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"Understanding Urban Riots" published on by Oxford University Press.

Violence depends not only on long-standing background conditions but on time-patterns that determine when and if it breaks out, how long it lasts and how severe it is. Advances in recording technology including video cameras and CCTV have made it possible to locate turning points and sequences on the micro level. Different scales of violence have different time-dynamics, ranging from micro to meso to macro. These include the following: micro-rhythms (fractions of seconds) of synchronization and dominance in setting rhythms in face-to-face interaction; violence-triggering thresholds (a few minutes or less) in small groups, where boredom makes violence abort; tension-building danger time-zones (lasting a few hours) in organized crowds; revolutionary tipping points (a few days); duration of riots (a few days, but several weeks long if the riot moves from place to place or is intermittently scheduled); mass crisis and hysteria zone of national solidarity, rapidly reaching a plateau and lasting 3 to 6 months before declining; and macro time-forks, where sudden victory is relatively low in casualties, but where a stalemate leads to years of dispersed conflict with high attrition costs.

In bulletins from Britain and Ireland since 1969, Glengormley, like dozens of other place-names in Northern Ireland, has come to signify a site where more violence has occurred: another shooting, bombing, riot. In the context of a politics so grim that it never allows cultural productions the luxury of mere introspection, Mahon's surreal figure of earnest and extravagantly self-tormented intellectuals becomes a vivid image of victims of Irish political violence. Given that the "Troubles" (as the violence is known) in the North of Ireland have lasted for a quarter of a century, and that they are the current manifestation of a history of violent opposition to colonial oppression in Ireland, Irish writing, more than any other from Western Europe, seems to support Fredric Jameson's controversial opinion that postcolonial literatures, whatever else their effect, also function in the final instance as national allegories. In his brilliant and deeply committed discussions of a series of nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers and genres, David Lloyd implicitly accepts the notion that Irish literature works as national allegory, but he does not leave unquestioned the terms upon which this relation between text and nation is negotiated. In readings of texts ranging from Irish nineteenth-century street ballads to Samuel Beckett's first work in French, he meticulously delineates the overlapping of the political and the poetic in Irish writing. He wants his readers to be clear about whose interests are being served and whose are being ignored when the political realities underlying Irish literary production are obscured. For Lloyd, Irish political reality is the result of the island's, or at least the Republic of Ireland's, postcoloniality; one claim implicit in the title of the collection is that while this postcoloniality, given the particular divisions marking Irish politics and culture, is anomalous, from the viewpoint of the diasporan intellectual this very anomaly can be a useful challenge to accepted models of postcolonial history. Lloyd's essays contribute to, and critique, debates in Ireland on viable versions of postcolonial identity; they do so by raising issues that reach beyond the matter of Ireland. In particular they encourage diasporan intellectuals to examine more rigorously the nation-state's function as clearinghouse of ideologies of community.

Part I. The Bajío. Vanishing Indianness : pacification and the production of race in the 1767 Bajío riots -- "So that they may be free of all those things" : theorizing collective action in the Bajío riots -- From the country to the city : movement, labor, and race at the end of the eighteenth century -- Part II. Haiti. The domino affect : Haiti, New Spain, and the racial pedagogy of distance -- Staging fear and freedom : Haiti's shifting proximities at the time of Mexican independence -- Haiti in Mexico's early republican context -- Part III. Yucatán. On criminality, race, and labor : indenture and the Caste War -- The shapes of a desert : the racial cartographies of the Caste War -- "Barbarous Mexico" : racialized coercive labor from Sonora to Yucatán.

AbstractGiven the prevalence of riots throughout human history, the lack of normative theorizing about them compared to other forms of political violence is striking. The author hypothesizes that this is due to riots' extra-institutionality. Riots areextra-publicbecause they involve the participation of crowds, rather than institutionalized groups such as parties or social movements. They areextra-statebecause they violate the state's monopoly on violence. Riots areextra-legalbecause they constitute a form of unlawful assembly. They are alsoextra-parliamentarybecause they operate outside the normal legislative process. This article considers justifiable reasons to resist each of these foundational institutions, and proposes provisional criteria for a justifiable riot. The author concludes by urging political theorists to further examine the normative dimension of riots.

