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 1,001-1,040 of 2,552 items.

Dads, Kids, and Fitness

A Father's Guide to Family Health

Rutgers University Press

This book challenges dads to become more health-conscious in how they live and raise their children. William Marsiglio draws from revealing interviews with a diverse sample of dads and pediatric healthcare professionals, as well as his own unique personal experiences, to provide constructive advice for fathers and the institutions that might support them. Dads, Kids, and Fitness breathes new life into discussions about fathering and manhood, while adding a fresh dimension to the conversation about public health. 

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Costume, Makeup, and Hair

Rutgers University Press

From the Behind the Silver Screen series, Costume, Makeup, and Hair charts the development of these three crafts in the American film industry from the 1890s to the present. Each chapter examines a different era, revealing how these artistic fields have fostered creative collaboration and improvisation, often fashioning striking looks and ingenious effects out of limited materials, while continually adapting to new technologies, fashions, and economic conditions.  

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Never Done

A History of Women’s Work in Media Production

Rutgers University Press

Never Done introduces generations of women who worked behind the scenes in the film industry—from dressmakers to secretaries to script readers. Challenging the dismissive characterization of these women as merely menial workers, media historian Erin Hill shows how their labor required considerable technical and interpersonal skills. As it pores through rare archives and integrates the firsthand accounts of women employed in the film industry, this book gives a voice to women whose work was indispensable yet largely invisible.

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Never Done

A History of Women's Work in Media Production

Rutgers University Press

Never Done introduces generations of women who worked behind the scenes in the film industry—from dressmakers to secretaries to script readers. Challenging the dismissive characterization of these women as merely menial workers, media historian Erin Hill shows how their labor required considerable technical and interpersonal skills. As it pores through rare archives and integrates the firsthand accounts of women employed in the film industry, this book gives a voice to women whose work was indispensable yet largely invisible.

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Reichsrock

The International Web of White-Power and Neo-Nazi Hate Music

Rutgers University Press

Reichsrock shines a light on the international white-power music industry, the fandom it has spawned, and the virulently racist beliefs it perpetuates. Kirsten Dyck investigates how white-power bands and their fans have used the internet to spread their message worldwide, while closely examining distinctly local white-power scenes in the United States, England, Germany, Russia, Greece, and Latin America. Tracking the very real violence this music fandom has sparked, she sounds an urgent message about a global menace.

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The Other Air Force

U.S. Efforts to Reshape Middle Eastern Media Since 9/11

Rutgers University Press

As it seeks to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world, the United States has poured millions of dollars into local television and radio programming. However, as this fascinating new book shows, the Middle Eastern media producers who rely on these funds are hardly puppets on an American string, but instead contribute their own political and artistic agendas. The Other Air Force reveals the remarkable creative output that can emerge even from the world’s tensest conflict zones.

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From Workshop to Waste Magnet

Environmental Inequality in the Philadelphia Region

Rutgers University Press

From Workshop to Waste Magnet presents Philadelphia’s environmental history as a bracing case study in mismanagement and injustice. Tracing the complex interactions among economic decline, federal regulations, local politics, and shifting ethnic demographics, sociologist Diane Sicotte uncovers how only a few communities came to host many types of polluting or waste disposal land uses. What she finds reveals the devastation that occurs when mass quantities of society’s wastes mix with toxic levels of systemic racism and inequality.

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Saving Face

The Emotional Costs of the Asian Immigrant Family Myth

Rutgers University Press

The Asian immigrant family myth celebrates Asian families for upholding the traditional heteronormative ideal of the “normal (white) American family” yet also demonizes them for reinforcing oppressive and backwards cultural values. Saving Face cuts through these myths, offering a more nuanced portrait of Asian immigrant families in a changing world. Angie Y. Chung examines how the grown children of Korean and Chinese immigrants emotionally negotiate the complex and conflicted feelings they have toward their family responsibilities and upbringing through new modes of love, communication, and caregiving.

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Fantasies of Neglect

Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction

Rutgers University Press

From Harriet the Spy to Hugo Cabret, American popular culture is filled with fictional children who journey through cities, unsupervised by adults. Fantasies of Neglect explains how this trope of the self-sufficient urban child originated and considers why it persists, even in the era of stranger danger and helicopter parenting. Drawing from a wide range of films, novels, and sociological texts, Pamela Robertson Wojcik investigates how cities have been central to how Americans imagine the freedom and neglect of children.

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Imagining Asia in the Americas

Rutgers University Press

Imagining Asia in the Americas investigates the myriad ways that Asians throughout North and South America use language, literature, religion, commerce, and other practices to establish a sense of community and negotiate between their native and adopted cultural identities. Drawing from a rich array of source materials, including texts in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Gujarati that have never before been translated into English, this groundbreaking work opens up a conversation between various Asian communities within the Americas and beyond.

