Newly released from UTP, Power and Everyday Practices, Second Edition is an innovative text that provides undergraduate students with tools to think sociologically through the lens of everyday life. In this post, the authors explain the book and why they encourage students to turn their social worlds inside out and explore alternatives to the dominant social order.

By Deborah Brock, Aryn Martin, Rebecca Raby, and Mark P. Thomas.

Our new book Power and Everyday Practices, Second Edition encourages students to explore everyday practices that are familiar and that might, at first glance, seem benign: online shopping, using a credit card, buying a cup of coffee, even taking an online quiz. By “everyday” we mean the practices that are a part of people’s commonplace and taken-for-granted activities. But people’s everyday activities reflect, reproduce, and sometimes challenge a wide range of power relations. In Power and Everyday Practices, Second Edition we will encourage you to ask questions about these kinds of practices. We ask how: How are everyday occurrences connected to the social organization of power? How are gender, class, race, citizenship and age shaped and reflected in many such taken-for-granted practices? How are the goods that we are buying produced, and by whom? How do practices such as travelling, shopping, and getting a credit card reflect and reproduce power, even creating our very sense of who we are? We also address the why questions that these examples will no doubt bring to mind: Why are certain patterns of consumption encouraged and facilitated? And who benefits from these patterns?

For example, even that café latte some cherish as an everyday ritual reflects a geography, history, and economy of power relations. These relations become visible when we begin to study where coffee beans come from, who grows and harvests them, how they come to be ground and sold in drinks, and how they are marketed to the North American consumer. The choice to buy a cup of coffee— including what kind of coffee and where it is bought—is a practice embedded in a global web of power relations. The places we shop, the products we buy, and the websites we visit are all a part of a system of consumption that links us to people, places, and things that seem very distant from our own lives.

We ask students to explore popular culture and mass media to understand how they are permeated with power relations: selling certain kinds of images, promoting individualized self-improvement, cultivating desires that support a consumer culture, and through these practices, reproducing power relations of race, gender, heterosexuality, ability, and a narrow concept of beauty. How are we pressured to try to shape ourselves to better fit a presumed ideal?

The chapters in this textbook address the diverse power relations embedded in such everyday objects and practices. They complicate objects and practices that many of us take for granted and offer new, sometimes unsettling ways of thinking about them. They illustrate how a cup of coffee is never just a cup of coffee and why a quiz is never just a quiz. When we begin to examine everyday objects and practices in this way, we also begin a process of “unpacking the centre.”

Most sociological textbooks do not directly investigate what we will refer to here as the centre. It is much more common for them to analyze social deviance through the lens of the normative social order, or to focus on what happens to people who exist at the margins: the racialized, the colonized, the so-called sexual “minorities,” the poor, and so on. Some scholars have instead focused on studying the centre in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how power relations are organized. They “unpack” the centre—just like taking apart a piece of mechanical equipment—in order to find out how it works. To focus almost exclusively on the deviant or the marginalized without interrogating the centre is to risk reproducing a pattern that defines the margins as the location of the problem.

For example, we think it imperative to conduct sociological research on same-gender sexuality in order to document the forms of systemic and attitudinal inequality that marginalize people because of their sexual desires and practices. However, when scholars focus on same-gender sexuality while ignoring the social construction of heterosexuality, we continue to name same-gender attraction, including being gay, lesbian or bisexual as, in effect, the problem for sociological inquiry, even though our objective may be to explain why these forms of sexuality should not be considered a problem. Heterosexuality is able to maintain its privileged position as the normal and natural form of sexual expression.  The binary two-gender system is another way in which our relation to ourselves and others is normatively, and narrowly, organized. Yet this system de-legitimates or erases a vast array of possibilities for living one’s life. Why the insistence that there are only two genders, when they limit possibilities for so many of us, and substantial numbers of people refuse to be contained by them?  Whiteness is another social characteristic that occupies the centre. Academic and public accounts of racism commonly focus on the impact of racism on people of colour, and ignore the social construction of whiteness and the relations of power and privilege connected to whiteness. The social organization of whiteness, however, is an important part of practices of racialization and the problems of racism. Racism is also perpetuated when those who occupy the centre fail to acknowledge systematic historic and current racial and cultural ideas and practices that are deeply connected to colonialism and the marginalization of Indigenous peoples.

