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Social science

  • Author:
    Andersen, Chris
    Summary:

    Ask any Canadian what “Métis” means, and they will likely say “mixed race.” Canadians consider Métis mixed in ways that other Indigenous people are not, and the census and courts have premised their recognition of Métis status on this race-based understanding. Andersen argues that Canada got it wrong. From its roots deep in the colonial past, the idea of Métis as mixed has slowly pervaded the Canadian consciousness until it settled in the realm of common sense. In the process, “Métis” has become a racial category rather than the identity of an Indigenous people with a shared sense of history and culture.

  • Author:
    Clarke, Austin
    Summary:

    2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature — Longlisted 2016 RBC Taylor Prize — Longlisted The unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize–winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called “Canada’s first multicultural writer.” Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In ’Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the ’60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers. Clarke has been called Canada’s first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he ’members them.

  • Author:
    Myers, Tamara Gene
    Summary:

    Starting in the 1930s, urban police forces from New York City to Montreal to Vancouver established youth squads and crime prevention programs, dramatically changing the nature of contact between cops and kids. Gone was the beat officer who scared children and threatened youth. Instead, a new breed of officer emerged whose intentions were explicit: befriend the rising generation. Good intentions, however, produced paradoxical results. In Youth Squad Tamara Gene Myers chronicles the development of youth consciousness among North American police departments. Myers shows that a new comprehensive strategy for crime prevention was predicated on the idea that criminals are not born but made by their cultural environments. Pinpointing the origin of this paradigmatic shift to a period of optimism about the ability of police to protect children, she explains how, by the middle of the twentieth century, police forces had intensified their presence in children's lives through juvenile curfew laws, police athletic leagues, traffic safety and anti-corruption campaigns, and school programs. The book describes the ways that seemingly altruistic efforts to integrate working-class youth into society evolved into pervasive supervision and surveillance, normalizing the police presence in children's lives. At the intersection of juvenile justice, policing, and childhood history, Youth Squad reveals how the overpolicing of young people today is rooted in well-meaning but misguided schemes of the mid-twentieth century.

  • Author:
    Scholtens, Martina, MD
    Summary:

    Your Heart Is the Size of Your Fist draws readers into the complicated, poignant, and often-overlooked daily happenings of a busy urban medical clinic for refugees. An Iraqi journalist whose son has been been murdered develops post-traumatic stress disorder and mourns his loss of vocation. A Congolese woman refuses antiretroviral treatment for her new HIV diagnosis, and instead places her trust in Jesus. Two conservative Muslim Iraqi women are inadvertently exposed to pornography when a doctor uses Google Images to supplement a medical discussion. By turns humorous, distressing, and moving, these stories offer insight into the people seeking a new life while navigating poverty, language barriers, and neighbours who aren't always friendly. This riveting collection of true stories from Dr. Martina Scholtens is filled with hope and humour, and together make up a deeply moving portrait of how one doctor attempts to provide quality care and advocacy for patients while remaining culturally sensitive, even as she wrestles with guilt, awareness of her own privilege, the faith she was raised with, and vicarious trauma after hearing countless stories of brutality and suffering. In the spirit of Louise Aronson and Atul Gawande, Scholtens' writing is based on her personal experiences and explores the transformative moments in which a clinical doctor-patient relationship becomes a profound human-human connection.

  • Author:
    Gossard, Julia M.
    Summary:

    Across the metropole, the colonies, and the wider eighteenth-century world, French children and youth participated in a diverse set of state-building initiatives, social reform programs, and imperial expansion efforts. Young Subjectsexplores the lives and experiences of these youth, revealing their role as active and vital agents in the shaping of early modern France. Through a set of regional case studies, Julia Gossard demonstrates how thousands of children and youth were engaged in the service of the state. In Lyon, charity schools cultivated children as agents of moral and social reform who carried their lessons home to their families. In Paris, orphaned and imprisoned youth trained in skilled trades or prepared for military service, while others were sent to the French colonies in North America as filles du roiand sturdy labourers. Young people from merchant families were recruited to serve as cultural brokers and translators on behalf of French commerical interests in the Ottoman Empire and Siam. In each case, Gossard considers how these youth played, negotiated, and sometimes resisted their roles, and what expressions of individual identity and agency were available to subjects under the legal control of others. As sources of labour, future taxpayers, colonial subjects, cultural mediators, and potential criminals, children and youth were objects of intense interest for civic authorities. Young Subjects refocuses our attention on these often overlooked historical subjects who helped to build France.

