Save 4% Off: Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Body, Commodity, Text) Review & Ratings

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Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Body, Commodity, Text) Review

Great topic, well researched and well written. Sometimes funny. I learned a great deal about the details of the topic. Moreover, the book informs the political issues and climate of statehood for a fledgling nation at the most personal and intimate levels. I've read the other reader's review and can't imagine that the vituperative commentary is in any way suggested by the topic or the book itself. Perhaps a little New Haven vs. Cambridge rivalry. Hey, grow up! If you are a reader with an interest in how Jewish motherhood and Jewish statehood relate, read the book. If you are a kvetch, have some chicken soup and you'll feel better in the morning.

Reproducing Jews: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception in Israel (Body, Commodity, Text) Overview

There are more fertility clinics per capita in Israel than in any other country in the world and Israel has the world's highest per capita rate of in-vitro fertilization procedures. Fertility treatments are fully subsidized by Israeli national health insurance and are available to all Israelis, regardless of religion or marital status. These phenomena are not the result of unusually high rates of infertility in Israel but reflect the centrality of reproduction in Judaism and Jewish culture.In this ethnographic study of the new reproductive technologies in Israel, Susan Martha Kahn explores the cultural meanings and contemporary rabbinic responses to artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, egg donation, and surrogacy. Kahn draws on fieldwork with unmarried Israeli women who are using state-subsidized artificial insemination to get pregnant and on participant-observation in Israeli fertility clinics. Through close readings of traditional Jewish texts and careful analysis of Israeli public discourse, she explains how the Israeli embrace of new reproductive technologies has made Jewish beliefs about kinship startlingly literal. Kahn also reveals how a wide range of contemporary Israelis are using new reproductive technologies to realize their reproductive futures, from ultraorthodox infertile married couples to secular unmarried women.As the first scholarly account of assisted conception in Israel, this multisited ethnography will contribute to current anthropological debates on kinship studies. It will also interest those involved with Jewish studies.

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Save 5% Off: Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility and Egyptian Medical Traditions Review & Ratings

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Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility and Egyptian Medical Traditions Review

Dr. Marcia Inhorn harps upon three major themes: infertile Egyptian women's attempts at having children, the history of the development of Egyptian medical ideas and practices from ancient times and their effects on the present,and the present collaboration of econimic and political agendas. This book is for anyone studying or just want to know about infertility and the views of Egyptians.

Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility and Egyptian Medical Traditions Overview

In Quest for Conception, Marcia C. Inhorn portrays the poignant struggles of poor, urban Egyptian women and their attempts to overcome infertility. The author draws upon fifteen months of fieldwork in urban Egypt to present moving stories of infertile Muslim women whose tumultuous medical pilgrimages have yet to produce the desired pregnancies. Inhorn examines the devastating impact of infertility on the lives of these women, who are threatened with divorce by their husbands, harassed by their husbands' families, and ostracized by neighbors.


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Save 21% Off: Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution Review & Ratings

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Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution Review

