This book explores the history of children’s toys and games bearing racial stereotypes, and the role these objects played in the creation and maintenance of structures of racialism and racism in the United States, from approximately 1865 to the 1930s. This time period is one in which the creation of structures of childhood and children’s socialization into race was fostered. Additionally, commodities, like toys, were didactic and disciplinary media in the creation, modification and reproduction of Victorian society. This volume: will shed light on issues of identity, ideology, and hegemony; will appeal to those interested in historical archaeology, critical theory, and constructions of racism and class, as well as material culture scholars, and antiques collectors; will be suitable for upper-level courses in historical archaeology, modern American history, and material culture studies.

From a world-renowned expert on creative play and the impact of commercial marketing on children, a timely investigation into how big tech is hijacking childhood—and what we can do about it “Engrossing and insightful . . . rich with details that paint a full portrait of contemporary child-corporate relations.” —Zephyr Teachout, The New York Times Book Review Even before COVID-19, digital technologies had become deeply embedded in children’s lives, despite a growing body of research detailing the harms of excessive immersion in the unregulated, powerfully seductive world of the “kid-tech” industry. In the “must read” (Library Journal, starred review) Who’s Raising the Kids?, Susan Linn—one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of Big Tech and big business on children—weaves an “eye-opening and disturbing exploration of how marketing tech to children is creating a passive, dysfunctional generation” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). From birth, kids have become lucrative fodder for tech, media, and toy companies, from producers of exploitative games and social media platforms to “educational” technology and branded school curricula of dubious efficacy. Written with humor and compassion, Who’s Raising the Kids? is a unique and highly readable social critique and guide to protecting kids from exploitation by the tech, toy, and entertainment industries. Two hopeful chapters—“Resistance Parenting” and “Making a Difference for Everybody’s Kids”—chart a path to allowing kids to be the children they need to be.

The handbook is composed of chapters by authors who discuss the important features of particular types of toys, provide information related to the developmental importance of this type of toy, discuss social and cultural issues engendered by play with such toys, and review the available research on the characteristics and potential impact on children’s developmental progress of toys of that type. Both traditional toys and technological toys are discussed. The handbook is expected to serve both as a reference for educators, parents, toy designers, and other interested readers, and as a catalyst for further research and ongoing toy development. Its purpose includes helping readers to gain knowledge that enables them to more fully appreciate the value of children’s toy play, find out more about the favorite toys they had in childhood and relive those satisfying play experiences, and learn how to foster the learning, physical development, and social-emotional growth that comes from such toy play.

Although they entered the world as pure science fiction, robots are now very much a fact of everyday life. Whether a space-age cyborg, a chess-playing automaton, or simply the smartphone in our pocket, robots have long been a symbol of the fraught and fearful relationship between ourselves and our creations. Though we tend to think of them as products of twentieth-century technology—the word “robot” itself dates to only 1921—as a concept, they have colored US society and culture for far longer, as Dustin A. Abnet shows to dazzling effect in The American Robot. In tracing the history of the idea of robots in US culture, Abnet draws on intellectual history, religion, literature, film, and television. He explores how robots and their many kin have not only conceptually connected but literally embodied some of the most critical questions in modern culture. He also investigates how the discourse around robots has reinforced social and economic inequalities, as well as fantasies of mass domination—chilling thoughts that the recent increase in job automation has done little to quell. The American Robot argues that the deep history of robots has abetted both the literal replacement of humans by machines and the figurative transformation of humans into machines, connecting advances in technology and capitalism to individual and societal change. Look beneath the fears that fracture our society, Abnet tells us, and you’re likely to find a robot lurking there.

The Coloniality of Animal Monstrous Othering in Children’s Books, Films, and Toys examines how the portrayal of animals as physically distorted, behaviorally depraved, and intellectually defective serves to justify their debasement, violation, and destruction in materials directed toward young consumers. The author argues that this animal monstrous Othering arises from the Eurocentric belief in humans’ natural superiority over animals and the right to categorize animals in accordance with a scale of worthiness that parallels the subjugation of racialized persons. The chapters examine a variety of canonical figures like the dissolute wolf of Red Riding Hood stories and the disfigured titular character of the Wonky Donkey picture book alongside non-canonical animals including reprobate pigs, degenerate sharks, self-centered flamingos, and wicked piranhas. To counter this animal debasement, Varga juxtaposes these readings with an examination of materials that articulate harmonious animal-human interrelationships without dependence on styles of anthropomorphism that diminish animality.

