Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions in the Cinema (Suny Series in Postmodern Culture)

Book Description

Explores how whiteness is culturally constructed in American films.

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Not worth the money

Widely misunderstood

A brilliant scholar's call for a better world

Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line
Paul Gilroy
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0674006690

Book Description

After all the "progress" made since World War II in matters pertaining to race, why are we still conspiring to divide humanity into different identity groups based on skin color? Did all the good done by the Civil Rights Movement and the decolonization of the Third World have such little lasting effect?

In this provocative book Paul Gilroy contends that race-thinking has distorted the finest promises of modern democracy. He compels us to see that fascism was the principal political innovation of the twentieth century--and that its power to seduce did not die in a bunker in Berlin. Aren't we in fact using the same devices the Nazis used in their movies and advertisements when we make spectacles of our identities and differences? Gilroy examines the ways in which media and commodity culture have become preeminent in our lives in the years since the 1960s and especially in the 1980s with the rise of hip-hop and other militancies. With this trend, he contends, much that was wonderful about black culture has been sacrificed in the service of corporate interests and new forms of cultural expression tied to visual technologies. He argues that the triumph of the image spells death to politics and reduces people to mere symbols.

At its heart, Against Race is a utopian project calling for the renunciation of race. Gilroy champions a new humanism, global and cosmopolitan, and he offers a new political language and a new moral vision for what was once called "anti-racism."

Customer Reviews:

Not worth the money.......2005-08-12

This book seems hopelessly out of touch with Black culture and US culture in general. It also seems to be pandering to people who want to believe the Nation of Islam is not different than Hitler and the Nazis! How simplistic! If you really want to understand race and how to do away with racism give this book a pass.

Widely misunderstood.......2003-08-08

Gilroy's polemical essay has received little attention and what attention there has been has been lukewarm or scathing. In it's most extreme forms this criticism either pigeonholes Gilroy as having re-invented the "reverse racism" argument and being a "race traitor" to the memory of his mother as a "confused" and "ambivalent" Black Briton, or by liberally denying the existance of "race" being colour-blind to the realities of racism. Both these rebuffs are symptoms rather than diagnoses of a moribund insecurity within Ethinic and critical "race" studies that Gilroy is bravely attempting to think beyond.
This is a fantastic book. It does not attempt to deny the horror of racism by doing away with all ideas of "racial" purity and racialised knoweledge. This is an old argument. It is perfectly possible, indeed desirable, to loose the idea and language of "race" in order to focus properly on the racism that constructs them. By inverting the categories of their oppression many hard-one battles have been fought and pride in community and solidarity have been established in response to racism. But it is the dangers involved in adopting ideas of "racial" and national sameness and particularity that Gilroy is highlighting here.

By re-working the notion of "generic fascism", Gilroy examines Black political and commercial cultures in a way that shows these cultures are not immune from the styles of sameness and unanimism that characterise fascist political practice. This is not unique to Black cultures, but a wider phenomenon linked to the post-70s emergence of identity politics, technological advance, and media-led multiculturalism. His point is that if fascism can find a home with the descendents of slaves it can find a home anywhere.

This focus on culture has been criticised for ignoring the actual political movements of fascism sui generis and of grass-roots Black political action. While this focus may well reflect the hegemony of cultural studies in the humanities, its focus on the cultures of fascism is far from the vague meanderings of a lot of that field and could quite easily be put in context with the re-evaluation of nationalism as an aesthetic project by Eagleton and others as someone far from postmodern excess. The repudiation of liberal multiculturalism as complicit in fascism's cultural manefestations has a long history, from Marcuse onwards.

As for grass-roots activism, Gilroys argument quite neatly parallels that of someone like Manning Marable who has argued for a new radicalism in Black American politics that neither adopts the liberal agenda (i.e. to be Jews, model minorities) nor the Black Nationalist alternative (i.e. to be Germans), but to focus on the grass-roots where the "camp-thinking" of these two alternatives is more fluid and ambivalent.