This approach to studying the social organization of everyday objects and practices draws attention to what sociologists have long referred to as patterns of social inequality. We are interested in power primarily because of the ways it produces and sustains inequalities between social groups. We do not, however, simply focus on patterns of social inequality as the outcome of power. While themes of inequality are certainly present in the chapters in this book, our approach seeks to understand the social organization of dominant power relations in terms of the ways in which these power relations shape both broad patterns of inequality and everyday experiences. In other words, we do not simply aim to document different levels of socioeconomic status, as stratification theorists often do (Aronowitz 2003); rather, we are interested in the social relations that produce and reproduce the “normal,” the dominant, and the “centre.” This means our analysis focuses on understanding relationships between social processes, social groups, and individuals as they live their daily lives.

To unpack the centre is to explore the taken for granted features of dominant forms of social organization. It is the most difficult to see that a centre exists when you occupy it— for example, when you are white, heterosexual, a citizen, or someone with an ample secure income. It is not so difficult when you are an Indigenous person, a non-citizen, do not identify as straight, are racialized, or are in some way minoritized. We want you to become particularly aware of the ways in which centuries of colonization have placed the descendants of colonizers in a position of assumed ownership of the homelands of Indigenous peoples, for which they typically never ceded title. Finally, the experiences of migrant workers reveal how citizenship and national belonging are part of the centre, even while they might wish such acceptance for themselves. In Power and Everyday Practices, Second Edition we aim to show how these active and ongoing social processes are integral to everyday life.

Want to learn more from Power and Everyday Practices, Second Edition?

• Purchase your copy of the book.
• Read an exclusive chapter.
• Email us at requests@utorontopress.com to request exam or desk copies of this or any other UTP title. Please be sure to include the course name and number, start date, and estimated enrollment.

Deborah Brock is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Aryn Martin is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

Rebecca Raby is a professor in the Department of Child and Youth Studies at Brock University.

Mark P. Thomas is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University.

In the first of our Back to School series, author Andrea Olive offers simple tips on tips on how to keep your “first-day-mojo” going – at least until you can hit that snooze button in late December.

Your first day. This is probably peak college. Today you are organized, and you are ready to learn. Your clothes are clean, you remembered your lunch, you got a parking space, and you found the right room. This is exciting.

Unfortunately, it is likely all downhill from here. Actually, it will be uphill – steep and Sisyphean for a lot of you. If you don’t get that reference, look it up – you are in college after all.

Did you Google it? I am waiting.

It sounds terrible, right? Knowledge is just one big rock that has to be pushed uphill repeatedly. College is meant to be challenging – but this is exactly what makes it meaningful.

Luckily, I have a few tips on how to keep your “first-day-mojo” going until you can finally hit the snooze button in late December. And these tips are pretty simple.

First, let’s cover the bare-minimum basics: sleep, water, and nutrition. These apply to college and pretty much every day after that. Sleep eight hours out of every twenty-four hours. Drink water regularly (but not before sleeping). Take a vitamin. Seriously, just take a vitamin because I know you don’t eat healthy now (I’ve seen your food selections at the cafeteria) let alone when you are cramming for an exam between the two jobs you have decided you have time for this semester. Leave bottles of water (in reusable containers, because the planet is a whole other problem) and your vitamins in a visible place – your desk, your car, at the front door, in the bathroom… I don’t care. Just make it easy for yourself to see them because that makes it more likely you will use them.

Now that you are healthy enough to make it to class, you should shut off your phone. (No one in the history of the planet uses their iPhone to “take notes” or read scholarship. Just no.) In fact, shut off your phone right now so that you can focus long enough to read the rest of this. Unless you are reading it on your phone, of course. (The off button is on the right – just hold it down and the phone will ask if you are really serious about turning it off. Swipe to off.)

Oh, you brought your laptop to class, didn’t you? Sneaky. You think you are going to take notes on it. You are actually going to Google fact-check something and then before you know it, you will be on Instagram looking at photos of your ex’s sister’s wedding from two summers ago.

I would recommend that you download an app that can prevent you from going down this road. Use an app like Freedom or Anti-Social to prevent you from accessing the Internet. This isn’t permanent. Just set it for the duration of class. And then use it while studying.

