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 2,101-2,130 of 2,552 items.

Are We One?

Jewish Identity in the United States and Israel

Rutgers University Press

What binds together Jews of Israel and the United States? Amid the hope and frustration generated by the Middle East peace process, the meaning of Jewish statehood is more vigorously contested than ever before. A secular democratic Israel, responsive to Western liberal values, is prepared to make peace with the Palestinians by sacrificing its own historic homeland. But a covenantal Israel, which draws its Jewish identity from divine promise and the biblical narrative, refuses to surrender to modern imperatives. As the very nature of Jewish statehood has become ever more polarized, American Jewish life has been profoundly affected by this fateful Zionist contradiction.

In Are We One? Jerold S. Auerbach presents a surprising new interpretation of this contemporary Jewish dilemma. The modern Jewish impulse to embrace Western values, he writes, exacts a terrible price. He offers a critical reassessment of Zionism, a challenging analysis of the sources of the identification of American Jews with Israel—and a gloomy prognosis of the future of Jewish life, both in Israel and the United States.

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Under the Mask

A Guide to Feeling Secure and Comfortable During Anesthesia and Surgery

Rutgers University Press

The author also helps you understand anesthesiology within the managed care system and explains what you can expect and what to do if you aren't getting what you need. This book enables you to make informed decisions regarding surgical anesthesia and subsequent pain control within the managed care system to protect your well-being and hasten your recovery.

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Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories

By Hisaye Yamamoto; Introduction by King-Kok Cheung
Rutgers University Press

Nineteen stories spanning Hisaye Yamamoto's forty-year career cover themes including the cultural conflicts between the first generation, the Issei, and their children, the Nisei; coping with prejudice; and the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.

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Women and Welfare

Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe

Rutgers University Press

 The social welfare state is believed by many to be one of the great achievements of Western democracy in the twentieth century. It institutionalized for the first time a collective commitment to improving individual life chances and social well-being. However, as we move into a new century, the social welfare state everywhere has come under increasing pressure, raising serious doubts about its survival.Featuring essays by experts from a variety of fields, including law, comparative politics, sociology, economics, cultural studies, philosophy, and political theory, Women and Welfarerepresents an interdisciplinary, multimethodological and multicultural feminist approach to recent changes in the welfare system of Western industrialized nations. The broad perspective, from the philosophical to the quantitative, provides an excellent overview of the subject and the most recent scholarly literature. The volume offers a crosscultural  analysis of welfare “reform” in the 1990s, visions of what a “woman-friendly” welfare state requires, and an examination of theoretical and policy questions feminists and concerned others should be asking.

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The Uncommon Vision of Sergei Konenkov, 1874-1971

A Russian Sculptor and His Times

Rutgers University Press

Sergei Konenkov was one of this century's most distinguished Russian artists. A celebrated sculptor, he was a leading figure of the young Soviet art establishment in the early 1920s. After spending over twenty years in the United States, he returned to the Soviet Union in 1945 to become a respected member of the Soviet art world. The mentor to an entire generation of Soviet sculptors, he was renowned for his personal charisma and artistic versatility. This collection of essays, interviews, and personal reminiscences is the first appraisal of his work and life published outside of Russia.

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Physics, the Human Adventure

From Copernicus to Einstein and Beyond

Rutgers University Press

This work is the third edition of the classic text Introduction to Concepts and Theories in Physical Science. It has been reworked to further clarify the physics concepts and to incorporate physical advances and research. The book shows the unifying power of science by bringing in connections to chemistry, astronomy and geoscience. In short, the aim of this edition is to teach good physics while presenting physical science as a human adventure that has become a major force in our civilization.

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Fashion, Desire and Anxiety

Image and Morality in the Twentieth Century

Rutgers University Press

Fashion, and the glossy magazines it inhabits, allow Western culture to dream. It permits a person to fantasize and to experiment with new identities. It flaunts glamour and success. Appearance becomes something to be perfected and admired. These dreams and freedoms, Rebecca Arnold proposes, are contradictory. Fashion and its surrounding imagery elicit fear and anxiety in their consumers as well as pleasure. Fashion has come to incorporate the underside of modern life, with violence and decay becoming a dominant theme in clothing design and photography. Generously illustrated, Fashion, Desire and Anxiety focuses on the last thirty years, from photographic works of the 1970s to the beginning of the twenty-first century.

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The Actor's Art

Conversations with Contemporary American Stage Performers

Rutgers University Press

The Actor’s Art conveys stories about numerous productions, insight about becoming and being an actor, and opinions about issues such as color-blind casting and the future of theatre. Together, these conversations form lively, thought-provoking sketches of such stars as Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, Ruby Dee, Julie Harris, Cherry Jones, James Earl Jones, Stacy Keach, Nathan Lane, and Jason Robards.  The Actor’s Art demonstrates the value of listening, and the pleasures of reading.

