Luis F. B. Plascencia’s Disenchanting Citizenship explores two interrelated issues: U.S. citizenship and the Mexican migrants’ position in the United States. Through an extensive and multifaceted collection of interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, ethno-historical research, and public policy analysis, Plascencia probes the ways in which citizenship discourses are understood and taken up by individuals. The book uncovers citizenship’s root as a Janus-faced  construct that encompasses a simultaneous process of inclusion and exclusion. This notion of citizenship is mapped on to the migrant experience, arguing that the acquisition of citizenship can lead to disenchantment with the very status desired. Using the experience of Mexican migrants, Plascencia expands the understanding of the dynamics of U.S. citizenship as a form of membership and belonging.

Narrative Landmines explores how rumors fit into and extend narrative systems and ideologies, particularly in the context of terrorism, counter-terrorism, and extremist insurgencies.  Beyond face-to-face communication, this book also addresses the role of new and social media in the creation and spread of rumors. Its concern is to foster a more sophisticated understanding of how oral and digital cultures work alongside economic, diplomatic, and cultural factors that influence the struggles between states and non-state actors in the proverbial battle of hearts and minds.  By providing fresh data from Singapore, Iraq, and Indonesia, the authors make a compelling argument for understanding rumors in these contexts as “narrative IEDs”, weapons that can aid the extremist cause.

In The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking, Lisa Jarvinen focuses specifically on how Hollywood lost a lucrative international Spanish-speaking audience between 1929 and 1939, along with talent it had carefully nurtured in the United States. Employing studio records from Warner Bros., Fox Films, and United Artists, Jarvinen examines the lasting effects of the transition to sound on both Hollywood practices and cultural politics in the Spanish-speaking world. Using case studies based on archival research in the United States, Spain, and Mexico, she shows how language, as a key marker of cultural identity, led to new expectations from audiences and new possibilities for film producers.

In The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking, Lisa Jarvinen focuses specifically on how Hollywood lost a lucrative international Spanish-speaking audience between 1929 and 1939, along with talent it had carefully nurtured in the United States. Employing studio records from Warner Bros., Fox Films, and United Artists, Jarvinen examines the lasting effects of the transition to sound on both Hollywood practices and cultural politics in the Spanish-speaking world. Using case studies based on archival research in the United States, Spain, and Mexico, she shows how language, as a key marker of cultural identity, led to new expectations from audiences and new possibilities for film producers.

In Main Street and Empire, Ryan Poll argues that the small town, as evoked by the image of “Main Street,” is not a relic of the past but rather a metaphorical screen upon which the nation’s “everyday” stories and subjects are projected on both a national and global level. It brings together a wide range of literary, cultural, and political texts to examine how the small town is used to imagine and reproduce the nation throughout the twentieth- and into the twenty-first century.

In Emily Dickinson in Love, John Evangelist Walsh provides the first full-length work to solve this puzzle based wholly on documented facts and the poet’s own writings. He identifies the lover as Otis Lord, a friend of the poet’s father, and portrays the broad dimensions of their clandestine thirty-year romance.

Becoming Mexipino is a social-historical interpretation of two ethnic groups, one Mexican, the other Filipino, whose paths led both groups to San Diego, California from 1900 to 1965. Rudy Guevarra traces their earliest interactions under Spanish colonialism, when they did not strongly identify as Mexican or Filipino, to illustrate how these historical ties and cultural bonds laid the foundation for what would become close interethnic relationships and communities in twentieth-century San Diego as well as in other locales throughout California and the Pacific West Coast.

The Malthusian Moment locates the origins of modern American environmentalism in a twentieth-century revival of interest in Thomas Malthus’s theory of population growth, shedding new light on some of the big stories of postwar American life: the role of the federal government, urban and suburban problems, the Civil Rights and women’s movements, the role of scientists in a democracy, new attitudes about sex and sexuality, and the emergence of the “New Right.”

The Malthusian Moment locates the origins of modern American environmentalism in a twentieth-century revival of interest in Thomas Malthus’s theory of population growth, shedding new light on some of the big stories of postwar American life: the role of the federal government, urban and suburban problems, the Civil Rights and women’s movements, the role of scientists in a democracy, new attitudes about sex and sexuality, and the emergence of the “New Right.”

Overpotential charts the twists and turns in the ongoing quest to create the perfect fuel cell. By exploring the gap between the theory and practice of fuel cell power, Matthew N. Eisler opens a window into broader issues in the history of science, technology, and society after the Second World War, including the sociology of laboratory life, the relationship between academe, industry, and government in developing advanced technologies, the role of technology in environmental and pollution politics, and the rise of utopian discourse in science and engineering.

Many Americans were surprised following the attacks of 9/11 at how easily the United States embraced torture as well as the supposedly lesser evil of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Extraordinary rendition—sending people captured in the “war on terror” to nations long counted among the world’s worst human rights violators—hid from the public eye cruel and bloody interrogations. In Rendition to Torture, Alan W. Clarke explains how the United States adopted torture as a matter of official policy; how and why it turned to extraordinary rendition as a way to outsource more extreme, mutilating forms of torture; and outlines the steps the United States took to hide its abuses.