The struggle is real. You probably googled “Freedom App” and found yourself on Reddit. It happens to the best of us. This is why we need help. Consider it.

Better yet, leave your computer in your bag. You do not really need it for class. You just need paper and a pen. (We professors like to say: In university, the pen is always mightier than the keyboard. Hahaha.) But this might be too radical, and it probably makes me sound 100 years old. Besides, deforestation is a serious problem and every kid can’t just be using paper like it grows on trees.

Okay, open your computer again. Take notes on it. But you have to save the file to your desktop. And then you have to save it to the iCloud. (I actually have no idea how that works so maybe don’t trust me on that.) But the point is, you need to create backup files. Your dog isn’t going to eat your homework if it is on the computer. But your house could burn down. That happens in real life. So, email the files to yourself.

Come to class a few minutes early and make time to linger around after the end. This is how you meet friends. And class friends are so important. You can study together. You can share notes. You can complain to each other. And you can just talk about a mutual interest – namely, the course content. (Yes, you should be interested in the classes you take.)

Thus far you are healthy and attending class. That is pretty much how you succeed in college. That is the big secret. But if you want to totally rock it, I would recommend a few other things in no particular order:

Correctly spell your professor’s name in emails and on assignments. That is just good manners. And it will go a long way in earning their trust and respect. Never call your professor “hey.” Titles are confusing and names can be hard to pronounce. But you will never go wrong with “professor.”

Do not post your class notes on the Internet. You think you are helping friends, but it turns out that you misunderstood something and now you have misinformed the planet. The world has enough problems already. Just keep your notes to yourself.

Buy the books. Yes, they cost money and I understand that money is hard to find in this day and age. But I also see you at Starbucks three days a week. Grown-up life is all about priorities. So, get in line at Tim Hortons (bring a reusable mug because those cups are not recyclable) and save your pennies so you can buy the books.

Oh, and read the books. Even the boring ones. And the long ones. And the ones with no pictures. It will build character and help you on the exam.

But if you really don’t have the money, that is okay too. The university has a building called “Library” and there are literally thousands of books in it. It is generally a huge building. Often times, it is where the Starbucks is on campus. If you go into the library, really nice people work there and can help you find the book for your class. They will also let you sit down in a quiet place and read the book. For free. Yes, for real. Try it.

Read and follow the instructions. Your professor isn’t trying to pull a fast one on you. They genuinely want you to succeed. The test isn’t a trick. The assignment isn’t a scam. You are too young to be this cynical.

You aren’t going to read the syllabus. I have pretty much given up on that. But look at that one section that explains the due dates for all assignment and tests. Put all those dates into your phone and computer calendar. Or download an organizational app that can help you with that.

Bring a sweater. I think that is self-explanatory.

Ask questions. That is the whole point. You’re not in college to get a job. Okay, that isn’t the only reason you are in college. You also have the opportunity to learn stuff. I was a political science major (don’t roll your eyes, it is super interesting) in undergrad at the University of Calgary. I took an astronomy class where I was able to see the Milky Way through a 1.8m A.R. Cross Telescope on a cold night. I got to ask some of the most important minds in the world about variable stars. It blew my mind. I didn’t become an astronomer, but the class made me a more well-rounded scholar and introduced me to new ideas and friends. Don’t just study what you already know – and never be afraid to ask questions about the things you don’t know.

Good luck out there.

(You can turn your phone back on. Just hold down the button on the right and it will come back on, I promise.)

Andrea Olive is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Geography at the University of Toronto Mississauga, and the author of The Canadian Environment in Political Context.

With the Canadian federal election coming up in October, our forthcoming political science title is certainly well-timed. Set to publish this August, Absent Mandate develops the crucial concept of policy mandates – distinguished from other interpretations of election outcomes – and addresses the disconnect between election issues and government actions. In this post, the authors discuss the upcoming election: what we can expect to see? Has anything really changed since elections back in 1965? And are Canadian electoral politics now following a new, or even unfamiliar, path?

