Synopses & Reviews
2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title!According to the 2000 census, more than 10% of U.S. residents were foreign born; together with their American-born children, this group constitutes one fifth of the nation's population. What does this mass immigration mean for America? Leading immigration studies scholar, Nancy Foner, answers this question in her study of comparative immigration. Drawing on the rich history of American immigrants and current statistical and ethnographic data, In a New Land compares todays new immigrants with the past influxes of Europeans to the United States and across cities and regions within the United States. Foner looks at immigration across nation-states, and over different periods of time, offering a comprehensive assessment and analysis.
This original approach to the study of recent U.S. immigration focuses on race and ethnicity, gender, and transnational connections. Centering her analysis on the groups that have come through and significantly shaped New York City, Foner compares todays Latin American, Asian, and Caribbean newcomers with eastern and southern European immigrants a century ago and with immigrants in other major U.S. cities. Looking beyond the United States, Foner compares West Indian immigrants in New York with those in London. And, more generally, the book views the process of immigrants' integration in New York against other recent immigrant destinations in Europe.
Drawing on a wealth of historical and contemporary research, and written in a clear and lively style, In a New Land provides fresh insights into the dynamics of immigration today and the implications for where we are headed in the future.
Review
"In these intricately woven, theoretically rich and subtle essays, Lidia Curti re-reads a diverse range of texts narrated by women in a variety of media. She deploys the interplay between genres and gender to disclose women narrating both the power of the female imaginary and the poetical and political reach of the voices, bodies and histories which sustain them." -Stuart Hall,
Review
“This book should be both a pleasure to read for both those who are immersed in the study of immigration and those less versed in the history and dynamics of these movements. For the latter, In a New Land will provide an excellent and thought provoking introduction. For the former . . . the book will stimulate thought about how to better understand this complex process.”
-Douglas Gurak,Anthropology and Education Quarterly
Review
“[A] highly valuable contribution to the field. Both historians and sociologists studying immigration will want to read this book.”
-Deirdre M. Moloney,George Mason University
Review
“This important and timely book encompasses a great deal. . . . Foners definition of race in the 21st century is invaluable.”
-Choice,
Review
“Excellent reading for anyone interested in ethnicity, race, and immigration patterns and policies.”
-Bryan Thompson,Journal of American History
Review
“Foner does social science a great service, revealing . . . how immigration functions in other contexts, past and present, and in so doing unveiling the peculiarities of the United States as an immigrant-receiving society.”
-Douglas Massey,Contexts
Synopsis
Exploring women's narratives from an innovative feminist perspective,
Female Stories, Female Bodies combines theory and textual commentary in a wide-ranging interrogation of representation and identity, gender and genre. Cultural critic Lidia Curti takes us through a diverse range of texts in a broad spectrum of media and genres, drawing on feminist, psychoanalytic, postmodern, and postcolonial theory in a challenging and rigorous discussion of such themes as hybridity and monstrosity, the male and female gaze, melancholia, desire, and paranoia.
From Angela Carter and Toni Morrison to Jeanette Winterson and Jane Bowles, from daytime t.v. to Shakespearean drama, Curti examines variegated "textualities" in search of the "spaces and times" that narrative occupies in women's lives. Following de Certeau's dictum that "our stories order our world, providing the mimetic and mythical structures for experience," she argues that women must retrace their way in the interminable plurality of female narrative texts as a strategy for resisting the "official" closure of female identity. Female Stories, Female Bodies takes us on such a journey, bringing the body of female narrative to bear on the lived experiences of women everywhere.
About the Author
Nancy Foner is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of numerous books, including In a New Land (NYU Press). She is the recipient of the 2010 Distinguished Career Award given by the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association.