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Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity revolutionized the way that academics conceive of gender, and has subsequently become a critical perspective for feminist and queer analyses in a variety of disciplines. The new anthropology of genders and sexualities uses this theoretical framework and focuses specifically on "institutions of ambiguity" that challenge gender dichotomies across the globe. Such institutions highlight the importance of understanding gendered and sexualized categorizations as cultural constructions embedded in a specific historical, spatial and cultural context. Continuing in that tradition, this paper is an examination of drag queens in contemporary American culture, with a specific focus on the politics of drag performance. With historical roots that can be traced back to Shakespearian theater, the practice of drag performance in the United States has evolved over time, yet it continues to challenge traditional notions of masculinity and femininity in American culture. Data collected from literature, fieldwork experiences, interviews, film, and social networking and video sharing websites will be utilized to examine the meaning of drag and the lives of those who perform in it.

During the 1930s and 1940s, as the United States weathered the Great Depression, World War II, and dramatic social changes, heroes were sought out and created as part of an ever-changing national culture. American artists responded to the widespread desire for heroic imagery by creating icons of leadership and fortitude. Heroes took the form of political leaders, unionized workers, farmers, folk icons, historical characters, mothers, and women workers. The ideas they manifest are as varied as the styles and motivations of the artists who developed them. This dissertation contextualizes works by such artists as Florine Stettheimer, Philip Evergood, John Steuart Curry, Palmer Hayden, Dorothea Lange, Norman Rockwell, and Aaron Douglas, delving into the realms of politics, labor, gender, and race. The images considered fulfilled national (and often personal) needs for pride, confidence, and hope during these tumultuous decades, and this project is the first to consider the hero in American art as a sustained modernist visual trope.

El trabajo analiza en lo teórico los movimientos sociales, enfatizando los surgidos en Latinoamérica, como expresión de una renovada lucha de clases en pleno siglo XXI. Partiendo de las definiciones clásicas marxistas sobre las clases sociales, se consideran las teorías que explican los movimientos sociales contemporáneos, incorporando las versiones latinoamericanas de las mismas. Se asume un concepto amplio de clase trabajadora, entendiendo como tal a los diversos grupos sociales que de una u otra forma sufren la opresión del capital, y no sólo a los obreros fabriles. Se incorpora el concepto de multitud, el cual no disipa la función histórica de la lucha de clases ni el principio de clase como tal, sino que las explica en la realidad que nos toca vivir. Los movimientos sociales de la última década expresan la lucha de nuevos actores políticos que enfrentan la ofensiva capitalista neoliberal tanto en los países periféricos como en las grandes economías centrales. En ellos los obreros fabriles encuentran sus iguales en los desocupados, en los campesinos, en las mujeres, en los indígenas, los afrodescendientes y en toda la multitud de manifestaciones políticas que insurgen simultáneamente contra el neoliberalismo. Los movimientos sociales latinoamericanos han revivido nuevamente la lucha de clase como expresión inherente al sistema capitalista, no sólo como defensa de unas determinadas condiciones de vida y de trabajo, sino también como búsqueda de una forma más humana de concebir la organización social. ; The theoretical analyzes in social movements, emphasizing that emerged in Latin America as a renewed expression of class struggle in the XXI century. Based on the classic Marxist definition of class, this paper considers the theories explaining contemporary social movements, incorporating Latin American versions of those theories. A broad concept of working class is assumed, defined as the various social groups in one way or another suffer the oppression of capital, and not just factory workers. The crowd concept, which does not dissipate the historical function of the class struggle and the principle of class as such, allows explaining the reality in which we are living. The social movements of the last decade express the struggle of new political actors facing the neoliberal capitalist offensive both in the peripheral countries and major central economies. They are factory workers in the unemployed peers in the peasants, women, indigenous, Afro-descendants and the whole multitude of political demonstrations that insurge simultaneously against neoliberalism. Latin American social movements have again revived the class struggle as an inherent expression of the capitalist system, not only as a defense to certain conditions of life and work, but also finding a more humane way of thinking about social organization.

