Monthly Archives: February 2017

Furry Attractions: Polar Bears in the Zoo

International Polar Bear Day, which falls every year on February 27, raises awareness about the conservation status of polar bears in a warming Arctic. In this guest post, Ice Bear author Michael Engelhard shares this photo essay about the history of polar bears kept in zoos.

In the western hemisphere, polar bears have lived in our midst since the Middle Ages, a result of our fascination with these charismatic carnivores. From their very beginnings as cultural institutions, zoos have tried to balance entertainment and education. Today, with climate change and habitat loss from development threatening the polar bear’s natural habitat, many have added conservation to their mission, with captive breeding programs and scientific research. This gallery offers a brief stroll through zoos past and present, a glimpse at how we have kept and presented the Arctic White Bear.

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Courtesy of The New York Public Library.

The menagerie in the Tower of London, one of Europe’s oldest and longest-operating zoos, in an illustration from 1808. Already in 1252, Henry III of England kept a muzzled and chained polar bear there, which was allowed to catch fish and frolic about in the Thames.

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Courtesy of E. K. Duncan.

Polito’s Royal Menagerie at the Exeter ’Change in London, 1812. A collection of exotic animals owned by Stephen Polito, a touring showman in Georgian England of Italian descent who had come from his own country to find fortune in London and the provinces. The artist Edwin Landseer came here to study and paint polar bears “true to life.” Continue reading →

The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir

In The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir (published Fall 2016), Tlingit elder Ernestine Hayes explores the challenges facing Alaska Natives in their own land and recounts her own story of becoming a professor and a writer. This powerful follow-up to her previous memoir Blonde Indian asks: what happens once the exile returns home? The 2016-2018 Alaska State Writer Laureate will soon visit Washington State for a series of book events.

The following excerpt from the book’s prologue tells the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight:

At a time so long ago it can be measured neither by following the moon’s slow dance nor by tracing the sun’s brightened path, had moon and sun then been part of life, darkness was upon the face of the world. This circumstance made it difficult for human beings to conduct their ordinary lives. For example, how much more difficult to impress one another when decisions are made in the dark. How much more difficult to recognize an ally, how much more difficult to praise another’s significance, thereby increasing one’s own importance. How much more difficult to confront a shadow, to challenge the gloom. In an unbrightened world, light does not reveal itself. It must be stolen.

Please join us for these events:

Saturday, February 25, 5 – 7 p.m. // Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington, wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House, “Sacred Breath: Writing & Storytelling” featuring Ernestine Hayes, Raven Heavy Runner, and Elissa Washuta, Seattle, WA, RSVP required

Sunday, February 26 at 4 p.m. // Village Books, Bellingham, WA

Monday, February 27 at 7:30 p.m. // Third Place Books, Seward Park, Seattle, WA

Liberated. Reclaimed, some might say.

Raven has always and not always been around to be amused at the pitiful antics of self-important human beings, and no doubt he found amusement in the ill-composed conditions of a darkened world. But, although he may have discerned intrigue and opportunity, although he may have sensed illicit adventure, although he could well have been distracted by wonders that he alone could see, nevertheless Raven decided to do something about the darkness.

Raven knew about an old man who lived with his daughter in a well-fortified house in an isolated place at the top of a river far away. This old man, it was said, kept in his house precious bentwood boxes in which could be found answers to the darkness. It was said that this old man guarded these boxes even more carefully than he guarded his daughter. He allowed his daughter to venture outside the house for such purposes as gathering roots and collecting water, but never did he allow his precious boxes to be removed from his house or even to be opened, or even to be looked upon, or even to be named.

Continue reading →

Day of Remembrance 75th Anniversary Events: #NeverAgainIsNow

The annual Day of Remembrance commemorates the day in 1942 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, the authorization leading to the mass incarceration of around 120,000 Japanese American citizens in concentration camps during World War II, without due process of law. For this 75th anniversary year, our authors, publishing partners, and our campus, regional, and national communities are remembering and teaching about this important history and discussing the connections between Japanese American incarceration, the Holocaust, and civil rights and racism today.

The Day of Remembrance 75th Anniversary event tomorrow presented by the Nisei Veterans Committee, the Holocaust Center for Humanity, the UW Department of American Ethnic Studies, and the Consulate-General of Japan in Seattle features Lorraine K. Bannai (author of Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice), Tetsuden Kashima (author of Judgment without Trial: Japanese American Imprisonment During World War II), and Dee Simon, Baral Family Executive Director of the Holocaust Center for Humanity. It is the first of three planned events in a Holocaust and Japanese American Connections series. For Sunday’s Day of Remembrance event, Never Again, Densho, CAIR-WA, and ACLU of Washington examine how this vital history relates to the struggle for civil rights today and explores how to prevent harassment and discrimination of American Muslims.

We hope you will join for these and other important events and discussions around the 75th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 and the Day of Remembrance. Remembering is resistance!