The greatest scientific quest is finding our place in Nature. This leading primatologist has collected a series of essays on primate behaviour in an outstanding effort aimed at answering that question. De Waal's credentials as a student of chimpanzee behaviour are well-known. He's joined here by researchers of equal status in presenting the most recent findings in the field. De Waal states in the Introduction that research in human behaviour falls into two camps - human beings are an entirely unique species or human evolutionary roots are visible in many of our related species. He and his fellow essayists adhere to the second theme, the one that has gained significant adherence over the past several decades of research. "The proliferation of research on monkeys and apes . . . has influenced the way we look at our place in nature."
This collection brings to view much of that research, a compendium long overdue in de Waal's estimation. His team provides new insights into primate behaviour. They combine the research finding with speculations on how modern monkeys and apes reflect the evolutionary roots of our own relations with each other. The topics covered show the impact of environment, the patterns of sex and reproduction, social organization and cognition. The collection addresses the "process of hominization" leading from ape-like ancestors to modern humans. If all this sounds like a series of lofty scientific pedantry, fear not. All the authors present their information in open, conversational style. Although the result of a scholarly seminar, the writing throughout is clear and unpretentious. Anyone interested in their evolutionary roots or in the status of the research will find this collection rewarding.
The quality of this compilation makes choice of place difficult, if not impossible. Each author presents new information and delightful analyses of the importance of the findings. Craig Stanford discusses the role of meat eating [not hunting] in building social relationships. Studied closely in the field in both ape and human societies, meat distribution and sex have a clear evolutionary role. Richard Wrangham carries this theme a step further in his analysis of the social role of food preparation - cooking. He stresses how early cooking must have emerged in hominid evolution and what its likely social impact was in our development. Richard Byrne extends this analysis to describe several forms of food acquisition and processing among various primate species.
If any issue transcends the others in the role of humanity, it is that of human cognition. To those contending only human cognitive abilities are worth studying, several authors respond that "evolution does not proceed by inspired jumps . . . but by accretion of beneficial variants" over time. In order to comprehend the evolutionary path of cognition, definitions are of primary importance. Cognition is here defined as "a species' package of information-processing capabilities" encompassing individual, social, technical and other skills. Robin Dunbar shows how these skills were likely reinforced through selectively chosen group size. He examines variations in primate group size and how these impact social behavior. Charles Snowdon addresses the mainstay of human "uniqueness" in an outline of language
development. In the final essay, William McGrew considers the question of "culture." What is it and how was it derived? McGrew refers to eight criteria, developed many years ago by Alfred Koeber, and applies them in a historical context. McGrew emphasizes that humans are not the only social species. Language enhanced abilities inherited from our predecessors.
This book addresses older ideas and breaks new ground. With a strong foundation in the intensive primate studies achieved during the past three decades, the collection calls for further studies in the field. What these will bring to light will increase our knowledge of where we fit in Nature. There are assuredly many surprises remaining to be revealed. Will you help search for answers to some of these questions?

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Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity Review & Ratings

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Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity Review

The author is very brilliant. She explains how sacrifice have functioned to maintain patrilineal system. I think this book could contribute to reveal contradiction of monolineal genealogy. It is not nature but culture.

Throughout Your Generations Forever: Sacrifice, Religion, and Paternity Overview

Why does sacrifice, more than any other major religious institution, depend on gender dichotomy? Why do so many societies oppose sacrifice to childbirth, and why are childbearing women so commonly excluded from sacrificial practices? In this feminist study of relations between sacrifice, gender, and social organization, Nancy Jay reveals sacrifice as a remedy for having been born of woman, and hence uniquely suited to establishing certain and enduring paternity. Drawing on examples of ancient and modern societies, Jay synthesizes sociology of religion, ethnography, biblical scholarship, church history, and classics to argue that sacrifice legitimates and maintains patriarchal structures that transcend men's dependence on women's reproductive powers.

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Save 33% Off: Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality (Science Masters) Review & Ratings

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Why Is Sex Fun: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality (Science Masters) Review