"Serious Play: Race, Game, Asian American Literature," argues that games are narrative fantasies of perfectly equal opportunity that can help us reconceive of what it means to be a minority in contemporary America. Race's idiomatic evolution into a "race card" points not just to identity's growing immateriality and "virtualization" but to its increasingly intimate relationship with the ludic. Asian American authors in particular have seized upon the possibilities of transforming identity into an object of play, in part because gameplay opens up a space to challenge stereotypes about the group's "Tiger Mother"-esque obsession with work and apparent allergy to "frivolous" endeavors. Rereading Asian American literature through its literal and proverbial games, from the convivial mahjongg club at the center of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club to the game-theoretical model of the "prisoner's dilemma" captured in Japanese American internment novels, "Serious Play" reveals that it is not the Asian American ability to work but to play that offers the most cogent insight into identity formation as a simultaneously personal, political, and ludic pursuit.

The year 2011 was defined by the intersection of politics and economics: the Wisconsin protests, the Occupy Movement, anti-austerity demonstrations, the Buffett Rule, and so on. These events drew attention to the role of politics in the erosion of labor power, the rise of inequality, and the excesses of overconsumption. Moving beyond periodic and dutiful action directed at an increasingly unresponsive government, citizens tested the boundaries of what we consider civic engagement by embracing personalized forms of "lifestyle politics" enacted in everyday life and often directed at the market. These issues are the focus of this volume, which we divide into four sections. The first section attempts both to situate consumption in politics as a contemporary phenomenon and to view it through a wider historical lens. The second section advances the notion of sustainable citizenship at the individual/group level and the societal/institutional level, and understands consumption as socially situated and structured. Extending this thinking, the third section explores various forms of conscious consumption and relates them to emerging modes of activism and engagement. The fourth section questions assumptions about the effectiveness of the citizen-consumer and the underlying value of political consumerism and conscious consumption. We conclude by distilling six core themes from this collection for future work.

"Along with Civil Rights and Women's liberation, Animal Rights became one of leading social moments of the twentieth century. This book critically reviews all principal contributions to the American animal rights debate by activists, campaigners, academics, and lawyers, while placing animal rights in context with other related and competing movements. Rethinking the American Animal Rights Movement examines the strategies employed within the movement to advance its goals, which ranged from public advocacy and legal reforms to civil disobedience, vigilantism, anarchism, and even 'terrorism.' It summarizes key theoretical and legal frameworks that inspired those strategies, as well as the ideological motivations of the movement. It highlights the irreconcilable tension between moral and legal rights verses 'humane treatment of animals' as prescribed by advocates of animal welfarism. The book also looks back to the nineteenth century origins of the movement, examining its appeal to a sentimentalist conception of rights standing in marked contrast with twentieth century rights theory. After providing an extensive social history of the twentieth century movement, the book subsequently offers a diagnosis of why it stalled at the turn of millennium in its various efforts to advance the cause of nonhuman animals. This diagnosis emphasizes the often-contradictory goals and strategies adopted by the movement in its different phases and manifestations across three centuries. The book is unique in presenting students, activists, and scholars with a history and critical discussion of its accomplishments, failures, and ongoing complexities faced by the American animal rights movement"--

In this individual project the relationship between interests and moral in politics will be considered, taking into consideration the disintegration of former Yugoslavia and the processes of globalization. The starting thesis of the research is that the main actors of global politics are still guided by the modern principles of real-politics with interests as its basic category and power as its supreme value. In that context the main elements of external politics of USA as the key actor of the processes will be specially considered. In the concluding part of the research author will be argue in favor of the affirmation of a new model of global politics, matching the character and scope of the problems faced by humanity at the turn of the century and the millenium.

RESUMEN El presente texto reúne 14 intervenciones de científicos sociales de distintos países de América Latina. Se trata de un ejercicio de reflexión colectiva en el cual cada autor expone de manera condensada lo central de su visión sobre la teoría social y sobre los desafíos que ésta conlleva para el desarrollo de las ciencias sociales en el contexto latinoamericano contemporáneo. El objetivo del ejercicio es mostrar un panorama general del desarrollo de teoría social en la región, así como intentar recuperar dinámicas de reconocimiento y de producción colectivas como formas de resistencia propositivas a los procesos de fragmentación dominantes en la academia actual. Una impresión compartida por los autores es que el resultado de esta experiencia de diálogo hace evidente la vitalidad y variedad de la producción sociológica en la región, así como la necesidad de avanzar en la construcción de una agenda común de investigación. ABSTRACT This text brings together 14 interventions by social scientists from different countries in Latin America. It is an exercise of collective reflection in which each author exposes in a condensed way the centrality of his vision on social theory and on the challenges that this entails for the development of social sciences in the contemporary Latin American context. The purpuse of the exercise is to show a general view of the development of social theory in the region, as well as to try to recover dynamics of collective recognition and production as forms of proactive resistance to the dominant fragmentation processes in the current academy. An impression shared by the authors is that the result of this dialogue experience makes evident the vitality and variety of sociological production in the region, as well as the need to advance in the construction of a common research agenda.