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Imagining Asia in the Americas

Rutgers University Press

Imagining Asia in the Americas investigates the myriad ways that Asians throughout North and South America use language, literature, religion, commerce, and other practices to establish a sense of community and negotiate between their native and adopted cultural identities. Drawing from a rich array of source materials, including texts in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Gujarati that have never before been translated into English, this groundbreaking work opens up a conversation between various Asian communities within the Americas and beyond.

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Gender Violence in Peace and War

States of Complicity

Rutgers University Press

This powerful new book argues that violence against women should be understood as a systemic problem—one for which the state must be held accountable. The essays in Gender Violence in Peace and War examine a variety of cases where the state facilitates, legitimates, or perpetuates violence against women—a continuum that ranges from state-sponsored rape and torture in Guatemala, Indonesia, and Kenya to lax prosecution of domestic violence and sex trafficking in Russia and the United States.

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Gender Violence in Peace and War

States of Complicity

Rutgers University Press

This powerful new book argues that violence against women should be understood as a systemic problem—one for which the state must be held accountable. The essays in Gender Violence in Peace and War examine a variety of cases where the state facilitates, legitimates, or perpetuates violence against women—a continuum that ranges from state-sponsored rape and torture in Guatemala, Indonesia, and Kenya to lax prosecution of domestic violence and sex trafficking in Russia and the United States.

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Envisioning New Jersey

An Illustrated History of the Garden State

Rutgers University Press

Envisioning New Jersey brings together over 650 spectacular images that illuminate the course of New Jersey history, from prehistoric times to the present. Maxine N. Lurie and Richard F. Veit, two leading authorities on New Jersey history, present here a smorgasbord of informative pictures that capture the amazing transformation of New Jersey over time.

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Envisioning the Faculty for the Twenty-First Century

Moving to a Mission-Oriented and Learner-Centered Model

Rutgers University Press

The institution of tenure—once a cornerstone of American colleges and universities—is rapidly eroding. Envisioning the Faculty for the Twenty-First Century weighs the concerns of university administrators, professors, adjuncts, and students in order to investigate whether there are ways to modify the existing system or promote new faculty models without shortchanging students or cheapening the mission of academia. It also examines the opportunities these systemic changes might create, offering universities a guide for responding to the rapidly evolving needs of an increasingly global society. 

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The Writers

A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild

Rutgers University Press

The Writers is the only comprehensive qualitative analysis of the history of writers and writing in the film, television, and streaming media industries in America. Featuring in-depth interviews with over fifty writers—including Mel Brooks, Norman Lear, Carl Reiner, and Frank Pierson—The Writers delivers a compelling, behind-the-scenes look at the role and rights of writers in Hollywood and New York over the past century.

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Lessons in Leadership

Rutgers University Press

In this practical guide, Emmy Award-winning public broadcasting anchor Steve Adubato teaches readers to be self-aware, empathetic, and more effective leaders at work and at home. With Lessons in Leadership, readers can learn to lead others through difficult economic times, to mentor rising leaders, to provide straight talk to underperforming employees, and even how to lead a company through a significant change. 

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Aphrodite's Daughters

Three Modernist Poets of the Harlem Renaissance

Rutgers University Press

Aphrodite’s Daughters introduces us to Angelina Weld Grimké, Gwendolyn B. Bennett, and Mae V. Cowdery, African American poetic iconoclasts who viewed the female body as a source of strength and transcendence as they pioneered forthright modes of erotic self-expression during the Harlem Renaissance. Drawing from their published and unpublished poetry, along with rare periodicals and biographical materials, Maureen Honey immerses us in the lives of these remarkable women and the world in which they lived.   

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Editing and Special/Visual Effects

Rutgers University Press

Editing and Special/Visual Effects brings together a diverse range of film scholars who trace how the arts of editing and effects have evolved in tandem. Starting with the “trick films” of the early silent era, they demonstrate the key role these two crafts have played in cinematic history. Along the way, readers learn about a variety of filmmaking techniques, from classic Hollywood’s rear projection and matte shots to the fast cuts and wall-to-wall CGI of the contemporary blockbuster. 

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Styling Masculinity

Gender, Class, and Inequality in the Men's Grooming Industry

Rutgers University Press

Styling Masculinity investigates the economic and social relations at the heart of the growing multi-billion-dollar male grooming industry. Conducting detailed observations at two upscale men’s salons, Kristen Barber explores both how male customers are encouraged to invest in their appearance and how female employees do much of the work—not only the physical labor of snipping, tweezing, waxing, and exfoliating, but also the emotional labor of pampering their clients and pumping up their masculine egos.

