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Image one: E-book titled Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013) - synopsis: As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
Image two: E-book titled The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen (2017) - synopsis: Locally sourced, seasonal, “clean” ingredients and nose-to-tail cooking are nothing new to Sean Sherman, the Oglala Lakota chef and founder of The Sioux Chef. In his breakout book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, Sherman shares his approach to creating boldly seasoned foods that are vibrant, healthful, at once elegant and easy. Sherman dispels outdated notions of Native American fare—no fry bread or Indian tacos here—and no European staples such as wheat flour, dairy products, sugar, and domestic pork and beef. The Sioux Chef’s healthful plates embrace venison and rabbit, river and lake trout, duck and quail, wild turkey, blueberries, sage, sumac, timpsula or wild turnip, plums, purslane, and abundant wildflowers. Contemporary and authentic, his dishes feature cedar braised bison, griddled wild rice cakes, amaranth crackers with smoked white bean paste, three sisters salad, deviled duck eggs, smoked turkey soup, dried meats, roasted corn sorbet, and hazelnut-maple bites.
Image one: E-book titled After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate (2015) - synopsis: Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision legalizing abortion, Roe v. Wade continues to make headlines. After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate cuts through the myths and misunderstandings to present a clear-eyed account of cultural and political responses to the landmark 1973 ruling in the decade that followed. The grassroots activists who shaped the discussion after Roe, Mary Ziegler shows, were far more fluid and diverse than the partisans dominating the debate today.
Image two: E-book titled Reframing Rights: Bioconstitutionalism in the Genetic Age (2011) - synopsis: Reframing Rights explores the evolving relationship of biology, biotechnology, and law through a series of national and cross-national case studies. Chapters examine such topics as national cloning and xenotransplant policies; the politics of stem cell research in Britain, Germany, and Italy; DNA profiling and DNA databases in criminal law; clinical trials in India and the United States; the GM crop controversy in Britain; and precautionary policymaking in the European Union. These cases demonstrate changes of constitutional significance in the relations among human bodies, selves, science, and the state.
Image one: E-book titled Arts and Terror (2014) - synopsis: This book examines the manifestations of terror in the arts. From classical tragedy to post-9/11 responses, terror – as an emotion, violent act, and state of the world – has been a preoccupation of artists in all genres. Using philosophy, art history, film studies, interdisciplinary arts, theatre studies, and musicology, the authors included here delve into this perennially contemporary theme to produce insights articulated in a variety of idioms: from traditional philosophical humanism to phenomenology to feminism.
Image two: E-book titled Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (2017) - synopsis: The original 1818 text of Mary Shelley’s classic novel, with annotations and essays highlighting its scientific, ethical, and cautionary aspects. Although the novel is most often discussed in literary-historical terms--as a seminal example of romanticism or as a groundbreaking early work of science fiction--Mary Shelley was keenly aware of contemporary scientific developments and incorporated them into her story. In our era of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and climate engineering, this edition of Frankenstein will resonate forcefully for readers with a background or interest in science and engineering, and anyone intrigued by the fundamental questions of creativity and responsibility.
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Image one: E-book titled Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize (2006) - synopsis: The multidisciplinary evidence from the social and biological sciences presented in this volume have generated a much more complex picture of the economic, political, and religious significance of maize. The volume also includes ethnographic research on the uses and roles of maize in indigenous cultures and a linguistic section that includes chapters on indigenous folk taxonomies and the role and meaning of maize to the development of civilization.
Image two: E-book titled A Digital Bundle: Protecting and Promoting Indigenous Knowledge Online (2018) - synopsis: An essential contribution to Internet activism and a must read for Indigenous educators, A Digital Bundle frames digital technology as an important tool for self-determination and idea sharing, ultimately contributing to Indigenous resurgence and nation building. By defining Indigenous Knowledge online in terms of “digital bundles,” Jennifer Wemigwans elevates both cultural protocol and cultural responsibilities, grounds online projects within Indigenous philosophical paradigms, and highlights new possibilities for both the Internet and Indigenous communities.
Image one: E-book titled Abominable Science!: Origins of the Yeti, Nessie, and Other Famous Cryptids (2013) - synopsis: Daniel Loxton and Donald R. Prothero have written an entertaining, educational, and definitive text on cryptids, presenting the arguments both for and against their existence and systematically challenging the pseudoscience that perpetuates their myths. After examining the nature of science and pseudoscience and their relation to cryptozoology, Loxton and Prothero take on Bigfoot; the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and its cross-cultural incarnations; the Loch Ness monster and its highly publicized sightings; the evolution of the Great Sea Serpent; and Mokele Mbembe, or the Congo dinosaur.
