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Latter-day Screens: Gender, Sexuality, and Mediated Mormonism
by Brenda R. WeberFrom Sister Wives and Big Love to The Book of Mormon on Broadway, Mormons and Mormonism are pervasive throughout American popular media. In Latter-day Screens, Brenda R. Weber argues that mediated Mormonism contests and reconfigures collective notions of gender, sexuality, race, spirituality, capitalism, justice, and individualism. Focusing on Mormonism as both a meme and an analytic, Weber analyzes a wide range of contemporary media produced by those within and those outside of the mainstream and fundamentalist Mormon churches, from reality television to feature films, from blogs to YouTube videos, and from novels to memoirs by people who struggle to find agency and personhood in the shadow of the church's teachings. The broad archive of mediated Mormonism contains socially conservative values, often expressed through neoliberal strategies tied to egalitarianism, meritocracy, and self-actualization, but it also offers a passionate voice of contrast on behalf of plurality and inclusion. In this, mediated Mormonism and the conversations on social justice that it fosters create the pathway toward an inclusive, feminist-friendly, and queer-positive future for a broader culture that uses Mormonism as a gauge to calibrate its own values.
Laughing Back at Empire: The Grassroots Activism of The Asianadian Magazine, 1978–1985 (Human Rights and Social Justice Series #3)
by Angie WongAsian Canadian activism, resistance, and art of the 1970s and 80s Laughing Back at Empire is a ground-breaking examination of The Asianadian, one of Canada’s first anti-racist, anti- sexist, and anti-homophobic magazines. Over the course of its seven-year run, the small but mighty magazine led a nation-wide dialogue for all Canadians on the struggles and social issues that concerned Asians in Canada. The Asianadian established a national platform for then-emerging Asian Canadian writers, artists, musicians, activists, and scholars like Sky Lee, Jim Wong-Chu, Joy Kogawa, Himani Bannerji, and Paul Yee. Columns like “On the Firing Line” and the “Dubious Achievement Awards” provided space to laugh back at the embarrassing concoction of Orientalist stereotypes in the media and to critique inconsistencies and superficialities within Canada’s newfound multicultural image. Situating the story of The Asianadian within the history of Canada, Angie Wong celebrates and builds on the work of its creators from the Asianadian Resource Workshop. Extensive interview material with the co-founding members, editors, volunteers, readers, and contributors captures their dedication and spirit of anti-racist collectivism. Wong’s analysis helps to dismantle cultural assumptions that have relegated Asian Canadian history, contributions, and injustices to the periphery of Canadian experience and identity. On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and a resurgence of anti-Asian racism, Laughing Back at Empire amplifies the voices that speak, shout, and laugh together at empire’s self-congratulatory and exclusionary narratives.
Laughing Histories: From the Renaissance Man to the Woman of Wit
by Joy WiltenburgLaughing Histories breaks new ground by exploring moments of laughter in early modern Europe, showing how laughter was inflected by gender and social power. "I dearly love a laugh," declared Jane Austen's heroine Elizabeth Bennet, and her wit won the heart of the aristocratic Mr. Darcy. Yet the widely read Earl of Chesterfield asserted that only "the mob" would laugh out loud; the gentleman should merely smile. This literary contrast raises important historical questions: how did social rules constrain laughter? Did the highest elites really laugh less than others? How did laughter play out in relations between the sexes? Through fascinating case studies of individuals such as the Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini, the French aristocrat Madame de Sévigné, and the rising civil servant and diarist Samuel Pepys, Laughing Histories reveals the multiple meanings of laughter, from the court to the tavern and street, in a complex history that paved the way for modern laughter. With its study of laughter in relation to power, aggression, gender, sex, class, and social bonding, Laughing Histories is perfect for readers interested in the history of emotions, cultural history, gender history, and literature.