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Selling Science

Polio and the Promise of Gamma Globulin

Rutgers University Press

In Selling Science, medical historian Stephen E. Mawdsley recounts the untold story of the first large clinical trial to control polio, using 55,000 healthy children. The value of the proposed experiment was questioned by many prominent health professionals, but as Mawdsley points out, compromise and coercion moved it forward. He shows that at a time when most Americans trusted scientists, their mutual encounter under the auspices of conquering disease was shaped by politics, marketing, and at times, deception.

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Monstrous Progeny

A History of the Frankenstein Narratives

Rutgers University Press

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is itself a monster, a mythos that will not die, a corpus that keeps getting harvested for parts to animate new artistic creations. Monstrous Progeny takes readers on a fascinating exploration of the Frankenstein family tree, tracing the novel’s literary and intellectual roots, analyzing the evolution of the Frankenstein figures and themes, and examining the tale’s continued relevance to modern debates about bioethics, artificial intelligence, and the limits of scientific progress.

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Militant Visions

Black Soldiers, Internationalism, and the Transformation of American Cinema

Rutgers University Press

Uncovering a whole generation of militant Black characters onscreen long before Shaft or Sweetback, Militant Visions examines the depiction of African American soldiers in films from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the process, it reveals how the image of the proud and powerful African American soldier was crafted by an unexpected alliance of government propagandists, activists, and Black filmmakers. 

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The New Jewish Diaspora

Russian-Speaking Immigrants in the United States, Israel, and Germany

Edited by Zvi Gitelman
Rutgers University Press

The New Jewish Diaspora is the first English-language study of nearly two million Jews who emigrated from the former Soviet Union and examines the marks they have made on the social and political terrain of the United States, Israel, and Germany. An international array of experts on the Russian-speaking Jewish diaspora from a variety of disciplines explore the diverse ways these immigrants have adapted to their new environments, and identify the common cultural bonds that continue to unite them. 

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Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism

Rutgers University Press

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, writer-artist Frank Miller turned Daredevil from a tepid-selling comic to an industry-wide success story, then left to establish a renowned and controversial career. A childhood fan of the comic, media scholar Paul Young presents a rigorous study of the artist’s influences and innovations, an examination of how Miller’s vision impacted the comics industry, and a reflection on how Daredevil taught him about the creative possibilities of comics while shaking his faith in superheroes.

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Holocaust

An American Understanding

Rutgers University Press

In Holocaust: An American Understanding, Deborah E. Lipstadt reveals how since the end of the war a broad array of Americans have tried to make sense of an inexplicable disaster, and how they came to use the Holocaust as a lens to interpret their own history. Drawing upon extensive research on politics, popular culture, student protests, religious debates and Zionist ideologies, Lipstadt weaves a powerful narrative that ranges from the civil rights movement and Vietnam, to the Rwandan genocide and the bombing of Kosovo.

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The Psychic Hold of Slavery

Legacies in American Expressive Culture

Rutgers University Press

What would it mean to “get over slavery”? Is such a thing possible? Is it even desirable? To explore these questions, The Psychic Hold of Slavery assembles a diverse collection of literary and film critics, philosophers, and cultural theorists. With a painful awareness that our understanding of the past informs our understanding of the present—and vice versa—the contributors place slavery’s historical legacies in conversation with twenty-first-century manifestations of antiblack violence, dehumanization, and social death.   

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The Psychic Hold of Slavery

Legacies in American Expressive Culture

Rutgers University Press

What would it mean to “get over slavery”? Is such a thing possible? Is it even desirable? To explore these questions, The Psychic Hold of Slavery assembles a diverse collection of literary and film critics, philosophers, and cultural theorists. With a painful awareness that our understanding of the past informs our understanding of the present—and vice versa—the contributors place slavery’s historical legacies in conversation with twenty-first-century manifestations of antiblack violence, dehumanization, and social death.   

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Drawing the Iron Curtain

Jews and the Golden Age of Soviet Animation

Rutgers University Press

Drawing the Iron Curtain tells the story of the golden age of Soviet animation and the Jewish artists who enabled it to thrive. Maya Balakirsky Katz reveals how the state-run animation studio Soyuzmultfilm served as an unlikely haven for political dissidents and brought together Jewish creative personnel from across the land. These artists used the studio to depict distinctive elements of their heritage and ethnic identity, while articulating a cosmopolitan sensibility and a multicultural vision for the Soviet Union.

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Living Class in Urban India

Rutgers University Press

Sara Dickey considers how urban Indians’ notions of class and caste are rapidly transforming in the wake of globalization. Introducing the reader to four residents in the city of Madurai from varied backgrounds, she documents their palpable day-to-day experiences of class. By analyzing the intertwined symbolic and economic importance of phenomena like wedding ceremonies, religious practices, and loan arrangements, Dickey’s study reveals the material consequences of local class identities.  

