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The Last Sunday Drive: Vanishing Traditions in Georgia and the Carolinas
by Tom PolandThe Sunday drive. Mom, dad and the kids would head out to see the countryside. An ice cream treat usually waited at day's end. Back in the Burma-Shave days, mom-and-pop drive-ins and gas station biscuits fed folks. Cheap gas filled cars, and people made Sunday drives through a land where See Rock City barns, sawdust piles and trains and junkyards gave them plenty to see. Men in seersucker suits ran old stores with oscillating fans, and if the kids ate too much penny candy, grandma had a home remedy for them. It was a time for dinner on church grounds, yard art and old-fashioned petunias. Join author Tom Poland as he revisits disappearing traditions.
The Last Tales of Uncle Remus
by Julius LesterWith his boisterous friends and rowdy enemies, Brer Rabbit is on the road to adventure. He gets a job and figures out how to get paid--twice a day!
The Last Time I Wore a Dress
by Daphne ScholinskiAt the age of fifteen, Daphne Scholinski was put in a mental hospital for what her psychiatrist called? failure to identity as a sexual female.' The hospital gave her a diagnosis that was brand-new to the medical books: Gender Identity Disorder. The years that should have been Daphne's typical high school experience instead consisted of periods of seclusion and physical restraint, frequent does of sedatives, and the close company of people who were truly crazy. It’s hard to believe that doctors, circa 1981, described Daphne's treatment goals as becoming more obsessive about boys, learning about makeup, dressing more like a girl, curling and styling hair, and spending quality time learning about girl things with peers. Even now, after a decade and a half of our culture's coming to grips with homosexuality, approximately fifty thousand teenagers are institutionalized in the U.S. each year for being too sissy or too much of a tomboy. Though the facts are truly frightening, Jane Meredith Adams has captured Daphne's fresh, funny, triumphant voice so vividly that The Last Time I Wore a Dress is impossible to put down. The result is a book is reminiscent of The Catcher in the Rye and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as well as an expose of a shameful medical sham that has destroyed countless childhoods.
The Last Time I Wore a Dress
by Dylan ScholinskiUPDATED WITH A NEW EPILOGUE At fifteen years old, Daphne Scholinski was committed to a mental institution and awarded the dubious diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder. For three years and more than a million dollars of insurance, the problem was &“treated&”—with makeup lessons and instructions in how to walk like a girl. With a new epilogue by Scholinski, whose name is now Dylan and who identifies as nonbinary, this revised paperback edition of The Last Time I Wore a Dress looks back at those experiences and their life since. It chronicles the journey of coming into oneself and gaining a nuanced, freeing understanding of being born transgender. This memoir tells Dylan Scholinski&’s remarkable story in an honest, unforgettable voice that&’s both heartbreaking and hopeful.
Last to Eat, Last to Learn: My Life in Afghanistan Fighting to Educate Women
by Pashtana Durrani Tamara BraloA Ms. Magazine Pick for Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2023&“Pashtana&’s story highlights the resourcefulness and bravery of young women in Afghanistan. I hope readers will be inspired by her mission to give every girl the education she deserves and the opportunity to pursue her dreams.&”—Malala Yousafzai In the spirit of I am Malala and Our House is On Fire by Greta Thunberg, this is the astonishing true story of the Malala Fund Education Champion Award-winner, founder of the NGO LEARN, and women&’s education activist whose advocacy for the disappearing girls of rural Afghanistan has led to her being ruthlessly targeted by the Taliban. Inspired by generations of her family&’s unwavering belief in the power of education, Pashtana Durrani recognized her calling early in life: to educate Afghanistan&’s girls and young women, raised in a society where learning is forbidden. In a country devastated by war and violence, where girls are often married off before reaching their teenage years and prohibited from leaving their homes, heeding that call seemed both impossible and dangerous. Pashtana was raised in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan where her father, a tribal leader, founded a community school for girls within their home. Fueled by his insistence that despite being a girl, she mattered and deserved an education, Pashtana was sixteen when, against impossible odds, she was granted a path out of the refugee camp: admittance to a preparatory program at Oxford. Unthinkably and to her parents&’ horror, she chose a different path. She chose Afghanistan. Pashtana founded the nonprofit LEARN and developed a program for getting educational materials directly into the hands of girls in remote areas of the country, training teachers in digital literacy. Her commitment to education has made her a target of the Taliban. Still, she continues to fight for women&’s education and autonomy in Afghanistan and beyond. Courageous and inspiring, Last to Eat, Last to Learn is the story of how just one person can transform a family, a tribe, a country. It reminds us of the emancipatory power of learning and the transformational potential that lies within each of us.
