Following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in 2011 many concerned citizens—particularly mothers—were unconvinced by the Japanese government’s assurances that the country’s food supply was safe. They took matters into their own hands, collecting their own scientific data that revealed radiation-contaminated food. In Radiation Brain Moms and Citizen Scientists Aya Hirata Kimura shows how, instead of being praised for their concern about their communities’ health and safety, they faced stiff social sanctions, which dismissed their results by attributing them to the work of irrational and rumor-spreading women who lacked scientific knowledge. These citizen scientists were unsuccessful at gaining political traction, as they were constrained by neoliberal and traditional gender ideologies that dictated how private citizens—especially women—should act. By highlighting the challenges these citizen scientists faced, Kimura provides insights into the complicated relationship between science, foodways, gender, and politics in post-Fukushima Japan and beyond.

RAGBRAI: Everyone Pronounces It Wrong is a celebration, a memoir, an entertainment. The book deals with the first 25 years of the famous bike ride. It describes the genesis of an event that has drawn hundreds of thousands of people to Iowa from all over the world and attempts to explain the ride's continued charm and appeal.

RAGBRAI is different from all other bicycle tours. The others, and there are dozens of cross-state rides held in the United States, attract mostly serious, dedicated cyclists who clench their teeth and ride hard all day. RAGBRAI has its share of these cyclists, but it's more inclusive. It is a huge, week long celebration with dancing in the streets and evening entertainments. It is a love affair between bicycle riders and the people of Iowa. The book captures the essence of all that.

 The overarching argument of Reading the Social Body is that the body is cultural rather than “natural.” Some of the essays treat the social construction of bodies that have actually existed in human history; others discuss the representation of bodies in artistic contexts; all recognize that everything visible to the human body—from posture and costume to the width of an eyebrow or a smile—is determined by and shaped in response to a particular culture.

Reissued as a companion edition to Trying to Give Ease: Tommie Bass and the Story of Herbal Medicine, this illustrated reference guide covers over 700 medicinal plants, of which more than 150 are readily obtainable in health food stores and other outlets. Based on the Appalachian herbal practice of the late A. L. "Tommie" Bass, each account of a plant includes the herbalist’s comment, an assessment of the plant’s efficacy, and current information on its chemical constituents and pharmacological effects. Unlike most herbal guides, this is a comprehensive, fully documented reference work that interweaves scientific evaluation with folkloric use.

In Reframing Bodies, Roger Hallas illuminates the capacities of film and video to bear witness to the cultural, political, and psychological imperatives of the AIDS crisis. He explains how queer films and videos made in response to the AIDS epidemics in North America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa challenge longstanding assumptions about both historical trauma and the politics of gay visibility. Drawing on a wide range of works, including activist tapes, found footage films, autobiographical videos, documentary portraits, museum installations, and even film musicals, Hallas reveals how such “queer AIDS media” simultaneously express both immediacy and historical consciousness. Queer AIDS media are neither mere ideological critiques of the dominant media representation of homosexuality and AIDS nor corrective attempts to produce “positive images” of people living with HIV/AIDS. Rather, they perform complex, mediated acts of bearing witness to the individual and collective trauma of AIDS.

Challenging the entrenched media politics of who gets to speak, how, and to whom, Hallas offers a bold reconsideration of the intersubjective relations that connect filmmakers, subjects, and viewers. He explains how queer testimony reframes AIDS witnesses and their speech through its striking combination of direct address and aesthetic experimentation. In addition, Hallas engages recent historical changes and media transformations that have not only displaced queer AIDS media from activism to the archive, but also created new witnessing dynamics through the logics of the database and the remix. Reframing Bodies provides new insight into the work of Gregg Bordowitz, John Greyson, Derek Jarman, Matthias Müller, and Marlon Riggs, and offers critical consideration of important but often overlooked filmmakers, including Jim Hubbard, Jack Lewis, and Stuart Marshall.