Image two: E-book titled Silent Hill: The Terror Engine (2012) - synopsis: Silent Hill: The Terror Engine is both a close analysis of the first three Silent Hill games and a general look at the whole series. Taking a transmedia approach and underlining the designer’s cinematic and literary influences, this book uses the narrative structure; the techniques of imagery, sound, and music employed; the game mechanics; and the fiction, artifact, and gameplay emotions elicited by the games to explore the specific fears survival horror games are designed to provoke and how the experience as a whole has made the Silent Hill series one of the major landmarks of video game history.
Image one: A rendering of the signing of the constitution. Text: Patrick Henry was elected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, but he declined because he "smelt a rat."
Image three: E-book titled Constitutional Environmental Rights (2005) - synopsis: This book shows why a fundamental right to an adequate environment ought to be provided in the constitution of any modern democratic state. This book is the first to examine the issue from the perspective of political theory. It explains why the right to an environment adequate for one's health and well-being is a genuine human right, and why it ought to be constitutionalized. It carefully elaborates this case and defends it in closely argued responses to critical challenges. It thus shows why there is no insurmountable obstacle to the effective implementation of this constitutional right, and why constitutionalizing this right is not democratically illegitimate.
Image four: E-book titled A Handy American Government Answer Book: How Washington, Politics, and Elections Work (2018) - synopsis: Filling the breach and answering basic questions about how our very complex government operates and what it promises, The Handy American Government Answer Book: How Washington, Politics, and Elections Work takes a comprehensive look at the historic development of the government, the functions of each branch of government, and the systems, people, and policies that comprise American democracy.
Image one: E-book titled The CIA in Ecuador (2020) - synopsis: Draws on recently released US government surveillance documents on the Ecuadorian left to chart social movement organizing efforts during the 1950s. Emphasizing the competing roles of the domestic ruling class and grassroots social movements, this book details the struggles and difficulties that activists, organizers, and political parties confronted.
Image two: E-book titled The Mosquito Crusades: A History of the American Anti-Mosquito Movement from the Reed Commission to the First Earth Day (2009) - synopsis: Among the struggles of the twentieth century, the one between humans and mosquitoes may have been the most vexing, as demonstrated by the long battle to control these bloodsucking pests. As vectors of diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, encephalitis, and dengue fever, mosquitoes forced open a new chapter in the history of medical entomology. Based on extensive use of primary sources, The Mosquito Crusades traces this saga and the parallel efforts of civic groups in New Jersey's Meadowlands and along San Francisco Bay's east side to manage the dangerous mosquito population.
Image one: E-book titled The Soul in the Brain: The Cerebral Basis of Language, Art, and Belief (2007) - synopsis: In this provocative study, Michael R. Trimble, M.D., tackles the interrelationship between brain function, language, art—especially music and poetry—and religion. By examining the breakdown of language in several neuropsychiatric disorders, he identifies brain circuits that are involved with metaphor, poetry, music, and religious experiences. Drawing on this body of evidence, Trimble argues that religious experiences and beliefs are explicable biologically and relate to brain function, especially of the nondominant hemisphere.
Image two: E-book titled The Afterlives of Animals: A Museum Menagerie (2011) - synopsis: This collection of essays—from a broad array of contributors, including anthropologists, curators, fine artists, geographers, historians, and journalists—comprises short "biographies" of a number of famous taxidermized animals. Each essay traces the life, death, and museum "afterlife" of a specific creature, illuminating the overlooked role of the dead beast in the modern human-animal encounter through practices as disparate as hunting and zookeeping.
Image one: E-book titled Heroines of the Qing: Exemplary Women Tell Their Stories (2016) - synopsis: Traditionally, “exemplary women” (lienu)--heroic martyrs, chaste widows, and faithful maidens, for example--were written into official dynastic histories for their unrelenting adherence to female virtue by Confucian family standards. However, despite the rich writing traditions about these women, their lives were often distorted by moral and cultural agendas. Binbin Yang, drawing on interdisciplinary sources, shows how they were able to cross boundaries that were typically closed to women--boundaries not only of gender, but also of knowledge, economic power, political engagement, and ritual and cultural authority.
Image two: E-book titled The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science (2010) - synopsis: In The Madame Curie Complex, Julie Des Jardins dismantles the myth of the lone male genius, reframing the history of science with revelations about women’s substantial contributions to the field. She explores the lives of some of the most famous female scientists, including Jane Goodall, the eminent primatologist; Rosalind Franklin, the chemist whose work anticipated the discovery of DNA’s structure; Rosalyn Yalow, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist; and, of course, Marie Curie, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer whose towering, mythical status has both empowered and stigmatized future generations of women considering a life in science.
