Monthly Archives: November 2014

December 2014 News, Reviews, and Events

News

Our Spring 2015 catalog is now available! We’re excited to announce a number of great new titles: a history of bikes and cars battling over rights to the road; the role of Hollywood and black celebrities in the Civil Rights Movement; an illustrated survey of the work of world-renowned landscape architect, Richard Haag; and much, much more. Browse through our online catalog to learn more about our forthcoming books.

Media and Reviews

Photo by Fotolia/jpldesigns

The Utne Reader website featured an extended excerpt from Lincoln Bramwell‘s book, Wilderburbs: Communities on Nature’s Edge:

Since the 1950s, a growing number of people have been moving into the once-rural landscapes of the West and transforming them into neighborhoods. In Wilderburbs (University of Washington Press, 2014), author Lincoln Bramwell tells the story of how roads, houses, and water development have transformed the rural landscape from wilderness into suburbia. He introduces readers to developers, homeowners, and government regulators who have all experienced environmental problems while designing and building residential housing in remote locations. This excerpt, which explains how and why these types of communities began, is from the Introduction, “Moving into the Woods.” Read the excerpt.

Cities of the Dead: The Ancestral Cemeteries of Kyrgyzstan by Margaret Morton was reviewed in DART: Design Arts Daily:

“A mythical landscape emerges from the dust under the scrubby mountains of Central Asia’s high plateau desert….the strange beauty of these cemeteries is inscrutable.” Read more.

In the Spirit of the Ancestors: Contemporary Northwest Coast Art at the Burke Museum by Robin Wright and Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse was reviewed in Museum Anthropology:

“Besides being a beautiful [book], In the Spirit of the Ancestors demonstrates alliances between museums and indigenous peoples and reveals the continuity of “traditional” and contemporary art.” Continue reading →

Native Northwest: Books on Indigenous History, Art, and Culture

November is Native American Heritage Month and a number of recent University of Washington Press books provide testament to the enduring, resilient nature of that heritage. The books below feature Indigenous authors, contributors, and collaborators, reflecting the Press’s longtime commitment to privileging Native American perspectives on their own history, art, and culture.

Being Cowlitz: How One Tribe Renewed and Sustained its Identity
By Christine Dupres
Without a recognized reservation or homeland, what keeps an Indian tribe together? What began as the author’s search for her own history opened a window into the practices and narratives that sustained her tribe’s identity even as its people were scattered over several states. Christine Dupres interweaves oral history, archival documentation, and personal narrative to tell the story of the Cowlitz Tribe.

Return to the Land of the Head Hunters: Edward S. Curtis, the Kwakwaka’wakw, and the Making of Modern Cinema
Edited by Brad Evans and Aaron Glass
Foreword by Bill Holm
The first silent feature film with an “all Indian” cast and a surviving original orchestral score, Edward Curtis’s 1914 In the Land of the Head Hunters was a landmark of early cinema. Influential but often neglected in historical accounts, this spectacular melodrama was an intercultural product of Curtis’s encounter and collaboration with the Kwakwaka’wakw of British Columbia. In recognition of the film’s centennial, and alongside the release of a restored version, Return to the Land of the Head Hunters brings together leading anthropologists, Native American authorities, artists, musicians, literary scholars, and film historians to reassess the film and its legacy.
Continue reading →

Behind the Covers: Six Classics of Asian American Literature, Then and Now

For our Throwback Thursday contribution to the University Press Week blog tour, we’re taking a look at how cover designs for our Classics of Asian American Literature series have evolved over time. Below, we feature the original book covers alongside their new designs and comments from University of Washington Press designers Thomas Eykemans and Dustin Kilgore. Their comments illuminate some of the challenges and opportunities that arise in reimagining book covers to better fit contemporary trends while also highlighting the historic significance of the books and their authors.

1. America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan

The cover of the 1973 edition (left) and the 2014 edition (right).

Designer: Dustin Kilgore
Design statement: Prior to the 2014 reissue, the most recent edition of America Is in the Heart was published by the University of Washington Press in 1973 and featured a 1946 illustration by Frances O’Brien from the cover of the Saturday Review of Literature. When the design was reduced in size for the 1973 book cover, the shadows on Bulosan’s face appeared heavier than in the original illustration. The determined look in Bulosan’s eyes in the original O’Brien illustration became almost glowering as the quality of the illustration was degraded over time.

For the new cover, we wanted a more upbeat tone that highlighted Bulosan’s unerring hope for America even in the face of hardship. Urban Artworks—a local organization that uses public art to empower youth—had recently installed a Carlos Bulosan mural in Seattle’s International District. That image showed more optimism and nuance, so it fit perfectly with the direction I was hoping to take the new cover design. I switched the image’s color palette to warmer tones, rather than staying with the cool color palette the mural uses. The cool tones work well for the place the mural is installed, but I was concerned it would make the book less inviting and unintentionally repeat the somewhat sinister effect of the shadows we saw in the reprints of the 1973 edition.

Read more about the new America Is in the Heart cover design here. Continue reading →

University Press Week and AAUP Book Design Tour

This week, we join with fellow members of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) in celebrating the third annual University Press Week. This year’s theme, “Great Minds Don’t Think Alike,” celebrates the incredible range of contributions university presses from around the world make to stimulating ideas and conversations.

Don’t miss the University Press Blog Tour, a virtual journey through the innovative contributions university presses make to scholarly communities, regional knowledge, and awareness of global issues. The UW Press blog will be participating in this tour on Thursday, November 13 and will feature contributions from other university presses on our Twitter feed.

Continue reading →

Decolonizing Feminisms: Antiracist and Transnational Praxis

This week the University of Washington Press unveils the new series, Decolonizing Feminisms: Antiracist and Transnational Praxis, edited by Piya Chatterjee. The series reflects the Press’s plans to increase publications that engage with gender, women’s, sexuality, and critical race studies. UW Press editor in chief Larin McLaughlin will travel to several conferences this fall to promote the new series: American Studies Association, American Anthropological Association, and National Women’s Studies Association, where she’ll be joined by Dr. Chatterjee.

Decolonizing Feminisms welcomes progressive and radical feminist writing that privileges the integral connections between theory, activism, policy making and other forms of social action. It will forward the work of activists and scholars whose explorations highlight the inextricable weaves of knowledge and power, and theory and practice. The series is particularly interested in interdisciplinary writing that considers the ways in which historical and contemporary forms of colonization, occupation and imperialism compel critical and imaginative frameworks for political resistance and progressive social change. It seeks to lift up feminist work that is grounded in situated understandings of colonization and colonialism, empires and imperialisms, and explores how these shape our experiences and understandings of heteronormative, racist, nationalist, communitarian, and state violence. The series seeks exemplary feminist writing and scholarship that engages cultural meaning, survival and resistance in critical and plural ways. Books in the series will include writing that is both rigorous and accessible to multiple audiences. Continue reading →

UW Press News, Reviews, and Events

News

Congratulations to Lissa Wadewitz whose book, The Nature of Borders: Salmon, Boundaries, and Bandits on the Salish Sea, has been selected as the recipient of American Historical Association’s 2014 Albert Corey Prize. The prize will be presented at the AHA’s 2015 Annual Meeting in New York on January 2.

“An excellent book that covers much ground and joins in the project of reorienting borderlands history in North America. It is suitable for both a lay audience and for use in the classroom.” —Evan C. Rothera, Indigenous Peoples Issues and Resources Continue reading →