Stanford University Press Blog

It’s Time To Retire "Sustainability"

The “S” word has run out of steam; today, our goals should be more ambitious.

The term was imprecise to begin with—what even is sustainability? A 2010 list of the year’s most overused jargon characterized sustainability as a “squishy, feel-good catchall for doing the right thing.” Of course, a more precise definition is available—one that describes a system of development in which the needs of the present generation are met without compromising those of future generations. It’s a prudent, commendable goal, but difficult to define in practice—anything, from printing double-sided to reducing the carbon footprint of a nationwide supply chain, could be considered a “sustainable” business practice.

Frankly, sustainability no longer inspires or excites people anymore.

But a still deeper issue is implied by the term, and the initiatives it engenders. Most sustainability programs are, in essence, oriented toward damage control; corporate sustainability policies ultimately focus on how to do less harm, and rarely raise the question, how can companies do more good?

“Frankly, [sustainability] no longer inspires or excites people anymore.” Such is the opinion of sustainability expert and professor, Chris Laszlo—an opinion he expresses unabashedly in a classroom lecture [video below]. Laszlo hammers his point home with this metaphor: “If you were to imagine asking a friend—a married friend—you know, ‘how is your marriage going?’ and if they were to say, ‘oh, it’s sustainable. . .’ you know they’re probably in trouble. . .”

Ferguson Syllabus

A lesson from tragedy: Why citizenship does not remedy racial inequality.

A popular refrain from protesters in Ferguson.

The death of Michael Brown at the hands of a Missouri police officer in Ferguson just over two weeks ago has reinvigorated a contentious national conversation about race and justice. An NPR news correspondent, reporting on the President’s remarks on Ferguson, notes that Obama has assumed an even-handed approach, aiming to turn this (and other racially charged events during his presidency) into a “teachable moment.” A groundswell of educators, students, and others have mimicked this tack, taking to Twitter to mint the hashtag #FergusonSyllabus, where users of the hashtag are creating a digital trove of resources, sharing links to books, lesson plans, and other articles of note related to Michael Brown’s shooting and race-based inequality more broadly.

 

Reading Rec for #FergusonSyllabus, "The State of White Supremacy: Racism, Governance, and the US," ed. vol. w/ @stanfordpress - great essays

— Kaitlyn Patia (@kpatia) August 20, 2014

Message in a Bottle

The buried manuscript of a Greek Jewish inmate of Auschwitz.

The main gate of Auschwitz. Creative Commons image by Tulio Bertorini via Wikimedia Commons.

In a Q&A with the editors of Sephardi Lives, each was asked to share some of what they regarded as being the most memorable stories recorded in the compendium of Sephardi experience on which they collaborated, collecting and translating—with the help of other scholars in the field—over 150 documents written by or about Sephardi Jews. Co-editor Julia Phillips Cohen mentioned (among others) a diary, partially erased by time, written by a Greek Jew named Marcel Nadjary who was interned at Auschwitz. Of this record she says:

Amazingly, the manuscript—which bears witness to Nadjary’s dogged refusal to be cowed by the dehumanizing experience of the camp, his enduring faith in God, and his deep attachment to Greece—was discovered between Birkenau’s Crematoria I and II in 1980. Much of the original was by then lost to the ravages of time, leaving only a fragmented text full of spaces that can no longer be filled in. Somehow, to my mind, these absences do not detract from the text but instead make it even more powerful. They bear testimony not only to the story of the man who had the courage to write and bury his manuscript while imprisoned in Auschwitz but also to the incredible material history of the text itself and to its reappearance in the world after so many decades.

Dear Rebecca …

A Turkish Jew interned at Drancy writes home.

The camp in Drancy, circa 1941. Creative Commons image from the Bundesarchiv of Germany via Wikimedia Commons.

