social science / anthropology / cultural

"This is the first academic study of sneakers and the subculture that surrounds them. Since the 1980s, members of American sneaker subcultures, popularly known as "sneakerheads" or "sneakerholics", have created a distinctive identity for themselves, while sneaker manufacturers such as Reebok, Puma and Nike have become global fashion brands. How have sneakers come to gain this status and what makes them attractive? In what ways are sneaker subcultures bound up with gender identity and why are sneakerholics mostly men? Based on the author's own ethnographic fieldwork in New York, where sneaker subculture is said to have originated, this unique study traces the transformation of sneakers from sportswear to fashion symbol. Sneakers explores the obsessions and idiosyncrasies surrounding the sneaker phenomenon, from competitive subcultures to sneaker painting and artwork. It is a valuable contribution to the growing study of footwear in fashion studies and will appeal to students of fashion theory, gender studies, sociology and popular culture"--.

"Explores the intriguing stories behind maps across history and illuminates how the art of cartography thrives today"--Publisher.

"Explores the concept of race, past and present. She examines the dark roots of race research and how race has again crept gently back into science and medicine. And she investigates the people who use this research for their own political purposes, including white supremacists"--OCLC.

"The Latinx revolution in US culture, society, and politics "Latinx" (pronounced "La-teen-ex") is the gender-neutral term that covers the largest racial minority in the United States, 17 percent of the country. This is the fastest-growing sector of American society, containing the most immigrants. It is the poorest ethnic group in the country, whose political empowerment is altering the balance of forces in a growing number of states. And yet, Latins barely figure in America's racial conversation--the US census does not even have a category for "Latino." In this groundbreaking discussion, Ed Morales explains how Latin political identities are tied to a long Latin American history of mestizaje, translatable as "mixedness" or "hybridity", and that this border thinking is both a key to understanding bilingual, bicultural Latin cultures and politics and a challenge to America's infamously black/white racial regime. This searching and long-overdue exploration of a crucial development in American life updates Cornel West's bestselling Race Matters with a Latin inflection"--.

The author, a queer woman and former suit-and-tie wearing Mormon missionary, takes a cross-country road-trip stretching from Provo, Utah, to the Rio Grande Valley to the Bible Belt to the Deep South to seek out LGBT culture in conservative "Red States," including drag shows, political rallies, and hubs of queer life across the heartland, introducing LGBT people working for change, from the first openly transgender mayor in Texas history to the manager of the only queer night club in Bloomington, Indiana, and many more, capturing profound cultural shifts underway in unexpected places.

On January 31, 2012, in an internet cafe on the outskirts of New Taipei City, Taiwan, 23-year-old student Chen Rong-yu was found dead at his keyboard while the video game he had been playing for three days straight continued to flash on the screen in front of his corpse. As Simon Parkin reconstructs what happened that night, he begins a journey that takes him around the world in search of answers: What is it about video games that inspires such tremendous acts of endurance and obsession? Why do we lose our sense of time and reality within this medium, arguably more than any other? And what is it about video games that often proves compelling, comforting and irresistible to the human mind? Simon Parkin meets the players and game developers at the frontline of virtual extremism.