The Last Trek: A Study of the Boer People and the Afrikaner Nation
by Sheila PattersonThis book evaluates the historical factors that produced the Boer people, and the political, religious and economic forces that maintain modern Afrikaner Nationalism. This last trek brings the Afrikaner back into multi-racial integrating industrial society. Originally published in 1957.
The Last Voice: Roy J. Glauber and the Dawn of the Atomic Age
by José Ignacio Latorre María Teresa Soto-SanfielMost human beings don’t manage to achieve fame. Roy J. Glauber did so for two different reasons. Glauber was not only a Nobel-Prize winning physicist, but also one of the last surviving scientists who worked in Los Alamos in the Theoretical Division of the Manhattan Project. He was a witness to all the events and knew all the scientists associated with the creation and launch of the first atomic bombs. This book is the product of a series of long interviews held with Roy over three years: in Benasque (Spain) in 2011, and later in Singapore and Cambridge (USA). Its pages give a first-hand account of a true protagonist, one who is independent, lucid, sagacious and committed to the truth. The authors have respectfully preserved his spirit: his voice is the one that matters. The authors asked the questions and they relay his answers. Their comments are confined to the footnotes and to brief explanatory paragraphs, added simply to provide certain relevant details. The importance of the events that Glauber describes here is indisputable, as therefore is the book itself. The events narrated in its pages will remain part of world history, perhaps for centuries or even millennia. We live today in the shadow of the decisions made at that time.
The Last Walk: Reflections on Our Pets at the End of Their Lives
by Jessica PierceFrom the moment when we first open our homes--and our hearts--to a new pet, we know that one day we will have to watch this beloved animal age and die. The pain of that eventual separation is the cruel corollary to the love we share with them, and most of us deal with it by simply ignoring its inevitability. With The Last Walk, Jessica Pierce makes a forceful case that our pets, and the love we bear them, deserve better. Drawing on the moving story of the last year of the life of her own treasured dog, Ody, she presents an in-depth exploration of the practical, medical, and moral issues that trouble pet owners confronted with the decline and death of their companion animals. Pierce combines heart-wrenching personal stories, interviews, and scientific research to consider a wide range of questions about animal aging, end-of-life care, and death. She tackles such vexing questions as whether animals are aware of death, whether they're feeling pain, and if and when euthanasia is appropriate. Given what we know and can learn, how should we best honor the lives of our pets, both while they live and after they have left us? The product of a lifetime of loving pets, studying philosophy, and collaborating with scientists at the forefront of the study of animal behavior and cognition, The Last Walk asks--and answers--the toughest questions pet owners face. The result is informative, moving, and consoling in equal parts; no pet lover should miss it.
The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life
by Doug Bock Clark<P><P>On a volcanic island in the Savu Sea so remote that other Indonesians call it "The Land Left Behind" live the Lamalerans: a tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who are the world's last subsistence whalers. They have survived for half a millennium by hunting whales with bamboo harpoons and handmade wooden boats powered by sails of woven palm fronds. <P><P>But now, under assault from the rapacious fores of the modern era and a global economy, their way of life teeters on the brink of collapse. <P><P>Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, one of a handful of Westerners who speak the Lamaleran language, lived with the tribe across three years, and he brings their world and their people to vivid life in this gripping story of a vanishing culture. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, toils to earn his harpoon and provide for his ailing grandparents, while Ika, his indomitable younger sister, is eager to forge a life unconstrained by tradition, and to realize a star-crossed love. Frans, an aging shaman, tries to unite the tribe in order to undo a deadly curse. And Ignatius, a legendary harpooner entering retirement, labors to hand down the Ways of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would secretly rather become a DJ in the distant tourist mecca of Bali. <P><P>Deeply empathetic and richly reported, The Last Whalers is a riveting, powerful chronicle of the collision between one of the planet's dwindling indigenous peoples and the irresistible enticements and upheavals of a rapidly transforming world.
