In this uniquely provocative collection, Jesús Aguado adopts the voice of Vikram Babu, a seventeenth-century Indian mystic and basket-weaver who guides the reader on an irreverent and enjoyable truth-seeking mission. Each of these fifty fable-like poems ends with Vikram Babu posing a question for his audience, inviting us to take part in the work and let our own responses transform the meaning of the poem. Through the wry observations of his invented persona, Aguado gently unmasks human frailty and hypocrisy, revealing a world of twisted contradictions. Electa Arenal, the translator, is professor emerita of women’s studies and Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian languages and literatures at the Graduate Center.

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After Sor Juana (1648-95) was overheard privately refuting certain arguments made by a Portuguese Jesuit concerning God's greatest gift to humanity, the Bishop of Puebla asked for a written copy of the refutation, published it without the nun's knowledge, and added to it a pseudonymous reprimand. It was this disingenuous reminder not to meddle in the affairs of men that prompted Sor Juana to write The Answer. Sor Juana, known as the first feminist of the Americas, and whose visage graces Mexico's 1000 peso note, was a brilliant and popular poet, playwright, and essayist whose feminist theory stands as a link between that of Christine de Pizan and Mary Wollstonecraft in the struggle to establish the intellectual rights of women. Sor Juana's persistent defense of these rights brought her increasingly into conflict with church officials who wanted to silence her. This translation brings out Sor Juana’s keen awareness of gender, as well as the original emphasis and diction. Electa Arenal, the translator, is professor emerita of women’s studies and Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian languages and literatures at the Graduate Center.

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French Investment in Colonial Cameroon: The FIDES Era (1946–1957) draws from a variety of sources collected in Cameroon, France, and the United States to offer an analysis of French investments in Cameroon during the period of development in Africa’s French colonies known as Fonds d’Investissements pour le Développement Economique et Social (FIDES). Providing not only a description of the economic structures of colonial Cameroon but also an analysis of French public and private investment in the country, Atangana considers the Franco-Cameroonian economic and financial relationship, the contribution of Cameroon to the dynamics of French capitalism, and the role French capitalism played in the economic development of its former colony. The detailed financial evaluation and assessment of the various effects of FIDES investment in Cameroon will be of particular interest to instructors teaching courses related to colonial, modern, or contemporary Africa, the economic history of Africa, and French colonial history. Martin Atangana is associate professor of history at the Graduate Center and York College.

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September 11, 2001, inalterably changed the sense of security that Americans had enjoyed for decades. For Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans, the date also marked the beginning of hate crimes, discrimination, and government initiatives targeted against them. Backlash 9/11 provides the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of post-9/11 events on Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans and considers their organized response. Through fieldwork and interviews with community leaders, authors Bakalian and Bozorgmehr demonstrate how ethnic organizations mobilized to show their commitment to the United States and its ideals while defending their civil rights and establishing their opposition to all forms of terrorism. Anny Bakalian is associate director and Mehdi Bozorgmehr is co-Director of the Middle East and Middle Eastern American Center at the Graduate Center. Bozorgmehr is also associate professor of sociology at the Graduate Center and City College.

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In her study of social interactions between Latinos and non-Latinos in the U.S., Laura Callahan focuses on so-called “service encounters”—those situations in which one person provides goods or services for another. Since these types of interactions are inherently hierarchical and often brief, the potential for fostering and perpetuating stereotypes is high on both sides of any given transaction. By looking at social and linguistic interactions in this context, Callahan examines the Spanish language as social capital and how and in what circumstances the language is used. Spanish and English in U.S. Service Encounters details the factors that can influence U.S. Latinos’s acceptance of Spanish language use by other Latinos and by non-Latinos. Laura Callahan is professor of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian literatures and languages at the Graduate Center and City College.

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Drawing from the Yale University archive and offering a catalogue of over 150 illustrations of Picasso’s work, Picasso and the Allure of Language documents the history of modernism and the influence literature and literary friendships had on the artist. Examples of Picasso’s earliest collaborations with writers and poets like Max Jacob, Gertrude Stein, and Guillaume Apollinaire show how the artist marries text and image in his work to surprising effect. Distinguished authorities in art and literature investigate Picasso’s connection to language from historical, linguistic, and visual perspectives and place Picasso’s work within a literary context. Susan Greenberg Fisher is the Horace W. Goldsmith Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Yale University Art Gallery. Mary Ann Caws is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, English, and French at the Graduate Center.

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Drawing on rich, in-depth ethnographic research, the case studies in Across Generations examine the intricacies of intergenerational relations in immigrant groups from Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa, and give a sense of what everyday life is like in immigrant families. Moving beyond the cliché of immigrants’ children engaging in pitched battles against tradition-bound parents from the old country, these vivid essays offer a nuanced view that brings out the ties that bind as well as the tensions that divide them. Tackling key issues like parental discipline, marriage choices, educational and occupational expectations, legal status, and transnational family ties, Across Generations brings crucial insights to our understanding of the United States as a nation of immigrants. Nancy Foner is distinguished professor of sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center.

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Though women represent more than half of the world’s population, they account for only fifteen percent of elected officials, and their particular concerns often go unaddressed in politics. This unique two-volume examination of women’s political progress, Women and Politics around the World: A Comparative History and Survey, explores the role of women in political systems and the impact governmental action has on female populations. The first volume compares health policy, civil rights, and education in different nations while the second volume profiles twenty-two countries representing a broad range of governments, economies, and cultures. Each profile details the history and current state of women’s political and economic participation, including an in-depth look at a representative policy. Taken together, these volumes offer an invaluable resource for scholars interested in investigating a truly global issue. Joyce Gelb is professor of political science at the Graduate Center and City College.

