Bold Ideas, Essential Reading since 1936.
Rutgers University Press is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge for a wide range of readers. The Press reflects and extends the University’s core mission of research, instruction, and service. They enhance the work of their authors through exceptional publications that shape critical issues, spark debate, and enrich teaching. Core subjects include: film and media studies, sociology, anthropology, education, history, health, history of medicine, human rights, urban studies, criminal justice, Jewish studies, American studies, women's, gender, and sexuality studies, LGBTQ, Latino/a, Asian and African studies, as well as books about New York, New Jersey, and the region.
Rutgers also distributes books published by Bucknell University Press.
Showing 1,151-1,200 of 2,598 items.
From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express
A History of Chinese Food in the United States
By Haiming Liu
Rutgers University Press
Historian Haiming Liu takes readers on a compelling journey from the California Gold Rush to the present, letting us witness both the profusion of Chinese restaurants across the United States and the evolution of many distinct American-Chinese iconic dishes from chop suey to General Tso’s chicken. Along the way, historian Haiming Liu explains how the immigrants adapted their traditional food to suit local palates, and gives us a taste of Chinese cuisine embedded in the bittersweet story of Chinese Americans.
Race, Religion, and Civil Rights
Asian Students on the West Coast, 1900-1968
Rutgers University Press
Stephanie Hinnershitz reveals the unsung legacy of civil rights activism among foreign and American-born Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino students, who formed crucial alliances based on their shared religious affiliations and experiences of discrimination. Using archival sources that bring forth these students’ authentic, passionate voices, Race, Religion, and Civil Rights is a testament to the powerful ways they shaped the social, political, and cultural direction of civil rights movements throughout the West Coast, from Californian college campuses to Alaskan canneries.
This Is Our Land
Grassroots Environmentalism in the Late Twentieth Century
Rutgers University Press
In This is Our Land, environmental historian Cody Ferguson documents a little-noted but important change in the environmental movement, describing three representative grassroots groups—in Montana, Arizona, and Tennessee—whose stories show how quite ordinary citizens can band together to solve environmental problems. As they did, they redefined political participation and expanded the ability of citizens to shape their world.
Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor
Rutgers University Press
One of the most troubling but least studied features of mass political violence is why mass violence often recurs in the same place over long periods of time. Douglas Kammen explores this pattern in Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor, studying East Timor’s tragic past, and focusing on the small district of Maubara. This book combines an archival trail and rich oral interviews to reconstruct the history of the leading families of Maubara from 1712 until 2012.
Acting
Edited by Claudia Springer and Julie Levinson
Rutgers University Press
The chapters in Acting provide a fascinating, in-depth look at the history of film acting, from its inception in 1895 when spectators thrilled at the sight of vaudeville performers, wild-west stars, and athletes captured in motion to the present when audiences marvel at the seamless blend of human actors with CGI. In six original essays, the contributors to this volume illuminate the dynamic role of acting in the creation and evolving practices of the American film industry.
Running Dry
Essays on Energy, Water, and Environmental Crisis
Rutgers University Press
In Running Dry, historian Toby Jones explores the various ways that modern society’s unquenchable thirst for carbon-based energy is endangering water, particularly in the Western United States where there has been a rapid push to extract newfound energy resources alongside the accelerating loss or pollution of critical water resources.
The War of My Generation
Youth Culture and the War on Terror
Edited by David Kieran
Rutgers University Press
The War of My Generation is the first essay collection to focus specifically on how the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath have shaped the newest generation of Americans. Drawing on a variety of disciplines including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, and literary studies, the volume considers what cultural factors and products have shaped young people’s experience of the 9/11 attacks, the wars that have followed, and their experiences as emerging citizen-subjects.
