March 14, 2008

Houston Baker on the "Prison-Industrial" Complex

According to a new report from the Pew Center on the States, for the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are now in prison. For minority groups the rate is even higher: one...

March 13, 2008

Lust, Caution, and Eileen Chang: A Posting from Darrell William Davis

We invited film scholars to comment on films relating to their work. In this posting, Darrell William Davis, coauthor with Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh of Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island, considers Ang Lee’s recent film Lust, Caution and its adaptation...

March 12, 2008

Books for Understanding: The Former Yugoslavia

The Association of American University Presses offers a fantastic free online resource tool for people looking for the best books to make sense of current events. Called Books for Understanding, each list compiles university press titles under specific subject headings...

March 11, 2008

Living Ink in Pacific and United States Tattoo: A Posting from Juniper Ellis

(Note this was cross-posted on anthropology.net) Tattooing the World: Pacific Designs in Print and Skin is inspired first by sheer love of the designs and their meanings. What an amazing story it is to consider the way modern tattoo was...

March 10, 2008

Book for National Women’s History Month: Women’s Religious History

We continue with our series of postings on books relating to National Women’s History Month with today’s look at women’s religious history. I’ve chosen one book to represent each of the four major religious traditions, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism....

March 7, 2008

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: Reading the World 2008

We have not had time to post about this yet but we are very excited to announce that The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, by Wang Anyi, translated from the Chinese by Michael Berry and Susan Chan...

March 6, 2008

Winning the Battle Losing the War: A NYT Op-ed from James Willbanks

James Willbanks’s op-ed “Winning the Battle, Losing the War” appeared in yesterday’s New York Times. James Willbanks is the author of The Tet Offensive: A Concise History. In the piece, Willbanks looks at how the Tet Offensive, while considered a...

March 5, 2008

The Power of the Consumer

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the tax rebate President Bush just signed into law. As a single taxpaying citizen I’m entitled to receive up to $600 for my rebate check. The rebates are intended to stimulate the U.S....

March 4, 2008

Film and Philly: The Society for Cinema & Media Studies Conference

For some people six things come to mind when they think about Philadelphia and film: Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky V, and the mose recent Rocky Balboa. However, beginning on Thursday, The Society for Cinema & Media...

March 3, 2008

Books for National Women’s History Month

Today, I’d like to bring your attention to the fact that March is National Women’s History Month. In honor of the strong contributions women have made to American history, I bring you several distinguished titles from our list in women’s...