By Harold D. Clarke, Jane Jenson, Lawrence LeDuc, and Jon H. Pammett

The 2019 federal election will soon be upon us. The period leading up to the vote has seen the current government lagging in the polls, but there has also been no clarity as to the public’s preference for the alternatives. Negative campaigning is already well underway, and polls reveal a considerable amount of public discontent with the political process in general. Big issues, like environmental protection, the energy supply, the state of the economy, and national unity are the subjects of media commentary. The party leaders have been unveiling policy announcements keyed to their forthcoming campaigns, and trying to showcase their strengths at dealing with today’s problems.

Does anything in these patterns suggest that Canadian electoral politics is following a new road or even an unfamiliar path? Not really, as we show in our new book, Absent Mandate: Strategies and Choices in Canadian Elections.

This book has its roots in several previous books bearing similar titles that we published more than twenty years ago. Those books addressed two key questions that have always engaged students of elections and voting, namely “how do voters decide?” and “what decides elections?” The national election studies since 1965 that have provided the data for our analyses consistently reveal that Canadian voters hold flexible partisan attachments, that election campaigns are often volatile, that the bases of party support are weak and unstable over time, and that public discontent with politics and politicians is high. We documented these patterns since then, as have numerous other scholars.

The Absent Mandate books, however, introduced a third question that was less common than those associated with voting behaviour and election outcomes. That question – “what do elections decide?” – spoke to the linkages between elections and public policy, thus addressing one of the key issues of democratic governance and its normative foundations. If the electoral process, as it generally unfolds in Canadian federal politics, does not produce a mandate for the subsequent direction of public policy, then what can we reasonably expect elections to accomplish beyond a rearrangement of the actors?

The third of the Absent Mandate volumes, published in 1996 and subtitled Canadian Electoral Politics in an Era of Restructuring, concluded that despite all of the political and economic changes that had taken place in the federation during the first half of the 1990s, there were substantial continuities with the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, including the absence of policy mandates. Among those continuities was the widespread feeling that parties could not be trusted to offer real choices among policy alternatives in elections. Indeed, by the 1990s, all parties had accepted the broad outlines of a neoliberal policy agenda. They framed policy discussions around issues on which there was substantial agreement, and focused their campaigns on the attributes of the party leaders, promising better performance in government as they shaped their appeals to the electorate.

Indeed, a two-way process of learning was underway throughout these decades, sustaining what we have labelled the brokerage mould. Parties had learned that their electoral coalitions are fragile creations that require constant renewal, and voters had learned that elections are vehicles for the expression of discontent with few consequences for substantive policy change. The electoral system has also played a role in this process because it limits the choices available to voters to the candidates in a single constituency. Turnout in federal elections began a steep decline in 1993, partly for these reasons but also reflecting generational changes.

The first two decades of the twenty-first century saw many changes – in the party system, in styles of leadership, in the social and economic issues confronting Canada, and in the technology of election campaigns, to mention only a few. The reunification of the Conservative party under the leadership of Stephen Harper in 2003 ended a period of party fragmentation on the right and positioned the Conservatives to return to power with a minority government in 2006. Harper seemed to be a different type of conservative – coming from the West, more ideologically driven, and (according to some) harbouring a “hidden agenda.” Yet, even under a leader such as Harper, electoral politics continued to operate within a brokerage mould. The Harper years, including a majority government in 2011, failed to deliver the type of sea change in federal politics that many had expected. Following the Conservatives’ defeat in the 2015 federal election by the resurgent Liberals led by Justin Trudeau, an observer could easily conclude that the political landscape looked increasingly familiar. The “two-and-a-half” federal party system, long described as the norm in older Canadian political science textbooks, seemed to have reappeared. Indeed, a simple macro comparison between the year of the first Canadian Election Study and the 2015 outcome documents remarkable similarities.

Of course, some things are different. Election campaigns, building on new technologies and social media, can increasingly channel the negative feelings of voters, as “attack ads” have become a staple of partisan politics. Yet leaders, and their strengths and weaknesses, remain the focus of much political debate, and parties’ issue agendas are limited to performance appeals such as “growing the economy” or “sustaining health care.” Such valence issues are ones on which there is widespread consensus, and political debate focuses on "how to do the job" and who is most capable of doing it. More specific policy commitments are sometimes offered, but these tend to be small programs targeted to specific groups and co-exist well within the framework of a broad neoliberal policy consensus. All of the parties participate in political marketing utilizing the new technologies available. But these strategies appear remarkably similar to those associated with the brokerage mould that had characterized the earlier periods. If there was a “shift to the right” as some had forecast with the rise of Harper, multiple parties appear to have participated in varying degrees in a movement in that direction. For example, it is telling that all of the current parties support the recently negotiated USMCA, the successor agreement to NAFTA. As we began to write Absent Mandate: Strategies and Choices in Canadian Elections, we were more struck by the continuities that existed in the shape and style of Canadian electoral politics than by the many changes that had taken place over the past two decades.

