Category Archives: Visual Studies

The Role of the Arts and Artists in Social Justice Movements: Editor Laura Kina on the Critical Ethnic Studies and Visual Culture Series

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.

My entry to writing and editing grew organically through curating shows of fellow artists and working on public scholarship and archival work with my DePaul students for the Asian American Art Oral History Project and the Virtual Asian American Art Museum. I have since had the privilege of working with the University of Washington Press for two co-edited anthologies—with Wei Ming Dariotis, War Baby/Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art, and with Jan Christian Bernabe, Queering Contemporary Asian American Art.

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.

Related Books

Missouri Pettway’s Gee’s Bend Quilt: An Excerpt from ‘Stitching Love and Loss’ by Lisa Gail Collins

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

  1. 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. ↩︎
  2. 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. ↩︎
  3. 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. ↩︎
  4. 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).

Related Books

Attending CAA? Save 30% on UW Press Books

We look forward to connecting with everyone at the 2023 College Art Association annual meeting, taking place in New York City on February 15-18.

Be sure to visit UW Press in the Book and Trade Fair at booth 221 for a 30% discount on new and notable titles. We have a rich and varied catalog in Asian art, Native American and Indigenous art, visual culture, and more. Our virtual exhibit is now open, and you can take early advantage of the conference discount with code WCAA23 at checkout. The code will be valid for CAA members through March 15, 2023.

Discover New and Notable Books

Learn About Our Art and Visual Culture Series

Native Art of the Pacific Northwest: A Bill Holm Center Series

Publishing important new research on the Native art and culture of the greater Pacific Northwest, this series aims to foster appreciation of the dynamic cultural and artistic expressions of the Indigenous peoples of the region. Grounded in art history, the series encompasses investigations of historical productions and contemporary manifestations of cultural expression as well as the important intersections between time, place, technique, and viewpoint.

Critical Ethnic Studies and Visual Culture

This new book series engages insights from critical ethnic studies and visual culture, and encourages innovative interdisciplinary antiracist work that challenges and transforms our understanding of race, ethnicity, and the visual. Focusing on art, new media, art history, visual anthropology, visual culture, craft, fashion, and other forms of cultural expression, the series brings together works that engage decolonization and social justice with an intersectional emphasis on race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, and gender.

See What’s New and Forthcoming from Our Publishing Partners

Black History Month Book List

In celebration of Black History Month, we invite you to check out recent books as well as select titles from our backlist in Pacific Northwest, African American, and Black Diaspora historical studies that speak to the profound legacy of Black Americans and this year’s theme of Black resistance.

Black Lives in Alaska: A History of African Americans in the Far Northwest

Centering the agency and diversity of Black Alaskans, this book chronicles how Alaska’s Black population, though small, has had an outsized impact on the culture and civic life of the region. Alaska’s history of race relations and civil rights reminds the reader that the currents of discrimination and its responses—determination, activism, and perseverance—are American stories that might be explored in the unlikeliest of places.

The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era

University of Washington Emeritus Professor of American History Quintard Taylor’s meticulously researched account is essential to understanding the history and present of the largest black community in the Pacific Northwest. The second edition features a new foreword and afterword.

Revolution to Evolution: The Story of the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity at the University of Washington

Born from a national movement in the late 1960s seeking to address structural and cultural racism, the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity (OMA&D) started as a core group of Black Student Union leaders at the UW who demanded changes in how the school served students of color. In a new book releasing February 21, legendary founding member Emile Pitre shares deep insight into the making of the institution through candid interviews, letters, and reflections of those who participated across decades.

Emerald Street: A History of Hip Hop in Seattle

In this rich narrative, Daudi Abe draws on interviews with artists and journalists to trace how hip hop flourished in the Seattle scene. He shows how Seattle hip-hop culture goes beyond art and music, influencing politics, the relationships between communities of color and law enforcement, the changing media scene, and youth outreach and educational programs.

The Portland Black Panthers: Empowering Albina and Remaking a City

Combining histories of the city and its African American community with interviews with former Portland Panthers and other key players, this long-overdue account adds complexity to our understanding of the protracted civil rights movement throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Black Women in Sequence: Re-Inking Comics, Graphic Novels, and Anime

Beginning with the 1971 appearance of the first Black female superheroine in a comic book—the Skywald Publications character “the Butterfly”—artist, curator, and writer Deborah Elizabeth Waley examines the representation, production, and transnational circulation of women of African descent in the sequential art world.

Migrating the Black Body: The African Diaspora and Visual Culture

How is the travel of black bodies reflected in reciprocal black images? How is blackness forged and remade through diasporic visual encounters and reimagined through revisitations with the past? This volume brings together an international group of scholars and artists who explore these questions in visual culture for the historical and contemporary African diaspora.

Love for Liberation: African Independence, Black Power, and a Diaspora Underground

Through interviews with activists, extensive archival research, and media analysis, Robin Hayes reveals how Black Power and African independence activists created a diaspora underground, characterized by collaboration and reciprocal empowerment. Together, they redefined racial discrimination as an international human rights issue and laid the groundwork for future transnational racial justice movements, such as Black Lives Matter.

Louisiana Creole Peoplehood: Afro-Indigeneity and Community

Over the course of more than three centuries, the diverse communities of Louisiana have engaged in creative living practices to forge a vibrant, multifaceted, and fully developed Creole culture. Engaging themes as varied as foodways, queer identity, health, historical trauma, language revitalization, and diaspora, this volume explores vital ways a specific Afro-Indigenous community asserts agency while promoting cultural sustainability, communal dialogue, and community reciprocity against the backdrop of ongoing anti-Blackness and Indigenous erasure.

Barbara Earl Thomas: The Geography of Innocence

Artist Barbara Earl Thomas’s body of work collected here offers a reexamination of Black portraiture and the preconceived dichotomies of innocence and guilt and sin and redemption, and the ways in which these notions are assigned and distorted along cultural and racial lines.

March 2018 News, Reviews, and Events

News

The University of Washington Press has an outstanding opening for an Editorial Assistant (job number 153892). Please help us get the word out to excellent candidates who are interested in getting into acquisitions!