Given the prevalence of riots throughout human history, the lack of normative theorizing about riots when compared to other forms of political violence is striking. I hypothesize this is due to the riot's extra-institutionality. Riots are extra-public because crowds riot rather than institutionalized groups such as parties or social movements. Riots are extra-state because they violate the state's monopoly on violence. Riots are extra-legal because they are a form of unlawful assembly. Riots are extra-Parliamentary because they operate outside of the normal legislative process. By considering the justifiable reasons for resisting each of these foundational institutions I propose some provisional criteria for a justifiable riot and argue that political theorists should pay attention to the normative dimension of riots.

This paper explores the concept of "community engagement," a central theme within a British research project examining the issues of cultural sustainability among faith-based schools. Discussion is informed by the views of Muslim and Jewish school community stakeholders at the time when the policy of social cohesion was being legally introduced into schools in the United Kingdom. The article provides: (a) an introduction to the context of the British government agenda on "community cohesion" (promoting greater knowledge, respect, and contact between groups within the community) in the aftermath of 9/11, the riots in northern towns in England in 2001, and the bombings in London; (b) an historical perspective on the establishment of denominational schooling in the UK with reference to Muslim and Jewish schools; (c) explication of the research design; (d) exploration of the theory and conceptualisation of community cohesion drawing on qualitative data from the study; and (f) the implications raised for policy and practice in all schools.

peer-reviewed ; This paper explores the concept of "community engagement," a central theme within a British research project examining the issues of cultural sustainability among faith-based schools. Discussion is informed by the views of Muslim and Jewish school community stakeholders at the time when the policy of social cohesion was being legally introduced into schools in the United Kingdom. The article provides: (a) an introduction to the context of the British government agenda on "community cohesion" (promoting greater knowledge, respect, and contact between groups within the community) in the aftermath of 9/11, the riots in northern towns in England in 2001, and the bombings in London; (b) an historical perspective on the establishment of denominational schooling in the UK with reference to Muslim and Jewish schools; (c) explication of the research design; (d) exploration of the theory and conceptualisation of community cohesion drawing on qualitative data from the study; and (f) the implications raised for policy and practice in all schools.

1. Introduction -- 2. Visual jurisprudence : the new paradigm -- 3. Law's screen life : visualizing law in practice -- 4. Images run riot : law on the landscape of the neo-baroque -- 5. Theorizing the visual sublime : law's legitimation reconsidered -- 6. The digital challenge : command and control culture and the ethical sublime -- 7. Conclusion : visualizing law's rhetorical ideal.

Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- List od Tables -- Chapter 1: Introduction: Towards a Global History of Social Movements -- Part I: Conceptual, Methodological and Theoretical Considerations -- Chapter 2: Studying Social Movements: Some Conceptual Challenges -- Defining the Subject of Research -- Asking the Relevant Questions -- Theorizing and Conceptualizing the Phenomenon Under Study -- Choosing Appropriate Methods and Sources -- Interpreting and Contextualizing Findings -- Summary and Outlook -- Further Readings -- Chapter 3: Subaltern Studies as a History of Social Movements in India -- Why Subaltern Studies? -- 'The Peasant' as Mass-Political Subject -- Subaltern Studies and Accounts of Mass Insurgencies -- Conclusion -- Further Readings -- Chapter 4: Transpacific Feminism: Writing Women's Movement from a Transnational Perspective -- Introduction -- Formation of 'Woman' and Political Movement -- Transpacific Feminism -- Conclusion -- Further Readings -- Part II: Continental Perspectives on the History of Social Movements -- Chapter 5: Social Movements in Latin America: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century -- Introduction -- Post-Independence Movements -- Anti-Oligarchic Social Movements -- The Diversity of the Nationalist Social Movements -- Social Movements and Revolutionary Resistance to Dictatorships -- Current Social Movements and Their Characteristics -- Conclusions -- Further Readings -- Chapter 6: Dissident Political History: Social Movements in North America -- Social Movements: New Versus Old? -- Social Movements in the United States: An Overview -- Further Readings -- Chapter 7: European Social Protest, 1000-2000 -- Introduction -- Protests in Pre- and Early Capitalist Society -- Peasant Protests -- Guild Battles -- Food Riots -- Workers' and Journeymen's Struggles -- Millenarian Movements