Now, with a federal election only a few months away, would we venture to make predictions, based on over 50 years of data and four books on this subject? We know enough about the fundamental elements of Canadian politics to realize that election outcomes are inherently unpredictable. Nonetheless, we can readily predict some things. The forthcoming campaign will be a volatile one. This will be because flexible partisan attachments coupled with widespread discontent facilitate, indeed foster, substantial movement by voters between the parties or movement into or out of the electorate. In each of the last two federal elections (2011 and 2015) there was considerable volatility in the polls over the last few weeks of the campaign. We would also expect to see parties concentrating on one or more valence issues such as the government’s economic performance and environmental protection, as well as efforts to highlight the attributes of party leaders and the shortcomings of their opponents. And given these entrenched characteristics of Canadian electoral politics, we can also predict that any meaningful policy mandate emanating from such a campaign will continue to be absent.

Want to learn more from Absent Mandate: Strategies and Choices in Canadian Elections?

• Pre-order your copy of the book.
• Read an exclusive chapter.
• Email us at requests@utorontopress.com to request exam or desk copies of this or any other UTP title. Please be sure to include the course name and number, start date, and estimated enrollment.

Harold D. Clarke is the Ashbel Smith Professor in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Jane Jenson is a professor emerita in the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal.

Lawrence LeDuc is a professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto.

Jon H. Pammett is a distinguished research professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University.

With the recent release of Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology, we asked author Laura Tubelle de González to talk about her new textbook, and her hopes for its use in the classroom. Here, González discusses what inspired her, why she includes her own personal experiences, and how her strategic use of language and graphics will allow students to easily place themselves within the book.

Excerpt from Chapter 8: Gender and Sexuality in Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology.

When my daughter, Maya, was very little, I made sure to provide her with all kinds of toys, including those “meant” for boys, like cars, excavation kits, robots, and other toys from the blue aisle. I didn’t want to confine her imagination to those things that North American society deemed appropriate only for girls. One day, I came into her room, and she was playing with a set of little Hot Wheels cars. I gave myself an imaginary pat on the back, feeling smug that she had chosen the cars over her dolls for playtime. Wanting to know more, I asked, “I see you’re playing with your cars. What are you playing?” Expecting to hear something typical for car play, like “car chase” or “car crash,” I was flabbergasted when she replied, “well, this is the daddy car, this is the mama car, and these are the baby cars.” I realized then that there are aspects of gender that are unquestionably intrinsic to each individual. Maya was who she was, no matter what toys I offered her.

My lower division cultural anthropology courses are full of personal examples, like this one about Maya’s Hot Wheels cars and expectations of gender. I can’t resist telling stories about my first night of fieldwork in Oaxaca when I was served fried grasshoppers, or how deliberating whether or not to buy the most popular (pooping!) baby doll as a holiday gift illustrates the market economy. There are so many ways in which life as a teacher, family member, community member, and citizen highlights anthropological ideas. I believe that the classroom community is made richer when we share our own life examples. My new textbook from UTP, Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology, seeks to create the kind of reading environment that connects author and students in the same way we connect in the classroom.

The textbook is an adaptation of a four-field general anthropology textbook that I co-authored with my Canadian colleague, Bob Muckle, called Through the Lens of Anthropology, Second Edition. As we wrote, we made an effort to create a text that was engaging and geared toward lower-division students. The book has a special focus on food, sustainability, and language throughout, with pop culture references that students will recognize. We also tried to write a true North American text, that felt relevant to students from both the US and Canada. Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology develops the cultural and linguistic sections into a full semester’s course text with 12 chapters and additional chapter topics, retaining an emphasis on those areas mentioned above.

