Title & Author:

Toilet : public restrooms and the politics of sharing / edited by Harvey Molotch and Laura Norén.

Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2010]

Description:

vii, 316 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Series:

NYU series in social and cultural analysis

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction: Learning from the loo / Harvey Molotch -- Rest stop : Russell Sage Foundation -- Living in the loo: Dirty spaces : separation, concealment, and shame in the public toilet / Ruth Barcan -- Rest stop : erotic at Harvard / Bryan Reynolds -- Which way to look? : exploring latrine use in the Roman world / Zena Kamash -- Rest stop : judgmental urinals -- Potty training : nonhuman inspection in publish washrooms / Irus Braverman -- Rest stop : Time Square control -- Who gets to go: Only dogs are free to pee : New York cabbies' search for civility / Laura Norén -- Rest stop : trucker bomb -- Creating a nonsexist restroom / Clara Greed -- Rest stop : a woman's restroom reflection -- Sex separation : the cure-all for Victorian social anxiety / Terry S. Kogan -- Rest stop : MIT's infinite corridor, now shorter for women -- Pissing without pity : disability, gender and the public toilet / David Serlin -- Rest stop : flirting with the boundary -- Building in the future: The restroom revolution : unisex toilets and campus politics / Olga Gershenson -- Rest stop : Thai students get transsexual toilet / Jonathan Head -- Why not abolish laws of urinary segregation? / Mary Anne Case -- Rest stop : menstrual dilemma -- Entangled with a user : inside bathrooms with Alexander Kira and Peter Greenaway / Barbara Penner -- Rest stop : toilet bloom at Bryant Park -- On not making history : what NYU did with the toilet and what it means for the world / Harvey Molotch.

Summary:

Whether we acknowledge it or not, restroom arrangements--the norms, rules, ritual, and habits we follow--are a unique an definitive expression of our culture and its politics. Public toilets order and display our priorities as biological necessity meets up with sexuality, gender and diverse issues of disability, access, and inequality. Toilet illuminates the public restroom right down to how the mechanisms of design detail--the configurations of stalls, sinks, and doors--reflect and sustain social practice. Beyond our own personal experiences of using the bathroom, the book reveals the larger issues at stake: public health, city development, and ecological pollution. Because so much of what happens in the toilet stays in the toilet, secrecy, shame, and irresponsibility can flourish. Toilet puts it all in the open, confronting larger truths and aiming for a higher intelligence in the stalls. -- Back cover.
In "Toilet," noted sociologist Harvey Molotch and Lauren Noren bring together twelve essays by urbanists, historians and cultural analysts (among others) to shed light on the public restroom and how it reflects and sustains our cultural attitudes towards gender, class, and disability.

ISBN:

9780814795880 (cl ; alk. paper)
0814795889 (cl ; alk. paper)
9780814795897 (pb ; alk. paper)
0814795897 (pb ; alk. paper)
(e-book)
9780814761205
0814761208

Subject:

Toilets.
Toilets Social aspects.
Public toilets.
Toilet Facilities
Toilettes publiques.
comfort stations.
Toilette
Alltagskultur
Öffentlicher Raum
Gesellschaft.
Toaletter sociala aspekter.

Added entries:

Molotch, Harvey Luskin, editor.
Norén, Laura, editor.
NYU series in social and cultural analysis.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 269964
Call No.: BIB 202467
Status: Available