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Columbia University Press
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When the photographs depicting torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison were released in 2004, U.S. politicians attributed the incident to a few bad apples in the American military, exonerated high-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration, promoted Guantanamo as a model prison, and dismissed the illegality of the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation. By the end of the Bush administration, members of both major congressional parties had come to denounce enhanced interrogation as torture and argue for the closing of Guantanamo. What initiated this shift? In Talking About Torture, Jared Del Rosso reviews transcripts from congressional hearings and scholarship on denial, torture, and state violence to document this wholesale change in rhetoric and attitude toward the use of torture by the CIA and the U.S. military during the War on Terror. He plots the evolution of the torture issue in U.S. politics and its manipulation by politicians to serve various ends. Most important, Talking About Torture integrates into the debate about torture the testimony of those who suffered under American interrogation practices and demonstrates how the conversation continues to influence current counterterrorism policies, such as the reliance on drones. |
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Stem cells have become linked with both new frontiers in medical science and political and ethical controversy. The field, along with the emerging area of regenerative medicine, is creating the conditions for a time when damaged tissue and organs might be repaired through personalized cell therapy as easily as the body repairs itself, therefore revolutionizing the treatment of numerous diseases. Yet to obtain human embryonic stem cells, scientists must destroy human embryos — a prospect that has provoked intense reactions among the American public. Addressing the moral and ethical issues of stem cell research while also educating readers about the biological function and medical applications of these cells, this book features fictional characters engaging in compelling inquiry and debate. Participants investigate the scientific, political, and socio-ethical dimensions of stem cell science using actual language, analysis, and arguments taken from scientific, philosophical, and popular literature. Each dialogue centers on a specific, recognizable topic, such as the policies implemented by the George W. Bush administration restricting the use of embryonic stem cells; the potential role of stem cells in personalized medicine; the ethics of cloning; and the sale of eggs and embryos. Additionally, speakers debate the use of stem cells to treat paralysis, diabetes, stroke effects, macular degeneration, and cancer. Educational, entertaining, and rigorously researched (with 300 references to scientific literature), Stem Cell Dialogues should be included in any effort to help the public understand the science, ethics, and policy concerns of this promising field. |
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Ambitious and engrossing, this volume thoroughly revises the conventional narrative of The Tale of Genji's early modern and modern history, arguing that until the 1930s readers were less familiar with the eleventh-century work than scholars have assumed. Exploring iterations of the work from the 1830s to the 1950s, Michael Emmerich demonstrates how translations and the global circulation of discourse they inspired turned The Tale of Genji into a widely read classic, reframing not only our understanding of its significance and influence but also the processes that have canonized the text. In doing so, he supplants the passive concept of reception with the active notion of replacement, revitalizing the work of literary criticism. Part I begins with a close reading of the lavishly produced bestseller A Fraudulent Murasaki's Bumpkin Genji (1829-1842), an adaptation of Genji written and designed by Ryutei Tanehiko, with pictures by the great print artist Utagawa Kunisada. Emmerich argues that this work, with its sophisticated image-text-book relations, first introduced Genji to a popular Japanese audience, creating a new mode of reading in which people interested in Genji read a more approachable version instead. He then considers moveable type editions of Bumpkin Genji from 1888 to 1928 as bibliographic translations, connecting trends in print and publishing to larger developments in national literature and showing how the one-time bestseller became obsolete. Part II traces Genji's recanonization as a classic on a global scale, revealing that it entered the canons of world literature before the text gained popularity in Japan — and that it was Suematsu Kencho's now-forgotten partial translation of Genji into English in 1882 that accomplished this, four decades before Arthur Waley's still-famous translation. Emmerich concludes by analyzing Genji's emergence of Genji as a national classic during World War II and reviews an important postwar challenges to reading the work in this mode. Through his sustained critique, Emmerich upends scholarship on Japan's preeminent classic, while remaking theories of world literature, continuity, and community. |
