Behavioral ecology and the transition to agriculture; edited by Douglas J. Kennett and Bruce Winterhalder. University of Calif. Press 2006 394p $60.00

ISBN 0-520-24647-0; LC 2005-11959

In this exploration of the origins of agriculture, contributors examine the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding utilizing such concepts as central place foraging, population ecology, and risk sensitivity.

Burstein, Janet Handler

Telling the little secrets; American Jewish writing since the1980s. The University of Wisconsin Press 2006 264p $45.00

ISBN 0-299-21240-8; LC 2005-5454

Cynthia Ozick, Art Spiegelman, Pearl Abraham, Jonathan Rosen, and Gerda Lerner are among the authors discussed in this study of the legacy of trauma and exile.

Challenging frontiers; the Canadian West; edited by Lorry Felske and Beverly Rasporich. University of Calgary Press 2004 375p pa $44.95

ISBN 1-55238-140-4

Essays explore past and present conceptions of the "West" covering such topics as ranching, immigration, art and architecture, globalization, and technology.

Challenging humanism; essays in honor of Dominic Baker-Smith; edited by Ton Hoenselaars and Arthur F. Kinney. University of Del. Press 2005 335p $60.00

ISBN 0-87413-920-1; LC 2005-9988

Contributors consider various aspects of the Renaissance humanist movement from 1480 to the present, covering such topics as epigrams, Christian humanism, practical education, and the morality and benefits of dancing.

Cohan, Steven

Incongruous entertainment; camp, cultural value, and the MGM musical. Duke Univ. Press 2005 368p $84.95, pa $23.95

ISBN 0-8223-3557-3; 0-8223-3595-6; LC 2005-6507

In this assessment of the MGM musical, the author investigates the studio’s largely gay workforce of artists and craftspeople and the role of such female stars as Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Debbie Reynolds, and Esther Williams.

Contemporary Spanish poetry; the word and the world; edited by Cecile West-Settle and Sylvia Sherno. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press 2005 258p $47.50

ISBN 0-8386-4040-0; LC 2004-21001

Ana Maria Moix, Ana Rosetti, Gloria Fuertes, Francisco Brines, and Jose Angel Valente are among the poets explored in this analysis of the Spanish lyric from the post-Civil War period to the present day.

Duggan, Anne E.

Salonnieres, furies, and fairies; the politics of gender and cultural change in absolutist France. University of Del. Press 2005 288p $30.00

ISBN 0-87413-897-3; LC 2004-65907

The author considers how two seventeenth-century writers, Madeleine de Scudery and Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy, used the novel, the chronicle, and the fairy tale to respond to such changes in their society as the rise of Louis XIV and the emergence of the Counter-Reformation.

Dworkin, Ronald

Justice in robes. Harvard Univ. Press 2006 308p $35.00

ISBN 0-674-02167-3; LC 2005-56114

Examining the work of such lawyers and philosophers as Isaiah Berlin, Antonin Scalia, Richard Posner, and Cass Sunstein, the author discusses how a judge’s moral convictions bear on his judgments about the law.

Edwards, Brian T.

Morocco bound; disorienting America’s Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech. Duke Univ. Press 2005 366p $84.95, pa $23.95

ISBN 0-8223-3609-X; 0-8223-3644-8; LC 2005-11389

The author discusses the role of the United States in American film and literary, historical, and anthropological accounts of the Maghreb region¾ Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and the Sahara.

Gitlin, Todd

The intellectuals and the flag. Columbia Univ. Press 2006 167p $24.95

ISBN 0-231-12492-9; LC 2005-49779

Addressing the fate of the left in the years following Vietnam, the author explores the work of three post-war intellectuals: David Riesman, C. Wright Mills, and Irving Howe.

Honeyman, Susan

Elusive childhood; impossible representations in modern fiction. The Ohio State Univ. Press 2005 184p $37.95

ISBN 0-8142-1004-X; LC 2005-6677

In this examination of the concept of childhood in Western discourse, the author studies representations of children in works by such writers as Henry James, Edith Wharton, and James Baldwin.

Kamir, Orit

Framed: women in law and film. Duke Univ. Press 2006 324p $84.95, pa $23.95

ISBN 0-8223-3636-7; 0-8223-3624-3; LC 2005-25675

Covering such crimes and concepts as murder, rape, provocation, insanity, and self-defense, the author offers readings of a dozen movies made between 1928 and 2001 in Europe, Japan, and the United States to show how various societies construct women, their social status, and their legal rights.

Krupnick, Mark

Jewish writing and the deep places of the imagination; edited by Jean K. Carney and Mark Shechner. The University of Wisconsin Press 2005 363p $26.95

ISBN 0-299-21440-0; LC 2005-8262

The author discusses how such writers with a similar social and intellectual history as Cynthia Ozick, Lionel Trilling, Geoffrey Hartman, Philip Roth, and Saul Bellow used writing to create different styles and personae.

Martone, Michael

Unconventions: attempting the art of craft and the craft of art; writings on writing. The University of Georgia Press 2005 192p $49.95, pa $19.95

ISBN 0-8203-2778-6; 0-8203-2779-4; LC 2005-17321

In this collection of articles, essays, interviews, and public addresses culled from his career as a writer and writing teacher, the author offers advice on camouflage techniques, how to "read" a WPA-era post office mural, and how a baby acquires language.

