Susan Maushart – författare

'Men get one thing from marriage that women never do. They get wives.' Husbands and wives may say they are committed to equality. Yet, whether employed or not, wives still perform an astounding share of the physical, emotional and organisational labour in marriage - everything from housework to 'sex work'. 'Wifework' is shorthand for this relentless routine of husband maintenance. Women today initiate three-quarters of all divorces. Wifework, Maushart argues, lies at the core of their disillusionment. If family life is worth saving, wifework will have to go. And that means rewriting the job description to make marriage more equitable, less exhausting and more fun for women. In this compulsively readable book, Susan Maushart documents the wifework dilemma and explores its consequences for all the stakeholders: men, women and children alike. "Wifework" is funny, lucid, provocative and inspirational.

The wise and hilarious story of a family who discovered that having fewer tools to communicate with led them to actually communicate more. When Susan Maushart first announced her intention to pull the plug on her family''s entire armory of electronic weaponry for six months-from the itsy-bitsiest iPod Shuffle to her son''s seriously souped-up gaming PC-her three kids didn''t blink an eye. Says Maushart: "Looking back, I can understand why. They didn''t hear me." For any parent who''s ever IM-ed their child to the dinner table, this account of one family''s self-imposed exile from the Information Age will leave you LOLing with recognition. But it will also make you think. The Winter of Our Disconnect challenges readers to examine the toll that technology is taking on their own family connections, and to create a media ecology that instead encourages kids-and parents-to thrive. Indeed, as a self-confessed single mom who "slept with her iPhone," Maushart knew her family''s exile from Cyburbia wasn''t going to be any easier for her than for her three teenagers, ages fourteen, fifteen, and eighteen. Yet they all soon discovered that the rewards of becoming "unplugged" were more rich and varied than any cyber reality could ever be.

Christine L. Nystrom’s provocative work offers up a fresh approach to ongoing—and increasingly urgent—questions about the role of symbols and technology in shaping human experience. In lucid, lively, and always-accessible prose, she examines an eclectic range of topics—from Hopi grammar to the etiquette of beach-going to the primal allure of the horror film—to uncover the principles that structure the way we make meaning of our world. A cross-disciplinary tour de force, The Genes of Culture integrates insights from philosophy, the physical sciences, social psychology, and cultural criticism to pose challenging questions for today’s students of media. This book is an exemplary foundation reader for graduates or undergraduates in communication and media studies.

Christine L. Nystrom’s provocative work offers up a fresh approach to ongoing—and increasingly urgent—questions about the role of symbols and technology in shaping human experience. In lucid, lively, and always-accessible prose, she examines an eclectic range of topics—from Hopi grammar to the etiquette of beach-going to the primal allure of the horror film—to uncover the principles that structure the way we make meaning of our world. A cross-disciplinary tour de force, The Genes of Culture integrates insights from philosophy, the physical sciences, social psychology, and cultural criticism to pose challenging questions for today’s students of media. This book is an exemplary foundation reader for graduates or undergraduates in communication and media studies.

Volume 2 of The Genes of Culture continues Christine Nystrom’s exploration into the ecology of symbol systems and the evolution of media, mind and culture. Part One, Human Symbolic Evolution, delivers nothing less than a grand unified theory of humankind. For Nystrom, the prehistoric creative explosion that gave rise to language -- a metaphorical Big Bang -- explains our species’ survival. A felicitous if somewhat ignoble story, it begins with "The Incompetent Ape" who would never have made the evolutionary cut without developing the social capabilities made possible through symbolic language. And human communication, an inevitable source of problems, is the driving force behind this most peculiar of adventures: the birth of self-consciousness, tools and technologies, pratfalls of memory, awareness of our own mortality, art, knowledge, civilization, discontent, and so on. And so on, that is, if we don’t bring our story to an end.In Part Two, a series of astute and provokingly prescient lectures, Tales, Tools, Technopoly, Nystrom addresses our social and moral responsibility in cultivating the narrative of our future. Straightforward and ruthlessly critical of contemporary notions of "growth" and "progress," it concludes this volume with an alternative that is also a challenge -- an appeal to our better nature to do right by our species and the planet.A seminal text for students of media and communication, The Genes of Culture, Vol. 2 is at once readable and profound, comprehensive in its erudition and bold in its conclusions. In the spirit of Media Ecology, it invites argument, and merits acclaim.

Volume 2 of The Genes of Culture continues Christine Nystrom’s exploration into the ecology of symbol systems and the evolution of media, mind and culture. Part One, Human Symbolic Evolution, delivers nothing less than a grand unified theory of humankind. For Nystrom, the prehistoric creative explosion that gave rise to language -- a metaphorical Big Bang -- explains our species’ survival. A felicitous if somewhat ignoble story, it begins with "The Incompetent Ape" who would never have made the evolutionary cut without developing the social capabilities made possible through symbolic language. And human communication, an inevitable source of problems, is the driving force behind this most peculiar of adventures: the birth of self-consciousness, tools and technologies, pratfalls of memory, awareness of our own mortality, art, knowledge, civilization, discontent, and so on. And so on, that is, if we don’t bring our story to an end.In Part Two, a series of astute and provokingly prescient lectures, Tales, Tools, Technopoly, Nystrom addresses our social and moral responsibility in cultivating the narrative of our future. Straightforward and ruthlessly critical of contemporary notions of "growth" and "progress," it concludes this volume with an alternative that is also a challenge -- an appeal to our better nature to do right by our species and the planet.A seminal text for students of media and communication, The Genes of Culture, Vol. 2 is at once readable and profound, comprehensive in its erudition and bold in its conclusions. In the spirit of Media Ecology, it invites argument, and merits acclaim.

If Thoreau could last two years in the woods without the mod-cons of the early nineteenth century (running water), then surely Susan Maushart can survive six months without the technology of the twenty-first century? But then, Thoreau didn''t have teenagers ... or an iPhone ... or Facebook ...For any parent who has ever yanked the modem from its socket in a show of primal parental rage - this account of one family''s self-imposed exile from the Information Age will leave you ROFLing (Roll on the Floor Laughing) with recognition. But it will also challenge you to take stock of your own family connections and bring you to ask yourself pertinent questions about your own usage. Such as: Should a fifty-year old woman have a pet name for her laptop? Or take her iPod to bed with her?* A thoroughly honest and hilarious read.*As asked by Susan Maushart