front cover of Habeas Codfish
Habeas Codfish
Reflections on Food and the Law
Barry M. Levenson
University of Wisconsin Press, 2001

    From the McDonald’s hot coffee case to the cattle ranchers’ beef with Oprah Winfrey, from the old English "Assize of Bread" to current nutrition labeling laws, what we eat and how we eat are shaped as much by legal regulations as by personal taste. Barry M. Levenson, the curator of the world-famous (really!) Mount Horeb Mustard Museum and a self-proclaimed "recovering lawyer," offers in Habeas Codfish an entertaining and expert overview of the frustrating, frightening, and funny intersections of food and the law.
    Discover how Mr. Peanut shaped the law of trademark infringement for the entire food industry. Consider the plight of the restaurant owner besmirched by a journalist’s negative review. Find out how traditional Jewish laws of kashrut ran afoul of the First Amendment. Prison meals, butter vs. margarine, definitions of organic food, undercover ABC reporters at the Food Lion, the Massachusetts Supreme Court case that saved fish chowder, even recipes—it’s all in here, so tuck in!

[more]

front cover of Harvesting Haiti
Harvesting Haiti
Reflections on Unnatural Disasters
Myriam J.A. Chancy
University of Texas Press, 2023

2024 Longlist OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, Bocas Lit Fest

This collection ponders the personal and political implications for Haitians at home and abroad resulting from the devastating 2010 earthquake.

The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck Haiti in January 2010 was a debilitating event that followed decades of political, social, and financial issues. Leaving over 250,000 people dead, 300,000 injured, and 1.5 million people homeless, the earthquake has had lasting repercussions on a struggling nation. As the post-earthquake political situation unfolded, Myriam Chancy worked to illuminate on-the-ground concerns, from the vulnerable position of Haitian women to the failures of international aid. Originally presented at invited campus talks, published as columns for a newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago, and circulated in other ways, her essays and creative responses preserve the reactions and urgencies of the years following the disaster.

In Harvesting Haiti, Chancy examines the structures that have resulted in Haiti's post-earthquake conditions and reflects at key points after the earthquake on its effects on vulnerable communities. Her essays make clear the importance of sustaining and supporting the dignity of Haitian lives and of creating a better, contextualized understanding of the issues that mark Haitians’ historical and present realities, from gender parity to the vexed relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

[more]

front cover of How Does Social Science Work?
How Does Social Science Work?
Reflections on Practice
Paul Diesing
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992

The culmination of a lifetime spent in a variety of fields - sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, and philosophy of science - -How Does Social Science Work? takes an innovative, sometimes iconoclastic look at social scientists at work in many disciplines.  It describes how they investigate and the kinds of truth they produce, illuminating the weaknesses and dangers inherent in their research.

At once an analysis, a critique, and a synthesis, this major study begins by surveying philosophical approaches to hermeneutics, to examine the question of how social science ought to work.  It illustrates many of its arguments with untraditional examples, such as the reception of the work of the political biographer Robert Caro to show the hermeneutical problems of ethnographers.  The major part of the book surveys sociological, political, and psychological studies of social science to get a rounded picture of how social science works,

Paul Diesling warns that “social science exists between two opposite kinds of degeneration, a value-free professionalism that lives only for publications that show off the latest techniques, and a deep social concern that uses science for propaganda.”  He argues for greater self-awareness and humility among social scientists, although he notes that “some social scientists . . . will angrily reject the thought that their personality affects their research in any way.”

This profound and sometimes witty book will appeal to students and practitioners in the social sciences who are ready to take a fresh look at their field.  An extensive bibliography provides a wealth of references across an array of social science disciplines.

[more]

front cover of Human Nature
Human Nature
Reflections on the Integration of Psychology and Christianity
Malcolm Jeeves
Templeton Press, 2006

College and university professors have been demanding that this book, out of print for several years, be made available again, as it is unique in its field. This new edition, which includes a new preface and guidance to current literature, offers a balanced study of the implications of scientific developments in psychology and neuroscience for traditional Christian beliefs.

Malcolm Jeeves, former editor-in-chief of Neuropsychologia, a leading international scientific journal in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience, explores the intersection of science and faith in defining what it means to be human. He reports on recent scientific research on consciousness and the link between mind, brain, and behavior. He examines issues such as determinism by indicating the possible relevance of chaos theory to enduring concerns about freedom and responsibility. He looks at similarities and differences between human nature and animal nature. He reexamines traditional dualist views of soul and body in the light of contemporary research on mind and brain and argues for a wholistic model. This leads to addressing questions such as: does spiritual awareness depend on the intactness of our brains or does spirituality stand apart from our biological substrate?

Jeeves' insightful analysis of the ways recent findings in psychology relate to certain Christian beliefs about people expands the global science religion dialogue.

[more]

front cover of The Humble Story of Don Quixote
The Humble Story of Don Quixote
Reflections on the Birth of the Modern Novel
Cesáreo Bandera
Catholic University of America Press, 2006
In this original study by Cesáreo Bandera, the intimate connection between the simplicity and humility of the story and its greatness is explored. Other comparisons are also made: the story of the picaresque rogue, on the one hand, and the psychological insights of the pastoral novel, on the other.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter