We are delighted to welcome the Association for Asian American Studies and its members to Seattle for AAAS 2024. This year marks fifty years of contributions to Asian American literary history here at the University of Washington Press and whether or not you’re attending the conference, we have lots in store to celebrate, including author talks and readings that are open to all.
Read on for information about upcoming events and new and forthcoming releases, and visit our virtual exhibit to discover more notable books in Asian American studies. We are pleased to offer AAAS members a 30% discount on all orders to US addresses with promo code WAAAS24 at checkout on our website through May 31, 2024.
“A fascinating, lively account of the Taiwanese diaspora’s surprising influence on America—and America’s furtive investment in their fates, as well.” —Hua Hsu, author of Stay True: A Memoir
“This superb collection deepens and necessarily challenges our understanding of the ’transpacific.’” —Crystal Mun-Hye Baik, author of Reencounters: On the Korean Wat and Diasporic Memory Critique
The newest release in the Classics of Asian American Literature series, “Willyce Kim’s groundbreaking debut novel . . . returns to us now in this beautiful new edition, a new home to these iconoclastic rebel lesbians, giving back to us a much-needed queer classic“ (Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel).
“Greg Robinson is the foremost chronicler of not only the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, but also an eminent historian of the life of the community before and after. With a depth of research unlikely to be rivaled . . . he [offers] a glimpse into the fullness of humanity that otherwise would be obscured or forgotten.“ —Frank H. Wu, coauthor of The Good Citizen
Drawing from a community-based oral history and archiving project, Exiled to Motown captures the compelling stories of Japanese Americans in the Midwest, filling in overlooked aspects of the Asian American experience.
“Essential reading—informative, insightful, revealing, and timely. An important invitation to remember lives lost and impacted by nuclear disasters and to pause and review the ways nuclear power has been mobilized in relation to US imperialism and racial-settler capitalism.” —Susette Min, author of Unnamable: The Ends of Asian American Art
Upcoming Public Events
Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism Author Talk Wednesday, April 24, 3:30 pm at UW, Thomson Hall Room 317 Drawing on interviews with student activists and extensive archival research, Wendy Cheng documents how Taiwanese Americans developed tight-knit social networks as infrastructures for identity formation, consciousness development, and anticolonial activism. This free event will be held in person and streamed online. For more information and to register, visit the event page here.
The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History Author Talk Thursday, April 25, 6:00 pmat Densho Through stories of remarkable people in Japanese American history, The Unknown Great illuminates the diversity of the Nikkei experience from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day. Acclaimed historian and journalist Greg Robinson, along with his collaborator Jonathan van Harmeen, examines the longstanding interactions between African Americans and Japanese Americans, the history of LGBTQ+ Japanese Americans, mixed-race performers and political figures, and much more. Robinson and van Harmelen will be joined in conversation with Nina Wallace, Densho Media and Outreach Manager, as they shine a spotlight on lesser-known stories and unheralded figures from Japanese American history.
This event will be held in person at Densho and is free to attend, but registration is required as there will be limited seating.For more information and to register, visit the event page here.
50 Years of Asian American Literary History at the University of Washington Press Friday, April 26, 7:00 pm at the Seattle Public Library, Central Library From the seminal anthologyAiiieeeee! and Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart to the most recent publication, Willyce Kim’s Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid, join us for a celebration of the UW Press’ contribution to Asian American literature in bringing classic works back into print and championing new writing. Hosted by Shawn Wong and featuring readings from Willyce Kim, Ching-In Chen, and Yanyi, with a Q&A moderated by Eunsong Kim. Books will be available from Elliott Bay Book Company. This event is free, and registration is not required.
The vast and diverse California coast is an awe-inspiring place of exploration and discovery, full of life forms that are shockingly unfamiliar.
In the newly released guidebook Between the Tides in California—a follow-up to the popular Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon—scientific experts reveal the hidden worlds of the intertidal zone, profiling sites from the remote northern seashores to the popular beaches of Southern California. Richly illustrated and accessibly written, the book transforms readers into nearshore detectives, with each species offering unique clues about the environment around them.
What inspired you to write this book?
Ryan P. Kelly: This book was a long time coming. I was sitting in California—in 2011, before I moved to Seattle and UW—and drafted the original sketch. The idea was to do a roadside guide to ecology, focusing on the intertidal, aimed at a curious, outgoing public. Terrie, John, and I are all originally from California, and we asked Pat to be a part of this book both because of his deep knowledge and because he’s actually in place there in Southern California, while the rest of us live in Seattle.
John J. Meyer: For me, it was an opportunity to pay homage of sorts to the place and coastline I love the most. The West Coast is truly spectacular—all of it—but the beaches and tidepools of California are where I fell in love with the ocean in the first place.
Patrick J. Krug: It’s a lucky few of us who have been able to live immersed, literally and figuratively, in the study of marine biology. Not much beats the fun of sharing everything you’ve seen, read, and been taught over a lifetime with other people who like to explore and learn about the ocean.
When people see me working in the intertidal and ask what I’m doing, it only takes a few minutes to show them how to find animals they’ve never seen before. I wanted the book to be like having four marine biologists in your pocket, pointing out sea creatures you may have overlooked your whole life.
Patrick J. Krug
As research scientists, why write a book for the broader public? Did you perceive a specific need?
RPK: It just seemed like ecology deserved the kind of treatment that geology has gotten in the Roadside Guide to Ecology series. There are lots of guides to shells and seashore creatures, but it seemed like nothing explained why a thing was here and not elsewhere. The why seemed important to explain to a broader audience.
JJM: As a researcher turned policy specialist turned communications professional, I have seen firsthand the importance of making science broadly accessible to all people. If we can help do that for our oceans, I am all for it.
PJK: Right now there’s so much curiosity and appreciation for the ocean paired with concern about how to protect our coast from escalating human impacts. It felt like the right time to talk about the shoreline we love in accessible terms to anyone looking to explore, learn, and be inspired.
In writing this book did you learn new things that differ from your day-to-day research activities? If so, what?
RPK: I loved getting the chance to look up facts and distinguish them from scientific lore and rumor. We all learned a ton. And as my day-to-day work has pulled me away from the intertidal, this was a great opportunity to reimmerse myself in some real-world ecology.
TK: I learned a great deal from my coauthors, whose specializations are somewhat different from mine. For instance, who knew that gumboot chitons have magnetite in their teeth? Or that hermit crabs can be extremely picky in choosing a new shell to inhabit?