When writing Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology, I thought of my own students, and what they deserve in a textbook. First, it’s essential that all students see themselves reflected in the book. For this reason, I put special emphasis on the use of gender-neutral pronouns and inclusion of transgender and non-binary issues throughout, not just confined to the gender and sexuality chapter. My research among gender expansive students in community colleges underscores the importance of inclusion of all genders and sexualities in the classroom and in course material.

Credit: Karen Rubins/Alpa Shah.

Secondly, the book makes a special effort to include narratives that are not always emphasized, such as the contributions of Black anthropologists, issues of White privilege, the voices of Canadian First Nations peoples, and others. It is important to me as a teacher and textbook author to enable students to connect to course material in not only logical but also emotional ways. I believe that transformative learning comes from compassion, not only intellectual understanding. Therefore, the book attempts to make these kinds of connections. I deeply appreciate the comment made by my friend and fellow UTP author, Tad McIlwraith, when he said the book “reads like a provocative argument in favour of cultural diversity.”

Finally, following the lead of editor Anne Brackenbury (who has recently left her position at UTP), the textbook uses comics and graphic panels to help tell the story of anthropology in a visual way. The cover has a preview of that focus, with a wonderful set of images of diverse people from the text by artist Charlotte Hollands, who regularly creates graphic panels for the American Anthropological Association. My students enjoy the way that a graphic story can draw them into a set of ideas in ways that text alone often can’t. For instance, reading about praxis may not be as successful as engaging with a graphic panel on praxis in the context of collaborating with the mermaid community (drawn by Karen Rubins, illustrating the article by Alpa Shah).

When I mention to people that I teach anthropology, I often hear “that was my favorite class in college!” The way cultural anthropology connects students’ lives to others around the world makes it a potentially transformative course, especially for students thinking about ethnocentrism or cultural relativism for the first time. Engaging in the act of deconstructing our own behavior – questioning our beliefs and behaviors – is a way to make course material real, both in the classroom and in our texts.

If you want to find out more about Through the Lens of Cultural Anthropology, click here to view the table of contents and read an exclusive excerpt from the book.

Laura Tubelle de González is a professor of Anthropology at San Diego Miramar College in Southern California.

Pride Month

To celebrate Pride Month, we have developed a blog series with weekly posts, designed to allow UTP authors the opportunity to share with us what Pride means to them, and to discuss a whole manner of Pride-related topics.

This week we’re showcasing UTP books that have made their way onto recent course syllabi. Read on to see how our books are used in undergraduate classroom across North America.

Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930-1985

Prairie Fairies draws upon a wealth of oral, archival, and cultural histories to recover the experiences of queer urban and rural people in the prairies. Focusing on five major urban centres (Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, and Calgary), Prairie Fairies explores the regional experiences and activism of queer men and women by looking at the community centres, newsletters, magazines, and organizations that they created from 1930 to 1985.

• Winner of the CHA 2019 Clio Prairies Book Award
• Winner of the Jennifer Welsh Scholarly Writing Award (Saskatchewan Book Awards)

Course

Canadian Women’s and Gender History (HI 397), Wilfrid Laurier University, Brantford, ON

Professor Tarah Brookfield lists Prairie Fairies as one out of three options for a book review assignment.

“This course explores the history of Canadian women from the colonial period until the end of the twentieth century. It compares women’s diverse historic experiences in the workplace, family, community, and nation, and how women’s and men’s identities and paths were shaped by social constructions of gender, race, sexuality, and class. The course also considers how historians have developed the field of women’s and gender history and how this has reshaped understandings of Canadian history.”

Queering Urban Justice: Queer of Colour Formations in Toronto

Queering Urban Justice foregrounds visions of urban justice that are critical of racial and colonial capitalism, and asks: What would it mean to map space in ways that address very real histories of displacement and erasure? What would it mean to regard Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (QTBIPOC) as geographic subjects who model different ways of inhabiting and sharing space?

Course

Urban Politics (PO 412), John Carroll University, University Heights, OH

Professor Elizabeth A. Stiles recommends Queering Urban Justice to students in this course.

