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"Through an engagement with selected texts, events and thinkers central to the present, this book offers an imagination of different possible futures from the position of the current postcolonial moment, indicating the possibilities that exist for conducting struggles, and living through contentions and social restructuring"-- Provided by publisher.
"From one of our country's most prominent rabbis, an inspiring book about the power of community based on one of her most impactful sermons. In 2013, Rabbi Sharon Brous gave a sermon in which she preached the need-in an era riven by loneliness, social alienation, polarization, and ideological extremism-to reclaim the simple act of showing up for one another. That day marked the beginning of an essential change in the community. Based on that original sermon, The Amen Effect dives into our fundamental human longing for connection-in our most intimate relationships, in our community, with strangers, perhaps with God. Faith and ritual are powerful vehicles for this kind of connection, but so is simply reaching out, showing up, being present when others need us most. These are the ways that we reawaken to one another's humanity, and to our own. Brous argues that connection and kinship in times of sorrow and celebration not only give our lives meaning, but can help us establish the foundation for a more just and loving society. Drawn from ancient Jewish wisdom, contemporary social science, and Rabbi Brous's twenty years of pastoring to a leading-edge faith community, The Amen Effect argues that human connection is the very heart of life itself, and has the power to transform the way we think, feel, and live"-- Provided by publisher.
When her mother passed along a cookbook made and assembled by her grandmother, Erica Abrams Locklear thought she knew what to expect. But rather than finding a homemade cookbook full of apple stack cake, leather britches, pickled watermelon, or other "traditional" mountain recipes, Locklear discovered recipes for devil's food cake with coconut icing, grape catsup, and fig pickles. Some recipes even relied on food products like Bisquick, Swans Down flour, and Calumet baking powder. Where, Locklear wondered, did her Appalachian food script come from? And what implicit judgments had she made about her grandmother based on the foods she imagined she would have been interested in cooking? Appalachia on the Table argues, in part, that since the conception of Appalachia as a distinctly different region from the rest of the South and the United States, the foods associated with the region and its people have often been used to socially categorize and stigmatize mountain people. Rather than investigate the actual foods consumed in Appalachia, Locklear instead focuses on the representations of foods consumed, implied moral judgments about those foods, and how those judgments shape reader perceptions of those depicted. The question at the core of Locklear's analysis asks, How did the dominant culinary narrative of the region come into existence and what consequences has that narrative had for people in the mountains?
The sixth edition of this best-selling medieval history textbook offers a gorgeously illustrated guide to more than one thousand years of history.
How Nicolás Maduro reinvented authoritarianism for the twenty-first centurVenezuela, which once enjoyed periods of democratically elected governments in the latter half of the twentieth century, has descended into autocratic rule, coupled with economic collapse. In his new book, Autocracy Rising, veteran scholar of Latin American politics Javier Corrales explores how and why this happened. Corrales focuses on two themes: party systems and institutional capacity. He argues that Venezuela's democratic backsliding advanced when the ruling party obtained far too much electoral clout while the opposition fragmented. The state then took control of formerly independent agencies of the state. This allowed the ruling party to use and abuse of the law to favor the president--which in turn generated a permanent economic crisis. After succeeding Hugo Chávez in 2013, Nicolás Maduro confronted, unexpectedly, another change in the party system: a rising opposition. This triggered deeper autocratization. To survive, the state was compelled to modernize autocratic practices and seek alliances with sinister partners. In short, Maduro concentrated power, paradoxically, by sharing power. Autocracy Rising compares what occurred in Venezuela to twenty other cases throughout Latin America where presidents were forced out of office. Corrales illuminates the depressing cycle in which semi-authoritarian regimes become increasingly autocratic in response to crisis, only to cause new crises that lead to even greater authoritarianism.
At 8:00p.m. eastern standard time on election night 1988, NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw informed the country that they would soon know more about the outcome of "one of the longest, bloodiest presidential campaigns that anyone can remember." It was a landslide victory for George H. W. Bush over Michael Dukakis, and yet Bush would serve only one term, forever overshadowed in history by the man who made him vice president, by the man who defeated him, and even by his own son. The 1988 presidential race quickly receded into history, but it was marked by the beginning of the modern political sex scandals, the first major African American presidential candidacy, the growing power of the religious right, and other key trends that came to define the elections that followed. Bush's campaign tactics clearly illustrated the strategies and issues that allowed Republicans to control the White House for most of the 1970s and 1980s, and the election set the stage for the national political advent of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Robert L. Fleegler's narrative history of the 1988 election draws from untapped archival sources and revealing oral history interviews to uncover just how consequential this moment was for American politics. Identifying the seeds of political issues to come, Fleegler delivers an engaging review of an election that set a template for the political dynamics that define our lives to this day.
Creating Costumes for Devised Theatre combines perspectives from a variety of theatre practitioners to guide artists through the journey of creating costumes for devised work. Devised theatre can take a number of different forms, and it can be a challenge for the costume department to plan, organize, and assemble things for performers to wear, as the entire shape of the piece is constantly changing. This book provides practical resources to guide the theatre artist through the journey of designing costumes as the characters are created. It addresses a wide range of questions, including how to adapt traditional methods of costume design to non-traditional practices, how to effectively collaborate with a team, and how to adapt costume technology practices to meet the needs of devising. Stories and photographs from performers, designers, technicians, directors, writers, educators, students, and activists working in the realm of devised theatre around the world are contextualized through the author's own involvement in unscripted, partially scripted, and otherwise dynamic drama, dance, and physical theatre to offer tangible solutions to streamline costume design and construction processes. This book is an invaluable guide for both experienced and novice costume designers, costume technicians, students, teachers, directors, managers, and theatre artists who exist in the spaces where all these roles overlap.