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Making of Black Womanhood -- Authenticity in Representation -- The Political Life of Black Dolls -- Black Popular Imagination and Corporate Alignment -- Structure of the Book -- 1. Theorizing Black Women's Cultural Influence through Consumption -- Consumption as Ideological Renegotiation -- Black Bodies in the Fight for Symbolic Power -- Black Women's Self-Objectification -- Consumption for Black Girls: Objecthood, Desire, and Play -- Conclusion -- 2. From Riots to Style: The History of Black Barbie -- Barbie and Other Material Girls: Mattel's Early Black Dolls -- Learning Black Self-Determination: The Rise and Fall of Shindana Toy Company -- Black Women Are Dynamite: Black Barbie Comes to Mattel -- Black Women Are Marvelous: The Shani Dolls -- Mapping Blackness (Again) at Mattel: So In Style dolls -- Confluence in Selling Twenty-first-Century Blackness -- 3. From Bootstraps to Glass Slippers: Black Women's Uplift in Disney's Princess Canon -- Black Uplift Breadcrumbs: Popular Culture, Consumption, and Black Citizenship -- Colorblind Magic: Black Cinderella Debuts at Disney -- Treat Me Like a Person: Black Cinderella Makes Her Television Debut -- Historical, Geographic, and Contextual Blackness: The Magic of a New Orleans Princess -- Lessons from Glass Slippers, Star Wishes, and Black Cultural Traditions -- Commodifying Black Women's Experiences for Glass-Slipper Wishes -- 4. A Black Barbie's Moment: Nicki Minaj and the Struggle for Cultural Dominance -- Barbie Bitch!: The Construction of Hip-Hop's Barbie -- Black Cinderella and Fairy Godmother: Nicki's "Moment 4 Life" -- From Embodied Objectification to Appropriated Object: Minaj and Social Media Consumption -- Black Ass Goes Viral: Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda".

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- A Brief History of Commercial Interest Politics -- Political Economy and Imperial Governance Between ca. 1720 and the 1790s -- Notes -- Chapter 1: Commercial credibility and imperial expansion: Establishing the Whig establishment -- Whig economies before the Bubble -- Parliament and the colonies: Wood's halfpence and the Credit Act -- Autarky and Improvement: Theorizing Mercantile Imperialism -- "Merchant experts" and the regulation of information -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 2: "Imaginary wants" and the limits of empire -- Colonization and naturalization: population as an engine of growth -- Parliament out of bounds -- "Imaginary wants" and demand-centred political economy: the challenge to the establishment -- Vital statistics and the appropriation of political arithmetic -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 3: Public safety, public interest: The militia and the Seven Years "War for commerce" -- Patriots and the Seven Years "War for commerce" -- The Militia -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Chapter 4: Economies of allegiance: The Quebec Act -- Canadian commerce and Whig interest politics -- Neo-Toryism and the rejection of interest politics -- Neo-Toryism and the Quebec Act -- Colonial Catholics and the decline of Jacobitism -- The Quebec Act and provisions crisis -- French Canadian loyalty and the American Revolution -- Conclusion -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Chapter 5: Imperial wealth and disreputable interests: Ireland and the Stamp Act -- Irish politics and Irish patriotism: the 1748 election -- Irish politics and Irish patriotism: money bills and riots -- The Stamp Act: taxation and representation -- The Stamp Act: imperial wealth and disreputable interests -- Conclusion: Ireland after 1765 -- Notes.