Menstruation, seen alternately as something negative—a "curse" or a failed conception—or as a positive part of the reproductive process to be celebrated as evidence of fertility, has long been a universal concern. How women interpret and react to menstruation and its absence reflects their individual needs both historically as well as in the contemporary cultural, social, economic, and political context in which they live. This unique volume considers what is known of women's options and practices used to regulate menstruation—practices used to control the periodicity, quantity, color, and even consistency of menses—in different places and times, while revealing the ambiguity that those practices present.

Originating from an Internet conference held in February 1998, this volume contains fourteen papers that have been revised and updated to cover everything from the impact of the birth control pill to contemporary views on reproduction to the pharmacological properties of various herbal substances, reflecting the historical, contemporary, and anthropological perspectives of this timely and complex issue.

A collaborative creation unlike any other, the Names Project Foundation’s AIDS Memorial Quilt has played an invaluable role in shattering the silence and stigma that surrounded the epidemic in the first years of its existence. Designed by Cleve Jones, the AIDS Quilt is the largest ongoing community arts project in the world. Since its conception in 1987, the Quilt has transformed the cultural and political responses to AIDS in the U.S. Representative of both marginalized and mainstream peoples, the Quilt contains crucial material and symbolic implications for mourning the dead, and the treatment and prevention of AIDS. However, the project has raised numerous questions concerning memory, activism, identity, ownership, and nationalism, as well as issues of sexuality, race, class, and gender. As thought-provoking as the Quilt itself, this diverse collection of essays by ten prominent rhetorical scholars provides a rich experience of the AIDS Quilt, incorporating a variety of perspectives, critiques, and interpretations.

A remarkable anthology of key writings that parallels the history of fashion with modern life

Writing more than a century before Vogue, no less a figure than G. W. F. Hegel reviewed the fashion of his day and found it wanting because, in becoming outmoded so quickly, it drew attention away from the timeless beauty of the human form. And Hegel is not unique among philosophers in his interest in fashion’s role; for more than 250 years, social thinkers have considered fashion—its transitive nature, the conformity it inspires, the vast range of its influence—as a defining feature of modern life.

In The Rise of Fashion, Daniel Leonhard Purdy brings together key writings from the Enlightenment to the twentieth century that explore fashion as the ultimate expression of modernity. Making available many previously untranslated or otherwise unfamiliar works from French, German, and English, Purdy establishes an extraordinary lineage of fashion commentary dating back to Mandeville and Voltaire, which laid the groundwork for the writings on commodity culture of Adorno, Benjamin, and the Frankfurt School. From critiques of aristocratic excess to accounts of fashion’s influence on our ideals of masculinity or femininity, from the figure of the dandy and the eroticism of clothing to the class politics of fashion, this landmark reader includes works by philosophers (Carlyle, Rousseau, Georg Simmel) and social theorists (Herbert Spencer, Veblen), as well as writers (Goethe, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Wilde) and critics (Karl Kraus, Adolf Loos, Simone de Beauvoir).Collecting and contextualizing many of the earliest and most significant formulations of fashion theory, The Rise of Fashion provocatively examines the proposition that to be modern is to be fashionable.

A Return to Simplicity Can Lead Runners to Both Personal Improvement and Peace of Mind
In this age of instant information and new technologies, marathoner and fitness instructor Duncan Larkin recommends that runners get rid of their iPods, pace calculators, and heart monitors while exercising. Rather than helping a runner to improve, the author contends that these devices can be a detriment to both performance and the benefits of a training program. Written in direct, clear language, Run Simple: A Minimalist Approach to Fitness and Well-Being is a practical and inspirational pocket guide for runners of all abilities. The author’s goal is to share with his fellow runners the principles he has discovered that prevent burn out and promote the maximum physical and mental benefits of running. Beginning with a discussion about the role of electronic devices and other equipment that have become commonplace among the millions of persons who run every day, the author explains how to return to a simpler way of exercising and training, including running plans that demonstrate the benefits of watch-free running. He also recommends replacing a gym membership with alternative exercises that can be done at home as well as taking better control of individual nutrition. In addition, the author shows ways to economize expenses associated with running, how to dress properly for different weather conditions, and mental exercises for motivation. By following the author’s advice, runners will improve their running experience and maintain a healthy exercise regimen.