RIT Libraries Recent Acquisitions - Social

Why Work? : the Perceptions of a "real Job" and the Rhetoric of Work Through the Ages / Robin Patric Clair ... [et Al]

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Why Work explores the contemporary cultural construction of work, beginning with the expression, "A Real Job." This volume examines "work" in the writings of Aristotle, Plato, Confucius, St. Benedict, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Frederick Winslow Taylor, and Mary Parker Follett to answer the question, "Can the concept of work be divorced from the thinker's past?" A final chapter re-examines the core issue in light of the vary concept of "work" and ask one more time "why work?" This work is a result of an Honors seminar at Purdue University.

Added: Thursday, Oct 2 2008

Fighting Traffic : the Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City / Peter D. Norton

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as "jaywalkers." In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as "road hogs" or "speed demons" and cars as "juggernauts" or "death cars." He considers the perspectives of all userspedestrians, police (who had to become "traffic cops"), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for "justice." Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of "efficiency." Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking "freedom"a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.

Added: Thursday, Oct 2 2008

Culture and Customs of Senegal / Eric S. Ross

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: A blend of indigenous life in the rural countryside and metropolitan culture in urban centers, Senegal has been a small, yet prominent country on Africa's western coast. In this comprehensive study of contemporary Senegalese life, readers will learn how daily lifestyles are celebrated through both religious and secular customs. Students can investigate how Senegal's oral storytelling, Islamic roots, and French colonialism have shaped literature and media in today's society. From the street to the studio, the topic of art in Senegalese life is also covered. Ross also delves into architectural styles and modern housing in urban environments, while also covering typical cuisine and traditional fashion. Readers will learn about the typical Senegalese family as a social and economic unit, and will see how music, dance, and sports play an integral role in their lives. Ideal for high school students and general readers, this volume in the Culture and Customs of Africa series is a perfect addition to any library's reference collection.

Added: Thursday, Oct 2 2008

Succeeding As an International Student in the United States and Canada / Charles Lipson ; Foreword By Allan E. Goodman

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Each year, 700,000 students from around the world come to the United States and Canada to study. For many, the experience is as challenging as it is exciting. Far from home, they must adapt to a new culture, new university system, and in many cases, a new language. The process can be overwhelming, but as Charles Lipson's Succeeding as an International Student in the United States and Canada assures us, it doesn't have to be. Succeeding is designed to help students navigate the myriad issues they will encounterfrom picking a program to landing a campus job. Based on Lipson's work with international students as well as extensive interviews with faculty and advisers, Succeeding includes practical suggestions for learning English, participating in class, and meeting with instructors. In addition it explains the rules of academic honesty as they are understood in U.S. and Canadian universities. Life beyond the classroom is also covered, with handy sections on living on or off campus, obtaining a driver's license, setting up a bank account, and more. The comprehensive glossary addresses both academic terms and phrases heard while shopping or visiting a doctor. There is even a chapter on the academic calendar and holidays in the United States and Canada. Coming to a new country to study should be an exciting venture, not a baffling ordeal. Now, with this trustworthy resource, international students have all the practical information they need to succeed, in and out of the classroom. (20070808)

Added: Thursday, Oct 2 2008

Slackonomics : Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction / By Lisa Chamberlain

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Generation X grew up in the 1980s, when Alex P. Keaton was going to be a millionaire by the time he was thirty, greed was good, and social activism was deader than disco. Then globalization and the technological revolution came along, changing everything for a generation faced with bridging the analog and digital worlds. Living in a time of "creative destruction" — when an old economic order is upended by a new one — has deeply affected everyday life for this generation; from how they work, where they live, how they play, when they marry and have children to their attitudes about love, humor, happiness, and personal fulfillment. Through a sharp and entertaining mix of pop and alt-culture, personal narrative, and economic analysis, author Lisa Chamberlain shows how Generation X has survived and even thrived in the era of creative destruction, but will now be faced with solving economic and environmental problems on a global scale.

