Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005 with devastating consequences. Almost all analyses of the disaster have been dedicated to the way the hurricane affected New Orleans. This volume examines the impact of Katrina on southern Mississippi. While communities along Mississippi's Gulf Coast shared the impact, their socioeconomic and demographic compositions varied widely, leading to different types and rates of recovery. This volume furthers our understanding of the pace of recovery and its geographic extent, and explores the role of inequalities in the recovery process and those antecedent conditions that could give rise to a 'recovery divide'. It will be especially appealing to researchers and advanced students of natural disasters and policy makers dealing with disaster consequences and recovery.

Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005 with devastating consequences. Almost all analyses of the disaster have been dedicated to the way the hurricane affected New Orleans. This volume examines the impact of Katrina on southern Mississippi. While communities along Mississippi's Gulf Coast shared the impact, their socioeconomic and demographic compositions varied widely, leading to different types and rates of recovery. This volume furthers our understanding of the pace of recovery and its geographic extent, and explores the role of inequalities in the recovery process and those antecedent conditions that could give rise to a 'recovery divide'. It will be especially appealing to researchers and advanced students of natural disasters and policy makers dealing with disaster consequences and recovery.

Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework, Second Edition, is the only text that develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of intersectionality. Weber argues that these social systems are historically and geographically contextual power relationships that are simultaneously expressed and experienced at both the macro level of social institutions and the micro level of individual lives and small groups. This is also the only text that teaches students how to apply the theory to their own analyses.
Originally published in its first edition as two separate books, the second edition integrates the main text and the case studies into one volume. As in the previous edition, Weber uses education as an extended example to show students how to conduct a race, class, gender, and sexuality analysis. With completely updated data, this edition adds important new research in sexuality, globalization, and education. It also features new case studies, including one on Hurricane Katrina and another on the 2008 Presidential election.
Understanding Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality: A Conceptual Framework, Second Edition, can be used in a variety of courses: in social inequality, communication, women's and gender studies, ethnic studies, American studies, sociology, political science, human services, and public health.

The great narratives of religion and nationhood were battered in the twentieth century by the dual forces of globalization and postmodernism. In the uncertainty of broken traditions, many people looking for God retreated into a regressive fundamentalism, and others abandoned themselves to nihilism and cynicism. But is there another way? In this volume, esteemed sociologist and therapist Mark W. Teismann offers a fresh approach to spiritual pursuits, one that neither relies upon absolutes nor leaves seekers in a void of disbelief. This approach is to consider the exercise of spirituality as a type of play. Teismann takes the reader on a whirlwind ride through the different aspects of play and how they relate to spirituality. Teismann draws on classical philosophers, memories of childhood, developmental science, poets, and his long career as a psychotherapist to create a deep understanding of how the spirit of play informs our moral pursuits and spiritual yearnings. A conclusion and epilogue summarize the book's tenets and touch on Mark Teismann's battle with cancer and how the practices of meditation and play accompanied him on his spiritual journey in the context of an incurable disease. The book's appendix gives interested readers a detailed description of how to approach the practice of meditation.