In Revolutionary Routines: The Habits of Social Transformation, Carolyn Pedwell examines how social change can be enacted through everyday habits and routinised practices, arguing that such ‘minor’ gestures may be just as transformative as major events…
Category: book review
Book Review: Listening to People: A Practical Guide to Interviewing, Participant Observation, Data Analysis, and Writing It All Up by Annette Lareau
In Listening to People: A Practical Guide to Interviewing, Participant Observation, Data Analysis, and Writing It All Up, Annette Lareau provides insight into the practicalities of interview-based research and participation observation. This is an exce…
Book Review: Being Well in Academia: Ways to Feel Stronger, Safer and More Connected by Petra Boynton
In Being Well in Academia: Ways to Feel Stronger, Safer and More Connected, Petra Boynton provides a practical guide to how to recognise and confront the various issues that can arise from being in academia. Through Boynton’s sensitive approach to academic self-help, the book offers a succinct overview of the challenges that can be thrown at those … Continued
Book Review: Experiences of Academics from a Working-Class Heritage by Carole Binns
In Experiences of Academics from a Working-Class Heritage, Carole Binns draws on interviews with fourteen tenured academics from a working-class background to reveal the complexities faced by individuals who have experienced social mobility in academia. Suggesting that a diversification of the academic workforce could be a valuable addition to the widening participation agenda, this book contributes to understanding … Continued
Book Review: Me, Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism by Alison Phipps
This review originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact the managing editor of LSE Review of Books, Dr Rosemary Deller, at lsereviewofbooks@lse.ac.uk In Me, Not You, Alison Phipps builds on Black feminist scholarship to investigate how mainstream feminist movements against sexual violence express a ‘political whiteness’ that can reinforce … Continued
Book Review: Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures by Tama Leaver, Tim Highfield and Crystal Abidin
In Instagram: Visual Social Media Cultures, Tama Leaver, Tim Highfield and Crystal Abidin elaborate on how and why Instagram has grown to become an icon that has altered understandings of visual social media cultures. Students, scholars, social media practitioners and platform users can all benefit from the book as a great introduction to how to approach and study … Continued
Book Review: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
In a frenetic world obsessed with deliverables and results, Jenny Odell makes the case for How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, arguing not for passivity, wilful ignorance or sloth, but rather for the potential we create by refusing productivity and redirecting our attention to active modes of listening and contemplation. By shining a critical light on … Continued
Book Review: Plagues and the Paradox of Progress by Thomas J. Bollyky
In Plagues and the Paradox of Progress, Thomas J. Bollyky combines a ‘germ’s eye view’ of human history with some powerful reflections on the challenges that face us over the coming decades. This is a beautifully written book, recommends Duncan Green, packed with great one-liners and historical anecdotes. This review was originally published on the From Poverty … Continued
Book Review: Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events by Robert J. Shiller
In Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events, Robert J. Shiller argues for the significance of narrative when it comes to understanding the drivers of economic events, arguing that contagious narratives not only play a causal role in their unfolding but also that such events transform our narratives. The book raises important issues, writes … Continued
Book Review: Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and Digital Humanities edited by Elizabeth Losh and Jacqueline Wernimont
In Bodies of Information: Intersectional Feminism and Digital Humanities, editors Elizabeth Losh and Jacqueline Wernimont assemble a collection of key contributions to critical conversations and research regarding online activity, activism, archiving, academia, systemic discrimination and interlocking inequalities, writes Francesca Sobande. This post originally appeared on LSE Review of Books. If you would like to contribute to the series, please contact the managing editor of […]