Tag Archives: AAUP

Nicole Mitchell Assumes Presidency of University Presses’ Association

Credit: Hayley Young

The University of Washington Press Director Begins Term as 2017–2018 President

NEW YORK (August 17, 2017) — The Director of the University of Washington Press, Nicole Mitchell, began her one-year term as President of the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) on June 11, 2017. Mitchell assumed the role at AAUP 2017, the Association’s annual meeting in Austin, Texas. She is preceded by Darrin Pratt, Director of the University Press of Colorado.

As President, Mitchell looks forward to working with the Executive Director and Board of Directors on a number of organizational goals.  In Austin, she announced that she wanted to focus on three major areas during the coming year:  establishing a Diversity Task Force; forming a working group of non-US members to better understand the needs of international members; and, working with the Research Task Force to strengthen the case for the unique value and impact of university presses.

Nicole Mitchell has served as Director of the University of Washington Press since 2012.

Over the past five years, among other milestones, she has restructured the press, raised the press’s profile on the University of Washington campus and in the Seattle community, refreshed the press’s editorial program, and secured new funding for East Asian studies and work by Pacific Northwest writers.

“I am particularly proud of UW Press’s leadership role in establishing the Mellon-funded University Press Diversity Fellowship Program in partnership with Duke, Georgia, MIT, and the Association.  I am also excited to be collaborating with the University of British Columbia Press and First Nations communities on a new multimedia digital publishing initiative, also recently funded by the Mellon Foundation,” said Mitchell.

Mitchell has previously served the Association on the Professional Development Committee (including a term as chair in 2009-2010), the Task Force on University Relations, the Nominating Committee, and through a previous term of service on the Association’s Board of Directors.

Mitchell started her career in scholarly publishing in 1983 as a Graduate Trainee at Cambridge University Press and soon became the press’s first Children’s Book Editor, helping to create and launch the imprint Cambridge Books for Children.  Moving to the United States, she became the first full-time acquisitions editor at the University of Alabama Press (UAP). Seven years later, Mitchell was tapped to lead the press. During her tenure as director, she expanded Alabama’s publishing program, increasing sales by 50% and moving UAP from an AAUP Group 1 to Group 2 tier press.

In 2001, Mitchell was appointed Director of University of Georgia Press. During her ten years at Georgia, Mitchell led a staff of twenty-six, guiding the press’s editorial program as Editor in Chief, increasing sales, and establishing the press’s fundraising program by recruiting an influential Advisory Council.  Mitchell also served on executive committee of the New Georgia Encyclopedia, a pioneering state-focused, online-only encyclopedia.

Mitchell holds a joint honors degree in Art History and French from the University of Bristol and a certificate in Management from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

“It is a great honor for me to be serving this Association as President. I have spent my entire career in university press publishing and look forward to giving back and advocating for an association that supports and nurtures high-quality scholarly publishing around the globe,” said Mitchell.

About the Association of American University Presses: The Association of American University Presses is an organization of over 140 international nonprofit scholarly publishers. Since 1937, AAUP advances the essential role of a global community of publishers whose mission is to ensure academic excellence and cultivate knowledge. The Association holds integrity, diversity, stewardship, and intellectual freedom as core values. AAUP members are active across many scholarly disciplines, including the humanities, arts, and sciences, publish significant regional and literary work, and are innovators in the world of digital publishing.

About the University of Washington Press: Established in 1920, the University of Washington Press supports the research, education, and outreach missions of the University of Washington by publishing peer-reviewed scholarship for an international community of students, scholars, and intellectually curious readers. The press is known for groundbreaking lists in critical ethnic studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; Asian American studies; Asian studies; anthropology; art history and visual culture; environmental studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and U.S. history, among other fields.

July 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

Next Thursday evening, Seattle Theatre Group will present a screening of the film Promised Land, a documentary about the Duwamish and Chinook fight for treaty recognition influenced by several UW Press books. The Neptune Theatre screening is free and open to the public and will include preshow songs and drumming with the Chinook Indian Nation and Duwamish Tribe, and a postshow discussion with representatives from the tribes and the filmmakers. There’s still time to RSVP, and we hope you can join us!

