CE Mackenzie’s Achy Affects is a trans-genre memoir that boldly reimagines how we care for ourselves and our communities amidst relentless cultural, political, and ecological upheavals. It feels like we’re teetering on the edge of unprecedented crises. In the midst of this, as we wrestle with burnout and exhaustion, capitalism demands we push harder, achieve more, and become better. Mackenzie offers a radical alternative: give up the goal and just feel.Organized in...

With the tomboy figure currently operating in a liminal space between extinction and resurgence, Reclaiming the Tomboy: The Body, Identity, and Representation is an unabashed celebration of her rebellious, independent, and pioneering spirit. This collection examines the tomboy as she appears throughout history, in the arts and in real-life. It also addresses how she has changed over the centuries, adapting to the world around her and breaking new boundaries in new ways (sometimes with a "s...

The acclaimed Top 10 Sunday Times bestseller on our search for love'Uncommonly wise and honest. Love in Exile flooded me with a sense of continuity and hope. A masterpiece, from start to finish' - Maggie NelsonShon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love was not for her. Not just romantic love: the secret fear of her own unworthiness penetrated every aspect and corner of her life. It was a fear that would erupt in destruct...

Updated second edition: "A bold and imaginative book which moves our thinking about narratives of illness in new directions." — Sociology of Heath and IllnessSince it was first published in 1995, The Wounded Storyteller has occupied a unique place in the body of work on illness. A collective portrait of a so-called "remission society" of those who suffer from illness or disability, as well as a cogent analysis of their stories within a larger frame...

Named a Most Anticipated/Best Book of the Month by: NPR * USA Today * Time * Washington Post * Vulture * Women’s Wear Daily * Bustle * LitHub * The Millions * Vogue * Nylon * Shondaland * Chicago Review of Books * The Guardian * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * Publishers WeeklySo often deployed as a jingoistic, even menacing rallying cry, or li...

What if experiencing a good life involves more than just pleasure?Revealing the surprising roots of lasting happiness, pre-eminent psychologist Paul Bloom explains why suffering is an essential source of both pleasure and meaning in our lives.It seems obvious that pleasure leads to happiness - and pain does the opposite. And yet we are irresistibly drawn to a host of experiences that truly hurt, from the exhilarating fear of horror movies o...

Our societies today are characterized by a universal algophobia: a generalized fear of pain. We strive to avoid all painful conditions – even the pain of love is treated as suspect. This algophobia extends into society: less and less space is given to conflicts and controversies that might prompt painful discussions. It takes hold of politics too: politics becomes a palliative politics that is incapable of implementing radical reforms that might be painful, so all we get is more of the sam...

Drawing on more than four decades of experience as a researcher and teacher, Howard Becker now brings to students and researchers the many valuable techniques he has learned. Tricks of the Trade will help students learn how to think about research projects. Assisted by Becker's sage advice, students can make better sense of their research and simultaneously generate fresh ideas on where to look next for new data. The tricks cover four broad areas of social science: the creation of...

Narrative medicine has emerged in response to a commodified health care system that places corporate and bureaucratic concerns over the needs of the patient. Generated from a confluence of sources including humanities and medicine, primary care medicine, narratology, and the study of doctor-patient relationships, narrative medicine is medicine practiced with the competence to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of illness. By placing events in temporal order, with beg...

A modern argument, grounded in philosophy and cultural criticism, about childbearing ambivalence and how to overcome itBecoming a parent, once the expected outcome of adulthood, is increasingly viewed as a potential threat to the most basic goals and aspirations of modern life. We seek self-fulfillment; we want to liberate women to find meaning and self-worth outside the home; and we wish to protect the planet from the ravages of climate change. Weighing the pros a...

How the “bad feelings” of trans experience inform trans survival and flourishingSome days—or weeks, or months, or even years—being trans feels bad. Yet as Hil Malatino points out, there is little space for trans people to think through, let alone speak of, these bad feelings. Negative emotions are suspect because they unsettle narratives of acceptance or reinforce virulently phobic framings of trans as inauthentic and threatening.In Side Affects, M...

A radical and necessary rethinking of trans careWhat does it mean for trans people to show up for one another, to care deeply for one another? How have failures of care shaped trans lives? What care practices have trans subjects and communities cultivated in the wake of widespread transphobia and systemic forms of trans exclusion?Trans Care is a critical intervention in how care labor and care ethics have been thought, arguing that dominant modes o...