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From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures (Studies in Language Gender and Sexuality)

Author(s):
Rusty Barrett
Editor(s):
Mary Bucholtz
Book summary:

This book examines gendered language use in six gay male subcultures: drag queens, radical faeries, bears, circuit boys, barebackers, and leathermen. Within each subculture, unique patterns of language use challenge normative assumptions about gender and sexual identity. Rusty Barrett's analyses of these subcultures emphasize the ways in which gay male constructions of gender are intimately linked to other forms of social difference. 

In From Drag Queens to Leathermen, Barrett presents an extension of his earlier work among African American drag queens in the 1990s, emphasizing the intersections of race and class in the construction of gender. An analysis of sacred music among radical faeries considers the ways in which expressions of gender are embedded in a broader neo-pagan religious identity. The formation of bear as an identity category (for heavyset and hairy men) in the late 1980s involves the appropriation of linguistic stereotypes of rural Southern masculinity. Among regular attendees of circuit parties, language serves to differentiate gay and straight forms of masculinity. In the early 2000s, barebackers (gay men who eschew condoms) used language to position themselves as rational risk takers with an innate desire for semen. For participants in the International Mr. Leather contest, a disciplined, militaristic masculinity links expressions of patriotism with BDSM sexual practice.

In all of these groups, the construction of gendered identity involves combining linguistic forms that would usually not co-occur. These unexpected combinations serve as the foundation for the emergence of unique subcultural expressions of gay male identity, explicated at length in this book.

Publication year:
2017
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Praise:
Quote:
In these refreshingly sympathetic chapters, Rusty Barrett explores the ways in which notably contrastive groups of gay men use language as a central medium at once reflecting and constructing a sense of belonging and distinctiveness. In the complex field that aligns sexuality with race, class, and gender identities, among others, From Drag Queens to Leathermen guides us to appreciate the sites of performance, of ritual, and of ecstatic practice where the semiotic work is of indexically infusing sexual identity with sociocultural meaning and value, and with the dignity of subjectivity, is accomplished.
Credit:
Michael Silverstein, Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics, and Psychology, University of Chicago
Quote:
Barrett (linguistics, Univ. of Kentucky) uses ethnographic techniques--interviews, participant observation, archival research, and textual/discourse analysis--to offer a meticulous analysis of language use within six subcultures of gay men: African American drag queens, radical faeries, bears, circuit boys, barebackers, and leathermen. Using concepts such as performativity and indexicality, Barrett looks at how these subcultures espouse various and competing scripts of gender and sexuality
Credit:
Choice
Quote:
This is an illuminating book that eloquently demonstrates the necessity of analyzing sexuality and gender simultaneously and thereby revels the intersectional nature of language across cultures.
Credit:
Men and Masculinities
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.amazon.com/Drag-Queens-Leathermen-Subcultures-Sexuality/dp/0195390180

Exploring the Consequences of the Normative Gap in Legal Protections Addressing Violence Against Women: Normative Gaps in International Law

Author(s):
Jillienne Haglund with David Richards
Editor(s):
Routhledge
Book summary:

Violence against women remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world today, and it permeates every society, at every level. Such violence is considered a systemic, widespread and pervasive human rights violation, experienced largely by women because they are women. Yet at the international level, there is a gap in the legal protection of women from violence. There is currently no binding international convention that explicitly prohibits such violence; or calls for its elimination; or, mandates the criminalisation of all forms of violence against women.

This book critically analyses the treatment of violence against women in the United Nations system, and in three regional human rights systems. Each chapter explores the advantages and disadvantages coming from the legal instruments, the work of the monitoring systems, and the resulting findings and jurisprudence. The book proposes that the gap needs to be addressed through a new United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women, or alternatively an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. A new Convention or Optional Protocol would be part of the transformative agenda that is needed to normatively address the promotion of a life free of violence for women, the responsibility of states to act with due diligence in the elimination of all forms of violence against all women, and the systemic challenges that are the causes and consequences of such violence.

