Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice
From #Gamergate to the 2016 election, to the daily experiences of marginalized perspectives, gaming is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression. Whether visible in the persistent color line that shapes the production, dissemination, and legitimization of dominant stereotypes within the industry itself, or in the ......
More-Than-Human Histories of Australia's Murray-Darling Basin
In the name of agriculture, urban growth, and disease control, humans have drained, filled, or otherwise destroyed nearly 87 percent of the world's wetlands over the past three centuries. Unintended consequences include biodiversity loss, poor water quality, and the erosion of cultural sites, and only in the past few decades have wetlands been ......
Billy Gohl, Labor, and Brutal Times in the Pacific Northwest
In the early twentieth century so many dead bodies surfaced in the rivers around Aberdeen, Washington, that they were nicknamed the "floater fleet." When Billy Gohl (1873-1927), a powerful union official, was arrested for murder, local newspapers were quick to suggest that he was responsible for many of those deaths, perhaps even dozens-thus ......
Many Japanese once revered the wolf as Oguchi no Magami, or Large-Mouthed Pure God, but as Japan began its modern transformation wolves lost their otherworldly status and became noxious animals that needed to be killed. By 1905 they had disappeared from the country. In this spirited and absorbing narrative, Brett Walker takes a deep look at the ......
In this introduction to sustainable landscaping practices, Linda Chalker-Scott addresses the most common myths and misconceptions that plague home gardeners and horticultural professionals. Chalker-Scott offers invaluable advice to gardeners who have wondered: o Are native plants the best choice for sustainable landscaping? o Should you avoid ......
The Ethnic Chinese and the Founding of the Thai Nation
Despite competing with much larger imperialist neighbors in Southeast Asia, the Kingdom of Thailand-or Siam, as it was formerly known-has succeeded in transforming itself into a rival modern nation-state over the last two centuries. Recent historiography has placed progress-or lack thereof-toward Western-style liberal democracy at the center of ......
Contemporary Art and Urban Form in Vietnam and Cambodia
In The City in Time, Pamela N. Corey provides new ways of understanding contemporary artistic practices in a region that continues to linger in international perceptions as perpetually "postwar." Focusing on art from the last two decades, Corey connects artistic developments with social transformations as reflected through the urban landscapes of ......
Beyond nostalgic tea industry ads romanticizing colonial Ceylon and the impoverished conditions that beleaguer Tamil tea workers are the stories of the women, men, and children who have built their families and lives in line houses on tea plantations since the nineteenth century. The tea industry's economic crisis and Sri Lanka's twenty-six year ......
A Playful Journey Through Chinese Culture, Language, and Cuisine
Physics professor Zee writes about how to understand the menus in Chinese restaurants, explaining the characters, what they mean, and the colorful stories behind the names of various dishes. Anne Tyler (in the Washington Post) called Swallowing Clouds "a study of the very nature of Chinese culture. Zee has a quirky, personal style that draws the ......
