Spring
2001
Soundings is a publication of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT
Comments and questions to www-shass@mit.edu
Book notes
Anita Desai Diamond Dust. Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Short stories that deftly explore the tensions between social obligation and personal independence. Anita Desai is professor of writing.
Evelyn Fox Keller The Century of the Gene. Harvard University Press, 2000. With the Human Genome Project nearing its first goal, biologists have reached the beginning of a new era. Evelyn Fox Keller is professor of history and philosophy of science.
Jean Elizabeth Jackson Camp Pain: Talking with Chronic Pain Patients. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. The book focuses on patients’ experiences of pain, what the experiences mean to them, and how the meanings are socially constructed. Jean Jackson is professor of anthropology.
Daniel T. Kryder Divided Arsenal: Race and the American State During World War II. Cambridge University Press, 2000. Demonstrates how the federal government was required, by the demands of wartime mobilization, to address the position of African Americans and how sharply the resulting policies were shaped by racial injustices. Daniel Kryder is associate professor of political science.
Alan Lightman The Diagnosis. Pantheon Books, 2000. A disturbing examination of the modern obsession with speed, information, and money, and what it has done to our minds and spirits. Alan Lightman is John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities.
Melissa Nobles Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Stanford University Press, 2000. Explores the politics of race and citizenship in the U.S. and Brazilian censuses. Melissa Nobles is associate professor of political science.
Jeffrey S. Ravel The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture: 1680–1791. Cornell University Press, 1999. Examines the behavior of young male crowds in the pit section of Parisian theaters before the French Revolution. Jeffrey Ravel is associate professor of history.
Copyright © 2001 Massachusetts
Institute of Technology