PJK: I spent a lot more time thinking about places instead of species. I do a lot of biodiversity discovery work, finding and naming new species, so I’m often thinking: what is special and different about this organism, what sets it apart from every other form of life? But for this book, we wanted to give the character of places—what do you find on this beach, and why is it here? It was a different challenge to capture in photos and words the feel of each rocky point or sandy cove that we profiled along the Golden State’s epic coast.
The intertidal community at Big Sur’s Partington Cove is typical of high-energy environments where wave-tolerant species dominate the shore. Photograph by the authors.
Many Californians are familiar with Ed Ricketts’s Between Pacific Tides published in 1939. Is there any connection between your book and his?
RPK: Those are very, very big shoes to fill, and I wouldn’t say we were aiming to fill them at all. Inevitably our book does have thematic overlap with Ricketts, but he was setting out the language of intertidal ecology for what was probably the first time for a relatively popular audience. That book is pretty dense with detail; we have tried to stick to a more narrative style and to focus on geographic patterns that visitors are likely to notice in a day at the shore.
TK: Between Pacific Tides was formative for all four of us—you might say that as students we were weaned on that book. I’ve been carting around a copy for almost fifty years, and I still use it. But we did not set out to replicate it—that would be impossible.
How did you approach the main themes of the book and bring them to life?
RPK: It’s easy to write about things you love and find fascinating. I’d say we just tried to convey that enthusiasm—I hope it worked.
JJM: This book is filled with photos of ocean and tidepool habitats, which was intentional; you can read and see the magic of the California coast. I hope they help transport the reader to these special places and that readers then become inspired to go see them in person!
PJK: When people see me working in the intertidal and ask what I’m doing, it only takes a few minutes to show them how to find animals they’ve never seen before. I wanted the book to be like having four marine biologists in your pocket, pointing out sea creatures you may have overlooked your whole life, to tell you about their hidden world, their challenges, and the incredible adaptations that let them thrive in the unforgiving world of the intertidal zone.
The Mendocino Headlands, carved from a jumble of metamorphic and sedimentary rock, form rugged boundaries between land and sea. Photograph by the authors.
Is there a location in the book that is your favorite? What about that location makes it special?
TK: Hands down, my favorite is Partington Cove on the Big Sur coast. It’s a truly magical spot.
JJM: Terrie turned me on to Partington Cove too, which was new for me and now ranks among my favorites. But the intertidal on the Stornetta Lands in Mendocino County I think is my favorite; the diversity of micro-habitats is immense, which leads to lots of diversity in the organisms that live there. And the rugged coastline as a backdrop only makes it that much more special!
PJK: I wanted to find the outrageously neon pink sea slug, Hopkins Rose, so I went back to the same rock channel in La Jolla, San Diego where I first found this species thirty years ago. And they were right where I left them in my early twenties, same exact spot. A great puzzle in marine ecology is how rare species persist in one place in a dynamic, turbulent ocean. This was a wonderful illustration of that mystery for me.
Everyone has a favorite species or two. Which species in the book are your favorites, and why?
TK: It’s hard to beat giant kelp (Macrocystic pyrifera) for sheer majesty—but giant kelp is not an intertidal species. In the intertidal, I might vote for the kelp Lessoniopsis littoralis. Its common name—flat pom-pom kelp—does it no justice. This kelp lives in only the gnarliest wave-swept spots and can survive for many years. Its thick stipe is reminiscent of a tree trunk, helping it tolerate the onslaught of waves where few other organisms can persist. To me, it’s the oak tree of the intertidal.
JJM: Almost impossible to pick, but I’ll go with the Spanish shawl. It’s such a crowd pleaser, fairly common, and simply stunning to see with its bright purple body and orange mane against the greens and browns of a tidepool.
PJK: I always hunt for two elusive species of limpet (small snails) that can usually be found, with some effort, by their special “home turf.” One lives only on the feather-boa kelp, blending in with its glossy brown shell. Its relative glides up and down the narrow blades of surfgrass, like a dime cut in half. Both are marvelously adapted to their different hosts, and the kelp and grass benefit from the pruning and cleaning activities of their little shelled gardeners. There’s something special to me about knowing you can always go back and find your old friends waiting right where you left them if you know their haunts—not too different from people.
A sea slug, the Spanish shawl (Flabellinopsis iodinea), found below Sunken City, near Los Angeles harbor. Photography by the authors.
What are the most important messages conveyed in the book? What do you hope that readers will gain?
RPK: Once you start to notice a thing in the world, once it appears on your mental map, you’re likely to start to care about it. That was a core goal here: help others see what we see when we visit the coast, with the likely outcome that others will start to feel about these places the way that we feel about them.
TK: The California coast is magical for so many reasons. But some of that magic can get lost amid its crushing popularity. We wanted to capture some of the beauty and intrigue that can still be found along this coast. It is an absolutely stunning place.
JJM: There are still wild, thriving places, even in the most populous state in the union. Of course, that’s because all the right natural ingredients are there, but it’s also because of the choices people have made. Californians place a high value on their coast, and as such protect it and care for it in many awesome ways. It’s great to see that investment pay off—many special places remain and are there for all to experience.
PJK: To me, the book is about why each beach and bluff in California has a unique vibe and look. The chapters should help readers find new places to explore, and unpack the backstory of the marine life, rock formations, dune plants, and birds a visitor might see on a given outing. My experience is that the more people learn about the ocean, the more they are inspired to protect it, so I hope that a deeper understanding of California’s coast will bring readers a passion for conservation—and more fun on every trip to the beach.
Fossil shells are exposed in the cliffs behind Moonstone Beach south of Trinidad.The starburst anemone (Anthopleura sola) occupies rocky habitates at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve.The sedimentary substrates—mudstones, siltstones, and sandstones—found along much of the California coast can be covered in cavities known as tafoni. Common in granular surfaces, they are likely created through abrasion, wind erosion, salt weathering, and other mechanisms.
How does this book differ from field guides, textbooks, or other books on intertidal communities?
RPK: My bookshelf is full of similar books. Did the world need another one? We thought yes, because we were filling an unfilled niche. The book is about why rather than about what: why some things live here and not there, and how a person can learn to read a beach and glean meaning from the patterns of life on the shore. We think that’s unique among books in print.
