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This path-breaking book examines the lives of five topless dancers in the economically devastated 'rust belt' of upstate New York. With insight and empathy, Susan Dewey shows how these women negotiate their lives as parents, employees, and family members while working in a profession widely regarded as incompatible with motherhood and fidelity. Neither disparaging nor romanticizing her subjects, Dewey investigates the complicated dynamic of performance, resilience, economic need, and emotional vulnerability that comprises the life of a stripper. An accessibly written text that uses academic theories and methods to make sense of feminized labor, "Neon Wasteland" shows that sex work is part of the learned process by which some women come to believe that their self-esteem, material worth, and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies.

This path-breaking book examines the lives of five topless dancers in the economically devastated 'rust belt' of upstate New York. With insight and empathy, Susan Dewey shows how these women negotiate their lives as parents, employees, and family members while working in a profession widely regarded as incompatible with motherhood and fidelity. Neither disparaging nor romanticizing her subjects, Dewey investigates the complicated dynamic of performance, resilience, economic need, and emotional vulnerability that comprises the life of a stripper. An accessibly written text that uses academic theories and methods to make sense of feminized labor, "Neon Wasteland" shows that sex work is part of the learned process by which some women come to believe that their self-esteem, material worth, and possibilities for life improvement are invested in their bodies.

To Irrigate a Wasteland: The Struggle to Shape a Public Television System in the United States captures a pivotal moment in American media history, when the promise of television was still contested between commercial imperatives and public ideals. Delivered as the distinguished Gaither Lectures, John W. Macy, Jr.—the first president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—offers an insider’s account of the policy battles, institutional negotiations, and cultural aspirations that defined the early years of U.S. public broadcasting. Framed by Edward R. Murrow’s memorable warning that television could be either an engine of inspiration or merely “lights and wires in a box,” Macy narrates how leaders and advocates sought to turn the medium toward education, civic engagement, and cultural enrichment, even as commercial networks dominated the airwaves.Macy’s lectures, published here with a foreword by Newton N. Minow, situate American public broadcasting in a global context—highlighting how Europe and Japan advanced more quickly with noncommercial systems, and how the United States struggled to overcome its late start. Reflecting on milestones such as the creation of PBS, the spread of local stations, and the debut of transformative programs like Sesame Street and The Electric Company, Macy underscores both progress made and challenges unresolved. The narrative emphasizes the delicate balance between independence and accountability, and the persistent debates over funding, governance, and the role of public media in a democratic society. For scholars and readers interested in media history, public policy, and the cultural politics of the Cold War era, *To Irrigate a Wasteland* offers both a first-hand chronicle of institutional development and an enduring meditation on television’s potential to illuminate and inspire.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

How denial sustains the liberal imagination of a progressive and democratic Israel.The question that this book aims to answer might seem simple: how can a violent project of dispossession and discrimination be imagined, felt, and profoundly believed in as though it were the exact opposite––an embodiment of sustainability, multicultural tolerance, and democratic idealism? Despite well-documented evidence of racism and human rights abuse, Israel has long been embraced by the most liberal sectors of European and American society as a manifestation of the progressive values of tolerance, plurality, inclusivity, and democracy, and hence a project that can be passionately defended for its lofty ideals.Tolerance Is a Wasteland argues that the key to this miraculous act of political alchemy is a very specific form of denial. Here the Palestinian presence in, and claim to, Palestine is not simply refused or covered up, but negated in such a way that the act of denial is itself denied. The effects of destruction and repression are reframed, inverted into affirmations of liberal virtues that can be passionately championed. In Tolerance Is a Wasteland, Saree Makdisi explores many such acts of affirmation and denial in a range of venues: from the haunted landscape of thickly planted forests covering the ruins of Palestinian villages forcibly depopulated in 1948; to the theater of "pinkwashing" as Israel presents itself to the world as a gay-friendly haven of cultural inclusion; to the so-called Museum of Tolerance being built on top of the ruins of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, which was methodically desecrated in order to clear the space for this monument to "human dignity." Tolerance Is a Wasteland reveals the system of emotional investments and curated perceptions that makes this massive project of cognitive dissonance possible.

