Communication and Media: Welcome

One of the Best Books of the Year: Kirkus Reviews  A timely and lavishly comprehensive collection from the inimitable critical firebrand--hailed as "a fearless public intellectual and more necessary than ever" (The New York Times)--tackling sex, art, feminism, politics, and education, and covering the full span of her wide-ranging and important career.   Much has changed since Camille Paglia first burst onto the scene with her groundbreaking Sexual Personae, but the laser-sharp insights of this major American thinker continue to be ahead of the curve--not only capturing the tone of the mo­ment but also often anticipating it. Opening with a blazing manifesto of an introduction in which Paglia outlines the bedrock beliefs that inform her writing--freedom of speech, the necessity of fearless inquiry, and a deep respect for all art, both erudite and popular--Provocations gathers together a rich, varied body of work that illumi­nates everything from the Odyssey to the Oscars, from punk rock to presidents past and present.   Whatever your political inclination or liter­ary and artistic touchstones, Paglia's takes are compulsively readable, thought provoking, gal­vanizing, and an essential part of our cultural dialogue, invariably giving voice to what most needs to be said.

Annotation In a culture where beauty is currency, women's bodies are often perceived as measures of value and worth. The search for visibility and self-acceptance can be daunting, especially for those on the cultural margins of "beauty."Becoming Women offers a thoughtful examination of the search for identity in an image-oriented world. That search is told through the experiences of a group of women who came of age in the wake of second and third wave feminism, featuring voices from marginalized and misrepresented groups.Carla Rice pairs popular imagery with personal narratives to expose the "culture of contradiction" where increases in individual body acceptance have been matched by even more restrictive feminine image ideals and norms. With insider insights from the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, Rice exposes the beauty industry's colonization of women's bodies, and examines why "the beauty myth" has yet to be resolved.

The first generation of "digital natives" - children who were born into and raised in the digital world - are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our cultural life, even the shape of our family life will be forever transformed. But who are these digital natives? How are they different from older generations - or "digital immigrants" - and what is the world they're creating going to look like? In Born Digital , leading internet and technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser offer a sociological portrait of this exotic tribe of young people who can seem, even to those merely a generation older, both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow. Based on original research, Born Digital explores a broad range of issues, from the highly philosophical to the purely practical: What does identity mean for young people who have dozens of online profiles and avatars? Should we worry about privacy issues - or is privacy even a relevant concern for digital natives? How does the concept of safety translate into an increasingly virtual world? Is "stranger-danger" a real problem, or a red herring? What lies ahead - socially, professionally, and psychologically - for this generation? A smart, practical guide to a brave new world and its complex inhabitants, Born Digital will be essential reading for parents, teachers, and the myriad of confused adults who want to understand the digital present - and shape the digital future.