Most Popular Books by Linda Williams

On hard core pornographic cinema.

Melodrama as Provocateur showcases the final project of influential film scholar Linda Williams, along with responses to her work by a diverse collection of scholars. Together, these writings dig into the past, present, and future of melodrama’s prominence in contemporary media and politics.

The black man suffering at the hands of whites, the white woman sexually threatened by the black man. Both images have long been burned into the American conscience through popular entertainment, and today they exert a powerful and disturbing influence on Americans'' understanding of race. So argues Linda Williams in this boldly inquisitive book, where she probes the bitterly divisive racial sentiments aroused by such recent events as O. J. Simpson''s criminal trial. Williams, the author of Hard Core, explores how these images took root, beginning with melodramatic theater, where suffering characters acquire virtue through victimization. The racial sympathies and hostilities that surfaced during the trial of the police in the beating of Rodney King and in the O. J. Simpson murder trial are grounded in the melodramatic forms of Uncle Tom''s Cabin and The Birth of a Nation. Williams finds that Stowe''s beaten black man and Griffith''s endangered white woman appear repeatedly throughout popular entertainment, promoting interracial understanding at one moment, interracial hate at another. The black and white racial melodrama has galvanized emotions and fueled the importance of new media forms, such as serious, "integrated" musicals of stage and film, including The Jazz Singer and Show Boat. It also helped create a major event out of the movie Gone With the Wind, while enabling television to assume new moral purpose with the broadcast of Roots. Williams demonstrates how such developments converged to make the televised race trial a form of national entertainment. When prosecutor Christopher Darden accused Simpson''s defense team of "playing the race card," which ultimately trumped his own team''s gender card, he feared that the jury''s sympathy for a targeted black man would be at the expense of the abused white wife. The jury''s verdict, Williams concludes, was determined not so much by facts as by the cultural forces of racial melodrama long in the making. Revealing melodrama to be a key element in American culture, Williams argues that the race images it has promoted are deeply ingrained in our minds and that there can be no honest discussion about race until Americans recognize this predicament.

Since the McMartin Preschool case in Manhattan Beach, California, many communities around the country have also been rocked by cases of sexual abuse of very young children in day care. While child welfare workers, prosecutors, and counselors have deliberated about how to respond to such cases, parents, day care staff, and state regulators have wondered whether day care was still a safe place for children. Now a new book addresses this disturbing problem, based on the first nationwide study of 270 cases of sexual abuse in day care. How could children be abused without their parents suspecting? How could trusted day care employees conceal abuse? Can offenders be screened from the ranks of day care employees? Can abusers be brought to justice without further trauma to the children? The authors, well known researchers in the field of child abuse, explore these questions and many others using a wealth of case material and careful analyses. Chapters cover incidence and dynamics, the impact on victims, disclosure and detection, the perpetrators, and the impact on local communities. Over 16 recommendations are forwarded for the prevention, detection, and investigation of these cases. Practitioners, researchers, policymakers, and students will benefit from the information provided in this long-awaited study. "I urge everyone who is concerned about the well being of children, both in day care and out, to obtain a copy of this [book], read it, and to use it. Its recommendations for parents, child care providers, policy makers, and government are both well-based on the researchers′ findings and well-reasoned as practical, feasible responses." --John Chafee, United States Senator "Students and professionals researching the topic of sexual abuse of preschool-age children will welcome this well-documented study, which discusses the types of people who perpetrate such crimes and the characteristics of the victims (including risk factors). Case studies--with synopses of the abuse incidents--are presented in the search for answers to why these crimes happen, how they can be prevented, and what impact they have on the victims. Final chapters present the authors′ recommendations as to how child abuse can be prevented. An excellent piece of research and analysis for larger public libraries." --Booklist "Written by our nation′s premier workers in the field of sexual abuse, Nursery Crimes: Sexual Abuse in Day Care is an enlightening and thought-provoking book. . . a scholarly endeavor that culminates with pragmatic and concrete policy recommendations. This book is must reading for all researchers and policy makers interested in this important and timely topic." --Edward Zigler, Yale University "This is an incredibly important source book on the subject." --Journal of the Institute of Health Education "This volume examines the incidence of the problem, describes the perpetrators of this abuse, evaluates screening strategies for limiting their access to children, and describes the victims, abuse dynamics, and whether the characteristics of the facilities minimize the risk of child sexual abuse. The book also discusses the detection and disclosure process and the impact on children. . . . This book is an excellent resource for all professionals working in the child sexual abuse area, ranging from therapists to investigators to judicial personnel." --Contemporary Psychology "This research project marks an important step toward understanding abuse in day care, and the book extends its usefulness to researchers, educators, administrators, and policymakers, as well as parents. . . . In the midst of widespread fear and confusion about sexual abuse in day care, Nursery Crimes provides practical strategies for confronting this problem." --Criminal Justice Review

Discover Math Matters! With over 15 million books sold worldwide, this award-winning series of easy-to-read books will help young readers ages 5–8 approach math with enthusiasm. Great for fans of MathStart or Step into Reading Math. Carrie''s Grandma is always knitting surprise presents for the family. When she asks Carrie to be her "measuring girl," Carrie decides to knit grandma the biggest (and longest!) surprise of all! With engaging stories that connect math to kids’ everyday lives, each book in the Teachers’ Choice Award–winning Math Matters series focuses on a single concept and reinforces math vocabulary and skills. Bonus activities in the back of each book feature math and reading comprehension questions, and even more free activities online add to the fun! (Math topic: Measurement/length)

Looks at the cinematic conventions for portraying sex acts from early representations of the kiss to more explicit depictions of sex in contemporary art films.

