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From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century
2015John Weber
In the early years of the twentieth century, newcomer farmers and migrant Mexicans forged a new world in South Texas. In just a decade, this vast region, previously considered too isolated and desolate for large-scale agriculture, became one of the United States' most lucrative farming regions and one of its worst places to work. By encouraging mass migration from Mexico, paying low wages, selectively enforcing immigration restrictions, toppling older political arrangements, and periodically immobilizing the workforce, growers created a system of labor controls unique in its levels of exploitation.
Ethnic Mexican residents of South Texas fought back by organizing and by leaving, migrating to destinations around the United States where employers eagerly hired them--and continued to exploit them. In From South Texas to the Nation, John Weber reinterprets the United States' record on human and labor rights. This important book illuminates the way in which South Texas pioneered the low-wage, insecure, migration-dependent labor system on which so many industries continue to depend. [From Amazon.com]
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Myths of the Oil Boom: American National Security in a Global Energy Market
2015Steve A. Yetiv
In Myths of the Oil Boom, Steve A. Yetiv, an award-winning expert on the geopolitics of oil, takes stock of our new era of heightened petroleum production and sets out to demolish both the old myths and misconceptions about oil and the new ones that are quickly proliferating. As he explains, increased production in the US will not lead to a major reduction in longer term oil prices, even if it has contributed to their precipitous fall in the short run. America will not intervene less in the Persian Gulf just because it is producing more oil domestically. Saudi Arabia is less willing or able to play global gas pump to the world economy than in the past. Building an electric car industry does not mean that consumers will buy in, but neither is it true that a broad shift toward eco-friendly cars will have very little impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Most importantly, raising the level of domestic production will never solve America's energy and strategic problems, and it may in fact worsen climate change unless it is accompanied by a serious national and global strategy to decrease oil consumption. While Yetiv takes on these and a number of other misconceptions in this panoramic account, this is not just an exercise in myth-busting; it's also a comprehensive overview of the global geopolitics of oil and America's energy future, cross-cutting some of the biggest economic and security issues in world affairs. [From Amazon.com]
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Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism
2014Peter Adams
In 1862, in the only instance of a Jewish expulsion in America, General Ulysses S. Grant banished Jewish citizens from the region under his military command. Although the order was quickly revoked by President Lincoln, it represented growing anti-Semitism in America. Convinced that assimilation was their best defense, Jews sought to Americanize by shedding distinctive dress, occupations, and religious rituals… In Politics, Faith, and the Making of American Judaism, Peter Adams recounts the history of the American Jewish Community’s assimilation efforts, organization, and political mobilization in the late 19th century, as political and cultural imperatives crafted a new, American brand of Judaism. [From Amazon.com]
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Popular Music in a Digital Music Economy: Problems and Practices for an Emerging Service Industry
2014Tim J. Anderson
In the late 1990s, the MP3 became the de facto standard for digital audio files and the networked computer began to claim a significant place in the lives of more and more listeners. The dovetailing of these two circumstances is the basis of a new mode of musical production and distribution where new practices emerge. This book is not a definitive statement about what the new music industry is. Rather, it is devoted to what this new industry is becoming by examining these practices as experiments, dedicated to negotiating what is replacing an "object based" industry oriented around the production and exchange of physical recordings. In this new economy, constant attention is paid to the production and licensing of intellectual property and the rise of the "social musician" who has been encouraged to become more entrepreneurial. Finally, every element of the industry now must consider a new type of audience, the "end user", and their productive and distributive capacities around which services and musicians must orient their practices and investments. [Amazon.com]
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Précisions sur les vagues/On Waves
2014Marie Darrieussecq (Author) and Peter Schulman (Translator)
Powerful and poetic prose meditation on oceanic energy by French author, Marie Darrieussecq. Translated from the French by Peter Schulman, ODU Professor of French and International Studies.