The Last Whalers: The Life of an Endangered Tribe in a Land Left Behind
by Doug Bock Clark'Remarkable... a rich, novelistic account based on diligent reporting ... An empathetic, even intimate account, but not a dewy-eyed one ... Wonderful' Daily Telegraph'I absolutely loved this magnificent book' Sebastian Junger'A monumental achievement' Mitchell Zuckoff'[An] immersive, densely reported and altogether remarkable first book ... The Last Whalers has the texture and colouring of a first-rate novel' New York TimesAt a time when global change has eradicated thousands of unique cultures, The Last Whalers tells the stunning inside story of the Lamalerans, an ancient tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who live on a volcanic island so remote it is known by other Indonesians as "The Land Left Behind." They have survived for centuries by taking whales with bamboo harpoons, but now are being pushed toward collapse by the encroachment of the modern world.Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, who lived with the Lamalerans across three years, weaves together their stories with novelistic flair to usher us inside this hidden drama. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, strives to earn his harpoon and feed his ailing grandparents. Ika, Jon's indomitable younger sister, struggles to forge a modern life in a tradition-bound culture and realize a star-crossed love. Ignatius, a legendary harpooner entering retirement, labors to hand down the Ways of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would rather become a DJ in the distant tourist mecca of Bali.With brilliant, breathtaking prose and empathetic, fast-paced storytelling, Clark details how the fragile dreams of one of the world's dwindling indigenous peoples are colliding with the irresistible upheavals of our rapidly transforming world, and delivers to us a group of families we will never forget.
The Last Whalers: The Life of an Endangered Tribe in a Land Left Behind
by Doug Bock Clark'Remarkable... a rich, novelistic account based on diligent reporting ... An empathetic, even intimate account, but not a dewy-eyed one ... Wonderful' Daily Telegraph'I absolutely loved this magnificent book' Sebastian Junger'A monumental achievement' Mitchell ZuckoffThe epic story of the world's last subsistence whalers.At a time when global change has eradicated thousands of unique cultures, The Last Whalers tells the stunning inside story of the Lamalerans, an ancient tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who live on a volcanic island so remote it is known by other Indonesians as "The Land Left Behind." They have survived for centuries by taking whales with bamboo harpoons, but now are being pushed toward collapse by the encroachment of the modern world.Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, who lived with the Lamalerans across three years, weaves together their stories with novelistic flair to usher us inside this hidden drama. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, strives to earn his harpoon and feed his ailing grandparents. Ika, Jon's indomitable younger sister, struggles to forge a modern life in a tradition-bound culture and realize a star-crossed love. Ignatius, a legendary harpooner entering retirement, labors to hand down the Ways of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would rather become a DJ in the distant tourist mecca of Bali.With brilliant, breathtaking prose and empathetic, fast-paced storytelling, Clark details how the fragile dreams of one of the world's dwindling indigenous peoples are colliding with the irresistible upheavals of our rapidly transforming world, and delivers to us a group of families we will never forget.(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
The Last Word on Eating Disorders Prevention
by Leigh CohnFor the first time in one volume, many of the world’s most esteemed eating disorders prevention experts share their opinions and recommendations about future directions for the field. Employing "The Last Word" format of writing concise editorials about a focused area of research, authors from four countries contribute thirteen chapters with diverse points of view. The approaches range from large scale, macro-environmental calls for change through public policy to the more intimate promotion of positive youth identity for buffering against eating disorders. Included are retrospective looks at the development of prevention programs with an eye toward best practices moving forward, calls for integrating eating disorders interventions with existing efforts in the obesity and health promotion fields, examples of successful change through public policy and social justice, and a cry for gender inclusiveness, which has missing in female dominated strategies. More personal-level recommendations look at the efficacy of mindfulness, yoga, intuitive eating and exercise, and the importance of forming healthy self-identity. Informed by decades of investigation, the authors—all of whom have conducted numerous studies, programs, and research projects—offer the insights they’ve learned and the lessons that they each believe will make a difference in reducing eating disorders. This book was originally published as a special issue of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention.
