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76 Science, Technology & Health
The Proteus Paradox
How Online Games and Virtual
Worlds Change Us – And How
They Don’t
Nick Yee
Proteus, the mythical sea god who
could alter his appearance at will,
embodies one of the promises of
online games: the ability to reinvent
oneself. Yet inhabitants of virtual
worlds rarely achieve this liberty,
Nick Yee contends. In fact, though online games evoke a sense of
freedom and escapism, careful research demonstrates that
nothing could be farther from the truth. Yee shows that virtual
worlds perpetuate social norms and stereotypes from the offline
world, encouraging racism, misogyny, superstitious thinking and
other malicious attitudes. Further, the author finds that virtual
worlds provide unparalleled – but rarely recognised – tools for
controlling how players think and behave.
Yee breaks down misconceptions about who plays fantasy
games and the extent to which the online and offline worlds
operate separately. With a wealth of entertaining and
provocative examples, he explains in lay terms what virtual
worlds are about and why they matter.
Nick Yee is a senior research scientist at Ubisoft, where he
studies online game player behaviour. He is widely known for
the Daedalus Project, an extensive study of online role playing.
February 256 pp. 210x140mm. 15 b/w illus.
HB ISBN 978-0-300-19099-1 £20.00*
Raising Henry
A Memoir of Motherhood,
Disability, and Discovery
Rachel Adams
Rachel Adams’s life had always gone
to plan. She had an adoring
husband, a two-year-old son, a sunny
Manhattan apartment and a position
at Columbia University. Everything
changed with the birth of her second
child, Henry. Just minutes after he
was born, doctors told her that Henry had Down syndrome, and
she knew that her life would never be the same.
In this honest, self-critical and surprisingly funny book, Adams
chronicles the first three years of Henry’s life and her own
transformative experience of unexpectedly becoming the mother
of a disabled child. A highly personal story of one family’s
encounter with disability, Raising Henry is also an insightful
exploration of today’s knotty terrain of social prejudice,
disability policy, genetics, prenatal testing, medical training and
inclusive education. Adams untangles the contradictions of
living in a society that is more enlightened and supportive of
people with disabilities than ever before, yet is racing to perfect
prenatal tests to prevent children like Henry from being born.
Rachel Adams is professor of English and American studies at
Columbia University.
October 272 pp. 210x140mm. 1 b/w illus.
HB ISBN 978-0-300-18000-8 £17.99*
Translation rights: Janklow & Nesbitt Associates, New York
The Global War for
Internet Governance
Laura DeNardis
The internet has transformed the
manner in which information is
exchanged and business is
conducted, arguably more than any
other communication development
in the past century. Despite its wide
reach and powerful global influence,
it is a medium uncontrolled by any
one centralised system, organisation or governing body, a
reality that has given rise to all manner of free-speech issues
and cybersecurity concerns. The conflicts surrounding internet
governance are the new spaces where political and economic
power is unfolding in the 21st century.
This study reveals the inner power structure already in place
within the architectures and institutions of Internet
governance. It provides a theoretical framework for internet
governance that takes into account the privatisation of global
power as well as the role of sovereign nations and international
treaties. In addition, DeNardis explores what is at stake in
open global controversies and stresses the responsibility of the
public to actively engage in these debates.
Laura DeNardis is an associate professor in the School of
Communication at American University.
February 256 pp. 234x156mm. 9 b/w illus.
HB ISBN 978-0-300-18135-7 £25.00
The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child
Volume 67
Edited by Claudia Lament and Robert A. King
This distinguished annual, containing outstanding original
papers in psychoanalytic theory and practice, brings together
findings from all areas of analytic research and offers a rich
mixture of clinical and theoretical material.
Volume 67, the latest volume in this esteemed series, features
special sections devoted to sibling relationships and to working
with parents of adolescents. Other contributions address the
adolescent’s use of cyberspace to regulate intimacy in
psychotherapy, the evolution of traumatic memories over the
course of development and the role of the other in object
relations models. A section tracing the evolution of child
psychoanalysis includes Anna Freud’s own provocative
commentary titled ‘There Has Never Been Anything Like a
Classical Child Analysis’.
The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child Series
February 288 pp. 234x156mm. 2 b/w illus.
HB ISBN 978-0-300-19585-9 £55.00