Covering a range of beloved television series from M*A*S*H to Mad Men, this book explores how historical sitcoms and dramas have depicted earlier parts of the twentieth century, while still reflecting the concerns of their own era—including the Vietnam War, civil rights movements, changing gender roles, and technological advancements.

Arguably the most brutal crime committed by the Japanese military during the Asia-Pacific war was the forced mobilization of 50,000 to 200,000 Asian women to military brothels to sexually serve Japanese soldiers. Korean “Comfort Women” explores Korean comfort women’s brutal experiences and their residual marriage, family, economic, and healthcare problems. It also examines the transnational redress movement, demonstrating that the Japanese government has tried to conceal the crime of sexual slavery by resolving the issue with money alone.  

When oil and gas exploration was expanding across Aotearoa, New Zealanders faced the typically distinct problems of oil spills, hydraulic fracturing, offshore exploration, climate fears, and disputes over unresolved Indigenous claims nearly simultaneously. Collectively, these grievances created the foundation for an organized civil society to construct and then magnify a comprehensive critical oil narrative--in dialogue, practice, and aspiration. Community advocates and socioecological activists mobilized for their health and well-being, for their neighborhoods and beaches, for Planet Earth and Planet Ocean, and for terrestrial and aquatic species and ecosystems. In this allied ethnography, quotes are used extensively to convey the tenor of some of the country’s most passionate and committed people. By analyzing the intersections of a social movement and the political economy of oil, Patricia Widener reveals a nuanced story of oil resistance and promotion at a time when many anti-drilling activists believed themselves to be on the front lines of the industry’s inevitable decline.
 

The Divine Institution provides an ethnographic account of how a theology of the family came to dominate a white evangelical tradition in the post-civil rights movement United States, providing a theological corollary to Religious Right politics.