For most of the postwar period, the destruction of European Jewry was not a salient part of American Jewish life, and was generally seen as irrelevant to non-Jewish Americans. Survivors and their families tended to keep to themselves, forming their own organizations, or they did their best to block out the past. Today, in contrast, the Holocaust is the subject of documentaries and Hollywood films, and is widely recognized as a universal moral touchstone. Reluctant Witnesses mixes memoir, history, and social analysis to tell the story of the rise of Holocaust consciousness in the United States from the perspective of survivors and their descendants. The public reckoning with the Holocaust, the book argues, was due to more than the passage of time. It took the coming of age of the "second generation" - who reached adulthood during the rise of feminism, the ethnic revival, and therapeutic culture - for survivors' families to reclaim their hidden histories. Inspired by the changed status of the victim in American society, the second generation coaxed their parents to share their losses with them, transforming private pains into public stories. Reluctant Witnesses documents how a group of people who had previously been unrecognized and misunderstood managed to find its voice. It tells this story in relation to the changing status of trauma and victimhood in American culture more generally. At a time when a sense of Holocaust fatigue seems to be setting in, and when the remaining survivors are at the end of their lives, it offers a reminder that the ability to speak openly about traumatic experiences had to be struggled for. By confronting traumatic memories and catastrophic histories, the book argues, we can make our world mean something beyond ourselves.

Shame, a powerful emotion, leads individuals to feel vulnerable, victimized, rejected. In Shameless, noted scholar and writer Arlene Stein explores American culture's attitudes toward shame and sexuality.

Some say that we live in a world without shame. But American culture is a curious mix of the shameless and the shamers, a seemingly endless parade of Pamela Andersons and Jerry Falwells strutting their stuff and wagging their fingers. With thoughtful analysis and wit, Shameless analyzes these clashing visions of sexual morality.

While conservatives have brought back sexual shame--by pushing for abstinence-only sex education, limitations on abortion, and prohibitions of gay/lesbian civil rights--progressives hold out for sexual liberalization and a society beyond "the closet." As these two Americas compete with one another, the future of family life, the right to privacy, and the very meaning of morality hang in the balance.

Shame, a powerful emotion, leads individuals to feel vulnerable, victimized, rejected. In Shameless, noted scholar and writer Arlene Stein explores American culture's attitudes toward shame and sexuality.

Some say that we live in a world without shame. But American culture is a curious mix of the shameless and the shamers, a seemingly endless parade of Pamela Andersons and Jerry Falwells strutting their stuff and wagging their fingers. With thoughtful analysis and wit, Shameless analyzes these clashing visions of sexual morality.

While conservatives have brought back sexual shame--by pushing for abstinence-only sex education, limitations on abortion, and prohibitions of gay/lesbian civil rights--progressives hold out for sexual liberalization and a society beyond "the closet." As these two Americas compete with one another, the future of family life, the right to privacy, and the very meaning of morality hang in the balance.

Americans now learn about the Holocaust in high school, watch films about it on television, and visit museums dedicated to preserving its memory. But for the first two decades following the end of World War II, discussion of the destruction of European Jewry was largely absent from American culture and the tragedy of the Holocaust was generally seen as irrelevant to non-Jewish Americans. Today, the Holocaust is widely recognized as a universal moral touchstone. In Reluctant Witnesses, sociologist Arlene Stein-herself the daughter of a Holocaust survivor-mixes memoir, history, and sociological analysis to tell the story of the rise of Holocaust consciousness in the United States from the perspective of survivors and their descendants. If survivors tended to see Holocaust storytelling as mainly a private affair, their children-who reached adulthood during the heyday of identity politics-reclaimed their hidden family histories and transformed them into public stories. Reluctant Witnesses documents how a group of people who had previously been unrecognized and misunderstood managed to find its voice. It tells this story in relation to the changing status of trauma and victimhood in American culture. At a time when a sense of Holocaust fatigue seems to be setting in and when the remaining survivors are at the end of their lives, it affirms that confronting traumatic memories and catastrophic histories can help us make our world mean something beyond ourselves.

This new anthology from SAGE brings together over 90 recent readings on gender, sexuality, and intimate relationships from Contexts, the award-winning magazine published by the American Sociological Association. Each contributor is a contemporary sociologist writing in the clear, concise, and jargon-free style that has made Contexts the "public face" of sociology. Jodi O'Brien and Arlene Stein, former Contexts Editors, have chosen pieces that are timely, thought-provoking, and especially suitable for classroom use; written introductions that frame each of the books three main sections; and provided questions for discussion.

In the first book to analyze shifts in lesbian identity, consciousness, and culture from the 1970s to the 1990s, Arlene Stein contributes an important chapter to the study of the women's movement and offers a revealing portrait of the exchange between a radical generation of feminists and its successors. Tracing the evolution of the lesbian movement from the bar scene to the growth of alternative families, Stein illustrates how a generation of women transformed the woman-centered ideals of feminism into a culture and a lifestyle. "Sex and Sensibility" relates the development of a 'queer' sensibility in the 1990s to the foundation laid by the gay rights and feminist movements a generation earlier. Beginning with the stories of thirty women who came of age at the climax of the 70s women's movement - many of whom defined lesbianism as a form of resistance to dominant gender and sexual norms - Stein explores the complex issues of identity that these women confronted as they discovered who they were and defined themselves in relation to their communities and to society at large. "Sex and Sensibility" ends with interviews of ten younger women, members of the post-feminist generation who have made it a fashion to dismiss lesbian feminism as overly idealistic and reductive. Enmeshed in Stein's compelling and personal narrative are coming-out experiences, questions of separatism, work, desire, children, and family. Stein considers the multiple identities of women of color and the experiences of intermittent and 'ex' lesbians. Was the lesbian feminist experiment a success? What has become of these ideas and the women who held them? In answering these questions, Stein illustrates the lasting and profound effect that the lesbian feminist movement had, and continues to have, on contemporary women's definitions of sexual identity.