This issue of IJMES features seven full-length articles and a roundtable on "theorizing violence." While we were preparing the articles for publication in June and early July, the conflict in Syria was escalating, the Turkish state was suppressing protests in Gezi Park, and the situation in Egypt took a precipitous turn when the military killed more than fifty Muslim Brotherhood supporters. As our colleagues writing in more time-sensitive venues such as Jadaliyya, Facebook, and personal blogs scrambled to keep up with events, we decided to take a broader look at scholarly approaches to the study of violence. For the roundtable, we asked seven political scientists, historians, and anthropologists working on the Middle East and South Asia to reflect on "violence" as a theoretical category across the disciplines. The responses move from introductory reflections on studying, teaching, and writing about violence by our new board member Laleh Khalili, who helped us organize the roundtable, to conceptualizations of violence "from above" employed by colonial, postcolonial, and neoliberal states (Khalili, Daniel Neep), through everyday and crisis-linked forms of sexual violence (Veena Das) and violence "from below," whether in the forms of communal riots and suicide bombing (Faisal Devji) or self-immolation, hunger strikes, and other acts of self-destruction (Banu Bargu), to reflections on violence and nonviolence in Gezi Park (Yeşim Arat). The roundtable concludes with a broad-sweep analysis of most of the above in relation to (inter)disciplinarity and to Middle Eastern modernity by our board member James McDougall.

[First paragraph]Capitalism: An Ethnographic Approach. DANIEL MILLER. Oxford: Berg, 1997. x + 357 pp. (Cloth £39.00, Paper £17.99)Women, Labour and Politics in Trinidad and Tobago: A History. RHODA E. REDDOCK. London: Zed, 1994. vi + 346 pp. (Cloth £39.95, Paper £15.95)Despite the underdeveloped state of the scholarship on its admittedly short sugar plantation slavery period, we now have a corpus of studies on various aspects of capitalism in Trinidad - from its historical advent (Sebastien 1978) to its twentieth-century manifestation in the petroleum sector (Seers 1964; Sandoval 1983), and from the ethnic structure of labor markets (Camejo 1971; Harewood 1971) and the role of capitalism in racial/ethnic inequality (Henry 1993; Coppin & Olsen 1998) to the way ethnicity affects business, big (Button 1981; Parris 1985; Centre for Ethnic Studies 1993) and small (Ryan & Barclay 1992; Griffith 1997), and the way ethnicity and gender are used in class recruitment (Yelvington 1995). There are also a number of fine working-class histories (e.g., Rennie 1973; Ramdin 1982; Basdeo 1983) and important works on the labor riots and strikes and the nature of the colonial state during the crises of the 1930s (e.g., Thomas 1987; Singh 1994). The two books under review here complement the works mentioned above, and they complement each other as well: Reddock's deals with the way capitalism up to the mid-century was buttressed by colonial politics, and explores how this formation engendered certain kinds of political responses, while Miller approaches capitalism through the assumption that fundamental changes in the post-Oil Boom period (ca. 1973-80) brought about considerable autonomy between production and consumption that can and should now be read through an analysis of the cultural circulation of images and commodities in the society. These books are both noteworthy because they engage in explicit theorizing on what capitalism was and is, and what it did and does.

