Social Identity

Vivek Shraya knows this to be true: people change. We change our haircuts and our outfits and our minds. We change names, titles, labels. We attempt to blend in or to stand out. We outgrow relationships, we abandon dreams for new ones, we start fresh. We seize control of our stories. We make resolutions. In fact, nobody knows this better than Vivek, who’s made a career of embracing many roles: artist, performer, musician, writer, model, teacher. In People Change, she reflects on the origins of this impulse, tracing it to childhood influences from Hinduism to Madonna.

"Latino" is the most open-ended and loosely defined of the major race categories in the United States. Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" assembles the Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar's personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a spirited rebuke to racist ideas about Latino people.

Sticky is a beat-around-the-head foster kid with nowhere to call home but the street and an outer shell so tough that no one will take him in. He started out life so far behind the pack that the finish line seems nearly unreachable. He's a white boy living and playing in a world where he doesn't seem to belong. But Sticky can ball. And basketball might just be his ticket out, if he can only realize that he doesn't have to be the person everyone else expects him to be.

They are everywhere on social media. Images of perfect, pleasant women with perfect, pretty children in perfect, tidy homes—the epitome of “good” moms. But this model of motherhood is an illusion that far too many women either measure themselves against or simply cannot relate to in the first place. Enter Jamilah Mapp and Erica Dickerson: if you are sex-positive, cannabis-friendly, and love sharing NSFW stories with your fellow mom friends, you’re not doing anything wrong and you are definitely not a bad mother. And Jamilah and Erica are your tribe.

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.

Are you feeling confused or uninformed about your gender identity? Look no further! If you're questioning your gender identity, you're not alone. Many people have struggled with understanding their gender and finding a place where they belong. This book provides a safe, inclusive, and informative space to explore and understand your gender identity.

Written during the last decade of her life, Light in the Dark represents the culmination of Gloria E. Anzaldúa's mature thought and the most comprehensive presentation of her philosophy. Throughout, Anzaldúa weaves personal narratives into deeply engaging theoretical readings to comment on numerous contemporary issues—including the September 11 attacks, neocolonial practices in the art world, and coalitional politics.

Novelist Porochista Khakpour's family moved to Los Angeles after fleeing the Iranian Revolution, giving up their successes only to be greeted by an alienating culture. Growing up as an immigrant in America means that one has to make one's way through a confusing tangle of conflicting cultures and expectations. And Porochista is pulled between the glitzy culture of Tehrangeles, an enclave of wealthy Iranians and Persians in LA, her own family's modest life and culture, and becoming an assimilated American.

Sigmund Freud once said: ‘The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?”' Through the relatable and moving stories of seven very different women, Maxine Mei-Fung Chung refutes this inscrutability and sheds light on our most fundamental needs and desires. What Women Want presents a fearless look into the depths of who we are so that we can better understand each other and ourselves.

In this deeply inspiring audiobook, Winona Guo and Priya Vulchi recount their experiences talking to people from all walks of life about race and identity on a cross-country tour of America. Spurred by the realization that they had nearly completed high school without hearing any substantive discussion about racism in school, the two young women deferred college admission for a year to collect first-person accounts of how racism plays out in this country every day - and often in unexpected ways.

The Black Experience in Design spotlights teaching practices, research, stories, and conversations from a Black/African diasporic lens.

In American Awakening, Joshua Mitchell compares today’s secular politics of identity - skin tone, gender, and sexuality - to the religious awakenings of America’s past. The book asks where the clerisy of identity politics came from, how identity politics claimed a death grip on liberalism, and how can it be defeated.

Inviting you to challenge accepted beauty standards and the concept of “the perfect body,” Essie takes everything they have learned on their journey to self-acceptance and body satisfaction to help guide you towards loving your queer body. From gender, sexuality, and reclaiming your body, through to food, politics, social media, and fatphobia, this radical book starts a conversation about body image and mental health that queer people are so often left out of.

Afua Hirsch is British. Her parents are British. She was raised, educated and socialised in Britain. Her partner, her daughter, her sister and the vast majority of her friends are British. So why is her identity and sense of belonging a subject of debate? The reason is simply because of the colour of her skin. Blending history, memoir and individual experiences, Afua Hirsch reveals the identity crisis at the heart of Britain today. Far from affecting only minority people, Britain is a nation in denial about its past and its present.

From one of the country's most admired political thinkers, an urgent wake-up call to American liberals to turn from the divisive politics of identity and develop a vision of our future that can persuade all citizens that they share a common destiny.

Collecting deeply personal conversations with inspirational LGBTQ+ trailblazers (from Troye Sivan to Margaret Cho) about how they leveraged the challenges and insights they had as relative outsiders to succeed in the worlds of business, tech, politics, Hollywood, sports and beyond, Andrew Gelwick’s The Queer Advantage celebrates the unique power of queer identity. Their stories brim with the hard-won lessons gained over their careers.

Humanity's diverse nationalities, ethnicities, and races were intended to be a blessing from God. However, due to sin and rebellion, these differences often result in alienation, hatred, and even violence, becoming one of the most urgent problems facing the world. Cultural divisions are unfortunately common in the church, too. How can Christians embrace God's purposes for diversity and experience renewal and unity as his people? Steven Bryan presents a biblical framework for thinking about cultural identity and experiencing cultural diversity as a positive good that God intended.

Twenty years ago, not one nation on earth had legal same-sex marriage. Now, access to same-sex marriage is increasingly seen as a basic human right. In a matter of less than a generation, Western cultures have experienced a moral revolution. Dr. R. Albert Mohler examines how this transformation occurred, revealing the underlying cultural shifts behind this revolution.

Being transgender is a reality that is slowly, but surely, being understood. Out of the many biological and psychological theories that attempts to explain it, the mirror effect provides some of the best clues. Through this effect and the other available theories, misconceptions can be debunked, errors can be corrected, and most importantly, true understanding can be achieved.

Many people believe that, at its core, biological sex is a fundamental, diverging force in our development. According to this familiar story, differences between the sexes are shaped by past evolutionary pressures - women are more cautious and parenting-focused, men seek status to attract more mates - re-created in each generation by sex hormones and male and female brains. This, in turn, is the basis of supposedly entrenched inequalities in our modern societies.