Last Works: Lessons in Leaving
by Mark C. TaylorA powerful consideration of the lessons imparted in the final works of essential writers and philosophers For many today, retirement and the leisure said to accompany it have become vestiges of a slower, long-lost time. In a world where the sense of identity is tied to work and careers, to stop working often is to become nobody. In this deeply perceptive and personal exploration of last works, Mark C. Taylor poignantly explores the final reflections of writers and thinkers from Kierkegaard to David Foster Wallace. How did they either face or avoid ending and leaving? What do their lessons in ending teach us about living in the time that remains for us? Some leavings brought relief, even joy, while others brought pain and suffering. Whether the cause was infirmity, impending death, or simply exhaustion and ennui, the ways these influential voices fell silent offer poignant examples of people withdrawing from the world’s stage. Throughout this learned and moving book, Taylor probes how the art of living involves learning to leave gracefully.
Last Writes: A Daybook for a Dying Friend (Writing Lives: Ethnographic and Autoethnographic Narratives)
by Laurel RichardsonBetty Frankel Kirschner succumbed to emphysema one day in June. She had been a long-term professor at Kent State University, founding member of the feminist caucus in sociology, a political activist, a chain smoker. Close friend Laurel Richardson, a key figure in literary turn in ethnographic writing, kept a daybook, relating their conversations and interactions over Betty’s last few months. Rich in memory, emotion, dreams, and life-and-death decisions, the daybook chronicles the ups and down of a terminally ill woman and the impact that illness has on friends, colleagues, and family alike. Richardson also grapples with the ethics of writing deeply personal narratives. Part memoir, part sociological analysis, part eulogy to a departed friend, Richardson opens a poignant window into living an academic life, and ending it.
Last Years of Long Lives: The Larvik Study
by Tor Inge RomorenThe Last Years of Long Lives is a unique account of that period of old age which precedes death. Based on 400 complete individual histories and covering a twenty-year period, it looks at the experiences of people over eighty years old in three important areas: disability, family life and health care. Using the life-course approach to research, it reveals rich data about the contributions of formal and informal care and how life expectancy and experiences of disability interact with experiences of care.The reader is invited to conceptualise these phenomena as processes in continuous time - processes that are sometimes long and complex, sometimes short and simple - and learns about the four types of disability career before death. At the same time, the author presents a three-stage model of informal care and examines the main patterns of formal service use.The Last Years of Long Lives presents a new way of looking at old age for students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers and gives a comprehensive picture of what has been called 'the fourth age'.
Lasting Legacy to the Carolinas: The Duke Endowment, 1924–1994
by Robert F. DurdenLike the majority of the founders of large philanthropic foundations in the United States, James B. Duke assumed that the Duke Endowment, which he established in 1924, would continue its charitable activity forever. Lasting Legacy to the Carolinas is an examination of the history of this foundation and the ways in which it has--and has not--followed Duke's original design.In this volume, Robert F. Durden explores how the propriety of linking together a tax-free foundation and an investor-owned, profit-seeking business like the Duke Power Company has significantly changed over the course of the century. Explaining the implications of the Tax Reform Act of 1969 for J. B. Duke's dream, Durden shows how the philanthropist's plan to have the Duke Endowment virtually own and ultimately control Duke Power (which, in turn, would supply most of the Endowment's income) dissolved after the death of daughter Doris Duke in 1993, when the trustees of the Endowment finally had the unanimous votes needed to sever that tie. Although the Endowment's philanthropic projects--higher education (including Duke University), hospitals and health care, orphan and child care in both North and South Carolina, and the rural Methodist church in North Carolina--continue to be served, this study explains the impact of a century of political and social change on one man's innovative charitable intentions. It is also a testimony to the many staff members and trustees who have invested their own time and creative energies into further benefiting these causes, despite decades of inevitable challenges to the Endowment.This third volume of Durden's trilogy relating to the Dukes of Durham will inform not only those interested in the continuing legacy of this remarkable family but also those involved with philanthropic boards, charitable endowments, medical care, child-care institutions, the rural church, and higher education.