We were thrilled to announce that starting March 1, 2018, the University of Washington Press joins the UW Libraries and reports to the vice provost of digital initiatives and dean of University Libraries, Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson. The Press and the Libraries currently collaborate on a number of joint initiatives, and the Press has also published a number of books in association with the Libraries. Read the full press release on the UW Press Blog and more at Shelf Awareness Pro.

Monthly Giveaways

Reviews and Interviews

The Spokesman-Review publishes an opinion piece by The Spokane River editor Paul Lindholdt.

The Indian Express features an article by High-Tech Housewives author Amy Bhatt about how US immigration policy is impacting Indian families.

The Seattle Times mentions Seattle Walks by David B. Williams in a Lit Life column about the Seattle Public Library’s Peak Picks program.

Light reviews Nasty Women Poets edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (dist. Lost Horse Press): “This anthology is the burn, the salve on the burn, and the funny story you make up years later to explain the scar.”—Barbara Egel

Kotaku Australia includes Black Women in Sequence by Deborah Elizabeth Whaley in a round-up of comics-related Black History Month reads (2/15/18). The author also gets a mention in a New York Times opinion piece (no book mention; 2/16/18), which is syndicated and translated at Gazeta do Povo.

UW Today / UW News highlights news that UW professor emeritus and UW Press author Quintard Taylor has been awarded the lifetime achievement award from the Washington State Historical Society. The Forging of a Black Community gets a mention.

Redmond Reporter features Looking for Betty MacDonald by Paula Becker.

The Forbes Science / #WhoaScience stream features the second edition of The Orphan Tsunami of 1700 by Brian F. Atwater, Satoko Musumi-Rokkaku, Kenji Satake, Yoshinobu Tsuji, Kazue Ueda, and David K. Yamaguchi (published with US Geological Survey, Department of the Interior): “A rather beautifully illustrated account.”—Robin Andrews

Above & Beyond publishes an article about ptarmigans by Michael Engelhard. Ice Bear gets a byline mention.

University of Montana News features Douglas H. MacDonald and Before Yellowstone.

The Fil-Am Magazine and Inquirer.net US review A Time to Rise edited by Rene Ciria Cruz, Cindy Domingo, and Bruce Occena: “For anyone looking to engage in the issues they believe in or find inspiration amid today’s discouraging headlines, the lessons shared by former KDP members in A Time to Rise are deeply impactful. . . . Detailed and informative, the memoirs in A Time to Rise hash out the struggles that made the difficult road to justice possible. . . . More than a list of achievements, A Time to Rise is personal.”—Renee Macalino Rutledge

Association of King County Historical Organization (AKCHO) Heritage Advisor / News features Frederick L. Brown and his 2017 AKCHO Virginia Marie Folkins Award-winning book The City Is More Than Human.

The Art Newspaper reviews No Idols by Thomas Crow (dist. for Power Publications):”The greatest value of No Idols is in its widest implication: that even if we try, we cannot rid ourselves of the past. Art, stripped of its religious foundations, lives on in a secular world, but ghostly remnants will always remain.”—Pac Pobric

International Examiner mentions Monica Sone’s Nisei Daughter and Yoshiko Uchida’s Desert Exile in a review of Jeanette Arakawa’s The Little Exile.

Live Science mentions Ancient Ink edited by Lars Krutak and Aaron Deter-Wolf in an article about newly published research on prehistoric tattooing. The article interviews lead researcher and book contributor Renée Friedman, and her team’s original article is published in the March 2018 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science.

Ethnic Seattle features Monica Sone and Nisei Daughter in a Women’s History Month round-up of women of color writers from Seattle.

Diplomacy’s Public Dimension reviews Mediating Islam by Janet Steele: “Steele brings the strengths of an accomplished journalism and media scholar and twenty years of field research in Southeast Asia to a book that explores important questions. . . . Not least among many contributions in this important study is the way the author, a self-described Western, secular, female scholar, has engaged in sustained, productive cross-cultural dialogue with journalists in majority Muslim countries, many of whom are not liberal or secular.”—Bruce Gregory

Panorama Television (PCTV) “Now Where Were We?” interviews Lorraine McConaghy about Free Boy. Stream the segment on YouTube.

Food Politics blogger Marion Nestle features The Organic Profit by Andrew N. Case.

The New York Times Lens section’s latest Race Stories piece by Maurice Berger features Al Smith’s life, work, and Seattle on the Spot (dist. for Museum of History and Industry).

Cool Green Science (the conservation science blog of The Nature Conservancy) reviews Razor Clams by David Berger: “An entertaining account, and guide, to the real fun of digging your own food in the beach. . . . Berger’s book is an excellent testimony that gathering is still an enriching, fun and tasty pursuit. Long may it be so.”—Matthew L. Miller

Science interviews Ted Pietsch, coauthor of the forthcoming Fishes of the Salish Sea, about first-ever footage of living anglerfish. More via UW News.

Santa Fe Council on International Relations interviews Janet Steele about Mediating Islam.

The Seattle Times Outdoors section features two (out of six) spring hikes from Seattle Walks by David B. Williams.

Humboldt State Now interviews Cutcha Risling Baldy and mentions We Are Dancing for You in a news release about the 32nd Annual California Indian Conference to be held at Humboldt State University on April 5 and April 6. She is chair of the conference organizing committee.

Science to the People rebroadcasts their interview with Dawn Day Biehler about Pests in the City.

New Books Network interviews Frederick L. Brown about The City Is More Than Human (posted on the NBn American Studies, American West, Environmental Studies, History, and Native American Studies channels).

The Booklist Reader features Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart and recommends additional contemporary Filipino-American fiction: “Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart is a cornerstone of classic Asian-American literature.”—Terry Hong

New Books

A Family History of Illness: Memory as Medicine
By Brett L. Walker

While in the ICU with a near-fatal case of pneumonia, Brett Walker was asked, “Do you have a family history of illness?”—a standard and deceptively simple question that for Walker, a professional historian, took on additional meaning and spurred him to investigate his family’s medical past. In this deeply personal narrative, he constructs a history of his body to understand his diagnosis with a serious immunological disorder, weaving together his dying grandfather’s sneaking a cigarette in a shed on the family’s Montana farm, blood fractionation experiments in Europe during World War II, and nineteenth-century cholera outbreaks that ravaged small American towns as his ancestors were making their way west.