In the 1990s, American civil society got upended and reordered as many social, cultural, political, and economic institutions were changed forever. Pretty People examines a wide range of Hollywood icons who reflect how stardom in that decade was transformed as the nation itself, signaling significant changes to familiar ideas about gender, race, ethnicity, age, class, sexuality, and nationality.

Steven Gould Axelrod, Camille Roman, and Thomas Travisano continue the standard of excellence set in Volumes I and II of this extraordinary anthology. Volume III provides the most compelling and wide-ranging selection available of American poetry from 1950 to the present. Its contents are just as diverse and multifaceted as America itself and invite readers to view the world of poetry in the larger historical context of American culture. Nearly three hundred poems allow readers to explore canonical works by such poets as Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath, as well as song lyrics from such popular musicians as Bob Dylan and Queen Latifah.

The decade from 2000 to 2009 is framed, at one end, by the traumatic catastrophe of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and, at the other, by the election of the first African-American president of the United States. In between, the U.S. and the world witnessed the rapid expansion of new media and the Internet, such natural disasters as Hurricane Katrina, uprisings around the world, and a massive meltdown of world economies. In American Cinema of the 2000s, essays from ten top film scholars examine such popular series as the groundbreaking Matrix films and the gripping adventures of former CIA covert operative Jason Bourne; new, offbeat films like Juno; and the resurgence of documentaries like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. 

In The Battle for the B’s, Blair Davis analyzes how B-films were produced, distributed, and exhibited in the 1950s and demonstrates the new possibilities that existed for low-budget filmmaking at a time when many in Hollywood abandoned the B’s. B-movies innovated such industrial components as demographic patterns and marketing approaches, created such genres as science fiction and the teen-oriented films of the early and mid fifties, and led to the emergence of “New Poverty Row,” a movement now known as underground cinema.

In Honor Bound, David Leverenz argues that in the United States, the rise and decline of white people’s racial shaming reflects the rise and decline of white honor. To explore the implications of this argument, he casts an unusually wide net, from ancient and modern cultures of honor to social,  political, and military history to American literature and popular culture.

Genetics and the Unsettled Past considers the alignment of genetic science with commercial trends in genealogy, with legal and forensic developments, and with pharmaceutical innovation to examine how these trends lend renewed authority to biological understandings of race and history.  Essays by scholars across a wide range of disciplines—biology, history, cultural studies, law, medicine, anthropology, ethnic studies, sociology—explore the emerging and often contested connections among race, DNA, and history.

The New Jew in Film is grounded in the study of over three hundred films from Hollywood and beyond. Nathan Abrams explores these new and changing depictions of Jews, Jewishness, and Judaism, providing a wider, more representative picture of this transformation. Chapters explore masculinity, femininity, passivity, agency, and religion as well as a departure into new territory—including bathrooms and food.  Abrams reveals how the representation of the Jew is used to convey confidence or anxieties about Jewish identity and history as well as questions of racial, sexual, and gender politics.

Narrative Landmines explores how rumors fit into and extend narrative systems and ideologies, particularly in the context of terrorism, counter-terrorism, and extremist insurgencies.  Beyond face-to-face communication, this book also addresses the role of new and social media in the creation and spread of rumors. Its concern is to foster a more sophisticated understanding of how oral and digital cultures work alongside economic, diplomatic, and cultural factors that influence the struggles between states and non-state actors in the proverbial battle of hearts and minds.  By providing fresh data from Singapore, Iraq, and Indonesia, the authors make a compelling argument for understanding rumors in these contexts as “narrative IEDs”, weapons that can aid the extremist cause.

Valerie Leiter argues that there are crucial missing links between federal disability policies and youth’s lives. Her argument is based on thorough examination of federal disability policy and interviews with young people with disabilities, their parents, and rehabilitation professionals. Attention is given to the diversity of expectations, the resources available to them, and the impact of federal policy and public and private attitudes on their transition to adulthood.

Cultural Genocide establishes a theoretical basis for understanding why groups can be readily brought to seek the elimination of out-groups using the tactic of cultural destruction. Lawrence Davidson applies his theory to four uses of cultural genocide, with two pre-Holocaust case studies and two post-Holocaust case studies. He examines the mechanisms that may be used to combat today’s cultural genocide as well as the contemporary social and political forces at work that must be overcome in the process.

In Transatlantic Spectacles of Race, Kimberly Manganelli argues that the tragic mulatta and tragic muse, who have heretofore been read separately, must be understood as two sides of the same phenomenon. Bringing together an impressive array of cultural texts that includes novels, melodramas, travel narratives, diaries, and illustrations, the book reveals the value of transcending literary, national, and racial boundaries.