Laughing at Leviathan: Sovereignty and Audience in West Papua (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning)
by Danilyn RutherfordFor West Papua and its people, the promise of sovereignty has never been realized, despite a long and fraught struggle for independence from Indonesia. In Laughing at Leviathan, Danilyn Rutherford examines this struggle through a series of interlocking essays that drive at the core meaning of sovereignty itself—how it is fueled, formed, and even thwarted by pivotal but often overlooked players: those that make up an audience. Whether these players are citizens, missionaries, competing governmental powers, nongovernmental organizations, or the international community at large, Rutherford shows how a complex interplay of various observers is key to the establishment and understanding of the sovereign nation-state. Drawing on a wide array of sources, from YouTube videos to Dutch propaganda to her own fieldwork observations, Rutherford draws the history of Indonesia, empire, and postcolonial nation-building into a powerful examination of performance and power. Ultimately she revises Thomas Hobbes, painting a picture of the Leviathan not as a coherent body but a fragmented one distributed across a wide range of both real and imagined spectators. In doing so, she offers an important new approach to the understanding of political struggle.
Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World with Julian of Norwich
by Amy Laura HallLaughing at the Devil is an invitation to see the world with a medieval visionary now known as Julian of Norwich, believed to be the first woman to have written a book in English. (We do not know her given name, because she became known by the name of a church that became her home.) Julian “saw our Lord scorn [the Devil's] wickedness” and noted that “he wants us to do the same.” In this impassioned, analytic, and irreverent book, Amy Laura Hall emphasizes Julian's call to scorn the Devil. Julian of Norwich envisioned courage during a time of fear. Laughing at the Devil describes how a courageous woman transformed a setting of dread into hope, solidarity, and resistance.
Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century (New Black Studies Series)
by Danielle Fuentes MorganBy subverting comedy's rules and expectations, African American satire promotes social justice by connecting laughter with ethical beliefs in a revolutionary way. Danielle Fuentes Morgan ventures from Suzan-Lori Parks to Leslie Jones and Dave Chappelle to Get Out and Atlanta to examine the satirical treatment of race and racialization across today's African American culture. Morgan analyzes how African American artists highlight the ways that society racializes people and bolsters the powerful myth that we live in a "post-racial" nation. The latter in particular inspires artists to take aim at the idea racism no longer exists or the laughable notion of Americans "not seeing" racism or race. Their critique changes our understanding of the boundaries between staged performance and lived experience and create ways to better articulate Black selfhood. Adventurous and perceptive, Laughing to Keep from Dying reveals how African American satirists unmask the illusions and anxieties surrounding race in the twenty-first century.
Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions (The CBC Massey Lectures)
by Tomson HighwayBrilliant, jubilant insights into the glory and anguish of life from one of the world’s most treasured Indigenous creators. Trickster is zany, ridiculous. The ultimate, over-the-top, madcap fool. Here to remind us that the reason for existence is to have a blast and to laugh ourselves silly. Celebrated author and playwright Tomson Highway brings his signature irreverence to an exploration of five themes central to the human condition: language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. A comparative analysis of Christian, classical, and Cree mythologies reveals their contributions to Western thought, life, and culture—and how North American Indigenous mythologies provide unique, timeless solutions to our modern problems. Highway also offers generous personal anecdotes, including accounts of his beloved accordion-playing, caribou-hunting father, and plentiful Trickster stories as curatives for the all-out unhappiness caused by today’s patriarchal, colonial systems. Laugh with the legendary Tomson Highway as he illuminates a healing, hilarious way forward.
Laughter At The Foot Of The Cross
by M.a. Screech"Christian laughter is a maze: you could easily get snarled up within it." So says Michael A. Screech in his note to readers preceding this collection of fifty-three elegant and pithy essays. As Screech reveals, the question of whether laughter is acceptable to the god of the Old and New Testaments is a dangerous one. But we are fortunate in our gu
Laughter Out of Place
by Donna GoldsteinDonna M. Goldstein presents a hard-hitting critique of urban poverty and violence and challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty" in this compelling read. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns in Rio de Janeiro, who cope with unbearable suffering, violence and social abandonment. The book offers a clear-eyed view of socially conditioned misery while focusing on the creative responses--absurdist and black humor--that people generate amid daily conditions of humiliation, anger, and despair. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation among residents of the shantytown.