“Most Americans live in metropolitan areas—either in a city or in a suburb based in relation to a city. The city is often the background for the American dream as opportunities for social mobility and wealth are present there. It is also the site for some of our sharpest failures as a nation—rising inequality, urban riots, and environmental problems. In this course, we will begin with various theories and evidence about urban politics and their surrounding suburbs. We will then analyze links between urban institutions and national politics, as well as issues of race, class, health disparities, and environmental issues.”

Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis

Liberated, licentious, or merely liberal, the sexual freedoms of Germany’s Weimar Republic have become legendary. The home of the world’s first gay rights movement, the republic embodied a progressive, secular vision of sexual liberation. Sex and the Weimar Republic examines the rise of sexual tolerance through the debates which surrounded “immoral” sexuality: obscenity, male homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender identity, heterosexual promiscuity, and prostitution.

Course

Modern German History – The Weimar Years (HIST 196G), University of California, Santa Cruz, CA

Professor Edward Kehler teaches this course and each week students are asked to discuss a particular reading. In Week 7, students focus on Sex and the Weimar Republic.

“The class is designed as a small-group discussion course providing a broad overview of some of the major historiographical debates concerning the Weimar period. Through the readings we will analyze modern Germany’s experiment with democracy and its failure. Subjects of study will include the foundation and development of the Weimar Republic, the political and economic challenges it faced, and its ultimate collapse. Aspects of Weimar culture, including gender politics and homosexual emancipation, and the factors that enabled Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power will also be covered in depth.”

Consider adding these titles to your course syllabi:

VIVA M•A•C: AIDS, Fashion, and the Philanthropic Practices of M•A•C Cosmetics

The first cultural history of the iconic brand M·A·C Cosmetics, VIVA M·A·C charts the evolution of M·A·C’s revolutionary corporate philanthropy around HIV/AIDS awareness. Drawing upon exclusive interviews with M·A·C co-founder Frank Toskan, key journalists, and fashion insiders, Andrea Benoit tells the fascinating story of how M·A·C’s unique style of corporate social responsibility emerged from specific cultural practices, rather than being part of a strategic marketing plan.

Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance

In this highly original text—a collaboration between a college professor, a playwright, and an artist—graphic storytelling offers an emotionally resonant way for readers to understand and engage with feminism and resistance.

"This is the book for you if you have ever struggled to reconcile the academic, artistic, and activist sides of yourself: it combines feminist analysis and history with compelling discussion questions and striking illustrations of recent political struggles. This is the book for you if you are ready to learn about social justice in a fresh way that engages multiple learning styles and modes of expression: lead a class or a discussion group by showing an image, posing a debate question, reading an excerpt, or pursuing one of the research activities provided. This is the rare book that treats its readers as equals by showing us all how we can join the conversation and take up the struggle."

Lucas Crawford, Department of English, University of New Brunswick

Growing into Resilience: Sexual and Gender Minority Youth in Canada

Despite recent progress in civil rights for sexual and gender minorities (SGM), ensuring SGM youth experience fairness, justice, inclusion, safety, and security in their schools and communities remains an ongoing challenge. In Growing into Resilience, André P. Grace and Kristopher Wells investigate how teachers, healthcare workers, and other professionals can help SGM youth build the human and material assets that will empower them to be happy, healthy, and resilient.

Homophobia in the Hallways: Heterosexism and Transphobia in Canadian Catholic Schools

In Homophobia in the Hallways, Tonya D. Callaghan interrogates institutionalized homophobia and transphobia in the publicly-funded Catholic school systems of Ontario and Alberta. Featuring twenty interviews with students and teachers who have faced overt discrimination in Catholic schools, the book blends theoretical inquiry and real-world case study, making Callaghan’s study a unique insight into religiously-inspired heterosexism and genderism. She uncovers the causes and effects of the long-standing disconnect between Canadian Catholic schools and the Charter by comparing the treatment of and attitudes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer teachers and students in these publicly-funded systems.

Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada

Pink Blood is the first book to analyze homophobic violence on a national scale. Douglas Victor Janoff uses social theory, legal analysis, descriptive case studies, and interviews with victims, activists, and police officers from thirty cities to convey the shattering impact this violence has had on queer Canadians and on the communities they inhabit.

Drawing from a wide range of scholarship—law, criminology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and social work—Pink Blood is an important addition to the literature on queer life in Canada from a respected researcher and community activist.