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Resistance of the Heart

Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany

Rutgers University Press

Who were these intermarried Germans? Why did Hitler and Goebbels give in to the protesters and release two thousand Jews? Resistance of the Heart is a powerful response to these questions. Using interviews with survivors and thousands of Nazi records never before examined in detail, Nathan Stoltzfus has reconstructed an inspiring story...

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Mothers and Children

Feminist Analyses and Personal Narratives

Edited by Susan Chase and Mary Rogers
Rutgers University Press

This feminist exploration of mothers, mothering, and motherhood combines evaluations of empirical and theoretical work with personal narratives by mothers or caregivers. While the authors' analyses yield suggestions for new approaches to motherhood, the narratives vividly demonstrate the relevance of these issues to women's lives. The result is a nuanced picture of the complex realities mothers face, as well as their struggles, joys, and hopes for their children.

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The Making of American Resorts

Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, and Lake George

Rutgers University Press

What factors create a successful resort? How did the rise of lavish hotels and spas reflect the changing values of American society as the nineteenth century progressed? Historians have argued that resorts were created to meet the demands of a leisured social elite. Theodore Corbett offers a fresh, compelling argument, demonstrating that resorts created and re-created themselves to keep pace with changing times. Success came with anticipating demands, not just reacting to them. The Making of American Resorts offers a window into shifting public values and the structure of commercial tourism.

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Headline Hollywood

A Century of Film Scandal

Rutgers University Press

Hollywood has long been associated with scandal--with covering it up, with managing its effects, and, in some cases, with creating and directing it. In putting together Headline Hollywood, Adrienne McLean and David Cook approach the relationship between Hollywood and scandal from a fresh perspective. The contributors consider some of the famous transgressions that shocked Hollywood and its audiences during the last century, and explore the changing meaning of scandal over time by zeroing in on issues of power: Who decides what crimes and misdemeanors should be circulated for public consumption and titillation? What makes a Hollywood scandal scandalous? What are the uses of scandal? 

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Bold Words

A Century of Asian American Writing

Edited by Rajini Srikanth
Rutgers University Press

A century of Asian American writing has generated a forceful cascade of "bold words." This anthology covers writings by Asian Americans in all genres, from the early twentieth century to the present. 

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Women and Borderline Personality Disorder

Symptoms and Stories

Rutgers University Press

In Women and Borderline Personality Disorder, Janet Wirth-Cauchon presents a feminist cultural analysis of the notions of “unstable” selfhood found in case narratives of women diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. 

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The Architecture of Bergen County, New Jersey

The Colonial Period to the Twentieth Century

Rutgers University Press

The Architecture of Bergen County, New Jersey presents an accessible overview of the county's architectural heritage and its historic structures. The volume explores the styles, trends, and events that influenced the design and setting of the region's buildings. More than 150 photos document Bergen County's architectural treasures, generating awareness and appreciation for these structures and their history.

The Architecture of Bergen County, New Jersey demonstrates the close association between architectural development at the national and local levels, and shows how social, technological, and political changes occurring within the county have been reflected in the building types and styles of the area.

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Recovering the Black Female Body

Self-Representation by African American Women

Rutgers University Press

Recovering the Black Female Body recognizes the pressing need to highlight through scholarship the vibrant energy of African American women’s attempts to wrest control of the physical and symbolic construction of their bodies away from the distortions of others.

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Labor's Text

The Worker in American Fiction

Rutgers University Press

Labor's Text charts how the worker has been portrayed and often misrepresented in American fiction. 

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Jean Toomer & Harlem Renaissance

Rutgers University Press

Jean Toomer's novel Cane has been hailed as the harbinger of the Harlem Renaissance and as a model for modernist writing, yet it eludes categorization and its author remains an enigmatic and controversial figure in American literature. The present collection of essays by European and American scholars gives a fresh perspective by using sources made available only in recent years, highlighting Toomer's bold experimentations, as well as his often ambiguous responses to the questions of his time.

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Good Sex

Feminist Perspectives from the World's Religions

Rutgers University Press

A collection of essays by scholars of religion, and women's studies, from a wide range of cultures, explore what feminists have to contribute to the understanding and embodiment of good sex in a globalized world.

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Cosmetic Surgery

The Cutting Edge of Commercial Medicine in America

Rutgers University Press

Cosmetic surgery is big business in America. With demand rising this medical practice has become a modern body custom. To explain the emergence and growth of this demand, Deborah A. Sullivan looks beyond the cultural imperatives of appearance and examines the market dynamics inherent in the business and politics of cosmetic surgery. In so doing, she also considers the effect of commercializaton on the medical profession.

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The Right Blood

America's Aristocrats in Thoroughbred Racing

Rutgers University Press

In The Right Blood, Carole Case examines the history of American thoroughbred racing, in particular the story behind the Jockey Club. Written for the general reader interested in the sport and its culture, The Right Blood is an engaging look behind the scenes of American horse racing.