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Like religion, playing and watching sports is a deeply meaningful, celebratory ritual, enjoyed by millions across the world. The first scholarly work designed for use in both religion and sports courses, this collection develops and then applies a theoretically grounded approach to studying sports engagement globally and its relationship to modern-day issues of violence, difference, social protest, and belonging. Case studies explore the place of sports in mainstream faiths, such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity, and lesser-known religious groups, particularly in Africa. It covers football, baseball, and basketball, but also archery, soccer, bullfighting, judo, and track. Essays reflect all skill levels, from amateur to professional, and find surprising affinities among practices and cultures in locations as disparate as Germany and Japan, Spain and Saudi Arabia. Thoroughly examining a range of phenomena, this collection fully captures the unique overlap of two universal institutions and their interplay with human society, politics, and culture. |
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If, as Buddhism claims, the potential for awakening exists in all human beings, we should be able to map the phenomenon with the same science we apply to other forms of consciousness. A student of cognitive social science and a Zen practitioner for more than forty years, Richard P. Boyle brings his sophisticated perspective to bear on the development of a theoretical model for both ordinary and awakened consciousness. Boyle conducts probing interviews with eleven prominent Western Buddhist teachers (Shinzen Young, John Tarrant, Ken McLeod, Ajahn Amaro, Martine Batchelor, Shaila Catherine, Gil Fronsdal, Stephen Batchelor, Pat Enkyo O'Hara, Bernie Glassman, and Joseph Goldstein) and one scientist (James Austin) who have experienced awakening. From the paths they traveled to enlightenment and their descriptions of the experience, he derives three fundamental properties of awakened consciousness. He then constructs an overarching model that explains how Buddhist practices help free the mind from attachments to reality and the self and make possible the three properties of awakening. Specifically, these teachers describe how they worked to control attention and quiet the mind, detach from ideas and habits, and open themselves to compassion. Boyle's account incorporates current theories of consciousness, sociological insights, and research in neuroscience to advance the study of awakened consciousness and help an even greater number of people to realize it. |
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The remarkable explosion of American industrial output and national wealth at the end of the nineteenth century was matched by a troubling rise in poverty and worker unrest. As politicians and intellectuals fought over who to blame for this crisis, Henry George (1839-1897) published Progress and Poverty (1879), a radical critique of laissez-faire capitalism and its threat to the nation's republican traditions. His book, which became a surprise best-seller, offered a popular, provocative solution: a single-tax on land values. George's writings and years of social activism almost won him the mayor's seat in New York City in 1886. Though he lost the election, his ideas proved instrumental to shaping a progressivism that remains essential to tackling inequality today. Edward T. O'Donnell's exploration of George's life and times merges labor, ethnic, intellectual, and political history to illuminate the early militant labor movement in Gilded Age New York. O'Donnell locates in George's rise to prominence the beginning of a larger effort by American workers to regain control of the workplace and obtain economic security. The Gilded Age was the first but by no means last period in which Americans confronted the mixed outcomes of modern capitalism. George's accessible, forward-thinking ideas on democracy, equality, and freedom have tremendous value to ongoing debates over the future of unions, corporate power, Wall Street recklessness, regulation, and political polarization. |
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Aisin Gioro Xianyu (1907-1948) was the fourteenth daughter of a Manchu prince and a legendary figure in China's bloody struggle with Japan. After the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1912, Xianyu's father gave his daughter to a Japanese friend who was sympathetic to his efforts to reclaim power. This man raised Xianyu, now known as Kawashima Yoshiko, to restore the Manchus to their former glory. Her fearsome dedication to this cause ultimately got her killed. Yoshiko had a fiery personality and loved the limelight. She shocked Japanese society by dressing in men's clothes and rose to prominence as Commander Jin, touted in Japan's media as a new Joan of Arc. Boasting a short, handsome haircut and a genuine military uniform, Commander Jin was credited with various daring exploits, among them riding horseback as leader of her own army during the Japanese occupation of China. While trying to promote the Manchus, Yoshiko supported the puppet Manchu state established by the Japanese in 1932, which became one of the reasons she was executed for treason after Japan's 1945 defeat. The truth of Yoshiko's life is still a source of contention between China and Japan — some believe she was exploited by powerful men, others claim she relished her role as political provocateur. China holds her responsible for unspeakable crimes, while Japan has forgiven her transgressions. This biography presents the most accurate and colorful portrait to date of the controversial princess spy, recognizing her truly novel role in conflicts that transformed East Asia. |
