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University of California Press Highlights

Values That Pay
Today, Morocco's hip hop artists are vital to their country's reputation as diverse, creative, and modern. But in the 1990s and 2000s, teenage amateurs shaped their craft and ideals together as the profound socioeconomic changes of neoliberalization swept through their neighborhoods. Values That Pay traces Moroccan hip hop's trajectory from sidewalk cyphers and bedroom studios to royal commendations and international festivals. Kendra Salois draws from more than ten years of research into her interlocutors' music and moral reasoning to explore the constitutive tensions of institutionalization, hip hop aesthetics, and neoliberal life. Entrepreneurial artists respond to their unavoidable complicity with an extractive state through aesthetic and interpersonal sincerity, educating their fans on the risks and responsibilities of contemporary citizenship. Salois argues that over the past forty years, Moroccan hip hop practitioners have transformed not only themselves but also what it means to be an ethical citizen in a deeply unequal nation.
Can We Laugh at That?
Comedians are no strangers to controversy or crossing the line. But some things do change. Humorists the world over are no longer simply denounced in grouchy op-eds. Now comedians are being hounded by criminal investigations and civil suits, or forced off the airwaves. They are menaced by vigilantes and religious fundamentalists. Some have been forced into exile, imprisoned, or even murdered. In the age of social media and global digital distribution, the audience is everyone, ensuring that criticism can be as vicious as it is unavoidable. With a flair for storytelling, Jacques Berlinerblau explores the high stakes of the low blow in this darkly witty examination of American comedians such as Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Shane Gillis, and Sarah Silverman as well as humorists in France, Denmark, Zimbabwe, and Egypt.


Overcoming Bias Habits
Most anti-bias trainings offer empty words rather than effective, practical solutions. In this hopeful and accessible guide, scientist-practitioner William T. L. Cox breaks down the science behind stereotypes, bias, and the habits we form that perpetuate these cognitive traps in daily life. He highlights lessons from his empirically backed anti-bias training and provides actionable tools for preventing bias and speaking out in favor of diversity. Overcoming Bias Habits inspires us to be agents of change by making meaningful transformations in our behaviors and maintaining them over time. Focusing on individuals and our habits, however, does not mean ignoring the systems and institutions that perpetuate discrimination: Doing the work for ourselves empowers us to also hold institutions accountable and to effect genuine, lasting change in our schools, workplaces, and communities.
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