Added: Thursday, Sep 25 2008

Multicultural Odysseys : Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity / Will Kymlicka

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: We are currently witnessing the global diffusion of multiculturalism, both as a political discourse and as a set of international legal norms. States today are under increasing international scrutiny regarding their treatment of ethnocultural groups, and are expected to meet evolving international standards regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, national minorities, and immigrants. This phenomenon represents a veritable revolution in international relations, yet has received little public or scholarly attention. In this book, Kymlicka examines the factors underlying this change, and the challenges it raises. Against those critics who argue that multiculturalism is a threat to universal human rights, Kymlicka shows that the sort of multiculturalism that is being globalized is inspired and constrained by the human rights revolution, and embedded in a framework of liberal-democratic values. However, the formulation and implementation of these international norms has generated a number of dilemmas. The policies adopted by international organizations to deal with ethnic diversity are driven by conflicting impulses. Pessimism about the destabilizing consequences of ethnic politics alternates with optimism about the prospects for a peaceful and democratic form of multicultural politics. The result is often an unstable mix of paralyzing fear and naive hope, rooted in conflicting imperatives of security and justice. Moreover, given the enormous differences in the characteristics of minorities (eg., their size, territorial concentration, cultural markers, historic relationship to the state), it is difficult to formulate standards that apply to all groups. Yet attempts to formulate more targeted norms that apply only to specific categories of minorities (eg., "indigenous peoples" or "national minorities") have proven controversial and unstable. Kymlicka examines these dilemmas as they have played out in both the theory and practice of international minority rights protection, including recent developments regarding the rights of national minorities in Europe, the rights of indigenous peoples in the Americas, as well as emerging debates on multiculturalism in Asia and Africa.

Added: Thursday, Sep 25 2008

Sprawl & Politics : the Inside Story of Smart Growth in Maryland / John W. Frece

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: An account of the origin, enactment, and implementation of Maryland's Smart Growth land use program begun in 1966.

Added: Thursday, Sep 25 2008

Anthropology's Wake : Attending to the End of Culture / Scott Michaelsen and David E. Johnson

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Posing a powerful challenge to dominant trends in cultural analysis, this book covers the whole history of the concept of culture, providing the broadest study of this notion to date. Johnson and Michaelsen examine the principal methodological strategies or metaphors of anthropology in the past two decades (embodied in works by Edward Said, James Clifford, George Marcus, V. Y. Mudimbe, and others) and argues that they do not manage to escape anthropology's grounding in representational practices. To the extent that it remains a practice of representation, anthropology, however complex, critical, or self-reflexive, cannot avoid objectifying its others.Extending beyond a critique of anthropology, the book reads the twinned notions of the human and culture across the long history of the human sciences broadly conceived, including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, and philosophy. Although there is no chance, they argue, for a "new" anthropology that would not repeat the old anthropology's problem of disciplining the other, they also recognize that there may be no way out of anthropology. We are always writing, thinking, and living in anthropology's wake, within its specific compass or horizon. Moreover, they demonstrate, we have been doing so for a very long time, since at least the beginning of the institution of philosophy in Plato and Aristotle.