LatCrit: From Critical Legal Theory to Academic Activism
by Steven W. Bender Francisco ValdesExamines LatCrit’s emergence as a scholarly and activist community within and beyond the US legal academyEmerging from the US legal academy in 1995, LatCrit theory is a genre of critical outsider jurisprudence—a vital hub of contemporary scholarship that includes Feminist Legal Theory and Critical Race Theory, among other critical schools of legal knowledge. Its basic goals have been: (1) to develop a critical, activist, and inter-disciplinary discourse on law and society affecting Latinas/os/x, and (2) to foster both the development of coalitional theory and practice as well as the accessibility of this knowledge to agents of social and legal transformative change.This slim volume tells the story of LatCrit’s growth and influence as a scholarly and activist community. Francisco Valdes and Steven W. Bender offer a living example of how critical outsider academics can organize long-term collective action, both in law and society, that will help those similarly inclined to better organize themselves. Part roadmap, part historical record, and part a path forward, LatCrit: From Critical Legal Theory to Academic Activismshows that with coalition, collaboration, and community, social transformation can take root.
The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control
by Ted StriphasTed Striphas argues that, although the production and propagation of books have undoubtedly entered a new phase, printed works are still very much a part of our everyday lives. With examples from trade journals, news media, films, advertisements, and a host of other commercial and scholarly materials, Striphas tells a story of modern publishing that proves, even in a rapidly digitizing world, books are anything but dead. From the rise of retail superstores to Oprah's phenomenal reach, Striphas tracks the methods through which the book industry has adapted (or has failed to adapt) to rapid changes in twentieth-century print culture. Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon.com have established new routes of traffic in and around books, and pop sensations like Harry Potter and the Oprah Book Club have inspired the kind of brand loyalty that could only make advertisers swoon. At the same time, advances in digital technology have presented the book industry with extraordinary threats and unique opportunities. Striphas's provocative analysis offers a counternarrative to those who either triumphantly declare the end of printed books or deeply mourn their passing. With wit and brilliant insight, he isolates the invisible processes through which books have come to mediate our social interactions and influence our habits of consumption, integrating themselves into our routines and intellects like never before.
The Late Archaic across the Borderlands: From Foraging to Farming
by Bradley J. VierraWhy and when human societies shifted from nomadic hunting and gathering to settled agriculture engages the interest of scholars around the world. One of the most fruitful areas in which to study this issue is the North American Southwest, where Late Archaic inhabitants of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts of Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico turned to farming while their counterparts in Trans-Pecos and South Texas continued to forage. By investigating the environmental, biological, and cultural factors that led to these differing patterns of development, we can identify some of the necessary conditions for the rise of agriculture and the corresponding evolution of village life. The twelve papers in this volume synthesize previous and ongoing research and offer new theoretical models to provide the most up-to-date picture of life during the Late Archaic (from 3,000 to 1,500 years ago) across the entire North American Borderlands. Some of the papers focus on specific research topics such as stone tool technology and mobility patterns. Others study the development of agriculture across whole regions within the Borderlands. The two concluding papers trace pan-regional patterns in the adoption of farming and also link them to the growth of agriculture in other parts of the world.
Late Cretaceous Dinosaur Eggs and Eggshells of Peninsular India: Oospecies Diversity and Taphonomical, Palaeoenvironmental, Biostratigraphical and Palaeobiogeographical Inferences (Topics in Geobiology #51)
by Ashu Khosla Spencer G. LucasThis book documents analyses of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur nesting sites of the Lameta Formation at Jabalpur, Districts Dhar and Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh; Districts Kheda and Panchmahal (Gujarat); and the Pisdura, Dongargaon and Pavna sectors in the Chandrapur Districts of Maharashtra, which are exposed in India along an east-west and central axis. In this work, special emphasis has been given to the dinosaur nesting sites of the east-central Narbada River region, including its regional geology. The work was undertaken to provide detailed information concerning dinosaur eggs, eggshell fragments, nests and clutches found in the Lameta Formation of peninsular India. Prior to the present work there had been no detailed review of systematic work on the taxonomy, and of micro- and ultrastructural studies of dinosaur eggs and eggshells from the Lameta Formation. The study documents the field and laboratory investigations that facilitated the reconstruction of the morphotaxonomy, models for the burial pattern of eggs and eggshells, taphonomic implications,and the palaeoenvironmental context and palaeoecological conditions during the Late Cretaceous at the time of the extrusion of the Deccan traps, which may have been partly responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The need to follow a parataxonomic classification for Indian dinosaur eggs and eggshell types is very apparent, and this book addresses this aspect in some detail. The emphasis on the application of parataxonomic schemes is based on the description of new oospecies and their comparison with previously known forms. The present work has led to the recovery of numerous nests, many collapsed eggs and hundreds of dinosaur eggshell fragments from the localities situated near the east, west and central Narbada River regions. It will be of interest to academics and professional palaeontologists, and all students of dinosaurs.
Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia
by Greg SharzerThis book suggests that escapism – the desire to leave one’s physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative – is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukács, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld – a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.
The Late John Marquand
by Stephen BirminghamThe acclaimed social historian and author of Our Crowd presents a colorful portrait of the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer. John Marquand, the great literary satirist and chronicler of New England elites, could have been a character in one of his own beloved novels. Here, Stephen Birmingham presents a lively narrative of Marquand&’s life, drawing on personal interviews with friends and family. Raised in Newburyport, Massachusetts, Marquand was both an insider and outcast of the old money set. After attending Harvard and serving overseas in World War I, he began writing stories that captured the lives, manners, and morals of wealthy families confined by their own privilege. Marquand himself joined the ranks of these exclusive families by marrying into them—twice. In The Late John Marquand, Birmingham provides an intimate portrait of the man behind such works as H. M. Pulham, Esquire, and The Late George Apley, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1938.
Late-Life Homelessness: Experiences of Disadvantage and Unequal Aging
by Amanda GrenierAround the world and across a range of contexts, homelessness among older people is on the rise. In spite of growing media attention and new academic research on the issue, older people often remain unrecognized as a subpopulation in public policy, programs, and homeless strategies. As such, they occupy a paradoxical position of being hypervisible while remaining overlooked.Late-Life Homelessness is the first Canadian book to address this often neglected issue. Basing her analysis on a four-year ethnographic study of late-life homelessness in Montreal, Canada, Amanda Grenier uses a critical gerontological perspective to explore life at the intersection of aging and homelessness. She draws attention to disadvantage over time and how the condition of being unhoused disrupts a person’s ability to age in place, resulting in experiences of unequal aging. Weaving together findings from policy documents, stakeholder insights, and observations and interviews with older people, this book demonstrates how structures, organizational practices, and relationships related to homelessness and aging come to shape late life.Situated in the context of an aging population, rising inequality, and declining social commitments, Late-Life Homelessness stresses the moral imperative of responding justly to the needs of older people as a means of mitigating the unequal aging of unhoused elders.
Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents: Anxiety, Depression and Alzheimer’s Disease (The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization)
by Kieran Keohane Anders Petersen Bert van den BerghThis book analyses three of the most prevalent illnesses of late modernity: anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, in terms of their relation to cultural pathologies of the social body. Usually these conditions are interpreted clinically in terms of individualized symptoms and responded to discretely, as though for the most part unrelated to each other. However, these diseases also have a social and cultural profile that transcends their particular symptomologies and etiologies. Anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s are diseases related to disorders of the collective esprit de corps of contemporary society. Multidisciplinary in approach, the book addresses questions of how these conditions are manifest at both the individual and collective levels in relation to hegemonic biomedical and psychologistic understandings. Rejecting such reductive diagnoses, the authors argue that anxiety, depression and Alzheimer’s disease, as well as other contemporary epidemics, are to be analysed in the light of individual and collective experiences of profound and radical changes in our civilization. A diagnosis of our times, Late Modern Subjectivity and its Discontents will appeal to a broad range of scholars with interests in health and illness, the sociology of medicine and contemporary life.
Late Modernity and Social Change: Reconstructing Social and Personal Life
by Brian HeaphySometimes social theory can seem dry and intimidating – as if it is something completely apart from everyday life. But in this incisive new text, Brian Heaphy show exactly how the arguments of the great contemporary theorists play out against extended examples from real life. Introducing the ideas of founding social thinkers including Marx, Durkheim, Weber, Simmel and Freud, and the work of key contemporary theorists, among them Lacan, Foucault, Lyotrad, Baudrillard, Bauman, Giddens and Beck, the book begins by examining the merits of the 'late modernity' thesis against those of the proponents of 'post-modernity'. The authors show the wide swoop of influence of 'post-modern' thought and how it has changed the way even its opponents think. It also discusses feminist, queer and post-colonial ideas about studying modern and post-modern experience. With examples from personal life (including self and identity, relational and intimate life, death, dying and life-politics) to bring theory to life, this clear and concise new text on contemporary social theory and social change is ideal for students of sociology, cultural studies and social theory.