Firebrand Feminism: The Radical Lives of Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kathie Sarachild, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and Dana Densmore
By Breanne Fahs

Breanne Fahs brings together ten years of dialogue with four founders of the radical feminist movement and provides a timely and historically rich account of these audacious women and the lasting impact of their words and work.


Before Yellowstone: Native American Archaeology in the National Park
By Douglas H. MacDonald

Douglas MacDonald tells the long history of human presence in Yellowstone National Park as revealed by archaeological research into nearly 2,000 sites — many of which he helped survey and excavate. He describes and explains the significance of archaeological areas and helps readers understand the archaeological methods used and the limits of archaeological knowledge.


Olympic National Park: A Natural History, Fourth Edition
By Tim McNulty

In this updated classic guide to the park, Tim McNulty invites us into the natural and human history of thesenearly million acres and offers a detailed look at Elwha River restoration after the dam removal, inspiring descriptions of endangered species recovery, and practical advice on how to make the most of your visit.


The Spokane River
Edited by Paul Lindholdt

From Lake Coeur d’Alene to its confluence with the Columbia, the Spokane River travels 111 miles of varied and often spectacular terrain — rural, urban, in places wild. The twenty-eight contributors to this collection — including activists, storytellers, and scientists — profile this living river through personal reflection, history, science, and poetry.


Uplake: Restless Essays of Coming and Going
By Ana Maria Spagna

These engaging, reflective essays muse on rootedness, yearning, commitment, ambition, and wonder, and remind us to love what we have while encouraging us to still imagine what we want.


Cultivating Nature: The Conservation of a Valencian Working Landscape
By Sarah R. Hamilton
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Shifting between local struggles and global debates, this fascinating environmental history reveals how Franco’s dictatorship, Spain’s integration with Europe, and the crisis in European agriculture have shaped the Albufera Natural Park, its users, and its inhabitants.


Bringing Whales Ashore: Oceans and the Environment of Early Modern Japan
By Jakobina K. Arch
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

In this vivid and nuanced study of how the Japanese people brought whales ashore during the Tokugawa period, Arch makes important contributions to both environmental and Japanese history by connecting Japanese whaling to marine environmental history in the Pacific, including the devastating impact of American whaling in the nineteenth century.


Transforming Monkey: Adaptation and Representation of a Chinese Epic
By Hongmei Sun

In this far-ranging study Hongmei Sun discusses the thousand-year evolution of Sun Wukong (aka Monkey or the Monkey King) in imperial China and multimedia adaptations in Republican, Maoist, and post-socialist China and the United States.


Medicine and Memory in Tibet: Amchi Physicians in an Age of Reform
By Theresia Hofer

Medicine and Memory in Tibet examines medical revivalism on the geographic and sociopolitical margins both of China and of Tibet’s medical establishment in Lhasa, exploring the work of medical practitioners, or amchi, and of Medical Houses in the west-central region of Tsang.


Making New Nepal: From Student Activism to Mainstream Politics
By Amanda Thérèse Snellinger

Based on extensive ethnographic research between 2003 and 2015, Making New Nepal provides a snapshot of an activist generation’s political coming-of-age during a decade of civil war and ongoing democratic street protests.


Mediating Islam: Cosmopolitan Journalisms in Muslim Southeast Asia
By Janet Steele

Broadening an overly narrow definition of Islamic journalism, Janet Steele examines day-to-day reporting practices of Muslim professionals, from conservative scripturalists to pluralist cosmopolitans, at five exemplary news organizations in Malaysia and Indonesia.


Buddhism Illuminated: Manuscript Art from South-East Asia
By San San May and Jana Igunma
Published with British Library

Buddhism Illuminated includes over one hundred examples of Buddhist art from the British Library’s rich collection, relating each manuscript to Theravada tradition and beliefs, and introducing the historical, artistic, and religious contexts of their production. It is the first book in English to showcase the beauty and variety of Buddhist manuscript art and reproduces many works that have never before been photographed.


Captive Light: The Life and Photography of Ella E. McBride
By Margaret E. Bullock and David F. Martin
Distributed for Tacoma Art Museum
Exhibition on view through July 8, 2018

Internationally acclaimed fine-art photographer Ella McBride (1862–1965) played an important role in the Northwest’s photography community and was a key figure in the national and international pictorialist photography movements. Despite her many accomplishments, which include managing the photography studio of Edward S. Curtis for many years and being an early member of the Seattle Camera Club, McBride is little known today. Captive Light reconsiders her career and the larger pictorialist movement in the Northwest. Captive Light is part of the Tacoma Art Museum’s Northwest Perspective Series on significant Northwest artists.


Julie Speidel: The Center Holds
By Matthew Kangas
Foreword by Rock Hushka
Distributed for Speidel Studio LLC

In this richly-illustrated monograph, the art of Julie Speidel is seen as one of myth and materiality, encompassing the creation more than four decades of numerous objects that inhabit a variety of locales and fulfill a wide variety of purposes. She has created sculpture in many different media and a variety of scale, as well as an impressive body of prints.

