The New Humanities Reader

The New Humanities Reader presents 32 challenging and important essays from diverse fields that address current global issues. The authors contend that there is a crisis within the humanities today due to specialization within narrow fields of scholarship, resulting in a higher education system that produces students who lack the general cross-disciplinary knowledge needed to better understand today's complex world. The selections encourage students to synthesize and think critically about ideas and research formerly kept apart. This approach challenges readers to resist mimetic thinking and instead creatively connect ideas to help them understand and retain what they read. Through this process of reading, discussing, and writing, students develop the analytical skills necessary to become informed citizens. Focused on today's issues, the selections represent both well-known nonfiction authors and newly published writers and are drawn from such periodicals as The New Yorker and Natural History and from best-selling books including Reading Lolita in Tehran, Fast Food Nation, and Into the Wild. Students will be engaged by reading and rereading, analyzing and working with these selections not simply because they are models of good writing, but because they are also deeply thought-provoking pieces that invite readers to respond. Front Cover Contents Thematic Contents Preface New Humanities for New Times: The Search for Coherence Knowledge in Depth and Knowledge of the World Creative Reading: From Explicit to Implicit Connective Thinking: The Search for a Shared Horizon Writing to Tell, Writing to See Developing a Position The Spirit of the New Humanities Web Site Acknowledgments David Abram The Ecology of Magic: A Personal Introduction to the Inquiry Lila Abu-Lughod Honor and Shame The Education of Girls Arranged Marriage Generations The Dangers of Schooling Egyptians Europeans Piety A New Order Karen Armstrong Does God Have a Future? Jonathan Boyarin Waiting for a Jew: Marginal Redemption at the Eighth Street Shul Amy Chua A World on the Edge Annie Dillard The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century's Measure II III IV V VI VII Susan Faludi The Naked Citadel Jon Gertner The Futile Pursuit of Happiness Malcolm Gladwell The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime 1 3 4 5 Stephen Jay Gould What Does the Dreaded "E" Word Mean, Anyway? A Reverie for the Opening of the New Hayden Planetarium William Greider Work Rules Lani Guinier Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule The Case of the Majority Vote Run-off Racial Districting Proportionality Steven Johnson The Myth of the Ant Queen Mary Kaldor Beyond Militarism, Arms Races, and Arms Control Netforce: Informal or Privatized Armed Forces The New American Militarism Neo-Modern Militarism Protectionforce: Peacekeeping/Peace-Enforcement Controlling War? Jon Krakauer Selections from Into the Wild The Alaska Interior The Stampede Trail Beth Loffreda Selections from Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder Azar Nafisi Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Martha Nussbaum Women and Cultural Universals I. A Matter of Survival II. Anti-Universalist Conversations III. The Attack on Universalism Neglect of Historical and Cultural Differences Neglect of Autonomy Prejudicial Application IV. A Conception of the Human Being: The Central Human Capabilities Central Human Functional Capabilities V. Capability as Goal Tim O'Brien How to Tell a True War Story Michael Pollan Playing God in the Garden Planting Sprouting Growing Flowering Meeting the Beetles Harvest Virginia Postrel Surface and Substance Arnold S. Relman And Marcia Angell America's Other Drug Problem: How the Drug Industry Distorts Medicine and Politics Drug Costs R&D Costs: How High Are They Really? How Innovative Is the Pharmaceutical Industry? Testing Drugs on People Marketing: Where the Action Is What Should Be Done? Oliver Sacks The Mind's Eye: What the Blind See Eric Schlosser Global Realization Uncle McDonald At the Circus An Empire of Fat McLibel Back at the Ranch James C. Scott Behind the Official Story Alexander Stille The Ganges' Next Life Gregory Stock The Enhanced and the Unenhanced The Enhanced Humans and Posthumans: Our Evolutionary Future The Tensions of Living Together Breeds Apart A World Aborning Martha Stout When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday Deborah Tannen The Roots of Debate in Education and the Hope of Dialogue Roots of the Adversarial Approach to Knowledge Onward, Christian Soldiers Sharing Time: Early Training in School Integrating Women in the Classroom Army Learning by Fighting Graduate School as Boot Camp The Culture of Critique: Attack in the Academy Believing as Thinking The Socratic Method - Or Is It? Knowledge as Warring Camps Question the Basic Assumption Consensus Through Dissension? Who Will Be Left to Lead? The Cost in Human Spirit Getting Beyond Dualism Moving from Debate to Dialogue Edward Tenner Another Look Back, and a Look Ahead The Ambiguity of Disaster The Automobile and Revenge Effects Conservation of Catastrophe? Retreating from Intensity Robert Thurman Wisdom Preamble: Selflessness Problem: Misknowledge and Self-Preoccupation Practice: Trying to Find Your "I" Frans de Waal Selections from The Ape and the Sushi Master Survival of the Kindest: Of Selfish Genes and Unselfish Dogs The Spider and the Fly The Midwife Bat Depressed Rescue Dogs Apples and Oranges Down with Dualism! Two Millennia of Debate About Human Goodness Westermarck Beats Freud Bulldog Bites Master Moral Emotions The Ke Willow Acknowledgments Author and Title Index Back Cover

the New Humanities Reader Presents 25 Challenging And Important Essays From Diverse Fields That Address Current Global Issues. This Cross-disciplinary Anthology Helps Readers Attain The Analytical Skills Necessary To Become Informed Citizens. Ideas And Research From Wide-ranging Sources Provide Opportunities For Students To Synthesize Materials And Formulate Their Own Ideas And Solutions. The Thought-provoking Selections Engage Students And Encourage Students To Make Connections For Themselves As They Think, Read, And Write About The Events That Are Likely To Shape Their Lives. The Fourth Edition Includes Nearly 25% New Reading Selections, Which Continue To Make This Text Current, Globally Oriented, Interdisciplinary, And Probing.

Presents a cross-disciplinary anthology for first-year composition, designed to help readers attain the analytical skills necessary to become informed citizens. This collection contains readings from diverse fields that address critical issues in contemporary society.