Life of a Nation's Text: The Travels and Travails of the Indian Constitution

This review essay briefly discusses Granville Austin's landmark study of the working of the Indian Constitution and its critics, reviews three recent books on that Constitution, and evaluates the extent to which these new works have been able to take constitutional studies in new directions. All three books shine a light on the critical role of the Constitution and the courts in Indian democracy. While the authors are well aware of contemporary challenges to constitutionalism and have written on them elsewhere, this does not fully come through in their books. Despite this shortcoming, these recent studies are indispensable in making sense of the Constitution and its role in Indian democracy.

Studying Sex to Understand Sexual Assault

This book review explores Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus by Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan, and describes the complicated nature of sexual experiences as an undergraduate.

Why Two Reviews are Still not Enough

An introduction to a mini symposium on Jennifer Hirsch’s and Shamus Khan’s Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus

The Social Roots of Sexual Violence

In their book, Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan seek to understand why campus sexual assault happens and what can be done to prevent it in the future by identifying its social roots. The book approaches sexual assault from an ecological public health perspective, but I think at its core, I think it is also an argument for dismantling power disparities within institutions.

The Jack-Roller and the Life History Method: Notes on the Chicago School’s Clifford Shaw and Howard Becker’s Humanistic Narrative of Young Male and Female Delinquents in Different Ages

Clifford Shaw’s (1930) The Jack-Roller is a landmark study of naturalism, ethnography and crime. It is the ‘own story’ of Stanley—a young delinquent in Chicago. Shaw’s series of ethnographic studies on delinquency sought to humanize deviance in opposition to pathological understandings of delinquency. The article looks on the representation of crimes committed and punishment received by young male and female delinquents. Shaw’s argument focuses on structural inequalities and poverty as the cause of deviance; as a result, female delinquency was not explained by sexual promiscuity, although he failed to recognize young women’s vulnerabilities. The second edition of The Jack-Roller introduced by Howard Becker (1966, Introduction. The Jack-Roller: A delinquent boy’s own story, pp. v–xviii) redefined Shaw’s study within the symbolic interactionist tradition. From the 1950s, Shaw and Becker disagreed over the writing of the deviant’s ‘own story,’ the control of the narrative and the authorial voice. The article adds to the literature on narrative, female deviance and youth delinquency.

Functional genomics of supergene-controlled behavior in the white-throated sparrow

Supergenes are regions of suppressed recombination that may span hundreds of genes and can control variation in key ecological phenotypes. Since genetic analysis is made impossible by the absence of recombination between genes, it has been difficult to establish how individual genes within these regions contribute to supergene-controlled phenotypes. The white-throated sparrow is a classic example in which a supergene controls behavioral differences as well as distinct coloration that determines mate choice. A landmark study now demonstrates that differences between supergene variants in the promoter sequences of a hormone receptor gene change its expression and control changes in behavior. To unambiguously establish the link between genotype and phenotype, the authors used antisense oligonucleotides to alter the level of gene expression in a focal brain region targeted through a cannula. The study showcases a powerful approach to the functional genomic manipulation of a wild vertebrate species.