Title: Foregone conclusions: against apocalyptic history 
Author: Bernstein, Michael André 1947-
Published: University of California Press,  1994
Subjects: Philosophy | Jewish Studies | Literature | Literary Theory and Criticism
Publisher's Description: Michael André Bernstein's passionate denunciation of apocalyptic thinking provides a moral, philosophical, and literary challenge to the way most of us make sense of our worlds. In our search for coherence, Bernstein argues, we tend to see our lives as moving toward a predetermined fate. This "foreshadowing" demeans the variety, the richness, and especially the unpredictability of everyday life. Apocalyptic history denies the openness and choice available to its actors.Bernstein chooses the Holocaust as the prime example of our tendency toward foregone conclusions. He argues eloquently against politicians and theologians who depict the Holocaust as foreordained and its victims as somehow implicated in a fate they should have been able to foresee. But his argument ranges wider. From recent biographies of Kafka to the Israeli-P.L.O. peace accords, from campus cultural diversity debates to the Crown Heights riots, Bernstein warns against our passive acceptance of historical or personal victimization.An essential contribution to Holocaust studies, this book is also a lucid call to transform the way we read and write history and the way we make sense of our lives.   [brief]
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Title: Rhetorics of self-making 
Author: Battaglia, Debbora
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: Anthropology | Cultural Anthropology | Psychology
Publisher's Description: Departing from an essentialist concept of the self, this highly original volume advances the cross-cultural study of selfhood with three contributions to the literature: First, it approaches the self as an ideological process, arguing that selfhood is culturally situated and emergent in social practices of persuasion. Second, it demonstrates how postmodernity problematizes the experience and concept of the self. Finally, the book challenges the pervasive practice of equating an individuated self with the Western world and a relational self with the non-Western world. Contributions cover a broad range of topics - from the development of the eccentric self to the ritual circumcision of Jewish males.   [brief]
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Title: The Muslims of Valencia in the age of Fernando and Isabel: between coexistence and crusade 
Author: Meyerson, Mark D
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: History | European History | Religion
Publisher's Description: The kingdom of Valencia was home to Christian Spain's largest Muslim population during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Fernando and Isabel. How did Muslim-Christian coexistence in Valencia remain relatively stable in this volatile period that saw the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, the Expulsion of the Jews, the conquest of Granada, and the conversion of the Muslims of Granada and Castile? In explanation, Mark Meyerson achieves the first thorough analysis of Fernando and Isabel's policy toward both Muslims and Jews. His findings will stimulate much discussion among Hispanists, Arabists, and historians.Meyerson argues that the key to the persistence of Muslim-Christian coexistence in Valencia lies in the hitherto unexamined differences between the royal couple concerning matters of religion. More than a study of the minority policy of the Catholic Monarchs, however, The Muslims of Valencia is an exemplary analysis of the economic life of Valencia's Muslims and the complex institutional and social network that held them suspended "between coexistence and crusade."   [brief]
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Title: The French Revolution and the birth of modernity 
Author: Fehér, Ferenc 1933-
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: History | Politics | Social Theory
Publisher's Description: Written from widely different perspectives, these essays characterize the Great Revolution as the dawn of the modern age, the grand narrative of modernity. The scope of issues under scrutiny is extremely broad, ranging from the analyses of the hotly debated class character of 1789 and the problem of . . . [more]
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Title: Three mothers, three daughters: Palestinian women's stories 
Author: Gorkin, Michael
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Middle Eastern Studies | Cultural Anthropology | Women's Studies | Sociology
