Rutgers University Press imprint: 413 books
Of Forests and Fields
Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest
Language: English
Release Date: March 8, 2016
2016 Choice Oustanding Academic Title
Just looking at the Pacific Northwest’s many verdant forests and fields, it may be hard to imagine the intense work it took to transform the region into the agricultural powerhouse it is today. Much of this labor was provided by Mexican guest workers,...
by Ian Olney
Language: English
Release Date: March 17, 2017
Language: English
Release Date: March 17, 2017
It’s official: the zombie apocalypse is here. The living dead have been lurking in popular culture since the 1930s, but they have never been as ubiquitous or as widely-embraced as they are today.
Zombie Cinema is a lively and accessible introduction to this massively popular genre. Presenting...
by Barry Keith Grant
Language: English
Release Date: April 16, 2018
Language: English
Release Date: April 16, 2018
Monster Cinema introduces readers to a vast menagerie of movie monsters. Some are gigantic, like King Kong or the kaiju in Pacific Rim, while others are microscopic. Some monsters appear uncannily human, from serial killers like Norman Bates to the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And...
Killing Poetry
Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities
Language: English
Release Date: July 17, 2017
In recent decades, poetry slams and the spoken word artists who compete in them have sparked a resurgent fascination with the world of poetry. However, there is little critical dialogue that fully engages with the cultural complexities present in slam and spoken word poetry communities, as well as...
Techno-Orientalism
Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
Language: English
Release Date: April 17, 2015
What will the future look like? To judge from many speculative fiction films and books, from Blade Runner to Cloud Atlas, the future will be full of cities that resemble Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, and it will be populated mainly by cold, unfeeling citizens who act like robots. Techno-Orientalism...
by Kristen Whissel, Scott Higgins, Dan North
Language: English
Release Date: August 26, 2016
Language: English
Release Date: August 26, 2016
Most moviegoers think of editing and special effects as distinct components of the filmmaking process. We might even conceive of them as polar opposites, since effective film editing is often subtle and almost invisible, whereas special effects frequently call attention to themselves. Yet, film editors...
Sociology on Film
Postwar Hollywood's Prestige Commodity
Language: English
Release Date: December 28, 2016
After World War II, Hollywood’s “social problem films”—tackling topical issues that included racism, crime, mental illness, and drug abuse—were hits with critics and general moviegoers alike. In an era of film famed for its reliance on pop psychology, these movies were a form of popular...
Superstorm Sandy
The Inevitable Destruction and Reconstruction of the Jersey Shore
Language: English
Release Date: January 18, 2016
Sandy was the costliest hurricane in U.S. history after Katrina, but the waters had barely receded from the Jersey coast when massive efforts began to “Restore the Shore.” Why do people build in areas open to repeated natural disasters? And why do they return to these areas in the wake of...
by Adrienne L. McLean, Drake Stutesman, Mary Desjardins
Language: English
Release Date: October 7, 2016
Language: English
Release Date: October 7, 2016
Movie buffs and film scholars alike often overlook the importance of makeup artists, hair stylists, and costumers. With precious few but notable exceptions, creative workers in these fields have received little public recognition, even when their artistry goes on to inspire worldwide fashion trends....
Don't Act, Just Dance
The Metapolitics of Cold War Culture
Language: English
Release Date: December 26, 2014
At some point in their career, nearly all the dancers who worked with George Balanchine were told “don’t act, dear; just dance.” The dancers understood this as a warning against melodramatic over-interpretation and an assurance that they had all the tools they needed to do justice to the steps—but...
Defining Student Success
The Role of School and Culture
Language: English
Release Date: April 15, 2014
The key to success, our culture tells us, is a combination of talent and hard work. Why then, do high schools that supposedly subscribe to this view send students to college at such dramatically different rates? Why do students from one school succeed while students from another struggle? To the...
Planning Families in Nepal
Global and Local Projects of Reproduction
Language: English
Release Date: March 29, 2016
Based on almost a decade of research in the Kathmandu Valley, Planning Families in Nepal offers a compelling account of Hindu Nepali women as they face conflicting global and local ideals regarding family planning.
Promoting a two-child norm, global family planning programs have...
Discriminating Taste
How Class Anxiety Created the American Food Revolution
Language: English
Release Date: April 24, 2017
For the past four decades, increasing numbers of Americans have started paying greater attention to the food they eat, buying organic vegetables, drinking fine wines, and seeking out exotic cuisines. Yet they are often equally passionate about the items they refuse to eat: processed foods, generic...
Complicated Lives
Girls, Parents, Drugs, and Juvenile Justice
Language: English
Release Date: June 12, 2017
Complicated Lives focuses on the lives of sixty-five drug-using girls in the juvenile justice system (living in group homes, a residential treatment center, and a youth correctional facility) who grew up in families characterized by parental drug use, violence, and child maltreatment. Vera Lopez situates...