Weekly Book List, June 10, 2016

AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES

Radical Aesthetics and Modern Black Nationalism by GerShun Avilez (University of Illinois Press; 215 pages; $95 hardcover, $28 paperback). Foregrounds issues of sexuality and gender in a discussion of the experimentation and ongoing influence of the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and 70s.

Sex Workers, Psychics, and Numbers Runners: Black Women in New York City’s Underground Economy by LaShawn Harris (University of Illinois Press; 260 pages; $95 hardcover, $28 paperback). A study of black women in three niches of the informal urban economy during the first three decades of the 20th century.

ANTHROPOLOGY

Crossing the Gulf: Love and Family in Migrant Lives by Pardis Mahdavi (Stanford University Press; 208 pages; $85 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Focuses on the Gulf cities of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Kuwait City in a study of the transnational lives of migrant workers and their families; pays particular attention to women.

ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeology in South Carolina: Exploring the Hidden Heritage of the Palmetto State edited by Adam King (University of South Carolina Press; 249 pages; $39.99). Topics include Paleoindian and other indigenous cultures, as well as colonial plantations, 17th- and 18th-century Charleston, and underwater archaeological research on Civil War vessels.

Diversity of Sacrifice: Form and Function of Sacrificial Practices in the Ancient World and Beyond edited by Carrie Ann Murray (State University of New York Press; 276 pages; $95). Writings by scholars in archaeology, anthropology, theology, and other fields on sacrificial practices in a wide range of cultures from prehistoric times to the present; topics include prehistoric Sweden, Germany, and Spain, and ancient Carthage, Egypt, Greece, and Etruscan Italy.

The Saratoga Campaign: Uncovering an Embattled Landscape edited by William A. Griswold and Donald W. Linebaugh (University Press of New England; 268 pages; $27.95). Research by archaeologists, material culture scholars, historians, and others that sheds new light on the pivotal Revolutionary War battles.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

Radicalism in the Wilderness: International Contemporaneity and 1960s Art in Japan by Reiko Tomii (MIT Press; 293 pages; $36.95). A study of 1960s artists who worked away from Tokyo and outside traditional norms, with a focus on Matsuzawa Yutaka, The Play collective, and GUN (Group Ultra Niigata).

BIOLOGY

Multicellularity: Origins and Evolution edited by Karl J. Niklas and Stuart A. Newman (MIT Press; 302 pages; $54.95). Writings in theoretical biology that focus on the evolution of multicellularity from unicellular organisms; topics include Porifera or sponges as a link between colonial protists and true complete multicellular animals.

CLASSICAL STUDIES

The Athenian Adonia in Context: The Adonis Festival as Cultural Practice by Laurialan Reitzammer (University of Wisconsin Press; 288 pages; $65). Explores expressions of female dissent in an annual festival mourning the death of Aphrodite’s consort Adonis; discusses the ritual as a template for Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and Plato’s Phaedrus.

A New Work by Apuleius: The Lost Third Book of the “De Platone” edited and translated by Justin A. Stover (Oxford University Press; 216 pages; $115). Facing edition and translation, with commentary, of a summary of 14 of Plato’s dialogues here attributed to the second-century Latin writer.

The Religious Worlds of the Laity in Late Antique Gaul by Lisa Kaaren Bailey (Bloomsbury Academic; 247 pages; $120). Draws on archaeological, textual, and other sources in a study of how lay Christianity was defined and experienced in the region.

COMMUNICATION

Asian American Media Activism: Fighting for Cultural Citizenship by Lori Kido Lopez (New York University Press; 247 pages; $89 hardcover, $27 paperback). Discusses activism linked to the underrepresentation of Asian-Americans in film and television, as well as the stereotyping of those who do appear.

ENIAC in Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer by Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, and Crispin Rope (MIT Press; 341 pages; $38). A study of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, a machine conceived in 1945, completed in 1945, and decommissioned in 1955; focuses on the years 1947-48 when it was reconfigured to run a simulation of atomic fission for Los Alamos scientists.

The Naked Blogger of Cairo: Creative Insurgency in the Arab World by Marwan M. Kraidy (Harvard University Press; 293 pages; $39.95). Discusses hunger strikes, self-immolation, nude activism, caricature, and other phenomena in a study of the human body as the medium of expression in the uprisings that spread across the Arab world.

CULTURAL STUDIES

Consumer Culture: Selected Essays edited by Gjoko Muratovski (Intellect Books, distributed by University of Chicago Press; 216 pages; $57). Topics include racial stereotyping in advertisements on youtube.com, and how IKEA sustains its brand image across an increasingly diverse range of global markets.