The following is a letter from Yaco Soulam, detained in Drancy, to his wife, Rebecca in Paris. The letter was translated from Ladino by Julia Phillips Cohen and is excerpted below from Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History 1700-1950:

Located in a northeastern suburb of Paris, the Drancy camp was first established by the German authorities in August 1941 as a site of internment for foreign Jews living in France. It later became the primary transit camp for all of French Jewry. In this intimate letter a Sephardi man named Bension Haim Yaco Soulam (1901-1942) tells his wife, Rebecca Soulam (née Bensasson) (1900-1974) about his days spent in the camp, urges her to keep their family safe, and attempts to arrange a clandestine meeting with her while he is interned. Yaco's letters to his wife during this period, written in a combination of French and Ladino, included elaborate coded messages and instructions, including his suggestion that their children keep a record of their naturalization as French citizens as a form of insurance. By contrast both husband and wife remained stateless, although they had come to France from Turkey more than a decade earlier; having failed to renew their papers with the Turkish authorities, they were not recognized by the Turkish consulate as Turkish nationals. Along with countless other stateless Jews of Turkish origin, Yaco was deported from Drancy to Auschwitz, where he perished. His wife Rebecca remained in Paris for another two years before she too was sent to Auschwitz. Having endured the horrors of the camp and nearly dying of typhus, after the war Rebecca Soulam was reunited with her children, both of whom survived in hiding. 

A Russian Jewish Woman in New York Seeks Dating Advice (... in 1916)

The question of the hour: can a Sephardi-Ashkenazi romance survive?

The following letters originally appeared in a Ladino newspaper, La Bos del Pueblo. They were translated into English by Aviva Ben-Ur and are excerpted below from Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History 1700-1950:

In early-twentieth-century New York City, as elsewhere in the United States, immigrant communities of Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews and Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jews settled in the same neighborhoods. Many Yiddish-speaking immigrants had their first chance to meet Sephardim under these circumstances. Although young Sephardi and Ashkenazi immigrants often met on the street, in schools, and in the workplace, they spoke different languages, had different cultural mores and religious rites, and even pronounced Hebrew differently. As a result many Ashkenazim, who formed the vast majority of Jews in the country, had difficulties believing that their Sephardi neighbors were in fact Jews. Frustrated by their Ashkenazi coreligionists’ refusal to recognize them as Jewish, more than one Sephardi man reported being driven to desperation and contemplating offering proof of his Jewishness to incredulous peers by demonstrating that he was circumcised. The following source, written in the form of an advice-seeking letter, a genre that first appeared in New York in the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts of Abraham Cahan (1860–1951) during this period, describes the various tactics Sephardi immigrants employed to try to gain the recognition and acceptance of their coreligionists. 

To the editor of La Bos del Pueblo: 

I am a Jewish girl born in Russia who came to America eight years ago. Although I am not remarkably well-educated, I have always wanted to marry a well-educated boy of the Jewish faith. 

One of my girlfriends took me to the Oriental ball organized by La Bos del Pueblo, where I met a boy named Jack. . . . 

Plumbing 250 Years of Sephardi History

A new documentary history sheds light on a vibrant culture.

a Q&A with JULIA PHILLIPS COHEN & SARAH ABREVAYA STEIN

Sephardi couple from Sarajevo, circa 1900. Public Domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

Inspired by the relative scarcity of information and understanding about Sephardi culture, Julia Phillips Cohen and Sarah Abrevaya Stein sought to collect, study, and translate a diverse array of sources by and about Sephardi Jews into a single documentary history. Combining the fruits of their own research with the findings of dozens of colleagues, they compiled over 150 sources originally written in 15 languages and spanning a period of two-and-a-half centuries. Their recently-published volume, Sephardi Lives: A Documentary History 1700-1950, is the result of this undertaking. In light of its publication, we wanted to ask them a few questions about what it was like to work on a project of this scope.

 

Q:

Sephardi Lives collates hundreds of years worth of primary source material written by or about Sephardi people—what motivated you to bring these texts together?  

JULIA PHILLIPS COHEN:  A number of years ago, not long after I had first begun teaching, a student in one of my classes approached me at the end of one of our sessions to thank me for assigning so many original, historical documents. I’d never had a student put it this way: she explained that she was grateful to have access to sources crafted by the historical subjects we were studying rather than simply getting scholars’ interpretations of the same sources. Ever since that time I’ve considered primary sources a pedagogical exercise in empowerment—one that allows students to do the work that historians do, including reading between the lines, contextualizing a source, and making links between documents.