The Scholarly Kitchen features the Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship program and interviews editor in chief Larin McLaughlin: “The [Mellon] University Press Diversity Fellowship program is not a lament at how the pipeline is limited but rather a recognition that university presses can take responsibility for expanding their own recruiting pool directly.”—Roger C. Schonfeld

Senior acquisitions editor Catherine Cocks moderated a live panel discussion on the how, when, and why of developmental editing for the monthly Association of American University Presses (AAUP) Art of Acquisitions Panelists included Ann Regan (editor in chief, Minnesota Historical Society Press) and Matt Bokovoy (senior editor, University of Nebraska Press). You can watch the recorded Hangout video on YouTube, and catch up on public Art of Acquisitions Hangouts on the AAUP site and follow the series on Twitter at #artofACQ.

Book of the Month Giveaways

Enter to win one of this month’s picks! (Open to US residents only.)

  1. Playing While White by David J. Leonard (Entry form)
  2. The Portland Black Panthers by Lucas N. N. Burke and Judson L. Jeffries (Entry form)

The giveaways will close on Friday, July 14, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. PT. Winners will be notified by Monday, July 17, 2017.

Reviews and Interviews


No-No Boy by John Okada gets a mention in an advice essay at Inside Higher Ed.


Anthropology News features an article by Sanctuary and Asylum author Linda Rabben.


New Books in Genocide Studies / New Books network (NBn) interviews editor John Roth about Losing Trust in the World: “A compelling body of essays. . . . Readable and challenging. In the end, I’m not sure I know exactly how to ‘confront’ torture. But I am better equipped to try.”—Kelly McFall


Penn State News interviews author Madhuri Desai about Banaras Reconstructed.


UW Today features a May 2017 Perspectives newsletter article about UW art professor Zhi Lin and his eponymous exhibit. The Zhi LIN exhibit is view at Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) from June 27, 2017 – February 18, 2018, and we will distribute the accompanying book, Zhi Lin, for TAM.


The Rumpus reviews Vagrants & Accidentals by Kevin Craft: “A pleasure to hold and behold. . . . Through the conflation of music, birds, personal lives, and a shaky natural world, Craft troubles the reader with the impossible question: How are we to live when loss—personal, environmental, and political—is heaped upon loss?”—Cate Hodorowicz


artnet News features Queering Contemporary Asian American Art and coeditors Laura Kina and Jan Christian Bernabe: “Via its challenging and diverse reflections, Queering Contemporary Asian American Art shows how the specific questions of Asian American art history make the stakes of resisting a homonormative queer community (i.e. one that models itself after standards of success defined by white privilege and capitalism) even more vivid.”—Terence Trouillot

In conjunction with the book’s release and Pride month, the Center for Art and Thought is hosting a virtual exhibition called “Queer Horizons,” featuring artists showcased in the book, and curated by the coeditors.


Inquirer.net mentions A Time to Rise edited by Rene Ciria Cruz, Cindy Domingo, and Bruce Occena (forthcoming October 2017) in an article about the retirement of community organizer-leader Lillian Galedo.


Library Journal Xpress Reviews includes a short review of The Hope of Another Spring by Barbara Johns: “Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Asian American studies, art, art history, and U.S. history; in particular, those wanting to read more about Japanese American history.”—Tina Chan


Bronxnet features video from a lecture by City of Virtues author Chuck Wooldridge, taped at Lehman College’s Leonard Leif Library this past April.


Waterway by David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink (dist. for HistoryLink) gets some nice coverage ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Lake Washington Ship Canal, including features at Shelf Talk, Pacific NW Magazine, and Seattle Magazine.

New Books

Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America
By Melanie A. Kiechle
Foreword by Paul S. Sutter

What did nineteenth-century cities smell like? And how did odors matter in the formation of a modern environmental consciousness? Smell Detectives follows the nineteenth-century Americans who used their noses to make sense of the sanitary challenges caused by rapid urban and industrial growth. Melanie Kiechle examines nuisance complaints, medical writings, domestic advice, and myriad discussions of what constituted fresh air, and argues that nineteenth-century city dwellers, anxious about the air they breathed, attempted to create healthier cities by detecting and then mitigating the most menacing odors.