ECONOMICS

Oil Booms and Business Busts: Why Resource Wealth Hurts Entrepreneurs in the Developing World by Nimah Mazaheri (Oxford University Press; 214 pages; $74). Documents how resource wealth shapes government policy toward business; focuses on Iran and Saudi Arabia as oil producers and India as one of the world’s top coal producers.

Public Sector Economics and the Need for Reforms edited by Apostolis Philippopoulos (MIT Press; 380 pages; $38). Topics include privatization, reforming public service provision, and reforming public-sector wage policy.

EDUCATION

Education and Conversation: Exploring Oakeshott’s Legacy edited by David Bakhurst and Paul Fairfield (Bloomsbury Academic; 245 pages; $128 hardcover, $39.95 paperback). Essays by scholars in both the analytical and Continental philosophical traditions on the implications of the British philosopher Michael Oakeshott’s ideas on education.

FILM STUDIES

Cartomancy and Tarot in Film, 1940-2010 by Emily E. Auger (Intellect Books; 384 pages; $114). Discusses representations of cartomancy and tarot cards and tarot reading in films, as they figure in both characters and narratives.

Cinematic Cuts: Theorizing Film Endings edited by Sheila Kunkle (State University of New York Press; 293 pages; $90). Essays that offer Lacanian psychoanalytic and other perspectives on film endings, including Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, Jane Campion’s In the Cut, Spike Jonze’s Her, and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia.

Encounters With Godard: Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics by James S. Williams (State University of New York Press; 324 pages; $95). Presents encounters with the multimedia work of Jean-Luc Godard, beginning with the French director’s 1967 film, La Chinoise.

When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film by William Paul (Columbia University Press; 432 pages; $120 hardcover, $40 paperback). A study of how the varied form of theaters shaped the form and reception of American cinema.

GAY AND LESBIAN STUDIES

Fragmented Citizens: The Changing Landscape of Gay and Lesbian Lives by Stephen M. Engel (New York University Press; 413 pages; $35). Examines the fragmented, contingent, and unstable nature of citizenship for LGBT Americans despite major gains in rights.

HISTORY

The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity by Darren E. Grem (Oxford University Press; 282 pages; $34.95). Describes how big business helped conservative evangelicals extend their influence in American society from the 1920s to the 60s, as well as how evangelicals became part of the business world themselves.

Cartographic Japan: A History in Maps edited by Karen Wigen, Sugimoto Fumiko, and Cary Karacas (University of Chicago Press; 269 pages; $45). Writings by Japanese, North American, European, and Australian scholars on 100 Japanese maps since the late 16th century.

Coxey’s Crusade for Jobs: Unemployment in the Gilded Age by Jerry Prout (Northern Illinois University Press; 184 pages; $25). Pays particular attention to the reporters who accompanied the businessman Jacob Coxey and the march he led of jobless men from Ohio to the steps of the U.S. Capitol in 1894.

Engines of Empire: Steamships and the Victorian Imagination by Douglas R. Burgess Jr. (Stanford University Press; 342 pages; $35). Draws on literary and other sources in a study of the transformative impact of steamship travel, including the rise of the “imperial tourist.”

Hope Springs Eternal: French Bondholders and the Repudiation of Russian Sovereign Debt by Kim Oosterlinck, translated by Anthony Bulger (Yale University Press; 244 pages; $85). Discusses the Soviet government’s repudiation of Czarist debt after the Revolution and the reasons why French investors still felt they might get repaid.

India’s War: World War II and the Making of Modern South Asia by Srinath Raghavan (Basic Books; 554 pages; $35). Discusses the war as crucial to the end of colonial rule.

The Invention of the Beautiful Game: Football and the Making of Modern Brazil by Gregg Bocketti (University Press of Florida; 316 pages; $79.95). A cultural history of soccer in Brazil and the emergence of a national style in the sport.

Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet by Jeffrey Rosen (Yale University Press; 240 pages; $25). Traces the life and legacy of the Supreme Court justice as jurist, constitutional philosopher, and influential champion of a Jewish state in Palestine.

Louis: The French Prince Who Invaded England by Catherine Hanley (Yale University Press; 279 pages; $40). Traces the life of a French prince who was championed by rebellious English barons as a future king of England, invaded in 1216 but ultimately failed to take the crown, and returned to reign over France until his death, in 1226, in the Albigensian Crusade.

My Brother Slaves: Friendship, Masculinity, and Resistance in the Antebellum South by Sergio A. Lussana (University Press of Kentucky; 225 pages; $50). Examines how the social bonds created between enslaved men figured in their labor, activities beyond labor, and plans for resistance.

