Penn Press Log

Demacopoulos, Author of The Invention of Peter, Discusses the Papacy on ABC News

George E. Demacopoulos, associate professor of theology at Fordham University and author of The Invention of Peter: Apostolic Discourse and Papal Authority in Late Antiquity, spoke with ABC News on the future of the papacy and the Roman Catholic church after the resignation of Pope Benedict.

Watch More News Videos at ABC

Beyond "Half the Sky"

Even if you take issue with the celebrity cameos and reporting style in the recent smash PBS documentary, Half the Sky, you can't deny that the program increased the awareness of discrimination against women, one of today's paramount moral challenges. For a deeper understanding of women's human rights, here are some additional resources to help navigate these complex problems:

Women's Human Rights: The International and Comparative Law Casebook by Susan Deller Ross

Women's Human Rights is the first human rights casebook to focus specifically on women's human rights. Rich with interdisciplinary material, the book advances the study of the deprivation and violence women suffer due to discriminatory laws, religions, and customs that deny them their most fundamental freedoms. It also provides present and future lawyers the legal tools for change, demonstrating how human rights treaties can be used to obtain new laws and court decisions that protect women against discrimination with respect to employment, land ownership, inheritance, subordination in marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, polygamy, child marriage, and the denial of reproductive rights.

Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights, edited by Dorothy Hodgson

An interdisciplinary collection, Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights examines the potential and limitations of the "women's rights as human rights" framework as a strategy for seeking gender justice. Drawing on detailed case studies from the United States, Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere, contributors to the volume explore the specific social histories, political struggles, cultural assumptions, and gender ideologies that have produced certain rights or reframed long-standing debates in the language of rights. The essays address the gender-specific ways in which rights-based protocols have been analyzed, deployed, and legislated in the past and the present, and the implications for women and men, adults and children in various social and geographical locations. Questions addressed include: What are the gendered assumptions and effects of the dominance of rights-based discourses for claims to social justice? What kinds of opportunities and limitations does such a "culture of rights" provide to seekers of justice, whether individuals or collectives, and how are these gendered? How and why do female bodies often become the site of contention in contexts pitting cultural against juridical perspectives?

Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspective by Rebecca Cook

Rebecca J. Cook and the contributors of Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspective analyze how international human rights law applies specifically to women in various cultures worldwide, and develop strategies to promote equitable application of human rights law at the international, regional, and domestic levels. Their essays present a compelling mixture of reports and case studies from various regions in the world, combined with scholarly assessments of international law as these rights specifically apply to women.

Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives byRebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack

Drawing on domestic and international law, as well as on judgments given by courts and human rights treaty bodies, Gender Stereotyping offers perspectives on how wrongful gender stereotypes can be effectively eliminated through the transnational legal process in order to ensure women's equality and exercise of their human rights.

On the Move for Love: Migrant Entertainers and the U.S. Military in South Korea by Sealing Cheng 

Are women who travel to work in such clubs victims of trafficking, sex slaves, or simply migrant women? How do these women understand their own experiences? Is antitrafficking activism helpful in protecting them? In On the Move for Love, Sealing Cheng attempts to answer these questions by following the lives of migrant Filipina entertainers working in various gijichon clubs. Focusing on their aspirations for love and a better future, Cheng's ethnography illuminates the complex relationships these women form with their employers, customer-boyfriends, and families. She offers an insightful critique of antitrafficking discourses, pointing to the inadequacy of recognizing women only as victims and ignoring their agency and aspirations. Cheng analyzes the women's experience in South Korea in relation to their subsequent journeys to other countries, providing a diachronic look at the way migrant issues of work, sex, and love fit within the larger context of transnationalism, identity, and global hierarchies of inequality.

Female Circumcision: Multicultural Perspectives, edited by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf

Female Circumcision brings together African activists to examine the issue within its various cultural and historical contexts, the debates on circumcision regarding African refugee and immigrant populations in the U.S. and the human rights efforts to eradicate the practice. This volume does not focus narrowly on female circumcision as a set of ritualized surgeries sanctioned by society. Instead, the contributors explore a chain of connecting issues and processes through which the practice is being transformed in local and transnational contexts. The authors document shifts in local views to highlight processes of change and chronicle the efforts of diverse communities as agents in the process of cultural and social transformation.

A Voice for Human Rights by Mary Robinson, edited by Kevin Boyle

Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, was one of the policy leaders interviewed for Half The Sky. A Voice for Human Rights offers an edited collection of Robinson's public addresses, given between 1997 and 2002, when she served as United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights. The book also provides the first in-depth account of the work of the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights. With a foreword by Kofi Annan and an afterword by Louise Arbour, the book will be of interest to all concerned with international human rights, international relations, development, and politics.

Bombshell: Women and Terrorism Author Mia Bloom on WPSU Tonight

Mia Bloom, author of Bombshell: Women and Terrorism, is tonight's guest on WPSU's Conversations from Penn State.