New in Paperback

The Portland Black Panthers: Empowering Albina and Remaking a City
By Lucas N. N. Burke and Judson L. Jeffries

“Readers will gain a valuable new understanding of what the Black Panther Party meant to a city far away from the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, and activists will get priceless lessons in the dos and don’ts of local organizing.”—H. Bruce Franklin, author of Vietnam and America

Classical Seattle: Maestros, Impresarios, Virtuosi, and Other Music Makers
By Melinda Bargreen

“Bargreen offers compelling personal insights into her subjects’ lives as performers and residents of our region. No other book provides such a well-informed and well-written perspective focusing exclusively on Seattle’s classical community.”—Dave Beck, KING FM

Reclaimers
By Ana Maria Spagna

“Spagna’s enthusiasm for their dedication and causes is irresistible. Such struggles are the real deal, after all, and what reader wouldn’t cheer on these tenacious underdogs trying to remedy past damage? We’re blessed with opportunities to make a difference, the writing shows. . . . The lessons of her journeys. . . are ‘Do what you can. Hope without hope. Expect the unexpected.”—Irene Wanner, Seattle Times

Bike Battles: A History of Sharing the American Road
By James Longhurst

“Bike Battles is masterly in its treatment of public policy toward the ‘roads as commons,’ and has given new depth to our understanding of cycling in America. I envy the light and easy style of the author.“—Glen Norcliffe, author of Ride to Modernity


The Tanoak Tree: An Environmental History of a Pacific Coast Hardwood
By Frederica Bowcutt

“Bowcutt examines the history of the tanoak tree, bringing to life a rich story about how humans are connected to this beautiful yet unassuming tree. . . . [T]his valuable book will be important for a broad audience.“—Choice

Events

JULY

July 6 at 8 p.m. (Doors at 7 p.m.) STG & Tall Firs Cinema present Promised Land documentary screening at the Neptune Theater, Nights at the Neptune, with University Book Store, Seattle, WA (Press books will be on display; authors featured in documentary)

July 7-9, Eileen Bjorkman, The Propeller under the Bed, Arlington Fly-In, Arlington, WA

July 8 at 2 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, King County Library System – Burien, Burien, WA

(SOLD OUT) July 10 at 6 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Historic Seattle and the Shoreline Historical Museum, Firland Sanatorium | CRISTA Ministries, Seattle, WA

July 11 at 7 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Humanities Washington, Asotin County Library, Basalt Cellars Winery, Clarkston, WA

July 12 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, MOHAI, Seattle, WA ($15 general public / $10 members; RSVP)

July 12 at 7 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington, Guemes Island Community Center, Anacortes, WA

July 13 at 7 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, King County Library System – Auburn, Auburn, WA

July 22 from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, Pacific Northwest Historians Guild, Guided hike of Coal Creek Trail, Newcastle, WA (RSVP; $10-25)

July 23 at 2 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, Pierce County Library System – Sumner Library (flyer), Sumner, WA

July 23 at 3 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, Seattle Public Library – Central Library, Seattle, WA

July 24-30, Eileen Bjorkman, The Propeller under the Bed, EAA AirVenture Fly-In, “Author’s Corner,” Oshkosh, WI

July 27 at 5:30 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, Timberland Regional Library – Vernetta Smith Chehalis Timberland Library, Chehalis, WA

July 27 at 6:30 p.m., Jennifer Ott, Waterway, Mukilteo Yacht Club, MYC General Meeting, Everett, WA

July 28 at 7 p.m., Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum, Iowa Yearly Meeting of Friends (Conservative) annual session (Program), Scattergood Friends School, West Branch, IA

July 30 at 2 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington, Mason County Historical Museum, Shelton, WA