Rutgers since 1945
A History of the State University of New Jersey
Rutgers University Press
In the 1940s, Rutgers was a small liberal arts college for men. Today, it is a major public research university, a member of the Big Ten and of the prestigious Association of American Universities. In Rutgers since 1945, historian Paul G. E. Clemens chronicles this remarkable transition from the cold war, to the student protests of the 1960s and 1970s, to the growth of political identity on campus, and to the increasing commitment to big-time athletics, all of which are just a few of the innumerable newsworthy elements that have driven Rutgers’s evolution.
Race and Retail
Consumption across the Color Line
Edited by Mia Bay and Ann Fabian
Rutgers University Press
Race and Retail documents the extent to which retail establishments, both past and present, have often catered to specific ethnic and racial groups. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the original essays collected here explore selling and buying practices of nonwhite populations around the world and the barriers that shape these habits, such as racial discrimination, food deserts, and gentrification.
Race and Retail
Consumption across the Color Line
Edited by Mia Bay and Ann Fabian
Rutgers University Press
Race and Retail documents the extent to which retail establishments, both past and present, have often catered to specific ethnic and racial groups. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the original essays collected here explore selling and buying practices of nonwhite populations around the world and the barriers that shape these habits, such as racial discrimination, food deserts, and gentrification.
Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries
By Ana Muñiz
Rutgers University Press
Based on five years of ethnography, archival research, census data analysis, and interviews, Police, Power, and the Production of Racial Boundaries reveals how the LAPD, city prosecutors, and business owners struggled to control who should be considered “dangerous” and how they should be policed in Los Angeles. Ana Muñiz shows how this influential group used policies and everyday procedures to criminalize behaviors commonly associated with blacks and Latinos and to promote an exceedingly aggressive form of policing.
My Fair Ladies
Female Robots, Androids, and Other Artificial Eves
By Julie Wosk
Rutgers University Press
Taking us on a fascinating tour across a wide variety of media, from sci-fi films to underwear ads, My Fair Ladies introduces us to a bevy of lifelike, manmade women, from automatons to artificial intelligent robots. Julie Wosk considers how this figure of the “perfect woman” has come to embody not only fantasies, but also fears about gender and technology. In addition, she examines how female artists have subverted these images of the artificial woman that loom so large over real women’s lives.
The Blacker the Ink
Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art
Edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings
Rutgers University Press
The Blacker the Ink is the first collection to explore not only the diverse range of black characters in comics, but also the multitude of ways that black artists, writers, and publishers have made a mark on the industry. The book’s fifteen original essays take us on a journey that includes familiar milestones like Luke Cage and The Boondocks, while spanning everything from African American newspaper comics of the 1930s to Francophone graphic novels of the 2000s.
The Blacker the Ink
Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art
Edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings
Rutgers University Press
The Blacker the Ink is the first collection to explore not only the diverse range of black characters in comics, but also the multitude of ways that black artists, writers, and publishers have made a mark on the industry. The book’s fifteen original essays take us on a journey that includes familiar milestones like Luke Cage and The Boondocks, while spanning everything from African American newspaper comics of the 1930s to Francophone graphic novels of the 2000s.
The Transatlantic Zombie
Slavery, Rebellion, and Living Death
Rutgers University Press
As our “most modern monster” and perhaps our most “American,” the zombie that is so prevalent in popular culture today has its roots in African soul capture mythologies. The Transatlantic Zombie provides a more complete history of the zombie than has ever been told, explaining how the myth’s migration to the New World was facilitated by the transatlantic slave trade, and reveals the real-world import of storytelling, reminding us of the power of myths and mythmaking, and the high stakes of appropriation and homage.
On Racial Icons
Blackness and the Public Imagination
Rutgers University Press
In On Racial Icons, Nicole R. Fleetwood focuses a sustained look on photography in documenting black public life, exploring the ways in which iconic images function as celebrations of national and racial progress at times or as a gauge of collective racial wounds in moments of crisis.