Laughter Out of Place
by Donna M. GoldsteinDonna M. Goldstein challenges much of what we think we know about the "culture of poverty." Drawing on more than a decade of experience in Brazil, Goldstein provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among the women of the favelas, or urban shantytowns. These women have created absurdist and black-humor storytelling practices in the face of trauma and tragedy. Goldstein helps us to understand that such joking and laughter is part of an emotional aesthetic that defines the sense of frustration and anomie endemic to the political and economic desperation of the shantytown.
Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown
by Donna M. GoldsteinLaughter Out of Place provides an intimate portrait of everyday life among women living in the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro in the 1990s.
Laughter and Liberation
by Harvey MindessLaughter and Liberation is based on the idea that humor is an agent of psychological liberation. Since we are able to include every kind of wit and humor under the umbrella of this thesis, it amounts to an informal, comprehensive theory of the ludicrous. Briefly put, the theory proposes that the most fundamental function of humor is its power to release us from the inhibitions and restrictions under which we live our daily lives.The quest for laughter is as old as man himself Egyptian pharaohs and Roman emperors went to great lengths to amuse themselves, as did the monarchs of medieval Europe with court jesters. Our speech and literature abound with references to humor such as: "Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone," "He who laughs last laughs best," "All the world loves a clown," "Laugh if you are wise," and "A good laugh is sunshine in the house."In Laughter and Liberation, Harvey Mindess tells us how laughter and our sense of humor work. He gives us the background of several well-known humorists Steve Allen, Richard Armour, Sholom Aleichem and explains his theory of how and why they have become expert in making others laugh.
Laughter, Humor, and the (Un)Making of Gender
by Anna Foka Jonas LiliequistHumor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Throughout history, it has played a crucial role in defining gender roles and identities. This collection offers an in-depth thematic examination of this relationship between humor and gender, spanning a variety of historical and cultural backdrops. Bringing together a medley of case studies diachronically and across cultures, the book examines gendered humorous expressions from classical antiquity to the late eighteenth century and across visual culture, literature and performance in both European and Asian premodern contexts.
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
by Henri Bergson Cloudesley Brereton Fred RothwellIn this great philosophical essay, Henri Bergson explores why people laugh and what laughter means. Written at the turn of the twentieth century, Laughter explores what it is in language that makes a joke funny and what it is in us that makes us laugh.One of the functions of humor, according to Bergson, is to help us retain our humanity during an age of mechanization. Like other philosophers, novelists, poets, and humorists of his era, Bergson was concerned with the duality of man and machine. His belief in life as a vital impulse, indefinable by reason alone, informs his perception of comedy as the relief we experience upon distancing ourselves from the mechanistic and materialistic. "A situation is always comic," Bergson notes, "if it participates simultaneously in two series of events which are absolutely independent of each other, and if it can be interpreted in two quite different meanings." The philosopher's thought-provoking insights (e.g., "It seems that laughter needs an echo. Our laughter is always the laughter of a group.") keep this work ever-relevant as a thesis on the principles of humor.
Launching While Female: Smashing the System That Holds Women Entrepreneurs Back
by Susanne AlthoffAn exposé of the gender gap in entrepreneurship and a road map for a more inclusive and economically successful future for us allJournalist and professor Susanne Althoff investigates the obstacles women and nonbinary entrepreneurs--especially those of color--face when launching, funding, and growing their companies, obstacles that persist because the current start-up world was engineered by and for white men. Through interviews with over a hundred founders across the country and in all industries, Althoff paints a picture of an entrepreneurial system rife with bias and discrimination, where women receive less than 3 percent of this country's venture capital, struggle to find mentors in the wake of #MeToo, and are dismissed as "mompreneurs."The effects of this unequal system--a weaker economy, fewer jobs, less innovation--are felt by all of us, and Althoff explains how more equitable structures in business and entrepreneurship will benefit all people, not just those hoping to fund a startup.By exploring some of the practical ways we can open the entrepreneurial system to everyone, Althoff provides a rallying cry and a way forward for women entrepreneurs and their allies, showing that change is urgent and within our reach.
Launching a Successful Research Program at a Teaching University
by Robert S. Ryan Avidan MilevskyThis practical guide addresses the challenges for building and maintaining a college research program in an environment that does not focus on supporting research activity and for those with a heavy teaching load. The challenges faced by teacher-researchers and solutions to issues are reviewed. The steps for maximizing research productivity are outlined: time management, obtaining research space and equipment and funding, recruiting and managing human subjects, and overcoming bureaucratic stumbling blocks. Chapters feature opening vignettes, examples, cases, figures, tables, summaries, suggested readings, and research references which provide a scientific grounding.Highlights include coverage of:-The latest time saving digital resources including automatic literature search alerts, Zotero for managing literature, Dropbox for sharing files, Open Science for managing workflow, and OpenSesame and OpenStax Tutor.-Strategies for recruiting subjects such as flyers and posting lab meeting minutes on a web page. - How to increase research productivity while still engaging in effective teaching.-The problems of the availability of human subjects and strategies for recruiting from classes, offering extra credit for research participation, and participation as a course requirement.- Using students as volunteer research assistants and strategies for recruiting and managing volunteers along with ethical considerations. -Bureaucratic stumbling blocks and strategies for overcoming those challenges.- How to use browser/word processor add-ons that store and organize literature in a searchable library and produce citations and reference lists. -The use of free open source software to design experiments and collect data and free cloud based resources to store electronic research files.The steps for maximizing research productivity are outlined in chapter 1: time management, obtaining research space and equipment and funding, recruiting and managing human subjects, and overcoming bureaucratic stumbling blocks, along with impediments and solutions for establishing a research program. Strategies to overcome time constraints including automatic literature searches, Zotero for managing your literature, Dropbox for sharing files, and the Open Science Framework for managing workflow are provided in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 provides tips on obtaining funding. Chapters 4 and 5 provide strategies for recruiting and managing research participants such as ad hoc recruiting from classes, offering extra credit for research participation, and participation as a course requirement. The book concludes with a review of other items to consider when developing a research program.Intended for professional development or teacher training courses offered in masters and doctoral programs in colleges and universities or as a supplement in graduate level research methods courses, this book is also an invaluable resource for faculty development centers and university administrators. Designed for both early career and veteran teacher-researchers looking to enhance their research productivity, this book appeals to college teachers of all levels and disciplines.
Launching the War on Poverty: An Oral History , 2nd Edition
by Michael L. GilletteHead Start, Job Corps, Foster Grandparents, College Work-Study, VISTA, Community Action, and the Legal Services Corporation are familiar programs, but their tumultuous beginning has been largely forgotten. Conceived amid the daring idealism of the 1960s, these programs originated as weapons in Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, an offensive spearheaded by a controversial new government agency. Within months, the Office of Economic Opportunity created an array of unconventional initiatives that empowered the poor, challenged the established order, and ultimately transformed the nation's attitudes.
Laundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits
by Rasul A Mowatt Too BlackLaundering Black Rage: The Washing of Black Death, People, Property, and Profits is a spatial and historical critique of the capitalist State that examines how Black Rage—conceived as a constructive and logical response to the conquest of resources, land, and human beings racialized as Black—is cleaned for the unyielding means of White capital. Interlacing political theory with international histories of Black rebellion, it presents a thoughtful challenge to the counterinsurgent tactics of the State that consistently convert Black Rage into a commodity to be bought, sold, and repressed. Laundering Black Rage investigates how the Rage directed at the police murder of George Floyd could be marshalled to funnel the Black Lives Matter movement into corporate advertising and questionable leadership, while increasing the police budgets inside the laundry cities of capital - largely with our consent.Essayist/Performer Too Black and Geographer Rasul A. Mowatt assert Black Rage as a threat to the flow of capital and the established order of things, which must therefore be managed by the process of laundering.Intertwining stories of Black resistance throughout the African diaspora, State building under capitalism, cities as sites of laundering, and the world making of empire, Laundering Black Rage also lays the groundwork for upending the laundering process through an anti-colonial struggle of reverse-laundering conquest. Relevant to studies of race and culture, history, politics, and the built environment, this pathbreaking work is essential reading for scholars and organizers enraged at capitalism and White supremacy laundering their work for nefarious means.