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The Cambridge Companion to Utilitarianism
2014Ben Eggleston (Editor) and Dale E. Miller (Editor)
Utilitarianism, the approach to ethics based on the maximization of overall well-being, continues to have great traction in moral philosophy and political thought. This Companion offers a systematic exploration of its history, themes, and applications. First, it traces the origins and development of utilitarianism via the work of Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and others. The volume then explores issues in the formulation of utilitarianism, including act versus rule utilitarianism, actual versus expected consequences, and objective versus subjective theories of well-being. Next, utilitarianism is positioned in relation to Kantianism and virtue ethics, and the possibility of conflict between utilitarianism and fairness is considered. Finally, the volume explores the modern relevance of utilitarianism by considering its practical implications for contemporary controversies such as military conflict and global warming. The volume will be an important resource for all those studying moral philosophy, political philosophy, political theory, and history of ideas. [From Amazon.com]
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The Digital Practices of African Americans: An Approach to Studying Cultural Change in the Information Society
2014Roderick Graham
How do social scientists study the impact of social networking sites on racial identity formation? How has the Internet impacted the accumulation of social and cultural capital? By synthesizing insights across a variety of disciplines, this book builds an original theoretical perspective through which these and other questions about core social processes can be addressed. Three case studies of how African Americans use information and communication technologies (ICTs) are used to illustrate this theoretical perspective. They show how groups can leverage ICTs to overcome historical inequalities. The book argues that the lenses through which scholars and society’s leaders think about new technology place too much emphasis on the technological and economic aspects of ICTs, and not enough on the impact of ICTs on social processes at the everyday level. [From Amazon.com]
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Night Willow: Poems
2014Luisa A. Igloria
In this shining and unsparing new collection, celebrated poet Luisa A. Igloria draws from her own childhood memories, relationships, and keen sensory awareness to create a dreamlike series of pictures in which we, too, may see our growth through the experiences of joys, loss, and the poignant wisdom that comes with age. As poet Sean Thomas Dougherty puts it, Igloria's poems "get to the heart of why poetry is written: the pure lyric impulse of trying to live." [Amazon.com]
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Ode to the Heart Smaller Than a Pencil Eraser: Poems
2014Luisa A. Igloria
“When Luisa Igloria cites Epictetus—‘as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place’—she introduces the crowded and contradictory world her poems portray: a realm of transience, yes, where the vulnerable come to harm and everything disappears, but also a scene of tremendous, unpredictable bounty, the gloriously hued density this poet loves to detail. ‘I was raised / to believe not only the beautiful can live on / Parnassus,’ she tells us, and she makes it true, by including in the cyclonic swirl of her poems practically everything: a gorgeous, troubling over-brimming universe." —Mark Doty, judge for the 2014 Swenson Award [Amazon.com]
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The Sino-Soviet Alliance: An International History
2014Austin Jersild
In 1950 the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China signed a Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance to foster cultural and technological cooperation between the Soviet bloc and the PRC. While this treaty was intended as a break with the colonial past, Austin Jersild argues that the alliance ultimately failed because the enduring problem of Russian imperialism led to Chinese frustration with the Soviets.
Jersild zeros in on the ground-level experiences of the socialist bloc advisers in China, who were involved in everything from the development of university curricula, the exploration for oil, and railway construction to piano lessons. Their goal was to reproduce a Chinese administrative elite in their own image that could serve as a valuable ally in the Soviet bloc's struggle against the United States. Interestingly, the USSR's allies in Central Europe were as frustrated by the "great power chauvinism" of the Soviet Union as was China. By exposing this aspect of the story, Jersild shows how the alliance, and finally the split, had a true international dimension. [Amazon.com]
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Making Media Work: Cultures of Management in the Entertainment Industries
2014Derek Johnson (Editor), Derek Kompare (Editor), and Avi Santo (Editor)
Making Media Work aims to provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of
management within the entertainment industries. Drawing from work in critical
sociology and cultural studies, the collection theorizes management as a
pervasive, yet flexible set of principles drawn upon by a wide range of
practitioners—artists, talent scouts, performers, directors, show runners, and
more—in their ongoing efforts to articulate relationships and bridge
potentially discordant forces within the media industries. The contributors
interrogate managerial labor and identity, shine a light on how management
understands its roles within cultural and creative contexts, and reconfigure
the complex relationship between labor and managerial authority as productive
rather than solely prohibitive. Engaging with primary evidence gathered through
interviews, archives, and trade materials, the essays offer tremendous insight
into how management is understood and performed within media industry contexts.The volume as a whole traces the changing roles of management both historically and in the contemporary moment within US and international contexts, and across a range of media forms, from film and television to video games and social media. [Amazon.com]
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An American Diplomat in Bolshevik Russia: DeWitt Clinton Poole
2014Lorraine M. Lees (Editor) and William S. Rodner (Editor)
Diplomat DeWitt Clinton Poole arrived for a new job at the United States consulate office in Moscow in September 1917, just two months before the Bolshevik Revolution. In the final year of World War I, as Russians were withdrawing and Americans were joining the war, Poole found himself in the midst of political turmoil in Russia. U.S. relations with the newly declared Soviet Union rapidly deteriorated as civil war erupted and as Allied forces intervened in northern Russia and Siberia. Thirty-five years later, in the climate of the Cold War, Poole recounted his experiences as a witness to that era in a series of interviews.