Presenting examples from the fields of critical race studies, cultural resource management, digital archaeology, environmental studies, and heritage studies, Trowels in the Trenches demonstrates the many different ways archaeology can be used to contest social injustice. This volume shows that activism in archaeology does not need to involve radical or explicitly political actions but can be practiced in subtler forms as a means of studying the past, informing the present, and creating a better future. In case studies that range from the Upper Paleolithic period to the modern era and span the globe, contributors show how contemporary economic, environmental, political, and social issues are manifestations of past injustices. These essays find legacies of marginalization in art, toys, houses, and other components of the material world. As they illuminate inequalities and forgotten histories, these case studies exemplify how even methods such as 3D modeling and database management can be activist when they are used to preserve artifacts and heritage sites and to safeguard knowledge over generations. While the archaeologists in this volume focus on different topics and time periods and use many different practices in their research, they all seek to expand their work beyond the networks and perspectives of modern capitalism in which the discipline developed. These studies support the argument that at its core, archaeology is an interdisciplinary research endeavor armed with a broad methodological and theoretical arsenal that should be used to benefit all members of society. Contributors: |Christopher P. Barton | Stephen A. Brighton | Tiffany Cain | Stacey L. Camp | Kasey Diserens Morgan | Yamoussa Fane | Daouda Keita | Nathan Klembara | Ora V. Marek-Martinez | Christopher N. Matthews | Bernard K. Means | Vinod Nautiyal | Kyle Somerville | Moussa dit Martin Tessougue | Kerry F. Thompson | Joe Watkins | Andrew J. Webster

The volume brings together a collection of essays on Jewish-related subjects to celebrate Emanuela Trevisan Semi’s career and research authored by some former students, friends and colleagues on the occasion of her retirement. Drawing upon the many academic interests and research of Trevisan Semi, one of the most important European scholars of Jewish and Israel Studies, the volume discusses the diversity of Jewish culture both in the diaspora and in Israel. The contributors here wrote their pieces understanding Jewish culture as inscribed in a set of different, yet interrelated, homelands and diasporas, depending on the time and space we refer to, and what this means for communities and individuals living in places as different as West Africa, Poland, Morocco, and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. At the same time, they discuss the notion of diaspora as being crucial in the formation of the Jewish cultural identity both before and after the birth of the State of Israel.

Informed by the analytical practices of the interdisciplinary 'material turn' and social historical studies of childhood, Childhood By Design: Toys and the Material Culture of Childhood offers new approaches to the material world of childhood and design culture for children. This volume situates toys and design culture for children within broader narratives on history, art, design and the decorative arts, where toy design has traditionally been viewed as an aberration from more serious pursuits. The essays included treat toys not merely as unproblematic reflections of socio-cultural constructions of childhood but consider how design culture actively shaped, commodified and materialized shifting discursive constellations surrounding childhood and children. Focusing on the new array of material objects designed in response to the modern 'invention' of childhood-what we might refer to as objects for a childhood by design-Childhood by Design explores dynamic tensions between theory and practice, discursive constructions and lived experience as embodied in the material culture of childhood. Contributions from and between a variety of disciplinary perspectives (including history, art history, material cultural studies, decorative arts, design history, and childhood studies) are represented – critically linking historical discourses of childhood with close study of material objects and design culture. Chronologically, the volume spans the 18th century, which witnessed the invention of the toy as an educational plaything and a proliferation of new material artifacts designed expressly for children's use; through the 19th-century expansion of factory-based methods of toy production facilitating accuracy in miniaturization and a new vocabulary of design objects coinciding with the recognition of childhood innocence and physical separation within the household; towards the intersection of early 20th-century child-centered pedagogy and modernist approaches to nursery and furniture design; through the changing consumption and sales practices of the postwar period marketing directly to children through television, film and other digital media; and into the present, where the line between the material culture of childhood and adulthood is increasingly blurred.

Some board games--like Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, Clue, Guess Who, The Game of Life, Monopoly, Operation and Payday--have popularity spanning generations. But over time, updates to games have created significantly different messages about personal identity and evolving social values. Games offer representations of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, age, ability and social class that reflect the status quo and respond to social change.Using popular mass-market games, this rhetorical assessment explores board design, game implements (tokens, markers, 3-D elements) and playing instructions. This book argues the existence of board games as markers of an ever-changing sociocultural framework, exploring the nature of play and how games embody and extend societal themes and values.

This book presents a much-needed review of commercial closures for bottles and jars used in America prior to World War II. Archaeological attention to commercial closures has been rather limited. This is surprising given that data derived from bottles and jars pertain to a wide range of studies, including chronological control, trade, site functions, and methods of manufacture. Closures are an integral part of these studies, becoming particularly important after a spectacular variety of metal and glass caps in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This volume-provides a comprehensive review, including detailed closure definitions, as well as glass finishes;-discusses the history of the development and impact of the hermetic seal in commercial closures;-will appeal to students, professionals, and collectors studying this common historic artifact class.