To Irrigate a Wasteland: The Struggle to Shape a Public Television System in the United States captures a pivotal moment in American media history, when the promise of television was still contested between commercial imperatives and public ideals. Delivered as the distinguished Gaither Lectures, John W. Macy, Jr.—the first president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—offers an insider’s account of the policy battles, institutional negotiations, and cultural aspirations that defined the early years of U.S. public broadcasting. Framed by Edward R. Murrow’s memorable warning that television could be either an engine of inspiration or merely “lights and wires in a box,” Macy narrates how leaders and advocates sought to turn the medium toward education, civic engagement, and cultural enrichment, even as commercial networks dominated the airwaves.Macy’s lectures, published here with a foreword by Newton N. Minow, situate American public broadcasting in a global context—highlighting how Europe and Japan advanced more quickly with noncommercial systems, and how the United States struggled to overcome its late start. Reflecting on milestones such as the creation of PBS, the spread of local stations, and the debut of transformative programs like Sesame Street and The Electric Company, Macy underscores both progress made and challenges unresolved. The narrative emphasizes the delicate balance between independence and accountability, and the persistent debates over funding, governance, and the role of public media in a democratic society. For scholars and readers interested in media history, public policy, and the cultural politics of the Cold War era, *To Irrigate a Wasteland* offers both a first-hand chronicle of institutional development and an enduring meditation on television’s potential to illuminate and inspire.This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

How denial sustains the liberal imagination of a progressive and democratic Israel.The question that this book aims to answer might seem simple: how can a violent project of dispossession and discrimination be imagined, felt, and profoundly believed in as though it were the exact opposite––an embodiment of sustainability, multicultural tolerance, and democratic idealism? Despite well-documented evidence of racism and human rights abuse, Israel has long been embraced by the most liberal sectors of European and American society as a manifestation of the progressive values of tolerance, plurality, inclusivity, and democracy, and hence a project that can be passionately defended for its lofty ideals.Tolerance Is a Wasteland argues that the key to this miraculous act of political alchemy is a very specific form of denial. Here the Palestinian presence in, and claim to, Palestine is not simply refused or covered up, but negated in such a way that the act of denial is itself denied. The effects of destruction and repression are reframed, inverted into affirmations of liberal virtues that can be passionately championed. In Tolerance Is a Wasteland, Saree Makdisi explores many such acts of affirmation and denial in a range of venues: from the haunted landscape of thickly planted forests covering the ruins of Palestinian villages forcibly depopulated in 1948; to the theater of "pinkwashing" as Israel presents itself to the world as a gay-friendly haven of cultural inclusion; to the so-called Museum of Tolerance being built on top of the ruins of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, which was methodically desecrated in order to clear the space for this monument to "human dignity." Tolerance Is a Wasteland reveals the system of emotional investments and curated perceptions that makes this massive project of cognitive dissonance possible.

Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo and the ever-disturbing Mishima Yukio have explored twentieth-century Japanese alienation with an unsparing eye and savage humor. In Escape from the Wasteland, Susan J. Napier examines their vivid and often perverse depictions of sex, impotence, emperor worship, and violence. For new readers of Oe and Mishima, this is an indispensable guide. For critics and scholars, it is the benchmark study.

Deindustrialization is not simply an economic process, but a social and cultural one as well. The rusting detritus of our industrial past—the wrecked hulks of factories, abandoned machinery too large to remove, and now-useless infrastructures—has for decades been a part of the North American landscape. In recent years, however, these modern ruins have become cultural attractions, drawing increasing numbers of adventurers, artists, and those curious about a forgotten heritage. Through a unique blend of oral history, photographs, and interpretive essays, Corporate Wasteland investigates this fascinating terrain and the phenomenon of its loss and rediscovery. Steven High and David W. Lewis begin by exploring an emerging aesthetic they term the deindustrial sublime, explaining how the ritualized demolition of landmark industrial structures served as dramatic punctuations between changing eras. They then follow the narrative path blazed by urban spelunkers, explorers who infiltrate former industrial sites and then share accounts and images of their exploits in a vibrant online community. And to understand the ways in which geographic and emotional proximity affects how deindustrialization is remembered and represented, High and Lewis focus on Youngstown, Ohio, where residents and former steelworkers still live amid the reminders of more prosperous times. Corporate Wasteland concludes with photo essays of sites in Michigan, Ontario, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania that pair haunting images with the poignant testimonies of those who remember industrial sites as workplaces rather than monuments. Forcing readers to look beyond nostalgia, High and Lewis reinterpret our deindustrialized landscape as a historical and imaginative challenge to the ways in which we comprehend and respond to the profound disruptions wrought by globalization.