Publisher's Description: This remarkable collection of oral histories from six Palestinian women, three mothers and three of their daughters, affords an unparalleled view into the daily lives of women who have lived, and continue to live, through a turbulent and rapidly changing era. In recording these stories, Michael Gorkin and Rafiqa Othman have preserved each woman's distinctive voice, capturing in vivid and moving detail a broad range of experience - everything from recollections of native villages to an account of incarceration as a political prisoner. Highly personal events such as courting, marriage, and childbirth are interwoven with memories of upheavals such as the wars of 1948 and 1967. The women speak with surprising candor about conflicts between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, men and women, Arabs and Jews. These beautifully written narratives bear witness to the power of Palestinian culture in sustaining the often difficult lives of women. The book also provides brilliant testimony to the experience of living in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict.Michael Gorkin, a Jewish-American psychologist who lives in Israel, and Rafiqa Othman, a Palestinian special education teacher, have collected the narratives from different cultural and geographic locations within the boundaries of historical Palestine - including East Jerusalem, a refugee camp on the West Bank, and an Arab village within Israel. With surprising intimacy, the mothers and daughters discuss their views about sex, marriage, and child-rearing; ideas about themselves and their relationship to God, their families, and their homeland; and questions of shame, devotion, freedom, and honor.In the preface, introduction and epilogue, Gorkin and Othman frame the stories and describe the project. The linked stories of mothers and daughters attest to the profound changes that have occurred in the lives of Palestinian women during this century - in the areas of education, work, political involvement and personal freedom. In addition to delineating this astonishing historical and cultural transformation, the stories create lasting images of the people these women have loved and hated, the pleasures they have enjoyed, the dangers they have survived, and the hopes they continue to cherish.   [brief]
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Title: The fractious nation?: unity and division in contemporary American life 
Author: Rieder, Jonathan
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: American Studies | Anthropology | Ethnic Studies | Politics | Religion | Sociology | Immigration
Publisher's Description: What are we to make of the speed with which the new climate of national solidarity emerged after September 11? Does it not look strange against a backdrop of the much-touted divisiveness of American life? In truth, The Fractious Nation? makes clear, the contrast of the time of divisiveness before and the time of unity that followed is much too stark, indeed. Less than a year before two planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the 2000 presidential election produced not just the starkly blue and red electoral map but also the two tribal Americas those totemic colors emblazoned. And from the cultural wars to immigration restriction, from the Christian right to political correctness, recent decades have witnessed much hand-wringing on the left and the right about the fragmentation of American life. The Fractious Nation? enlists the critical intelligence of fourteen distinguished contributors who illuminate the schisms in American life and the often volatile debates they have inspired in the realms of culture, ethnic and racial pluralism, and political life. The collective wisdom of The Fractious Nation? suggests a counterview to all the overheated rhetoric. The authors warn against fixating on flamboyant incidents of racial conflict when black-and-white values overlap considerably. On a range of cultural issues, the gap between our citizens has closed as well. And even as the rivalry between liberalism and conservatism transmutes into new forms, the political center remains vital and democratic. We are tied together not just by shared values but by institutions - the Constitution, the culture of consumption, the etiquette of ethnic respect. In private life and public affairs, our nation has expanded the meaning of democratic citizenship. Still, there's no room for self-congratulations here. Tendencies toward preoccupation with private life encourage indifference to the suffering of the less privileged. This is also one of the main failings of the narrative of fragmentation: In its focus on matters of shared values, it too distracts from issues of poverty and inequality that also fragment the human spirit.   [brief]
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Title: A. Sutzkever: selected poetry and prose 
Author: Sutzkever, Abraham 1913-
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Jewish Studies | Literature in Translation | Poetry
Publisher's Description: The work of A. Sutzkever, one of the major twentieth-century masters of verse and the last of the great Yiddish poets, is presented to the English reader in this banquet of poetry, narrative verse, and poetic fiction. Sutzkever's imposing body of work links images from Israel's present and past with the extinction of the Jews of Europe and with deeply personal reflection on human existence.In Sutzkever's poetry the Yiddish language attains a refinement, richness of sound, and complexity of meaning unknown before. His poetry has been translated into many languages, but this is the most comprehensive presentation of his work in English. Benjamin Harshav provides a biography of the poet and a critical assessment of his writings in the context of his times. The illustrations were originally created for Sutzkever's work by such artists as Marc Chagall, Yosl Bergner, Mane-Katz, Yankl Adler, and Reuven Rubin.   [brief]
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Title: Pollution in a promised land: an environmental history of Israel 
Author: Tal, Alon 1960-