Events

MARCH

March 30, A Time to Rise edited by Rene Ciria Cruz, Cindy Domingo, and Bruce Occena, Bayanihan Community Center with Arkipelago Books, San Francisco, CA

March 30 at noon, Janet Steele, Mediating Islam, New York Southeast Asia Network and NYU Wagner’s Office of International Programs, New York, NY

APRIL

April 2 at 7 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass Amherst), History of Art & Architecture, Amherst, MA

April 2 at 7 p.m., Ingrid Walker, High, King County Library System – Des Moines Library, Des Moines, WA

April 5 at 7 p.m., Ana Maria Spagna, Uplake, Whitman College, Reid Ballroom, Walla Walla, WA

April 6 at 6 p.m., Bruce Guenther, Michael C. Spafford (dist. for Lucia | Marquand), Jacob Lawrence Gallery, Seattle, WA

April 7 at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., Quin’Nita Cobbins, Paul de Barros, Howard Giske, Jacqueline E. A. Lawson, and Al “Butch” Smith, Jr., Seattle on the Spot (dist. for Museum of History and Industry), On the Spot Gallery Talk, Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), Seattle, WA

April 7 at 10 a.m., Stevan Harrell, Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China, Saturday University: Textiles of Southwest China, Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas, University of Washington Jackson School of International Studies and Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle Art Museum, Plestcheeff Auditorium, Seattle, WA

April 8 at 3 p.m., Ana Maria Spagna, Uplake, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

April 9 at 4:30 p.m., Sylvanna Falcón, Power Interrupted, Wellesley College, 2018 Domna Stanton Lecture in Women’s and Gender Studies, Wellesley, MA

April 11 at 12:30 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Garfield Senior Center, Pomeroy, WA

April 11 at noon, Janet Steele, Mediating Islam, George Washington University, Sigur Center for Asian Studies, Washington, DC

April 11 at 7 p.m., Nasty Women Poets edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (dist. Lost Horse Press), GA Nasty Women Poets, Oglethorpe University Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

April 13 at 7:30 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, with Donna Miscolta, Town Hall Seattle and Phinney Neighborhood Association, In Residence—History Is an Act of the Imagination, Taproot Theatre, Seattle, WA

April 14 at 10:30 a.m., Jennifer Ott, Waterway (dist. for HistoryLink), Redmond Historical Society, Old Redmond Schoolhouse, Redmond, WA ($5 suggested donation for Non-Members)

April 14, Eileen A. Bjorkman, The Propeller under the Bed, Oregon Aviation Historical Society, Cottage Grove, OR

April 17 at noon, Jakobina K. Arch, Bringing Whales Ashore, Whitman College, Whitman College Bookstore at Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom, Walla Walla, WA

April 18 at 3 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Suffolk University, Boston, MA

April 19 at 3:30 p.m., Brett L. Walker, A Family History of Illness, University of Oregon, Department of History, Eugene, OR

April 21 at 3:30 p.m., Douglas H. MacDonald, Before Yellowstone, Historical Museum at Fort Missoula, Missoula, MT

April 23 at 5 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

April 26 at 3:30 p.m., Dorothy Ko, The Social Life of Inkstones, University of Washington, Seattle Campus, The East Asia Center and China Studies Program at the Jackson School of International Studies with the Seattle Art Museum, Thomson Hall,  Seattle, WA

April 26 at 7:30 p.m., Dorothy Ko, The Social Life of Inkstones, Asia Talks, Gardner Center for Asian Art and Ideas, Seattle Art Museum, Nordstrom Lecture Hall, Seattle, WA (Free with RSVP; Doors at 7 p.m., Talk begins at 7:30 p.m.)

April 27 at 11:15 a.m., Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán, American Sabor, MoPOP, Pop Conference 2018, Roundtable: Making American Sabor, Seattle, WA

April 27 at 5 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Timberland Regional Library – Raymond Library, Raymond, WA

April 27 – September 2, Adman edited by Nicholas Chambers (dist. Art Gallery of New South Wales), Exhibition, The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA

April 27-28, Ana Maria Spagna, Uplake, Get Lit! Festival, Eastern Washington University, Spokane, WA (Tickets on sale March 27 at 10 a.m. PST)

April 28 at 10:30 a.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Timberland Regional Library – South Bend Library, South Bend, WA

April 28 at 2 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Timberland Regional Library – Naselle Library, Naselle, WA

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February 2018 News, Reviews, and Events

News

The 2018 Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation (China and Inner Asia) will be awarded to Steven Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg as co-translators of Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan. The 2018 Awards Ceremony will take place at the AAS conference in Washington, DC on Friday, March 23. The biennial prize was first awarded in 2016 – Xiaofei Tian won the inaugural Hanan Prize for Translation for The World of a Tiny Insect by Zhang Daye – so UW Press authors have won all prize rounds to date. Congratulations to the translators, series editors, UW Press executive editor Lorri Hagman, and all involved!

Please join us in welcoming a couple of new hires to the Press. Michael O. Campbell, most recently US sales manager at Lone Pine Publishing, is our new sales and marketing director. Neal Swain has joined us as contracts and intellectual property manager. She comes to us from Wales Literary Agency, where she will continue as assistant agent.

Monthly Giveaways

Reviews and Interviews

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner selects The Tao of Raven by Ernestine Hayes as one of their best Alaska books of 2017: “The Tao of Raven is likely the most thoughtful book you’ll read all year, memoir or otherwise.”—Addley Fannin


VICE interviews High author Ingrid Walker about drug policy and use.


UW News features a Q&A with American Sabor authors Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán.


Northwest Asian Weekly features The Hope of Another Spring by Barbara Johns: “Her work puts us in Fujii’s time and place, a gift to those who lived through that time, and to those who have only a sketchy idea of the reality of the Issei experience as told through Fujii’s words and art.”—Laura Rehrmann


The Washington Post / Made By History publishes an op-ed by Emilie Raymond on the history of celebrity civil rights activism. Stars for Freedom, out in paperback this spring, gets a byline mention.


Reading Religion reviews The Jewish Bible by David Stern: “This is a fascinating, engaging, and instructive volume. The breadth of topics and traditions covered is vast, and Stern’s knowledge of and research on these issues is remarkable. Beyond the content, the volume is beautifully illustrated, with over 80 color images illuminating the various topics. A study on the materiality of the Jewish scriptures needed to be written, and we can all be thankful that it was Stern who took up the task.”—Bradford A. Anderson

KUOW interviews Kevin Craft about Vagrants & Accidentals. Poetry correspondent Elizabeth Austen and Bill Radke discuss “Matinee” and Craft reads “For the Climbers” and “Borders without Doctors.”


3rd Act Magazine reviews Walking Washington’s History by Judy Bentley (Winter 2018): “Even if you don’t leave your comfy chair, you’ll learn much more about Washington in this interesting book.”—Julie Fanselow


The Conversation features an article by Amy Bhatt, author of the forthcoming High-Tech Housewives, and UMBC colleague Dillon Mahmoudi about the likely effects of Amazon’s HQ2 on local diversity, equity, and quality of life.