The Notorious John Morrissey: How a Bare-Knuckle Brawler Became a Congressman and Founded Saratoga Race Course by James C. Nicholson (University Press of Kentucky; 198 pages; $29.95). Traces the life of an Irish-born street tough turned boxing champion and gambling-house proprietor who established what became the Saratoga Race Course in 1863 and went on to two terms in the U.S. House and two terms in the New York State Senate.

The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Alfred A. Knopf; 744 pages; $35). Draws on newly available archives in a history of the Russian dynasty.

The Secret Poisoner: A Century of Murder by Linda Stratmann (Yale University Press; 328 pages; $40). Documents how poison-wielding murderers of the 19th century provoked advances in policing and science and changes in law as they sought to keep ahead of capture.

Serving the Nation: Cherokee Sovereignty and Social Welfare, 1800--1907 by Julie L. Reed (University of Oklahoma Press; 356 pages; $34.95). Traces the history of an alternative social welfare institutions created by and for the Cherokee nation.

Stand Up and Fight: Participatory Indigenismo, Populism, and Mobilization in Mexico, 1970-1984 by Maria L.O. Munoz (University of Arizona Press; 261 pages; $55). Draws on previously unavailable sources in a study of the origins, events, and impact of the First National Congress of Indigenous Peoples, which was held on the island of Janitzio in 1975.

The Textual Culture of English Protestant Dissent, 1720-1800 by Tessa Whitehouse (Oxford University Press; 250 pages; $100). Examines links among religious dissent, education, and publishing in a study of the dissenting ministers Isaac Watts and Philip Doddridge and their students, mentors, friends, and readers.

Your Friend Forever, A. Lincoln: The Enduring Friendship of Abraham Lincoln and Joshua Speed by Charles B. Strozier and Wayne Soini (Columbia University Press; 307 pages; $35). Offers a psychoanalytic perspective on the close friendship between the two men, who first met in Speed’s dry-goods store in 1837.

LAW

Choosing State Supreme Court Justices: Merit Selection and the Consequences of Institutional Reform by Greg Goelzhauser (Temple University Press; 177 pages; $84.50 hardcover, $27.95 paperback). Uses data on more than 1,500 justices seated from 1960 to 2014 to examine whether better judges result from merit selection by a commission as compared to popular election or elite appointment.

Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World by Timothy Garton Ash (Yale University Press; 491 pages; $30). Examines the opportunities and challenges facing free speech in our connected world or “cosmopolis,” and argues that we must create conditions “in which we agree on how we disagree.”

The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens by Samuel Bowles (Yale University Press; 272 pages; $27.50). Draws on historical and contemporary case studies, behavioral experiments, and other sources to examine the problem of cultivating civic-minded behavior.

LITERATURE

Archaeopoetics: Word, Image, History by Mandy Bloomfield (University of Alabama Press; 256 pages; $44.95). Explores encounters with history in the work of five poets: Susan Howe, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Maggie O’Sullivan, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Kamau Brathwaite.

A Bloody and Barbarous God: The Metaphysics of Cormac McCarthy by Petra Mundik (University of New Mexico Press; 426 pages; $65). A study of Gnostic and other esoteric philosophical influences on Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men, and The Road.

Cinderella Across Cultures: New Directions and Interdisciplinary Perspectives edited by Martine Hennard Dutheil de la Rochere, Gillian Lathey, and Monika Wozniak (Wayne State University Press; 440 pages; $34.99). Essays on the story of Cinderella as reinvented in different media and cultural traditions, including feminist and queer takes on the tale.

Comic Democracies: From Ancient Athens to the American Republic by Angus Fletcher (Johns Hopkins University Press; 209 pages; $49.95). Examines five techniques in comedic writing that were used to promote democratic behavior in the ancient world and the Renaissance and considers how they figure in Tom Paine’s Common Sense, George Washington’s farewell address, and other early American texts.

Existential Monday: Philosophical Essays by Benjamin Fondane, edited and translated by Bruce Baugh (NYRB Books; 118 pages; $15.95). Previously untranslated essays by the Romanian-born French poet and philosopher (1898-1944), who moved to Paris in 1923, lived for a time in Argentina, and died in Auschwitz, two weeks before liberation.

The Literary Culture of Early Modern Scotland: Manuscript Production and Transmission, 1560-1625 by Sebastiaan Verweij (Oxford University Press; 304 pages; $90). Examines the Scottish literary manuscript in terms of three central places of production: the royal court, towns and burghs, and houses---from stately homes to non-aristocratic dwellings.