Historians Lorraine M. Lees and William S. Rodner introduce and annotate Poole's recollections, which give a fresh, firsthand perspective on monumental events in world history and reveal the important impact DeWitt Clinton Poole (1885–1952) had on U.S.–Soviet relations. He was active in implementing U.S. policy, negotiating with the Bolshevik authorities, and supervising American intelligence operations that gathered information about conditions throughout Russia, especially monitoring anti-Bolshevik elements and areas of German influence. Departing Moscow in late 1918 via Petrograd, he was assigned to the port of Archangel, then occupied by Allied and American forces, and left Russia in June 1919. [Amazon.com]
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Transatlantische Auswanderergeschichten: Reflexionen und Reminiszenzen aus drei Generationen: Festschrift zu Ehren von Robert Schopflocher
2014Frederick Alfred Lubich (Editor)
In German. Title translated: Transatlantic emigration stories : Reflections and reminiscences from three generations: Festschrift in honor of Robert Schopflocher
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Headhunting and Other Sports Poems
2014Philip Raisor
Headhunting and Other Sports Poems, Philip Raisor's third collection, explores how sports enters our lives through front, back, and side doors, while we are asleep or dying, arguing, praying, or running hell-bent from memories that won't let go. Knee injuries end an athlete's career, a wife prefers the opera to a husband's hockey night, war and domestic violence haunt games played by sons, daughters, and fathers, Phil Mickelson and Wilt Chamberlain make cameo appearances, a life-long sports addict petitions for entrance to heaven. Raisor digs at the dark areas in sports experience to pry loose principles worth preserving, games worth celebrating. He honors American sport for its joy, pain, and what it says about us. [Amazon.com]
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The Oxford Handbook of American Drama
2014Jeffrey H. Richards (Editor) and Heather S. Nathans (Editor)
When one thinks of American Drama, names like Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams readily come to mind. However, as The Oxford Handbook of American Drama shows, the U.S. has a deep and varied tradition that extends back to the years before the Revolutionary War. The essays gathered here trace U.S dramatic history, ranging from plays by Mercy Otis Warren to Tony Kushner… [From Amazon.com]
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Balanced Trade: Ending the Unbearable Costs of America's Trade Deficits
2014Jesse T. Richman, Howard B. Richman, and Raymond L. Richman
How should a principled nation which believes in the benefits of mutually beneficial trade respond to the predations of mercantilist trading partners and imbalanced trade? Many argue that the response should be to do little or nothing. Balanced Trade argues that achieving the full benefits of international trade requires an effective response. Although trade deficits provide short-term gains in consumption, these are combined with long-term losses in consumption, innovation, investment, employment and power. Furthermore, market mechanisms do not correct trade imbalances that result from mercantilism, nor do they compensate for the long term shift in production and consumption towards the mercantilist. Balancing trade can make important short run and long run contributions to economic stability and prosperity… [From Amazon.com]
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Towards a Victimology of State Crime
2014Dawn L. Rothe (Editor) and David Kauzlarich (Editor)
Millions of people have been victimized by the actions and omissions of states and governments. This collection provides expert analyses of such victimizations across the world, from Europe, the United States, and Africa to New Zealand and South America. Leading scholars in the area of state crime describe the nature, extent, and distribution of state crime victimization, as well as theoretical and practical paths for understanding, explaining, and aiding victims of massive harms by governments… [From Amazon.com]
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Pathways to Public Relations: Histories of Practice and Profession
2014Burton St. John III (Editor), Margot Opdycke Lamme (Editor), and Jacquie L'Etang (Editor)
Over the centuries, scholars have studied how individuals, institutions and groups have used various rhetorical stances to persuade others to pay attention to, believe in, and adopt a course of action. The emergence of public relations as an identifiable and discrete occupation in the early 20th century led scholars to describe this new iteration of persuasion as a unique, more systematized, and technical form of wielding influence, resulting in an overemphasis on practice, frequently couched within an American historical context. This volume responds to such approaches by expanding the framework for understanding public relations history, investigating broad, conceptual questions concerning the ways in which public relations rose as a practice and a field within different cultures and countries at different times in history… [From Amazon.com]
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The Begum's Millions
2014Jules Verne (Author), Arthor B. Evens (Editor), Stanford L. Luce (Editor), and Peter Schulman (Introduction & Notes)
Verne's first cautionary tale about the dangers of science ― first modern and corrected English translation.