Jewish Peoplehood
An American Innovation
By Noam Pianko
Rutgers University Press
Jewish peoplehood has eclipsed religion—as well as ethnicity and nationality—as the prevailing definition of what it means to be a Jew. In Jewish Peoplehood, Noam Pianko examines the history, the current significance, and the future relevance of a term that assumes an increasingly important position in American Jewish and Israeli life.
Intersections of Harm
Narratives of Latina Deviance and Defiance
Rutgers University Press
In this innovative new study, Laura Halperin examines literary representations of harm inflicted on Latinas’ minds and bodies, and on the places Latinas inhabit, but she also explores how hope can be found amid so much harm. Analyzing contemporary memoirs and novels by Irene Vilar, Loida Maritza Pérez, Ana Castillo, Cristina García, and Julia Alvarez, she argues that the individual harm experienced by Latinas needs to be understood in relation to the collective histories of aggression against their communities.
Movie Migrations
Transnational Genre Flows and South Korean Cinema
Rutgers University Press
This timely new study reveals that, though South Korean popular culture might be enjoying new prominence on the global stage, the nation’s film industry has long been a hub for creative appropriations across national borders. Movie Migrations explores how Korean filmmakers have put a unique spin on familiar genres, while influencing world cinema from Hollywood to Bollywood.
Prison and Social Death
Rutgers University Press
A compelling blend of solidarity, civil rights activism, and social research, Prison and Social Death offers a unique look at the American prison and the excessive and unnecessary damage it inflicts on convicts and parolees. Joshua M. Price documents the “social death” that convicts suffer while incarcerated and afterward, drawing upon hundreds of often harrowing interviews conducted with prisoners, parolees, and their families.
Blaming the Poor
The Long Shadow of the Moynihan Report on Cruel Images about Poverty
Rutgers University Press
A leading authority on poverty and racism, Susan D. Greenbaum dismantles the main thesis of the Moynihan Report—that the so called matriarchal structure of the African American family “feminized black men,” resulting in a “tangle of pathology” that led to a host of ills, from teen pregnancy to adult crime. Drawing on extensive scholarship, Greenbaum debunks this infamous thesis while outlining more productive and humane policies to address the problems facing America today.
The Tragedy of the Commodity
Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture
Rutgers University Press
The Tragedy of the Commodity explores the role of human agency in the overfishing crisis, highlighting the social and economic forces behind this looming ecological problem. In a critique of the classic theory “the tragedy of the commons” by ecologist Garrett Hardin, the authors argue that it is the commodification of aquatic resources that leads to the depletion of fisheries and the development of environmentally suspect means of aquaculture.
Beautiful Terrible Ruins
Detroit and the Anxiety of Decline
By Dora Apel
Rutgers University Press
Detroit is the epicenter of an explosive growth in images of urban decay. In Beautiful Terrible Ruins, art historian Dora Apel explores a wide array of these images of ruin, ranging from photography, advertising, and television, to documentaries, video games, and zombie and disaster films. The author shows how, through the aesthetic distancing of representation, the beauty and fascination of these images helps us to cope with the overarching anxieties of our time.
Our Caribbean Kin
Race and Nation in the Neoliberal Antilles
Rutgers University Press
Our Caribbean Kin explores the extent to which Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans have imagined one another as part of the same big family, rallying against the forces of European colonialism, US imperialism, and neoliberalism. Drawing from a vast archive of texts, ranging from nineteenth-century political tracts to twenty-first-century online forums, Alaí Reyes-Santos considers both the benefits and the limits of these kinship tropes, uncovering the conflicts and internal hierarchies among Antilleans, while also discovering how they have created cohesion across differences.
Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India
Rutgers University Press
Valuing Deaf Worlds in Urban India analyzes how diverse deaf people become oriented toward each other and disoriented from their families and other kinship networks. Michele Friedner argues that the experiences of deaf people offer an important portrayal of contemporary self-making and sociality under new regimes of labor and economy in India. More broadly, this book explores how deafness, deaf sociality, and sign language relate to contemporary society.