The One King Lear by Brian Vickers (Harvard University Press; 387 pages; $45). Disputes the two-text theory of Lear and the notion that Shakespeare made cuts in the Quarto version in light of performance; argues that cuts were made by the printer Nicholas Okes because he had underestimated the amount of paper required.

Petrarch’s “Fragmenta": The Narrative and Theological Unity of “Rerum vulgarium fragmenta” by Thomas E. Peterson (University of Toronto Press; 304 pages; US$70). Disputes the notion that the collection lacks order and coherence and reflects the conflicted nature of its author.

Red Bird, Red Power: The Life and Legacy of Zitkala Sa by Tadeusz Lewandowski (University of Oklahoma Press; 276 pages; $29.95). Draws on previously unpublished letters and diaries in a biography of the controversial writer and Indian rights activist (1876-1938), who was born to a Yankton Sioux mother and white father in what became South Dakota.

True and Living Prophet of Destruction: Cormac McCarthy and Modernity by Nicholas Monk (University of New Mexico Press; 278 pages; $65). Discusses animals, the spiritual, violence, and other themes in McCarthy’s work and argues that the writer’s response to modernity transcends political binaries of left and right.

Veteran Narratives and the Collective Memory of the Vietnam War by John Wood (Ohio University Press; 194 pages; $69.95 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Topics include publishers’ tendency to privilege memoirs critical of the war.

MUSIC

Classics for the Masses: Shaping Soviet Musical Identity under Lenin and Stalin by Pauline Fairclough (Yale University Press; 283 pages; $45). Discusses the appropriation and rebranding of Western and older Russian composers in Soviet culture from the Revolution to the death of Stalin, in 1953.

Curious and Modern Inventions: Instrumental Music as Discovery in Galileo’s Italy by Rebecca Cypess (University of Chicago Press; 307 pages; $55). Links an expansion and revolution in instrumental music to a cultural preoccupation with instruments in scientific, artisanal, and musical realms.

The Selected Letters of John Cage edited by Laura Kuhn (Wesleyan University Press, distributed by University Press of New England; 674 pages; $40). Annotated edition of more than 500 letters that document the avant-garde composer’s life from the 1930s to just before his death, in 1992.

PHILOSOPHY

Intimacy: A Dialectical Study by Christopher Lauer (Bloomsbury Academic; 209 pages; $104 hardcover, $29.95 paperback). Draws on philosophical and literary sources in a discussion of contradictions inherent in our ideas of intimacy.

Kant’s Modal Metaphysics by Nicholas F. Stang (Oxford University Press; 360 pages; $74). Traces changes and continuities in Kant’s theory of possibility from his pre-Critical writings of the 1750s and 60s to work of the 1780s and early 90s; pays particular attention to his 1763 work The Only Possible Ground of Proof for a Demonstration of the Existence of God.

The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity by Charles Taylor (Harvard University Press; 352 pages; $35). Builds on the Romantic-era thinkers Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt to develop a theory of linguistic holism.

Leo Strauss, Philosopher: European Vistas edited by Antonio Lastra and Josep Monserrat-Molas (State University of New York Press; 143 pages; $80). Translations of essays on the German-born American philosopher by scholars in Spain, Italy, and Germany; topics include the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy in his thought.

Out of Control: Confrontations Between Spinoza and Levinas by Richard A. Cohen (State University of New York Press; 288 pages; $95). Contrasts the two philosophers on ethics, politics, science, and religion.

POLITICAL SCIENCE

External Governance as Security Community Building: The Limits and Potential of the European Neighbourhood Policy by Pernille Rieker (Palgrave Macmillan; 218 pages; $95). Writings on a policy originally intended to build a “ring of friends” around the European Union; includes case studies of EU relations with Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Morocco, Tunisia, and Jordan.

Governing with Words: The Political Dialogue on Race, Public Policy, and Inequality in America by Daniel Q. Gillion (Cambridge University Press; 208 pages; $89.99 hardcover, $29.99 paperback). Examines the impact of presidents’ and other federal politicians’ explicit discourse on race, and considers the backlash many experience; draws on data from 1956 to 2012.

The Supply Side of Security: A Market Theory of Military Alliances by Tongfi Kim (Stanford University Press; 239 pages; $55). Focuses on the U.S. alliance with Japan and South Korea in a study of factors that influence a state’s bargaining power in an existing or potential alliance.

PUBLIC POLICY

The Five Horsemen of the Modern World: Climate, Food, Water, Disease, and Obesity by Daniel Callahan (Columbia University Press; 393 pages; $35). Analyzes five threats to well-being: global warming, food shortages, water shortages and quality problems, chronic illnesses, and obesity.

