Hurricane Sandy and the Climate Change Debate

This was the scene just down the street from the Berghahn offices in DUMBO the night of Hurricane Sandy – our office is just outside the frame of this particular photo:


(Photo: AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Over 3 million gallons of water have been pumped from the basement of our office building since then, and we are glad to report that everyone on staff made it through safe and sound (albeit without heat this week but we’re bundled up and hanging in there).

Though recovery has been fairly swift in our area, the images of the “Frankenstorm” and its aftermath have brought the issues of climate change and sustainability to the forefront of political discourse in the United States. Bloomberg Businessweek took the blunt approach:


(Photo: Bloomberg Businessweek)

At Berghahn Journals, we’re proud to publish a selection of journals that take a more scholarly approach to environmental issues.

In the next few weeks, we will be posting the online version of Environment and Society Volume 3, which focuses on Capitalism and the Environment. Preview the Table of Contents on the journal’s main page, here.

Next Spring, we are excited to be publishing Nature + Culture’s Special Symposium on “Nature, Science, and Politics, or: Policy Assessment to Promote Sustainable Development?”, the Table of Contents for which is posted on the journal’s main page, here.

 

In our most recent issue of Nature + Culture, several articles focus on approaches to sustainability:

Sustainability in the Water Sector: Enabling Lasting Change through Leadership and Cultural Transformation by Wendy Lynne Lee

The Environmental Impacts of Militarization in Comparative Perspective: An Overlooked Relationship by Andrew K. Jorgenson, Brett Clark, Jennifer E. Givens

Review Essay: Just Plain Disappointment: Why Contemporary Thinking About Environmental Sustainability Needs To Be More Courageous by Wendy Lynne Lee

 

Moving forward, we hope that the work of scholars such as those published in our journals will continue to contribute to the discourse on climate change.

 

Hot Off the Presses: New Journal Releases from Berghahn

New journal releases from Berghahn:

Asia Pacific World
Volume 3, Number 2, Autumn 2012
Including a special feature article on Creating a Poverty-Free World, as well as articles on issues in Japan, Myanmar, Guam, and Indonesia.

Critical Survey
Volume 24, Number 2, Summer 2012
Focusing on Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, the essays in this special issue consider the various manifestations of the physical and metaphorical town on the Avon, across time, genre and place, from America to New Zealand, from children’s literature to wartime commemorations.

Historical Reflections/Reflexions Historiques
Volume 38, Number 3, Winter 2012
Featuring a special section entitled “(Re)presenting Women, the Female, and the Feminine,” with articles that investigate the ways in which women are embodied by, or embody in themselves, the social, cultural, or political ethos of a particular era or region.

International Journal of Social Quality
Volume 2, Number 1, Summer 2012
In this issue, the authors apply the social quality theory to topics including sustainability, social innovation, and urban development.

Israel Studies Review
Volume 27, Number 2, Winter 2012
Guest edited by Gad Barzilai, this special issue of ISR focuses on “Law, Politics, Justice, and Society: Israel in a Comparative Context,” with articles that reveal, explain, and conceptualize these processes that have characterized Israeli politics, law, and society

Projections
Volume 6, Number 2, Winter 2012
Focusing on the psychological, social, and physiological constituents of meaning and emotion in cinema, the essays and book reviews illuminate the multiple dimensions that connect movies and mind.

Hot Off the Presses: New Journal Releases from Berghahn

New journal releases from Berghahn:

Anthropology in Action
Volume 19, Number 2, Summer 2012
Articles on the post-industrial urban neighbourhoods of the U.S.A., the U.K. and Europe, the visual-anthropological method of participatory video in Northeastern Brazil, and improving obstetric care in Burkina Faso. Also including an open letter to World Bank President Kim.

Contributions to the History of Concepts
Volume 7, Number 1, Summer 2012
This issue includes articles on national histories, democracy in the Swedish Parliamentary Debates during the Interwar Years, conceptual history in Korean, the concept of Unnati (Progress) in Hindi, and the concept of nation in East-Central Europe.

Focaal
Volume 2012, Number 63, Summer 2012
This issue focuses on changing flows in anthropological knowledge, with articles about Western anthropologists and Eastern ethnologists, cosmopolitan anthropology, inequality, labor, citizenship, and more.

French Politics, Culture & Society
Volume 30, Number 2, Summer 2012
Special issue on The Rescue of Jews in France and its Empire during World War II: History and Memory, featuring articles on the French resistance and figures who played key roles in aiding the Jews in France during WWII.

Regions & Cohesion
Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2012
Focuses on themes of water management in North America, social cohesion and migration, and cohesion and governance.