"Once a rare and shocking occurrence, the number of females engaging in terrorism in is on the rise. Who are these women and what is driving them to kill? Mia Bloom, a leading expert on suicide terrorism, answers these questions and more."

The program will air at 9:00 p.m. You can also watch it online at www.wpsu.org, or on YouTube.

Nicole Eustace and The War of 1812 in History and Memory on C-SPAN

"Like Avogadro's number or the rules of subjunctive verbs, the War of 1812 is one of those things that you learned about in school and promptly forgot without major consequence," says historian James M. Lundberg in a recent Slate.com article, "Happy 200th Birthday, War of 1812!" Lundberg goes on to explain why this war, unlike other U.S. conflicts, has faded from our collective memory. Indeed, at first glance, it seems that the anniversary of War of 1812 only matters to the U.S. Navy and Canadians looking for a chance to gloat. But just because America hasn't exactly caught War of 1812 bicentennial fever doesn't make its "most bumbling, most confusing, and most forgotten conflict" the any less fascinating to historians and history lovers.

This Sunday, June 11 C-SPAN American History TV viewers can watch Nicole Eustace, author of 1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism, and fellow historian Alan Taylor discuss the implications of the war that brought us the "Star-Spangled Banner" and ushered in the Era of Good Feelings. The video will be posted on www.c-spanvideo.org after the cablecast. Here's a preview of the interview on YouTube.

Public Culture--Now in Paperback

Public Culture: Diversity, Democracy, and Community in the United States
Edited by Marguerite S. Shaffer
392 pages | 6 x 9 | 34 illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4081-8 | $65.00 | £42.50
Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2202-9 | $26.50 | £17.50

"An excellent dissection of the tension between common experience and societal plurality. . . . The final valuable insight that this book may evoke for readers is that civic culture of the kind Robert Putnam lamented is not necessarily endangered. . . . but that 'public culture' is and always has been contested by a variety of actors; and to understand how Americans engage one another in the public realm requires asking difficult questions about power, wealth, gender, and race."--Reviews in American History

From medicine shows to the Internet, from the Los Angeles Plaza to the Las Vegas Strip, from the commemoration of the Oklahoma City bombing to television programming after 9/11, scholars examine issues of democracy, diversity, identity, community, citizenship, and belonging through the lens of American popular culture. Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Stanley Fish in Philadelphia Tomorrow

As part of the homecoming weekend celebration, the Penn Bookstore will host reknown scholar Stanley Fish for a special discussion of The Fugitive, the classic TV show in which Dr. Richard Kimble, an innocent man convicted of murder, is on the run from the law. The award-winning show, The Fugitive, which aired from 1963 to 1967 and later inspired a blockbuster movie, still has many devoted fans, but none more passionate than intellectual provocateur Stanley Fish.

The Fugitive in Flight: Faith, Liberalism, and Law in a Classic TV Show is the name of Fish's new book on the long-running series.

Fish will be at the Penn Bookstore on Saturday, October 30 from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. The Penn Bookstore is located at  3601 Walnut Street.

 

Bonaparte's Retreat Returns to Public TV

The documentary Bonaparte's Retreat will air again this spring on several public television stations across the United States. This program, based on Patricia Stroud's The Man Who Had Been King: The American Exile of Napoleon's Brother Joseph, was produced by our New Jersey neighbors at NJN Public Television. It features interviews with Stroud and other scholars.

Joseph Bonaparte lived in Bordentown in a magnificent estate along the Delaware River, designed elaborate gardens, entertained leading figures of the day, and surrounded himself with the largest and most important collection of European fine and decorative art in America.

You can view this program about Napoleon's sophisticated older brother and his life in exile in New Jersey on NJN.net or look for it on the bigger screen. So far, the program is scheduled for broadcast on these channels:

Alabama Public TV
Kentucky Public TV
Milwaukee Public TV
San Francisco, KQED
Utah Education Network

Robert Darnton Makes the Case for Three Books on C-SPAN

C-Span's Book TV recently presented video of Robert Darnton, Director of the Harvard University Library and eminent historian of the book, giving a talk at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA. In the talk, which took place in early February, Darnton discussed The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future. He also shared information on his latest book, The Devil in the Holy Water, or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon and the newly released translation of the eighteenth-century French libertine novel, The Bohemians. The program is available for online viewing at www.booktv.org.

Al Qaeda and 'Lone Wolves': A PBS Newshour Interview with Counterterrorism Expert Marc Sageman

Yesterday, counterterrorism expert Marc Sageman appeared in a PBS Newshour interview with Margaret Warner. You can watch the interview here in its entirety. Marc Sageman is the author of Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century and Understanding Terror Networks.

Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction--Now Available

Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Edited by David Suisman and Susan Strasser
336 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus.
Cloth  2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4199-0 | $49.95 | £32.50
A volume in the Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture series

Scholars investigate sound as part of the social construction of historical experience and as an element of the sensory relationship people have to the world, showing how hearing and listening can inform people's feelings, ideas, decisions, and actions.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here