Somatosphere publishes a book forum on Tracing Autism by Des Fitzgerald.

New Books

American Sabor: Latinos and Latinas in US Popular Music / Latinos y latinas en la musica popular estadounidense
By Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley, and Michelle Habell-Pallán
Translated by Angie Berríos Miranda

With side-by-side Spanish and English text, this book traces the substantial musical contributions of Latinas and Latinos in American popular music between World War II and the present in five vibrant centers of Latin@ musical production: New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Miami.

Ancient Ink: The Archaeology of Tattooing
Edited by Lars Krutak and Aaron Deter-Wolf

This first book dedicated to the archaeological study of tattooing, presents new research from across the globe examining tattooed human remains, tattoo tools, and ancient art.  Ancient Ink connects ancient body art traditions to modern culture through Indigenous communities and the work of contemporary tattoo artists.


The Art of Resistance: Painting by Candlelight in Mao’s China
By Shelley Drake Hawks

Drawing on interviews with the artists and their families, this art history surveys the lives of seven fiercely independent painters during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), a time when they were considered counterrevolutionary and were forbidden to paint.


Slapping the Table in Amazement: A Ming Dynasty Story Collection
By Ling Mengchu
Translated by Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang
Introduction by Robert E. Hegel

The unabridged English translation of the famous story collection Pai’an jingqi by Ling Mengchu (1580-1644), originally published in 1628.


Many Faces of Mulian: The Precious Scrolls of Late Imperial China
By Rostislav Berezkin

The story of Mulian rescuing his mother’s soul from hell has evolved as a narrative over several centuries in China, especially in the baojuan (precious scrolls) genre. This exploration of the story’s evolution illuminates changes in the literary and religious characteristics of the genre.


Forming the Early Chinese Court: Rituals, Spaces, Roles
By Luke Habberstad

This pioneering study of early Chinese court culture shows that a large, but not necessarily cohesive, body of courtiers drove the consolidation, distribution, and representation of power in court institutions.


Down with Traitors: Justice and Nationalism in Wartime China
By Yun Xia

Built on previously unexamined documents, this history reveals how the hanjian (“traitors to the Han Chinese”) were punished in both legal and extralegal ways and how the anti-hanjian campaigns captured the national crisis, political struggle, roaring nationalism, and social tension of China’s eventful decades from the 1930s through the 1950s.


Christian Krohg’s Naturalism
By Oystein Sjastad

The definitive account of Norwegian painter, novelist, and social critic Christian Krohg (1825-1925) and his art.  Sjastad examines the theories of Krohg and his fellow naturalists and their reception in Scandinavian intellectual circles, viewing Krohg from an international perspective and demonstrating how Krohg’s art made a striking contribution to European naturalism.


Sacred to the Touch: Nordic and Baltic Religious Wood Carving
By Thomas A. DuBois

This beautifully illustrated study of six twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists reveals the interplay of tradition with personal and communal identity that characterize modern religious carving in Northern Europe.


Gender before Birth: Sex Selection in a Transnational Context
By Rajani Bhatia

Based on extensive fieldwork, this book looks at how sex selective assisted reproduction technologies in the West and non-West are divergently named and framed. Bhatia’s resulting analysis extends both feminist theory on reproduction and feminist science and technology studies.


Seattle on the Spot: The Photographs of Al Smith
By Quin’Nita Cobbins, Paul de Barros, Howard Giske, Jacqueline E. A. Lawson, and Al “Butch” Smith, Jr.
Distributed for The Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI)
Exhibition on view through June 17, 2018

Al Smith’s photography chronicled the jazz clubs, family gatherings, neighborhood events, and individuals who made up Seattle’s African American community in the mid-twentieth century. This companion book to the exhibition at MOHAI features highlights from Smith’s legacy along with reflections from historians, scholars, friends, and family members.

Events

FEBRUARY

February 8 at 7 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Three Stones Gallery, Concord, MA (Snow date: February 9 at 7 p.m.)

February 8 at 7:30 p.m., Thomas Crow, No Idols (dist. Power Publications), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA

February 9 at 2 p.m., Heidi R. M. Pauwels, Mobilizing Krishna’s World, UW South Asia Center, Thomson 317, Seattle, WA

February 11 at 2 p.m., Frederica Bowcutt, The Tanoak Tree, Grace Hudson Museum and the Sanhedrin Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, Ukiah, CA

February 15 at 7 p.m., Nasty Women Poets edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (dist. Lost Horse Press), SoulFood Poetry Night, Redmond, WA

February 18 at 3 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, DIESEL, A Bookstore, Santa Monica, CA

February 23 at 7 p.m., Nasty Women Poets edited by Grace Bauer and Julie Kane (dist. Lost Horse Press), Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA

February 24 at 9 a.m., Ernestine Hayes, The Tao of Raven, 2018 Search for Meaning Festival, Seattle University with Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

February 24 at 2;45 p.m., Lorraine K. Bannai, Enduring Conviction, 2018 Search for Meaning Festival, Seattle University with Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

February 24 at 3:30 p.m., Eileen A. Bjorkman, The Propeller under the Bed, Northwest Aviation Conference, Puyallup, WA

February 25 at 1:30 p.m., Eileen A. Bjorkman, The Propeller under the Bed, Northwest Aviation Conference, Puyallup, WA

February 25 at 3 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Fairwood Library, Renton, WA

February 27 at 4 p.m., Amanda Thérèse Snellinger, Making New Nepal, UW South Asia Center, Seattle, WA

February 27 at 7 p.m., Paul de Barros, Jackson Street After Hours, The Black and Tan: Reimagining Seattle’s Legendary Jazz Club, Museum of History and Industry in partnership with the Black and Tan Hall, Seattle, WA ($5 for MOHAI members / $10 general public)

February 28 at 12:30 p.m., Ingrid Walker, High, Publish and Flourish, Sponsored by UW Office of Research, University Book Store Tacoma, and UW Tacoma Library, Tioga Library, Tacoma, WA

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2017 National Women’s Studies Association Conference Preview

This week we head to the 2017 National Women’s Studies Association annual conference in Baltimore, Maryland. UW Press editor in chief Larin McLaughlin and assistant editor Niccole Leilanionapae’aina Coggins will be representing the press, premiering several new books, and hosting a celebration of the Feminist Technosciences series with editors, authors, and friends.

