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 1,111-1,140 of 2,552 items.
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.
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