The "American" focus of this book, despite references to Rwanda, Marley, Fanon and Mandela as well as the lack of any explicit analysis of the way in which the structure of global capitalism might aid a renewed interest in "race" and "race"-thinking are perhaps the only criticisms worth making of this book. But Gilroy is trying make (mainly White) radicals take racism and the impact of "race"-thinking seriously so perhaps we can forgive him for this. He's also trying to warn against the immediate adoption of American standards of multiculturalism for the rest of the world (which might account for the difference in edition titles)

Finally, in a rebuff to the Kantians, Gilroy invents a concept of "planetary humanism" as something to aim towards after, and only after, coming to terms with the histories of colonialism, slavery, fascism and genocide so that we can understand our contemporary conditions and provide an answer to them.

This is a visionary book and well worth the purchase. Get the British edition back in print soon!

A brilliant scholar's call for a better world.......2000-08-07

In this amazing, necessarily complex, and deeply scholarly work, Dr. Gilroy, a Yale Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, lays out his well-thought-out and wholly reasonable thesis: humanity ought not to be split into groups based on skin color, and in fact twentieth-century fascism, an astonishingly dangerous 'ism' whose power came wholly from the false divisions of groups within societies, and whose specter remains with us in its various modern forms (the Klan, modern Nazis, the Aryan Nation, and corresponding European and African racist groups) - would wither in a raceless world - to the nearly unimaginable benefit of humanity.

Dr. Gilroy has not written a polemic so much as a comprehensive and authoritative survey of his topic. He has a utopian vision, but he is in command of the facts. He cites sources, references, and examples from literally all walks of life - pop culture to world history to cultural studies to genomics. It's an incredible ride.

The book is divided into three sections, and the chapters are each able to stand alone as insightful and original essays. In his first section, the foundation is laid with an essay on modernity, which traces the beginnings of 'race thinking' to the eighteenth century in Europe.

The second section deals with the frightening realities of modern fascism, and its considerable threat to society. Tangentially but not unimportantly, Dr. Gilroy includes a discussion of power, war, and the language, imagery, and culture of fascism, including advertising and promotions of mass movements.

In the third section, "Black to the Future," the author addresses a panoply of issues including sexism, race and guilt, success, the world of Black culture, and the considerable implications of cosmopolitanism - a unified world - as opposed to separateness.

No brief review can adequately discuss this important and erudite author's contribution. The book is dense, well-organized, and easily could form the text for a college-level course on this interesting and riveting topic. It is also totally readable and useful - out of the classroom. There are nearly 100 pages of notes, and a comprehensive index.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Polity, published by Northeastern Political Science Association on April 1, 2004. The length of the article is 6530 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Political theory and the racial order.(Book Review)
Author: Joel Olson
Publication: Polity (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 2004
Publisher: Northeastern Political Science Association
Volume: 36 Issue: 3 Page: 529(13)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line

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Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line

Manufacturer: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000I0YPTY

Book Description

Dr. Ecco is a mathematical detective and puzzle solver. In this book readers are invited to join him in solving nearly 40 puzzles inspired by methods in computer science and mathematics, including The Tower of Lego, the Odd Doors Problem, Spies and Double Agents, Gossiping Defenders, Code Breaking, and many more.

Customer Reviews:

fun with puzzles.......2003-01-13

I bought The Puzzling Adventures of Dr. Ecco just before going on vacation, and was hooked before the plane took off. It is the perfect book for puzzle-lovers, including a broad range of topics across many levels of difficulty. My husband and I sat long after our lunches had been cleared on several occasions, working them out together. The author's humor and imagination in creating his characters adds to the delight of having one's brain teased (and then satisfied -- the solutions are in the back). Buy this book!

Dr. Ecco --- A Mathematical Version of Sherlock Holmes.......2001-01-28

When this book first came out from W. H. Freeman, I could not contain my excitement. I had been trying to intoduce a course in matheamtics that would have a broad appeal. With a very few exceptions, university students take mathematics courses because they are told to do so, and will leave the subject behind as soon as the minimum requirement is meet. I wanted students to have a chance to explore mathematics, but was hard pressed to put together a functional package.

"The Puzzling Adventure of Dr. Ecco" was an answer to my prayers. Discrete mathematics is an ideal introductio to the borader realm of the whole subject since it requires very little technical background, and there is the additional attraction in being related to computing science. However, there was considerable opposition to the introduction of such a course, and it was not until five years later that it became a pilot project. Dennis' credibility as a serious researcher helped tremendously in the final push.

