Today marks the start of the twelfth annual University Press Week and UW Press is thrilled to join the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) and other member presses in celebrating the essential work of university presses.

This year’s theme, #SpeakUP, recognizes the ways that university presses give voice to the scholarship and ideas that shape conversations around the world.

University Press Publications That #SpeakUP

AUPresses has compiled a reading list of more than 100 of the best books, journals, and other publications, selected by member presses, that represent the many areas in which university presses and their authors #SpeakUP. The publications cover a wide range of subject matter and present thought-provoking concepts, new points of view, and ideas that advocate for social change.

We are excited to feature Kaitlin Reed’s Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California, which offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation.

Foregrounding Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories, Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) situates the cannabis industry within a broader history of resource rushing in California. “A pattern of resource rushing has left a toxic legacy that shapes the historic context of emerging industries in the state,” said Reed in a Q&A.

“From the widespread use of mercury during the gold rush and its disproportionate impact on Indigenous fishing communities to the aerial spraying of atrazine over Yurok forests as late as 2013, the use of toxics within settler resource rushing has negatively impacted tribal peoples since invasion. California Indians have watched this pattern play out over and over again.”

Reed shares this history to inform the path toward an alternative future, one that starts with the return of land to Indigenous stewardship and rejects the commodification and control of nature for profit.

We invite you to explore all of the books featured during University Press Week at Bookshop.org, and we hope you’ll take this opportunity to add some of these university press books to your reading list.

UP Week Blog Tour

Every day this week participating presses will be blogging about the many ways in which university presses #SpeakUP. Today’s posts feature books and projects that exemplify the ways the SpeakUP theme intersects with presses’ mission, practices, and strategies.

Read more about what #SpeakUP means to university presses on the AUPresses UP Week Blog Tour page.

Be sure to check back throughout the week for more posts from the UP Week Blog Tour and join on social media with the #UPWeek and #SpeakUP hashtags!