In the latest installment of NPR's Talk of the Nation, author Gayle Greene offers insight into the condition, while elaborating on her book, Insomniac (UC Press, March 2008), in this audio interview. Additionally, you can read more about Gayle and the disorder, including tips and shared experiences on her website, Sleep Starved.
Patty Kelly provides a voice for the women of the Zona Galactica, a legal brothel in Chiapas, Mexico. These women work hard in a government-sanctioned industry, but are often treated with disrespect, scorn, and indifference, eroding their dignity and chipping away at their dreams. In Lydia's Open Door, Kelly explores this experience and brings it to life through conversations with the women. She writes as an advocate and listens as a friend, enhancing the women's personal stories with economic and historical background.
"This exceptional book makes several key contributions to the field and
shows how freedom and anxiety, and the market and morality, tensely
coexist in the business of sex. . . . Kelly's analysis is conveyed
through vivid portraits of the lives of sex workers, showing that the
women involved are neither victims nor heroines but something else:
actors caught between agency and constraint."–Roger N. Lancaster,
author of The Trouble with Nature
"In this tour de force of feminist anthropology, Patty Kelly gives her
heart to the remarkable women who toil in the bawdy sweatshops of the
Zona Galactica, a 'reformed' red-light district in the Chiapas capital
of Tuxtla Gutiérrez. In fact, as Kelly shows, it is just the ultimate
low-wage industrial district."–Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and In Praise of Barbarians
"The clarity of Kelly's perspective is neither apologetic, nor
presumptive (as is usually the case); her focus is always on the
political context of these women's lives. Patty Kelly writes like a
poet and novelist, so much so that this work begs to be a movie."–Carol
Leigh, a.k.a. "Scarlot Harlot," author of Unrepentant Whore
Karyn R. Lacy, the author of the recently published book, Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class, was recently interviewed on the Brian Lehrer show. In her book, Lacy explores an increasingly important social and demographic group: middle-class blacks who live in middle-class suburbs where poor blacks are not present. These "blue-chip black" suburbanites earn well over fifty thousand dollars annually and work in predominantly white professional environments. A link to the interview is embedded here:
The latest issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, Volume 19.3, is available now. Its articles provide both context and concepts for understanding the federal sentencing realities that may have prompted the Supreme Court to take up Claiborne and Rita and that may impact the Court’s decisions.
The articles in this FSR issue, some of which directly address federal sentencing realities after Booker and some of which address broader issues concerning the operation of guideline systems, provide varied perspectives on how Claiborne and Rita could impact the current state and future direction of the federal sentencing system.
Highlights from this issue are available in free sample articles, including Professor Douglas A. Berman’s "Editor’s Observations", and U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner with "Thoughts on Reasonableness", at http://caliber.ucpress.net/toc/fsr/19/3.
In addition, you can find information on Booker, Blakely, death penalty issues and other sentencing issues updated every day at Prof. Berman’s blog, Sentencing Law and Policy at http://sentencing.typepad.com/.
Peter Sacks is an author, journalist and social critic. His new book,Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education (forthcoming in May) is a powerful indictment of American education that shows how schools, colleges, and universities exacerbate inequality by providing ample opportunities for advantaged students while too often shutting the gates on the poor.
This week, Peter Sacks critiques the U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" rankings on The Huffington Post and discusses the socio-economic divide in higher education, particularly at top colleges, in an interview hosted on The Chronicle of Higher Education's web site. Listen to an interview with Peter Sacks at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i29/29a02001.htm.
After learning of his friend's murder, Billy Sothern forced himself to remember his love for a broken city still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times, the New Orleans attorney shares his sorrow over the crime amid continuing citywide desperation. After recounting a failed and ultimately symbolic attempt to clear the sewer on his flooded street, Sothern articulates a resolve that we can only hope reaches beyond the borders of this ailing city. "The problem, I realized, is bigger than me," he writes. "I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned."
Billy Sothern is the author of the forthcoming Down in New Orleans: Reflections from a Drowned City. The full article can be found here.
Robert Frank is a reporter who covers private wealth for The Wall Street Journal. Robert H. Frank is an economist and professor at Cornell University who contributes to The New York Times. Confused? As noted in a recent article in The Times, there are, in fact, two Robert Franks. And to make matters even more confusing, both are publishing economics books this summer. Mr. Frank's book, Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich (Crown), is a "colorful" collection of stories about the lifestyles of wealthy Americans. Professor Frank's book, Falling Behind: How Inequality Harms the Middle Class (UC Press), explores the meaning of happiness and prosperity in America today, showing in lively, accessible prose how increased concentrations of wealth at the top of the economic pyramid have set off "expenditure cascades" that raise the cost of achieving many basic goals for the middle class. Still confused? Read the complete article here.
Twenty years ago a landmark sociology paper was published in Social Problems, the official journal of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Judith Stacey and Barrie Thorne's The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology quickly became a touchstone for debate about the lack of representation of feminists and the feminist point of view in the discipline. To celebrate the publication anniversary, Social Problems Volume 53, Issue 4 features a symposium examining the challenges presented by the original paper. The symposium includes essays by leading feminist scholars and individual essays by Stacey and Thorne. "Who would have thought that Social Problems would be staging a 20th anniversary celebration to commemorate its original bold publication of our collective musings on feminism's impact on the disciplines? Who could have imagined that so many fine feminist minds would still want to bring such surprising, creative gifts to the gathering? We feel honored and awed by the symposium." -Judith Stacey & Barrie Thorne.
For a limited time you can read Christine Williams article "Still Missing? Comments on the Twentieth Anniversary of The Missing Feminist Revolution in Sociology for free here. For more information about Social Problems, please visit the UC Press Journals and Digital Publishing Website. For more information about the Society for the Study of Social Problems, please visit their website.
Now through December 31, 2006 new individual and gift subscriptions to Contexts, Film Quarterly, or Gastronomica are available at a 25% discount off the regular rate. These are three of our journals that appeal to a wide audience of readers.
Contexts: Understanding People in their Social Worlds
Sample Article: Marriage: the Good, the Bad, and the Greedy
Film Quarterly
Sample Article: Sex, lies and marketing: Miramax and the Development of the Quality Indie Blockbuster
Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture
Sample Article: Wedding Cake: A Slice of History
Click here for details and conditions.
The newest trends in sexuality research are highlighted in the new issue of the National Sexuality Research Center's online peer-reviewed journal, Sexuality Research and Social Policy: Journal of the NSRC (SRSP). The special issue, entitled New Trends in Sexuality Research: Contributions from Fellows in the Sexuality Research Fellowship Program, commemorates the end of a ten-year Sexuality Research Fellowship Program, funded by the Ford Foundation, and contains articles written by some of the program's participants. Guest editor Diane di Mauro, who guided the fellowship program since its inception in 1995, chose a range of articles to reflect the future of sexuality research in America.
"The articles appearing in this issue represent the work of a new generation of scholars who address the complexity and contextual nature of human sexuality. Their work signifies a tremendous accomplishment that has considerably strengthened the field of sexuality research in the United States. This includes a more useful dissemination of research that can inform policy decisions regarding important social and sexual health issues," said di Mauro.
Also featured in this issue is "Emotional Scripts of Sex Panics" written by Janice M. Irvine, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, whose latest book is Talk About Sex: Battle Over Sex Education in the United States. Dr. Irvine poses the compelling argument that local sex panics over sex education in the schools are not spontaneous eruptions of community outrage, but instead are political events carefully scripted by the right wing to reinforce a conservative sexual morality. For more information on this special issue please visit the National Sexuality Research Council website.
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