyalka follows the trials and triumphs of eight such migrants—including a vegetable vendor, an itinerant knife sharpener, a free-spirited recycler, and a cash-strapped mother—offering an inside look at the pain, self-sacrifice, and uncertainty underlying China’s dramatic national transformation. At the heart of the book lies each person’s ability to “eat bitterness”—a term that roughly means to endure hardships, overcome difficulties, and forge ahead. These stories illustrate why China continues to advance, even as the rest of the world remains embroiled in financial turmoil. At the same time, Eating Bitterness demonstrates how dealing with the issues facing this class of people constitutes China’s most pressing domestic challenge.

Asia's Unknown Uprisings Volume 1: South Korean Social Movements in the 20th Century


George Katsiaficas - 2012
    From the 1894 Tonghak uprising through the March 1, 1919, independence movement and anti-Japanese resistance, a direct line is traced to the popular opposition to U.S. division of Korea after World War II. The overthrow of Syngman Rhee in 1960, resistance to Park Chung-hee, the 1980 Gwangju Uprising, as well as student, labor, and feminist movements are all recounted with attention to their economic and political contexts. This is the first of two volumes that emphasizes the effects of grassroots political movements in different countries of Asia.

Authors of Our Own Misfortune? The Problems with Psychogenic Explanations for Physical Illnesses


Angela Kennedy - 2012
    How plausible are the explanations that bodily illness can somehow be caused by psychological, emotional, and behavioural disorders?

I Ching


C.G. Jung - 2012
    I ching Instant I ching no need for coins or yarrow stalks, think about your situation and just open the I ching to get the guidance you need.Everyday ancient wisdom answers for todays lifestyles

The World as Will and Idea Volume 3


Arthur Schopenhauer - 2012
    Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ... INDEX.1 Ancients, the, their architecture, iii. 185, 188, 190; defects in religion, iii. 452; freedom of thought, ii. 394; inferiority of tragedy, iii. 213,214; historians, i. 317, 318; philosophy, ii. 490; sculpture, i. 269, 291." Angelus Silesius, i. 167, 492, iii. 432. Anger, evidence of primacy of will, ii. 442; psychological effect of, ii. 429. Animals, lower, distinctive charac- teristics of animal life, L 25, ii. 228, 232; essential identity with man, i. 192; difference from man, i. 45, 47, 112, see Man; do not laugh, ii. 280; nor weep, i. 486; uaivetd of, i. 204; no passions proper, iii. 16; no know- ledge of death, iii. 219; yet fear death, iii. 251; right of man over, i. 481 n. Animal magnetism, iii. 76, 418, 419. Anselm of Canterbury, ii. 125, 126. Anticipation in art, i. 287, 288; in nature, iii. 103, 104. Antinomies, criticism of Kantian, i, 39, ii. 107 seq.; the two of natural science, i. 37 seq. Antisthenes, i. 115, ii. 357. Anwari Soheili, ii. 283. Airtiyutyn and etrayoryrj, ii. 290. Apollo Belvedere, i. 230. Apperception, transcendental unity of, ii. 833. A priori knowledge, meaning and explanation of, ii. 33; direccness, necessity, and universality of, i. 88; table of precdicabtlia a priori, ii. 221; the basis of onto- logy, ii. 220. Aroriginals, interference with, iii. 411. Absolute, conception of, has reality only in matter, ii. 94; how not to be conceived, ii. 94; misuse of, ii. 94, 215, 216, 393. Abstract, idea, knowledge, depen- dent on idea of perception, i. 45, 52, 53, ii. 258; insufficiency of, i. 72, ii. 248-251; opposite of idea of perception, i. 7; philo- sophy must not start from, ii. 261 seq.; relation to intuitive knowledge, ii, 54, 55, 91; use of, ii. 235, 238. Absurd, sphere of, ii. 242; supre-...

Race: Are We So Different?


Alan H. Goodman - 2012
    Taken from the popular national public education project and museum exhibition, it explores the contemporary experience of race and racism in the United States and the often-invisible ways race and racism have influenced laws, customs, and social institutions.

No Snowflake in an Avalanche


Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein - 2012
    Mikey Weinstein proud Academy graduate and father of graduates who single-handedly brought to light the Evangelicals utter disregard of the constitutional principle of separation of church and state that is so essential to the nations military mission. Weinsteins war pits him and his small band of fellow graduates, cadets, and concerned citizens of varying religious backgrounds against a program of Christian fundamentalist indoctrination that could transform our fighting men and women into right-thinking warriors more befitting a theocracy than democracy.