PJK: I felt people would like the beach version of a travel guide that tells you what not to miss when you visit a place, explaining the history of that particular fountain, wall, or monument: why it’s special and remarkable, who put it there, the historical context that will enrich your experience standing in front of it. We have that for Berlin and Rome, why not for the California coastline? I also don’t think scientists are always great at speaking plainly to people, at capturing the wonder they themselves feel about nature in their writing or images. That’s probably because we are trained to be dispassionate and technical in our work, but we love what we study, and I wanted that exuberance to come through (along with some good ecology) for the interested reader!
What’s the best way for readers to approach this book?
RPK: There are lots of photos, sidebars, maps, and so on, which some readers might find as useful points of entry. It’s quite readable (we think) straight through, too, but we were aiming to stay away from sounding like a textbook. My hope is that you can throw it in your car and pull it out on a road trip along the coast.
PJK: Like a literal choose-your-own-adventure book. Decide where you want to go: maybe it’s nearby, or you’ve never been there before, or a photo catches your imagination. Take a drive, go for a walk in the sea breeze and sunshine, and make a new discovery. One thing should lead to another, and then another. . . and if you hit the end of a chapter, flip to a random page and start again.
About the Authors
Ryan P. KellyTerrie KlingerPatrick J. KrugJohn J. Meyer
Ryan P. Kelly is professor of marine and environmental affairs at the University of Washington. Terrie Klinger is professor of marine and environmental affairs and co-director of the Washington Ocean Acidification Center at the University of Washington. Patrick J. Krug is professor of biological sciences at California State University, Los Angeles. John J. Meyer is senior director of marketing and communications in the College of the Environment at the University of Washington.
For Earth Month 2024, we invite you to explore environmental awareness, advocacy, and resilience through curated reading lists. Browse books in environmental studies below and don’t miss our past selection of books on the natural world with a focus on the Pacific Northwest.
Capturing Glaciers:A History of Repeat Photography and Global Warming Photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change. Historian Dani Inkpen explores the use of repeat glacier photographs, examining what they show, what they obscure, and how they influence public understanding of nature and climate change.
The Toxic Ship: The Voyage of the Khian Sea and the Global Waste Trade Environmental historian Simone M. Müller uses the infamous voyage of the Khian Sea as a lens to elucidate the global trade in hazardous waste from the 1970s to the present day, exploring the story’s international nodes and detailing the downside of environmental conscientiousness among industrial nations as waste is pushed outward. Shedding light on environmental racism and justice, The Toxic Ship is “a deft philosophical and literary examination about what we throw away, where our discards go, who is harmed, and why” (Kerri Arsenault, author of Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains).
Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World Ayetli gadogv—to “stand in the middle”—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. Emerging from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton, Hastings Shade, Loretta Shade, and others, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, this expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity’s role within it.
Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California Yurok scholar Kaitlin Reed situates the booming California cannabis industry—dubbed the “green rush”—within a broader legacy of settler colonial resource extraction and wealth accumulation in the state. Revealing the ongoing impacts on Indigenous cultures, lands, waters, and bodies, Reed shares this history to inform the path toward an alternative future. Combining archival research with testimonies and interviews with tribal members, tribal employees, and settler state employees, Settler Cannabis offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation that foregrounds Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories.
Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future In this “eminently readable, elegantly precise treatise on the topic of batteries” (Science)—a finalist for the Cundill History Prize—James Morton Turner unpacks the history of batteries to explore why solving “the battery problem” is critical to a clean energy future. With new insight on the consequences for people and communities on the front lines, Turner draws on the past for crucial lessons that will help us build a just and clean energy future, from the ground up.
After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens Eric Wagner takes readers on a fascinating journey of Mount St. Helens through the perspective of forest scientist Jerry Franklin, who helicoptered into the blast area a couple of weeks after the eruption. From fireweed to elk, the plants and animals Franklin saw in the blast area and beyond would not just change how ecologists approached the eruption and its landscape, but also prompt them to think in new ways about how life responds in the face of seemingly total devastation—a “superb look at scientists and science at work” (Publishers Weekly).
Fukushima Futures: Survival Stories in a Repeatedly Ruined Seascape In this study of disaster, modernization, and fishing communities, anthropologist Satsuki Takahashi examines the complex relationship between commercial fishing families and the Joban Sea—once known for premium-quality fish and now notorious as the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe. In response to unrelenting setbacks, fishing communities have developed survival strategies shaped by the precarity they share with their marine ecosystem. The collaborative resilience that emerges against this backdrop of vulnerability and uncertainty challenges the progress-bound logic of futurism, bringing more hopeful possibilities for the future into sharper focus.
The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish With bountiful salmon and fertile plains, the Duwamish River has drawn people to its shores over the centuries for trading, transport, and sustenance. Unfortunately, the very utility of the river has been its undoing, as decades of dumping led to the river being declared a Superfund cleanup site. Using previously unpublished accounts by Indigenous people and settlers, BJ Cummings’s compelling narrative restores the river to its central place in Seattle and Pacific Northwest history. Writing from the perspective of environmental justice—and herself a key figure in river restoration efforts—Cummings vividly portrays the people and conflicts that shaped the region’s culture and natural environment and offers a call for action in aligning decisions about the river and its future with values of collaboration, respect, and justice.
Anticipating Future Environments: Climate Change, Adaptive Restoration, and the Columbia River Basin Ecological restoration is often premised on the idea of returning a region to an earlier, healthier state. Yet the effects of climate change undercut that premise and challenge the ways scientists can work, destabilizing the idea of “normalcy” and revealing the politics that shape what scientists can do. Using the restoration efforts in the Columbia River Basin as a case study, UW research scientist Shana Lee Hirsch explores how climate change affects the daily work of scientists, and how a scientific field itself can adapt to climate change.
Hatched: Dispatches from the Backyard Chicken Movement In this engaging and thought-provoking book, Gina G. Warren digs into the history and food politics of the backyard chicken movement, chronicling her own misadventures raising chickens and attempts at sustainable eating. The result is a fresh and charming story that also raises questions about sustainable farming, industrial agriculture, and our connections with the animals we love.
In recognition of Earth Month, we’re sharing books that will inspire you to go out and explore. With information on how to forage edible and medicinal plants, dig razor clams, create a garden of native plants, and more, these books offer a deeper understanding and appreciation of the natural world.