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From the Edge

Chicana/o Border Literature and the Politics of Print

Rutgers University Press

From the Edge reveals the tangled textual histories behind some of the most cherished works in the Chicana/o literary canon, tracing the contentious negotiations between authors, editors, and publishers that determined how these books appeared in print. In this groundbreaking examination of the politics of print culture, Allison Fagan demonstrates how the texts surrounding the authors’ words—from editorial prefaces to Spanish-language glossaries, from reviewers’ blurbs to readers’ marginalia—have crucially shaped the reception of Chicana/o literature.

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Transplanting Care

Shifting Commitments in Health and Care in the United States

Rutgers University Press

Transplanting Care examines the daily lives of midwestern organ transplant patients and their caregivers, from pretransplant preparations through to the long posttransplant recovery. Drawing on scores of interviews with patients, relatives, and healthcare professionals, Laura L. Heinemann follows a variety of patients and loved ones as they undertake this difficult “transplant journey” while coping with a paucity of resources for caregiving.

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Sex Offenders, Stigma, and Social Control

Rutgers University Press

In Sex Offenders, Stigma, and Social Control, Diana Rickard provides the reader with an in-depth view of six sex offenders, exploring how they manage to cope with their highly stigmatized role as social outcasts. The book explores how these individuals construct their sense of self. By placing their stories within the context of the current culture of mass incarceration and zero-tolerance, Rickard provides a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between public policy and lived experience. 

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Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Ellen Lewin and Leni M. Silverstein; Epilogue by Tom Boellstorff; Introduction by Ellen Lewin and Leni M. Silverstein; Preface by Rayna Rapp
Rutgers University Press

Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century provides an historical and theoretical overview of feminist anthropology’s origins, the transformation it has undergone, and the vital contributions it continues to make to cutting-edge scholarship. Chronicling the impact feminist anthropologists have made on a wide range of academic fields, from science and technology studies to queer theory, it also reveals the important role they have played in global campaigns against human rights abuses, domestic violence, and environmental degradation.

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Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century

Edited by Ellen Lewin and Leni M. Silverstein; Epilogue by Tom Boellstorff; Introduction by Ellen Lewin and Leni M. Silverstein; Preface by Rayna Rapp
Rutgers University Press

Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century provides an historical and theoretical overview of feminist anthropology’s origins, the transformation it has undergone, and the vital contributions it continues to make to cutting-edge scholarship. Chronicling the impact feminist anthropologists have made on a wide range of academic fields, from science and technology studies to queer theory, it also reveals the important role they have played in global campaigns against human rights abuses, domestic violence, and environmental degradation.

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After Capitalism

Horizons of Finance, Culture, and Citizenship

Rutgers University Press

After Capitalism brings together leading scholars from across the academy to offer competing perspectives on capitalism’s past incarnations, present conditions, and possible futures. Analyzing global trends from real estate bubbles to debt relief protests, this book also closely examines economic conditions in locales as varied as Cuba, India, and Latvia. Collectively, these essays raise provocative questions about how we should imagine capitalism in the twenty-first century. 

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Southwest Asia

The Transpacific Geographies of Chicana/o Literature

Rutgers University Press

Southwest Asia investigates why key Chicana/o writers, from the 1950s to the present day, have persistently referenced Asian people and places in the course of articulating their political ideas. Raising concerns about how these texts invariably marginalize their Asian characters and suggesting that darker legacies of imperialism and exclusion might lurk beneath their utopian visions of a Chicana/o nation, Jayson Gonzales Sae-Saue takes our conception of Chicana/o literature as a transnational movement in a new direction.

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Looking Back on the Vietnam War

Twenty-first-Century Perspectives

Rutgers University Press

Looking Back on the Vietnam War embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why. Each essay examines a different facet of the Vietnam War, offering fresh insights on the war’s long-term psychological, social, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. By putting these diverse pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies.

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Looking Back on the Vietnam War

Twenty-first-Century Perspectives

Rutgers University Press

Looking Back on the Vietnam War embarks on an interdisciplinary and international investigation to discover what we remember about the war, how we remember it, and why. Each essay examines a different facet of the Vietnam War, offering fresh insights on the war’s long-term psychological, social, artistic, political, and environmental impacts. By putting these diverse pieces together, the contributors assemble an expansive yet nuanced composite portrait of the war and its global legacies.

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New Brunswick, New Jersey

The Decline and Revitalization of Urban America

Rutgers University Press

Using oral histories, archival materials, census data, and surveys, New Brunswick, New Jersey illuminates the factors that led to New Brunswick’s dramatic revitalization, describing the major redevelopment projects that exemplify the city’s success in capitalizing on funding opportunities. Shining a light on both the successes and failures, the authors underscore the lessons to be learned for national urban policy, highlighting the value of partnerships, unwavering commitment, and local leadership. 
 

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