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Today’s technology affords the ability to tease, harass, and threaten an unlimited number of people with unprecedented speed and anonymity – and the results can be devastating for anyone on the receiving end. The increasingly epidemic issue of cyber-bullying has inspired a rash of teenage (and younger) tragedies nation-wide. This morning, the front page of the New York Times tackled one of the root problems head-on: a lack of consistent and comprehensive legislation. In "Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray," Jan Hoffman writes: Schools these days are confronted with complex questions on whether and how to deal with cyberbullying, an imprecise label for online activities ranging from barrages of teasing texts to sexually harassing group sites. . . . Affronted by cyberspace’s escalation of adolescent viciousness, many parents are looking to schools for justice, protection, even revenge. But many educators feel unprepared or unwilling to be prosecutors and judges. So how should schools handle cyber-bullying? All finger pointing and blame-placing aside, where do the confines of their legal jurisdiction (and moral duty) begin and end? In Confronting Cyber-Bullying: What Schools Need to Know to Control Misconduct and Avoid Legal Consequences, Dr. Shaheen Shariff evaluates the current policy vacuum regarding the extent of educators’ legal responsibilities to intervene when incidences take place outside of school hours and off school grounds – ultimately showing how zero-tolerance policies presently in place are ineffective. Originally published in 2009, little progress has been made on the passage of proper regulatory legislation. Here’s a teaser from this invaluable guide to navigating the new frontier of abusive cyber-use…
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Kevin McNamara, editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles, will be speaking tonight at Skylight Books in L.A. (or Hell-Lay as LA Weekly's Michael Simmons calls it). He'll be joined by contributors William Alexander McClung, Mark Shiel, Bill Mohr, Scott Bryson, and Eric Avila to celebrate the book's launch. Full details and presenter bios available here. Below, McNamara talks landmarks, the symbolism of Los Angeles and stories of the Southland... a sprawling region made of words and designed by myth, constantly recreated by the literature that defines it. ----- Introduction: Landmarks Kevin R. McNamara[i] A good deal about California does not, on its own preferred terms, add up. Joan Didion, Where I Was From (2003) Defining the geographic extent of Los Angeles is the first challenge for anyone who would study its literature. Concentration defines New York, where even Brooklynites refer to Manhattan as “the city.” LA is defined by sprawl. Much of iconic LA, from the beaches of Baywatch to the streets of Beverly Hills, 90210, lies beyond the city limits. The larger Los Angeles County still fails to encompass Disneyland, Fontana (Mike Davis’s “Junkyard of Dreams”), and Huntington Beach, whose pier is “one of the constituent monuments of the surfing life.” [ii] As a literary subject, however, Los Angeles is less a city, county, or “metropolitan statistical area” than a state of being (of grace, fear, emergency, or exception, depending on whom one reads) anchored in the area south of the Tehachapi Mountains, north of San Diego, west of the desert, and squarely in the collective imagination of utopia, dystopia, and, more recently, the urban future. A tour of some of mythic LA’s landmark features will introduce our subject.
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Los Angeles, CA: Thursday, June 24 (7:30 p.m.): Kevin McNamara, editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of Los Angeles, will be speaking at Skylight Books with phenomenal fellow contributors William Alexander McClung, Mark Shiel, Bill Mohr, Scott Bryson, and Eric Avila to celebrate the launch of the book and the tantalizing hold that […]
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In Saturday’s New York Times, Justin Gillis spoke with several scholars – including Cambridge authors Don Worster (co-editor of our Environmental History series) and Ted Steinberg – on the subject of where the Gulf Oil Spill places on a hierarchy of environmental disasters. Could it really be the worst yet? The consensus seems to be that there is no definitive answer. The depth of our assessment appears to correlate more to a disaster's impact on the lives and livelihood of those affected, and less to the environmental ramifications of the event. Read more over at the NYT for a fascinating take on the “shades and complexities” of natural and man-made environmental disasters. While on the subject, here’s an excerpt from Myrna Santiago’s award-winning The Ecology of Oil: Environment, Labor, and the Mexican Revolution, 1900–1938 - discussing the disastrous social and environmental consequences of oil extraction. This detailed case study finds unique overlaps between labor and environmental concerns, taking a snapshot of history through the lens of the 1938 expropriation debate in Mexico. Santiago argues that oil production generated major historical and environmental transformations in systems of land use which, in turn, revolutionized the social organization of the country.
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By Rebecca Yeager, Publicity Intern Extraordinaire The twenty interns for the Cambridge University Press Summer 2010 Internship Program began our first week with an orientation meeting with Benjamin Jeremiah, the Employment Manager. He gave us an overview of Cambridge University Press, such as the structure of the publisher, and an ample amount of information about fire safety. When it came time to filling out forms for contact information, I belatedly realized I should have packed a pen when I was nervously crammed nearly everything else – from tictacs to chapstick – into my bag, and two of my neighbors immediately offered me their pens.
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Happy Bloomsday 2010! For the uninitiated, Bloomsday is a celebration of James Joyce’s magnum opus Ulysses, a novel in which the events all take place over the course of one day: June 16th. From Dublin to New York, Genoa to Brazil, Bloomsday is commemorated as the world over pays tribute through performances of Ulysses, visits to prominent places in the novel (if you’re lucky enough to be in Dublin!), and performances of Irish music. There’s even a Twitter adaptation of Ulysses, and a "Which Ulysses Character Are You?" Quiz. Bloomsday is also a celebration of James Joyce's own life and literary achievements - a reflection of how heavily the book was informed by Joyce's personal experience. In Saturday’s Irish Times, Dictionary of Irish Biography contributor Bridget Hourican charts a who’s who of characters from Dublin’s most famous novel – full analysis can be found here. But what about James Joyce? Who was he and where does the saga of Ulysses fit in his life story?
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The fourth President of the United States, James Madison is known for being the “Father of the Constitution,” author of over a third of the Federalist Papers, and a true believer in the idea and ideal of self-government. On Friday night, author Colleen Sheehan was on The Glenn Beck Show - featured as part of Founders' Friday and focused on James Madison and the Spirit of Republican Self-Government. In a spirited defense of popular government, Sheehan weighed in on the relevance of Madison’s political philosophy for today’s politics – and the importance of reacquainting ourselves with the Constitution.
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This week, Democratic and Republican women won some major primary elections here in the States. [Insert ‘go team’ comment here - without sounding flippant or bringing back the feminist movement a few decades.] Since then, their victories have been dissected and trisected and analyzed according to weight, hair style, family background… oh, and stance on the issues. So while we commend the successes of women in politics, and the pursuit of more equal gender representation, author Jennifer Lawless wants us to pause, reflect, and look at the stats. It’s not that huge a milestone. Here’s her take on how women are still severely under-represented, and what political parties need to do to rectify the gender disparity. -------- Via CNN: No new dawn for women in politics
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