Playing Nature: Ecology in Video Games / Alenda Y. Chang
Video games may be fun and immersive diversions from daily life, but can they go beyond the realm of entertainment to do something serious--like help us save the planet? As one of the signature issues of the twenty-first century, ecological deterioration is seemingly everywhere, but it is rarely considered via the realm of interactive digital play. In 'Playing Nature', Alenda Y. Chang offers groundbreaking methods for exploring this vital overlap. Arguing that games need to be understood as part of a cultural response to the growing ecological crisis, she seeds conversations around key environmental science concepts and suggests several ways to rethink existing game taxonomies and theories of agency while revealing surprising fundamental similarities between game play and scientific work.
Logged In and Stressed Out: How Social Media Is Affecting Your Mental Health and What You Can Do About It / Paula Durlofsky
America is facing a mental health crisis. Studies show that the average American is spending more than ten hours a day in front of their screens, suicide rates are at an all-time high, and mental health professionals are working hard to address social media's role in this epidemic. Social media can sometimes feel like an unpredictable roller coaster ride. One's mood can swing from elated after getting a slew of 'likes' on a post to worthlessness and deflation in response to being criticized in a comment thread. Too often, bad feelings from social media interactions linger, negatively affecting our off-line lives and worsening already present mental health issues. Instead of demonizing social media by taking a one-note, 'digital detox' approach, 'Logged In and Stressed Out' recognizes social media is not, itself, the problem--it's how we use it that needs examining. Paula Durlofsky guides readers through its impact on breakups and infidelities, social distortion and comparison, trauma and triggers, social media binging, depression, anxiety, and other common concerns, using real stories from her own practice to personalize concepts and recommendations. By setting needed limits and embracing new practices, it is possible to improve mental health when using social media. Durlofsky details the whys and hows of creating a safe digital space, cultivating digital and social media mindfulness, applying the techniques of mentalizing while consuming social media, and decreasing social media and digital reactivity. She offers suggestions for how to use social media an digital technology to create meaningful social interactions and positive mental health, and provides readers with practical steps to put these ideas into action
As the World Turns: The History of Proving the Earth Rotates / Peter Kosso
We know the Earth rotates, but how do we know? When and how did it become reasonable to believe that the Earth rotates? This book offers a historical account, from ancient Greek science to the theory of relativity and ultimately to videos taken from outer space, of how this widely known truth came to be. Using an accessible and entertaining narrative suitable for anyone interested in astronomy, physics, or the history of either, Kosso clarifies the use of evidence to prove that the Earth rotates, and deals with the tension between the claims that the Earth is absolutely in motion, yet all motion is relative. The book also explores the general nature of scientific evidence and method, and confronts challenges to science from outside the discipline.
Heart to Heart: How Your Emotions Affect Other People / Brian Parkinson
Do emotions happen inside separate hearts and minds, or do they operate across the spaces between individuals? This book focuses on how emotions affect other people by changing their orientation to what happens in the social world. It provides the first sustained attempt to bring together literature on emotion's social effects in dyads and groups, and on how people regulate their emotions in order to exploit these effects in their home and work lives. The chapters present state-of-the-art reviews of topics such as emotion contagion, social appraisal and emotional labour. The book then develops an innovative and integrative approach to the social psychology of emotion based on the idea of relation alignment. The implications not only stretch beyond face-to-face interactions into the wider interpersonal, institutional and cultural environment, but also penetrate the supposed depths of personal experience, making us rethink some of our strongly held presuppositions about how emotions work.
Engage, Connect, Protect: Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders / Angelou Ezeilo with Nick Chiles
While concern about the state of our land, air, and water continues to grow, there is widespread belief that environmental issues are primarily of interest to wealthy white communities. 'Engage, Connect, Protect' explodes this myth, revealing the deep and abiding interest that African American, Latino, and Native American communities -- many of whom live in degraded and polluted parts of the country -- have in our collective environment. Part eye-opening critique of the cultural divide in environmentalism, part biography of a leading social entrepreneur, and part practical toolkit for engaging diverse youth, 'Engage, Connect, Protect' covers: Why communities of color are largely unrecognized in the environmental movement; Bridging the cultural divide and activating a new generation of environmental stewards; A resource guide for connecting mainstream America to organizations working with diverse youth within environmental projects, training, and employment. 'Engage, Connect, Protect' is a wake-up call for businesses, activists, educators, and policymakers to recognize the work of grassroots activists in diverse communities and create opportunities for engaging with diverse youth as the next generation of environmental stewards.
The Radium Girls: The Scary But True Story of the Poison That Made People Glow in the Dark / Kate Moore
Amid the excitement of the early twentieth century, hundreds of young women spend their days hard at work painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark radium paint. The painters consider themselves lucky--until they start suffering from a mysterious illness. As the corporations try to cover up a shocking secret, these shining girls suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly scandal. 'The Radium Girls' tells the unbelievable true story of these incredible women, whose determination to fight back saved countless lives.
Identity Politics in the United States / Khalilah L. Brown-Dean
In 2017, a white supremacist rally at the University of Virginia forced many to consider how much progress had been made in a country that, nine years prior, had elected its first Black president. Beyond these racial flashpoints, the increasingly polarized nature of US politics has reignited debates around the meaning of identity, citizenship, and acceptance in America today. In this pioneering book, Khalilah L. Brown-Dean moves beyond the headlines to examine how contemporary controversies emanate from longstanding struggles over power, access, and belonging. Using intersectionality as an organizing framework, she draws on current tensions such as voter suppression, the Me Too movement, the Standing Rock protests, marriage equality, military service, the rise of the Religious Right, protests by professional athletes, and battles over immigration to show how conflicts over group identity are an inescapable feature of American political development. Brown-Dean explores issues of citizenship, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and religion to argue that democracy in the United States is built upon the battle of ideas related to how we see ourselves, how we see others, and the mechanisms available to reinforce those distinctions. 'Identity Politics in the United States' will be an essential resource for students and engaged citizens who want to understand the link between historical context, contemporary political challenges, and paths to move toward a stronger democracy.
Magic: A History: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present / Chris Gosden
Three great strands of belief run through human history. Religion is the relationship with one god or many gods, masters of our lives and destinies. Science distances us from the world, turning us into observers and collectors of knowledge. And magic is direct human participation in the universe: we have influence on the world around us, and the world has influence on us. Over the last few centuries, magic has developed a bad reputation--thanks to the unsavory tactics of shady practitioners, and to a successful propaganda campaign on the part of religion and science, which denigrated magic as backward, irrational, and primitive. In 'Magic: A History', the Oxford professor of archaeology Chris Gosden restores magic to its essential place in the story of humankind, revealing it to be an enduring element of human behavior that plays an important role for individuals and cultures. From the curses and charms of ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish magic to the shamanistic traditions of Eurasia, indigenous America, and Africa; from the alchemy of the Renaissance to the condemnation of magic in the colonial period and the mysteries of quantum physics--Gosden's surprising and colorful history supplies a missing chapter of the story of our civilization. Drawing on decades of research--touching on the first known horoscope, a statue ordered into exile, and the mystical power of tattoos--Gosden shows what magic can offer us today, and how we might use it to rethink our relationship with the world. 'Magic: A History' is an original, singular, and sweeping work of scholarship, and its revelations will cast a spell on the reader.