The Bronx
The Ultimate Guide to New York City's Beautiful Borough
By Lloyd Ultan and Shelley Olson
Rutgers University Press
Use this handy, comprehensive illustrated guidebook to discover the often-overlooked rich cultural, historical, and natural attractions of the Bronx—one of the five boroughs of New York City. Author and foremost Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan and educator Shelley Olson provide detailed descriptions, information, and maps visitors need, including hours and directions, to enjoy both famous and lesser-known historic and architectural marvels, museums, art galleries, performance venues, gardens, parks, and recreation facilities.
The Price of Nuclear Power
Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice
Rutgers University Press
In The Price of Nuclear Power, environmental sociologist Stephanie Malin offers an on-the-ground portrait of several uranium communities caught between the harmful legacy of previous mining booms and the potential promise of new economic development. An insightful look at the local impact of the nuclear renaissance and community members’ shifting notions of environmental justice, this book warns that this industry needs to be closely followed to mitigate the social and environmental tensions inherent in the rebirth of uranium mining.
Taking the Heat
Women Chefs and Gender Inequality in the Professional Kitchen
By Deborah A. Harris and Patti Giuffre
Rutgers University Press
A number of recent books, magazines, and television programs have emerged that promise to take viewers inside the exciting world of professional chefs. While media suggest that the occupation is undergoing a transformation, one thing remains clear: being a chef is a decidedly male-dominated job. Taking the Heat examines how the world of professional chefs is gendered, what conditions have led to this gender segregation, and how women chefs feel about their work in relation to men.
Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture
Rutgers University Press
In Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture, Jennifer Ann Ho shines a light on the hybrid and indeterminate aspects of race, revealing ambiguity to be paramount to a more nuanced understanding both of race and of what it means to be Asian American. Ho argues that seeing race as ambiguous puts us one step closer to a potential antidote to racism.
The Forgotten Men
Serving a Life without Parole Sentence
Rutgers University Press
In The Forgotten Men, criminologist Margaret E. Leigey provides an insightful account of a group of inmates sentenced to life without parole. Imprisoned for at least twenty years, with virtually no chance of release, these men make up one of the most marginalized segments of the U.S. prison population. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-five such prisoners, Leigey describes how they struggle to construct meaningful lives and provides a much-needed analysis of the policies behind life-without-parole sentencing.
The Renewal of the Kibbutz
From Reform to Transformation
Rutgers University Press
The Renewal of the Kibbutz explores the waves of kibbutzim reforms since 1990. Looking through the lens of organizational theories that predict how open or closed a group will be to change, the authors find that the less successful kibbutzim were the most receptive to reform, and reforms then spread through imitation from the economically weaker kibbutzim to the strong. Survey data is used to understand which reforms were the most common and which were most successful.
Sound
Dialogue, Music, and Effects
Edited by Kathryn Kalinak
Rutgers University Press
Sound introduces key concepts, seminal moments, and pivotal figures in the development of cinematic sound, revealing the unseen work of film composers, Foley artists, elocution coaches, and many more. Each of the book’s six chapters cover a different era in the history of Hollywood, from silent films to the digital age, and each is written by an expert in that period. After you read Sound, you’ll never see—or hear—movies in quite the same way.
Shaky Foundations
The Politics-Patronage-Social Science Nexus in Cold War America
By Mark Solovey
Rutgers University Press
Shaky Foundations provides the first extensive examination of a new patronage system for the social sciences that emerged in the early Cold War years and took more definite shape during the 1950s and early 1960s. Focusing on the defense department, the Ford Foundation, and the National Science Foundation, Mark Solovey explores the struggles of these various funders to define what counted as legitimate social science and how their policies and programs helped to shape the goals, subject matter, methodologies, and social implications of academic social research in the nuclear age.
Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11
Horror, Exploitation, and the Cinema of Sensation
Rutgers University Press
Torture Porn in the Wake of 9/11 challenges the conventional wisdom about horror movies like Hostel and the Saw series. Aaron Kerner argues that, even as these films express anxieties and sadistic fantasies that have emerged from the War on Terror, they are rooted in a much longer tradition of American violence. He also reveals how the “torture porn” aesthetic has gone mainstream, popping up in everything from the television thriller Dexter to the reality show Hell’s Kitchen.
Film Criticism in the Digital Age
Edited by Mattias Frey and Cecilia Sayad
Rutgers University Press
Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that “everyone’s a critic,” urgent questions have emerged about the critic’s status and purpose. In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe, as well as critics and bloggers, come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the seeds of its rebirth in a new form.
Film Criticism in the Digital Age
Edited by Mattias Frey and Cecilia Sayad
Rutgers University Press
Now that well-paying jobs in film criticism have largely evaporated, while blogs, message boards, and social media have given new meaning to the saying that “everyone’s a critic,” urgent questions have emerged about the critic’s status and purpose. In Film Criticism in the Digital Age, ten scholars from across the globe, as well as critics and bloggers, come together to consider whether we are witnessing the extinction of serious film criticism or seeing the seeds of its rebirth in a new form.
Testing for Athlete Citizenship
Regulating Doping and Sex in Sport
Rutgers University Press
Incidents of doping in sports are common in news headlines, despite regulatory efforts. How did doping become a crisis? What does a doping violation actually entail? Who gets punished for breaking the rules of fair play? In Testing for Athlete Citizenship, Kathryn E. Henne, a former competitive athlete and expert in the law and science of anti-doping regulations, examines the development of sports governance aimed at controlling performance enhancement in international sports.
Techno-Orientalism
Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
Rutgers University Press
To judge from many speculative fiction films and books, the future will be full of cities that resemble Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and it will be populated mainly by cold, unfeeling citizens who act like robots. Techno-Orientalism investigates the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hyper-technological terms in literary, cinematic, and new media representations, while critically examining the stereotype of Asians as both technologically advanced and intellectually primitive, in dire need of Western consciousness-raising.
Techno-Orientalism
Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
Rutgers University Press
To judge from many speculative fiction films and books, the future will be full of cities that resemble Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and it will be populated mainly by cold, unfeeling citizens who act like robots. Techno-Orientalism investigates the phenomenon of imagining Asia and Asians in hypo- or hyper-technological terms in literary, cinematic, and new media representations, while critically examining the stereotype of Asians as both technologically advanced and intellectually primitive, in dire need of Western consciousness-raising.
The Cool and the Crazy
Pop Fifties Cinema
Rutgers University Press
In the 1950s, Hollywood made a variety of sensational movies meant to capitalize upon current events, moral panics, and popular fads. The Cool and the Crazy examines seven of the decade’s key film cycles, including short-lived trends like boxing and juvenile delinquency movies, as well as uniquely ‘50s takes on established genres like the Western. Delivering sharp critical insights in jazzy, accessible prose, Peter Stanfield offers an appreciation of cinema as a “pop” medium, unabashedly derivative, faddish, and ephemeral.
The Holocaust Averted
An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967
Rutgers University Press
In The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938–1967, Jeffrey Gurock imagines what might have happened to the Jewish community in the United States if the Holocaust had never occurred and challenges readers to contemplate how the road to acceptance and empowerment for today’s American Jews would have been harder than it actually was. As Gurock tells his tale, he concludes every chapter with a short section that describes what actually happened and, thus, further educates the reader.
Indian Spectacle
College Mascots and the Anxiety of Modern America
Rutgers University Press
Indian Spectacle explores the ways in which white, middle-class Americans have consumed narratives of masculinity, race, and collegiate athletics through the lens of Indian-themed athletic identities, mascots, and music. Drawing on a cross-section of American institutions of higher education, Guiliano investigates the role of sports mascots in the big business of twentieth-century American college football in order to connect mascotry to expressions of community identity, individual belonging, stereotyped imagery, and cultural hegemony.