Not long after this, some six years ago now, Sarah and I began to discuss the possibility of putting together a documentary history of the modern Sephardi world. The need for such a volume was quite evident to us.

How Does One Invent a Canon?

On collating hundreds of years worth of cultural history.

by JULIA PHILLIPS COHEN & SARAH ABREVAYA STEIN

Some six years ago, we began a collaboration with little idea that it would last so long, or yield such rich fruit. Our collaboration was motivated by a single realization:  the bulk of sources by and about the Jewish communities we had dedicated our lives to studying remained inaccessible, to specialists, students and lay readers. Most had never been translated into English, republished (in the case of published works), or (in the case of archival sources) published in any form.

Our goal was to amass a corpus of sources that reflected Sephardi history in all its diversity.

The communities in question were modern Sephardi Jews—descendants of Jews who fled medieval Iberia (modern-day Spain and Portugal) following their expulsion in 1492 and settled in the western portions of the Ottoman Empire, including the Balkans, Anatolia, and Palestine. For over four-and-a-half centuries these communities continued to speak and write in their own Judeo-Spanish language, Ladino, an Ibero-Romance language grammatically similar to fifteenth-century Castilian Spanish but encompassing loan words from other Romance languages as well as from Hebrew, Aramaic, and other languages that Sephardim encountered in their new homes, such as Turkish, Greek, and South Slavic languages.

The Eateries, Readeries, and Stomping Grounds of San Francisco

A curated guide to the city for ASA attendees.

by SUP STAFF

To view the map on Google, click here.

Only seven-by-seven miles, San Francisco may be a relatively small metro area, but this peninsula city boasts a seemingly endless array of things to do, see, and—perhaps most importantly—eat. While zipping through a city in conference-mode, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to hunting down local spots to wile away the non-conference hours—and in a city like San Francisco, the options alone can be overwhelming. So, after tapping a few shoulders around the office, we have compiled a list of San Francisco’s must-sees and -dos, as chosen by Bay Area natives and transplants. For the truncated version, see the Google Map—and for longform recommendations, see what SUP staff had to say about their picks below.

Eateries

Readeries

Stomping Grounds

 

 

 

 

editor-in-chief KATE WAHL

My favorite neighborhood and typical destination on weekends is Hayes Valley. A relatively easy MUNI or taxi ride from Union Square and the conference hotels, the neighborhood offers great window shopping and lots of good eats, all in view of the golden dome of SF City Hall and within steps of the Opera House and Symphony Hall. My favorite SF restaurant (if I must pick just one!) is currently Rich Table. Reservations might be hard to come by on short notice, but if you can get to the restaurant around 5pm—and are willing to eat at such an unglamorous early hour—you’ll likely get a seat at the bar. Or consider the just-opened Monsieur Benjamin. It’s a French restaurant with a French Laundry–trained chef in the kitchen—need I say more? (If you go, get the seafood sausage.) Also of note in Hayes Valley, 20th Century Café is great for coffee and pastries (you must get the potato knish) and Smitten is where you can get made-to-order ice cream (yes, frozen on demand with liquid nitrogen! It’s amazing).

So You're Writing a Monograph

Our new sociology and Asian Studies editor on writing vividly in academia.

by JENNY GAVACS

"If What I Say Is True" by Elvert Barnes, creative commons image via Flickr

On July 21 I was honored to start as SUP’s new editor for sociology and Asian studies. Even before that day people have been asking me: what will you acquire? In most cases I gave the obvious response about seeking new directions in these fields and at the same time furthering established dialogues scholars are already engaged in. And that answer is true, but it’s not the full story. What I’m actually looking for is clear, vivid thought.

When a scholar’s writing has been refined to transparency her idea shows through in all its glory.