Between the Tides in Washington and Oregon and Between the Tides in California These essential guides to exploring beaches and tidepools of the Pacific Coast feature full-color photographs, site profiles, fascinating stories of animal and plant species, and an accessible introduction to how coastal ecosystems work—perfect for beachgoers who want to know why.
Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City Bestselling author and popular science writer David B. Williams will give you a new appreciation for how Seattle has changed over time, how the past has influenced the present, and how nature is all around us—even in our urban landscape. Ranging along trails and sidewalks, these guided walks lead to panoramic views, intimate hideaways, and beautiful greenways.
Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: The Pacific Northwest and British Columbia We’re hard-pressed to choose just one of horticulturalist and arboriculturist Collin Varner’s indispensable guides to the natural world of the Pacific Northwest, but this compact, full-color forager’s guide is a great place to start. The region is home to a multitude of edible and medicinal plant species, edible mushrooms, and marine plants, and this book offers clear photography, descriptions, safety tips, and warnings, as well as culinary and medicinal uses from Indigenous Peoples and settlers, for more than 150 wild-growing flora species.
Razor Clams: Buried Treasure of the Pacific Northwest Challenging to dig, delicious to eat, and providing a heady experience of abundance, razor clams are entwined with Washington state’s commerce, identity, and history. Author David Berger shares his love affair of the Pacific razor clam and gets into the nitty-gritty of how to dig, clean, and cook them in this lively history and celebration of the Siliqua patula.
Flora of the Pacific Northwest: An Illustrated Manual A classic since it was first published in1973, this tome covering Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia is the most comprehensive reference on Pacific Northwest vascular plants for professional and amateur botanists, ecologists, rare plant biologists, plant taxonomy instructors, land managers, nursery professionals, and gardeners—“a must for your home garden library” (Washington Park Arboretum Bulletin).
Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest abounds with native plants that bring beauty to the home garden while offering food and shelter to birds, bees, butterflies, and other wildlife. Whether you’re a novice or expert gardener, renowned botanist Art Kruckeberg and horticulturist Linda Chalker-Scott show you how to imagine and realize your perfect sustainable landscape.
Ice Bear: The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon Michael Engelhard‘s thought-provoking and beautifully illustrated iconography of the polar bear brings this elusive and powerful animal into focus. Eight thousand years of artifacts attest to its charisma, and to the fraught relationships between our two species. Drawing on meticulous research, Engelhardtraces and illuminates this intertwined history. Doing so, he delves into the stories we tell about Nature—and about ourselves—hoping for a future in which such tales still matter.
Spirit Whales and Sloth Tales: Fossils of Washington State In this richly illustrated guide to the amazing array of fossils found in Washington state, renowned paleontologist Elizabeth A. Nesbitt teams up with David B. Williams to offer a fascinating, richly illustrated tour through more than a half billion years of natural history. The spectacular paleontology of the state is brought to life through details of the fossils’ discovery and extraction, their place in geological time, and the insights they provide into contemporary issues like climate change and species extinction.
Fishes of the Salish Sea: Puget Sound and the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca This comprehensive three-volume set, featuring striking illustrations of the Salish Sea’s 260 fish species by noted illustrator Joseph Tomelleri, details the ecology and life history of each species and recounts the region’s rich heritage of marine research and exploration. Beginning with jawless hagfishes and lampreys and ending with the distinctive Ocean Sunfish, leading scientists Theodore Wells Pietsch and James Orr present the taxa in phylogenetic order, based on classifications that reflect the most current scientific knowledge.
Birds of the Pacific Northwest: A Photographic Guide Spanning a vast, distinctive region rich in protected wildlands and iconic national parks, this bestselling field guide is a superlative, complete resource for enjoying the many bird species found from British Columbia to southern Oregon. Renowned bird experts Tom Aversa, Richard Cannings, and Hal Opperman illuminate the key identification traits, vocalizations, seasonal statuses, habitat preferences, and feeding behaviors of bird species in the region. The compact, full-page accounts feature maps and more than 900 photographs by top bird photographers.
The Association for Asian Studies annual conference draws thousands of scholars for multiple days of dynamic sessions, events, and a lively book exhibition. This year, the University of Washington Press is excited to welcome AAS 2024 to Seattle from March 14 to 17.
If you’re attending in person, visit us at booth 806 to browse selected and award-winning books in Asian studies, Asian art and art history, and more. Ourvirtual exhibit is open now, featuring a similarly wide array of new and notable books. AAS members can use code WAAS24 at checkout for a 30% discountand free shipping on all orders placed on our website through April 19, 2024.
Congratulations to author Maya K. H. Stiller and all the honorees in this year’s prize competition.
“Stiller’s work provides a wealth of valuable insights into the history of social status, travel, and cultural production in mid- to late Chosŏn Dynasty Korea.” —Asian Studies Review
AAS 2024 Events
Meet the Contributors: China’s Hidden Century Friday, March 15, 1:00–2:00 pm at the UW Press Booth (806)
Stop by the UW Press booth to meet Anne Gerritsen, Steve Platt, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, and Chia-ling Yang, contributors of China’s Hidden Century. Copublished with the British Museum in conjunction with the critically acclaimed exhibition of the same name, this lavishly illustrated catalog is the first genre-spanning study of how Chinese cultural creativity flourished during the long final century of the Qing empire.
“The exhibition catalog’s seven essays . . . are a guide to this re-reading of the past, threading the relics on display into a rich tapestry of what life entailed under the last century of Manchu reign.” —Mekong Review
University of Washington Asian Studies Reception Friday, March 15, 7:30–9:30 pm in Room Willow B, Sheraton Grand Seattle
Join the University of Washington Asian studies community for a reception. Light appetizers will be served, and beverage tickets will be issued to the first 100 attendees (one per person) and may be used for cocktails, beer, wine, or soft drinks. Additional beverages will be available for purchase.
7:30 pm | Doors open 7:50 pm | Welcome from Danny Hoffman, Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies 8:00 pm | UW Press tribute to Lorri Hagman 9:30 pm | Doors close
Hosted by the UW Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, Department of Asian Languages & Literature, China Studies Program, UW Japan Studies Program, Center for Korea Studies, Taiwan Studies Program, East Asia Resource Center, UW Press, Tateuchi East Asia Library, Center for Southeast Asia and its Diasporas, East Asia Center, and South Asia Center.
