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Beautifully designed and sturdily bound for rugged field use, Mammals of Alabama is the first and only exhaustive guidebook to Alabama’s diverse and fascinating mammalian fauna.

European and American naturalists visited the territory that would become Alabama as early as the late eighteenth century and marveled at the breadth and variety of its flora and fauna. Yet until today scientists, scholars, and nature enthusiasts had no systematic guide to the state’s mammals. Mammals of Alabama fills the gap.

Naturally occurring in the state are nine orders, twenty-two families, fifty-one genera, and seventy-two species of living mammals. Best and Dusi offer an engaging entry for each as well as additional species that have become extinct through natural processes or human extirpation.

Illustrated with maps and photos, each entry includes:

• Identification notes        • Dental formula
• Size and weight             • Distribution
• Ecology                          • Life History
• Behavior                        • Parasites and Diseases
• Conservation Status      • Notes and References

Ideal for backyards, hikes, libraries, and classrooms, Mammals of Alabama includes hundreds of professional, close-up color specimen photographs of both living animals in their natural habitats and skull plates, making identification of animals easy.

Best also offers fascinating and fun facts about Alabama mammals that will delight nature lovers of all ages, such as the surprising and excellent tree-climbing skills of the gray fox, the use in the past of mole skins to apply cosmetics, and the litters of identical quadruplets common to the nine-banded armadillo.

Published in cooperation with the Alabama Wildlife Federation

How computer animation technologies became vital visualization tools in the life sciences

Who would have thought that computer animation technologies developed in the second half of the twentieth century would become essential visualization tools in today’s biosciences? This book is the first to examine this phenomenon. Molecular Capture reveals how popular media consumption and biological knowledge production have converged in molecular animations—computer simulations of molecular and cellular processes that immerse viewers in the temporal unfolding of molecular worlds—to produce new regimes of seeing and knowing.

Situating the development of this technology within an evolving field of historical, epistemological, and political negotiations, Adam Nocek argues that molecular animations not only represent a key transformation in the visual knowledge practices of life scientists but also bring into sharp focus fundamental mutations in power within neoliberal capitalism. In particular, he reveals how the convergence of the visual economies of science and entertainment in molecular animations extends neoliberal modes of governance to the perceptual practices of scientific subjects. Drawing on Alfred North Whitehead’s speculative metaphysics and Michel Foucault’s genealogy of governmentality, Nocek builds a media philosophy well equipped to examine the unique coordination of media cultures in this undertheorized form of scientific media. More specifically, he demonstrates how governmentality operates across visual practices in the biosciences and the popular mediasphere to shape a molecular animation apparatus that unites scientific knowledge and entertainment culture.

Ultimately, Molecular Capture proposes that molecular animation is an achievement of governmental design. It weaves together speculative media philosophy, science and technology studies, and design theory to investigate how scientific knowledge practices are designed through media apparatuses.

Each autumn, millions of men and increasing numbers of women don camouflage or blaze orange outfits and go afield in pursuit of game. For much of American history, there was no need to explain why they did this. Hunting was simply another aspect of the annual cycle of planting, breeding, and harvesting. But modern hunting began separating from its agrarian roots well over a century ago, and although it has retained its connection to the metaphor of the harvest, the self-perceptions and motives of hunters today are no longer transparent, especially to nonhunters. Indeed, hunting—and those who hunt—have become targets of a vocal and growing array of critics. 

In Mortal Stakes, Jan E. Dizard examines the place of hunting in contemporary America. Drawing on detailed interviews with hunters as well as opinion surveys and demographic statistics, he analyzes the meanings these men and women attach to hunting and situates this traditional activity in its current setting. He looks at who hunts, how they compare socially and politically with nonhunters, and how they see themselves and are seen by others. 

With fewer and fewer Americans closely linked to the land, hunting seems less ordinary and less necessary. As the gulf between hunters and nonhunters widens, hunters have begun to think of themselves as a minority group which, like other minorities, suffers from prejudice and stereotyping. As a result, Dizard argues, hunting is fast becoming one more front in an expanding “culture war” over what it means to be an American.