Laura Bassi–The World's First Woman Professor in Natural Philosophy: An Iconic Physicist in Enlightenment Italy (Springer Biographies)
by Luisa Cifarelli Raffaella SimiliThis book provides a fascinating insight into the life and scientific work of Laura Bassi, the first female member of the influential Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna and also the first woman to be appointed a university professor in physics, or universal philosophy as it was then termed. The book describes Laura Bassi’s research activities and achievements, explaining the influence of Newton, her role in promoting Newtonian experimental physics in Bologna, and her work as an experimentalist, including on electricity. Much attention is paid to the context in which Bassi developed her career. The very considerable difficulties faced by a woman surrounded by male university teachers and members of the Academy are discussed, casting light on the constraints that led Bassi to set up the first experimental physics laboratory in her home, complete with the many instruments required for experimentation and private teaching. The aim is to provide a rounded and well-documented account of the scientific endeavors and achievements of a too often overlooked scientist who struggled to overcome the prejudices of her age.
Laura Ingalls Wilder: American Writer on the Prairie (Routledge Historical Americans)
by Sallie KetchamLaura Ingalls Wilder wrote stories that have defined the American frontier for generations of readers. As both author and character in her own books, she became one of the most famous figures in American children’s literature. Her famous Little House on the Prairie series, based on her childhood in Wisconsin, Kansas, Minnesota, and South Dakota, blended memoir and fiction into a vivid depiction of nineteenth-century settler life that continues to shape many Americans’ understanding of the country’s past. Poised between fiction and fact, literature and history, Wilder’s life is a fascinating window on the American West. Placing Wilder’s life and work in historical context, and including previously unpublished material from the Wilder archives, Sallie Ketcham introduces students to domestic frontier life, the conflict between Native Americans and infringing white populations, and the West in public memory and imagination.
Laura Nader: Letters to and from an Anthropologist
by Laura NaderLaura Nader documents decades of letters written, received, and archived by esteemed author and anthropologist Laura Nader. She revisits her correspondence with academic colleagues, lawyers, politicians, military officers, and many others, all with unique and insightful perspectives on a variety of social and political issues. She uses personal and professional correspondence as a way of examining complex issues and dialogues that might not be available by other means. By compiling these letters, Nader allows us to take an intimate look at how she interacts with people across multiple fields, disciplines, and outlooks.Arranged chronologically by decade, this book follows Nader from her early career and efforts to change patriarchal policies at UC, Berkeley, to her efforts to fight against climate change and minimize environmental degradation. The letters act as snapshots, giving us glimpses of the lives and issues that dominated culture at the time of their writing. Among the many issues that the correspondence in Laura Nader explores are how a man on death row sees things, how scientists are concerned about and approach their subject matter, and how an anthropologist ponders issues of American survival. The result is an intriguing and comprehensive history of energy, physics, law, anthropology, feminism and legal anthropology in the United States, as well as a reflection of a lifelong career in legal scholarship.