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Refusing to cast gangs in solely criminal terms, Robert J. Duran, a former gang member turned scholar, recasts such groups as an adaptation to the racial oppression of colonization in the American Southwest. Developing a paradigm rooted in ethnographic research and almost two decades of direct experience with gangs, Duran completes the first-ever study to follow so many marginalized groups so intensely for so long, revealing their core characteristics, behavior, and activities within two unlikely American cities. Duran spent five years in Denver, Colorado, and Ogden, Utah, conducting 145 interviews with gang members, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and other related individuals. From his research, he constructs a comparative outline of the emergence and criminalization of Latino youth groups, the ideals and worlds they create, and the reasons for their persistence. He also underscores the failures of violent gang suppression tactics, which have only further entrenched these groups within the barrio. Encouraging cultural activists and current and former gang members to pursue grassroots empowerment, Duran proposes new solutions to racial oppression that challenge and truly alter the conditions of gang life. |
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This timely volume discusses the experimental documentary projects of some of the most significant artists in today's global art world: Hito Steyerl, Joachim Koester, Tacita Dean, Matthew Buckingham, Zoe Leonard, Jean-Luc Moulene, Ilya & Emilia Kabakov, Jon Thomson & Alison Craighead, and Anri Sala. Their films, videos, and photographic series address the history of failed utopian experiments and counter-hegemonic social practices. This study illustrates the political significance of these artistic practices and offers a crucial contribution to the debate on the conditions of utopian thinking in late capitalist society, arguing that contemporary artists' interest in the past is the result of a shift within the temporal organization of the utopian imagination from its futuristic pole toward the pole of remembrance. The book therefore provides one of the first critical examinations of the recent turn towards documentary in the field of contemporary art. |
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Iran's Basij Resistance Force is a paramilitary organization used by the regime to suppress dissidents, vote as a bloc, and indoctrinate Iranian citizens. Captive Society surveys the Basij's history, structure, and sociology, as well as its influence on Iranian society, its economy, and its educational system. Saied Golkar's account draws not only on published materials — including Basij and Revolutionary Guard publications, allied websites, and blogs — but also on his own informal communications with Basij members while studying and teaching in Iranian universities as recently as 2014. In addition, he incorporates findings from surveys and interviews he conducted while in Iran. |
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Has architectural theory become a historical phenomenon to be anthologized and studied as another passing phase in the history of the discipline? Do the current commonplace watchwords of practice and research mark the end of theory's place in architectural discourse? This edited volume posits the contrary — that theory remains urgent and even unavoidable, so ingrained in architectural practice and pedagogy that it remains a vital if sometimes latent influence. Architectural theory is not confined to its supposed heyday in the decades leading up to the year 2000; it has persisted and expanded as the stakes of theoretical discussions have transformed. 2000+: The Urgencies of Architectural Theory collects new essays from a range of the most compelling architectural historians and theorists of the moment, including Lucia Allais, Beatriz Colomina, Mark Cousins, Arindam Dutta, John Harwood, Catherine Ingraham, Mark Jarzombek, Mari Lending, Spyros Papapetros, Felicity Scott, Pelin Tan, Bernard Tschumi, Eyal Weizman, Mark Wigley, and Mabel Wilson. Brought together for a conference marking the end of Mark Wigley's tenure as the dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, these thinkers chart new directions and points of critical importance for theory in architecture. |
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