Added: Thursday, Sep 25 2008

Diversity in America / Vincent N. Parrillo

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: The Third Edition of Diversity in America offers both a sociohistorical perspective and a sociological analysis to provide insights into U.S. diversity. The author squarely addresses the topics which generate more passionate, invective, and raucous debate than all others in American society today: Is multiculturalism a threat to us? Should immigration be more closely controlled? Are we no longer sufficiently "American" and why? The book answers these questions by using history and sociology to shed light on socially constructed myths about our past, misunderstandings from our present, and anxieties about our future. New to the Third Edition <ul><li>Offers a new section in each chapter, "The Larger Context," which places multiculturalism in a comparative perspective to other developed countries </li></li><li>Examines what constitutes a racial or ethnic group </li></li><li>Includes new chapter-opening photographs that visually illustrate the context of that chapter </li></li><li>Presents expanded commentary in many chapters about the influence of Asian culture in the earlier part of U.S. history and provides expanded discussion about Arabs, Asians, Hispanics, and Native Americans </li></li><li>Discusses the social constructionist approach as a further understanding about the perception of groups such as Native Americans and racial minorities </li></li><li>Explores how transnationalism affects multiculturalism </li></li><li>Expands the discussion on the PATRIOT Act and its impact on immigrants </li></li><li>Offers maps showing the territorial size of the United States during the eras discussed in Chapters 2 through 6 </li></li></ul> Intended Audience This is an ideal supplement for courses in Race and Ethnic Relations, Immigration History, American Studies, or other courses on diversity.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? : a Debate / Warren Farrell, with Steven Svoboda, James P. Sterba

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Does feminism give a much-needed voice to women in a patriarchal world? Or is the world not really patriarchal? Has feminism begun to level the playing field in a world in which women are more often paid less at work and abused at home? Or are women paid equally for the same work and not abused more at home? Does feminism support equality in education and in the military, or does it discriminate against men by ignoring such issues as male-only draft registration and boys lagging behind in school? The only book of its kind, this volume offers a sharp, lively, and provocative debate on the impact of feminism on men. Warren Farrell--an international best-selling author and leader in both the early women's and current men's movements--praises feminism for opening options for women but criticizes it for demonizing men, distorting data, and undervaluing the family. In response, James P. Sterba--an acclaimed philosopher and ardent advocate of feminism--maintains that the feminist movement gives a long-neglected voice to women in a male-dominated world and that men are not an oppressed gender in today's America. Their wide-ranging debate covers personal issues, from love, sex, dating, and rape to domestic violence, divorce, and child custody. Farrell and Sterba also look through their contrasting lenses at systemic issues, from the school system to the criminal justice system; from the media to the military; and from health care to the workplace. A perfect book to get students thinking and debating, Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men? A Debate is ideal for courses in gender studies, sociology, psychology, economics, feminist philosophy, and contemporary moral issues. It is also compelling reading for anyone interested in the future of men and women.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Theorizing Discrimination in an Era of Contested Prejudice : Discrimination in the United States / Samuel Roundfield Lucas

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Despite several decades of attention, there is still no consensus on the effects of racial or sexual discrimination in the United States. In this landmark work, the well-known sociologist Samuel Lucas shows how discrimination is not simply an action that one person performs in relation to another individual, but something far more insidious: a pervasive dynamic that permeates the environment in which we live and work. Challenging existing literature on the subject, Lucas makes a clear distinction between prejudice and discrimination. He maintains that when an era of condoned exploitation ended, the era of contested prejudice, as he terms it, began. He argues that the great strides made in the 1950s and 1960s repudiated prejudice, but not discrimination. Drawing on critical race theory, feminist theory and a critique of dominant perspectives in the social sciences and law, Lucas offers a new understanding of racial and sexual discrimination that can guide our actions and laws into a more just future.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Responding to the Realities of Race on Campus / Shaun R. Harper, Lori D. Patton, Editors

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: This volume of New Directions for Student Services illuminates several realities regarding racism, cross-racial interaction, race-based educational inequities, and campus racial climates in higher education. Authors describe how student learning and development are stifled by the mistreatment of race as a taboo topic on most college and university campuses. They also discuss the disconnection between espoused and enacted institutional values concerning inclusiveness and racial equity, as well as the need for increased accountability and intentionality. In addition to igniting critical consciousness about one of the most vexing problems in American higher education, the chapters in this volume include several practical implications for reducing racial toxins in campus environments and engaging students in meaningful learning experiences about race inside and outside the classroom. <style> OL {list-style:disc} P:{margin-left 60px}</style> Chapters include <ol> <li>Nine Themes in Campus Racial Climates and Implications for Institutional Transformation </li><li>Beyond Artificial Integration: Reimaging Cross-Racial Interactions Among Undergraduates </li><li>Critical Race Perspectives on Theory in Student Affairs </li><li>Enhancing Racial Self-Understanding Through Structured Learning and Reflective Experiences </li><li>The Complicated Realities of Whiteness: From Color Blind to Racially Cognizant </li><li>The Equity Scorecard: A Collaborative Approach to Assess and Respond to Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Student Outcomes </li><li>Resituating Race into the Movement Toward Multiculturalism and Social Justice </li></ol> This is the 120th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Student Services, offering guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