 

Bio:
Short bio:


Jillienne Haglund is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky. She received her Ph.D. at Florida State University in 2014 and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington University in St. Louis from Fall 2014-Spring 2015. Her research and teaching interests fall broadly in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. More specifically, she is interested in human rights, international organizations, international law, and comparative political institutions. Her work seeks to illuminate the extent to which international law constrains state human rights behavior. Her research appears in The Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Perspectives, and Paradigm-Routledge Publishers.

Jillienne teaches undergraduate courses on world politics, international organizations, and international human rights, as well as graduate seminars on international relations and international human rights.

Indios en escena: La representación del amerindio en el teatro del Siglo de Oro

Author(s):
Moisés R. Castillo
Book summary:

Indios en escena engages both the Baroque and Colonial fields of Hispanism in order to reevaluate fourteen major plays of Spanish Golden Age literature from a social-historical perspective. Castillo argues that these plays portray Amerindians not in their “otherness” but as subjects of empire. It is the author’s contention that these dramas reveal the vast contradictions between the two leading ideological trends of the age as performed on the stage: the discourse of honor and the juridical-theological code, both of which attempt to assimilate the Amerindian phenomenon under the auspices of church and state. These works consistently raise the paradoxical question of how a person can be a savage and have honor at the same time. The Amerindian must become a new “subject” for the Spanish Crown (as stated by the discourse of honor in these plays), i.e., an honorable and distinguished Indian capable of lofty speech and courage in battle. Yet, Amerindians are also barbarians or wild “children” (F. de Vitoria, Las Casas) who need the redemptive intervention of the Church to mature (evolve) and to be capable of salvation. These plays reveal the effort to integrate and assimilate the new indigenous entities under the monarcho-seigneurial system while exposing the philosophical contradictions that Baroque ideology has to overcome in order to elicit obedience. 

Publication year:
2009
Publisher:
Purdue University Press
Praise:
Quote:
… a compelling view of both dramatic production and philosophical debates about indigenous people as a key intellectual milieu of the time. … transatlantic in approach and impact … The fact that Castillo never loses sight of this essential distinction [between representation of the indigenous people and representation of the Spanish Empire and its colonialist ideology] indicates the critical rigor and predicts the scholarly purchase Indios en escena will continue to have in the coming years.
Credit:
Jorge Coronado, Modern Language Notes (2011): 416-18.
Quote:
Este libro es uno de los estudios más equilibrados, mejor documentados y más iluminadores que, en mi opinión, se han publicado hasta la fecha sobre la representación del personaje indígena americano.
Credit:
José María Ruano de la Haza, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 45.1 (Winter 2011): 227-29.
Quote:
An exhaustively researched study that fleshes out the fluctuating religiously and politically influenced image of the New World natives as well as that of Spaniards in the ‘conquest plays’ of Spanish Golden Age Theater.
Credit:
Bonnie Gasior, California State University, Long Beach (book cover)
Quote:
… el trabajo es muy sólido y erudito … Con la ventaja de no tener deudas políticas visibles, nuestro investigador supera a sus predecesores en finura interpretativa y en equilibrio ideológico, además de emplear un tono elegante y nada polémico.
Credit:
Héctor Brioso Santos, Criticón 111-12 (2011): 310-14.
Quote:
Este libro supera, en mi opinión, las ideas insuficientemente elaboradas de críticos como Tzvetan Todorov respecto al «otro» de la conquista en su La conquista de América, la cuestión del otro (1982). Esta nueva publicación de Moisés R. Castillo es justamente una lectura indispensable para quienes estudiamos el teatro del Siglo de Oro, así como para quienes valoramos la historia de América.
Credit:
A. Robert Lauer TEATRO-L Archives, (reseñas) Dec. 31, 2010, also in Bulletin of the Comediantes 68.2 (2016): 200.
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Moisés R. Castillo. Associate Professor of Early Modern and Colonial Studies in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky. With a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Granada, Spain, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian literature from the University of Minnesota, he is the author of Indios en escena: La representación del amerindio en el teatro del Siglo de Oro, Purdue University Press, 2009; guest editor of the special number of Romance Quarterly vol. 61, no 2, 2014 devoted to Cervantes’s Exemplary Novels; numerous chapters in volumes, and articles in refereed journals. His research focuses on Golden Age theater and Cervantes studies. Currently, he is writing a manuscript on the Cervantine comedias. He is the recipient of the College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award in the Humanities 2015-2016, at the University of Kentucky.
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/slc/psrl/authors/castillo._moises.html