An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization


Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - 2012
    Finding the neat polarities of tradition and modernity, colonial and postcolonial, no longer sufficient for interpreting the globalized present, she turns elsewhere to make her central argument: that aesthetic education is the last available instrument for implementing global justice and democracy.Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s unwillingness to sacrifice the ethical in the name of the aesthetic, or to sacrifice the aesthetic in grappling with the political, makes her task formidable. As she wrestles with these fraught relationships, she rewrites Friedrich Schiller’s concept of play as double bind, reading Gregory Bateson with Gramsci as she negotiates Immanuel Kant, while in dialogue with her teacher Paul de Man. Among the concerns Spivak addresses is this: Are we ready to forfeit the wealth of the world’s languages in the name of global communication? “Even a good globalization (the failed dream of socialism) requires the uniformity which the diversity of mother-tongues must challenge,” Spivak writes. “The tower of Babel is our refuge.”In essays on theory, translation, Marxism, gender, and world literature, and on writers such as Assia Djebar, J. M. Coetzee, and Rabindranath Tagore, Spivak argues for the social urgency of the humanities and renews the case for literary studies, imprisoned in the corporate university. “Perhaps,” she writes, “the literary can still do something.”

Cognitive Linguistics and Second Language Learning: Theoretical Basics and Experimental Evidence


Andrea Tyler - 2012
    The first part of the book introduces the basics of cognitive linguistic theory in a way that is geared toward second language teachers and researchers. The second part of the book provides experimental evidence of the usefulness of applying cognitive linguistics to the teaching of English. Included is a thorough review of the existing literature on cognitive linguistic applications to teaching and cognitive linguistic-based experiments. Three chapters report original experiments which focus on teaching modals, prepositions and syntactic constructions, elements of English that learners tend to find challenging. A chapter on "future directions" reports on an innovative analysis of English conditionals. Pedagogical aids such as diagrams and sample exercises round out this pioneering and innovative text.

Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But...


Gogu Shyamala - 2012
    Whether she is describing the setting sun or the way people are gathered at a village council like ‘thickly strewn grain on the threshing floor’, the varied rhythms of a dalit drum or a young woman astride her favorite buffalo, Shyamala walks us through a world that is at once particular and small, and simultaneously universal. Set in the madiga quarter of a Telangana village, the stories spotlight different settings, events and experiences, and offer new propositions on how to see, think and be touched by life in that world. There is a laugh lurking around every other corner as the narrative picks an adroit step past the grandiose authority of earlier versions of such places and their people—romantic, gandhian, administrative—and the idiom in which they spoke. These stories overturn the usual agendas of exit—from the village, from madiga culture, from these little communities—to hold this life up as one of promise for everyone. With her intensely beautiful and sharply political writing, Shyamala makes a clean break with the tales of oppression and misery decreed the true subject of dalit writing.

12 Ballads for Huguenot House


Michael Darling - 2012
    Huguenot House, in Kassel, was built in the early nineteenth century by migrant workers, as were so many of the houses in Gates’ own neighborhood in Chicago, and today is in a state of disrepair. Gates therefore proposed an architectural exchange, transporting materials from a dilapidated building in Chicago to renovate Huguenot House, while reusing materials from Huguenot House to reconstruct the Chicago building.

The Psychology and Politics of the Collective: Groups, Crowds and Mass Identifications


Ruth Parkin-Gounelas - 2012
    Within the context of shifting social bonds in global culture, this book brings together debates on the left from political philosophy, psychoanalysis, social psychology and media and cultural studies to explore the logic of the formation of collective identities from a new theoretical perspective. Challenging liberal-capitalist models of individualism, as well as postmodern identity politics, analysts here turn to Continental philosophy (Lacan, Derrida, Agamben, Laclau, Badiou, among others) in order to re-think collectivity in relation to questions of agency, alterity, affect, sovereignty, the national imaginary and the biopolitical. In the aftermath of the great mass movements of the twentieth century (Marxist-Leninism, Mao), which resulted in bureaucratic submission and the cult of the State, the fate of our collective identity today raises urgent questions about the future of collaborative activity, the role of mediating institutions in shaping mass psychology, what is at stake in a radical democracy, and what happens in a crowd.

Our Gay Son: A Christian Father's Search for Truth


David Robert-John - 2012
    This son, along with all other gay people, was accused and condemned in the courts of most branches of Christianity, without a fair trial. David Robert-John begins his quest by first seeking healing for his stricken son. As events unfold, however, his journey takes unexpected turns and the validity of the case against gay people is called into question along with the legitimacy of his own beliefs. David's wife and son then add their own revealing insights. This will be a rewarding reading experience for anyone who is struggling (or who has ever struggled) to come to terms with having a "different" sexuality, and it can be read with equal profit by those most closely associated with them, particularly parents.