Once the course got going, there was no stoppig it.Enrollment went up from 24 in the initial year to over 150 at present, while the course is still the only one not required by any program. It draws students from diverse background, from the Faculties of Science, Education, Arts, Business, Engineering and Pharmocology.

Much of the success of the course is due to the top quality of the book. The problems are well chosen, with a variety of topics as well as levels of difficulty. However, it is how each problem is treated that brings out how much thought has gone into the writing.

I will give one example, the problem of transporting oil from Houston to Moscow. The theoretical foundation is the Maxi-Flow Mini-Cut Theorem, which provides an algorithm to compute the maximal flow. Usuaully, students ignore the minimum cut altogether because the theorem guarantees that the flow they find will be maximal. Here, Dr. Ecco is asked where additional planes should be added. If none is added to the routes that constitute the minimal cut, they will be wasted. Thus the companion idea of the minimal cut is clearly brought back to center stage.

The book is written with a great sense of humour, with much commentary on comtemporary society. It has been said that from the many volumes of detective fictions Agatha Christie had written, future social scientists could find invaluable data. This book reflects the thinking of one segment of the intelligentia at the time.

As a final note, the University of Alberta has published a companion volume titled "Professor Scarlet's Notebook", which serves as a background textbook but specifically tailored for use with Dr. Ecco. It is available for US$10 from:

Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G2G1, Canada.

Andy Liu, 1998 Canadian University Professor of the Year, and 3M Teaching Fellow.

unique puzzle book with computer-science-inspired problems.......2000-11-01

What I really like about this book is its unique focus; Shasha has written problems that illustrate concepts from math and computer science, without requiring any prior background.

It's written in an entertaining style, the problems can be understood and enjoyably worked on by everyone from bright middle school students to graduate students -- and even if you have a lot of other puzzle books, many of these problems will be new to you.

My only complaint is that there aren't more puzzles here! The Dr. Ecco story-line is nicely written, and the puzzles are presented cleverly, but all that creative writing takes up a lot of space. Still, this is a small issue, I enjoyed reading the book, I loved the puzzles, and they are very easy to share with friends and students.

And of course, Dover offers it at a great price!

A Combination of Puzzles and Operations Research.......2000-03-17

This walk on the puzzle side of life is a joyous jaunt through mathematics. The fictional Dr. Ecco, a dedicated omniheurist or puzzle solver, devotes his life to resolving the difficulties of others. The majority of the problems are in applied mathematics, and are typical of the real world. Professor Scarlet provides the narration and his serving as a foil to Dr. Ecco has much in common with the partnership of Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

The topics include coding, the flow of goods through transit points, production bottlenecks, road and mass transit construction, information transfer and conducting elections. Detailed solutions to all problems are given at the end of the book. The majority can be solved using only cleverness, although a mathematical background is certainly helpful.

Superbly narrated and with a tight grasp on life, this book is an existence proof of the premise that learning mathematics can be fun. An excellent supplemental text for any course that involves problems in operations research.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission

Exciting and challenging puzzle book.......1998-12-24

This book is really fun. I am a person who really enjoys this kind of books, but this one was one of the best. I loved it!!

Puzzling Adventures: Tales of Strategy, Logic, and Mathematical Skill

Average customer rating:

Puzzling Adventures: Tales of Strategy, Logic, and Mathematical Skill
Dennis Shasha
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393326632

Book Description

Thirty-five puzzles from the pages of Scientific American, enhanced and expanded for hours of recreational reckoning.

Book Description

Challenging and stimulating collection of diverting brain-teasers helps high school students integrate simple techniques and complex problem-solving strategies in an enjoyable way. Problems involving squares and cubes, polyhedra, prime numbers, chess pieces, and other subjects. Perfect for individuals who want to develop problem-solving techniques. Solutions included. 1987 edition.

Customer Reviews:

Puzzles that Really Teach Math!.......2002-03-11

I'm a math teacher and tutor, and I find most math puzzles and recreations to be a little academic at best, and needlessly obscure at worst. The exercises in Gardiner's book, however, are rich in useful mathematical ideas, and each question builds on previous ones in the chapter. After playing with these puzzles, the student (and teacher!) will be able to apply what they've learned to other math questions. Everything from number theory to geometry is touched upon in these challenging, thought-provoking excursions for the mind.

