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Suicide and Contemporary Science Fiction examines the fascination with suicidal crises evident in a range of science fiction. Specifically, this study explores a seemingly counterintuitive proposition: in moments of dramatic scientific and technological change, the authors of these works frequently cast self-destructive episodes as catalysts for beneficial change. Carlos Gutierrez-Jones argues that this creative self-destruction mechanism is invoked by H. G. Wells as a means of negotiating Victorian anxieties regarding evolutionary theory, by Stanislaw Lem as he wrestles with the prospect of nuclear self-destruction at the dawn of the space age, by William Gibson as he considers the developm...
"An immensely valuable ocntribution. As the last generation of witnesses to the Holocaust testify to its horrors, tehy must also testify to its heroes - those who risked all to safe lives. These movingly told stories restore our faith in the human spirit." --William Shirer "The mystery of the rescue phenomenon will probably always elude us. As the rescuers' narratives in this remarkable volume show, the acts of saving Jews seemed spontaneous and natural, and thus the mystery of the rescue act begins to unravel radiantly. The insights which this interdisciplinary collection of essays subtly pieces together s how in unique fashion the preconditions, or the possibilities, of individual and collective courage." --Dennis B. Klein, author of Jewish Origins of the Psychoanalytic Movement A distinguished group of internationally known individuals, Jews and non-Jews, rescuers and rescued, offer their enriching first-person accounts and reflections that explore the question: Why did the Danes risk their lives to rescue the Jewish population?
Originating as a proponent of U.S. exceptionalism during the Cold War, American Studies has now reinvented itself, vigorously critiquing various kinds of critical hegemony and launching innovative interdisciplinary endeavors. The Futures of American Studies considers the field today and provides important deliberations on what it might yet become. Essays by both prominent and emerging scholars provide theoretically engaging analyses of the postnational impulse of current scholarship, the field's historical relationship to social movements, the status of theory, the state of higher education in the United States, and the impact of ethnic and gender studies on area studies. They also investiga...
Challenging the long-cherished notion of legal objectivity in the United States, Carl Gutiérrez-Jones argues that Chicano history has been consistently shaped by racially biased, combative legal interactions. Rethinking the Borderlands is an insightful and provocative exploration of the ways Chicano and Chicana artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers engage this history in order to resist the disenfranchising effects of legal institutions, including the prison and the court. Gutiérrez-Jones examines the process by which Chicanos have become associated with criminality in both our legal institutions and our mainstream popular culture and thereby offers a new way of understanding minority social experience. Drawing on gender studies and psychoanalysis, as well as critical legal and race studies, Gutiérrez-Jones's approach to the law and legal discourse reveals the high stakes involved when concepts of social justice are fought out in the home, in the workplace and in the streets.
"This is a rich and innovative synthesis of a broad range of theoretical perspectives. It elevates academic discussions of Chicano literature and cultural production to new levels of sophistication."--George Lipsitz, author of "Time Passages" "One of the most important works in Chicano cultural criticism to have been written in the last twenty years. Its critique of American legal discourse is rigorous, piquant, and dazzling in its elegance."--Ramon Gutierrez, author of "When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away" "Offers a new perspective on Chicano cultural practices by bringing together for the first time critical legal studies, film and media studies, and cultural studies. His work is sure to draw a whole new readership to the field of Chicano and Chicana studies. Scholars will find this a wonderfully profitable book."--Ramon Saldivar, Stanford University
"This is a rich and innovative synthesis of a broad range of theoretical perspectives. It elevates academic discussions of Chicano literature and cultural production to new levels of sophistication."—George Lipsitz, author of Time Passages "One of the most important works in Chicano cultural criticism to have been written in the last twenty years. Its critique of American legal discourse is rigorous, piquant, and dazzling in its elegance."—Ramón Gutiérrez, author of When Jesus Came the Corn Mothers Went Away "Offers a new perspective on Chicano cultural practices by bringing together for the first time critical legal studies, film and media studies, and cultural studies. His work is sure to draw a whole new readership to the field of Chicano and Chicana studies. Scholars will find this a wonderfully profitable book."—Ramon Saldivar, Stanford University
In this interdisciplinary volume, contributors analyze the expression of Latina/o cultural identity through performance. With music, theater, dance, visual arts, body art, spoken word, performance activism, fashion, and street theater as points of entry, contributors discuss cultural practices and the fashoning of identity in Latino/a communities throughout the US. Examining the areas of crossover between Latin and American cultures gives new meaning to the notion of "borderlands." This volume features senior scholars and up-and-coming academics from cultural, visual, and performance studies, folklore, and ethnomusicology.
Winner of the 2006 Thomas J. Lyon Book Award in Western American Literary Studies, presented by the Western Literature Association In The Emergence of Mexican America, John-Michael Rivera examines the cultural, political, and legal representations of Mexican Americans and the development of US capitalism and nationhood. Beginning with the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 and continuing through the period of mass repatriation of US Mexican laborers in 1939, Rivera examines both Mexican-American and Anglo-American cultural production in order to tease out the complexities of the so-called “Mexican question.” Using historical and archival materials, Rivera's wide-ranging objects of inquiry include fiction, non-fiction, essays, treaties, legal materials, political speeches, magazines, articles, cartoons, and advertisements created by both Mexicans and Anglo Americans. Engaging and methodologically venturesome, Rivera's study is a crucial contribution to Chicano/Latino Studies and fields of cultural studies, history, government, anthropology, and literary studies.
Post-Nationalist American Studies seeks to revise the cultural nationalism and celebratory American exceptionalism that tended to dominate American Studies in the Cold War era. The goal of the book's contributors is a less insular, more trans-national, comparative approach to American Studies, one that questions dominant American myths rather than canonizes them. Articulating new ways to think about American Studies, these essays demonstrate how diverse the field has become. Contributors are concerned with cross-cultural communication, race and gender, global and local identities, and the complex tensions between symbolic and political economies. Their essays explore, among other topics, the...
Environmental Justice in Contemporary US Narratives examines post-1929 US artistic interrogations of environmental disruption. Tracing themes of pollution, marine life, and agricultural production in the work of a number of historically significant writers including John Steinbeck, Ruth Ozeki, and Cherríe Moraga, this book outlines a series of incisive dialogues on transnational flows of capital and environmental justice. Texts ranging from The Grapes of Wrath (1939) to Body Toxic (2001) represent the body as vulnerable to a host of environmental risks. They identify "natural disasters" not just as environmental hazards and catastrophes, but also as events intertwined with socioeconomic iss...