"I shall consider human actions and appetites just as if it were a question of lines, planes, and bodies." -Spinoza, in Ethics In her first inquiry toward decelerationist aesthetics, Katherine Behar explores the rise of two "big deal" contemporary phenomena, big data and obesity. In both, scale rearticulates the human as a diffuse informational pattern, causing important shifts in political form as well as aesthetic form. Bigness redraws relationships between the singular and the collective. Understood as informational patterns, collectives can be radically inclusive, even incorporating nonhumans. As a result, the political subject is slowly becoming a new object. This social and informational body belongs to no single individual, but is shared in solidarity with something "bigger than you." In decelerationist aesthetics, the aesthetic properties, proclivities, and performances of objects come to defy the accelerationist imperative to be nimbly individuated. Decelerationist aesthetics rejects atomistic, liberal, humanist subjects; this unit of self is too consonant with capitalist relations and functions. Instead, decelerationist aesthetics favors transhuman sociality embodied in particulate, mattered objects; the aesthetic form of such objects resists capitalist speed and immediacy by taking back and taking up space and time. In just this way, big data calls into question the conventions by which humans are defined as discrete entities, and individual scales of agency are made to form central binding pillars of social existence through which bodies are drawn into relations of power and pathos.

In It's Bigger Than Hip Hop, M. K. Asante, Jr. looks at the rise of a generation that sees beyond the smoke and mirrors of corporate-manufactured hip hop and is building a movement that will change not only the face of pop culture, but the world. Asante, a young firebrand poet, professor, filmmaker, and activist who represents this movement, uses hip hop as a springboard for a larger discussion about the urgent social and political issues affecting the post-hip-hop generation, a new wave of youth searching for an understanding of itself outside the self-destructive, corporate hip-hop monopoly. Through insightful anecdotes, scholarship, personal encounters, and conversations with youth across the globe as well as icons such as Chuck D and Maya Angelou, Asante illuminates a shift that can be felt in the crowded spoken-word joints in post-Katrina New Orleans, seen in the rise of youth-led organizations committed to social justice, and heard around the world chanting "It's bigger than hip hop."

George loves to remind his little sister Lottie that he is bigger and gets to do grown-up things. A trip to the funfair teaches George that maybe he's not always big enough either.

People fear death. We don't know how to talk about it, especially to children, and we're afraid to bring it up for fear of making people sadder. Yet children, especially, have questions, and this incredibly gentle and surprisingly light story is full of both comfort and vividly imagined "answers." The first one gives the book its title: A boy hears the voice of his sister calling him one day, a sister he's never met because she died before he was born. The sister in the faded photograph on the wall. So that night he asks his mother what death is like and she tells him, "It's like dreaming, only bigger." That's lovely, but he still has questions, which it turns out his sister can answer! On a dreamy, carefree adventure they ride their bikes together, (not always on the ground), visiting places that were special to her when she was alive. And she talks to him in the older sister, teasing, straightforward, loving way that is exactly what he needs. (It turns out that death is not the only thing that can be Bigger Than a Dream.) Much, much more than bibliotherapy, this is a work of art that speaks with honesty and tenderness about one of life's great mysteries.

An inspirational self-help and spiritual guide for tapping into the strength and comfort around us and releasing the blocks and insecurities that hold us back in order to create deeper connections with the world and people around us. Bestselling author Fearne Cotton weaves her own journey of discovery and personal stories with the deep knowledge, ancient practices, and emotional tools of renowned spiritualists and thought leaders. With their help, she peels back layers of anxiety and self-limiting beliefs to find contentment, happiness, and deeper meaning. Down-to-earth and relatable, Bigger Than Us is divided into three universal lessons that we can all learn, no matter who we are or what we believe: love, awareness, and communication. From intuition and energy to the law of attraction, ritual, prayer, and signs, Fearne explores positive ideas and exercises that are available to every single one of us.

Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life In Organizing is the fascinating and compelling story of a man's determination to empower everyday Americans in their communities and workplaces. We meet people from all walks of life--working people, fellow organizers, politicians, clergy, protesters, union folks, the disenfranchised. We even fear for his safety as he participates as a UN observer during the first democratic election in war-torn Sierra Leone. Stewart Acuff developed his skills as a grassroots organizer in Texas, Tennessee, and New Hampshire. From there he went on to union organizing and founded Georgia SEIU Local Union 1985, later becoming president of the Atlanta chapter of the AFL-CIO. As president, he organized and led the historic campaign to unionize the 1996 Summer Olympics, labor's biggest victory ever in the South. During his tenure as organizing director of the national AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., from 2001 to 2008, the labor movement grew more than it had in a generation. He also developed the policy and legislation that became known as the Employee Free Choice Act and led the campaign for its passage. In this book we get a rare and readable glimpse into the life of an organizer. Acuff's story is one of stress, frustration, and disappointment being overcome by enduring hope and a belief in a righteous cause. No wonder Playing Bigger Than You Are: A Life In Organizing has been called "amazing and inspiring."