UDM Libraries Book of the Week

by Paula Ioanide

With stop-and-frisk laws, new immigration policies, and cuts to social welfare programs, majorities in the United States have increasingly supported intensified forms of punishment and marginalization against Black, Latino, Arab and Muslim people in the United States, even as a majority of citizens claim to support “colorblindness” and racial equality. With this book, Paula Ioanide examines how emotion has prominently figured into these contemporary expressions of racial discrimination and violence. How U.S. publics dominantly feel about crime, terrorism, welfare, and immigration often seems to trump whatever facts and evidence say about these politicized matters.

Though four case studies—the police brutality case of Abner Louima; the exposure of torture at Abu Ghraib; the demolition of New Orleans public housing units following Hurricane Katrina; and a proposed municipal ordinance to deny housing to undocumented immigrants in Escondido, CA—Ioanide shows how racial fears are perpetuated, and how these widespread fears have played a central role in justifying the expansion of our military and prison system and the ongoing divestment from social welfare. But Ioanide also argues that within each of these cases there is opportunity for new mobilizations, for ethical witnessing: we must also popularize desires for justice and increase people’s receptivity to the testimonies of the oppressed by reorganizing embodied and unconscious structures of feeling.

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by Michelle Cini and Nieves Pérez-Solórzano Borragán

European Union Politics, Fifth Edition, is the most complete, current, and authoritative overview of EU politics available. Bringing together carefully edited contributions from leading scholars in the field, it assumes no background knowledge and is therefore accessible to students new to the subject.

Alongside comprehensive coverage of the history, theory, institutions, and policies of the EU, European Union Politics, Fifth Edition, features a section on contemporary issues and current debates, including democracy and legitimacy in the EU, public opinion, the economic crisis, and a brand-new chapter on the future of the EU.

The text is enhanced by excellent learning features including reader’s guides, text boxes, key points, figures, questions, further reading, web links, and a glossary. An extensive Companion Website (coming soon) will offer resources for students–multiple-choice questions, a digital flashcard glossary, an exam study guide, an interactive map of Europe, biographies of important figures in EU history, and links to OUP journal articles–and instructors–PowerPoint-based lecture slides; seminar and quiz questions; and examples of simulation exercises.

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Carl Spetzler, Hannah Winter, Jennifer Meyer

Michelangelo Signorile

Marriage equality has surged across the country. Closet doors have burst open in business, entertainment, and even major league sports. But as longtime advocate Michelangelo Signorile argues in his most provocative book yet, the excitement of such breathless change makes this moment more dangerous than ever. Puncturing the illusion that victory is now inevitable, Signorile marshals stinging evidence that an age-old hatred, homophobia, is still a basic fact of American life. He exposes the bigotry of the brewing religious conservative backlash against LGBT rights and challenges the complacency and hypocrisy of supposed allies in Washington, the media, and Hollywood.

Not just a wake-up call, It’s Not Over is also a battle plan for the fights to come in the march toward equality. Signorile tells the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who have refused to be merely tolerated, or worse, and are demanding full acceptance. And he documents signs of hope in schools and communities finding new ways to combat ignorance, bullying, and fear. Urgent and empowering, It’s Not Over is a necessary book from one of our most electrifying voices.

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