A camera obscura reflects the world back but dimmer and inverted. Similarly, science has long viewed woman through a warped lens, one focused narrowly on her capacity for reproduction. As a result, there exists a vast knowledge gap when it comes to what we know about half of the bodies on the planet. That is finally changing. Today, a new generation of researchers is turning its gaze to the organs traditionally bound up in baby-making-the uterus, ovaries and vagina-and illuminating them as part of a dynamic, resilient and ever-changing whole. Welcome to Vagina Obscura, an odyssey into a woman's body from a fresh perspective, ushering in a whole new cast of characters. In Boston, a pair of biologists are growing artificial ovaries to counter the cascading health effects of menopause. In Melbourne, a urologist remaps the clitoris to fill in crucial gaps in female sexual anatomy. Given unparalleled access to labs and the latest research, journalist Rachel E. Gross takes readers on a scientific journey to the centre of a wonderous world where the uterus regrows itself, ovaries pump out fresh eggs and the clitoris pulses beneath the surface like a shimmering pyramid of nerves. This paradigm shift is made possible by the growing understanding that sex and gender are not binary; we all share the same universal body plan and origin in the womb. That's why insights into the vaginal microbiome, ovarian stem cells and the biology of menstruation don't mean only a better understanding of female bodies, but a better understanding of male, non-binary, transgender and intersex bodies-in other words, all bodies. By turns funny, lyrical, incisive and shocking, Vagina Obscura is a powerful testament to how the landscape of human knowledge can be rewritten to better serve everyone.

The history of education in the modern world is a history of transnational and cross-cultural influence. This collection explores those influences in (post) colonial and indigenous education across different geographical contexts. The authors emphasize how local actors constructed their own adaptation of colonialism, identity, and autonomy, creating a multi-centric and entangled history of modern education. In both formal as well as informal aspects, they demonstrate that transnational and cross-cultural exchanges in education have been characterized by appropriation, re-contextualization, and hybridization, thereby rejecting traditional notions of colonial education as an export of pre-existing metropolitan educational systems.

In the series: Advances in Cultural Psychology, Jaan Valsiner Memory construction and national identity are key issues in our societies, as well as it is patriotism. How can we nowadays believe and give sense to traditional narrations that explain the origins of nations and communities? How do these narrations function in a process of globalization? How should we remember the recent past? In the construction of collective memory, no doubt history taught at school plays a fundamental role, as childhood and adolescence are periods in which the identity seeds flourish vigorously. This book analyses how history is far more than pure historical contents given in a subject matter; it studies the situation of school history in different countries such as the former URSS, United States, Germany, Japan, Spain and Mexico, making sensible comparisons and achieving global conclusions. The empirical part is based on students interviews about school patriotic rituals, very close to the teaching of history, specifically carried out in Argentina but very similar to these rituals in other countries. The author analizes in which ways that historical knowledge is understood by students and its influence on the construction of patriotism. This book--aside from making a major contribution to the cultural psychology field--should be of direct interest and relevance to all people interested in the ways education succeeds in its variable functions. As a matter of fact, it is related to other IAP books as Contemporary Public Debates Over History Education (Nakou & Barca, 2010) and What Shall We Tell the Children? International Perspectives on School History Textbooks (Foster & Crawford, 2006).

Drawing on a wide variety of traditions and methods in historical studies, from the humanities and social sciences both, this volume considers how historians from a wide variety of countries create the study of the history of education. It poses ways of thinking about the questions, methods, and knowledge of historical studies in the formation of schooling that go beyond those typically found in American studies of the history of education.

Brodsky contends that three factors--constitutional, commercial, and technological--in turn, have caused Britain to raise large citizen forces. Because Britain traditionally has been an unmilitary state which has not maintained large standing armies, this ethos of amateurism merged with the professionalism of the Regular Army. He argues that it is this unique influence of amateurism which historically has been central to the British profession of arms and vital to its spirit of service. A wide range of prose and poetry illustrates that spirit and the military cultural experience in which it evolved in Great Britain from the Restoration through World War II. In an overview of later developments, including the Falklands War, Brodsky enunciates the challenge facing the traditional ethos in the nuclear age. Analyzing the effect of the literary idiom, he questions the future direction of representative literature.