The Gay and Lesbian Guide to College Life : a Comprehensive Resource for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students and Their Allies / John Baez, Jeffiner Howd, Rachel Pepper and the Staff of the Princeton Review

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Featuring advice from students and administrators at more than seventy of the nation's top colleges, the Gay and Lesbian Guide to College Life lets you know how to how to thrive on campus as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and/or questioning student. Including tons of student testimonials and dozens of parent tips, the Gay and Lesbian Guide to College Life offers no-nonsense guidance to LGBT students, their families, and allies on how to make the most of their college experience. Learn how you can: ·Find an LGBT-friendly school ·Evaluate administrative policies related to LGBT student life ·Deal with homo/bi/transphobia on campus ·Participate in LGBT student activism ·Get support for your health and safety needs ·Fully integrate yourself into the campus community

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

The 'woman Question' and Higher Education : Perspectives on Gender and Knowledge Production in America / Edited By Ann Mari May ; with a Foreword By Alice Kessler-Harris

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

The Comfort of Things / Daniel Miller

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: The diversity of contemporary London is extraordinary, and begs to be better understood. Never before have so many people from such diverse backgrounds been free to mix and not to mix in close proximity to each other. But increasingly people's lives take place behind the closed doors of private houses. How can we gain an insight into what those lives are like today? Not television characters, not celebrities, but real people. How could one ever come to know perfect strangers? Danny Miller attempts to achieve this goal in this brilliant exposé of a street in modern London. He leads us behind closed doors to thirty people who live there, showing their intimate lives, their aspirations and frustrations, their tragedies and accomplishments. He places the focus upon the things that really matter to the people he meets, which quite often turn out to be material things, the house, the dog, the music, the Christmas decorations. He creates a gallery of portraits, some comic, some tragic, some cubist, some impressionist, some bleak and some exuberant. We find that a random street in modern London contains the most extraordinary stories. Mass murderers and saints, the most charmed Christmas since Fanny and Alexander and the story of how a CD collection helped someone overcome heroin. Through this sensitive reading of the ordinary lives of ordinary people, Miller uncovers the orders and forms through which people make sense of their lives today. He shows just how much is to be gained when we stop lamenting what we think we used to be, and instead concentrate on what we are becoming now. He reveals above all the sadness of lives and the comfort of things.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Majority Cultures and the Everyday Practices of Ethnic Difference : Whose House is This? / Edited By Bo Petersson and Katharine Tyler

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: Examining the ways in which majority Western cultures govern, represent and exclude those that are considered to be ethically "other," this book asks what is the impact of globalization, governance and Western immigration controls on the construction of the majority "self" and the minority "other"?

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Against the Wall : Poor, Young, Black, and Male / Edited By Elijah Anderson