Introducing the ‘Taiwan and the World’ Series
UW Press is proud to introduce our newest series in Asian studies,Taiwan and the World.
“The dynamic, emerging, and interdisciplinary field of Taiwan studies is in need of scholarly, book-length inquiries into themes germane to Taiwan’s history and society,” says series coeditor James Lin. “Among these are the island’s consecutive colonizations, rapid economic growth, maturing democracy, evolving national identity, race and ethnicity, indigenous peoples, social and cultural change, and contested international position in the shadow of a rising China. This new series will highlight these themes and more, as they affect interactions between Taiwan and the larger world.”
We welcome innovative works that will advance the teaching of Taiwan studies, inform policy discussions, and interest general readers. Inquiries and proposals can be directed to acquisitions editor Caitlin Tyler-Richards at ctylerri@uw.edu.
Taiwan, a society of twenty-three million people in Asia, can be thought of as living two lives. From one perspective, it is a bright, vibrant democracy at the forefront of LGBTQ+ rights, avant garde art and film, and student activism. On the other hand, it is a geopolitical hotspot, caught in a great power rivalry and a lynchpin of the semiconductor industry, critical for global supply chains and militaries around the world. Between these two poles exist countless social, cultural, and political issues that animate Taiwan and the field of Taiwan studies, rich for scholarly excavation.
These issues drive the field of Taiwan studies at large and encouraged me and my colleagues, William Lavely and Madeleine Yue Dong, to launch a new series: Taiwan and the World.
In 2018, after the founding of the Taiwan studies program at the University of Washington, we worked with Lorri Hagman, then UW Press executive editor and now executive editor of special projects, to start a new monograph series that would highlight the groundbreaking humanities and social science scholarship about Taiwan. We see the field as having rich potential, not just for illuminating the issues that are unique to Taiwan, but serving as a cauldron for the larger social and political changes the world is seeing.
We are proud to announce the launch of the first book in our series, Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History by Niki J. P. Alsford. The book explores two dozen individuals from all walks of life—politician, popstar, doctor, prisoner, diplomat, hawker, just to name a few—from the nineteenth century to present. Each of them touches upon a significant event or social transformation in Taiwan, whether its serial colonizations under foreign empires, the White Terror period of martial law, or its transition to democracy. Through the windows of these individual lives, Alsford weaves together a narrative of the complexities of Taiwan’s history. Most important, it centers the voices of the Taiwanese themselves.
Alsford’s groundbreaking book represents the ideals that our series hopes to achieve. It offers a new perspective in approaching Taiwan—in this case, from the ground up, and from the perspective of ordinary and sometimes marginalized peoples. This “people’s history,” as Alsford explains, presents accounts from “the common people,” thus “accentuating the island’s interconnectivity and cultural complexity.” It is also meant to make Taiwan accessible to broader audiences. Focusing not on the geopolitical conflicts of statesmen and wars, Alsford instead brings to fore the lived experiences that readers inside and outside of the classroom can appreciate and relate to.
Taiwan Lives will be followed shortly by the second book in the series, Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls under Japanese Rule by Fang Yu Hu. Examining the complicated period of Japanese imperial rule in Taiwan (1895-1945), Hu explores how Japanese colonialism shaped social roles and cultural identities of women. Hu’s careful historical research offers rich oral history and archival accounts for readers interested in the intersection of education, gender, and empire.
As our series grows, we hope to explore the numerous issues that locate Taiwan on the frontier of social, cultural, and political concerns. As a series of islands situated in the Pacific, Taiwan has been interlinked with maritime communities and is exposed to the same pressures of climate change and ecological interactions as many other Pacific Island communities. Its society is a melting pot of Indigenous peoples, settlers from colonial histories, and newly arrived immigrants seeking better economic opportunities. Issues of indigeneity, identity, and race intersect with concerns of justice and rights. Taiwan has been in the vanguard of LGBTQ+ movements in Asia and has broken the glass ceiling for the highest levels of political office. But beneath the veneer of success also lie complexities over gender and equality. And as Taiwan’s complicated sovereignty is increasingly drawing the attention of nations around the world, its potential for conflict draws eyes to its politics on the largest geopolitical fault lines.
In the coming months and years, we are excited for books in the pipeline that explore Taiwan’s colonial past, its environmental and economic present, and its contested political future. We also welcome monograph submissions from interested authors who see their research and writing breaking new ground in Taiwan studies and who hope to reach wide audiences of students, educators, policymakers, and the general public. We intend for our upcoming books to redefine the frontier of Taiwan studies and emphasize the importance of Taiwan for understanding the major themes and problems in our world and society at large.
Interested authors should send book proposals to acquisitions editor Caitlin Tyler-Richards at ctylerri@uw.edu.
James Lin is assistant professor of international studies at the University of Washington and a historian of modern Taiwan. His research examines international agrarian development, from early twentieth-century rural reform and agriculture in China and Taiwan through its reimagining during later Taiwanese development missions to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Upcoming Event
The UW Taiwan Studies Program welcomes Professor Niki J. P. Alsford to discuss his new book, Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History: March 6, 3:30–5:00 pm at UW, Thomson Hall Room 317.Register to attend online or in person.
Niki J. P. Alsford is professor in Asia Pacific studies and director of Asia Pacific Institutes at the University of Central Lancashire. In addition, he is a research associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS, the University of London, and an associate member of the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Oxford. Alsford is the author of Transitions to Modernity in Taiwan: The Spirit of 1895 and the Cession of Formosa to Japan (Routledge, 2017).
This event was made possible by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.
The University of Washington Press joins the Yakama Nation, Northwest Native tribes, and the many individuals, organizations, and institutions grieving the loss of elder Virginia Beavert, who passed away on February 8 at the age of 102.
Beavert, who was also known by her Yakama name, Tuxámshish, was a noted Native scholar and linguist and a tireless advocate for tribal culture and traditions.
“UW Press is honored to have published three books in collaboration with the legendary and deeply knowledgeable Virginia Beavert,” says press director Nicole Mitchell. “Through these works, her learning and wisdom will continue to reach students in Native communities and beyond for many generations to come.”