When Hurricane María unleashed its devastation onto Puerto Rico, thousands of lives were lost to the storm in what was the island's worst natural disaster on record. With so much of the recovery still underway and the scars still fresh, its citizens continue to contend with the reality that life on the island has fundamentally changed. In his first collection of poems written in English, La Torre Lagares journeys through his memory in an effort to recompose his shattered land. Together, these poems form a poignant, personal account of a man facing the tragic destinies of his family and his country in the aftermath of a natural disaster. For example, the deaths of the mother and the father are resignified as the death of the poet's personal relationship, which at the same time evokes the rupture between individuals and their sense of place. Drawing from both American and Latin American poetry, as well as global influences, to articulate a language of loss and devastation in search of a new identity, this collection illuminates a chaotic and confusing landscape that is not only physical but also cultural, social, and political. Taken together, this work serves as a stirring reminder of the dislocation and fractured attachment that speaks to many Americans, including transnationals and immigrants. Ultimately it speaks to coping with physical loss and emotional pain in the face of human adversity.

According to popular media and scholarship, Detroit, the once-vibrant city that crumbled with the departure of the auto industry, is where dreams can be reborn. It is a place that, like America itself, is gritty and determined. It has faced the worst kind of adversity, and supposedly now its back. But what does this narrative of new Detroitleave out? Beautiful Wasteland reveals that the contemporary story of Detroits rebirth is an upcycled version of the American Dream, which has long imagined access to work, home, and upward mobility as race-neutral projects. Theyre not. As Rebecca J. Kinney shows, the narratives of Detroits rise, decline, and potential to rise again are deeply steeped in material and ideological investments in whiteness. By remapping the narratives of contemporary Detroit through an extension of Americas frontier mythology, Kinney analyzes a cross-section of twentieth and twenty-first century cultural locations-an Internet forum, ruin photography, advertising, documentary film, and print and online media. She illuminates how the stories we tell about Detroit as a frontier of possibility enable the erasure of white privilege and systemic racism. By situating Detroit as a beautiful wasteland,both desirable and distressed, this shows how the narrative of ruin and possibility form a mutually constituted relationship: the city is possible precisely because of its perceived ruin. Beautiful Wasteland tackles the key questions about the future of postindustrial America. As cities around the country reckon with their own postindustrial landscapes, Rebecca Kinney cautions that development that elides considerations of race and class will only continue to replicate uneven access to the city for the poor, working class, and people of color.

Did the Mad Butcher of Cleveland also strike in Pennsylvania? From 1934 to 1938, Cleveland, Ohio, was racked by a classic battle between good and evil. On one side was the city's safety director, Eliot Ness. On the other was a nameless phantom dubbed the "Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," who littered the inner city with the remains of decapitated and dismembered corpses. Never caught or even officially identified, the Butcher simply faded into history, leaving behind a frightening legend that both haunts and fascinates Cleveland to this day. In 2001 the Kent State University Press published James Jessen Badal's In the Wake of the Butcher: Cleveland's Torso Murders, the first serious, book-length treatment of this dark chapter in true crime history. Though Murder Has No Tongue: The Lost Victim of Cleveland's Mad Butcher—a detailed study of the arrest and mysterious death of Frank Dolezal, the only man ever charged in the killings—followed in 2010.Now Badal concludes his examination of the horrific cycle of murder-dismemberments with Hell's Wasteland: The Pennsylvania Torso Murders. During the mid-1920s, a vast, swampy area just across the Ohio border near New Castle, Pennsylvania, revealed a series of decapitated and otherwise mutilated bodies. In 1940 railroad workers found the rotting remains of three naked and decapitated bodies in a string of derelict boxcars awaiting destruction in Pennsylvania's Stowe Township. Were all of these terrible murders the work of Cleveland's Mad Butcher? Many in Ohio and Pennsylvania law enforcement thought they were, and that assumption led to a massive, well-coordinated two-state investigation. In Hell's Wasteland, Badal explores that nagging question in depth for the first time.Relying on police reports, unpublished memoirs, and the surviving autopsy protocols—as well as contemporary newspaper coverage— Badal provides a detailed examination of the murder-dismemberments and weighs the evidence that potentially links them to the Cleveland carnage. Hell's Wasteland is the last piece in the gigantic torso murder puzzle that spanned three decades, covered two states, and involved law enforcement from as many as five different cities.