New Books: Social Sciences

Appalachia on the Table argues, in part, that since the conception of Appalachia as a distinctly different region from the rest of the South and United States, the foods associated with the region and its people have often been used to socially categorize and stigmatize mountain people. But rather than investigate the actual foods consumed in Appalachia, Locklear instead focuses on the representations of foods consumed, implied moral judgments associated with those foods, and how those judgments shape reader perceptions of those depicted.

A globalized system of capital accumulation has induced humanity to foul its own nest. The result is a planetary emergency that threatens all present and future generations, throwing into question the continuation of civilization and ultimately the very survival of humanity itself. Only by addressing the social aspects of the current planetary emergency, exploring the theoretical, historical, and practical dimensions of the capitalism's alteration of the planetary environment, is it possible to develop the ecological and social resources for a new journey of hope.

In our digital world, data is power, and information hoarders reign supreme. Sarah Lamdan brings us into the unregulated underworld of the 'data cartels,' demonstrating how the entities mining, hoarding, commodifying, and selling our data and informational resources perpetuate social inequalities and threaten the democratic sharing of knowledge. Just a few companies dominate most of our critical informational resources, from scientific research and financial data to the law. They are also data brokers, selling our personal data to law enforcement and other government agencies. Alarmingly, everything they're doing is perfectly legal.

Our Migrant Souls assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of "Latino" as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about "illegals" and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.

When Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Robert's life was rough from the beginning in the crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980s, with his father in jail and his mother earning less than $15,000 a year. But Robert was a brilliant student, and it was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale, where he studied molecular biochemistry and biophysics. But it didn't. Robert carried with him the difficult dual nature of his existence, "fronting" in Yale, and at home.

Today's narratives about trans people tend to feature individuals with stable gender identities that fit neatly into the categories of male or female. Those stories, while important, fail to account for the complex realities of many trans people's lives. This book illuminates the stories of people across the globe, from antiquity to the present, whose experiences of gender have defied binary categories. Blending historical analysis with sharp cultural criticism, Kit Heyam offers a new, radically inclusive trans history, chronicling expressions of trans experience that are often overlooked, like gender-nonconforming fashion and wartime stage performance.

Cobalt is an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made today, the batteries that power our smartphones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. More than 70 percent of the world's supply of cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions. Cobalt Red is a searing exposé of the immense toll taken on the people and environment of the Congo by cobalt mining, as told through the testimonies of the Congolese people. Siddharth Kara has traveled deep into cobalt territory to document the testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt.

Not Too Late brings strong voices from around the world to address the political, scientific, social, and emotional dimensions of climate change. Accessible, encouraging, and engaging, it's an invitation to everyone to understand the issue more deeply, participate more boldly, and imagine the future more creatively. In concise, illuminating essays and interviews, Not Too Late features the voices of Indigenous activists, climate scientists, artists, and longtime organizers.

Designed for both academic and lay audiences, this book identifies the characteristics of ritual and, via multiple examples, details how ritual works on the human body and brain to produce its often profound effects. These include enhancing courage, effecting healing, and generating group cohesion by enacting cultural--or individual--beliefs and values. It also shows what happens when ritual fails.

Michelle Fishburne did the unthinkable during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic: she motor-homed 12,000 miles all over the United States and sat down with hundreds of people face to face. The personal histories in this book show a diversity of American lives, from the young college student who finds unexpected fame on TikTok to a special-education teacher sharing the challenges of remote learning. Everyone's story is different. Some, like Fishburne, lost their jobs. Others lost family, friends, and even their own health and well-being. And yet among the difficulties, many found something that had eluded them before the pandemic.