Ichishkíin Sinwit Yakama / Yakima Sahaptin Dictionary, coauthored with Sharon L. Hargus and copublished with Heritage University, is the first published dictionary of any Sahaptin dialect and documents the Ichishkíin dialect spoken by the Yakama people of Eastern Washington. The Gift of Knowledge / Ttnúwit Átawish Nch’inch’imamí: Reflections on Sahaptin Ways, authored by Beavert and edited by Janne L. Underriner, includes cultural teachings, oral history, and stories (many in bilingual Ishishkíin-English format) about family life, religion, ceremonies, food gathering, and other aspects of traditional culture. Anakú Iwachá: Yakama Legends and Stories, coedited with Michelle M. Jacob and Joana W. Jansen, presents stories that Yakama elders recorded in several dialects of the Ichishkíin language that Beavert collected and translated into English.
Below, longtime UW Press executive editor Lorri Hagman reflects on Virginia Beavert and her work.
When I began working with Virginia in 2013 on The Gift of Knowledge, she was, at the age of 92, already a legend in her own time. In 1986, at 65, when most people would have settled into retirement, she earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Central Washington University. That was followed by a master’s degree in bilingual/bicultural education from the University of Arizona in 2000 (at age 79) and a PhD in linguistics from the University of Oregon in 2012 (at age 90). Virginia was still traveling from her home in Wapato, Washington, to the University of Oregon in Eugene to mentor students and teach the Ichishkíin language, and she had published her 560-page dictionary and the first edition of her collected Yakama legends and stories—monumental contributions to scholarship. Now she was eager to transform her doctoral dissertation into a book for general readers, especially future generations of the Yakama Nation. That book, The Gift of Knowledge, narrates stories from Virginia’s own life that exemplify Yakama lifeways and values.
My quintessential Virginia memory is a story she told when we met in Eugene, Oregon, for what turned out to be a leisurely three-hour breakfast. Horses played a big role in her own life, but this horse story is about how her mother, as a child, was stranded alone overnight and was protected by horses from wolves. It is included in The Gift of Knowledge:
My mother had an experience when she was young where horses saved her life in the mountains. She was taking care of them during a berry picking trip to the Trout Lake area. An Elder told her to take the horses to a certain meadow to graze. She was to leave them and walk back to camp. It was already past noontime and she did not question the request. She rode her own horse bareback, and towed the horses together with a rope halter, the head of one horse to the tail of the one in front, and navigated them in that way.
It was getting dark when she reached her destination. She hurried back toward camp but it became so dark she could not see the trail and was forced to get down on her hands and knees and feel her way. Soon she heard the timber wolves at a distance; they came nearer and nearer. She said she began to feel sorry for herself and was thinking that her relatives did not love her; that they wanted her to die. As she was feeling her way along the trail she felt something warm and soft. It was the nostril of her horse, Taḵawaakúɬ, who had come back to rescue her. She took hold of his tail and he led her back to the meadow. The wolves were following them all the way.
In the meadow all the horses gathered around her. Her horse lay down, and she slept on his belly to keep warm until morning. The wolves were not able to reach her because the horses surrounded and protected her. In the morning she went back to camp and no one mentioned anything. No one apologized to her or wanted to know how she had made out. She explained that that was the cultural way. They wanted her to find a spiritual power from the mountains. While she was asleep she acquired that power. She was a healer for women.
Virginia grew up in a traditional, Indian-speaking household. Her maternal grandmother was a shaman, as were her father and mother; her great-great-grandmother was an herbal doctor and midwife. As a child, she was surrounded by people who spoke Nez Perce, Umatilla, Klikatat, and Ichishkíin. Until she went to school at age eight, her life was spent learning about the world around her, along with skills such as food gathering and the use of medicinal plants. Her work on Native languages began at age twelve, when she met linguist Melville Jacobs while she was working with his student, anthropologist Margaret Kendell, as liaison and interpreter for the people Kendell interviewed. When Jacobs discovered that Virginia was a fluent speaker of the Klikatat language, he taught her to read and write the orthography he had developed to record Klikatat stories, and she began a lifetime of work on Native languages.
During World War II, Virginia joined the United States Air Force, serving as a wireless radio operator at the B-29 Bomber Base at Clovis, New Mexico. After the war, she bought herself a thoroughbred horse, which she rode in races and rodeos, and she earned a living as a medical secretary. Her stepfather—a multilingual speaker of Ichishkíin and southern Salish dialects who had worked with University of Oregon linguist Bruce Rigsby to record oral histories and legends—convinced her to return to school and study anthropology.
She went on to teach courses on Native American languages and cultures at Central Washington University; Yakima Valley College; Wapato High School; Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington, on the Yakama Reservation, where she was the director of the Sahaptin Language Program; and the Northwest Indian Language Institute and World Language Academy at the University of Oregon.
Virginia was the first woman elected as secretary-treasurer of the Yakama Nation’s General Council and served on the council from 1974–85. She was a 2006 recipient of the Washington Governor’s Heritage Award; 2007 Central Washington University Alumna of the Year; 2008 recipient of the Ken Hale prize of the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas; and 2008 recipient of a Distinguished Service Award, University of Oregon.
The Critical Ethnic Studies and Visual Culture series encourages innovative interdisciplinary antiracist work that challenges and transforms our understandings of race, ethnicity, and the visual.
As we prepare for the College Art Association (CAA) annual conference, taking place in Chicago from February 14 to 17, we are pleased to announce the inaugural series publications: Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific, edited by Elyssa Faison and Alison Fields, an interdisciplinary collection featuring historians, anthropologists, artists, and activists who explore the multifaceted forms of resistance to nuclear regimes; and Queer World Making: Contemporary Middle Eastern Diasporic Art by Andrew Gayed, building on global art histories and transnational queer theory to illuminate contemporary understandings of queer sexuality in the Middle Eastern diaspora.
Below, series editor Laura Kina shares more about what critical ethnic studies brings to the study of art and visual culture and how books in the series explore the role of the arts and artists in social justice movements, as well as the kinds of projects that will be considered and how to get in touch.
I am trained as an MFA visual artist—a painter who has been working in Asian American/Asian diasporic arts communities for over thirty years where the dividing line between artist, curator, activist, organizer, and community historian has long been blurred.
How can we decolonize artistic practices, pedagogy, curatorial, and art history? How can we use the arts to work towards land back; rematriation; reparations; abolition; and boycott, divest, and sanction movements? What should be made visible and what must remain opaque or only shared within specific communities? . . . These are some the challenges critical ethnic studies brings to the study of art and visual culture and that we look forward to exploring in the series.
