This book is a study of the role of clan networks in Central Asia from the early twentieth century through 2004. Exploring the social, economic, and historical roots of clans, and their political role and political transformation in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, it argues that clans are informal political actors that are critical to understanding politics in this region. The book demonstrates that the Soviet system was far less successful in transforming and controlling Central Asian society, and in its policy of eradicating clan identities, than has often been assumed. In order to understand Central Asian politics and their economies today, scholars and policy makers must take into account the powerful role of these informal groups, how they adapt and change over time, and how they may constrain or undermine democratization in this strategic region.

A sweeping history of Islamism in Central Asia from the Russian Revolution to the present through Soviet-era archival documents, oral histories, and a trove of interviews and focus groups. Few observers anticipated a surge of Islamism in Central Asia, after seventy years of forced communist atheism. Muslims do not inevitably support Islamism, a modern political ideology of Islam. Yet, Islamism became the dominant form of political opposition in post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In Politicizing Islam in Central Asia, Kathleen Collins explores the causes, dynamics, and variation in Islamist movements-first within the USSR, and then in the post-Soviet states of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Drawing upon extensive ethnographic and historical research on Islamist mobilization, she explains the strategies and relative success of each Central Asian Islamist movement. Collins argues that in each case, state repression of Islam, by Soviet and post-Soviet regimes, together with the diffusion of religious ideologies, motivated Islamist mobilization. Sweeping in scope, this book traces the dynamics of Central Asian Islamist movements from the Soviet era through the Tajik civil war, the Afghan jihad against the US, and the foreign fighter movement joining the Syrian jihad.

It is the long, hot summer of 1963 and New York is filled with lovers, dreamers and protestors. Young African-American women grow out their hair and discover the taste of new freedoms. Young men, white and black, travel south to fight against segregation, praying for a society in which love is colour-free. Written in the late 1960s and early 1970s but overlooked in Kathleen Collins's lifetime, these stories mark the debut of a masterful writer whose electrifying voice was almost lost to history.

For the past several years, critics have been describing the present era as both ""the end of television"" and one of ""peak TV,"" referring to the unprecedented quality and volume and the waning of old technologies, formats, and habits. Television's projections and reflections have significantly contributed to who we are individually and culturally. From Rabbit Ears to the Rabbit Hole: A Life with Television reveals the reflections of a TV scholar and fan analyzing how her life as a consumer of television has intersected with the cultural and technological evolution of the medium itself. In a narrative bridging television studies, memoir, and comic, literary nonfiction, Kathleen Collins takes readers alongside her from the 1960s through to the present, reminiscing and commiserating about some of what has transpired over the last five decades in the US, in media culture, and in what constitutes a shared cultural history. In a personal, critical, and entertaining meditation on her relationship with TV-as avid consumer and critic-she considers the concept and institution of TV as well as reminiscing about beloved, derided, or completely forgotten content. She describes the shifting role of TV in her life, in a progression that is far from unique, but rather representative of a largely collective experience. It affords a parallel coming of age, that of the author and her coprotagonist, television. By turns playful and serious, wry and poignant, it is a testament to the profound and positive effect TV can have on a life and, by extrapolation, on the culture.

This book is a study of the role of clan networks in Central Asia from the early twentieth century through 2004. Exploring the social, economic, and historical roots of clans, and their political role and political transformation in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, it argues that clans are informal political actors that are critical to understanding politics in this region. The book demonstrates that the Soviet system was far less successful in transforming and controlling Central Asian society, and in its policy of eradicating clan identities, than has often been assumed. In order to understand Central Asian politics and their economies, scholars and policy makers must take into account the powerful role of these informal groups, how they adapt and change over time, and how they may constrain or undermine democratization in this strategic region.

Equipped with an encyclopedic knowledge of boxing, a young Joyce Brothers competed on The $64,000 Question and became the first woman to win the top prize money. That triumphant debut in 1955 was the initial step toward a career as a media pioneer. Through her own advice programs and perennial appearances on talk shows-as well as episodic television-Brothers became one of the most well-known figures of the 20th century. For more than four decades, viewers could count on her authoritative, calm response to almost any issue, from marital and financial woes to the Space Shuttle disaster. In Dr. Joyce Brothers: The Founding Mother of TV Psychology, Kathleen Collins explores how a clever businesswoman provided a mass-scale service for a never-ending demand: helping viewers understand themselves. Collins explains how Brothers' longevity on television was in large part afforded by her symbiotic relationship with the medium. She played other roles in addition to-and interdependent on-that of media psychologist. Her numerous appearances on variety shows, sitcoms, and dramas kept her on the screen and in the public eye, creating both a persona as celebrity professional as well as professional celebrity. This portrait of Brothers' multi-layered career also provides a means by which to observe U.S. cultural history, addressing cultural preoccupations with television and self-help obsessed audiences looking for guidance in reality TV. Drawing on primary sources from Brothers' personal papers and published interviews-as well as interviews the author conducted with several of Joyce's former colleagues and her daughter, Lisa Arbisser-Collins provides an engaging, informative, and thought provoking look at this iconic figure.

Surveys the life of Sojourner Truth, who escaped from slavery and became famous as an advocate of equal rights for women and blacks.

Since the first boxy black-and-white TV sets began to appear in American living rooms in the late 1940s, we have been watching people chop, saute, fillet, whisk, flip, pour, arrange and serve food on the small screen. More than just a how-to or an amusement, cooking shows are also a unique social barometer. Their legacy corresponds to the transition from women at home to women at work, from eight-hour to 24/7 workdays, from cooking as domestic labor to enjoyable leisure, and from clearly defined to more fluid gender roles. While variety shows, Westerns, and live, scripted dramas have gone the way of rabbit ear antennae, cooking shows are still being watched, often on high definition plasma screens via Tivo. "Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows" illuminates how cooking shows have both reflected and shaped significant changes in American culture and will explore why it is that just about everybody still finds them irresistible.