Tag: sociology

Life Beyond Earth? Survey Says…

In 2005, a survey of 1,000 U.S. men and women of various backgrounds revealed that 6 in 10 Americans believe in the possibility of extraterrestrial life. If this slice of the public is correct, what does it mean for our world? That is one of the questions editors Douglas A. Vakoch and Albert A. Harrison attempt to answer through the collection Civilizations Beyond Earth: Extraterrestrial Life and Society, which was released in paperback August 2013. Below, volume contributor George Pettinico begs the question of the American reaction: How will the U.S. react if we discover life outside of our blue planet?

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Imagine the day, if and when it should come, that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) confirms there is indeed intelligent life on other planets.

 

Continue reading “Life Beyond Earth? Survey Says…” →

Hot Off the Presses – New Book Releases

Newly released titles from Berghahn’s anthropology and sociology lists:

Post-Cosmopolitan Cities: Explorations of Urban Coexistence, edited by Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja

Problems of Conception: Issues of Law, Biotechnology, Individuals and Kinship, Marit Melhuus

Patients and Agents: Mental Illness, Modernity and Islam in Sylhet, Bangladesh, Alyson Callan

Islam and Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Sunni and Shia Perspectives, edited by Marcia C. Inhorn and Soraya Tremayne

A Durkheimian Quest: Solidarity and the Sacred, William Watts Miller

Animism in Rainforest and Tundra: Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia, edited by Marc Brightman, Vanessa Elisa Grotti, and Olga Ulturgasheva

Who Owns the Stock? Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals, edited by Anatoly M. Khazanov and Günther Schlee

Environment and Citizenship in Latin America: Natures, Subjects and
Struggles, edited by Alex Latta and Hannah Wittman

From Idea to Book- The Cult and Science of Public Health

From Idea to Book is an occasional series in which Berghahn authors discuss the origins of their work. Here, Kevin Dew describes how a discussion with a student about Durkheim planted the seed that would eventually become The Cult and Science of Public Health: A Sociological Investigation, which was published by Berghahn this spring.

The impetus to write my book developed over a long period of time, but there were occasions that particularly focused my thinking. A pivotal moment was a discussion I had with a PhD student when I was a lecturer in a Department of Public Health at a medical school. She was using the work of Emile Durkheim to consider the role of neighbourhoods in relation to health. We were throwing around ideas about what sort of social factors foster solidarity or cohesion at a neighbourhood level, and we mentioned religion but moved on quickly as religion does not generally operate at a neighbourhood level. It was then that I had an ‘aha’ moment. Continue reading “From Idea to Book- The Cult and Science of Public Health” →