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: "With this volume, Elijah Anderson has consolidated what is known about the dire and worsening social situation of young black men in the U.S. Against the Wall brings together a set of cutting edge empirical studies from sociology, economics, and cultural studies to present a nuanced and sobering picture."--Mitchell Duneier, Princeton University, author of Sidewalk and Slim's Table "In a time when much of white America is in economic pain, Against the Wall is a timely and wide ranging reminder of the much greater and centuries longer pains which have been inflicted on poor young African Americans."--Herbert J Gans, author of Imagining America in 2033: How the Country Put Itself Together After Bush Typically residing in areas of concentrated urban poverty, too many young black men are trapped in a horrific cycle that includes active discrimination, unemployment, violence, crime, prison, and early death. This toxic mixture has given rise to wider stereotypes that limit the social capital of all young black males, creating more alienation and thereby deepening the country's racial divide. Edited and with an introductory chapter by sociologist Elijah Anderson, the essays in Against the Wall describe how the anonymous young black male has come to be publicly identified with crime and violence because of skin color alone. In reaction to his sense of rejection, he may place an exaggerated emphasis on the integrity of his self-expression in clothing and demeanor by adopting the fashions of the "street." To those deeply invested in and associated with the dominant culture, his attitude is perceived as profoundly oppositional. His presence in public gathering places becomes disturbing to others, and the stereotype of the dangerous young black male is often perpetuated and strengthened. To understand the origin of the problem and prospects of the black inner-city male, it is essential to distinguish his experience from that of his pre-Civil Rights Movement forebears. In the 1950s, as more militant black people emerged to challenge the system, the figure of the black male became more ambiguous and fearsome. And while this activism did have the positive effect of creating opportunities for the black middle class who fled from the ghettos, those who remained faced an increasingly desperate climate. Featuring a Foreword by Cornel West and sixteen original essays by contributors including William Julius Wilson, Gerald D. Jaynes, Douglas S. Massey, and Peter Edelman, Against the Wall illustrates how social distance increases, as alienation and marginalization within the black male underclass persists, thereby deepening the country's racial divide.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Urban Growth Management and Its Discontents : Promises, Practices, and Geopolitics in U.S. City-regions / Yonn Dierwechter

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: This book investigates urban growth management in the USA as a contested form of state territoriality. Synthesizing, interpreting, and contributing to literature on the history, theory and practices of urban growth management, the analysis offers critically theorized case studies of four 'city-regions' located in four different growth management states."

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

When is Discrimination Wrong? / Deborah Hellman

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: A law requires black bus passengers to sit in the back of the bus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves a drug for use by black heart failure patients. A state refuses to license drivers under age 16. A company avoids hiring women between the ages of 20 and 40. We routinely draw distinctions among people on the basis of characteristics that they possess or lack. While some distinctions are benign, many are morally troubling. In this boldly conceived book, Deborah Hellman develops a much-needed general theory of discrimination. She demonstrates that many familiar ideas about when discrimination is wrongwhen it is motivated by prejudice, grounded in stereotypes, or simply departs from merit-based decision-makingwon't adequately explain our widely shared intuitions. Hellman argues that, in the end, distinguishing among people on the basis of traits is wrong when it demeans any of the people affected. She deftly explores the question of how we determine what is in fact demeaning. Claims of wrongful discrimination are among the most common moral claims asserted in public and private life. Yet the roots of these claims are often left unanalyzed. When Is Discrimination Wrong? explores what it means to treat people as equals and thus takes up a central problem of democracy. (20080904)

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008

Americans All : the Cultural Gifts Movement / Diana Selig

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Description: From the 1920sa decade marked by racism and nativismthrough World War II, hundreds of thousands of Americans took part in a vibrant campaign to overcome racial, ethnic, and religious prejudices. They celebrated the "cultural gifts" that immigrant and minority groups brought to society, learning that ethnic identity could be compatible with American ideals. Diana Selig tells the neglected story of the cultural gifts movement, which flourished between the world wars. Progressive activists encouraged pluralism in homes, schools, and churches across the country. Countering racist trends and the melting-pot theory of Americanization, they championed the idea of diversity. They incorporated new thinking about child development, race, and culture into grassroots programsyet they were unable to address the entrenched forms of discrimination and disfranchisement faced by African Americans in particular. This failure to grasp the deep social and economic roots of prejudice ultimately limited the movement's power. In depicting a vision for an inclusive American identity from a diverse citizenry, Americans All is a timely reminder of the debates over difference and unity that remain at the heart of American society.

Added: Wednesday, Sep 17 2008