Edited by Rebecca Herzig and Banu Subramaniam, Feminist Technosciences seeks to publish emerging, intersectional, cutting-edge feminist work in science and technology studies (learn more in the series brochure). We hope to see you at the booth (#202) on Friday, November 17 at 4 p.m. for the series celebration!

Be sure to stop by to learn more about our new and forthcoming titles in women’s and gender studies, and follow the meeting on social media with the #NWSA2017, #ReadUP, and #LookItUP hashtags.

FEMINIST TECHNOSCIENCES SERIES CELEBRATION

Friday, November 17 at 4 p.m.

Gender before Birth: Sex Selection in a Transnational Context
By Rajani Bhatia
FEBRUARY 2018

Queer Feminist Science Studies: A Reader
Edited by Cyd Cipolla, Kristina Gupta, David A. Rubin, and Angela Willey

Reinventing Hoodia: Peoples, Plants, and Patents in South Africa
By Laura A. Foster

Risky Bodies and Techno-Intimacy: Reflections on Sexuality, Media, Science, Finance
By Geeta Patel

Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century
By Carole R. McCann

FORTHCOMING SPRING 2018

Firebrand Feminism: The Radical Lives of Ti-Grace Atkinson, Kathie Sarachild, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and Dana Densmore
By Breanne Fahs
APRIL 2018

Unapologetic, troublemaking, agitating, revolutionary, and hot-headed: radical feminism bravely transformed the history of politics, love, sexuality, and science. Firebrand Feminism brings together ten years of dialogue with four founders of the radical feminist movement and provides a timely and historically rich account of these audacious women and the lasting impact of their words and work.

We Are Dancing for You: Native Feminisms and the Revitalization of Women’s Coming-of-Age Ceremonies
By Cutcha Risling Baldy
JUNE 2018
Indigenous Confluences

“I am here. You will never be alone. We are dancing for you.” So begins this deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Using a framework of Native feminisms, Risling Baldy locates this revival within a broad context of decolonizing praxis.

OTHER FEATURED TITLES

2017 American Studies Association Conference Preview

We are excited to attend the 2017 annual meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA) in Chicago from November 9-12, 2017.

UW Press editor in chief Larin McLaughlin, interim marketing manager Katherine Tacke, and associate editor and Mellon University Press Diversity Fellow Mike Baccam will be representing the press at booth 205.

We hope you’ll join us at the booth on Friday for signings with Migrating the Black Body coeditor Heike Raphael-Hernandez and Playing While White author David J. Leonard, and on Saturday for signings with Network Sovereignty author Marisa Duarte and Queering Contemporary Asian American Art editors Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe.

Follow along on social media with the #2017ASA hashtag and learn more about the scheduled book signings and other featured titles below!

BOOK SIGNING WITH HEIKE RAPHAEL-HERNANDEZ

Friday, November 10 at 1:45 p.m.

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.

BOOK SIGNING WITH DAVID J. LEONARD

Friday, November 10 at 3:45 p.m.

Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field
By David J. Leonard

Whiteness matters in sports culture, both on and off the field. Offering critical analysis of athletic stars such as Johnny Manziel, Marshall Henderson, Jordan Spieth, Lance Armstrong, Josh Hamilton, as well as the predominantly white cultures of NASCAR and extreme sports, David Leonard identifies how whiteness is central to the commodification of athletes and the sports they play.

BOOK SIGNING WITH MARISA DUARTE

Saturday, November 11 at 11:45 a.m.

Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet across Indian Country
By Marisa Duarte

Given the significance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to social and political life, many U.S. tribes and Native organizations have created their own projects, from streaming radio to building networks to telecommunications advocacy. Duarte examines these ICT projects to explore the significance of information flows and information systems to Native sovereignty, and toward self-governance, self-determination, and decolonization.

BOOK SIGNING WITH LAURA KINA AND JAN CHRISTIAN BERNABE

Saturday, November 11 at 1:45 p.m.

Queering Contemporary Asian American Art
Edited by Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe
Foreword by Susette Min

Queering Contemporary Asian American Art takes Asian American differences as its point of departure, and brings together artists and scholars to challenge normative assumptions, essentialisms, and methodologies within Asian American art and visual culture. Taken together, these nine original artist interviews, cutting-edge visual artworks, and seven 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.

OTHER FEATURED TITLES

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November 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

University Press Week is November 6-11 (next week!) and we can’t wait to celebrate the value of our books and expertise of our authors with this year’s theme, #LookItUP: Knowledge Matters.

Find a run-down of online and offline events on the UP Week site and join in with the #ReadUP and #LookItUP hashtags on social media.

In huge literary news, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designated Seattle as a City of Literature in the Creative Cities Network. Please join us in heartily congratulating all involved in the bid, with a special mention to UW Press staffer and Seattle City of Literature cofounder Rebecca Brinbury! Find more from UNESCO, Seattle City of Literature, and the Seattle Review of Books. Read and write on, Seattle!

Monthly Giveaways

Reviews and Interviews


The Atlantic interviews Pumpkin author Cindy Ott in an article about what counts as a pumpkin. WDEL also interviews the author about the connection between pumpkins and fall.