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How Puzzling
Snape , and Heather Scott
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

A lively book featuring a collection of puzzles, problems and activities linked to the history of mathematics. Drawing on the riddles and paradoxes of the great mathematician philosophers of ancient times, as well as the mysteries of the Rubik Cube, it encourage children to think afresh.

The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections (Recreations in Mathematics, 6)

Average customer rating:

No math? Are you JOKING?
Good enough book, I suppose, but horrible misadvertised
An Excellent Resource
My favorite puzzle bock!!
This is the best book ever written on how to make puzzles.

The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections (Recreations in Mathematics, 6)
Stewart T. Coffin
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198532075

Book Description

This book provides an enjoyable and educational guide to the history, geometry, and practical construction of three-dimensional puzzles. It includes full coverage of the many different types of interlocking assembly puzzles, from burrs, Tangrams, and polyominoes to those using such polyhedra
as the rhombic dodecahedron and truncated octahedron. The author, a well-known inventor and builder of solid geometrical puzzles, also describes numerous puzzles designed by himself and other inventors, many never before published. The volume is illustrated with over 200 line drawings and
photographs to help enthusiasts build their own versions of these challenging and fascinating interlocking solids. Many unsolved problems are considered that will challenge mathematicians, computer buffs, and puzzle fanatics for years to come.

Customer Reviews:

No math? Are you JOKING?.......2001-12-03

The reviewer who said this book has zero mathematical content must have a different definition of mathematics than I do. True, the book has no formulas, no algebra, no arithmetic, and very few numbers, but it's FULL of combinatorics and geometry, especially symmetry, dissections, and polyhedra. In a sense, this book is nothing BUT math!

If you're at all interested in mathematical puzzles, or symmetry, or geometry, or woodworking, you MUST buy this beautiful book! But if you're looking for a book of numbers and formulas, buy something else.

Good enough book, I suppose, but horrible misadvertised.......2000-07-27

This is a good book iff you're interested in puzzles as toys, or puzzles as art, or puzzles as anything other than a playground for mathematics. Even the recreational mathematician will be disappointed if he or she is hoping for much math content, because there's none whatsoever. And don't interpret "none" as "low level" or "elementary"; we're talking about the empty set here. The only reason I give 2 or 3 stars is that I'm sure the book would be useful to those wanting to see the designs of a number of different puzzles. It does that. It's more of a history and showcase. The author seems to make no pretense about the mathematical content, expect, perhaps, through the title, but the reviews I had read here at Amazon and elsewhere sure did lead me to expect good stuff. T'was a real disappointment.

An Excellent Resource.......2000-02-15

Has all the math you may need without getting bogged down in formulas. This CD is perfect for both a beginner or a seasoned pro of puzzle theory. This the best resource I have found to date for those interested in either puzzles or geometric studies for fun.

My favorite puzzle bock!!.......1999-05-07

This book opens up a whole world of possibilities for puzzle enthusiasts! It does a systematic break down of the ideas behind the design of burr puzzles, puzzles whose assembled interlocking pieces form ployhedra. It contains the most amazing puzzles of this sort I've ever seen. If you love puzzles, you'll love this book!!

This is the best book ever written on how to make puzzles........1998-08-10

Finally the best book ever written on how to make three dimensional wooden mechanical puzzles is again available. And the format of the CD makes it quite easy to find more than a hundred of Stewart Coffin's beautiful puzzles. The photographs, illustrations and drawings of the puzzles are a visual treat. And he even has information on the selection of wood and woodworking techniques for those that want to make the puzzles. Some of the puzzles can be made with simple hand tools and others require accurate power tools and advanced woodworking skills. But everyone will enjoy this classic book of polyhedral puzzles.

Comparing public and private schools: The puzzling role of selectivity bias (PONPO working paper)

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Comparing public and private schools: The puzzling role of selectivity bias (PONPO working paper)
Richard J Murnane
Manufacturer: Program on Non-Profit Organizations, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Puzzling Posers

Manufacturer: George Allen & Unwin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000BYMA26

Product Description

An outstanding collection of mathematical and enigmatical puzzles by one of the leading authorities on recreational mathematics. Mr. Travers' puzzles and challenges will provide and enormous amount of interesting recreation and instruction. His work has a clear, concise style of its own. His genius lies in his ability to present the proof of a teaser in so facile a way that one is left wondering why nobody else thought of it years ago.

