Social Sciences Media Studies

Wonderfully narrated by Karen Chilton, Afrofuturism is an engaging, hip, and accessible primer to the music, literature, and art of Afrofuturism. Author Ytasha Womack introduces listeners to the burgeoning community of artists creating Afrofuturist works.

Reaching out to listeners of all religious backgrounds, Desmond Tutu shows us how to transform suffering into joy both in our lives and in our world. He tells us that God dreams of a world where laughter, love, and peace reign, and where we realize that we are all members of one family, God's family. In this extremely personal and liberating message, Father Tutu helps us "see with the eyes of the heart" and cultivate the qualities of forgiveness, humility, generosity, and courage.

In her latest forays into the American scene, Joan Didion covers ground from Washington to Los Angeles, from a TV producer's gargantuan "manor" to the racial battlefields of New York's criminal courts. At each stop she uncovers the mythic narratives that elude other observers: Didion tells us about the fantasies the media construct around crime victims and presidential candidates; she gives us new interpretations of the stories of Nancy Reagan and Patty Hearst; she charts America's rollercoaster ride through evanescent booms and hard times that won't go away.

Janet Malcolm delves into the psychopathology of journalism using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit as her larger-than-life example: the lawsuit of Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, against Joe McGinniss, the author of Fatal Vision. Examining the always uneasy, sometimes tragic relationship that exists between journalist and subject, Malcolm finds that neither journalist nor subject can avoid the moral impasse that is built into the journalistic situation.

Could history repeat itself, with one giant entity taking control of American information? Most consider the Internet Age to be a moment of unprecedented freedom in communications and culture. But as Tim Wu shows, each major new medium, from telephone to cable, arrived on a similar wave of idealistic optimism only to become, eventually, the object of industrial consolidation profoundly affecting how Americans communicate.

A diverse group of celebrities, activists, and artists open up about what feminism means to them, with the goal of helping listeners come to their own personal understanding of the word.

In many areas, we, as women, have earned the equality we've been fighting for. We've broken through glass ceilings and achieved great success. We've shown that we can prosper by our own means. And we've become influential, respected leaders. Yet many of us find ourselves unhappy, anxious, and overwhelmed. Where's the pot of gold at the end of our "I can do it just like a man" rainbow?The problem is that while we can be as successful as men, we don't get there through a masculine approach.

This book documents each month of the first year of the pandemic and examines the issues that emerged, from racialized workers to residential care to policing. It demonstrates how politicians and uncritical media shaped the popular understanding of these issues and helped to justify the maintenance of a status quo that created the worst ravages of the crisis. Spin Doctors argues alternative ways in which Canadians should understand the big themes of the crisis and create the necessary knowledge to demand large-scale change.

Ferguson might be the worst, but it is not the first. Ferguson is just the latest of hundreds of examples of Black mob violence around the country. White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It was written for the deniers: reporters and public officials and others who deny Black mob violence has reached epidemic levels.

The second edition of this pathbreaking, widely taught book offers five new chapters, on breastfeeding and Black infant health; Black birthing during COVID; Black doulas rethinking birthing practices; the recent buildup of a US national movement; and expanding the global movement for sexual and reproductive wellbeing. Other chapters are updated throughout. Birthing Justice puts black women's voices at the center of the debate on what should be done to fix the broken maternal care system.

Are there any logical reasons to believe in God? Mathematician and best-selling author John Allen Paulos thinks not. In Irreligion he presents the case for his own worldview, organizing his book into 12 chapters that refute the 12 arguments most often put forward for believing in God's existence.

High-tech innovations are created at a dazzling speed, and it all points to a world that is getting faster at a dizzying pace. Azeem Azhar knows this better than most. Over the last three decades, he has founded companies bought by Amazon and Microsoft, served as the Economist’s first ever internet correspondent, and created a leading international tech newsletter and podcast, the Exponential View. Now, Azhar offers a revelatory new model for understanding how technology is changing the world.

In 2014, on the side of a Los Angeles freeway, a One Direction fan erected a shrine in the spot where, a few hours earlier, Harry Styles had vomited. “It’s interesting for sure,” Styles said later, adding, “a little niche, maybe.” But what seemed niche to Styles was actually an irreverent signpost to an unfathomably large, interconnected, and influential multiverse: stan culture. In this book, Kaitlyn Tiffany, a staff writer at the Atlantic and proud superfan herself, guides us through the nebulous online world of fans, stans, and boybands.

In 1970, on a soundstage on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, a group of men, women, and Muppets of various ages and colors worked doggedly to finish the first season of a children’s TV program that was not yet assured a second season: Sesame Street. They were conducting an experiment to see if television could be used to better prepare disadvantaged preschoolers for kindergarten. What they didn’t know then was that they were starting a cultural revolution that would affect all American kids.

The Holy Grail, the kingdom of Camelot, the Knights of the Round Table, and the magical sword Excalibur are all key ingredients of the legends surrounding King Arthur. But who was he really, where did he come from, and how much of what we read about him in stories that date back to the Dark Ages is true? So far, historians have failed to show that King Arthur really existed at all, and for a good reason—they have been looking in the wrong place. In this book, Alistair Moffat shatters all existing assumptions about Britain's most enigmatic hero.

As World War II approached, the six most powerful media moguls in America and Britain tried to pressure their countries to ignore the fascist threat. The media empires of Robert McCormick, Joseph and Eleanor Patterson, and William Randolph Hearst spanned the United States, reaching tens of millions of Americans in print and over the airwaves with their isolationist views.

After spotting Netflix and the deep-pocketed Amazon Prime Video a decade’s head start, rivals from the tech and start-up realm (Apple, Quibi) and traditional media (Disney, WarnerMedia, NBCUniversal) all decided to move mountains to enter the streaming game. At a cost of billions, each went after their own piece of the market, launching five new services in a seven-month span. And just as the derby was heating up, the coronavirus pandemic arrived, a black-swan event bringing short-term benefits but also stiff challenges.

Award-winning investigative journalist Liz Collin sets the record straight. She uncovers what really happened on a street in Minneapolis that set off the riots, the demands to defund the police, and the skyrocketing crime across the country. Based on conversations with those who were there—including Derek Chauvin, Thomas Lane, and other Minneapolis police officers who’ve never spoken out before—Liz exposes how the media and the Left manipulated the facts to dupe and divide America.

Now in its second edition, The Virtues of Captain America is updated to include all the new developments in Captain America's saga. This edition also offers new material on Sam Wilson—formerly Captain America's partner the Falcon who recently became Captain America himself—and how his interpretation of the role compares to Steve Rogers's.

Weird, wonderful, and sometimes disgusting, figuring out "what's for dinner on Mars" is far from trivial. If we can figure out how to sustain ourselves on Mars, we will know how to do it on Earth too. In Dinner on Mars, authors Fraser and Newman show how setting the table off-planet will supercharge efforts to produce food sustainably here at home. For futurists, sci-fi geeks, tech nuts, business leaders, and anyone interested in the future of food, Dinner on Mars puts sustainability and adaptability on the menu in the face of our climate crisis.