From their conquest of Palestine in 1917 during World War I, until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the British controlled the territory by mandate, representing a distinct cultural period in Middle Eastern history. In Embodying Hebrew Culture: Aesthetics, Athletics and Dance in the Jewish Community of Mandate Palestine, author Nina S. Spiegel argues that the Jewish community of this era created enduring social, political, religious and cultural forms through public events, such as festivals, performances and celebrations. She finds that the physical character of this national public culture represents one of the key innovations of Zionism-embedding the importance of the corporeal into national Jewish life-and remains a significant feature of contemporary Israeli culture. Spiegel analyses four significant events in this period that have either been unexplored or underexplored: the beauty competitions for Queen Esther in conjunction with the Purim carnivals in Tel Aviv from 1926 to 1929, the first Maccabiah Games or """"Jewish Olympics"""" in Tel Aviv in 1932, the National Dance Competition for theatrical dance in Tel Aviv in 1937, and the Dalia Folk Dance Festivals at Kibbutz Dalia in 1944 and 1947. Drawing on a vast assortment of archives throughout Israel, Spiegel uses an array of untapped primary sources, from written documents to visual and oral materials, including films, photographs, posters and interviews. Methodologically, Spiegel offers an original approach, integrating the fields of Israel studies, modern Jewish history, cultural history, gender studies, performance studies, dance theory and history, and sports studies. In this detailed, multi-disciplinary volume, Spiegel demonstrates the ways that political and social issues can influence a new society and provides a dynamic framework for interpreting present-day Israeli culture. Students and teachers of Israel studies, performance studies and Jewish cultural history will appreciate Embodying Hebrew Culture.

The already vibrant charitable sector in the US is in the midst of a transformation that is altering both the manner in which donations occur and the causes that are supported. Philanthropy in Transition examines the unique role that charitable giving has played in the US, from colonial times to the present. The rising importance of new means of contributing, particularly giving through buying or investing, is considered. These new models of philanthropy have expanded the ways by which ethical consumers or investors can support a cause. Although these innovations represent a revolution in the structure of philanthropy, they introduce significant complexity to the act of giving - donors are far removed from recipients - and this may weaken the impact of contributing. This transformation is also likely to accelerate the rising importance of web-based promotion and fund-raising, as traditional nonprofits compete with social market enterprises and social impact investments for funds.

Lines Were Drawn looks at a group of Mississippi teenagers whose entire high school experience, beginning in 1969, was under federal court-ordered racial integration. Through oral histories and other research, this group memoir considers how the students, despite their markedly different backgrounds, shared a common experience that greatly influences their present interactions and views of the world--sometimes in surprising ways. The book is also an exploration of memory and the ways in which the same event can be remembered in very different ways by the participants. The editors (proud members of Murrah High School's Class of 1973) and more than fifty students and teachers address the reality of forced desegregation in the Deep South from a unique perspective--that of the faculty and students who experienced it and made it work, however briefly. The book tries to capture the few years in which enough people were so willing to do something about racial division that they sacrificed immediate expectations to give integration a true chance. This period recognizes a rare moment when the political will almost caught up with the determination of the federal courts to finally do something about race. Because of that collision of circumstances, southerners of both races assembled in the public schools and made integration work by coming together, and this book seeks to capture those experiences for subsequent generations.

In a 50-room building that housed Connecticut's Civil War orphans, the University of Connecticut began in the fall of 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School. From this beginning comes a rich history of change that continues through the billion-dollar program known as UConn 2000. In these pages are many previously unpublished and many long-unseen images that chronicle 120 years of that transformation. Each era in the university's history has seen growth and change: the 1890s, when faculty and administration squared off in the "the war of the rebellion"; 1908 to 1928, when President Charles L. Beach changed the curriculum and fought for "the needs of the college"; the 27-year administration of Albert N. Jorgensen, which saw a small college become a major research university; the 1960s, when, under Homer Babbidge Jr., the university made great academic advances while facing the sociopolitical challenges of the times; and today, when unprecedented changes are rebuilding and enhancing Connecticut's flagship university.

Sheffer deals with some of the oldest continuing constitutional problems confronting the American government: the judicial development of presidential war powers, potential constitutional dictatorship, and a wartime constitution. What enhances these problems is the very cryptic language presented by Article II itself. First, the generalities of Article II are read expansively enough to cover specific presidential actions, while a theory of inherent powers tends to justify the means. This combination of action and theory, Sheffer asserts, presumes that ends and means are determined only by the president. The end result is that presidential action takes on the characteristics of constitutional power. As this casebook demonstrates, in times of grave national emergency--especially war--the president acts as a constitutional dictator. There is a tacit understanding that nothing will be permitted to block the winning of the war. What is necessary, as determined by the chief executive, is done. The president must insure the national survival. Legal niceties are given little attention. Congress does not interfere with the manner in which the president conducts a war; it is a ready ally in almost everything he does, so long as he continues to be successful. As the cases demonstrate, the courts seek to avoid having to rule on the president's conduct, but, when they do rule, they usually uphold the president.

The growth of the American high school that occurred in the twentieth century is among the most remarkable educational, social, and cultural phenomena of the twentieth century. The history of education, however, has often reduced the institution to its educational function alone, thus missing its significantly broader importance. As a corrective, this collection of essays serves four ends: as an introduction to the history of the high school; as a reevaluation of the power of narratives that privilege the perspective of school leaders and the curriculum; as a glimpse into the worlds created by students and their communities; and, most critically, as a means of sparking conversations about where we might look next for stories worth telling.