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Recreating Motherhood

Rutgers University Press

Selling “genetically gifted” human eggs on the free market for a hefty price. In vitro fertilization. Fetal rights. Prenatal diagnosis. Surrogacy. All are instances of biomedical and social “advancements” with which we have become familiar in recent years. Yet these issues are often regarded as distinct or only loosely related under the rubric of reproduction.

Barbara Katz Rothman demonstrates how they form a complex whole that demands of us in response a woman-centered, class-sensitive way of understanding motherhood.

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Healing Narratives

Women Writers Curing Cultural Dis-ease

Rutgers University Press

In Healing Narratives, Gay Wilentz explores the relationship between culture and health. In close reading of works by five women writers - Toni Cade Bambara, Erna Broder, Leslie Marmon Silko, Keri Hulme, and Jo Sinclair-she traces the narrative and structural similarities of a main character moving form a state of mental or physical disease toward wellness through reconnection with her cultural traditions. 

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Daughters of Suburbia

Growing Up White, Middle Class, and Female

Edited by Lorraine Kenny
Rutgers University Press

White middle-class suburbia represents all that is considered "normal" in the United States, especially to the people who live its privileged life. Part ethnography, part cultural study, Daughters of Suburbia focuses on the lives of teenage girls from this world--the world of the Long Island, New York, middle school that author Lorraine Kenny once attended--to examine how standards of normalcy define gender, exercise power, and reinforce the cultural practices of whiteness.
 

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Tripping on the Color Line

Black-White Multiracial Families in a Racially Divided World

Rutgers University Press

Through in-depth interviews with individuals from black–white multiracial families, and insightful sociological analysis, Heather M. Dalmage examines the challenges faced by people living in such families and explores how their experiences demonstrate the need for rethinking race in America. She examines the lived reality of race in the ways multiracial family members construct and describe their own identities and sense of community and politics. Their lack of language to describe their multiracial existence, along with their experience of coping with racial ambiguity and with institutional demands to conform to a racially divided, racist system is the central theme of Tripping on the Color Line

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The Historical Film

History and Memory in Media

Edited by Marcia Landy
Rutgers University Press

What is history? How do we represent it? How do our notions of history change over time? The essays in The Historical Film: History and Memory in Media probe the roles that cinema and television play in altering and complicating our understanding of historical events. The book brings together representative examples of how both media critics and historians write about history as it is created and disseminated through film and television. The essays explore what is at stake culturally and politically in media history and how this form of history-making is different from traditional historiography. The volume is divided into four parts--Regarding History; History as Trauma; History, Fiction, and Postcolonial Memory; and History and Television--that progressively deepen our understanding of just how complex the issues are. 

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Circling Dixie

Contemporary Southern Culture through a Transatlantic Lens

Rutgers University Press

For Europeans looking across the Atlantic, American culture is often the site of desire, fascination, and envy. In Britain, the rich culture of the American South has made a particularly strong impact. Helen Taylor explores the ways in which contemporary Southern culture has been enthusiastically produced and reproduced in a British context. Taylor examines some of the South's most significant cultural exports in discussions that range across literature, music, film, television, theater, advertising, and tourism. 

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Iron, Nature's Universal Element

Why People Need Iron and Animals Make Magnets

Rutgers University Press

One of nature’s most dramatic mysteries—the migration of birds, turtle, salmon and other animals—depends on iron magnets. The bodies of some animals contain minute deposits of magnetite that are sensory navigators. Far reaching in scope, Iron, Nature’s Universal Element also looks at global issues including iron’s power over the earth’s oceans, vegetation, and populations; and the low-protein diets that lead to long-term cognitive damage in iron-deficient children in poor countries.

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Writing Himself Into History

Oscar Micheaux, His Silent Films, and His Audiences

Rutgers University Press

Writing Himself Into History is an eagerly anticipated analysis of the career and artistry surrounding the legendary Black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux. With the exception of Spike Lee, Micheaux is the most famous—and prolific—African American film director. Between 1918 and 1948 he made more than 40 “race pictures,” movies made for and about African Americans. A man of immense creativity, he also wrote seven novels

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The Olympics at the Millennium

Power, Politics, and the Games

Rutgers University Press

The Olympics at the Millennium offers groundbreaking essays that explore the cultural politics of the Games. The contributors investigate such topics as the emergence of women athletes as cultural commodities, the orchestrated spectacles of the opening and closing ceremonies, and the alternative sport culture offered via the Gay Games. Unforgettable events and decisions are discussed: Native American athlete Jim Thorpe winning—and losing—his two gold medals in 1912. Why America was one of the few countries to actually send Jewish athletes to the “Nazi Olympics.” The disqualification of champion Ewa Klobukowska from competing as a woman, due to chromosomal testing in 1967.

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