RELIGION

Anatomy of a Schism: How Clergywomen’s Narratives Reinterpret the Fracturing of the Southern Baptist Convention by Eileen Campbell-Reed (University of Tennessee Press; 212 pages; $34.95). Draws on interviews with five ordained women in a study of the conflicts in the SBC between 1979 and 2000.

George Errington and Roman Catholic Identity in Nineteenth-Century England by Serenhedd James (Oxford University Press; 265 pages; $110). Draws on previously unpublished materials in a study of the bishop (1804-84) that examines his influence on the English Catholic church before and beyond a dispute with Cardinal Wiseman that ended his rise in the hierarchy.

In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay by Timothy Pawl (Oxford University Press; 251 pages; $110). Defends the Christology of the first seven Ecumenical councils of an undivided Christendom (AD 325-787) against three forms of philosophical objection.

Lectures on New Testament Theology by Ferdinand Christian Baur, edited by Peter C. Hodgson, translated by Robert F. Brown (Oxford University Press; 401 pages; $130). Translation of lectures given by the German theologian in Tubingen in the 1850s, summarizing some 30 years of his work.

Maximus the Confessor: Jesus Christ and the Transfiguration of the World by Paul M. Blowers (Oxford University Press; 367 pages; $110). Describes what is termed the “cosmo-politeian” perspective of the Byzantine theologian (580-662).

Priests and Cults in the Book of the Twelve edited by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (Society of Biblical Literature; 255 pages; $54.95 hardcover, $39.95 paperback). Writings on priests and cults in Hosea, Malachi, Amos, and others of the Bible’s Minor Prophets.

Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics by Joseph A. Selling (Oxford University Press; 254 pages; $105). Argues for the need to go beyond simple normative ethics to consider motive and intention; draws on Aquinas and the teachings of Vatican II.

Russia’s Uncommon Prophet: Father Aleksandr Men and His Times by Wallace L. Daniel (Northern Illinois University Press; 422 pages; $39). A biography of the controversial Russian Orthodox priest, who drew suspicion from the state and criticism from the church and was assassinated at age 55 in September 1990.

Selfless Love and Human Flourishing in Paul Tillich and Iris Murdoch by Julia T. Meszaros (Oxford University Press; 227 pages; $110). Defends a view of selfless love, centered on “the other” as crucial to the flourishing of selfhood; engages the German-born American theologian Tillich and the Irish writer and thinker Murdoch, as well as Kierkegaard, Weil, Sartre, and others.

Writings Against the Saracens by Peter the Venerable, translated by Irven M. Resnick (Catholic University of America Press; 192 pages; $39.95). Translation of twin polemics against Islam by a 12th-century abbot of Cluny, who commissioned multiple translations of Arabic sources.

RHETORIC

Figures of Memory: The Rhetoric of Displacement at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Michael Bernard-Donals (State University of New York Press; 224 pages; $80). Examines how the spaces and exhibition designs of the Washington, D.C.-based museum contains and catalyzes memories for visitors.

SOCIOLOGY

JewAsian: Race, Religion, and Identity for America’s Newest Jews by Helen Kiyong Kim and Noah Samuel Leavitt (University of Nebraska Press; 170 pages; $35). Draws on interviews with couples and children in a study of Jewish- and Asian-American intermarriage and the interplay of race, religion, and ethnicity.

The Nonreligious: Understanding Secular People and Societies edited by Phil Zuckerman, Luke W. Galen, and Frank L. Pasquale (Oxford University Press; 327 pages; $99 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Examines research on the growing number of people who self-identify as non-religious.

SPORTS STUDIES

Cold War Games: Propaganda, the Olympics, and U.S. Foreign Policy by Toby C. Rider (University of Illinois Press; 242 pages; $95 hardcover, $24.95 paperback). Draws on newly declassified materials in a study of the U.S. government’s use of the games to further a Cold War agenda.

THEATER

Shattering Hamlet’s Mirror: Theatre and Reality by Marvin Carlson (University of Michigan Press; 160 pages; $60). Discusses past and present-day examples of theater that call attention to the real; contemporary groups discussed include Rimini Protokoll, Societas Raffaelo Sanzio, the Gob Squad, Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, and Foundry Theatre.

WOMEN’S STUDIES

Resistance, Revolt, and Gender Justice in Egypt by Mariz Tadros (Syracuse University Press; 352 pages; $70 hardcover, $44.95 paperback). A study of the Egyptian women’s movement in recent decades, with a focus on the period since the Arab Spring.