Books reviewed in this article:Bulmer‐Thomas, Victor (ed.) (1996), Thirty Years of Latin American Studies in the United Kingdom 1965–1995Peter F. Guardino (1996), Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State Guerrero, 1800–1857William B. Taylor (1996), Magistrates of the Sacred. Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth‐Century MexicoMartin, Cheryl English (1996), Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico: Chihuahua in the Eighteenth CenturyBerman Santana, Déborah (1996), Kicking off the Bootstraps: Environment, Development and Community Power in Puerto RicoDupuy, Alex (1997), Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic RevolutionFarer, Tom (ed) (1996), Beyond Sovereignity: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas.Mainwaring, Scott and Soberg Shugart, Matthew (eds) (1997), Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin AmericaAitken, R., Craske, N., Jones G. A. and Stansfield, D. E. (eds)(1996), Dismantling the Mexican State?Mahon, James E. (1996), Mobile Capital and Latin American DevelopmentTokman, Victor E. and Klein E. (eds) (1996), Regulation and the Informal Economy: Micro‐enterprises in Chile, Ecuador and JamaicaZimmerer, Karl S, (1997), Changing Fortune. Biodiversity and Campesino Livelihood in the Peruvian AndesDrake, Paul W. (1996), Labor Movements and Dictatorships: The Southern Cone in Comparative PerspectivePereira, Anthony W. (1997), The End of the PeasantryMacdonald, Laura (1997), Supporting Civil Society: The Political Role of Non‐Governmental Organisations in Central AmericaFox, Jonathan and Aranda, Josefina (1996), Decentralization and Rural Development in Mexico: Community Participation in Oaxaca's Municipal Funds ProgramKeeling, David J. (1996), Buenos Aires: Global Dreams, Local CrisesMcGuirk, Bernard (1997), Latin American Literature: Symptoms, Risks and Strategies of Post‐Structuralist CriticismGoodrich, Diana Sorensen (1996), Facundo and the Construction of Argentine CultureZimmerman, Marc (1995), Literature and Resistance in Guatemala: Textual modes and Cultural Politics from 'El señor Presidente' to Rigoberta MenchúFischer, Edwin F. and Brown, R. McKenna (eds) (1996), Maya Cultural Activism in GuatemalaHershfield, Joanne (1996), Mexican Cinema/ Mexican Woman, 1940–1950Melhuus, Marit and Stølen, Kristi Anne (eds) (1997), Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas. Contesting the Power of Latin American Gender ImageryRadcliffe, Sarah and Westwood, Sally (1996), Remaking the Nation: Place, Identity and Politics in Latin AmericaBerryman, Philip (1996), Religion in the Megacity: Catholic and Protestant Portraits from Latin America

Democracy in the context of state life is the best political and government system. Almost all modern countries accept the absolute need for democracy to be upheld. The implementation of the democratic system in Indonesia is not fully implemented according to the Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution. One of them is the General Election (Election) which is still full of the practice of money politics. The fundamental essence of each action of money politics can be seen from the mechanistic process or procedure and juridical. According to deliberative democracy it is implied in what is said to be practical discourse, the formation of political opinions and aspirations (politische meinung-und willenbildung), proceduralism or popular sovereignty as a procedure (volksouveranitat als verfahren). Deliberative theory in a model is interested in the issue of validity of collective decisions, namely the procedure for producing rules. Deliberative theory in a model is interested in the issue of validity of collective decisions, namely the procedure for producing rules. The practices of money politics played or played in each of the elections, are indicated by the development of a discursive, spatial model of money politics in opinions - between money politics and general elections which can be regarded as' the results of public use of communicative rights ". Keywords: Mechanistic process, juridical, political aspirations