Amazon.com

Windows 2000 Active Directory is a notably authoritative and engaging guide to the Microsoft Active Directory (AD) for any administrator or developer making the move to the new Windows and this powerful directory standard.

Articulate and technically astute, the author comes across as a trusted advisor, providing an expert's view of designing the layout of your company's Active Directory schema. In realistic terms, he shows you how AD can coexist with Unix directories. The book not only provides a collection of screen shots (though there are hands-on tutorials for specific tasks) but also a nicely in-depth tour of what Internet directories are and what advantages Active Directory offers. Case studies on sample domains and organization units (OUs) for sample companies, including a model global corporation, will help you cope with the design of even the most complex directories. Hints for limiting "domains" and favoring the more flexible "organizational units" (OUs) will also help you think in Windows 2000 terms.

Later sections of the book delve into Active Directory Services Interface (ASDI) scripting using Windows Script Host (WSH), Visual Basic, and even ASPs for browser-based administration. The tips and sample scripts for a variety of common administrative tasks, such as adding new users, changing passwords, and the like, assume very little programming background. This focus on the practical side of administration rounds out an extremely useful and technically savvy guide to Windows 2000 that can definitely simplify the life of any administrator, manager, or developer upgrading to the latest Windows. --Richard Dragan

Book Description

Working with Microsoft's network directory service for the first time can be a headache for system and network administrators, IT professionals, technical project managers, and programmers alike. This authoritative guide is meant to relieve that pain. Instead of going through the graphical user interface screen by screen, O'Reilly's bestselling Active Directory tells you how to design, manage, and maintain a small, medium, or enterprise Active Directory infrastructure.

Fully updated to cover Active Directory for Windows Server 2003 SP1 and R2, this third edition is full of important updates and corrections. It's perfect for all Active Directory administrators, whether you manage a single server or a global multinational with thousands of servers.

Active Directory, 3rd Edition is divided into three parts. Part I introduces much of how Active Directory works, giving you a thorough grounding in its concepts. Some of the topics include Active Directory replication, the schema, application partitions, group policies, and interaction with DNS. Part II details the issues around properly designing the directory infrastructure. Topics include designing the namespace, creating a site topology, designing group policies for locking down client settings, auditing, permissions, backup and recovery, and a look at Microsoft's future direction with Directory Services. Part III covers how to create and manipulate users, groups, printers, and other objects that you may need in your everyday management of Active Directory.

If you want a book that lays bare the design and management of an enterprise or departmental Active Directory, then look no further. Active Directory, 3rd Edition will quickly earn its place among the books you don't want to be without.

Customer Reviews:

What can I say? This book is necessary for any AD admin........2007-09-16

Not much to say, other than I finished this gem with a wealth of knowledge. You can really just jump around to interesting chapters, or read it cover to cover. This book covers everything from policies, to ADSI, to scripting.

use this instead of the Gerald Carter book.......2007-05-25

Hi, I got this book because I could not make heads nor tails of LDAP System Administration by Gerald arter. I read this book, and studied this book, and learned from this book. The authors of this book make their living from the Active Directory. Thus you can be sure that they are not going to make fools of themselfs by publishing
a whole lot of garbage. I used this book to learn about LDAP and then I successfully implemented LDAP at work.

Highly recommended!

Miserable dictionary of doublespeak.......2006-09-14

Not recommended for native speakers of the English language.
When trees == forests and top-level directories are instead 'naming contexts' .... The desirable format would be "This feature, which MS call 'X', is 'Y' plain english", but instead the Y feature will only ever be called X.
This is not a helpful book.

The overall pros and cons of Active Directory, common tips and traps, and more.......2006-08-05

Joe Richards, Robbie Allen and Alistair G. Lowe-Norris' Active Directory, 3rd Edition is also for Windows administrators who may know all to well about the problems it's brought to prior versions of windows. This edition considers the Directory for Windows 2000, 2003 and its updates, considering the overall pros and cons of Active Directory, common tips and traps, and more. Yes, you can use Microsoft's documentation for many similar answers; but here they are arranged in a more logical manner and provide more candid assessments to help users upgrade or understand options.

Great book but there is a new edition.......2006-07-21

This is the leading reference for Active Directory but it has been updated to a third edition, so you should get that one.

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