McLaughlin, Kevin

Paperwork: fiction and mass mediacy in the Paper Age. University of Pennsylvania Press 2005 181p (Critical authors & issues) $49.95

ISBN 0-8122-3888-5; LC 2005-42242

The author discusses the impact of the mass media on literature through various interpretations of paper in fiction by Dickens, Melville, Poe, Stevenson, and Hardy.

Mistakes of reason; essays in honour of John Woods; edited by Kent A. Peacock & Andrew D. Irvine. University of Toronto Press 2005 533p $85.00

ISBN 0-8020-3866-2

Contributors, evaluating Woods’ contributions to contemporary philosophy, offer perspectives in the areas of logic and language, reasoning, epistemology, abortion, and euthanasia.

New perspectives on Native North America; cultures, histories, and representations; edited and with an introduction by Sergei A. Kan and Pauline Turner Strong. University of Neb. Press 2006 514p $65.00, pa $35.00

ISBN 0-8032-2773-6; 0-8032-7830-6; LC 2005-25331

Spanning four centuries and focusing on such regions as the Subarctic, Northeast, Northwest Coast, Southwest, the Great Basin and Plains, essays explore such issues as culture and power; personhood and creativity; historical consciousness and ethnographic representation; and the politics of culture.

The prosthetic impulse; from a posthuman present to a biocultural future; edited by Marquard Smith and Joanne Morra. The MIT Press 2006 297p $34.95

ISBN 0-262-19530-5; LC 2005-41684

Contributors explore historical and conceptual connections between the human body and technology from such perspectives as philosophy, psychoanalysis, cybertheory, gender studies, and phenomenology.

Prostitutes and courtesans in the ancient world; edited by Christopher A. Faraone and Laura K. McClure. The University of Wisconsin Press 2006 360p (Wisconsin studies in classics) $65.00, pa $24.95

ISBN 0-299-21310-2; 0-299-21312-5; LC 2005-5455

Essays examine the political and social implications of sex-for-pay from ancient Mesopotamia to the early Christian period. Sources investigated include legal and religious tracts, lyric poetry, love elegy, comic drama, and graffiti found on the walls of ancient Pompeii.

Reichert, Jim

In the company of men; representations of male-male sexuality in Meiji literature. Stanford Univ. Press 2006 282p $60.00

ISBN 0-8047-5214-1; LC 2005-23284

The author, considering Japan’s quest to emulate Europe and America during the Meiji period (1868-1912) as it modernized, explores the heterosexualization of Japanese literature and culture.

Roman, David

Performance in America; contemporary U.S. culture and the performing arts. Duke Univ. Press 2005 353p $84.95, pa $23.95

ISBN 0-8223-3675-8; 0-8223-3663-4; LC 2005-12086

Analyzing performances between 1994 and 2004, the author assesses the role that the performing arts play in local, regional, and national communities. John Leguizamo, Chay Yew, Tony Kushner, Bill T. Jones, and Neil Greenberg are among the playwrights and performers covered.

Scott, Alison V.

Selfish gifts; the politics of exchange and and English courtly literature, 1580-1628. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press 2006 303p $55.00

ISBN0-8386-4082-6; LC 2005-11037

Discussing the importance of gift ethics, the author explores how honorable giving helped shape the language of late Elizabeth and early Stuart England. Shakespeare’s King Lear, Jonson’s epigrams and masques, Daniel’s Delia, and Donne’s Somerset Epithalamion are among the texts studied.

Simo, Melanie L.

Literature of place; dwelling on the land before Earth Day 1970. University of Va. Press 2005 271p $39.50

ISBN0-8139-2500-2; LC 2005-14980

Works by John Steinbeck, Henry James, Wallace Stegner, Willa Cather, Rachel Carson, Wendell Berry, and Robert Frost, among others, are considered in this study of the relationship of place to one’s daily life specifically before the emergence of space exploration, environmental protection, genetic engineering, and cyberspace.

Van Dover, J. K.

We must have certainty; four essays on the detective story. Susquehanna Univ. Press 2005 220p $46.50

ISBN 1-57591-091-8; LC 2004-28954

The author surveys the history and development of the detective novel from 1841 to the present. Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, and Raymond Chandler are among the writers studied.

Williamson, Alan

Westernness; a meditation. University of Va. Press 2006 182p (Under the sign of nature: explorations in ecocriticism) $29.50

ISBN 0-8139-2511-8; LC 2005-14981

Exploring works by such writers and poets as Cather, Lawrence, Steinbeck, Silko, and Snyder, as well as such artists as Georgia O’Keefe and Wayne Thiebaud, the author examines the fear and anxiety western artists have overcome when confronted with new landscapes.

Women writing women; the Frontiers reader; edited by Patricia Hart and Karen Weathermon, with Susan H. Armitage. University of Neb. Press 2006 277p pa $39.95

ISBN0-8032-7336-3; LC 2005-22109

Combining scholarly writing with personal life stories, essays cover such subjects as ethnicity, sexuality, motherhood, and feminist versus traditional values.