U. of Toronto Press

The body legal in barbarian law.

Barbarian law refers to a group of laws written in the 6th to early 9th centuries by people speaking a Germanic dialect who recorded their territorial laws for much of Europe. Oliver (English, Louisiana State U.) notes that these medieval laws, which were pretty civil except for treating women and the poor differently, raised issues that are still relevant. Drawing on legal, literary, and other evidence, she discusses the types and results of injuries inflicted in altercations; healing methods; redress and litigation process and procedures; and the historical roots of these laws. The volume includes maps, illustrations, tables, and charts of Wergild (compensation) tariffs in Germanic injury laws. Online appendices are available. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Critical ecologies; the Frankfurt School and contemporary environmental crises.

An introductory statement suggests that this volume "...aims to redeem the theories of major Frankfurt thinkers — Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse, among others — by applying them to contemporary environmental crises." Bird (political science, Acadia U., Canada) provides an extended introductory essay, which is followed by 11 contributions based on papers originally presented at a 2006 workshop. Arrangement is in thematic sections pertaining to science and the mastery of nature; critical theory, life, and nature; alienation and the aesthetic; and critical theory's moment (sovereign power and global warming, Adorno and environmental imagination, and "nature" and "humanity" in Horkheimer's The Concept of Man). (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Growing up transnational; identity and kinship in a global era.

Friedman (social work, Ryerson U., Canada) and Schultermandi (American studies, U. of Graz, Austria) met at a conference on motherhood where they formed a friendship and a collaboration devoted to exploring redefinitions of self, nation, and family. This volume comprises 13 contributions from scholars based in many regions of the world who offer personal narratives of their own transnational identities as well as treatment of the subject as it is represented in various literary works. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

National performance; representing Quebec from Expo 67 to Celine Dion.

In a volume in a series that focuses on the challenges of studying culture in postmodern contexts, Hurley (drama and theatre, McGill U.) explores the construction of national identity via an analysis of metaphors of the signifier (representations) of the signified (the nation) in various genres. From the Quebec Pavilion at the 1967 World's Fair in Montreal, to new Québécois theatre exemplified by Marco Micone and Céline's pop music, she accents the overlooked affective aspect of such performances. Lastly, she views this construction process through feminist lenses. Photographs feature production venues and stills. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

State building in revolutionary Ukraine; a comparative study of governments and bureaucrats, 1917-1922.

During the four years following the October 1917 collapse of the Russian Provisional Government, seven major political groups and/or governments claimed political authority in the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire and this political fluidity has been blamed for producing a lack of able administrators, without which Ukraine was unable to achieve independence during those years. Velychenko (U. of Toronto) investigates this argument through a top-down examination of the forming and functioning of central government bureaucracy. Focused on the central ministries of the various governments and their local agencies at the district levels, the study seeks to identify administrators and their interests, job histories, and loyalties, as well as determine the degree to which local officials could implement central policies in the face of inertia, inefficiency, bad organization, wartime conditions, staff shortages and overstaffing, and sabotage. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)