Laura Kina
Coming out of community arts that center collaboration, I began to see intersectional and interdisciplinary scholarship on art and visual culture from social justice movement building and BIPOC knowledge making its way into the academy and popular culture. For example, terms such as settler colonialism, anti-Black-racism, structural racism, and decolonization have entered our everyday lexicon through diverse political movements including the 2016–17 #NoDPL Dakota Access Pipeline Protests, the 2020 racial reckoning in the US led by Black Lives Matter, and the current protests against the occupation of Palestine and the war in Gaza. In the last few months, Palestinian symbols of resistance—like the kufiyah, watermelon, and white kite—have also entered mainstream visual vocabulary. In the art world, questions of labor rights, censorship of artists, and questions of who is behind funding art institutions and their accountability has made headlines.
How, where, when, and who tells the stories of these complex histories through the arts? How can we decolonize artistic practices, pedagogy, curatorial, and art history? How can we use the arts to work towards land back, rematriation, reparations, abolition, and boycott, divest, and sanction movements? What should be made visible and what must remain opaque or only shared within specific communities? How do we engage visibility without falling into the trap of neoliberal visibility politics?
These are some of the challenges critical ethnic studies brings to the study of art and visual culture that we look forward to exploring in the series.
The first two works in the series, Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific and Queer World Making: Contemporary Middle Eastern Diasporic Art, reflect the goal, as outlined in our 2020 call for book proposals, to focus on art, new media, art history, visual anthropology, visual culture, craft, fashion, and other forms of cultural expression that brings together works that take up decolonization and social justice with an interdisciplinary and intersectional emphasis on race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, and gender.
The series is committed to featuring books that center visual arts and media by, for, and about people of color, with themes of anti-capitalism, reparations, abolition, sovereignty, and the afterlife of slavery. Books in this series will feature critical work on white supremacy, settler colonialism, land dispossession, resource extraction, and cultural appropriation.
Aligned with the dynamic character of critical ethnic studies, the books in this series engage themes of borders, migration, diasporas, and transnationalism, and the relationship of the visual to these movements.
We welcome books that highlight not only the work of artist-activists and the role of the arts in social justice movements but books that bring together art with critical work about artistic practice. We especially encourage single-authored books, including monographs and accessibly written books that cross disciplines and reach out to wider audiences, including artists, students, and other readers interested in visual topics. We will also consider well-crafted and innovative anthologies and edited volumes.
Please send book proposals to Larin McLaughlin at lmclaugh@uw.edu.
Laura Kina is an artist and a Vincent de Paul Professor in The Art School at DePaul University. She is the coeditor of War Baby / Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art and Queering Contemporary Asian American Art.
The Critical Ethnic Studies and Visual Cultures series advisory board includes: Iyoko Day, Mount Holyoke College; Sarita See, University of California, Riverside; Guisela Latorre, The Ohio State University; and Amy Lonetree, University of California, Santa Cruz.
In honor of Black History Month and this year’s theme of “African Americans and the Arts,” we feature an excerpt from Stitching Love and Loss by Lisa Gail Collins, which captures the long history of African American quilt making through a moving account of Missouri Pettway’s cotton covering—a Gee’s Bend “utility quilt.”
In 1942 Missouri Pettway, newly suffering the loss of her husband, pieced together a quilt out of his old, worn work clothes. Nearly six decades later her daughter Arlonzia Pettway, approaching eighty at the time and a seasoned quiltmaker herself, readily recalled the cover made by her grieving mother within the small African American farming community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama. At once a story of grief, a quilt, and a community, Stitching Love and Loss connects Missouri Pettway’s cotton covering to the history of a place, its residents, and the work of mourning.
Placing this singular quilt within its historical and cultural context, Collins illuminates the perseverance and creativity of the African American women quilters in this rural Black Belt community.
Excerpt from Stitching Love and Loss
Not long after her husband Nathaniel’s passing, Missouri Pettway set out to create a quilt of his worn familiar clothes with the expressed intention “to remember him, and cover up under it for love.”1 Led by her intention to find comfort in his memory, she made her way through the steps in the quilt making practice that was her birthright. Seeking sanctuary and softness, she wound her way around this healing pattern, stitch by stitch, piece by piece, with the crown of her head bowing toward her heart. Missouri Pettway’s deliberate pursuit of this path—of this sustaining resource and practice deeply rooted within her homeplace—supported the grieving quilt maker and surviving spouse in making her way from holding the pieces of her loved one’s clothes in her hands and on her lap to being held by the precious utility quilt she conceived of them. Her quilt, as remembered, was done by design. From its initial conception, the ultimate aim for her completed covering was to cover her, to wrap it around her body and being—to remember her husband and experience their love.
At the heart of Arlonzia’s enduring memory of her mother’s quilt made in mourning lies a love story. This is absolutely no surprise; love is why we grieve. As remembered by the couple’s eldest daughter, the covering’s creation and its intended use were steeped in yearning. Following the early loss of her husband of over two decades, Missouri sought to cover her body with cloth that had recently covered his own. Clothing and cloth never again to be needed by him were now needed by her. Guided by intention and desire, she turned to a most intimate of art forms—one, like a second skin, that holds the body and moves with the breath—and created and completed her yearned-for quilt.
Missouri Pettway’s daughter Arlonzia Pettway sitting on her porch in Gee’s Bend, 2003. Photograph by Linda Day Clark.
After Missouri Pettway completed her quilt—after the sackinglike backing had been brought around front to form and finish its edges—how might its presence and use have helped tend to her loss? Her extant textile and her daughter’s enduring testimony are silent on this matter. I would like to imaginatively consider—grounded by an understanding of grief as at once a profound experience of distress and a profound expression of love—some of the ways Missouri Pettway’s utilitarian quilt made of her late husband’s work clothes may have been of sacred utility.
Beds know grief and for good reason. While lying in bed, there is no longer the need to hold oneself up or carry one’s weight. As a result, effort lessens and loads lighten. As grief can be exhausting and heavy, this can feel like a welcome respite. Beds physically support and stabilize the body, enabling ease and inviting rest. Quilts can assist with this, too, offering a warm cradle or caress. Supported and held by her bed in this way, perhaps Missouri Pettway’s sage and simple act of pulling her cotton quilt over her body sent a soothing signal to her mind that it was now the time for a soft pause or rest. Once swathed by the sheltering cover of her quilt, perhaps its gentle heft furthered this calming, steadying effect. With all hope, she rested in this way: braced beneath by her bed and protected on top by her cover. The former supported the weight of her body; the latter supported the weight of her grief.
