Cambria Press
Access denied; how internet filters impact student learning in high schools.
Most of the discussion about dealing with legislative constraint of the Internet over the past two years has revolved around public libraries, which are often forced to choose between government funding or freedom of information. Librarian Sutton (Wake Forest U.) looks at the impact of US laws in high school libraries. Hers is a pioneering study, she says — analyzing student learning in a single school district with one predominant socio-economic class — but the qualitative research methods she developed can and should be applied elsewhere. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Alternative theater in Taiwan; feminist and intercultural approaches.
Tuan (humanities and social sciences, National Chiao Tung U., Taiwan) considers alternative theater in Taiwan in terms of feminism and interculturalism through a description of its history and an examination of 17 performances from the 1990s to the present. These performances are compared to those in the US and France to demonstrate their multiculturalism. The implications of performance signs are examined in the productions of four avant-garde female directors (Chou Hui-Ling, Wei Ying-chuan, Dai Chun-fang, and Wu Xin- chou) and intercultural productions (Oresteia, Tsou Oedipus, Peach Blossom Fan, Journey to the West, and works by Stan Lai and others). Also discussed are the phases of the Little Theater Movement, interactions between Taiwan and other Asian countries, and how drama has served as a political and educational tool. She explores the concepts of the East and West and the relationship between them, and theater in terms of Orientalism, postcolonialism, and performance studies. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Applying andragogical principles to Internet learning.
A research and practicing educator, Isenberg (Christian Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri) investigates whether it is possible to support the principles and technology of adult learning while creating an Internet learning experience. She speaks primarily to adult education practitioners who are trying to adapt traditional classroom learning experiences into Internet-based learning experiences. Adult learners may also benefit, she suggests, by learning how to identify and bypass or mitigate deficiencies of their teachers in either andragogical or technical aspects of the fusion. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The Chamberlains, the Churchills and Ireland, 1874-1922.
In this work of political biography, Chambers (executive officer of the Centre for Irish Studies, Murdoch U., Australia) examines the involvement of two generations of British politicians — Conservative Lord Randolph Churchill and Liberal Joseph Chamberlain and their sons Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain — with the Irish question from 1874 to the establishment of home rule in 1922. He describes how the fathers, political opponents on most other questions, allied in their unionist views and opposition to Irish republicanism and how the sons, entering Parliament with inherited unionist perspectives, came to change their views and adopt policies that had been vigorously opposed by their fathers. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Christian romanticism; T.S. Eliot's response to Percy Shelley.
American 20th-century poet Eliot had a complex relationship with the work of British 19th-century poet Shelley, says Lowe (English, International Study Center, Sussex). Among his topics are possible reasons for Eliot's disavowal of Romanticism, the isolated self in Eliot's early poetry, Shelley's search for the anti-type, love and lust in The Waste Land, the influence of Dante, and moving beyond language in Eliot's conversion poetry. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Class in late-Victorian Britain; the narrative concern with social hierarchy and its representation.
Swafford (English, Bradley U.) considers different narrative representations of class in late-Victorian British literature and how they are more than just reflections of larger social issues. He claims that representation influences or maintains the discourse of society and that class requires conscious participation. Works he examines are Anthony Trollope's The Claverings, Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Ubervilles, George Moore's Esther Waters, H.G. Wells' The History of Mr. Polly, and novels that focus on the working class or poor such as Margaret Harkness' Out of Work and Jack London's The People of the Abyss. Earlier versions of some of the chapters have been previously published. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Comparing American and British legal education systems; lessons for Commonwealth African law schools.
Mwenda, a leading counsel for the World Bank, makes good use of his many law degrees (including from Oxford U., the U. of Warwick and the U. of Zambia) to compare legal education systems not only in the titular countries but in Africa. He finds many positive features in Commonwealth African law schools, many of which can complete squarely with UK and US schools. He describes the primary university qualifications necessary to enter study, post-law-degree qualifications and the issue of their recognition, issues of accreditation that need to be resolved, and the role of university league tables. Mwenda closes with recommendations of policies for African law schools. The result is not only a cogent argument but a first-rate comparison of legal cultures. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Cross-cultural communication; concepts, cases and challenges.