Tell Me Something I Don’t Know with Stephen J. Dubner features Smell Detectives author Melanie Kiechle in a recent podcast episode all about the senses.
High Country News reviews The Tao of Raven by Ernestine Hayes: “As with Blonde Indian, Hayes blurs the boundaries of genre in The Tao of Raven, which braids sharp grandmotherly meditations and gripping personal history into the fictional storyline of another troubled, typical family. . . . Her prose is as insistent as it is lyrical.”—Rob Rich


Inquirer.net USA reviews A Time to Rise edited by Rene Ciria Cruz, Cindy Domingo, and Bruce Occena: “A Time to Rise comes out at an opportune time as another fascist regime emerges in the Philippines. As in the past, former KDP activists have responded to the call to fight back.”—Boying Pimentel


International Examiner also reviews: “This nearly 20-year project is a remarkable documentation of one of the leading revolutionary Asian American Movement organizations. . . . A Time to Rise provides much greater complexity to teaching and learning about both Filipino American and Asian American movement history. . . . More than lessons of the past, A Time to Rise illuminates the way forward to complete unfinished revolutions.”—Tracy Lai


KING 5 Evening features Razor Clams author David Berger in a new series on Wild Food. Langdon Cook (James Beard Award-winning writer and author of books including Upstream and The Mushroom Hunters) reviews the book on his blog: “For the uninitiated, David Berger’s Razor Clams is just the ticket to understanding what all the fuss is about. Berger is a lively guide to Siliqua patula‘s ecology, culinary lore, and historical importance in the region. . . . Readers looking for such nourishment will find much to savor in this account of a beloved bivalve.”


CASSIUS publishes an article by author David J. Leonard about the Las Vegas shooting, white male terrorism, and how race shapes our reaction to gun violence. Playing While White gets a byline mention. The Undefeated also publishes an adaption from the book. The Seattle Times publishes an opinion piece by the author on WSU football coach Mike Leach using his platform to thwart conversation on racial equity rather than advance it, where the book gets a byline mention.


The Seattle Times reviews “Witness to Wartime” and prominently mentions The Hope of Another Spring: “The book and exhibition, together, shed a powerful new light on a troubling chapter in U.S. history. . . . Compelling as both artwork and history.”—Michael Upchurch


The Everett Herald reviews Territorial Hues by David F. Martin (dist. Cascadia Art Museum): “If you love the Northwest and Northwest regional art, be sure to check out Territorial Hues.”—Gale Fiege


Asia Pacific Forum interviews Queering Contemporary Asian American Art editors Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe.


Publishers Weekly interviews author Ingrid Walker in an article about the recent Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association fall tradeshow. High gets a mention.


The Eureka Times-Standard features Defending Giants by Darren F. Speece in an article about the 40th anniversary of the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC). Truthout reviews the book: “Eloquent, inspiring, eminently readable nonfiction with precious lessons for those fighting the ever-greater environmental destruction wrought by corporate greed. . . . A tale fully relevant to here and now.”—Robert James Parsons

New Books

Seismic City: An Environmental History of San Francisco’s 1906 Earthquake
By Joanna L. Dyl
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

Combining urban environmental history and disaster studies, this close study of San Francisco’s calamitous earthquake and aftermath demonstrates how the crisis and subsequent rebuilding reflect the dynamic interplay of natural and human influences that have shaped San Francisco.


Chinook Resilience: Heritage and Cultural Revitalization on the Lower Columbia River
By Jon D. Daehnke
Foreword by Tony A. Johnson

A collaborative ethnography of how the Chinook Indian Nation, whose land and heritage are under assault, continues to move forward and remain culturally strong and resilient. Chinook Resilience offers a tribally relevant, forward-looking, and decolonized approach for the cultural resilience and survival of the Chinook Indian Nation, even in the face of federal nonrecognition.

Queer Feminist Science Studies: A Reader
Edited by Cyd Cipolla, Kristina Gupta, David A. Rubin, and Angela Willey

The foundational essays and new writings collected here take a transnational, trans-species, and intersectional approach to this cutting-edge area of inquiry between women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and science and technology studies (STS), and demonstrate the ingenuity and dynamism of queer feminist scholarship.


Living Sharia: Law and Practice in Malaysia
By Timothy P. Daniels

What role does sharia play today in Malaysia? Drawing on ethnographic research, this book traces the contested implementation of Islamic family and criminal laws and sharia economics to provide cultural frameworks for understanding sharia among Muslims and non-Muslims in Southeast Asia and beyond.


Mobilizing Krishna’s World: The Writings of Prince Savant Singh of Kishangarh
By Heidi R. M. Pauwels

Through an examination of the life and works of Savant Singh (1697-1764), this remarkable study explores the circulation of ideas and culture in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries in north India, revealing how the Rajput prince mobilized soldiers but also used myths, songs, and stories about saints in order to cope with his personal and political crisis.


The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya: Buddhism and the Making of a World Heritage Site
By David Geary

This multilayered historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya—the place of Buddha’s enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar—explores the spatial politics surrounding the transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple Complex into a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002.


The Jewish Bible: A Material History
By David Stern

Drawing on the most recent scholarship on the history of the book, this beautifully illustrated material history shows how the Bible has been not only a medium for transmitting its text—the word of God—but a physical object with a meaning of its own.

Events

NOVEMBER

November 1 at 6:30 p.m., Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Dungeness Valley Lutheran Church, Sequim, WA

November 2 at 6 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Washington Athletic Club, Seattle, WA

November 2 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, King County Library System – Mercer Island, Mercer Island, WA

November 4 at 1 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau, Seward Park Audubon Center, Seattle, WA

November 8 at 6:30 p.m., Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Dungeness Valley Lutheran Church, Sequim, WA

November 9 at 6 p.m., Zoltán Grossman, Unlikely Alliances, Orca Books, Olympia, WA

November 9 at 12:30 p.m., David Biggs, Quagmire / War in the Land (forthcoming 2018), University of Washington, Southeast Asia Center, Thomson Room 317, Seattle, WA

November 9 at 7 p.m., Ingrid Walker, High, King’s Books, Tacoma, WA

November 10 at 7 p.m., James Longhurst, Bike Battles, BikePGH and Healthy Ride, Pittsburgh, PA

November 10 – 13, Emily T. Yeh, Mapping Shangrila, 2017 Machik Weekend, New York, NY

November 11 at 10 a.m., David Biggs, Quagmire / War in the Land (forthcoming 2018), Seattle Asian Art Museum, Saturday University, History Flows from the Mekong Mud, Seattle Art Museum, Plestcheeff Auditorium (SAM), Seattle, WA (Get tickets)

November 12 at 4 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, Eastside Heritage Center, Bellevue, WA

November 14, Geeta Patel, Risky Bodies and Techno-Intimacy, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA

November 16 at 7 p.m., Melanie A. Kiechle, Smell Detectives, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA

November 16 at 6 p.m., Zhi LIN (dist. for Tacoma Art Museum), Tacoma Art Museum, Artist Talk: Conversation with Zhi LIN and Chief Curator Rock Hushka, Tacoma, WA

November 17 at 10 a.m., David E. Wilkins and Shelly Hulse Wilkins, Dismembered, Symposium on Tribal Citizenship, San Diego State University, Scripps Cottage, San Diego, CA

November 18 at 3 p.m., Seattle7Writers Holiday Bookfest with Kathleen Alcalá (The Deepest Roots) and David B. Williams (Seattle Walks), Seattle, WA

November 19 at 2 p.m., Linda Carlson, Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Snoqualmie Valley History Society, King County Library System – North Bend, North Bend, WA

November 22 at 7 p.m., Cindy Domingo, A Time to Rise, with Vincente Rafael (Motherless Tongues), Duterte’s War: The Current Crisis in the Philippines and Beyond, Third Place Books – Seward Park, Seattle, WA

DECEMBER

December 2 at 11 a.m., Zoltán Grossman, Unlikely Alliances, Hoquiam Timberland Library, Hoquiam, WA

December 10 at noon, Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Full Circle Bookstore, Oklahoma City, OK

December 14 at 7 p.m., Shelley Drake Hawks, The Art of Resistance, Concord Free Public Library, Concord, MA

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Q&A with ‘Risky Bodies and Techno-Intimacy’ author Geeta Patel

Risky Bodies & Techno-Intimacy traverses disparate and uncommon routes to explore how people grapple with the radical uncertainties of their lives. In this edgy, evocative journey through myriad interleaved engagements–including the political economies of cinema; the emergent shapes taken by insurance, debt, and mortgages; gender and sexuality; and domesticity and nationalism–author Geeta Patel demonstrates how science and technology ground our everyday intimacies. The result is a deeply poetic and philosophical exploration of the intricacies of techno-intimacy, revealing a complicated and absorbing narrative that challenges assumptions underlying our daily living.

Today we talk to the author about her book, publishing soon in our Feminist Technosciences series. 

What inspired you to get into your field?

Geeta Patel: I don’t have a field in any strict sense, although most of my friends now would think of me as a literary ‘type.’ I, however, don’t think of myself that way. I compose in visual metaphors, and the way I look at things askance, as though they were transparent and opaque at the same time, is as a scientist who loves poetry.

I grew up in a family full of women doctors, which along with the push toward science if you grew up in South Asia and had even a vestige of a brain, meant I ended up being saddled with science, specializing in the sciences from when I was eleven years old. But I loved all the sciences, particularly ‘the natural sciences’ with the kind of curiosity of many eighteenth-century scientists. In that period ‘scientific’ curiosity leaked out into more than what we would now call science. It embraced poetry, literary prose, questions of politics, the ways in which money and goods moved, finance, drawings, maps, and instruments. A sort of porous curiosity, rather than directed curiosity along blinkered pathways. Eighteenth-century journals, as well as the South Asian magazines of my childhood, had tidbits on science, poetry, politics, fiction, oddities from the ambit of the political, and off-kilter instruments of measurement. This is what I grew up reading and it is was as though they all belonged in the same place and together made sense.

So when I think of what my ‘field’ consists of, it lives at the cusp of all these things. Where more than one intellectual formation or terrain fades into each other, informs each other, pushes at each other, and inflects each other. And a field formation gets taken up in such a way that it makes an assumption in another field discomfiting. One such place I approach/broach that in Risky Bodies & Techno-Intimacy is the technology of time.

What would you have been if not an academic?

GP: Probably a health practitioner, a healer.

Why did you want to write this book?

GP: I wanted to sit with, ponder, think about, and ruminate on the places, moments, pauses, and sudden jolts where I stopped thinking. Where my capacity to envision something else failed me, felt as though it had faded from my grasp. Many intellectuals imagine this as the horizon towards which one ambles, gallops, or comes up against in some putative future. When I was writing my previous book on the Urdu poet Miraji, I came to see it as he had, and how the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein had, as that which is inside what we think, visualize, do. The bedrock of belief lives where we come to a grinding halt, and we find ourselves in a double bind—facing what we must let go of, but can’t. How could we, following on Michel Foucault and Marcel Mauss, understand these as technologies that make us who we are, which are the armature of our very ordinary, everyday habits?

I also wanted to mess with what had come to be conventional ways of bringing intellectual fields together. I wanted to make that broaching or bridging awkward—and this is what I practice in Risky Bodies & Techno-Intimacy. What would chemistry do to transgender possibilities in South Asia? What would it mean to transmute the aesthetics of linear time to lay out the gatherings that took on the resistance to a film on sexuality? How would the historical congruencies between these events and the fights over insurance in the Indian parliament give us insights? Allow us to delve into the modes through which financing loss became the conduit to grapple with the political desires that undergird nationalism? In the process how would science emerge in writing about events that might, in some simple way, not be said to be scientific (in the ways we now see science)?

Who do you see as the audience for this book?

GP: Everyone, feminists, science studies aficionados, cultural studies scholars, media studies scholars, finance practitioners, political theorists, literary theorists. In India I have found the audience to include artists, film-makers, fiction writers, poets, and non-academics.

What is your next project?

GP: I have many ongoing projects. One is a book on Ismat Chughtai, in particular on two of her short stories. That book interrogates the lineages of historical realism in South Asia. It brings quantum and relativity as conduits through which I can grapple with the desires that readers ferry along with them as they read fiction and mine it for information. One is a book on 1950s and ‘60s billboards in Mumbai, and I look at what they reveal about advertising, fiscal fantasies, national sentiment, and nationalist aesthetics in post-colonial states. Another is about the long history of pensions and insurance in South Asia. One of the first of its chapters rethinks the eighteenth-century history of capitalism through colonial pensions.

Geeta Patel is associate professor of both Middle Eastern and South Asian languages and cultures and of women, gender, and sexuality at the University of Virginia. She is author of Lyrical Movements, Historical Hauntings: Gender, Colonialism, and Desire in Miraji’s Urdu Poetry.