Readins in high & low

Since the earliest days of spaceflight, substantial concern has been expressed regarding the physical needs of astronauts, including any biological damage that might result from exposure to radiation or from reduction in gravitational forces.

From its foundation in 1826, UCL embraced a progressive and pioneering spirit. It was the first university in England to admit students regardless of religion and made higher education affordable and accessible to a much broader section of society. It was also effectively the first university to welcome women on equal terms with men. From the outset UCL showed a commitment to innovative ideas and new methods of teaching and research. This book charts the history of UCL from 1826 through to the present day, highlighting its many contributions to society in Britain and around the world. It covers the expansion of the university through the growth in student numbers and institutional mergers. It documents shifts in governance throughout the years and the changing social and economic context in which UCL operated, including challenging periods of reconstruction after two World Wars. Today UCL is one of the powerhouses of research and teaching, and a truly global university. It is currently seventh in the QS World University Rankings. This completely revised and updated edition features a new chapter based on interviews with key individuals at UCL. It comes at a time of ambitious development for UCL with the establishment of an entirely new campus in East London, UCL East, and Provost Michael Arthur’s ‘UCL 2034’ strategy which aims to secure the university’s long-term future and commits UCL to delivering global impact.

So what was Lee Harvey Oswald really like? Kerry Thornley should know! Between 1959 and 1961, Marine Corps Pvt. Kerry W. Thornley wrote a novel about a fellow Marine who had defected to the USSR. Little did he know that his friend, Lee Harvey Oswald, would later be accused of assassinating President John F. Kennedy. Through the fictional character Johnny Shellburn, ""The Idle Warriors"" gives rare insight into the mind of the man who allegedly committed the most infamous crime of the century. ""The Idle Warriors"" is the story of a troop of Marines in the Far East - getting laid, pulling pranks, eating, drinking, and talking about life. It's a story similar to any number of films and books from that time, both in style and content. But because the book was based on Oswald, it remains an eerie novelty, like the appearance of Fidel Castro as an extra in a Busby Berkeley film. Kerry's introduction itself makes the book well worth reading.

Among the many myths created about Africa, the claim that homosexuality and gender diversity are absent or incidental is one of the oldest and most enduring. Historians, anthropologists, and many contemporary Africans alike have denied or overlooked African same-sex patterns or claimed that such patterns were introduced by Europeans or Arabs. In fact, same-sex love and nonbinary genders were and are widespread in Africa. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands documents the presence of this diversity in some fifty societies in every region of the continent south of the Sahara. Essays by scholars from a variety of disciplines explore institutionalized marriages between women, same-sex relations between men and boys in colonial work settings, mixed gender roles in east and west Africa, and the emergence of LGBTQ activism in South Africa, which became the first nation in the world to constitutionally ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Also included are oral histories, folklore, and translations of early ethnographic reports by German and French observers. Boy-Wives and Female Husbands was the first serious study of same-sex sexuality and gender diversity in Africa, and this edition includes a new foreword by Marc Epprecht that underscores the significance of the book for a new generation of African scholars, as well as reflections on the book's genesis by the late Stephen O. Murray. This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to the generous support of the Murray Hong Family Trust. Access the book online at the SUNY Open Access Repository at http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12648/1714.