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The most student-oriented book available for environmental sociology courses, Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology introduces undergraduates to the discipline in a groundbreaking new way. Rather than compiling articles from professional journals, this innovative reader presents twenty classroom-tested lessons from dedicated, experienced teachers. Building this collection on the model of a successful undergraduate classroom experience, co-editors Gould and Lewis asked the contributors to choose a topic, match it with their favorite class lecture, and construct a lesson to reflect the way they teach it in the classroom. The result is an engaging, innovative, and versatile volume that presents the core ideas of environmental sociology in concise, accessible chapters. Each brief lesson is designed to stand alone and can be easily adapted into an existing course syllabus. Kenneth A. Gould is professor of sociology and of earth and environmental sciences at the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College.

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Here, renowned developmental psychologists and experts in education of the gifted gather to explore giftedness from early childhood through the elder years. They address such questions as, is the expression of gifted behavior predictable? How do race, ethnicity, and gender influence its development? Is talent a stable character trait? How can insights gleaned from education of the gifted help to inform the research, policies, and practice of psychologists? Focusing on the practical implications of theoretical perspectives and empirical findings, an interdisciplinary team of experts considers such issues at each stage of life. Also examined are: the measurement of giftedness, diversity issues pertaining to it, and psycho-social factors, as these relate to developing talent in different domains. The volume speaks to developmental and educational psychologists, educators, and anyone dedicated to the realization of human potential. Frances Degen Horowitz is professor of psychology and president emerita at the Graduate Center.

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A first in the field and a true classic, Crime Victims: An Introduction to Victimology offers a comprehensive and balanced exploration of victimology—a vital new branch of criminology that has occasionally courted controversy. The author examines the victims' plight, and is careful to place figures from the FBI and the Bureau of Justice Statistics in context. The text investigates how victims are handled by the criminal justice system, analyzes the goals of the victims' rights movement, and discusses what the future is likely to hold. This seventh edition expands coverage of human trafficking, crimes on campus, identity theft, stalking, motor vehicle theft, and prisoners attacked behind bars. Andrew Karmen is professor of sociology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center.

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An essential tool for course review and National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) review, Reviews and Rationales: Nursing Leadership, Management, and Delegation offers a concise overview of management, leadership, performance improvement, and delegation within nursing. Each chapter contains objectives, pre- and post-tests with rationales, vocabulary review, practice to pass exercises, critical thinking case studies, as well as NCLEX alerts. Also included is a comprehensive CD-ROM for additional review. Donna M. Nickitas is a professor of nursing science at the Graduate Center and Hunter College.

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Though a part of American soldiers' lives since the Revolutionary War, by World War II music could be broadcast to the front. Today it accompanies soldiers from the recruiting office to the battlefield. For this book, Jonathan Pieslak interviewed returning veterans to learn about the place of music in the Iraq War and in contemporary American military culture in general. Pieslak describes how American soldiers hear, share, use, and produce music both on and off duty. He studies the role of music from recruitment campaigns and basic training to its use "in country" before and during missions. Pieslak explores themes of power, chaos, violence, and survival in the metal and hip-hop music so popular among the troops, and offers insight into the daily lives of American soldiers in the Middle East. Jonathan Pieslak is associate professor of music at City College and the Graduate Center.

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Saloman’s twelve essays in Listening Well illuminate the aesthetic, educative, and evaluative strategies used by writers in Paris, Boston, and New York that guided listeners through the challenges of musical modernity. She considers the musical aesthetics and reception history of major works by Beethoven and Berlioz and interprets criticism from treatises, journals, and newspapers and how these impacted cultural history. By exploring contrasting responses to new operas and symphonies by composers, librettists, authors, critics, and conductors as well as writers such as Chabanon, Lacépède, Berlioz, Urhan, D’Ortigue, Dwight, Fuller, Watson, and Hassard, Salomon demonstrates how audiences on both sides of the Atlantic were encouraged to listen attentively to the new and controversial music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Ora Frishberg Saloman is professor of musicology at the Graduate Center and Baruch College.

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Examining how AIDS has influenced African women socially and biologically, the South African anthropologist Ida Susser looks first at her own story, then goes on to fathom global inequalities underlying the epidemic. She addresses the reduction of American support for some AIDS prevention programs, and shifts back to the local experiences of women living in parts of Africa now, from Durban to Botswana. Other topics addressed include the role of organic intellectuals, health activism, and the culture of science and the feminization of AIDS. Ida Susser is a professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

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No mainstream database system can support temporal metadata; instead, they store just the most recent information. Consequently, the countless applications that need temporal data can only be performed in an ineffective, ad hoc manner. This book proposes to solve the long-standing problem with a bitemporal relational data model based on nested relations. The fundamental construct for representing temporal data is a bitemporal atom—a value, its validity period, and the time this data was recorded in the database. Different views of bitemporal data are defined through the concept of context. The book also introduces BtSQL, a simple bitemporal variation of the SQL. Finally, it provides a prototype implementation, which demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed approach in an object-relational database system. Researchers and practitioners in database development will find this book useful. It can be used as a textbook in advanced database courses—particularly in application domains where temporal metadata can greatly leverage the value of the data as it is stored and utilized. Canan Eren Atay received his Ph.D. in computer science from the Graduate Center; he is currently an instructor at Dokuz Eylul University, in Turkey. Abdullah Uz Tansel is a professor of computer science at Baruch College and the Graduate Center.

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