Seven studies examine cross-cultural communication in such spheres as business, education, and criminal justice. The topics include communicating within a multicultural workforce, multiculturalism in Canada, and building relationships between the police and inner-city African American minorities. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Crossing into manhood; a men's studies curriculum.
Mason argues for a curriculum aimed at teenage boys as they transition into manhood that is a re-conceptualization of the masculine gender and a new approach to teaching them and supporting their masculine identity formation. Three schools of thought are considered — the psychoanalytic, social constructionist, and essentialist theories — as well as elements that should be included in curriculum. By synthesizing these viewpoints, he brings together a paradigm that emphasizes the uniqueness and diversity of cultural manifestations of masculinity. He discusses masculine biology and development, the male wound, initiation, father issues, archetypes, sexuality, health and spirituality, and boarding schools, with each chapter ending with implications for education. He also provides an annotated outline of a two-year men's studies course on male identity. Mason is a principal at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
E-commerce and export performance.
As part of his PhD requirements, Karavdic (marketing, U. of New South Wales, Australia) presents research in this book on the link between business environment, export marketing strategy, e-commerce activities and export performance in an export venture market. The goal of his research was to develop and test a model of export performance influenced by e-commerce and consider the effect of these activities on export marketing strategy and strategy on performance, using a contingency approach. It uses qualitative interviews with senior management and data from 340 Australian exporters. Both name and subject indexes are provided. The book is aimed at marketing scholars and practitioners. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Feminism and global Chineseness; the cultural production of controversial women authors.
Zhu (Chinese language and literature, U. of Maryland and George Mason U.) examines the cultural production of four contemporary controversial women authors — Maxine Hong Kingston, Wei Hui, Li Ang, and Li Bihua — in different global Chinese locations. She argues that these women are "caught in the discursive power struggle between feminism, nationalism, and the increasingly powerful global popular consumerism." She focuses on the female body and the political significance of literary and cultural criticism and specific historical and social contexts of different discourses of feminism, nationalism, and consumerism and how they define and control cultural meanings of the female body and feminine/feminist texts. She takes issue with criticism that is reductive of these "isms" and proposes a more flexible concept of cultural production. She discusses the heroine in Kingston's The Woman Warrior, the banning of Hui's Shanghai Baby, Ang's The Beigang Incense Burner, and the popularity of Li Bihua and her exploration of national identity, gender, and sexuality in conventional plots. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Getting reel; a social science perspective on film.
For film appreciation students, Gose (humanities/teacher education, Pepperdine University's Seaver College) explores the concept of truth in films and how they put forth ideas that are "truer than true" in order to explore meaning. He focuses on personal and social issues that are presented in various films and uses an approach that emphasizes getting at the truth in relationship to artistic concerns. He discusses artistic license and perspectives and issues that social scientists have raised, including portrayals of history, cultural pluralism, and class; values and meaning presented in films; and the integration of social science perspectives. Throughout the text he proposes questions that can be asked about any film and applied after reading the book. There is no index. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Haile Selassie, western education, and political revolution in Ethiopia.
According to Milkias (former Expert for History and Information in the Administration Department of the Ministry of Defense of Emperor Haile Selassie's government) the influence of Western forms of education in the modernizing autocracy of Haile Selassie's Ethiopia played a crucial role in the development of the political forces that eventually led to his overthrow in the early 1970s. He argues that the state's encouraging of Western education fostered a new educated elite that became "the cerebral link in the metropolitan-client relationship" between the United States and Ethiopia. However, this elite became exposed to radical ideas that led to dissatisfaction once the United States began aligning itself with Haile Selassie's feudal-client state. The educated classes were able to channel this satisfaction into changing the political consciousness of sectors of the army and police and were thus able to overthrow the autocracy. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
A history of Daoism and the Yao people of South China.
