Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
11,751
result(s) for
"Gesellschaft"
Sort by:
Ghost Stories for Darwin
In a stimulating interchange between feminist studies and biology, Banu Subramaniam explores how her dissertation on flower color variation in morning glories launched her on an intellectual odyssey that engaged the feminist studies of sciences in the experimental practices of science by tracing the central and critical idea of variation in biology. As she shows, the histories of eugenics and genetics and their impact on the metaphorical understandings of difference and diversity that permeate common understandings of differences among people exist in contexts that seem distant from the so-called objective hard sciences. Journeying into areas that range from the social history of plants to speculative fiction, Subramaniam uncovers key relationships between the life sciences, women's studies, evolutionary and invasive biology, and the history of ecology, and how ideas of diversity and difference emerged and persist in each field.
eBook
(Re)inventing the internet : critical case studies
\"Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include censorship and network control, privacy and surveillance, the political impact of activist blogging, peer to peer file sharing, the effects of video games on children, and many others. Media conglomerates, government and users all contribute shaping the forms and functions of the Internet as the limits and potentialities of the technologies are tested and extended. What is most surprising about the Internet is the proliferation of controversies and conflicts in which the creativity of ordinary users plays a central role. The title, (Re)Inventing the Internet, refers to this extraordinary flowering of agency in a society that tends to reduce its members to passive spectators. This collection presents a series of critical case studies that examine specific sites of change and contestation. These cover a range of phenomena including computer gaming cultures, online education, surveillance and the mutual shaping of digital technologies and civic life.\"--Publisher's website.
Book
Hidden linkages between urbanization and food systems
Global societies are becoming increasingly urban. This shift toward urban living is changing our relationship with food, including how we shop and what we buy, as well as ideas about sanitation and freshness. Achieving food security in an era of rapid urbanization will require considerably more understanding about how urban and food systems are intertwined. Here we discuss some potential understudied linkages that are ripe for further examination.
Journal Article
The politics of reality television : global perspectives
While the industrial history of the global migrations of reality television is well established, there has been less consideration of the theoretical & methodological implications of this expansion. This book considers ways in which these migrations test our understanding of reality television across the globe.
Book
Computers and Society in the Past Half Century
Almost fifty years ago, the author wrote the first comprehensive critical study of social issues in computing, The Conquest of Will (1976). This new book revisits this seminal study, featuring an overview of technological advances over the past half century, and provides a unique comparison between what was believed and expected of computers back in 1976, and actual outcomes up to the present time. Despite the extraordinary changes in technology, much of what has emerged in contemporary society was anticipated fifty years ago, and we are still grappling with some of the same basic challenges. For example, the computer's threat to privacy has been a constant issue ever since the late 1950s, but the regulatory framework designed in the 1960s has been upended by the Internet. Artificial Intelligence too has been a contentious issue since the late 1950s, but until recently discussion was largely confined to academia, and there was little urgency to regulate its further development and application. The comparisons offered in this book will highlight what we got right and wrong in the past, and point to the sources of good and bad predictions. While there have been many studies of social issues in computing published since The Conquest of Will appeared in 1976, this is an unusual and valuable longitudinal comparison of the current situation with what prevailed and was predicted half a century ago.
eBook
Relational mobility predicts social behaviors in 39 countries and is tied to historical farming and threat
Biologists and social scientists have long tried to understand why some societies have more fluid and open interpersonal relationships and how those differences influence culture. This study measures relational mobility, a socioecological variable quantifying voluntary (high relational mobility) vs. fixed (low relational mobility) interpersonal relationships. We measure relational mobility in 39 societies and test whether it predicts social behavior. People in societies with higher relational mobility report more proactive interpersonal behaviors (e.g., self-disclosure and social support) and psychological tendencies that help them build and retain relationships (e.g., general trust, intimacy, self-esteem). Finally, we explore ecological factors that could explain relational mobility differences across societies. Relational mobility was lower in societies that practiced settled, interdependent subsistence styles, such as rice farming, and in societies that had stronger ecological and historical threats.
Journal Article