The field of 'trans' studies, which incorporates transsexual, transgender, and cross‐dressing among its experiences and theorizing, has undergone tremendous changes within the century or so in which it has been developing. Initially, the scope of transsexual studies spans for almost a century, across social institutions and within a rigid model of proving a person's 'true transsexuality'. On the other hand, the reach and depth of transgender studies, emergent only less than 20 years ago, moves across disciplines, incorporates first and third person accounts, and it is less invested in reifying 'true' transgender identity and expression (although there are emergent movements attempting to solidify transgender as a multiple gender response to the gender binary, often by elite or privileged citizens). In summary, the field of transgender and transsexual studies is in constant development and change, and there are significantly some tensions that could offer much newer theorizing (e.g. between the categories of transsexuality and transgender as an umbrella term).Sociology's continued influence within the transsexual and transgender studies/fields require our attention to interdisciplinarity, while at the same time a serious grounding on the sociological literatures concerning the topic. Sex, gender, and sexuality are analytical concepts of much importance in order to study 'trans' populations and issues, as are questions of social location based on ethno‐racial, class, and other positionalities. These recommended readings, films and exercises form a foundation to implement critical views on the topic of 'trans' studies, and its intersections with other topics such as gender identity, homosexuality, gender presentation, and some historical accounts of the formation and solidification of the transgender category.Author recommendsStryker, Susan, and Stephen Whittle (eds) 2006. The Transgender Studies Reader. New York, NY: Routledge.A compilation of a number of old articles, and recent contributions by emergent scholars from many areas (including sexology, psychiatry, queer theory, feminist scholars, and transgender men and women), this reader is a critical reference to those interested in trans studies. Susan Stryker, herself one of the originators of transgender studies, poses a critical look at the resistance to acknowledge transgender (and transsexual) embodiment and identity. Stephen Whittle, a European scholar, also bridges the field in his beginning remarks. The chapters are a varied contribution to the scholarship of transgender studies, broadly defined. Its first part is a compilation of previously published work on transsexuality, but the majority of the text uncovers a series of issues newly developed (such as intersectionality, embodiment, and identities and communities).Valentine, David 2007. Imagining Transgender: An ethnography of a Category. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.This book is empirically based on fieldwork among three groups of transgender populations in New York City. Ranging from the staff and volunteers of the Gender Identity Project at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center, sex workers in the area of the 'meat packing district' (a district in the lower part of Manhattan) and at 'House Balls' (events of dance and competitions among queer youth of color), Valentine draws from all of these experiences to formulate the solidification of the 'transgender' category. A compilation of previously published articles and new material, this book is award winning within its field – anthropology. One of its main contributions is the use of 'transgender' as a term that evokes current debates and political struggles to solidify distinctions between gender and sexuality, and in many instances, the transgender category as relational to homosexuality.Bryant, Karl 2006. 'Making Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood: Historical Lessons for Contemporary Debates.'Sexuality Research and Social Policy 3 (3): 23–39.This article is a social history of the diagnostic category of 'gender identity disorder' and, in particular, how it was applied to children (mostly boys) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders from the American Psychiatric Association. The discourses surrounding the psychiatric diagnosis are traced from the beginning of related studies and the inception of the term (from the 1960s on) and into the present. Bryant gives a significant review of past debates in order to inform the contemporary ones taking place through his analysis of archival data, interviews with key mental health and psychiatry providers, and published reports on the development of this diagnosis. Among the aspects he looks at are the controversies as to whether atypical gender behaved boys will grow up to be homosexual, transsexual, or transvestite, and how current advocates for or against this diagnosis may be reproducing similar assumptions, or producing normative results, in their critiques of this diagnosis.Halberstam, Judith 2005. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York, NY: New York University Press.This book is a significant development from a humanities‐based cultural studies angle that takes a close look at artistic and media portrayals of transgender experience. Halberstam argues for a complex relationship (much closer than otherwise portrayed) between transgender and transsexual identities by looking at various individuals and their experiences – most notably Brandon Teena, who was killed in Nebraska by acquaintances, when it was 'discovered' that Brandon was a female‐bodied person who 'passed' as male. Halberstam's introduction to the book is a great challenge to the privileging of analysis of space in contemporary social theorizing (drawing on criticisms of works such as David Harvey's) and centering a newer analysis of queer uses of time as a challenge to normative assumptions about family and the nation. In a Queer Time and Place seriously engages the relationship between embodiment and representation, and the urban and rural contrasts in trans theorizing.Meyerowitz, Joanne 2002. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, MA, and London, UK: Harvard University Press. How Sex Changed is an elaborate historical examination of the ways sex, gender, and sexuality are tied together in early sexual science studies through the authority of medical and scientific 'experts'. Meyerowitz offers a broad historical and geographic discussion on transsexuality, ranging from the 19th century to the 1980s United States, and at times draws excellent comparisons between the US and European nations in their (often imprecise) dealings with transsexuality. A significant feature of Meyerowitz's work is the tracing of medical and scientific authority over access to technologies that would allow transsexuals to 'change sex'; transsexual narratives countered this authority with their accounts of self. The book illustrates the complex negotiation between what doctors considered to be the reasons and symptoms of transsexuality and the kinds of stories put forth by transsexuals seeking their help.Rubin, Henry 2003. Self‐Made Men: Identity and Embodiment among Transsexual Men. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Self Made Men is a sociological study of the experiences of 22 transsexual men from various US cities. Rubin answers questions about the body and identity for his research subjects by weaving two discussions: of genealogy and phenomenology; the former a more discursive argument, the latter, a more grounded one. In this way, Rubin attempts to engage in structure versus agency theorizing in the narratives shared by the female‐to‐male transsexuals he interviewed. Rubin's book has a significant overlap to Meyerowitz, where he discusses the 1970s division between female‐bodied transsexual and lesbian identifications – worth taking a close look at as well. But Rubin's contributions also attest to the embodied experiences of the transmen he interviewed, by weaving experiences of betrayal and misrecognition, identities in progress, and some of the historical determinants for the development of a male transgender identity.Irvine, Janice 1990. Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.This book gives a comprehensive look at the sexological field in the 20th century. As a sociologist, Irvine produces a compelling set of critiques of the ways in which a normative set of perspectives – about what takes place in one's sexual lives, about seeking help for sexual health, and about homosexuality and gender variant men and women – is dissected by the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and medicine. The text gives a comprehensive sense of the professionalization of sexology as a field – discussing Alfred Kinsey's work, the visibility and political mobilization of feminists and gay/lesbian groups, and later sexological scholarship on the physiological reactions to sex, erotic sensations, and pleasure. An award‐winning book, this is a great text to combine with readings on the social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality in contemporary USA.Kessler, Suzanne, and Wendy McKenna 2000. 'Who Put the "Trans" in Transgender? Gender Theory and Everyday life.'International Journal of Transgenderism, 4 (3): July–September. http://www.symposion.com/ijt/gilbert/kessler.htm.This very brief online essay offers a set of reflections on the uses and claims of 'trans' as a prefix that means different things to various populations (including academics and transgender people). The authors link their current reflections to their early work (Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach) in order to politicize the various possible social change results that can come out of radical uses of trans. Their discussion is a refreshing approach that combines sociological and feminist analyses of gender identity in transgender people. Moving through the meanings of trans, and the history of the study of transsexuality and transgender identity nowadays, they evoke a social constructionist perspective to how gender develops, but as well, to how the biological is also a social construction.Mason‐Schrock, Douglas 1996. 'Transsexuals' Narrative Construction of the True Self.'Social Psychology Quarterly, 59 (3): 176–92.This article shows the development of interactive strategies to solidify an identity construction among several identities and experiences expressed in a support group for transsexual, cross‐dresser, transvestites and other gender variant men and women. Through naming, 'modeling', guiding each other through their past histories, and ignoring certain 'facts' about each other's past, the participants in these support groups foregrounded a transsexual narrative, to the detriment of other expressions. The work Mason‐Schrock developed here is an exploration of identity negotiation at its core, and one that merits attention by scholars on gender and sexuality, as well as transgender studies. Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. Special Issue: 'Puerto Rican Queer Sexualities', Volume XIX, Number 1 (Spring 2007) (Guest Edited by Luis Aponte‐Parés, Jossianna Arroyo, Elizabeth Crespo‐Kebler, Lawrence La Fountain‐Stokes, and Frances Negrón Muntaner).This special issue of the Centro Journal has an introduction that frames the place of Puerto Rican sexualities in social scientific knowledge. I recommend this issue in particular due to several articles that illustrate the lives of an important Puerto Rican transgender woman (Sylvia Rivera, key figure in the Stonewall riots), as well as José Arria, another key Latino individual whose visibility in the gay/trans communities has often been overlooked. The special issue also reproduced the talk that Sylvia Rivera gave at the Latino Gay Men of New York (the largest Latino gay male group in New York City) in 2000, a few years before her death, as well as an interview with Antonio Pantojas – a long‐time female impersonator in Puerto Rico. For the reader interested in literature, the special issue also includes some discussion and analysis of Caribbean fiction that gave visibility to transgender people.Films and documentaries Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton's Cafeteria (Victor Silverman, Susan Stryker, writers, directors, producers, 2005). Info at: http://www.screamingqueensmovie.com/.This documentary illustrates a challenge to the notion that a queer revolution started in 1969 in New York City, but instead, was initiated in the Tederloin, a marginalized San Francisco neighborhood. The historical accounts of transwomen that experienced life in the neighborhood where the Compton's cafeteria was located at the time of the riot are presented through interviews and archival documentation. You Don't Know Dick: Courageous Hearts of Transsexual Men (Bestor Cram, Candace Schermerhorn, producers, 1997. Info at: http://www.berkeleymedia.com/catalog/berkeleymedia/films/womens_studies_gender_studies/gay_lesbian_transgender_issues/you_dont_know_dickAlthough old, this documentary shows the stories of several female‐to‐male transsexual men whose lives, their sexual experiences, and their gender negotiations are made evident. A very heartfelt documentary to show students the range of histories of transsexuality in an often ignored group – transgender men.Online materials