Drawing on close readings of primary sources, with frequent quotes from these given in the original Chinese with English translation, Alberts presents a fascinating and detailed analysis of the adaptation of daoism by the non-Chinese Yao people and the larger cultural and political meanings and intentions of their conversion. In his analysis of these texts, the importance of Daoist belief and practice is revealed not only for the Yao, but also for the governing Han. The study is based on Alberts' PhD dissertation in Chinese language and cultures from the U. of Pennsylvania. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Homeless culture and the media; how the media educate audiences in their portrayal of America's homeless culture.
This volume addresses how the homeless are portrayed by the media and therefore, how public perceptions are shaped. Reynalds draws from interviews with homeless people and journalists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and news stories from major print and broadcast media around the country to study this coverage, and looks at a sample of homeless people, their characterization and description of themselves in the news media, and journalists' responses. Particularly, he notes how these portrayals are contradictory — that homeless people can have their problems fixes by a meal and shelter — to the experiences of homeless service providers. Reynalds, who was once homeless, is founder and director of an emergency homeless shelter in New Mexico. He holds a PhD in intercultural education. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The humble and the heroic; wartime Italian Americans.
In an attempt to describe the Italian American experience during World War II — a much-ignored topic in studies of the era — LaGumina (Italian American studies, Nassau Community College) recounts his memories and feelings during the period. His objective is to connect personal recollection and objective history, describing what was happening in the microcosm of his life and the larger context of mainstream society. Questions he considers along the way are how ethnic minorities deal with its "near enemy status" and how the nation deals with them, how Italian Americans coped with a dual background and the political consequences of it, whether extra loyalty was required, and whether they were accepted as full citizens. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Identity in Doris Lessing's space fiction.
Waterman (English, U. de La Rochelle, Institut Universitaire de Technologie, and U. Michel de Montaigne, France) explores the concept of identity in "space fiction" by Doris Lessing. He refers to how identity is defined in spatial and geographic terms, collective identity, group affiliation, alienation, concepts of the self and Other, and ideas about dominant ideology in her books. Works he considers in detail are Briefing for a Descent into Hell, Memoirs of a Survivor, Shikasta, The Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five, The Sirian Experiments, The Making of the Representative for Planet 8, The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire, and The Reasons for It. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The impact of home Internet access on test scores.
What impact does having a home computer and the ability to access information on the Internet have on success in school? Macho (technology education, State U. of New York, Buffalo College) takes on the question parents and educators have been asking since those PCs first appeared in family rooms across America. He tracks use of the PC against the standard test scores of a cohort of American children, closely detailing the relationship between the acquisition of data and the ability to apply it directly within a relatively narrow focus. Although we still cannot tell if other outside forces, such as socio-economic status, remains at the root of success in the tests, we do know from Macho's work that there is a correlation. The results should have major impact on whether a school or district will commit to providing technology to students. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The impact of Internet pornography on married women; a psychodynamic perspective.
Using a psychodynamic approach, Cebulko, a clinical social worker, presents a case study of wives of men who use internet pornography, revealing the experiences of women not just as enablers but as active participants as a result of their own unconscious processes. The study is meant to aid social workers in therapeutic work. She proposes that there is a key relationship between the psychosexual development of women, gender socialization, self-esteem, and the dynamics of a martial relationship. She conducted interviews with 16 women to see how they understood and managed their husband's internet activities and used grounded theory to analyze their experiences. She reviews current research on pornography and extramarital affairs, her methodology, and results of the research, which are grouped into categories. She also discusses women who went to two different support groups. Both name and subject indexes are included. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Internet learning and the building of knowledge.
Cortese (communication, Florida State U.) considers how the internet can be maximized to more effectively provide information to users in a study of how people use the internet to find information about health, especially alternative medicine. She particularly looks at pop-up previews attached to hyperlinks and knowledge structure change after exposure. She uses Social Cognitive Theory as a theoretical basis and considers elements of behavior, the environment, and personal factors such as subject and web expertise, self-efficacy, motivation, and cognitive load as a means to understand learning from the internet. In addition, she examines three types of learning: factual knowledge, definitional knowledge, and knowledge structure. Both subject and name indexes are provided. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
