Beyond traditional portraiture, Richard Kern's new works manifest a strong eroticism while incorporating the cinematic power of his earlier "Transgression" theme. His recent photographs with saturated color and stark, atmospheric lighting accentuate his pretty-but-not-perfect young nudes. Inspired, unique, and "real," his approach is as daring as ever in Soft. Still sticking with the "no airbrush" motto, Kern's unpretentious, honest photos draw the viewer in close. Kern's longstanding relationship with the "No-wave" scene, which incorporated music, performance, feminist art, and the punk lifestyle, is reflected and distilled in these photographs.

A former heroin addict himself, Kern?s photos offer the opportunity to stare into the far more insidious face of contemporary prescription drug addiction. On the genesis of the project, Kern has said, ?A woman working for me a few years ago told me that she was very jittery because she had taken too much Adderall. When I asked her about taking meds, she said that all of her friends took them too.? The resulting images?young women in their underwear holding up their pill bottles (Valium and Klonopin, but also Relpax, a treatment for migraines) and birth control packets against a background of their own cozily haphazard bathrooms and bedrooms?fall somewhere between scenes of confession and screen grabs from a YouTube tutorial.

Language, Literacy, and Technology explores how technology matters to language and the ways we use it.

In her highly anticipated book Discharge, Canadian-born, New York-based artist and photographer Petra Collins (born 1992) presents images of self-discovery and femininity that explore the emotional, complex intersection of life online and off. Responding to the ubiquity of social media, Collins offers images of unflinching honesty--girls on the brink of adulthood taking selfies, applying lip gloss, pleasuring themselves, or lounging in childhood bedrooms amid piles of stuffed animals--which explore the private and public aspects of growing up as a woman at a moment when female bodies are ubiquitously hyper-mediated by Photoshop and social media. "I'm used to being told by society that I must regulate my body to fit the norm," Collins writes in her introductory essay on censorship and social media. From there, the book deconstructs that norm through her intimate photographs of friends--photographs that, rather than counter the male gaze, document female subjects processing it. The young Collins uses film, lending her photographs, in spite of their inclusion of iPhones and laptops, a 70s aesthetic, a romantic nostalgia. Discharge includes a discussion between Collins and her friend, Rookie blogger and founder Tavi Gevinson, moderated by artist K8 Hardy. The photographs and discourse around them are part of a contemporary girl power revolution, proving that feminism and sexuality aren't mutually exclusive.

Aboard a long-range research vessel, in the vast reaches of the South Pacific, the cast and crew of the reality show Sealife believe they have found a ratings bonanza. For a director dying for drama, a distress call from Henders Island—a mere blip on any radar—might be just the ticket. Until the first scientist sets foot on Henders—and the ultimate test of survival begins. For when they reach the island’s shores, the scientists are utterly unprepared for what they find—creatures unlike any ever recorded in natural history. This is not a lost world frozen in time; this is Earth as it might have looked after evolving on a separate path for half a billion years—a fragment of a lost continent, with an ecosystem that could topple ours like a house of cards.

This collection of research in on-line communication for second language learning inlcudes use of electronic mail, real-time writing and the World Wide Web. It analyses the theories underlying computer-assisted learning.