Sibirica
Volume 11, Number 2, Summer 2012
Featuring two extensive articles on cattle economy and environmental perception of sedentary Sakhas in Central Yakuti, and genre differentiation in spontaneous Koriak storytelling.

Theoria
Volume 59, Number 132, September 2012
Part two of a special issue on Freedom and Power. Articles examine the concepts of freedom and power, the dimensions of freedom in Plato’s Laws, and delves into Plato’s analogy between the structure of the soul and the polis.

Transfers
Volume 2, Number 2, Summer 2012
Featuring a Special Section on Global Cycling examining the local meaning of bicycling in West Africa, Finland, Japan, and China. Articles also include reviews of the Gambiocycle, The National Carriage Gallery at the Cobb + Co Museum, and the movie Drive.

Hot Off the Presses- New Journal Releases from Berghahn

New journal releases from Berghahn:
Anthropology of Middle East, Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 2012
This issue focuses on the ethnography of contemporary Afghanistan, with articles village life, war, reconstruction, and more.

Journeys: The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing, Volume 13, Issue 1, Summer 2012
Articles on an English pilgrimage site, Peter Carey’s writings on Tokyo and Sydney, hotel culture in Victorian England and Ireland, and a reconsideration of the tourist/traveler distinction with regard to 18th century Europe.

Social AnalysisVolume 56, Issue 1, Spring 2012
A special issue on “Cosmologies of Fortune: Luck, Vitality, and Uncontrolled Relatedness.” Articles examines “fortune” as it is present in a wide array of cultures spanning the globe, including the Amazon, Siberia, Mongolia, Malaysia, Japan, and others.

Happy Bastille Day- A Brief History of the Holiday and French Revolution Resources from Berghahn

Most national days celebrate about what you would expect a national day to celebrate. Some, like the national days of the United States, Albania, and Haiti mark the signing of a declaration of independence from a colonial power. Other countries, like much of Africa, choose to remember the day the colonial power actually left. Countries like Germany and Italy celebrate unification. Others are a little quirkier, like Austria which celebrates its declaration of neutrality and Luxembourg which honors the Grand Duke’s birthday. A handful of countries such as the United Kingdom and Denmark have no national holiday. But few countries can top France for the sheer coolness of their national day which commemorates the day an angry mob stormed a prison. Continue reading “Happy Bastille Day- A Brief History of the Holiday and French Revolution Resources from Berghahn”

New to Berghahn Journals- European Comic Art

The release of the July 2012 issue of European Comic Art has been a big deal around our offices because it marks the journal’s relaunch as a Berghahn title. Published in partnership with the American Bande Dessinée Society and the International Bande Dessinée Society, it is the first English-language journal devoted to European graphic novels and comic strips.  Continue reading “New to Berghahn Journals- European Comic Art”

Gender, Sports, and Culture: The Victorians and Us

Graduate school ruins your ability to view anything related to your topic of study with an unacademic eye. This is fine if your topic doesn’t come up every day like, say, Byzantine art, but when you choose something that crops up often, like the influence of American music on Continental youth culture in the 1950s, it means you’ll be mentally revising your thesis every time you hear “Johnny B. Goode.” I’m reminded of this phenomenon every Olympiad because I wrote my master’s thesis on sports in Nazi Germany, using the party’s sports policy up until the 1936 Berlin Olympics as a window into their ideas about race and its intersection with political priorities before the war. The fast-approaching 2012 Olympics already have me mentally revising my thesis (something I’m sure I’ll be doing on my death bed), but the most recent issue of our journal Critical Survey has me wondering if I didn’t miss an altogether more interesting topic- sports and gender. Continue reading “Gender, Sports, and Culture: The Victorians and Us”

Girls and Dolls: A Note on Images from the Latest Issue of Girlhood Studies

One of Mandrona's dolls, made when she was 8.

Most of my work deals with text, so it was a bit of a treat when I opened up the files for the latest Girlhood Studies and found them chock full of images of dolls. This journal covers many themes related to the challenges and dangers facing girls all over the world – it’s always such a pleasure to work on but I was particularly excited to see an issue that also speaks to the creative and serious play of girlhood. Dolls, needless to say, are cultural artefacts and reflect the society that makes them as well as the girls who play with them: an American Girl doll capturing an immigrant Jewish girlhood essentially whitewashed of tenements and the memory of pogroms; nineteenth-century paper dolls embodying both moral tales and fashion plates; Barbie and her Dream House reflecting the dimensions of modern architecture. All three of these examples are mediated by commercial culture and present tensions between cultural constructs and individual play. Continue reading “Girls and Dolls: A Note on Images from the Latest Issue of Girlhood Studies”