  • Author:
    Liu, Eric
    Summary:

    Liu lays out the elements and the strategies of citizen power, showing when to create a hashtag, when to call your Congressman, and when to take to the streets. (When you go, don't forget your camera.) Above all, Liu reminds us that someone always has power, which means if you're not participating, you're surrendering.

  • Author:
    Ruffin, Amber
    Summary:

    Amber Ruffin and her sister Lacey Lamar share absurd anecdotes about everyday experiences of racism with humor and heart.

  • Author:
    Chocano, Carina
    Summary:

    In this smart, funny, impassioned call to arms, a pop culture critic merges memoir and commentary to explore how our culture shapes ideas about who women are, what they are meant to be, and where they belong. Who is "the girl"' Look to movies, TV shows, magazines, and ads and the message is both clear and not: she is a sexed up sidekick, a princess waiting to be saved, a morally infallible angel with no opinions of her own. She's whatever the hero needs her to be in order to become himself. She's an abstraction, an ideal, a standard, a mercurial phantom. From the moment we're born, we're told stories about what girls are and they aren't, what girls want and what they don't, what girls can be and what they can't. "The girl" looms over us like a toxic cloud, permeating everything and confusing our sense of reality. In You Play the Girl, Carina Chocano shows how we metabolize the subtle, fragmented messages embedded in our everyday experience and how our identity is shaped by them. From Bugs Bunny to Playboy Bunnies, from Flashdance to Frozen, from the progressive '70s through the backlash '80s, the glib '90s, and the pornified aughts-and at stops in between-Chocano blends formative personal stories with insightful and emotionally powerful analysis. She explains how growing up in the shadow of "the girl" taught her to think about herself and the world and what it means to raise a daughter in the face of these contorted reflections. In the tradition of Roxane Gay, Rebecca Solnit, and Susan Sontag, Chocano brilliantly shows that our identities are more fluid than we think, and certainly more complex than anything we see on any kind of screen.

  • Author:
    Burke, Tarana
    Summary:

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER -Tarana Burke and Dr. Brené Brown bring together a dynamic group of Black writers, organizers, artists, academics, and cultural figures to discuss the topics the two have dedicated their lives to understanding and teaching: vulnerability and shame resilience. Contributions by Kiese Laymon, Imani Perry, Laverne Cox, Jason Reynolds, Austin Channing Brown, and more It started as a text between two friends. Tarana Burke, founder of the 'me too.' Movement, texted researcher and writer Brené Brown to see if she was free to jump on a call. Brené assumed that Tarana wanted to talk about wallpaper. They had been trading home decorating inspiration boards in their last text conversation so Brené started scrolling to find her latest Pinterest pictures when the phone rang. But it was immediately clear to Brené that the conversation wasn't going to be about wallpaper. Tarana's hello was serious and she hesitated for a bit before saying, "Brené, you know your work affected me so deeply, but as a Black woman, I've sometimes had to feel like I have to contort myself to fit into some of your words. The core of it rings so true for me, but the application has been harder." Brené replied, "I'm so glad we're talking about this. It makes sense to me. Especially in terms of vulnerability. How do you take the armor off in a country where you're not physically or emotionally safe?" Long pause. "That's why I'm calling," said Tarana. "What do you think about working together on a book about the Black experience with vulnerability and shame resilience?" There was no hesitation. Burke and Brown are the perfect pair to usher in this stark, potent collection of essays on Black shame and healing. Along with the anthology contributors, they create a space to recognize and process the trauma of white supremacy, a space to be vulnerable and affirm the fullness of Black love and Black life.

