Science Identity

Ten linked essays from public intellectual and professor Robert Boyers that elegantly and fiercely address the most relevant and controversial ideas of the day - from identity and privilege to appropriation and diversity - and advocates for loosening the straightjacket of the new liberal orthodoxy.

Happiness has become a serious business. Where 20th-century psychology focused on depression and illness, in the new millennium scientists have begun focusing on "positive psychology" - the study of happiness. Ariel Gore first became intrigued by this subject when she discovered that a class on positive psychology was the most popular course on the Harvard campus.

A far-reaching cultural transformation is occurring across much of the West that is threatening the very foundations of democracy. Individuals are no longer judged by their deeds, actions, and behavior but rather are defined by their race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Driven largely by the political Left, this transformation has led to the wholesale division of individuals into oppressed and oppressor classes.

The concept of identity has become widespread within the social and behavioral sciences, cutting across disciplines from psychiatry and psychology to political science and sociology. Introduced more than fifty years ago, identity theory is a social psychological theory that attempts to understand person's identities, their sources in interaction and society, their processes of operation, and their consequences for interaction and society from a sociological perspective.

What does it mean to be white? Beyond just a skin colour, is it also a way of thinking? If so, how did it come about, and why? Drawing on history, personal experience and activist literature, Lilian Thuram looks at the origins and workings of white thinking, how it divides us and how it has become ubiquitous and accepted without challenge. He demonstrates how centuries of white bias and denial justified slavery and colonialism, and have reinforced norms and structures of oppression, limiting the roles and horizons of both non-whites and whites alike.

In this inclusive history and guide to skin care and beauty, journalist and founder of Very Good Light David Yi teaches us that self-care, wellness, and feeling beautiful transcends time, boundaries, and binaries - and that pretty boys can change the world.

In Teaching White Supremacy, Donald Yacovone shows us the clear and damning evidence of white supremacy’s deep-seated roots in our nation’s education system in a fascinating, in-depth examination of America’s wide assortment of texts, from primary readers to college textbooks and other higher-ed course materials. Sifting through a wealth of materials, from the colonial era to today, Yacovone reveals the systematic ways in which white supremacist ideology has infiltrated American culture and how it has been at the heart of our collective national identity.

Raised in sleepy English suburbia, Georgina Lawton was no stranger to homogeneity. Her parents were White; her friends were White; there was no reason for her to think she was any different. But over time her brown skin and dark, kinky hair frequently made her a target of prejudice. In Georgina’s insistently color-blind household, with no acknowledgement of her difference or access to Black culture, she lacked the coordinates to make sense of who she was.

He didn't want to be in the game. Now, he has to save it. Killed on the first day on the job, 25-year-old police officer Nyle Maxwell finds his mind uploaded to Capes Online, the world's biggest and most popular VRMMORPG. Yet, the one-way, mind-to-game upload process means that Nyle can never return to his physical body. Now, he must become a real superhero and protect Capes Online from both hostile players and malevolent AIs and NPCs alike that seek to destroy the game itself.

Western culture hates the fact that we have bodies-from evangelical culture, which insists "you are a soul and have a body," to wellness culture that turns your control over your body into a moral test, to transphobic activism that insists any step taken to change one's body is an immoral act, to the treatment of disabled bodies in a profoundly ableist culture.

Certified life coach, licensed specialty-certified New Life Story® wellness coach, and sexual confidence coach, Erica Lemke-Pembroke is on a mission to help women feel sexy again and reclaim their sexual confidence. She created the Sexy Again Method based on her own experiences, which she uses to empower women in rediscovering this for themselves. In Feel Sexy Again, women learn how to:

Las consecuencias de la masculinidad tradicional nos afectan en todas las áreas de nuestras vidas. No sólo las sufren las mujeres, sino también nuestros amigos, familiares, compañeros y, sobre todo, nosotros mismos. También han afectado a Justin Baldoni, que ha decidido explorar algunas de las facetas más importantes de la experiencia masculina —el valor, el éxito, la raza, la sexualidad, las relaciones o la paternidad— para entender cómo la concepción social de «ser un hombre» nos hace daño y limita.

In The Red Mirror, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova uses social identity theory to explain Putin's leadership. The main source of Putin's political influence, she finds, lies in how he articulates the shared collective perspective that unites many Russian citizens. Under his tenure, the Kremlin's media machine has tapped into powerful group emotions of shame and humiliation - derived from the Soviet transition in the 1990s - and has politicized national identity to transform these emotions into pride and patriotism.

In Neurology Rounds with the Maverick, clinical neurologist Dr. Bernard M. Patten recounts his most profound, entertaining, and uncommon experiences with patients throughout his 34-year medical career...Neurology Rounds with the Maverick presents an authentic look inside some of the most complex, strange, and fascinating neurological cases of the last half-century of medicine. Listen it to appreciate the good, the bad, the terrible, and the densely human anecdotes that document the past and light the way for the future of medicine.

In this stunningly illustrated essay collection inspired by the popular podcast Life, I Swear, prominent Black women reflect on self-love and healing, sharing stories of the trials and tribulations they’ve faced and what has helped them confront pain, heal wounds, and find connection.

From African American to Asian American, indigenous to immigrant, "multiracial" to "mixedblood," the diversity of cultures in this world is matched only by the diversity of stories explaining our cultural origins: stories of creation and destruction, displacement and heartbreak, hope and mystery.

The Plot to Change America exposes the myths that help identity politics perpetuate itself. This book reveals what has really happened, explains why it is urgent to change course, and offers a strategy to do so. Though we should not fool ourselves into thinking that it will be easy to eliminate identity politics, we should not overthink it, either. Identity politics relies on the creation of groups and then on giving people incentives to adhere to them. If we eliminate group making and the enticements, we can get rid of identity politics.

Nev Schulman is the host of the wildly popular TV series Catfish which investigates online relationships to determine whether they are based on truth or fiction (spoiler: it's almost always fiction).

Most Evil II is Steve Hodel's follow-up investigation (2009-2015) into his father's potential murders and introduces new evidence and additional linkage obtained by him over the past six years. Included in that evidence is the solving of the Zodiac's 45-year-cryptic cipher, which gives us the answer to the question asked in Most Evil: Were Black Dahlia Avenger and Zodiac the same serial killer?

Whether or not we trace our families from beyond the shores of Britain, we British people deserve a better understanding of our shared past, and opportunities to explore and recognise the complexities and contractions of empire. Careless or wilful amnesia has allowed the British migration narrative to begin in the mid-twentieth century, with migrants from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean forming the foundation of present-day multicultural Britain. For people of colour the questions: Where are you from? No, where are you really from? often imply more than simple curiosity.