What happens when we cry--and when we don't? One of our most private acts, weeping can forge connection. Tears may obscure our vision, but they can also bring great clarity. And in both literature and life, weeping often opens a door to transformation or even resurrection. But many of us have been taught to suppress our emotions and hide our tears. When writer Benjamin Perry realized he hadn't cried in more than ten years, he undertook an experiment: to cry every day. But he didn't anticipate how tears would bring him into deeper relationship with a world that's breaking. Cry, Baby explores humans' rich legacy of weeping--and why some of us stopped. With the keen gaze of a journalist and the vulnerability of a good friend, Perry explores the great paradoxes of our tears. Why do we cry? In societies marked by racism, sexism, and homophobia, who is allowed to cry--and who isn't? And if weeping tells us something fundamental about who we are, what do our tears say? Exploring the vast history, literature, physiology, psychology, and spirituality of crying, we can recognize our deepest hopes and longings, how we connect to others, and the social forces bent on keeping us from mourning. When faced with the private and sometimes unspeakable sorrows of daily life, not to mention existential threats like climate change and systemic racism, we cry for the world in which we long to live. As we reclaim our crying as a central part of being human, we not only care for ourselves and relearn how to express our vulnerable emotions; we also prophetically reimagine the future. Ultimately, weeping can bring us closer to each other and to the world we desire and deserve.
An ambitious history of desire in American religion across over three centuries. The pursuit of happiness weaves disparate strands of American religious history together. In The Delight Markers, Catherine L. Albanese unravels a theology of desire tying Jonathan Edwards to Ralph Waldo Emerson to the religiously unaffiliated today. As others emphasize redemptive suffering, this tradition stresses the "metaphysical" connection between natural beauty and spiritual fulfillment. In the earth's abundance, these thinkers see an expansive God intent on fulfilling human desire through prosperity, health, and sexual freedom. Through careful readings of Cotton Mather, Andrew Jackson Davis, William James, Esther Hicks, and more, Albanese reveals how a theology of delight evolved alongside political overtures to natural law and individual liberty in the United States.
Methods designed to guide the allocation of healthcare so as to maximize population health have been criticized as fundamentally unfair. In a closer analysis of this ethical critique of the use of cost-effectiveness author Daniel M. Hausman responds to the main complaints about the unfairness of cost-effectiveness, while also recognizing that there should be other factors--especially in cases of discrimination--guiding health-related treatment. Central to How Health Care Can Be Cost-Effective and Fair is whether cost-effective allocation of healthcare violates ethical constraints. Several commentators argue that using cost-effective reasoning to guide the distribution of healthcare is fundamentally unfair, not just because it does not take distribution into account, but because it fails to prioritize the severity of illness and fails to give everyone, and especially disabled people and those from historically underprivileged populations, a fair chance of being treated. While Hausman recognizes the complexity and shortcomings of cost-effective reasoning, he maintains that it should be a leading principle in the allocation of health-related resources. In Hausman's view, many values--such as compassion, freedom, respect, and solidarity should govern healthcare in addition to promoting well-being and treating individuals fairly. In its efforts to promote population health fairly, healthcare should respond to and respect individuals' values and choices.
An investigation into the mental health crisis affecting young adults today, and an impassioned argument for creating learning environments characterized both by compassion and challenge Alarming statistics in recent years indicate that mental health problems like depression and anxiety have been skyrocketing among youth. To identify solutions, psychologist and professor Sarah Rose Cavanagh interviews a roster of experts across the country who are dedicating their lives to working with young people to help them actualize their goals, and highlights voices of college students from a range of diverse backgrounds. Cavanagh also brings the reader on an invigorating tour of pedagogical, neuroscientific, and psychological research on mental health--one that involves her own personal journey from panic to equilibrium. The result of these combined sources of inquiry indicates that to support youth mental health, we must create what Cavanagh calls compassionate challenge--first, we need to cultivate learning and living environments characterized by compassion, and then, we need to guide our youth into practices that encourage challenge, helping them face their fears in an encouraging, safe, and even playful way. Mind over Monsters is a must-read for teachers, administrators, parents, and young people themselves.
Nothing More than Freedom explores the long and complex legal history of Black freedom in the United States. From the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877, supreme courts in former slave states decided approximately 700 lawsuits associated with the struggle for Black freedom and equal citizenship. This litigation - the majority through private law - triggered questions about American liberty and reassessed the nation's legal and political order following the Civil War. Judicial decisions set the terms of debates about racial identity, civil rights, and national belonging, and established that slavery, as a legal institution and social practice, remained actionable in American law well after its ostensible demise. The verdicts determined how unresolved facets of slavery would undercut ongoing efforts for abolition and the realization of equality. Insightful and compelling, this work makes an important intervention in the history of post-Civil War law.