  • Author:
    Stroud, Christina
    Summary:

    Christina has combined leading-edge technology with age-old wisdom and a dose of common sense. Within minutes of starting to read this book you will be engaged by the true life stories of those that fall prey to the dirty drug, methamphetamine, and their own stories of how they recovered. Whether as a user, family, friend, partner, or child of someone using, this book offers tools and strategies to make things better. You Are More Than This Will Ever Be challenges old and still current thinking, debunks myths and makes no excuses for users of methamphetamine. Based on her experiences working with users from all walks of life, Christina has a hard-hitting yet empathetic style that will feel as if she is in the room with you, offering support and help.

  • Author:
    Fang, Fang
    Summary:

    On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang's nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow citizens, reflecting on the psychological impact of forced isolation, the role of the internet as both community lifeline and source of misinformation, and most tragically, the lives of neighbors and friends taken by the deadly virus.

  • Author:
    Landsberg, Michele
    Summary:

    A collection of journalist Michele Landsberg's Toronto Star columns, where she was a regular columnist for more than twenty-five years between 1978 and 2005. Michele has chosen her favourite and most relevant columns, using them as a lens to reflect on the the second wave of feminism and the issues facing women then and now. An icon of the feminist movement and a hero to many, through her writing and activism Michele played an important role in fighting for the rights of women, children, and the disenfranchised. Her insights are as powerful for the generation of women who experienced the second wave as for the rising tide of young feminists taking action today.

  • Author:
    King, Steven
    Summary:

    From the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century, the English Old Poor Law was waning, soon to be replaced by the New Poor Law and its dreaded workhouses. In Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s Steven King reveals colourful stories of poor people, their advocates, and the officials with whom they engaged during this period in British history, distilled from the largest collection of parochial correspondence ever assembled. Investigating the way that people experienced and shaped the English and Welsh welfare system through the use of almost 26,000 pauper letters and the correspondence of overseers in forty-eight counties, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s reconstructs the process by which the poor claimed, extended, or defended their parochial allowances. Challenging preconceptions about literacy, power, social structure, and the agency of ordinary people, these stories suggest that advocates, officials, and the poor shared a common linguistic register and an understanding of how far welfare decisions could be contested and negotiated. King shifts attention away from traditional approaches to construct an unprecedented, comprehensive portrait of poor law administration and popular writing at the turn of the nineteenth century. At a time when the western European welfare model is under sustained threat, Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s-1830s takes us back to its deepest roots to demonstrate that the signature of a strong welfare system is malleability.

  • Author:
    Cawthorne, Jane, Morin, E. D.
    Summary:

    The Writing Menopause literary anthology is a diverse and robust collection about menopause: a highly charged and often undervalued transformation. It includes over fifty works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, interviews and cross-genre pieces from contributors across Canada and the United States that break new ground in portraying menopause in literature. The collection includes literary work from award-winning writers such as Roberta Rees, Margaret Macpherson, Lisa Couturier and Rona Altrows. Emerging voices such as Rea Tarvydas, Leanna McLennan, Steve Passey and Gemma Meharchand, and an original interview with trans educator and pioneering filmmaker Buck Angel, are also featured. This anthology fills a sizable gap, finding the ground between punchline and pathology, between saccharine inspiration and existential gloom. The authors neither celebrate nor demonize menopause. These are diverse depictions, sometimes lighthearted, but just as often dark and scary. Some voices embrace the prospect of change, others dread it.Together, this unique offering reflects the varied experience of menopause and shatters common stereotypes.

  • Author:
    Mudry, Andrea
    Summary:

    "For me, getting older physically seems to be epitomized in the feeling that I look like my mother. She's really attractive ... It's just that I can see that she's older, and I'm not supposed to be." - Charlotte Wilson Hammond "My view of the world is slowly becoming more integrated. Sometimes I feel as if I've walked to the top of a mountain, and can look down and see all around." - Lesia Gregorovitch "Some women have told me that they're too old at fifty. And I wondered to myself why - at fifty - would anyone think herself too old?" - Linda Silver Dranoff "Now I look upon everything I do ... and say, 'Is this how I'm going to be using the energy that I have, or am I going to use it in a different way?" - Roberta Bondar "The most important thing is not to be afraid." - Kim Campbell