Published: University of California Press,  2002
Subjects: EcologyEvolutionEnvironment | Jewish Studies | Ecology | Geography | Conservation
Publisher's Description: Virtually undeveloped one hundred years ago, Israel, the promised "land of milk and honey," is in ecological disarray. In this gripping book, Alon Tal provides--for the first time ever--a history of environmentalism in Israel, interviewing hundreds of experts and activists who have made it their mission to keep the country's remarkable development sustainable amid a century of political and cultural turmoil. The modern Zionist vision began as a quest to redeem a land that bore the cumulative effects of two thousand years of foreign domination and neglect. Since then, Israel has suffered from its success. A tenfold increase in population and standard of living has polluted the air. The deserts have bloomed but groundwater has become contaminated. Urban sprawl threatens to pave over much of the country's breathtaking landscape. Yet there is hope. Tal's account considers the ecological and tactical lessons that emerge from dozens of cases of environmental mishaps, from habitat loss to river reclamation. Pollution in a Promised Land argues that the priorities and strategies of Israeli environmental advocates must address issues beyond traditional green agendas.   [brief]
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Title: Hysteria beyond Freud 
Author: Gilman, Sander L
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: History | Literature | Women's Studies | Psychiatry | Medicine
Publisher's Description: "She's hysterical." For centuries, the term "hysteria" has been used by physicians and laymen alike to diagnose and dismiss the extreme emotionality and mysterious physical disorders presumed to bedevil others - especially women. How has this medical concept assumed its power? What cultural purposes does it serve? Why do different centuries and different circumstances produce different kinds of hysteria?These are among the questions pursued in this absorbing, erudite reevaluation of the history of hysteria. The widely respected authors draw upon the insights of the new social and cultural history, rather than Freudian psychoanalysis, to examine the ways in which hysteria has been conceived by doctors and patients, writers and artists, in Europe and North America, from antiquity to the early years of the twentieth century. In so doing, they show that a history of hysteria is a history of how we understand the mind.   [brief]
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Title: Frontiers and ghettos: state violence in Serbia and Israel 
Author: Ron, James
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Sociology | European Studies | Cultural Anthropology | Ethnic Studies | Christianity | Judaism | Islam | Christianity
Publisher's Description: James Ron uses controversial comparisons between Serbia and Israel to present a novel theory of state violence. Formerly a research consultant to Human Rights Watch and the International Red Cross, Ron witnessed remarkably different patterns of state coercion. Frontiers and Ghettos presents an institutional approach to state violence, drawing on Ron's field research in the Middle East, Balkans, Chechnya, Turkey, and Africa, as well as dozens of rare interviews with military veterans, officials, and political activists on all sides. Studying violence from the ground up, the book develops an exciting new framework for analyzing today's nationalist wars.   [brief]
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Title: An unmastered past: the autobiographical reflections of Leo Lowenthal 
Author: Lowenthal, Leo
Published: University of California Press,  1987
Subjects: Sociology | Social Theory | Social and Political Thought
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Title: Hellenistic history and culture 
Author: Green, Peter 1924-
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: Classics | Classical Philosophy | Ancient History | History
Publisher's Description: In a 1988 conference, American and British scholars unexpectedly discovered that their ideas were converging in ways that formed a new picture of the variegated Hellenistic mosaic. That picture emerges in these essays and eloquently displays the breadth of modern interest in the Hellenistic Age.A distrust of all ideologies has altered old views of ancient political structures, and feminism has also changed earlier assessments. The current emphasis on multiculturalism has consciously deemphasized the Western, Greco-Roman tradition, and Nubians, Bactrians, and other subject peoples of the time are receiving attention in their own right, not just as recipients of Greco-Roman culture.History, like Herakleitos' river, never stands still. These essays share a collective sense of discovery and a sparking of new ideas - they are a welcome beginning to the reexploration of a fascinatingly complex age.   [brief]
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Title: St. Teresa of Avila: author of a heroic life 
Author: Slade, Carole
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: Religion | Christianity | Women's Studies | Autobiographies and Biographies | Renaissance History
