Bookshelf

(Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2024).

The author explores the psychology and philosophical significance of the ubiquitous social phenomenon known as awkwardness. “Our aversion to awkwardness mirrors our desire for inclusion. This explains its power to influence and silence us: as social creatures, we don’t want to mark ourselves as outsiders,” the publisher notes. “As a result, our fear of awkwardness inhibits critique and conversation, acting as an impediment to moral and social progress. Even the act of describing people as ‘awkward’ exacerbates existing inequities, by consigning them to a social status that gives them less access to the social goods (knowledge, confidence, social esteem) needed to navigate potentially awkward situations.”

Plakias discusses how we ostracize and punish those who fail to fit into existing social categories; how we all depend on — and are limited by — social scripts and norms for guidance; and how these norms frequently let us down when we need them. But awkwardness has a positive side: it can highlight opportunities for moral and social improvement, by revealing areas where our social norms and scripts fail to meet our needs or have yet to catch up with changing social and moral realities.

(Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2024).

This book discusses the continuous spontaneous localization theory (CSL) the author created more than 30 years ago, saying it “changes quantum theory.” According to Pearle, when an experiment is performed, the apparatus registers one of a number of possible results. A repetition of the experiment will likely give another result. Each result occurs randomly, he says, and many repetitions of the same experiment reveal that each result has a definite probability of occurring. Though quantum theory allows one to predict the probability of occurrence for each result, it does not describe what actually happens — the occurrence of an individual result. Pearle maintains his CSL theory is an alteration of quantum theory that not only describes the occurrence of an individual result, but also explains that occurrence.

The book includes a discussion of some of the experiments conducted over the last 30 years to test CSL. “The experiments have succeeded in narrowing the possible values of two parameters that characterize CSL,” Pearle says, noting that “the present experimental situation is consistent with the validity of both quantum theory and CSL.”

Cambridge University’s Jeremy Butterfield, one of the referees who approved publication of the manuscript, notes, “Pearle is the master of this material and writes with beautiful clarity and well-judged occasional witticisms and side-remarks. His experience as teacher, as well as researcher, shows in the vivid explanations, and the careful and consistent level of detail in the exposition.”

(New York: NYU Press, 2024).

Described as the first book to examine the American prison system through the eyes of those trapped within it, Inside Knowledge draws from writings collected through the American Prison Writing Archive, which the author founded in 2009. Larson draws from the archive’s first-person narratives created by incarcerated individuals and prison workers to illustrate how mass incarceration does less to contain any harm perpetrated by convicted people than to spread and perpetuate harm among their families and communities.

The publisher notes, “If prisons are places where convicted people are sent to learn a lesson, then imprisoned people are the ones who know just what American prisons actually teach. At once profound and devastating, Inside Knowledge is an invaluable resource for those interested in addressing mass incarceration in America.”

(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2023).

The publisher notes, “Thin body, white skin, and big eyes. Such beauty ideals are ubiquitous across Shanghai, where salons and weight-loss clinics offering an array of products and treatment options beckon city dwellers with promises of a better life.’ Set against the backdrop of China's post-reform era, Modified Bodies compares the radically different attitudes of middle-class Chinese and Western women living in Shanghai toward the pursuit of beauty. Through comparative ethnography, anthropologist Julie E. Starr parses how experiences of bodies and embodied identities, and the politics ascribed to them, are culturally produced for both groups of women. With a focus on the ways in which late capitalism interacts with different bodies, Starr joins an ongoing conversation about the impact of recent economic reforms on social life in China.”

(Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 2024).

According to the publisher, “Imperial Rome privileged the elite male citizen as one of sound mind and body, superior in all ways to women, noncitizens, and nonhumans. One of the markers of his superiority was the power of his voice, both literal (in terms of oratory and the legal capacity to represent himself and others) and metaphoric, as in the political power of having a “voice” in the public sphere. Muteness in ancient Roman society has thus long been understood as a deficiency, both physically and socially. In this volume, Koenig deftly confronts the trope of muteness in imperial Roman literature, arguing that this understanding of silence is incomplete. By unpacking the motif of voicelessness across a wide range of written sources, she shows that the Roman perception of silence was more complicated than a simple binary and that elite male authors used muted or voiceless characters to interrogate the concept of voicelessness in ways that would be taboo in other contexts.”

As one reviewer noted: “Koenig brings a fresh perspective to the understanding of silence in the culture of the Roman empire, showing that loss of voice can unlock new possibilities of expression that allow the mute person to signify facts and feelings otherwise difficult or dangerous to communicate.” 

(Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2023). 

Called “[t]he first biography of a key and complex American religious figure of the 19th century, considered by many to be the ‘father of Shaker literature,’” this book focuses on Richard McNemar (1770–1839) and his influence on two opposing American religious traditions during the early 19th century. According to the publisher, “Beginning as a Presbyterian minister in the Midwest, he took his preaching and the practice of his congregation in a radically different, evangelical ‘free will’ direction during the Kentucky Revival. A cornerstone of his New Light church in Ohio was spontaneous physical movement and exhortations. After Shaker missionaries arrived, McNemar converted and soon played a prominent role in expanding and raising public awareness of their religion by founding Shaker communities in the Midwest, becoming the first Shaker published author and the most prolific composer of Shaker hymns.”

(New York: New York University Press, 2023).
While families of color make up 41 percent of homeschoolers in America, little is known about the racial dimensions of this alternate form of education. Drawing from almost 100 interviews with Black and white middle-class homeschooling and non-homeschooling families, the author investigates why this percentage has grown exponentially in the past two decades. According to the publisher, Stewart’s findings contradict many commonly held beliefs about the rationales for homeschooling. Rather than choosing to homeschool based on religious or political beliefs, many middle-class Black mothers cite their schooling choices as motivated by concerns of racial discrimination in public schools and the school-to-prison pipeline. Conversely, middle-class white mothers had the privilege of not having to consider race in their decision-making process, opting for homeschooling because of concerns that traditional schools would not adequately cater to their child's behavioral or academic needs.

(Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2023).
With a focus on mainstream Bombay cinema, the author identifies singing, listening, and speaking as key sites in which gendered notions of identity and difference take form. According to the publisher, “Charting new paths through seven decades of film, media, and cultural history, Sundar identifies key shifts in women’s playback voices and the Islamicate genre of the qawwali. She also conceptualizes spoken language as sound, and turns up the volume on a capacious, multilingual politics of belonging that scholarly and popular accounts of nation typically render silent.”

(Paris: Présence Africaine, 2022).
The French edition of the author’s novel written in 2004 places a woman as head of state in Africa, before this became a reality in Liberia. “This new version comes with a preface by writer Maryse Condé, a 2018 Alternative Nobel Prize winner. The honor of being published by Présence Africaine and prefaced by Maryse Condé is very humbling to me,” Mwantuali says.

(New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
This book explores central questions at the heart of amateur and professional sports: Does the corrupt side of sports compromise their potential to deepen our moral lives? Are the virtues of sports even certain? The author, a leading sports philosopher, has published previously on such issues as gender equity, comparable worth, moral judgment, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.