  • Author:
    Summary:

    "In this pathbreaking collection of articles, Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall has taken us from the early 1830s to contemporary times. Only since the seventies have black women used the term "feminism." And yet, it is that concept that she uses to bring into the same frame the ideas and analyses of Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, and Frances W.E. Harper of the early nineteenth century, and the work of women such as the late Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, and bell hooks who stand on the threshold of the twenty-first century... She has refused to cut off contemporary African American women from the long line of sisters who have righteously struggled for the liberation of African American women from the dual oppressions of racism and sexism."-From the epilogue by Johnnetta B. Cole, President, Spelman College "The indefatigable Beverly Guy-Sheftall has put together a breathtaking sweep of African American feminist thought in one indispensable volume."-Elizabeth Spelman, Professor of Philosophy, Smith College

  • Author:
    Summary:

    Greater participation by women in peace negotiations, policy-making, and legal decision-making would have a lasting impact on conflict resolution, development, and the maintenance of peace in post-conflict zones. Women, Peace, and Securitylays the groundwork for this enhanced participation, drawing from insightful research by women scholars and applying a feminist lens to contemporary security issues.This timely collection of essays promotes the adoption of a feminist framework for international security issues and presents the voices of some of the most inspiring thinkers in feminist international relations in Canada. Women, Peace, and Securityprovides insightful recommendations to researchers conducting fieldwork, as well as methodological insights on how to develop feminist research design in international relations and how to adopt feminist ethical considerations. Contributions include gender-based analyses of the challenges faced by the Canadian military and by families of serving members. From Canada's Famous Five to the women's marches of 2017, lessons are drawn to inform new generations of women activists, concluding with a clarion call for greater allyship with Indigenous women and girls to support decolonization efforts in Canada. Offering a unique range of perspectives, narratives, and contributions to international relations and international law, this volume brings women's voices to the forefront of vital conversations about fundamental peace and security challenges.

  • Author:
    Bouclin, Suzanne
    Summary:

    Entertainment and profit constitute the driving force behind popular representations of women in correctional facilities. But the creative influence of film and television also generates legal meaning. The women-in-prison (WIP) genre can leave viewers feeling both empathetic toward the women portrayed in these representations and troubled about the crimes for which they have been convicted. Focusing on five exemplary WIP films and a television series - Ann Vickers, Caged, Caged Heat, Stranger Inside, Civil Brand, and Orange Is the New Black - Women, Film, and Law asks how fictional representations explore, shape, and refine beliefs about women who are incarcerated. From melodrama to exploitation, and from theatre screenings to on-demand film, television programs, and music videos, these texts bring into view the legal, economic, and political structures that criminalize women differently from men, and that target those women who are already marginalized.Women, Film, and Law convincingly argues that popular depictions of women's imprisonment can illuminate the multiple forms of social exclusion and oppression experienced by criminalized women.

  • Author:
    Pinkola Estés, Clarissa
    Summary:

    First published three years before the print edition of Women Who Run With the Wolves made publishing history, this original audio edition quickly became an underground bestseller. For its insights into the inner life of women, it established Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés as one of the most important voices of our time in the fields of Jungian psychology, myth, and women's mysteries. Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora ("keeper of the old stories"), Dr. Estés uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the wild woman archetype, Dr. Estés helps listeners rediscover and free their own wild nature. The magical storytelling, myths, and commentary on Women Who Run With the Wolves continue to inspire a new level of self-knowledge among listeners young and old. Note: These CD-ROM-format enhanced CDs contain audio, music, and video clips and are meant to be played on your computer, using an Internet connection, speakers, and Real Player programs, which are free for download.

  • Author:
    Nowell, Iris
    Summary:

    This book pays tribute to 14 women who donated millions of dollars to causes close to their hearts. Iris Nowell is the author of five books. Writing her 1996 book, Women Who Give Away Millions, has given her a solid foundation of philanthropy, the not-for-profit sector, and the wealthy. She has also written a memoir of Canadian artist Harold Town, and a biography of artist, filmmaker, and impassioned feminist, Joyce Wieland.

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