AUGUST

August 4 at 7 p.m., Ernestine Hayes, The Tao of Raven, Alaska State Library, Summer Lecture Series at the APK, Juneau, AK

August 5 at 11 a.m., Jess Thomson, A Year Right Here, Bear Pond Books, Stowe, VT

August 7, David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, King County Library Services – Renton Highlands, Renton, WA

August 15, Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, King County Library System – Lake Forest Park, Lake Forest Park, WA

August 15 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, Co-presented with Capitol Hill Historical Society and Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA

August 31, David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, with Kevin O’Brien, Third Place Books, Seward Park, Seattle, WA

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June 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

We were thrilled to announce our 2017-2018 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship recipients earlier this month. Please join us and the MIT Press, Duke University Press, the University of Georgia Press, and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) in welcoming the 2017-2018 fellows and in congratulating the 2016-2017 fellows on their accomplishments, including securing full-time positions within scholarly publishing! Read the full press release.

We are delighted that Western Washington University’s Western Reads committee has chosen Tulalip, From My Heart: An Autobiographical Account of a Reservation Community by Harriette Shelton Dover, as their common book for the 2017–18 school year. The Western Reads common book selection is just one example of how communities and readers engage with the work we publish. Read more from the desk of the director.

Congratulations to American Sabor coauthor Michelle Habell-Pallán, awarded the 2017 Barclay Simpson Prize for Scholarship in Public!

Building the Golden Gate Bridge by Harvey Schwartz is 2017 San Francisco Book Festival runner-up in History. The book is also a 2017 Nautilus Silver Award Winner in Young Adult Non-Fiction. Congratulations to the author and all involved!

Book of the Month Giveaways

Enter to win one a book bundle or the new Western Reads book! (Open to US residents only.)

  1. Native American and Indigenous studies summer reading bundle (Entry form)
    1. Native Seattle by Coll Thrush
    2. Dismembered by David E. Wilkins and Shelly Hulse Wilkins
    3. Unlikely Alliances by Zoltán Grossman
    4. Network Sovereignty by Marisa Elena Duarte
    5. The Gift of Knowledge by Virginia R. Beavert, edited by Janne R. Underriner
  2. Tulalip, From My Heart by Harriette Shelton Dover (Entry form)

The giveaways will close on Friday, June 16, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. PT. Winners will be notified by Monday, June 19, 2017.

Reviews and Interviews

High Country News reviews and features photographs from Once and Future River by Tom Reese and essay by Eric Wagner (May 2017 print issue): “From the recovering chinook salmon to the manufacturing plants that turned the Duwamish into a Superfund site, the images in this book portray a dynamic river carrying its complex legacy into a difficult recovery.”—Rebecca Worby


Critical Inquiry reviews Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan translated by Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg (5/1/17): “It is impossible to do justice to this monumental publication in a brief review; let me merely emphasize that these renowned translators, working as a trio, amount to even more than the sum of their parts because their strengths are complementary. No single human being could have handled so many aspects of this text . . . which is compact but rooted in three lifetimes of learning and reflection.”—Paul R. Goldin


The New Statesman reviews Ice Bear by Michael Engelhard (with Yoko Tawada’s Memoirs of a Polar Bear): “Beautifully illustrated.”—Tim Flannery

National Observer also reviews the book: “Lets compelling images and snips of history tell the tale of human projection onto the bear’s white furry screen.”—Carrie Saxifrage


TheKitchn features an article by A Year Right Here author Jess Thomson, as well as an adapted excerpt from the book. ParentMap features the book in a round-up of parenting books to read this summer: “While readers have front row seats to razor clamming on the Washington coast, truffle hunting in Oregon and a winery tour in British Columbia, it’s the way Thomson’s preparations are thwarted that make this book an interesting read.”—Nancy Schatz Alton


New Hampshire Public Radio’s “Word of Mouth” interviews Bike Battles author James Longhurst. La Crosse Tribune also features the book and author.


