Table of Contents

Acknowledgments1 IntroductionHarvey MolotchRest Stop Part I2 Dirty SpaceRuth Barcan Rest StopBryan Reynolds3 Which Way to Look? Exploring Latrine Use in the Roman World Zena Kamash Rest Stop4 Potty TrainingIrus Braverman Rest StoPart I5 Only Dogs Are Free to PeeLaura Noren Rest Stop6 Creating a Nonsexist Restroom Clara Greed Rest Stop7 Sex SeparationTerry S. Kogan Rest Stop8 Pissing without PitDavid Serlin Rest StopPart III: Building in the Future9 The Restroom RevolutionOlga Gershenson Rest StopJonathan Head10 Why Not Abolish Laws of Urinary Segregation? Mary Anne Case Rest Stop11 Entangled with a UserBarbara Penner Rest Stop: Toilet Bloom @ Bryant Park 12 On Not Making HistoryHarvey MolotchNotes About the ContributorsIndex

Promotional Information

Although what happens in the toilet usually stays in the toilet, this brilliant, revelatory, and often funny book aims to bring it all out into the open, proving that profound and meaningful history can be made even in the can

About the Author

Harvey Molotch is Professor of Sociology at New York University. His books include the classic, Urban Fortunes (with John Logan) and more recently, Against Security: How We Go Wrong at Airports, Subways, and Other Sites of Ambiguous Danger. Laura Norén is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at New York University.

Reviews

"An incredibly smart book about the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers. I will never look at a toilet the same again." Mitchell Duneier, author of Sidewalk "The politics of the loo, sexual as well as cultural, are taken up in a new book, Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Harvey Molotch and Laura Noren. It aims to tackle the language around toilets and open up debates that have gone on, so to speak, behind closed doors and that never get resolved. Why, for example, are we so resistant to unisex toilets? How bad would it be to have men and women going to the loo side by side? ... With contributions by sociologists, anthropologists and architects... The ideas are fascinating." - Gemma Tipton, Irish Times "[T]his book offers precise insights--want to keep a public bathroom clean? Stick some flowers there. And it often cleverly illuminates what's in plain sight--say, the reasons why New York has so few female cabbies--but is usually ignored or assiduously avoided." - The Atlantic