Synopses & Reviews
Like a garment wrapped around a body, Islamic ornament is both a supplement and a self-contained piece of art. Drawing on an endlessly rich arsenal of patterns and motifs-geometrical, vegetal, epigraphic, figural-Islamic artisans cover surfaces densely, filling space with an eye toward continuity and infinity. The results are visually stunning and philosophically complex, and adorn the architecture, objects, and paintings of the Islamic world.
The first comprehensive study on the history, function, and significance of ornament in Islamic art, Eva Baer's Islamic Ornament unravels the complexity of this artistic tradition as it developed over 900 years across the terrain of the Middle East and Central Asia. Baer offers the reader an illustrated historical survey, detailing the diverse patterns, motifs, and ornamental designs which compose Islamic ornament and the local traditions, foreign influences, and Islamic transformations which they reflect. At the heart of Baer's study are more fundamental questions about ornament and design, such as what limits, content, and purposes define the boundaries of ornament as an architectural and artistic concept. Baer pushes the reader to understand ornament as a language, as a vehicle by which Islamic artisans and artists expressed contemporary ideas and modified ancient ones.
Review
"Rosser's unparalleled knowledge of the role of gender in the workings of science, colleges and universities, and federal funding agencies informs her comprehensive prescriptions for opening the laboratory doors wider. Read and heed!" -Virginia Valian,Author of Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women
Review
"Breaking into the Lab shows us the good, the bad, and the occasionally ugly experiences of women in science. Sue Rosser's interviews with women clarify how the difficulties they face change as they move from junior to senior positions. Her review of the gender gap in patents makes clear how easily the present repeats the past. Rosser's unparalleled knowledge of the role of gender in the workings of science, colleges and universities, and federal funding agencies informs her comprehensive prescriptions for opening the laboratory doors wider. Read and heed!”-Virginia Valian,author of Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women
Review
“In this ‘must read book, Rosser reviews thirty years of work on women in science. In addition to analyzing new areas, such as womens relative representation in patenting, Rosser draws from her experience as a scientist, National Science Foundation program officer, and high-level university administrator to provide unique insights.”-Londa Schiebinger,author of Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science
Review
"Rosser has no doubt that women are disadvantaged at every stage along the career path in small but subtle ways - what she terms 'micro-inequities' - and that this process plays a central role in the way women drop out and burn up. In this book she discusses how these micro-inequities manifest themselves at different career stages, building on the experiences and reflections of her interviewees. She also touches upon what might be done to improve the climate."-Times Higher Education,
Review
"Rosser is a noted scientist/administrator who has written widely on the subject of women and science. Therefore, her perspective and insight are important to a discussion of the topic--how to compensate for the dearth of women in science, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering fields....Recommended [for] graduate students, researchers/faculty, and professionals."-CHOICE,
Review
"The book is accessible to a wide readership and is especially important reading for students and scholars of science and gender studies, higher education leaders, and individuals involved in scientific funding or policymaking."-Sex Roles,
Review
"The book provides helpful guidance not only for potential mentors, but for women scientists and their institutions as well."-On Campus with Women,
Review
"engagingly written and full of eye-widening narratives"-Springer,
Synopsis
Synopsis
Why are there so few women in science? In Breaking into the Lab, Sue Rosser uses the experiences of successful women scientists and engineers to answer the question of why elite institutions have so few women scientists and engineers tenured on their faculties. Women are highly qualified, motivated students, and yet they have drastically higher rates of attrition, and they are shying away from the fields with the greatest demand for workers and the biggest economic payoffs, such as engineering, computer sciences, and the physical sciences. Rosser shows that these continuing trends are not only disappointing, they are urgent: the U.S. can no longer afford to lose the talents of the women scientists and engineers, because it is quickly losing its lead in science and technology. Ultimately, these biases and barriers may lock women out of the new scientific frontiers of innovation and technology transfer, resulting in loss of useful inventions and products to society.
About the Author
Sue V. Rosser is Provost Vice President for Academic Affairs and Professor of Women and Gender Studies and Sociology at San Francisco State University. She holds a PhD in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author or editor of many books, including Diversity in Womens Health and Women, Gender, and Technology.