Publisher's Description: With few exceptions, representations of Renaissance women were created by men. The Spanish saint, Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), who chose to represent herself, was one of those exceptions. What prompted her to write Book of Her Life, Interior Castle , and other works? What does the self-portrait of this sixteenth-century nun, mystic, and founder of convents reveal about its author, the church, state, and role of women? St. Teresa of Avila , an innovative analysis of Teresa's autobiographical writings, explores these and many other questions. Bringing to bear a knowledge of Inquisition studies, theory of autobiography, scriptural hermeneutics, and hagiography, Carole Slade defines Teresa's writings as a project of self-interpretation undertaken mainly as the result of the perceived, later realized, threat of an accusation of heresy. Being female and of paternal Jewish ancestry, Teresa was vulnerable to such a charge.Teresa's writing project presented her with serious difficulties. Judicial confession, her prescribed genre, presumed the writer's guilt, while the subordinate female script precluded a defense against the suspicion that her mystical experiences came from the devil. Through careful textual analysis, Slade demonstrates that Teresa exploited the nuances of numerous genres - hagiography, New World chronicle, mystical theological treatise, and early novel - to create an innocent textual persona and depict herself in heroic terms.A signal contribution to our understanding of Teresa's rhetorical and literary talent and life circumstances, this book will engage readers across a broad range of disciplines.   [brief]
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Title: The Languages of psyche: mind and body in Enlightenment thought: Clark Library lectures, 1985-1986 
Author: Rousseau, G. S. (George Sebastian)
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: History | Medicine | History and Philosophy of Science | European History | European Literature
Publisher's Description: The Languages of Psyche traces the dualism of mind and body during the "long eighteenth century," from the Restoration in England to the aftermath of the French Revolution. Ten outstanding scholars investigate the complex mind-body relationship in a variety of Enlightenment contexts - science, medicine, philosophy, literature, and everyday society. No other recent book provides such an in-depth, suggestive resource for philosophers, literary critics, intellectual and social historians, and all who are interested in Enlightenment studies.   [brief]
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Title: Inquisition and society in the kingdom of Valencia, 1478-1834 
Author: Haliczer, Stephen 1942-
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: History | European History | Medieval History | Renaissance History
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Title: Authors of their own lives: intellectual autobiographies 
Author: Berger, Bennett M
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: Sociology | Autobiographies and Biographies
Publisher's Description: All students and scholars are curious about the human faces behind the impersonal rhetoric of academic disciplines. Here twenty of America's most prominent sociologists recount the intellectual and biographical events that shaped their careers. Family history, ethnicity, fear, private animosities, extraordinary determination, and sometimes plain good fortune are among the many forces that combine to mold the individual talents presented in Authors of Their Own Lives . With contributions from women and men, young and old, native-born Americans and immigrants, quantitative scholars and qualitative ones, this book provides a fascinating source for students and professional sociologists alike.Some of the autobiographies maintain their reserve, others are profoundly revealing. Their subjects range from childhood, educational, and intellectual influences, to academic careerism and burnout, to the history of American sociology. Authors stands alone as a deeply personal autobiographical account of contemporary sociology.   [brief]
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Title: The spirit of freedom: South African leaders on religion and politics 
Author: Villa-Vicencio, Charles
Published: University of California Press,  1996
Subjects: Religion | Politics | African Studies
Publisher's Description: This collection of interviews explores the role of religion in the lives of eminent South Africans who led the struggle against apartheid. Nelson Mandela, Chris Hani, Desmond Tutu, Nadine Gordimer, and seventeen other political, religious, and cultural leaders share the beliefs and values that informed the moral positions they adopted, often at great cost. From all ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds, these men and women have shaped one of the greatest political transformations of the century.What emerges from the interviews are reflections on all aspects of life in an embattled country. There are stories of the homelands and townships, and tales of imprisonment and exile. Dedicated communists relate their intense youthful devotion to Christianity; Muslim activists discuss the complexity of their relationships with their communities. As the respondents grapple with difficult questions about faith, politics, and authority, they expose a more personal picture: of their daily lives, of their pasts, and of the enormous conflicts that arise in a society that continually strains the moral fiber of its citizens. Taken together, these interviews reveal the many-faceted vision that has fueled South Africa's struggle for democracy.   [brief]