When two European scientists unexpectedly inherit an Indian rajah's fortune, each builds an experimental city of his dreams in the wilds of the American Northwest. France-Ville is a harmonious urban community devoted to health and hygiene, the specialty of its French founder, Dr. François Sarrasin. Stahlstadt, or City of Steel, is a fortress-like factory town devoted to the manufacture of high-tech weapons of war. Its German creator, the fanatically pro-Aryan Herr Schultze, is Verne's first truly evil scientist. In his quest for world domination and racial supremacy, Schultze decides to showcase his deadly wares by destroying France-Ville and all its inhabitants. Both prescient and cautionary, The Begum's Millions is a masterpiece of scientific and political speculation and constitutes one of the earliest technological utopia/dystopias in Western literature. This Wesleyan edition features notes, appendices, and a critical introduction as well as all the illustrations from the original French edition.
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What We Ask Of Flesh Poems
2013Remica L. Bingham
Blending biblical characters into a deeply personal history, What We Ask of Flesh tells of women through time, their spirits borne through broken flesh, through wombs and memories. The body becomes instrument as words explore the mystical connection between what was and is. [Amazon.com]
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Rhetorics of Motherhood
2013Lindal Buchanan
Becoming a mother profoundly alters one’s perception of the world, as Lindal Buchanan learned firsthand when she gave birth. Suddenly attentive to representations of mothers and mothering in advertisements, fiction, film, art, education, and politics, she became intrigued by the persuasive force of the concept of motherhood, an interest that unleashed a host of questions: How is the construct defined? How are maternal appeals crafted, presented, and performed? What do they communicate about gender and power? How do they affect women? Her quest for answers has produced Rhetorics of Motherhood, the first book-length consideration of the topic through a feminist rhetorical lens…. [From Amazon.com]
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Fisheries Management in a Historical Perspective
2013Ingo Heidbrink (Editor) and Matthew McCarthy (Editor)
his book brings together revised and extended versions of selected papers given at the 2009 conference of the North Atlantic Fisheries History Association (NAFHA) hosted by the Department of History at ODU. Like previous volumes in the Studia Atlantica series, the book includes articles by scholars new to the field as well as by renowned fisheries scientists and historians. While the majority of contributions focus on the history of fisheries management, other articles deal with the social history of the North Atlantic fisheries as well as the future of fisheries history research.
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Loving The L Word: The Complete Series in Focus
2013Dana Heller (Editor)
The complete and groundbreaking The L Word is now out on DVD and this book makes the perfect companion, covering the series in its entirety. Loving The L Word picks up where Reading The L Word: Outing Contemporary Television (I.B. Tauris, 2006) left off. With new, updated chapters by many of the same television writers and scholars who contributed to the first volume, as well as essays by some newcomers, Loving The L Word explores the series' quantum contribution to the ongoing evolution of queer television. [Amazon.com]
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Contemporary Latin America 1970 to the Present
2013Robert H. Holden and Rina Villars
Contemporary Latin America presents the epochal political, economic, social, and cultural changes in Latin America over the last 40 years and comprehensively examines their impact on life in the region, and beyond. [From Amazon.com]
A gallery of books by faculty from the College of Arts & Letters, Old Dominion University. Faculty books are also listed under specific departments.
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