Lying under her quilt, with its familiar fabric touching her skin, may have felt something like a familiar embrace. And perhaps this felt sense, this experience of seeing and feeling her loved one’s well-worn and well-remembered clothes in this way, offered the quilt maker a tender path to feel his love, remember his presence, and closely carry his memory. As memory, emotion, and the sense of smell are linked and share wide-open doors, perhaps his lingering scent, alive within the warp and weft of the cloth, also offered an opening to cultivate and continue their connection.
Missouri Pettway’s work clothes quilt, created largely out of her husband’s worn clothing while she was newly experiencing his loss.2
With the sounds and silence of the night and the giving way of the light, grief can give way to a more private, solitary mourning. While under cover of the night—and a quilt—being in bed can provide a place for needed rest and desired communion, as sleep can serve as a site of reunion, a place where lost loved ones can be found. At the same time, lying in bed leaves us alone with our innermost self and our secretly whispered words, leaving us with little choice but to meet face to face our suffering and fears. For while the body is quiet and still—while it has nowhere to go and nothing to do—the mind continues to move, sometimes, distressingly, with increased intensity. When Missouri Pettway was engaged in the seemingly solitary step of piecing her quilt top, this purposeful task may have enabled the quilt maker to shift between processing and, mercifully, pausing the pain of her loss. By contrast, this protective pacing—direct reckoning with one’s shaken inner world paired with a respite from it—was probably difficult to come by while lying awake in bed within the thick grip of grief, where the only pause to pondering the enormity of her loss was likely the elusive release of a deep sleep.
Loss and longing might be felt especially acutely as one rests the body and tries to transition into sleep. For the long nights of mourning are a time when those who are grieving a loved one are pressed to confront what they are achingly coming to realize is true: someone they love is no longer here with them on earth. That come morning, they will still be in mourning. If Missouri and Nathaniel Pettway routinely shared a bed, his missing presence would have perhaps been especially potent and palpable while lying under the warm weight of her quilt of his clothes—the now empty space that had recently held his body figuring as stark evidence of his physical absence and his lingering scent serving as a direct door to memory.
Intimately associated with life and death, beds are bound with sickness, dying, and death as well as birth. Sites of healing and love as well as loss and remembrance, beds are where we often take our first breaths and sometimes our last ones. Following nearly a year of sickness and sorrow, Nathaniel Pettway likely died at home. Struggling for nearly a year with a terminal illness, he may have spent the very last part of his journey on earth in bed, as both caregiving and homegoing commonly happen here. Bound by bed and hopefully wrapped within a warm and comforting quilt, his shrouded body, likely weak and weary, readied for eternal rest. And during this extraordinarily difficult and delicate time—when life narrows to the four corners of the bed, while its meaning infinitely expands—Missouri Pettway may have sat bedside, caring for her husband, providing a reassuring presence and supporting his dying needs. Perhaps during his final hours, she, along with other family members, kept vigil posed in prayer.
The bed where Nathaniel Pettway made his transition may also have been the same one where Missouri mourned his loss. As such, it may have been both the site of his dying and his passage and a place of her mourning and remembrance. Moreover, this soft space where the husband and father was cared for before passing on and crossing over may have also been the site where the couple’s children were conceived and first breathed life. This bed—their bed—was a place of passage. On it, with all hope, Missouri lay under her quilt of Nathaniel’s clothes and fully experienced what she had expressly sought: “to remember him, and cover up under it for love.” Embraced in this way by her quilt—tucked under its protective cover—she may have tended her grief, remembering her husband, who had recently lay dying and been laid to rest, processing his long illness and early death, facing her fears for their family’s future, feeling the immensity and finality of her loss. Held and supported by the quilt of her own creation, she likely sought the strength and found the faith to make it to morning and begin a new day. And ever so slowly—at the pace of healing—moving toward the time when the memory of her beloved would feel less like pain and more like peace, sustained by the love that lies here.
Nathaniel and Missouri Pettway’s children, Lovett and Loucastle (carrying pail), walking toward the cabins in 1937. This gathering of log and plank structures was previously the site of “the quarters,” the place where enslaved individuals and their families had lived on the former cotton plantation.3
Residents climbing the steps to a log and plank house.4
Arlonzia Pettway on the porch of her updated “Roosevelt house.” It was not until the late 1930s and early 1940s—as part of FDR’s New Deal programs—that a sizable number of Gee’s Bend households were able to purchase their local land and build modern homes on it. Although she took numerous trips well beyond the Black Belt, Arlonzia Pettway defined herself as a lifelong resident of this place. Photograph by Linda Day Clark.
Notes
Arlonzia Pettway, quoted in John Beardsley, William Arnett, Paul Arnett, Jane Livingston, and Alvia Wardlaw, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend (Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2002), 67. ↩︎
Missouri Pettway, Blocks and Strips Work–Clothes Quilt, 1942, cotton, corduroy, and cotton sacking, 90 x 69 in. National Gallery of Art, Patron’s Permanent Fund and Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation. Courtesy of Hazel Marks. ↩︎
Arthur Rothstein, Footpaths across the Field Connect the Cabins. Gee’s Bend, Alabama, 1937. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, reproduction number LC-DIG-fsa-8b38853. ↩︎
Arthur Rothstein, Cabin with Mud Chimney. Gee’s Bend, Alabama, 1937. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, reproduction number LC-DIG-fsa-8b35932. ↩︎
Lisa Gail Collins is Professor of Art and Director of American Studies on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair at Vassar College. Her books include The Art of History: African American Women Artists Engage the Past and New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement (coedited with Margo Natalie Crawford).
For over 100 years, the University of Washington Press has producedgroundbreaking books for a global community of scholars as well as essential books that tell the stories of our city and region. Over the past three years, we’ve released 150 new books, organized hundreds of public talks and other author events, and collaborated with numerous campus and community partners to carry out this vital work.
With this report, I’d like to highlight some of our recent activities—not just our fantastic new books but the many ways in which we engage the world and support the public good. From combatting misinformation with robustly peer-reviewed publications to diversifying the publishing industry to co-creating materials for Indigenous revitalization, our work touches many lives on campus, in our local communities, and around the world. We invite you to learn more about us in the following pages.
University of Washington Press Blog 