The eminent sociologist Howard Becker says in Writing for Social Scientists (now in its second edition) that clear writing is the product of clear thought—and that revising many drafts of scholarly writing is actually a good way to refine and analyze the ideas behind the writing. Put another way by Norman Maclean (one of my favorite authors) in A River Runs through It: “ . . . all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”

The Inequality Research Machine

Far from being a cult concern, inequality is now a mainstream issue.

by DAVID GRUSKY

A wall projection at Occupy Wall Street, by Timothy Krause, creative commons image via Flickr

Not so long ago, the typical leftist would frequently complain that scholars, politicians, and pundits were largely indifferent to the spectacular takeoff in income inequality and the persistence of other extreme forms of inequality. This complaint was warranted: However much those on the left railed about inequality, pretty much no one was listening.

But that was then. Today, far from being a cult concern, inequality is a mainstream topic featured in all the mainstream outlets. It’s hard to pick up a newspaper, read a blog, or listen to the radio without learning about some new piece of research on poverty or inequality.

Who is poor? Who is rich? How much discrimination is there?

Given all of this research, one might reasonably ask whether enough is enough, whether perhaps it’s time to restrain the poverty and inequality research machine. Don’t we know enough already? Isn’t it high time to stop researching and begin doing something? Aren’t we just rediscovering what’s already known?

In answering these questions, it’s useful to sort out what we know and don’t know about poverty and inequality. On the positive side of the ledger, we’ve made great strides in understanding such topics as (1) why some people are well-off and others are in poverty, (2) the role of discrimination and segregation in creating labor market disadvantage, and (3) the effects of education on labor market outcomes.

Accolades for Sociology

A roundup of recent award-winning titles in sociology.

 

Congratulations are in order for our recent award-winning authors in sociology, whose books and honors are gathered below. Questions of national belonging, human rights, and the socialization of race are just a few topics addressed by these books—all of which were published within the last two years. These and other recent sociology titles are all currently 20% off when you order online using the conference discount code (S14SOC), and will also be available at the ASA conference in San Francisco this weekend. 

 

2013 Book of the Year Award, sponsored by the ASA Section
on Asia and Asia America

by PAWAN DHINGRA

Indian Americans own about half of all the motels in the United States. Even more remarkable, most of these motel owners come from the same region in India and—although they are not all related—seventy percent of them share the surname of Patel. Most of these motel owners arrived in the United States with few resources and, broadly speaking, they are self-employed, self-sufficient immigrants who have become successful—they live the American dream. 

Life Behind the Lobby explains Indian Americans' simultaneous accomplishments and marginalization and takes a close look at their own role in sustaining that duality.

Intervention and Displacement

How U.S. involvement in Central America pushes children and families to migrate.

by LEISY ABREGO

There is no doubt that violence and extreme insecurity are significant and immediate driving factors in the migration of children and families from Central America today. Since the early 1990s, when the United States began deporting gang members to the region, gangs have proliferated in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—the three countries with the highest numbers of child migrants in recent months. But gangs are not the root cause of migration; they are merely a symptom of a long and continued history of U.S. intervention.

Any time Central American leaders sought to reduce poverty, redistribute unused lands, or tax foreign companies, the CIA removed those officials.

For over a century, the United States has looked to the Central American region, with its arable land and geopolitical significance, as its backyard and a source for cheap labor. In a January 1927 Memorandum, Undersecretary of State, Robert Olds declared that the United States controls “the destinies of Central America and we do so for the reason that the [U.S.] national interest absolutely dictates such a course… Central America has always understood that governments which we recognize and support stay in power, while those which we do not recognize and support fall.”

Indeed, U.S. intervention has been evident throughout the region: From orchestrating Panama’s independence from Colombia to building the Panama Canal for shorter transoceanic trade routes, to ousting presidents whose policies threatened U.S. companies’ local profits. Any time Central American leaders sought to reduce poverty, redistribute unused lands, or tax foreign companies, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and sometimes also its military, removed those officials and installed new U.S.-amenable presidents. This happened as early as 1909 to remove José Santos Zelaya in Nicaragua and again in 1954 to remove Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala. As recently as 2009, the United States tacitly supported the coup against democratically-elected president Manuel Zelaya in Honduras. In each of these cases, the region was politically, socially, and economically destabilized with dire consequences for vulnerable populations. 