"An important contribution to film theory. . . . Williams has a fluid, assured style. She is clearly in command of the subject. She''s made a strong and original argument for the psychoanalytic basis of Surrealism."--James Monaco, author of The New Wave

Many television critics, legions of fans, even the president of the United States, have cited The Wire as the best television series ever. In this sophisticated examination of the HBO serial drama that aired from 2002 until 2008, Linda Williams, a leading film scholar and authority on the interplay between film, melodrama, and issues of race, suggests what exactly it is that makes The Wire so good. She argues that while the series is a powerful exploration of urban dysfunction and institutional failure, its narrative power derives from its genre. The Wire is popular melodrama, not Greek tragedy, as critics and the series creator David Simon have claimed. Entertaining, addictive, funny, and despairing all at once, it is a serial melodrama grounded in observation of Baltimore''s people and institutions: of cops and criminals, schools and blue-collar labor, local government and local journalism. The Wire transforms close observation into an unparalleled melodrama by juxtaposing the good and evil of individuals with the good and evil of institutions.

0nce upon a time, there was a little old lady who was not afraid of anything! But one autumn night, while walking in the woods, the little old lady heard . . . CLOMP, CLOMP, SHAKE, SHAKE, CLAP, CLAP. And the little old lady who was not afraid of anything had the scare of her life!

"It''s 1967, and eleven-year-old Ellis Earl Brown has big dreams. He''s going to grow up to be a teacher or a lawyer--or maybe both--and live in a big brick house in town. There''ll always be enough food in the icebox, and his mama won''t have to run herself ragged looking for work as a maid in order to support Ellis Earl and his eight siblings and niece, Vera. So Ellis Earl applies himself at school, soaking up the lessons that Mr. Foster teaches his class--particularly those about famous colored people like Mr. Thurgood Marshall and Miss Marian Wright--and borrowing books from his teacher''s bookshelf. When Mr. Foster presents him with a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ellis Earl is amazed to encounter a family that''s even worse off than his own--and is delighted by the Buckets'' very happy ending. But when Mama tells Ellis Earl that he might need to quit school to help support the family, he wonders if happy endings are only possible in storybooks. Around the historical touchstone of Robert Kennedy''s southern ''poverty tour,'' Linda Williams Jackson pulls from her own childhood in the Mississippi Delta to tell a detail-rich and poignant story with memorable characters, sure to resonate with readers who have ever felt constricted by their circumstances"--Amazon.

How new media and visual artists provide alternative ways for understanding and visualizing the entanglements of media and the environment in the Asia-Pacific. Images of environmental disaster and degradation have become part of our everyday media diet. This visual culture focusing on environmental deterioration represents a wider recognition of the political, economic, and cultural forces that are responsible for our ongoing environmental crisis. And yet efforts to raise awareness about environmental issues through digital and visual media are riddled with irony, because the resource extraction, manufacturing, transportation, and waste associated with digital devices contribute to environmental damage and climate change. Screen Ecologies examines the relationship of media, art, and climate change in the Asia-Pacific region—a key site of both environmental degradation and the production and consumption of climate-aware screen art and media. Screen Ecologies shows how new media and visual artists provide alternative ways for understanding the entanglements of media and the environment in the Asia-Pacific. It investigates such topics as artists'' exploration of alternative ways to represent the environment; regional stories of media innovation and climate change; the tensions between amateur and professional art; the emergence of biennials, triennials, and new arts organizations; the theme of water in regional art; new models for networked collaboration; and social media''s move from private to public realms. A generous selection of illustrations shows a range of artist''s projects.

Things I Wish I Knew walks you through potential pitfalls of adopting a child and the steps we took to address the concerns.

Designed for children ages three to eight, these creative ideas for games and activities, argument-enders and fence-menders, will turn sibling rivalry into sibling revelry will help save parents'' sanity as little ones have fun. Illustrations.

Washington Post 2017 KidsPost Summer Book Club selection! It''s Mississippi in the summer of 1955, and Rose Lee Carter can''t wait to move north. But for now, she''s living with her sharecropper grandparents on a white man''s cotton plantation. Then, one town over, an African American boy, Emmett Till, is killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. When Till''s murderers are unjustly acquitted, Rose realizes that the South needs a change . . . and that she should be part of the movement. Linda Jackson''s moving debut seamlessly blends a fictional portrait of an African American family and factual events from a famous trial that provoked change in race relations in the United States.

In Champion Trees of Arkansas, Linda Williams Palmer explores the state’s largest trees of their species, registered with the Arkansas Forestry Commission as “champions.” Through her beautiful colored-pencil drawings, each magnificent tree is interpreted through the lens of season, location, history, and human connection. Readers will get to know the cherrybark oak, rendered in fall colors, an avatar for the passing of seasons. The sugar maple, with its bare limbs and weather-beaten trunk, stands sentry over the headstones in a confederate cemetery. The 350-year-old white oak was once dubbed the Council Oak by Native Americans, and the post oak, cared for by generations of the same family, has its own story to tell. Palmer travelled from Delta swamps to Ozark and Ouachita mountain ridges over a seven-year period to see and document the champions and to talk with property owners and others willing to share the stories of how these trees are beloved and protected by the community, and often entwined with its history. Champion Trees of Arkansas is sure to inspire art and nature lovers everywhere.