Humanities Washington blog features Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone in a round-up of prominent Washington literary books (5/11/17): “With perspective, humor, and understanding, Monica Sone describes growing up in Seattle in the 1930s, then being deported with thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II. Her descriptions of the roundup, the move to the Puyallup fairgrounds, and life in the camps opened the hearts and eyes of her readers, and the book continues to urge Americans to be more decent to all its people.”—Dan Lamberton


Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown publishes an online excerpt of Mother’s Beloved by Outhine Bounyavong.


Seattle Times reviews Woodland by John Bierlein and staff of HistoryLink (dist. for HistoryLink / Woodland Park Zoo) in a round-up of new summer books (print edition): “An intriguing history and exploration of the challenges, innovations, lore and controversies surrounding Seattle’s zoo that will enrich your next zoo visits, this summer and beyond. . . . Full of superb photography.”—Brian J. Cantwell


New Books in History interviews The Social Life of Inkstones author Dorothy Ko (5/18/17): “Dorothy Ko’s new book is a must-read. . . . It is a masterful study that is equally sensitive to objects and texts as historical documents.”—Carla Nappi

New Books

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.


The Gift of Knowledge / Ttnuwit Atawish Nch’inch’imamí: Reflections on the Sahaptin Ways
By Virginia R. Beavert
Edited by Janne L. Underriner

The Gift of Knowledge / Ttnuwit Atawish Nch’inch’imamí is a treasure trove of material for those interested in Native American culture. Linguist and educator Beavert narrates highlights from her own life and presents cultural teachings, oral history, and stories (many in bilingual Ishishkíin-English format) about family life, religion, ceremonies, food gathering, and other aspects of traditional culture.


Dismembered: Tribal Disenrollment and the Battle for Human Rights
By David E. Wilkins and Shelly Hulse Wilkins

Since the 1990s, Native governments have been banishing, denying, or disenrolling citizens at an unprecedented rate. Nearly eighty nations, in at least twenty states, have terminated the rights of indigenous citizens. This first comprehensive examination of the origins of this disturbing trend looks at hundreds of tribal constitutions and interviews with disenrolled members and tribal officials to show the damage this practice is having across Indian Country and ways to address the problem.


Network Sovereignty: Building the Internet across Indian Country
By Marisa Elena 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.


Unlikely Alliances: Native Nations and White Communities Join to Defend Rural Lands
By Zoltán Grossman
Foreword by Winona LaDuke

Unlikely Alliances explores the evolution from conflict to cooperation through place-based case studies in the Pacific Northwest, Northern Plains, Great Basin, and Great Lakes, from the 1970s to the 2010s. They suggest how a deep love of place can overcome the most bitter divides between Native and non-Native neighbors. In these times of polarized politics and globalized economies, many of these stories offer inspiration and hope.


Banaras Reconstructed: Architecture and Sacred Space in a Hindu Holy City
By Madhuri Desai

Between the late sixteenth and early twentieth centuries, Banaras, the iconic Hindu center in northern India that is often described as the oldest living city in the world, was reconstructed materially as well as imaginatively, and embellished with temples, monasteries, mansions, and ghats (riverfront fortress-palaces). Desai examines the confluences, as well as the tensions, that have shaped this complex and remarkable city.


Displaying Time: The Many Temporalities of the Festival of India
By Rebecca M. Brown

The U.S. Festival of India was conceived at a meeting between Indira Gandhi and Ronald Reagan to strengthen relations between the two countries at a time of late Cold War tensions and global economic change, when America’s image of India was as a place of desperate poverty and spectacular fantasy. Using extensive archival research and interviews with artists, curators, diplomats, and visitors, Rebecca Brown analyzes a selection of museum shows that were part of the Festival of India to unfurl new exhibitionary modes: the time of transformation, of interruption, of potential and the future, as well as the contemporary and the now.

