Even for the casual viewer, the Netflix series Stranger Things will likely feel familiar, reminiscent of popular 1980s coming-of-age movies such as The Goonies, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Stand by Me. Throughout the series, nods to each movie are abundant. While Stranger Things and these classic 1980s films are all tales of childhood friendship and shared adventures, they are also narratives that reflect and shape the burgeoning cynicism of the 1980s. In Ode to Gen X: Institutional Cynicism in "Stranger Things" and 1980s Film, author Melissa Vosen Callens explores the parallels between iconic films featuring children and teenagers and the first three seasons of Stranger Things, a series about a group of young friends set in 1980s Indiana. The text moves beyond the (at times) non-sequitur 1980s Easter eggs to a common underlying narrative: Generation X’s growing distrust in American institutions. Despite Gen X’s cynicism toward both informal and formal institutions, viewers also see a more positive characteristic of Gen X in these films and series: Gen X’s fierce independence and ability to rebuild and redefine the family unit despite continued economic hardships. Vosen Callens demonstrates how Stranger Things draws on popular 1980s popular culture to pay tribute to Gen X’s evolving outlook on three key and interwoven American institutions: family, economy, and government.

Three twenty-something young adults, working at low-paying, no-future jobs, tell one another modern tales of love and death.

While the work of Sofia Coppola is sometimes dismissed as being stereotypically feminine and placing more focus on spectacle over substance, Sofia Coppola and Generation X (So Far): Anxious and Effervescent draws attention to common characteristics present in Coppola’s films to present an authorial signature and aesthetic that are both familiar yet evocative of Generation X’s perception in the public consciousness. In analyzing Coppola’s films from The Virgin Suicides (1999) to Priscilla (2023), this book argues that her filmography acts as a reflection of her generation’s evolving mindset and self-image from its initial rise to prominence during the late 1980s to its current sentiment of discomfort with its fading influence.

Essays in this volume explore the popular cultural effects of rock culture on high literary production in Spain in the 1990s.

Silicon Valley Girl (Paperback) by Maya Morrow Inspired by the life and works of poet Sylvia Plath, including Plath’s published journals, Maya Morrow presents her own coming-of-age journey in this collection of raw and uncensored diaries spanning a decade and a half. The story begins Christmas 1984 and ends in 1999, when the author, twenty-six, rediscovers the handwritten diaries for the first time. “These diaries are compelling enough on their own,” Morrow writes. “However, what makes this coming-of-age story different from many others is that it gives the reader a glimpse of not just an average, American middle class girl’s life – it highlights the fact that my life was that, and I’m Afro American. When The Cosby Show came on, I saw my family on television, and didn’t understand why the media said the show was an unrealistic depiction of African American life. It was realistic; it was my life!” Set against a backdrop of cultural touchstones any Gen-Xer would recognize, Silicon Valley Girl: My Adolescent Life and Times, and an Ode to Generation X offers a deeply personal look at the emotional life of a teenager of color trying to make sense of race, class, and sexuality at the dawn of Post-Cold War America. (2017, Paperback, 242 pages)

This book illustrates how MAPLE can be used to supplement a standard, elementary text in ordinary and partial differential equation. MAPLE is used with several purposes in mind. The authors are firm believers in the teaching of mathematics as an experimental science where the student does numerous calculations and then synthesizes these experiments into a general theory. Projects based on the concept of writing generic programs test a student's understanding of the theoretical material of the course. A student who can solve a general problem certainly can solve a specialized problem. The authors show MAPLE has a built-in program for doing these problems. While it is important for the student to learn MAPLEŚ in built programs, using these alone removes the student from the conceptual nature of differential equations. The goal of the book is to teach the students enough about the computer algebra system MAPLE so that it can be used in an investigative way. The investigative materials which are present in the book are done in desk calculator mode DCM, that is the calculations are in the order command line followed by output line. Frequently, this approach eventually leads to a program or procedure in MAPLE designated by proc and completed by end proc. This book was developed through ten years of instruction in the differential equations course. Table of Contents 1. Introduction to the Maple DEtools 2. First-order Differential Equations 3. Numerical Methods for First Order Equations 4. The Theory of Second Order Differential Equations with Con- 5. Applications of Second Order Linear Equations 6. Two-Point Boundary Value Problems, Catalytic Reactors and 7. Eigenvalue Problems 8. Power Series Methods for Solving Differential Equations 9. Nonlinear Autonomous Systems 10. Integral Transforms Biographies Robert P. Gilbert holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University. He and Jerry Hile originated the method of generalized hyperanalytic function theory. Dr. Gilbert was professor at Indiana University, Bloomington and later became the Unidel Foundation Chair of Mathematics at the University of Delaware. He has published over 300 articles in professional journals and conference proceedings. He is the Founding Editor of two mathematics journals Complex Variables and Applicable Analysis. He is a three-time Awardee of the Humboldt-Preis, and. received a British Research Council award to do research at Oxford University. He is also the recipient of a Doctor Honoris Causa from the I. Vekua Institute of Applied Mathematics at Tbilisi State University. George C. Hsiao holds a doctorate degree in Mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Hsiao is the Carl J. Rees Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the University of Delaware from which he retired after 43 years on the faculty of the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Dr. Hsiao was also the recipient of the Francis Alison Faculty Award, the University of Delaware’s most prestigious faculty honor, which was bestowed on him in recognition of his scholarship, professional achievement and dedication. His primary research interests are integral equations and partial differential equations with their applications in mathematical physics and continuum mechanics. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 publications in books and journals. Dr. Hsiao is world-renowned for his expertise in Boundary Element Method and has given invited lectures all over the world. Robert J. Ronkese holds a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Delaware. He is a professor of mathematics at the US Merchant Marine Academy on Long Island. As an undergraduate, he was an exchange student at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. He has held visiting positions at the US Military Academy at West Point and at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

The acclaimed author explores the hidden crises of Gen X women in this “engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage [and] pop culture analysis” (The New Republic). Ada Calhoun was married with children and a good career—and yet she was miserable. She thought she had no right to complain until she realized how many other Generation X women felt the same way. What could be behind this troubling trend? To find out, Calhoun delved into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw that Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age—problems that were being largely overlooked. Calhoun spoke with women across America who were part of the generation raised to “have it all.” She found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. And instead of being heard, they were being told to lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order. In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament. She offers practical advice on how to ourselves out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them.