In Transatlantic Spectacles of Race, Kimberly Manganelli argues that the tragic mulatta and tragic muse, who have heretofore been read separately, must be understood as two sides of the same phenomenon. Bringing together an impressive array of cultural texts that includes novels, melodramas, travel narratives, diaries, and illustrations, the book reveals the value of transcending literary, national, and racial boundaries.

Inspired by a stirring e-mail exchange with his father, award-winning essayist and cultural commentator , Ilan Stavans decided to do something bizarre: revisit his hometown, Mexico City, accompanied by a tour guide.  With the same linguistic verve and insight that has made him one of the most distinguished voices in American literature today, Ilan Stavans invites readers along for a personal journey that is not only his own, but that of an entire culture. Return to Centro Histórico makes it possible for readers to understand the intimate role that Jews have played in the devleopment of Hispanic civilzation.

Space and Place in Jewish Studies embraces how notions of “Jewish space,” diaspora, and home continue to resonate within contemporary discourse, bringing space to the foreground as a practical and analytical category. Barbara Mann takes us on a journey from medieval Levantine trade routes to the Eastern European shtetl to the streets of contemporary New York, introducing readers to the variety of ways in which Jews have historically formed communities and created a sense of place for themselves. Combining cutting-edge theory with rabbinics, anthropology, and literary analysis, Mann offers a fresh take on the Jewish experience.

On any given night in living rooms across America, women gather for a fun girls’ night out to eat, drink, and purchase the latest products. Offering a new approach to a flexible work model, Direct Home Sales companies tell women they can, in fact, have it all and not feel guilty. In DHS, work time is not measured by the hands of the clock, but by the emotional fulfillment and fun it brings. Drawing from numerous interviews with consultants and observations at company-sponsored events, Paid to Party takes a closer look at how Direct Home Sales promises to change the way we think and feel about the struggles of balancing work and family.

The very question of “what do Jews think about the goyim” has fascinated Jews and Gentiles, anti-Semites and philo-Semites alike. MThis critical look at the origins of Jewish liberalism in America provides a more complicated and nuanced picture of the Americanization process. Gentile New York examines these newcomers’ evolving feelings toward non-Jews through four critical decades in the American Jewish experience. Gil Ribak considers how they perceived Gentiles in general as well as such different groups as “Yankees” (a common term in many Yiddish sources), Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, and African Americans.

New Constellations: Movie Stars of the 1960s tells the story of the final glory days of the studio system and changing conceptions of stardom, considering such Hollywood icons as Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman alongside such hallmarks of youth culture as Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman. Others, like Sidney Poitier and Peter Sellers, took advantage of the developing independent and international film markets to craft truly groundbreaking screen personae. And some were simply “famous for being famous,” with celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor and Edie Sedgwick paving the way for today’s reality stars.

New Constellations: Movie Stars of the 1960s tells the story of the final glory days of the studio system and changing conceptions of stardom, considering such Hollywood icons as Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman alongside such hallmarks of youth culture as Mia Farrow and Dustin Hoffman. Others, like Sidney Poitier and Peter Sellers, took advantage of the developing independent and international film markets to craft truly groundbreaking screen personae. And some were simply “famous for being famous,” with celebrities like Zsa Zsa Gabor and Edie Sedgwick paving the way for today’s reality stars.

Dorothy West’s Paradise captures the scope of the author’s long life and career, reading it alongside the unique cultural geography of Oak Bluffs and its history as an elite African American enclave—a place that West envisioned both as a separatist refuge and as a space for interracial contact. An essential book for both fans of West’s fiction and students of race, class, and American women’s lives, Dorothy West’s Paradise offers an intimate biography of an important author and a privileged glimpse into the society that shaped her work.

Stephen Prince argues for an understanding of digital technologies as an expanded toolbox, available to enhance both realist films and cinematic fantasies. He offers a detailed exploration of each of these tools, from lighting technologies to image capture to stereoscopic 3D. Integrating aesthetic, historical, and theoretical analyses of digital visual effects, Digital Visual Effects in Cinema is an essential guide for understanding movie-making today.

William Scott’s Troublemakers explores how a major change in the nature and forms of working-class power affected novels about U.S. industrial workers in the first half of the twentieth century. Analyzing portrayals of workers in such novels as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Ruth McKenney’s Industrial Valley, and Jack London’s The Iron Heel, William Scott moves beyond narrow depictions of these laborers to show their ability to resist exploitation through their direct actions—sit-down strikes, sabotage, and other spontaneous acts of rank-and-file “troublemaking” on the job—often carried out independently of union leadership.

Claire Sisco King offers an in-depth study of three prominent cycles of Hollywood films that follow the sacrificial narrative: the early–to–mid 1970s, the mid–to–late 1990s, and the mid–to–late 2000s. From Vietnam-era disaster movies to post-9/11 apocalyptic thrillers, she examines how each film represents traumatized American masculinity and national identity. What she uncovers is a cinematic tendency to position straight white men as America’s most valuable citizens—and its noblest victims.