Asylum on the Hill is the story of a great American experiment in psychiatry, a revolution in care for those with mental illness, as seen through the example of the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Built in southeast Ohio after the Civil War, the asylum embodied the nineteenth-century “gold standard” specifications of moral treatment. Stories of patients and their families, politicians, caregivers, and community illustrate how a village in the coalfields of the Hocking River valley responded to a national movement to provide compassionate care based on a curative landscape, exposure to the arts, outdoor exercise, useful occupation, and personal attention from a physician.
Katherine Ziff’s compelling presentation of America’s nineteenth-century asylum movement shows how the Athens Lunatic Asylum accommodated political, economic, community, family, and individual needs and left an architectural legacy that has been uniquely renovated and repurposed. Incorporating rare photos, letters, maps, and records, Asylum on the Hill is a fascinating glimpse into psychiatric history.
Adolescents embody the best hopes of American society. Their vital role in shaping our future lends particular significance to their success in negotiating the passage from childhood to adulthood, while their intensity and visibility often make them barometers of social change. It is all the more remarkable, then, that this critical period has only recently captured the full attention of researchers.
At the Threshold presents the long-awaited findings of the Carnegie Foundation study on adolescence. It offers a comprehensive overview of what investigators are learning about normal development and provides an interdisciplinary synthesis of research into the biological, social, and psychological changes occurring during this key stage in the life span. While focusing on the contexts of adolescent life—social and ethnic, family and school, leisure and work—it also addresses how researchers are doing in the effort to understand the intersection of processes that initiate and sustain adolescent development and to characterize the extraordinary changes that occur during these years.
Contrary to popular belief, large numbers of young people continue to mature into productive members of society. At the Threshold seeks to allow professionals and nonprofessionals alike important access to the reality of normal adolescent experience. The authors recognize that only if we begin to understand and clearly articulate the parameters of successful adolescent development can we hope to intervene with those individuals whose lives seem aimed toward unsatisfactory futures.
Australia holds a unique place in the global scheme of fandom. Much of the media consumed by Australian audiences originates from either the United States or the United Kingdom, yet several Australian productions have also attracted international fans in their own right. This first-ever academic study of Australian fandom explores the national popular culture scene through themes of localization and globalization.
The essays within reveal how Australian audiences often seek authentic imports and eagerly embrace different cultures, examining both Hollywood’s influence on Australian fandom and Australian fan reactions to non-Western content. By shining a spotlight on Australian fandom, this book not only provides an important case study for fan studies scholars, it also helps add nuance to a field whose current literature is predominantly U.S. and U.K. focused.Contributors: Kate Ames, Ahmet Atay, Jessica Carniel, Toija Cinque, Ian Dixon, Leigh Edmonds, Sharon Elkind, Jacqui Ewart, Lincoln Geraghty, Sarah Keith, Emerald L. King, Renee Middlemost
The bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the emergence of militias and skinheads, the rise of the religious right, the attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics, the backlash against equal rights movements, the increase in poverty...these, according to Bob Altemeyer, are all versions of one story--the authoritarian personality in action. But aren't authoritarians Nazi types, kooks, the Klan? These are just the extreme examples, he argues. The Authoritarian Specter shows that many ordinary people today are psychologically disposed to embrace antidemocratic, fascist policies.
The book presents the latest results from a prize-winning research program on the authoritarian personality--a victory for the scientific method in the struggle to understand the worst aspects of ourselves. It connects for the first time the many ways authoritarianism undermines democracy. Many of our biggest problems, seemingly unrelated, have authoritarian roots. The scientific studies demonstrating this are extensive and thorough; their powerful findings are presented in a conversational, clear manner that engages readers from all backgrounds.
This is an important, timely work. It explains a growing movement to submit to a "man on horseback," to attack those who are different, to march in lockstep. Altemeyer reveals that these sentiments are strongly held even by many American lawmakers. These discoveries deserve careful attention in a presidential election year.
Whether it is used as an icebreaker in conversation or as the subject of serious inquiry, “the weather” is one of the few subjects that everyone talks about. And though we recognize the faces that bring us the weather on television, how government meteorologists and forecasters go about their jobs is rarely scrutinized. Given recent weather-related disasters, it’s time we find out more. In Authors of the Storm, Gary Alan Fine offers an inside look at how meteorologists and forecasters predict the weather.
Based on field observation and interviews at the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, the National Weather Service in Washington, D.C., and a handful of midwestern outlets, Fine finds a supremely hard-working, insular clique of professionals who often refer to themselves as a “band of brothers.” In Fine’s skilled hands, we learn their lingo, how they “read” weather conditions, how forecasts are written, and, of course, how those messages are conveyed to the public. Weather forecasts, he shows, are often shaped as much by social and cultural factors inside local offices as they are by approaching cumulus clouds. By opening up this unique world to us, Authors of the Storm offers a valuable and fascinating glimpse of a crucial profession.
Autism is a fascinating yet perplexing disorder that continues to intrigue researchers and clinicians studying brain and behavior. In this lucid and elegant book, Francesca Happé provides a concise overview of current psychological theory and research that synthesizes the established work on the biological foundations, cognitive characteristics, and behavioral manifestations of this disorder. She focuses her discussion on the cognitive approaches that deal with both thought and feeling--those hypotheses that link brain to action, deepen our understanding of the autistic person's view of the world, and offer better approaches to effectively managing the behavior of people with autism struggling to live in our world. The book reviews the latest research into the communication, socialization, and imagination impairments in autism, and further distinguishes the levels of severity in the spectrum of autistic disorders. Happé also includes a discussion of the talented few--high-functioning autistic individuals with Asperger's syndrome--and of the many childhood behavioral disorders, unrelated to autism, that manifest autistic-like symptoms.
Autism is an important and much-needed contribution to the literature. It will be valued by parents and teachers of autistic children as well as by students and researchers interested in disorders of language and communication.
Winner 2024 Outstanding Recent Contribution in Social Psychology Award, Social Psychology Section, American Sociological Association
Winner 2024 Melvin Pollner Prize, Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis Section, American Sociological Association
As autism has grown in prevalence, so too have our attempts to make sense of it. From placing unfounded blame on vaccines to seeking a genetic cause, Americans have struggled to understand what autism is and where it comes from. Amidst these efforts, however, a key aspect of autism has been largely overlooked: the diagnostic process itself. That process is the central focus of Autistic Intelligence. The authors ask us to question the norms by which we measure autistic behavior, to probe how that behavior can be considered sensible rather than disordered, and to explore how we can better appreciate the individuality of those who receive the diagnosis.READERS
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