Happy Birthday, Žižek

March 21, 2013

Today is Slavoj Žižek’s birthday! We’re celebrating this famous philosopher-cultural critic by sharing a snippet from The Parallax View. This book not only expands Zizek’s Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. In this brain “tickler,” philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.

Q&A with Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister

March 16, 2013

Today, big-brand companies seem to be making commitments that go beyond the usual “greenwashing” efforts undertaken largely for public relations purposes. In Eco-Business, hot off the press, Peter Dauvergne and Jane Lister examine this new corporate embrace of sustainability. Here, they answer a few questions about their new book.

Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran

March 15, 2013

Our third post for Women’s History Month looks at Doing Psychoanalysis in Tehran by Gohar Homayounpour. The book details Homayounpour’s return to Iran to practice psychoanalysis after a twenty year absence.

Pi Day Q & A

March 14, 2013

In honor of Pi day, here is a Q & A with Sanjoy Mahajan author of Street-Fighting Mathematics. Bonus: click this link to view the Creative Commons edition for free. 

From Divine Unanimity to Two-Thirds Majority

March 12, 2013

Now that the papal conclave is under way, we decided to take a look at the history of electing popes. Here’s an excerpt from Josep M. Colomer and Iain McLean’s chapter, “Electing Popes: Approval Balloting and Qualified-Majority Rule,” which is part of Robert I. Rotberg’s Politics and Political Change.

Monday Eye Candy: Illusions in Motion

March 4, 2013

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Secrets of Women

March 1, 2013

March is Women’s History Month. To celebrate, we’ll feature a few of our related titles each Friday through the end of the month. First up is an excerpt from Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection by Katharine Park (Zone Books, 2006). Park’s book Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750 (Zone Books, 1998), coauthored with Lorraine Daston, won the Pfizer Prize for the best book in the history of science. Park is Zemurray Stone Radcliffe Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.

National Engineers Week: A Q&A with Matthew Wisnioski

February 20, 2013

Happy National Engineers Week (February 17-23)! To celebrate, we interviewed Matthew Wisnioski, author of Engineers for Change: Competing Visions of Technology in 1960s America. Matthew Wisnioski is Assistant Professor of Science and Technology in Society at Virginia Tech.

Exiles, Diasporas And Strangers

February 15, 2013

Continuing with our series on Black History Month, we’ll take a look this week at African-American painter Jacob Lawrence who is featured in our own Exiles, Diasporas And Strangers, the fourth book in Annotating Art’s Histories: Cross-Cultural Perspectives in the Visual Arts, a series edited by Kobena Mercer. 

Technology and the African-American Experience

February 11, 2013

Our next post for Black History Month focuses on Technology and the African-American Experience, a collection of essays edited by Bruce Sinclair that examine the relationship between race and technology in American history.  Below are some more details on the book and an excerpt from an essay by Judith Carney, which demonstrates how essential West African slaves were to South Carolina’s lucrative rice plantation economy due to their knowledge and expertise of rice cultivation.