A personal, revealing, and sometimes humorous exploration of female experience, Performing Femininity challenges traditional and feminist perspectives on gender roles. Using ethnographic method, Lesa Lockford transforms herself into an image-obsessed weight watcher, an exotic dancer, and a theatrical performer. In several evocative narratives, Lockford uses this experimental methodology to rupture the conventional dichotomy of patriarchal versus feminist points of view, goading and challen...

Grief and loss are fundamental aspects of the human experience. Narrative and Grief examines the desire to make sense out of the nonsensical by exploring specific stories of loss and grief, spanning from the loss of a parent, child, or partner, loss within larger family systems; and ambiguous and anticipatory loss to broader cultural aspects of grief. The autoethnographic essays in this book reflect on the unique and individual experiences of each contributor’s story. Simultaneously, these...

This volume presents the latest explorations of the literary turn in ethnographic work by many of the leading people in the area. Centering on autoethnography, personal narrative, ethnographic performance, and the blending of social science and the arts, the articles collected here emphasize embodiment, experiential understanding, participatory ways of knowing, sensuous engagement, and intimate encounter. Drawing from disciplines as diverse as sociology, philosophy, performance studies, co...

This essay collection from renowned journalist and novelist Slavenka Drakulic, which quickly became a modern (and feminist) classic, draws back the Iron Curtain for a glimpse at the lives of Eastern European women under Communist regimes. Provocative, often witty, and always intensely personal, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed cracks open a paradoxical world that through its rejection of capitalism and commoditization ends up fetishizing both. Examining the relationship between m...

As schooling becomes increasingly standardized and test driven, occupying more of childhood than ever before, parents and educators are questioning the role of schooling in society. Many are now exploring and creating alternatives. In a compelling narrative that introduces historical and contemporary research on self-directed education, Unschooled also spotlights how a diverse group of individuals and organizations are evolving an old schooling model of education. These innovators challeng...

Today’s software can only imitate art, but what about tomorrow?Will true artificial intelligences be able to appreciate or even create art? Explore dystopian societies, where AI generates most of the content and human artists must eke out an existence, and utopias, where artificial minds help unlock and enhance human creativity.Delve into the minds of robot painters, AI poets, drone forgers, and electronic theater curators. These and other possible futures ...

For anyone burdened by stress and anxiety, just the thought of trying to make a positive life change can feel utterly overwhelming. Wanting to live a healthier life may sound easy, but what about the time needed for meal prepping? What about the added meal-plan costs to your budget? Do you have to wake up at dawn to take that meditation class? When you are surrounded by stress, it’s all too easy to completely derail yourself…with more stress. Life is hard enough—the road to a stress-free l...

April 1910. Women's rights activist Alvera Fields mysteriously vanishes from her home one night, leaving her newborn baby and husband behind, and the case is never solved. April 2021. On the anniversary of her great-great-grandmother's disappearance, Alvera's namesake, Vera Portman, vanishes in an eerily similar manner. Six months later, the police recover a girl's body. While the family waits, afraid to find out it's Vera, Felicity Portman clings to hope that her missing teenage daughter ...

On the morning of Isabella's birthday in 1944, she and her family were deported to Auschwitz, the Nazi extermination camp. There she and her siblings fought the greatest evil in human history with the only weapon they had: love. Isabella's Pulitzer-nominated memoir will take you into a world of darkness where she will reveal a humanity described in the voice of a poet.

Once children hit adolescence, it seems as if overnight “I love you” becomes “leave me alone,” and any question from a parent can be dismissed with one word: “fine.” But while they may not show it, teens benefit from their parents’ curiosity, delight, and connection. In The Teen Interpreter, psychologist Terri Apter looks inside teens’ minds—minds that are experiencing powerful new emotions and awareness of the world around them—to show how parents can revitalize their relationship. She il...

Charles Darwin first visited the Galápagos Islands almost 200 years ago, only to discover a land filled with plants and animals that could not be found anywhere else on earth. How did they come to inhabit the islands? How long will they remain? Thoroughly researched, this historical and scientific book tells the epic saga of the life of an island?its birth in fire, its rise to greatness, its decline, and, finally, the emergence of life on new islands.

Lakshmi is worshipped as the goddess of wealth. Her arrival is considered auspicious, while her departure is bad and inauspicious. In temples, gods are bedecked with jewels; during festivals, our houses are decorated with flowers, lamps and Lakshmi’s footprints. Clearly, she is a much-desired goddess. Yet, some friends and relatives—even gurus—tell us not to be money-minded, or that it is wrong to equate Lakshmi with money because Lakshmi is spiritual and money is material. Why this mocker...