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Copyright
2003 Reed Business Information US
a
division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
All
Rights Reserved
Publishers
Weekly Reviews
October
6, 2003 Monday
SECTION:
PW FORECASTS; Nonfiction; Pg. 69
LENGTH:
336 words
HEADLINE:
THE HAZING READER
BODY:
Edited by Hank Nuwer. Indiana
Univ., $49.95 (328p)
ISBN 0-253-34370-4; paper $19.95
-21654-0
Forced
drinking, long periods of sleep and hygiene deprivation,
public humiliation (often involving nudity or vomiting),
enforced servitude, verbal abuse, sexual assault, tortuous
physical abuse: although this sounds like a litany of abuses
in a book about the treatment of political prisoners or
activities of religious cults dominated by sociopaths,
these behaviors constitute the time-honored customs of
some sports teams, military units, and Greek fraternities
and sororities. Every so often public awareness is jolted
by stories of ugly and sometimes deadly hazing rituals.
New policies are made, public apologies are sometimes offered
and life goes on as usual until the next disaster strikes
in the form of the death of a student from severe alcohol
poisoning or perhaps hypothermia. Nuwer, a hazing researcher
and journalism professor at Indiana University - Purdue
University Indianapolis [and Franklin College], brings
together an impressive array of experts from student affairs,
professional sports, cultural studies, psychology, medicine
and law to shed light on the seemingly ineradicable culture
of hazing. Some of the chapters, including an important one on ritual violence
in black fraternities, explore the problem's anthropological and historical
roots. Several examine the psychological and addictive
effects of modern initiation rites. Others highlight case
studies and interviews with survivors and document institutional
coverups and denials. Most important, this thorough and
impressive, if occasionally redundant, collection hopes
to mobilize public opinion to enact reforms aimed at forever
eliminating the destructive, alcohol-saturated culture
of hazing and its "wrongs
of passage." (Jan.)
Forecast:
The high-profile hazing events in the news - including
this summer's brutal incident at a Pennsylvania high school
football camp - could get this book additional media coverage
and should help sales.
--
Hank Nuwer, Assistant Professor of Journalism,
Franklin College (Indiana) 501 East Monroe St, Franklin, IND 46131 317
738 8745
Lecturer,
Indiana University School of Journalism, Indianapolis (IUPUI)
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