THE ANC's War Against Apartheid: Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Liberation of South Africa

Author(s):
Stephen R Davis
Book summary:

For nearly three decades, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), waged a violent revolutionary struggle against the apartheid state in South Africa. Stephen Davis works with extensive oral testimonies and the heroic myths that were constructed after 1994 to offer a new history of this armed movement. Davis deftly addresses the histories that reinforce the legitimacy of the ANC as a ruling party, its longstanding entanglement with the South African Communist Party, and efforts to consolidate a single narrative of struggle and renewal in concrete museums and memorials. Davis shows that the history of MK is more complicated and ambiguous than previous laudatory accounts would have us believe, and in doing so he discloses the contradictions of the liberation struggle as well as its political manifestations.

Kentucky SkyTalk: The Star of Bethlehem

The University of Kentucky Department of Physics and Astronomy and the MacAdam Student Observatory presents Kentucky SkyTalks as part of an ongoing outreach series. Each SkyTalk starts with a 40-minute presentation about astronomy followed by an opportunity to visit the observatory across the street. These presentations are free and open to the public. Visits to the observatory are weather dependent. 

Handbook of Regression Methods

Author(s):
Derek S. Young
Book summary:

Handbook of Regression Methods concisely covers numerous traditional, contemporary, and nonstandard regression methods. The handbook provides a broad overview of regression models, diagnostic procedures, and inference procedures, with emphasis on how these methods are applied. The organization of the handbook benefits both practitioners and researchers, who seek either to obtain a quick understanding of regression methods for specialized problems or to expand their own breadth of knowledge of regression topics.

This handbook covers classic material about simple linear regression and multiple linear regression, including assumptions, effective visualizations, and inference procedures. It presents an overview of advanced diagnostic tests, remedial strategies, and model selection procedures. Finally, many chapters are devoted to a diverse range of topics, including censored regression, nonlinear regression, generalized linear models, and semiparametric regression.

Features

  • Presents a concise overview of a wide range of regression topics not usually covered in a single text.
  • Includes over 80 examples using nearly 70 real datasets, with results obtained using R.
  • Offers a Shiny app (https://horm.as.uky.edu) containing all examples, thus allowing access to the source code and the ability to interact with the analyses.
Publication year:
2017
Publisher:
CRC Press
Praise:
Quote:
Covering a wide range of regression topics, this clearly written handbook explores not only the essentials of regression methods for practitioners but also a broader spectrum of regression topics for researchers. Complete and detailed, this unique, comprehensive resource provides an extensive breadth of topical coverage, some of which is not typically found in a standard text on this topic. Young (Univ. of Kentucky) covers such topics as regression models for censored data, count regression models, nonlinear regression models, and nonparametric regression models with autocorrelated data. In addition, assumptions and applications of linear models as well as diagnostic tools and remedial strategies to assess them are addressed. Numerous examples using over 75 real data sets are included, and visualizations using R are used extensively. Also included is a useful Shiny app learning tool; based on the R code and developed specifically for this handbook, it is available online. This thoroughly practical guide will be invaluable for graduate collections.
Credit:
D. J. Gougeon, Choice Connect
Quote:
The list of calculated examples contains virtually every possible field of application of statistics, a small subset of them reads as follows: car sale data, cheese-tasting experiment data, credit loss data, hospital stays data, James Bond data, and wind direction data.
Credit:
H.-J. Schmidt, University of Potsdam, Zentralblatt MATH
Quote:
The variety of sophisticated statistical models available is more than any statistician can thoroughly understand, remember, and have experience with. A book like Young’s Handbook is valuable when you need to use a model that isn’t top of mind, giving mathematical details but also practical advice regarding considerations that are not obvious from a mathematical description.
Credit:
J. D. Cook, Statistical Consultant
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Derek Young is an assistant professor of statistics at the University of Kentucky. He has over ten years of experience as a statistician, including positions in industry, government, and academia. During this time, he has also taught online courses in regression methods for Penn State University and the University of Kentucky. His research interests include (finite) mixture models, tolerance regions, and statistical computing.
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.crcpress.com/Handbook-of-Regression-Methods/Young/p/book/9781498775298