Laura's Ghost: Women Speak About Twin Peaks
by Courtenay StallingsThis incredibly powerful book by media professor Courtenay Stallings explores the dark side of Twin Peaks through interviews with fans of the show who've experienced trauma in their own lives and worked through it with assistance from the character of Laura Palmer. In 1990, the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks, cocreated by David Lynch and Mark Frost, opened with a murder mystery when a homecoming queen washed up on a rocky beach. Laura Palmer&’s character began as a plot device that triggered a small town to face its fractured self. After three seasons and a film, Laura Palmer is no longer just a plot device. Twin Peaks allows the audience to get to know the victim—a complex woman finding her strength while enduring incredible trauma. Laura&’s Ghost: Women Speak about Twin Peaks explores Laura&’s legacy through the perspectives of women in the fan community and women involved in the show. Actor Sheryl Lee examines the challenges of playing Laura Palmer. Filmmaker Jennifer Lynch discusses writing Laura&’s backstory in The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer. Grace Zabriskie argues about the complicity of Sarah Palmer, Laura&’s mother. Sabrina S. Sutherland, executive producer of Twin Peaks, talks about Laura&’s legacy. Women in the Twin Peaks fan community share their powerful and heart-wrenching stories of survival and what Laura Palmer means to them. This book is a reckoning in which women speak about trauma, mischief, humor, sexuality, strength, weakness, wickedness, and survival.
Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll's Legendary Neighborhood
by Michael WalkerA “richly anecdotal” account of the secluded LA neighborhood’s legendary music scene, a tale of groupies, cocaine, and California dreaming (Salon).Finalist, SCBA Book Award for NonfictionA Los Angeles Times BestsellerIn the late sixties and early seventies, an impromptu collection of musicians colonized a eucalyptus-scented canyon deep in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles and melded folk, rock, and savvy American pop into a sound that conquered the world as thoroughly as the songs of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones had before them. Decades later, the music made in Laurel Canyon continues to pour from radios, earbuds, and concert stages around the world.In Laurel Canyon, veteran journalist Michael Walker draws on interviews with those who were there to tell the inside story of this unprecedented gathering of some of the era’s leading musical lights—including Joni Mitchell; Jim Morrison; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; John Mayall; the Mamas and the Papas; Carole King; the Eagles; and Frank Zappa, to name just a few—who turned Los Angeles into the music capital of the world and forever changed the way popular music is recorded, marketed, and consumed.“An exhaustively researched and richly anecdotal book that will fascinate both rock aficionados and cultural historians.” —Salon“Captures all the magic and lyricism of an almost mythological geographical spot in the history of pop music . . . the story of a more melodious time in rock and roll where the great talents of the ‘60s and ‘70s cloistered together in a sort of enchanted valley populated by an all-star cast of characters.” —Steven Gaines, author of Philistines at the Hedgerow
Laurence Oliphant (1829–1888) and The Household: The Christian Mystical Teachings of a Nineteenth Century Religious Leader
by Jeffrey D. LavoieThis book explores the religious teachings of best-selling Victorian author and former Member of Parliament, Laurence Oliphant (1829–1888). While several biographies have been written on his captivating life, the stage of his life when Oliphant first established ‘The Household' commune has, until now, been largely unexplored. This book focuses on this later stage of his life, exploring Oliphant’s religious teachings. Additionally, this study incorporates a newly discovered archive, which reveals many behind-the-scenes details of The Household's teachings. Jeffrey D. Lavoie shows that Oliphant provided a unique interpretation of sexuality from a mystical Christian perspective, which opposed the restrictive contemporaneous “Victorian morality."
Laurent Clerc: The Story of His Early Years
by Cathryn CarrollLaurent Clerc won lasting renown as the deaf teacher who helped Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet establish schools to educate deaf Americans in the 19th century. Now, his character as a young boy growing up in Paris has been captured in the novel Laurent Clerc. In his own voice, Clerc vividly relates the experiences that led to his later progressive teaching methods. Especially influential was his long stay at the Royal National Institute for the Deaf in Paris, where he encountered sharply distinct personalities -- the saintly, inspiring deaf teacher Massieu, the vicious Dr. Itard and his heartless "experiments" on deaf boys, and the "Father of the Deaf," Abbe Sicard, who could hardly sign. Young adult readers will find his story richly entertaining as well as informative.