Events

FEBRUARY

February 18 at 1 p.m., Day of Remembrance 75th Anniversary, “How Could Concentration Camps Happen?” with Lorraine K. Bannai, Enduring Conviction, Tetsuden Kashima, Judgment without Trial, and Dee Simon, University of Washington, Kane Hall 120, Seattle, WA (Reception follows at 3:30 p.m. in the Walker-Ames Room of Kane Hall)

February 19 at 2 p.m., Never Again: 75th Anniversary of EO 9066, Presented by Densho in partnership with CAIR-Washington State and ACLU of Washington, hosted by The Seattle Public Library at Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center with Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA (Livestream available; #NeverAgainIsNow)

February 27 at 6 p.m., Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, High Desert Museum, Bend, OR

MARCH

March 3 at 5 p.m., Lorraine K. Bannai, Enduring Conviction, Words, Writers, and West Seattle, Westwood Village Barnes & Noble, Seattle, WA

March 7 at 6 p.m., Noriko Kawamura, Emperor Hirohito and the Pacific War, Pritzker Military Museum & Library lecture and livestream (Turbulence in the Pacific: Japanese-U.S. Relations During World War I), Chicago, IL ($10; Free for members)

March 15 at 7 p.m., Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, with Sydney Blaine, Jack Sheppard, Joan & Dorothy Laurance, Sense of Place lecture series, Columbia Center for the Arts, Hood River, OR

March 27 at 7 p.m., Linda Tamura, Nisei Soldiers Break Their Silence, McMenamins History, Oregon Historical Society, and Holy Names Heritage Center, History Pub, Kennedy School, Portland, OR

New in Art History and Visual Culture for CAA 2017

From February 15-18, we are excited to attend the annual conference of the College Art Association in New York, NY. Editor in chief Larin McLaughlin and advancement and grants manager Beth Fuget will be representing the Press, debuting several new books, and meeting with authors, publishing partners, and other professionals in the arts.

We are thrilled to introduce our recent and forthcoming titles in art history and visual culture at the meeting. Please stop by our booth (#206) to get a first look at our new offerings, and join the discussion on social media with #caa2017.

New and Recent Books

Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture
Edited by Leigh Raiford and Heike Raphael-Hernandez

Migrating the Black Body explores how visual media—from painting to photography, from global independent cinema to Hollywood movies, from posters and broadsides to digital media, from public art to graphic novels—has shaped diasporic imaginings of the individual and collective self.

“The Social Life of Inkstones” by Dorothy Ko
“Masterworks from India and Southeast Asia” by Kimberly Masteller (Published with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)
“Conflicts of Interest” edited by Philip Hu (Published with the Saint Louis Art Museum)
“Bhupen Khakhar” edited by Chris Dercon and Nada Raza (Published with Tate Publishing)
“Art from Milingimbi” by Cara Pinchbeck (dist. for Art Gallery of New South Wales)
“Tang” edited by Cao Yin (Dist. for Art Gallery of New South Wales)
“Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera” edited by Nicholas Chambers (Dist. for Art Gallery of New South Wales)
“Louis Bunce” by Roger Hull (Dist. for Hallie Ford Museum of Art)
“No Idols” by Thomas Crow (Dist. for Power Publications)
“Once and Future River,” photographs by Tom Reese, essay by Eric Wagner
“Up Here” edited by Julie Decker and Kirsten J. Anderson (Published with Anchorage Museum)

Forthcoming Books

The Hope of Another Spring: Takuichi Fujii, Artist and Wartime Witness
By Barbara Johns
Foreword by Roger Daniels
Introduction to the diary by Sandy Kita
Scott and Laurie Oki Series in Asian American Studies
Forthcoming May 2017

The Hope of Another Spring reveals the rare find of a heretofore unknown collection of art produced during World War II. The centerpiece of the collection is Fujii’s illustrated diary that historian Roger Daniels has called “the most remarkable document created by a Japanese American prisoner during the wartime incarceration.”

Sonny Assu: A Selective History
By Sonny Assu
With Candice Hopkins, Marianne Nicholson, Richard Van Camp, and Ellyn Walker
Forthcoming June 2017

Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography,
printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu
merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography
with a pop-art sensibility. This stunning retrospective
spans over a decade of Assu’s career, highlighting
more than 120 full-color works, including several
never-before-exhibited pieces.

Queering Contemporary Asian American Art
Edited by Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe
Foreword by Susette Min
Afterword by Kyoo Lee
Jacob Lawrence Series on American Artists
Forthcoming May 2017

These artist interviews, cutting-edge visual artworks, and critical essays explore contemporary currents and experiences within Asian American art, including the multiple axes of race and identity; queer bodies and forms; kinship and affect; and digital identities and performances. Continue reading →

February 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

We are pleased to announce that Catherine Cocks is joining our acquisitions team as Senior Acquisition Editor, starting February 15. She started her career in academic publishing at SAR Press, the publishing arm of the School for Advanced Research, where she established the cutting-edge series in Global Indigenous Politics, among other accomplishments. She worked most recently at the University of Iowa Press, where she is currently Editorial Director. Please join us in welcoming Catherine to the press!

The University of Washington Press has five selected entries in the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) 2017 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show. Congratulations to the designers, our Editorial, Design, and Production department, and all involved!

Nine University of Washington Press authors will be participating in the 12th Annual Literary Voices event on May 3, 2017. Annie Proulx is this year’s keynote speaker.

Reviews and Interviews

The Times Literary Supplement reviews Ice Bear by Michael Engelhard: “Engelhard has an apt and unusual background for a book such as this. . . . Among the strengths of Ice Bear is its grasp of the rituals by which humans have always aspired to draw the strength of the polar bear into themselves.”—Mark Abley

The Spectator also reviews the book: “[A] beautifully illustrated, hugely engaging book. . . . For all its nightmare-haunting power, however, the aspect of the polar bear that really makes it an icon of the age is its vulnerability . . . . Another merit of the book is the author’s willingness to track these themes to their origins.”—Mark Cocker

Continue reading →