Breaking Murphy's Law

Author(s):
Suzanne C. Segerstrom
Book summary:

Pollyannas take heart, pessimists take note: Recent studies on achievement and well-being show that optimistic behavior contributes to better physical health, greater resilience in the face of life’s twists and turns, and more satisfying relationships. As psychologist Suzanne Segerstrom reveals, optimists lay groundwork for the success they envision. While the rest of us worry whether our goals are attainable, those who practice optimism try to achieve theirs. Breaking Murphy’s Law shows you simple ways to develop the skills that natural-born optimists use to get what they want from life. Dr. Segerstrom helps you break free from the inertia of cynicism and self-doubt and encourages you to engage the world around you. “Doing optimism”--by getting involved, working hard, and enjoying your achievements--establishes a positive feedback loop that’s both personally transformative and self-perpetuating. This practical book imparts the lesson with a mix of humor and intelligence that will convince even the most hardened cynics that Murphy got it wrong.

Publication year:
2006
Publisher:
Guilford
Praise:
Quote:
Murphy’s Law — “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong” — is the antithesis of optimism. In a book called “Breaking Murphy’s Law,” Suzanne C. Segerstrom, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, explained that optimism is not about being positive so much as it is about being motivated and persistent.
Credit:
Jane Brody, New York Times (5/21/2012)
Quote:
A wonderful counterpoint to the many self-help books out there that emphasize trying to be happy. Dr. Segerstrom shows how the headlong pursuit of happiness can actually be self-defeating, while effective optimism--focusing on motivation and persistence--can lead both to good feelings and genuine success in life. A 'must read.'
Credit:
Ed Diener, Ph.D.
Quote:
The book imparts the lessons of years of research on optimism with humor, thoughtfulness, and a convincing amount of evidence that is possible to break 'Murphy's Law' through optimistic expectations....Breaking Murphy's Law demonstrates that merely believing more positively will not lead to greater well-being and life satisfaction. Rather, success and happiness lie in the persistent motivational strategies that optimists adopt.
Credit:
PsycCRITIQUES
Quote:
Segerstrom backs up her words with tons of scientific research...She lightens it with humor in unexpected places, and makes a compelling argument.
Credit:
Newsday
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Suzanne C. Segerstrom is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where she pursues research, trains graduate students, and teaches courses in personality and health psychology. Her current research includes investigations into the effects of self-regulation, goals, and goal pursuit on psychological health and cardiovascular and immune function, particularly in older adults. Her book Breaking Murphy’s Law (Guilford, 2006) focuses on how optimism both leads to and follows from more effective goal pursuit. Dr. Segerstrom’s work has been sponsored by the NIH, the Norman Cousins Program in Psychoneuroimmunology, the Dana Foundation, and the Templeton Foundation. She is also the 2002 recipient of a Templeton Positive Psychology Prize for her work on optimism. Dr. Segerstrom has a B.A. with majors in Psychology and Music from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where she was named the 2004 Outstanding Young Alumna. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Psychology from University of California, Los Angeles and her M.P.H. degree from University of Kentucky.
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.guilford.com/books/Breaking-Murphys-Law/Suzanne-Segerstrom/9781593855925
Book keywords:
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