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2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Winner of the Passing the Torch Award from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies It has been called sperm, semen, seed, cum, jizz, spunk, gentlemen's relish, and splooge. But however the “tacky, opaque liquid that comes out of the penis” is described, the very act of defining “sperm” and “semen” depends on your point of view. For Lisa Jean Moore, how sperm comes to be known is based on who defines it (a scientist vs. a defense witness, for example), under what social circumstances it is found (a doctor’s office vs. a crime scene), and for what purposes it will be used (in vitro fertilization vs. DNA analysis). Examining semen historically, medically, and culturally, Sperm Counts is a penetrating exploration of its meaning and power. Using a “;follow that sperm” approach, Moore shows how representations of sperm and semen are always in flux, tracing their twisting journeys from male reproductive glands to headline news stories and presidential impeachment trials. Much like the fluid of semen itself can leak onto fabrics and into bodies, its meanings seep into our consciousness over time. Moore’s analytic lens yields intriguing observations of how sperm is “spent” and “reabsorbed” as it spurts, swims, and careens through penises, vaginas, test tubes, labs, families, cultures, and politics. Drawn from fifteen years of research, Sperm Counts examines historical and scientific documents, children's “facts of life” books, pornography, the Internet, forensic transcripts and sex worker narratives to explain how semen got so complicated. Among other things, understanding how we produce, represent, deploy and institutionalize semen-biomedically, socially and culturally-provides valuable new perspectives on the changing social position of men and the evolving meanings of masculinity. Ultimately, as Moore reveals, sperm is intimately involved in not only the physical reproduction of males and females, but in how we come to understand ourselves as men and women.

"Genetic modification, especially in regards to the creation of transgenic animals, has long been a source of controversy, fear, and fascination. Our Transgenic Future explores the creation, the ethical ramifications, and the symbolic resonances of one particular transgenic invention: a goat that creates spider silk. Lisa Jean Moore's new work draws from years of ethnographic research as well as her personal experiences with genetic engineering in the form of reproduction through artificial insemination. Her book provides an in depth look at the birth of the spider goat, chronicling its creation chapter by chapter. However, the animal is constantly connected to a variety of larger themes, including humanity's reciprocal interaction with nature, the figure of the "mad scientist," and the experience of aging and obsolescence"--

We know more about the physical body—how it begins, how it responds to illness, even how it decomposes—than ever before. Yet not all bodies are created equal, some bodies clearly count more than others, and some bodies are not recognized at all. In Missing Bodies, Monica J. Casper and Lisa Jean Moore explore the surveillance, manipulations, erasures, and visibility of the body in the twenty-first century. The authors examine bodies, both actual and symbolic, in a variety of arenas: pornography, fashion, sports, medicine, photography, cinema, sex work, labor, migration, medical tourism, and war. This new politicsof visibility can lead to the overexposure of some bodies—Lance Armstrong, Jessica Lynch—and to the near invisibility of others—dead Iraqi civilians, illegal immigrants, the victims of HIV/AIDS and "natural" disasters. Missing Bodies presents a call for a new, engaged way of seeing and recovering bodies in a world that routinely, often strategically,obscures or erases them. It poses difficult, even startling questions: Why did it take so long for the United States media to begin telling stories about the "falling bodies" of 9/11? Why has the United States government refused to allow photographs or filming of flag-draped coffins carrying the bodies of soldiers who are dying in Iraq? Why are the bodies of girls and women so relentlessly sexualized? By examining the cultural politics at work in such disappearances and inclusions of the physical body the authors show how the social, medical and economic consequences of visibility can reward or undermine privilege in society.

"The author considers interactions between horseshoe crabs and humans, through fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2016 at urban beaches near New York City, nature preserves in Japan, and marine research sites in Florida, and interviews with conservationists, field biologists, ecologists, and paleontologists. She explores the interspecies relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs, and how they are meaningful to one another in specific ways as humans interpret them for understanding geologic time, use them for biomedical applications, collect them for agricultural fertilizer, eat them, and capture them as bait, and crabs make humans matter by revealing humans' vulnerability to endotoxins and fertilizing soil for human food. She examines how humans exploit crabs, depend on them, and consider their welfare, discussing issues related to the species health of the horseshoe crab, their sexual reproduction, the use of their endotoxins, and global warming, site fidelity, and reclamation projects."--Provided by publisher.

Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore consider the interface between the social institutions of gender and Western medicine in this brief, lively textbook. They offer a distinct feminist viewpoint to analyze issues of power and politics concerning physical illness. For a creative, feminist-oriented alternative to traditional texts on medical sociology, medical anthropology, and the history of medicine, this is an ideal choice.

In the process, we meet a passionate, dedicated, and eclectic group of urban beekeepers who tend to their brood with an emotional and ecological connection that many find restorative and empowering. Kosut and Moore also interview professional beekeepers and many others who tend to their bees for their all-important production of a food staple: honey. The artisanal food shops that are so popular in Brooklyn are a perfect place to sell not just honey, but all manner of goods: soaps, candles, beeswax, beauty products, and even bee pollen. Buzz also examines media representations of bees, such as children's books, films, and consumer culture, bringing to light the reciprocal way in which the bee and our idea of the bee inform one another.

For centuries the biological sciences have dissected, measured, and probed the human body as a product of nature. But from a feminist perspective, the human body is a social production. Human bodies are shaped and controlled by the norms and expectations of gendered social orders, and intersected by racial, class, religious, and age norms and expectations. The result is a gendered body produced for a gendered social world. In this concise text with readings, designed for undergraduate students, Judith Lorber and Lisa Jean Moore present feminist contributions to social and cultural studies of the human body, examining the construction of gendered bodies in different contexts. They argue that the ideology of the perfect body is a powerful means of social control for girls and boys, as well as for women and men. The authors show how children's bodies are gendered through games and sports--and shaped and modified throughout adulthood to meet social expectations. Gendered Bodies: Feminist Perspectives covers a broad range of topics, such as men's bodies and masculinity norms, third-wave feminist menstrual activism, transgender and intersex issues, the male pill, the controversies over male circumcision and ritual genital cutting of girls, disabilities, war wounds in Iraq, torture, and suicide bombers. Each chapter includes a list of key concepts, three readings, recommended books and articles, and Internet sources. For the instructor, the book includes class exercises and a list of films with relevant themes.

Grappling with the strange phenomenon of colony collapse disorder—the baffling disappearance of all bees from a hive that is often blamed for the honeybee’s increasingly endangered status—New York City’s hobbyist beekeeping communities have gone green. Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut introduce beekeepers of all stripes: the careful cultivators of ‘scientific’ beekeeping groups, the passionately political radical ‘backwards’ beekeepers who hope to return the species to its most natural state, and DIY-influenced ‘hipster’ beekeepers who share a holistic approach to lowering their environmental impact. Though their approaches may differ, these beekeepers agree on one thing: to save the bee is to save our planet.

The unexpected and fascinating interspecies relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs are considered both a prehistoric and indicator species. They have not changed in tens of millions of years and provide useful data to scientists who monitor the health of the environment. From the pharmaceutical industry to paleontologists to the fishing industry, the horseshoe crab has made vast, but largely unknown, contributions to human life and our shared ecosystem. Catch and Release examines how these intersections steer the trajectory of both species’ lives, and futures. Based on interviews with conservationists, field biologists, ecologists, and paleontologists over three years of fieldwork on urban beaches, noted ethnographer Lisa Jean Moore shows how humans literally harvest the life out of the horseshoe crabs. We use them as markers for understanding geologic time, collect them for agricultural fertilizer, and eat them as delicacies, capture them as bait, then rescue them for conservation, and categorize them as endangered. The book details the biomedical bleeding of crabs; how they are caught, drained of 40% of their blood, and then released back into their habitat. The model of catch and release is essential. Horseshoe crabs cannot be bred in captivity and can only survive in their own ecosystems. Moore shows how horseshoe crabs are used as an exploitable resource, and are now considered a “vulnerable” species. An investigation of how humans approach animals that are essential for their survival, Catch and Release questions whether humans should have divine, moral, or ethical claims to any living being in their path.

Lisa D. Brush turns a gendered lens on states, power, and governance, showing the inherent inequalities in political systems and gender systems and how they intersect. She reveals the way in which state power supports male dominance in American and other western political systems. This book a useful antidote to traditional textbooks on government, the state, politics, and social policy.