The Headscarf Debates Rage On

The European Court of Human Rights upholds France’s right to ban the headscarf.

by ANNA KORTEWEG

"Hijabs" by Orrling, creative commons image via Wikimedia Commons.

Perhaps no other single article of clothing has generated so much debate in recent years, as the Islamic headscarf. These simple, seemingly innocuous garments have become a symbol of larger debates about the belonging of immigrants and the actively religious in Europe and North America. In public debate, Islamic coverings (including the headscarf, the niqab, and the burqa) have come to signify the treatment of women as less then men and come to stand for the belief that Muslims actively desire to “Islamify” western societies.

Conversely, the uncovered Western woman (and those who protect her right to be uncovered) represents the secularism and gender equality that many interlocutors, including liberal feminists, see as pre-conditions for the expression of individual rights. Ironically, this approach leaves no room for the possibility that Muslim women actively choose to wear some form of covering as their desired expression of religiosity.

Concerns over freedom of expression in the public sphere shaped the recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights to allow France to ban face coverings in all public spaces. Immediately after France passed its 2010 ban, a young woman, known by her initials S.A.S, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights because she believed that the French law violated a number of human rights codified in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).  The French state in turn declared to the Court (as it had in shaping the law) that wearing a face covering threatened public safety and the need to communicate face-to-face in the public sphere. 

ASA 2014: A Blog Series

All things sociology, all week long.

This Friday, just a few hops up the peninsula from SUP headquarters, the American Sociological Association is holding its annual meeting in San Francisco. This week the Stanford Press blog presents a lineup of pieces zeroing in on the 2014 conference as well as recent scholarship in sociology. See the full list of this week's posts below.

Upcoming in Sociology

THE HEADSCARF DEBATES RAGE ON
A European Court upholds France's right to ban the headscarf.
by ANNA KORTEWEG
Monday

INTERVENTION AND DISPLACEMENT
How U.S. involvement in Central America pushes children and
families to migrate.
by LEISY ABREGO
Tuesday

See other new posts in Sociology » 

ASA Annual Meeting 2014

ACCOLADES FOR SOCIOLOGY
A roundup of recent award-winning titles in sociology.
Wednesday

THE INEQUALITY RESEARCH MACHINE
Far from being a cult concern, inequality is now a mainstream issue.
by DAVID GRUSKY
Thursday

SO YOU'RE WRITING A MONOGRAPH
Our new sociology editor on writing vividly in academia. 
by JENNY GAVACS
Friday

THE EATERIES, READERIES, AND STOMPING GROUNDS OF SAN FRANCISCO
A curated guide to the city for ASA attendees.
Saturday

20% OFF NEW SOCIOLOGY BOOKS
Who says you have to go to the conference to get the conference discount?

See all discounted titles online »

 

Busting the Boom Towns

On the rise and decline of America’s cities in the 20^th century.

Detroit's skyline. Creative Commons image by Meagan via Flickr

The United States is one of the most urban nations on the planet, with 81% of its total population residing in cities. Of course, it wasn’t always so; at the turn of the 20th century, the majority of citizens lived on farms, in small towns, and around other rural outposts, but by 1920—after decades of industrialization—the scales tipped in favor of urban living. Waves upon waves of immigrants coalesced with other drastic socioeconomic changes to bolster city growth in the ensuing decades. Throughout the 20th century (and still today) the steady rise of urban populations seemed unstoppable—and by and large it was. But while the growth never stopped, it did sputter—substantially.

That sputtering, often characterized by “white flight”, rising crime, and derelict buildings, took place predominantly over the course of the late-60s through the 80s, and it is this moment that forms the point of departure for Stephen J.K. Walters’ Boom Towns: Restoring the Urban American Dream. As Walters notes “library shelves groaned under the weight” of books trying to diagnose the causes behind the baffling decline of and divestment from America’s cities—none of which, by Walters’ estimation, quite hit the nail on the head. In his book he posits what he sees as the real culprit behind urban decline—still at large today, hamstringing growth and capping the potential for citywide prosperity. What follows is an excerpt from the first chapter of his book, “What We’ve Lost—And Why” in which he describes the boom and post-World War II bust of the U.S.’ major industrial cities.