Sexuality Research and Social Policy e‐journal. Many articles published in this electronic journal showing the range of trans experiences (see in particular special issues December 2007 and March 2008, co‐edited by Dean Spade and Paisley Currah).
Trans‐academics.org. An excellent website with many resources for scholars.

Suggested syllabiInstead of providing a single (and perhaps, narrower) view of 'trans' studies and issues through a sample syllabus, I urge the reader to go to Trans‐academics.org. There are several syllabi addressing the various perspectives in teaching trans issues (and from various disciplines). The page can be accessed here: http://trans‐academics.org/trans_studies_syllabiProject ideas and suggested exercises1. This exercise explores various issues foundational to discussions of trans experiences by looking at self‐representations, or other representations, as well as potential sociological analyses.Take a look at recent films, documentaries, research articles and books, and first person testimonials from transgender people. Divide the classroom into groups of 4–5, and assign each of them a different cultural text/document to look at. After exploring general reactions in each of the groups, assign each of the groups a collective response to some or all of the following questions:

What are the representations of transsexuality or transgender identity or experience in your assigned text?
What is the relationship between sex and gender as evidenced in the films/videos/documentaries/articles/research reviewed? What, if any, are the discussions of gender and sexuality in the text?
How are first person narratives authorized? What are the underpinnings – the history, the encounters with regulating social institutions, and the community formation as expressed in these texts?
How does your group see sociology and sociological analyses in these texts? (This is important to assess whether the source you are reflecting upon is sociological or not.)

2. This assignment may lead students to think critically about the separation of gender and sexuality as analytical constructs. The document utilized also makes students reflect on migratory experiences and whether (and to what extent) they influence one's own knowledge and perceptions about transgender and transsexual experiences.Look at the Sexilio document (a comic‐book style autobiography) in the AIDS Project Los Angeles website (apla.org). Sexilio (Sexile) is a life history of a male‐to‐female transsexual who was born and raised in Cuba, and migrated with the Marielitos, the massive 1980 migration from Cuba to Miami, Florida. It is but one example of a first person illustration of transgender issues that complicates the relationship between gender identity and sexual orientation, adding migration experiences as yet another layer of analysis. Specific links: http://apla.org/publications/sexile/Sexile_web.pdf (English) http://apla.org/espanol/sexilio/Sexilio_web.pdf (Español)3. This assignment is intended to make students aware of the differences between first person representations, and media representations, of trans experiences.Have students research blogs, newspaper articles, films/documentaries, made‐for‐TV movies, other media coverage, and interviews (when available) of trans people that have been recently on the public eye, such as Calpernia Adams, Gwen Araujo, Tyra Hunter, Fred Martinez, and Brandon Teena. Then, have students explore:

What are trans people saying about themselves? (In the cases in which they have said anything about themselves – there are cases where they became well known after death.)
What are the various media outlets saying about trans people? Trans experience? (And here, pay special attention to the various media outlets and the regional, cultural, and religious differences, as well as other potential differences, in their reporting.)
Are the messages about transsexual and transgender expression/identity clearly separated in these illustrations?
Which (re)presentations link homosexuality to transsexuality? Which separate it? Under what arguments are these fusions and distinctions being made?

4. This is an exercise for smaller classrooms, where there can be significantly more discussion about one's own personal experience.Have students evaluate their own gender presentation and the ways in which others attribute their gender identity. For such a discussion, refer to the reflections on Lucal (1999). Then have the students discuss the different meanings of trans as discussed by Kessler and McKenna (2000), or the gender insignia as discussed by West and Zimmerman (1987).Kessler, Suzanne, and Wendy McKenna 2000. 'Who Put the "Trans" in transgender? Gender Theory and Everyday Life.'International Journal of Transgenderism 4 (3): July–September. http://www.symposion.com/ijt/gilbert/kessler.htm.Lucal, Betsy 1999. 'What It Means to Be Gendered Me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System.'Gender & Society 13 (6): 781–97.West, Candace; Don H. Zimmerman 1987. 'Doing Gender.'Gender & Society, 1 (2): 125–51.5. This assignment aims to break away from the transgender versus transsexual discussion, by incorporating cross‐dressing and drag performances.Discuss the meanings of 'trans' beyond the transgender and transsexual as explored in the article. Focus on cross‐dressing and drag queen/king discussions, by taking a comparative approach to cross‐dressing among some of the following scholars:Schacht, Steven P. (ed.) 2004. The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Customary World of Female Impersonators. New York, NY: Haworth Press.Schacht, Steven P. 2002. 'Four renditions of doing female drag: feminine appearing conceptual variations of a masculine theme.' Pp. 157–80 in Gendered Sexualities (Advances in Gender Research, Volume 6), edited by Patricia Gagne and Richard Tewksbury. New York, NY: Elsevier Science Press.Shapiro, Eve. 2007. 'Research Report: Drag Kinging and the Transformation of Gender Identities.'Gender & Society 21 (2): 250–71.Taylor, Verta, and Leila J. Rupp. 2006. 'Learning from Drag Queens.'Contexts, 5 (3): 12–17.Taylor, Verta, and Leila J. Rupp. 2003. Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Discuss: What are some of the assumptions about gender that those 'doing drag' engage in? Likewise, what are some of the ways in which the researchers apply those assumptions themselves? Is there a difference between cross‐dressing and drag? Have the students exhaust the potential differences, and name what they perceive to be the similarities between the two.If possible, further the conversation by incorporating drag and cross dressing as part of the transgender umbrella term. What are some of the historical implications of drag and cross‐dressing? Where do they see cross‐dressing in relation to sex, gender, and sexuality? And doing drag? Do they see a distinction between doing drag for female‐bodied and male‐bodied individuals? If yes, how so? If no, why not?6. This assignment is intended for a theory or sociology of gender class where theoretical discussions are expected – ideally, an upper‐level sociology course.Discuss the ways in which ethnomethodology, phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, cultural studies, queer theory, and discourse analysis all frame transgender and transsexual experience. Use any of the sociology references in the 'Transgender and Transsexual Studies' article.