Michael P. Jeffries's Books

Behind the Laughs

Community and Inequality in Comedy

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Behind the Laughs

Community and Inequality in Comedy

By: Michael P. Jeffries

Comedy is a brutal business. When comedians define success, they don't talk about money—they talk about not quitting. They work in a business where even big names work for free, and the inequalities of race, class, and gender create real barriers. But they also work in a business where people still believe that hard work and talent lead to the big time. How do people working in comedy sustain these contradictions and keep laughing? In Behind the Laughs, Michael P. Jeffries brings readers into the world of comedy to reveal its dark corners and share its buoyant lifeblood. He draws on conversations with comedians, as well as club owners, bookers, and managers, to show the extraordinary social connections professional humor demands. Not only do comedians have to read their audience night after night, but they must also create lasting bonds across the profession to get gigs in the first place. Comedy is not a meritocracy, and its rewards are not often fame and fortune. Only performers who know the rules of their community are able to make it a career.

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Page Count

266

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1503602974

ISBN 13

9781503602977

Thug Life

Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Thug Life

Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop

By: Michael P. Jeffries

Hip-hop has come a long way from its origins in the Bronx in the 1970s, when rapping and DJing were just part of a lively, decidedly local scene that also venerated b-boying and graffiti. Now hip-hop is a global phenomenon and, in the United States, a massively successful corporate enterprise predominantly controlled and consumed by whites while the most prominent performers are black. How does this shift in racial dynamics affect our understanding of contemporary hip-hop, especially when the music perpetuates stereotypes of black men? Do black listeners interpret hip-hop differently from white fans? These questions have dogged hip-hop for decades, but unlike most pundits, Michael P. Jeffries finds answers by interviewing everyday people. Instead of turning to performers or media critics, Thug Life focuses on the music’s fans—young men, both black and white—and the resulting account avoids romanticism, offering an unbiased examination of how hip-hop works in people’s daily lives. As Jeffries weaves the fans’ voices together with his own sophisticated analysis, we are able to understand hip-hop as a tool listeners use to make sense of themselves and society as well as a rich, self-contained world containing politics and pleasure, virtue and vice.

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Page Count

280

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226395863

ISBN 13

9780226395869

Paint the White House Black

Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Paint the White House Black

Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America

By: Michael P. Jeffries

Barack Obama's election as the first black president in American history forced a reconsideration of racial reality and possibility. It also incited an outpouring of discussion and analysis of Obama's personal and political exploits. Paint the White House Black fills a significant void in Obama-themed debate, shifting the emphasis from the details of Obama's political career to an understanding of how race works in America. In this groundbreaking book, race, rather than Obama, is the central focus. Michael P. Jeffries approaches Obama's election and administration as common cultural ground for thinking about race. He uncovers contemporary stereotypes and anxieties by examining historically rooted conceptions of race and nationhood, discourses of "biracialism" and Obama's mixed heritage, the purported emergence of a "post-racial society," and popular symbols of Michelle Obama as a modern black woman. In so doing, Jeffries casts new light on how we think about race and enables us to see how race, in turn, operates within our daily lives. Race is a difficult concept to grasp, with outbursts and silences that disguise its relationships with a host of other phenomena. Using Barack Obama as its point of departure, Paint the White House Black boldly aims to understand race by tracing the web of interactions that bind it to other social and historical forces.

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Page Count

223

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804785570

ISBN 13

9780804785570

Fossil Fungi

By: Thomas N Taylor,Michael Krings,Edith L. Taylor

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Fossil Fungi

By: Thomas N Taylor,Michael Krings,Edith L. Taylor

Fungi are ubiquitous in the world and responsible for driving the evolution and governing the sustainability of ecosystems now and in the past. Fossil Fungi is the first encyclopedic book devoted exclusively to fossil fungi and their activities through geologic time. The book begins with the historical context of research on fossil fungi (paleomycology), followed by how fungi are formed and studied as fossils, and their age. The next six chapters focus on the major lineages of fungi, arranging them in phylogenetic order and placing the fossils within a systematic framework. For each fossil the age and provenance are provided. Each chapter provides a detailed introduction to the living members of the group and a discussion of the fossils that are believed to belong in this group. The extensive bibliography (~ 2700 entries) includes papers on both extant and fossil fungi. Additional chapters include lichens, fungal spores, and the interactions of fungi with plants, animals, and the geosphere. The final chapter includes a discussion of fossil bacteria and other organisms that are fungal-like in appearance, and known from the fossil record. The book includes more than 475 illustrations, almost all in color, of fossil fungi, line drawings, and portraits of people, as well as a glossary of more than 700 mycological and paleontological terms that will be useful to both biologists and geoscientists. - First book devoted to the whole spectrum of the fossil record of fungi, ranging from Proterozoic fossils to the role of fungi in rock weathering - Detailed discussion of how fossil fungi are preserved and studied - Extensive bibliography with more than 2000 entries - Where possible, fungal fossils are placed in a modern systematic context - Each chapter within the systematic treatment of fungal lineages introduced with an easy-to-understand presentation of the main characters that define extant members - Extensive glossary of more than 700 entries that define both biological, geological, and mycological terminology

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Page Count

401

Publisher

Academic Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0123877547

ISBN 13

9780123877543

Thug Life

Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Thug Life

Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Page Count

280

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226395863

ISBN 13

9780226395869

Paint the White House Black

Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Paint the White House Black

Barack Obama and the Meaning of Race in America

By: Michael P. Jeffries

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

223

Publisher

Stanford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0804785570

ISBN 13

9780804785570

Book's by Michael P. Jeffries

Behind the Laughs

Behind the Laughs

Thug Life

Thug Life

Paint the White House Black

Paint the White House Black

Fossil Fungi

Fossil Fungi

Thug Life

Thug Life

Paint the White House Black

Paint the White House Black

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