There is a minor truth-in-advertising issue regarding Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality, by physiologist Jared Diamond: The title question is never really addressed. The true theme seems to be How Sex Came to be Sex as We Know It. Not that this isn't interesting in its own right, of course. It's just that the original question is worthy of discussion too.
Why is Sex Fun? reads like a lecture series rather than a book. Apparently intended to provide the reader with an overview of the latest thinking on the evolutionary aspects of the subject, this short work includes sections on different sexual (and mate) selection strategies employed by males and females (presumably based on unequal "investments" in the methods of getting one's genes into the next generation); lactation (why milk is produced by females, but not, as a rule, males); how and why humans, almost uniquely, came to engage in engage in recreational sex; the unequal domestic roles played by males and females, particularly in child rearing; female menopause (which is, again, nearly unique to humans); and sexual signaling (Diamond considers penis length in human males to be a prime example, but not necessarily a signal directed at females).
As fascinating as these subjects are, there is much more that is left out. Any full discussion of human sexuality, especially with the high-order concept of "fun" in its presumed abstract, needs to deal with that odd species' whole gamut of non-procreational expression: homosexuality, old-age love, and sex-as-power, for non-inclusive example. But Why is Sex Fun? treats the very large subject of recreational sex only from the "selfish gene" point of view. Even then, there is at least one major methodological criticism: Most evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists go to great lengths to bring out the importance of "ancestral environment". That is, gene-based behavioral tendencies have evolved over a great deal of time, so it doesn't do a lot of good to consider them only from the standpoint of a modern participant. This problem crops up in Diamond's discussion of male hunting strategies. In a modern hunter-gatherer society, men typically go for the "big kill" (a large mammal, for instance), while women are more content to gather roots and so on. Diamond makes the point that the male strategy makes no sense nutritionally, so the answer must be found in differential sexual strategies. However, the possibility is not mentioned that hunting patterns may have evolved when big game was, in fact, rather more plentiful than it is today.
All this is a pity, because we know, from the author's other works (especially the wonderfully told Guns, Germs, and Steel), that he is quite capable of a fully formed presentation. Sex deserves it.

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Save 20% Off: First Comes Love, then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life Review & Ratings

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First Comes Love, then Comes Malaria: How a Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and a Third World Adventure Changed My Life Review

I had high hopes for this book as a fun and informative read. What I got was a whiny, annoying run-on narrative that left me shaking my head in disappointment. I found it very insulting that the author felt it necessary to dedicate so much wordspace to the fact that her oh-so-sensitive nose could hardly stand the fact that she found most if not all Ugandans too "smelly" for her and that their "BO" made life so difficult for her. Poor baby. She even found it necessary to say this was the first thing she smelled getting off the plane in Uganda. I'm sure they would be thrilled to hear this glowing assessment of their culture from her and that she thinks of their country as one big latrine. And speaking of overusing wordspace, this book could have been ten pages shorter (and better off for it) if she would have left out all the minute details about her two cats, which added absolutely nothing to the story. I found myself yelling at the pages "who cares about the cats,move on!!" Her insults about the clothing choices of Ugandan women came off trite and childish. And a word about her anxiety attacks that got her discharged from the Peace Corps herself after one year - I'm not totally knocking it, because I personally have been there and know how awful they can be, however, to say you are envious of a woman who has a brain tumor and wishing you had that issue instead of panic attacks, that's pretty harsh and unbelievable in my opinion. And I do have to agree with another reviewer who said "how convenient that her panic attacks suddenly ended after she got sent home from Peace Corps." It did appear that Eve just wanted to get home to her boyfriend and make him her husband ASAP. The big love story between them that was supposed to be the theme of the book according to the title escaped me and apparently many other readers as well; this was All About Eve. Hey, that would've been a better title. I found her letters to friends and family annoying and too self-depricating, and the "I'll keep you posted" signature line seriously grated on my nerves after the second usage. Her comment about a Ugandan man having 6 wives seemed exaggerated for story effect; even Muslim men in African countries are only allowed to have 4 wives maximum. I almost threw the book away when she commented on not knowing how to light a kerosene lantern, and this was AFTER a year in Ecuador and a year in Uganda - really?? C'mon. Princess indeed. And her comment about not being able to remain a vegetarian in a third world country was not accurate either. I know this, because I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso several years ago (yes the same one her husband John served in during his tour of duty), and not only did I go a vegetarian and remain one without problem the whole time, but I also learned to light a lantern the first week there; got my water every day myself in a 20 gallon jug on the back of my own bike, swept my own house, and cooked my own meals (all without "servants"); and used a latrine the entire two years in addition to building them for the village I was in. There were no flush toilets in sight, unlike for lucky Eve. There were a very few points in which I give the author kudos and credit for getting right: hiding your personal trash so the local kids don't go through it; the painfully slow mail service; and the "please send" parts of her letters asking friends and family to send chocolate, among other things. I don't know, I just found this story lacking in appreciation and humility I guess, having been there done that. I haven't written a book about my experience, and I'm sure it's not easy, so kudos for giving it a try.

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