The American Revolution in New Jersey
Where the Battlefront Meets the Home Front
Edited by James J. Gigantino
Rutgers University Press
Battles were fought in many colonies during the American Revolution, but New Jersey was home to more sustained and intense fighting over a longer period of time. The nine essays in The American Revolution in New Jersey, examine the many challenges New Jersey residents faced at the intersection of the front lines and the home front. Using a wide historical lens, the contributors capture the decades before and after the conflict as they interpret the causes of the war and the consequences of New Jersey’s reaction to the Revolution.
Mexico on Main Street
Transnational Film Culture in Los Angeles before World War II
Rutgers University Press
Mexico on Main Street takes us inside a forgotten world: the film culture that thrived within Los Angeles’s Mexican immigrant community in the early decades of the twentieth-century. Drawing from rare archives, Colin Gunckel demonstrates how these immigrants not only consumed Hollywood and Mexican films, but also produced fan publications, fiction, criticism, music, and live theatrical events. This book demonstrates how a site-specific study of cultural and ethnic issues challenges our existing conceptions of U.S. film history, Mexican cinema, and the history of Los Angeles.
Rediscover the Hidden New Jersey
Rutgers University Press
This revised edition contains new sections on Lawnside, the Morris Canal, Albert Einstein in Princeton, The Bordentown Manual Training School, Rockefeller/Ocean County Park, the bicycle railroad, Morro Castle, Alice Paul, and more.
The Road to Citizenship
What Naturalization Means for Immigrants and the United States
Rutgers University Press
In The Road to Citizenship, Sofya Aptekar analyzes what the process of becoming a citizen means for newly minted Americans and what it means for the United States as a whole. Examining the evolution of the discursive role of immigrants in the American society, immigrants’ own understandings of naturalization, and the growing inequality in who gets citizenship, Aptekar’s in-depth research uncovers considerable contradictions in the way naturalization works today. Aptekar contends that debates about immigration must be broadened beyond the current focus on borders and documentation to include larger questions about the definition of citizenship.
Shades of White Flight
Evangelical Congregations and Urban Departure
Rutgers University Press
In Shades of White Flight, sociologist Mark T. Mulder investigates a case of “white flight” where seven church congregations from one denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, left Chicago en masse in the 1960s and 70s and relocated their churches in nearby suburbs. Using a wealth of both archival and interview data, Mulder examines the migration of these Chicago church members, revealing how their churches not only failed to inhibit white flight, but actually facilitated the congregations’ departure.
Making Asian American Film and Video
History, Institutions, Movements
By Jun Okada
Rutgers University Press
Making Asian American Film and Video gives readers a unique behind-the-scenes look at the various institutions that have bankrolled and distributed the genre over the course of its fifty year evolution. Jun Okada explores how state-run media outlets like PBS served as crucial support for Asian American films, but also imposed limitations. In addition, she considers a number of Asian American filmmakers who have opted out of producing state-funded films, from Wayne Wang to Gregg Araki to Justin Lin.
Art Direction and Production Design
Edited by Lucy Fischer
Rutgers University Press
It is impossible to imagine filmmaking without an understanding of the contributions of art direction and production design. In Art Direction and Production Design, six outstanding scholars survey the careers of notable art directors, the influence of specific design styles, the key roles played by particular studios and films in shaping the field, the effect of technological changes on production design, and the shifts in industrial modes of organization.
The Things That Fly in the Night
Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora
Rutgers University Press
The Things That Fly in the Night explores images of vampirism in Caribbean and African diasporic folk traditions and in contemporary fiction. Giselle Anatol considers the explosion of soucouyant and other vampire narratives among writers of Caribbean and African heritage who in the past twenty years have rejected the demonic image of the character and used her instead to urge for female mobility, racial and cultural empowerment, and anti colonial resistance.
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