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Title: A mind always in motion: the autobiography of Emilio Segrè 
Author: Segrè, Emilio
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: Science | History and Philosophy of Science | Physics | Autobiography
Publisher's Description: The renowned physicist Emilio Segrè (1905-1989) left his memoirs to be published posthumously because, he said, "I tell the truth the way it was and not the way many of my colleagues wish it had been." This compelling autobiography offers a personal account of his fascinating life as well as candid portraits of some of this century's most important scientists, such as Enrico Fermi, E. O. Lawrence, and Robert Oppenheimer.Born in Italy to a well-to-do Jewish family, Segrè showed early signs of scientific genius - at age seven he began a notebook of physics experiments. He became Fermi's first graduate student in 1928 and contributed to the discovery of slow neutrons, and later was appointed director of the physics laboratory at the University of Palermo. While visiting the Radiation Laboratory at Berkeley in 1938, he learned that he had been dismissed from his Palermo post by Mussolini's Fascist regime. Lawrence then hired him to work on the cyclotron at Berkeley with Luis Alvarez, Edwin McMillan, and Glenn Seaborg. Segrè was one of the first to join Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, where he became a group leader on the Manhattan Project. His account of that mysterious enclave of scientists, all working feverishly to develop the atomic bomb before the Nazis did, includes his description of the first explosion at Alamogordo.Segrè writes movingly of the personal devastation wrought by the Nazis, his struggles with fellow scientists, and his love of nature. His book offers an intimate glimpse into a bygone era as well as a unique perspective on some of the most important scientific developments of this century.   [brief]
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Title: Constructive dissonance: Arnold Schoenberg and the transformations of twentieth-century culture 
Author: Brand, Juliane
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Music | Musicology | Composers | Intellectual History | Art History
Publisher's Description: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) is a pivotal figure of musical modernism. The "father of serialism" has influenced nearly every major composer of this century, and the idea of Schoenberg, now wild-eyed radical, now embattled moralist, now lonely prophet, is woven into the mythos of modern art. What is more, the sites of his professional activity - fin de siècle Vienna, the Berlin of the Weimar Republic, and his "exile to paradise" in Los Angeles - bring home the representative quality of his life and works, which bear witness to some of the defining experiences of our time.This collection by leading Schoenberg scholars is an interdisciplinary examination of the historical, aesthetic, and intellectual issues that formed Schoenberg's creative persona and continue to influence our response to the modernist legacy of the first half of this century. The book's first section, "Contexts," investigates Schoenberg's sense of ethnic, religious, and cultural identity. The second section, "Creations," focuses on specific works and the interplay between creative impulse and aesthetic articulation. The final section, "Connections," addresses the relationship of Schoenberg's legacy to present-day thought and practice.   [brief]
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Title: Gender and salvation: Jaina debates on the spiritual liberation of women 
Author: Jaini, Padmanabh S
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Religion | Buddhism | South Asia | Women's Studies
Publisher's Description: Is a total renunciation of clothing a prerequisite to attaining salvation? In Gender and Salvation , P. S. Jaini brings to light heretofore untranslated texts centering on a centuries-old debate between the two principal Jaina sects, the Digambaras and the Svetambaras. At the core of the debate is the question: should gender-based differences of biology and life experience condition or limit an individual's ability to accomplish the ultimate religious goal?For the Digambaras, the example of total nudity set by Mahavira (599-527 B.C.), the central spiritual figure of Jainism, mandates an identical practice for all who aspire to the highest levels of religious attainment. For the Svetambaras, the renunciation necessary occurs purely on an internal level and is neither affected nor confirmed by the absence of clothes. Both sects agree, however, that nudity is not permitted for women under any circumstances. The Digambaras, therefore, believe that a woman cannot attain salvation, while the Svetambaras believe they can. Through their analysis of this dilemma, the Jaina thinkers whose texts are translated here demonstrate a level of insight into the material and spiritual constraints on women that transcends the particular question of salvation and relates directly to current debates on the effects of gender in our own society.   [brief]
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