Events

JUNE

June 10 at 7 p.m., John Bierlein, Woodland, Barnes and Noble, Federal Way, WA

June 10 at 5:30 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, Time Enough Books, Ilwaco, WA

June 11 at 3 p.m., Kathleen Alcalá, The Deepest Roots, with Iris Graville and Vicki Robin, Eagle Harbor Books, Bainbridge Island, WA

June 12 at 7 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, King County Library System – Issaquah, Issaquah, WA

June 15 at 6:30 p.m., James Longhurst, Bike Battles, Whitefish Bay Public Library, Milwaukee, WI

June 17 at 10 a.m., David B. Williams, Too High and Too Steep, Pacific Northwest Historians Guild, Guided walk of the Denny regrade, Seattle, WA (RSVP; $10-25)

June 20 at 5:30 p.m., Jennifer Ott, Waterway, Structural Engineers Association of Washington, SEAW Annual Spring Social & Awards, Seattle, WA (RSVP; $50)

June 21 at 12:30 p.m., Frederick L. Brown, The City Is More Than Human, Eagle Harbor Books, Bainbridge Island, WA

June 22 at 5:30 p.m., James Longhurst, Bike Battles, Bike/Walk Alliance for Missoula (BWAM), Bike History with BWAM at Imagine Nation Brewing, Missoula, MT

June 24 at 12:30 p.m., Jennifer Ott, Waterway, Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Ivar’s on Northlake, Seattle, WA

June 24 at 2 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, King County Library System – Enumclaw, Enumclaw, WA

June 24 at 2 p.m., David Berger, Razor Clams, Humanities Washington, Monroe Library, Monroe, WA

JULY

July 6 at 8 p.m. (Doors at 7 p.m.) STG & Tall Firs Cinema present Promised Land documentary screening at the Neptune Theater, Nights at the Neptune, with University Book Store, Seattle, WA (Press books will be on display; authors featured in documentary)

July 7-9, Eileen Bjorkman, The Propeller under the Bed, Arlington Fly-In, Arlington, WA

July 8 at 2 p.m., David B. Williams, Seattle Walks, King County Library System – Burien, Burien, WA

July 10 at 4 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Historic Seattle and the Shoreline Historical Museum, Firland Sanatorium | CRISTA Ministries, Seattle, WA (RSVP)

July 11 at 7 p.m., Paula Becker, Looking for Betty MacDonald, Humanities Washington, Asotin County Library, Basalt Cellars Winery, Clarkston, WA

July 12 at 7 p.m., David B. Williams, Jennifer Ott, and staff of HistoryLink, Waterway, MOHAI, Seattle, WA ($15 general public / $10 members; RSVP)

July 13 at 7 p.m., Judy Bentley, Walking Washington’s History, King County Library System – Auburn, Auburn, WA

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March 2017 News, Reviews, and Events

News

Our job posting for the 2017-2018 Mellon Diversity Fellow is now live and we are accepting applications through March 15. If you know of excellent candidates, please send them our way!

Reviews and Interviews


The New Yorker’s Page-Turner blog features No-No Boy by John Okada: “Reading No-No Boy, this week, it no longer seemed bound to its past; it felt like a prophecy, a cosmic tragedy, a message in a bottle that arrives a half century later.”—Hua Hsu


A collaborative piece with PRI’s Global Nation Education and Densho mentions Miné Okubo’s Citizen 13660 in an article about activists working to keep the story of Executive Order 9066 alive today. Bustle also features the book in a round-up of “10 Graphic Novels Written by Activists That You Need to Read Now More Than Ever”: “Heartbreaking, candid. . . . Okubo recounts her experience with poignancy and a surprising amount of humor.”—Charlotte Ahlin

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 →

UP Staff Spotlight: Niccole Leilanionapae‘āina Coggins on community and food sovereignty

Today is UP Staff Spotlight day on the 2016 University Press Week blog tour. The fifth annual University Press Week of the American Association of University Presses (AAUP) continues all week (November 14 – 19, 2016) with the theme Community. Today’s blog tour posts feature staffers making good and doing interesting things in their local communities. Please share this and today’s other posts on social media with the #ReadUP and #UPWeek hashtags:

upweek2016_logosmallUniversity of Chicago Press

Johns Hopkins University Press

University Press of Mississippi

Seminary Co-op Bookstores

Wayne State University Press

University of Wisconsin Press

Our UP Staff Spotlight contribution to the #UPWeek blog tour offers a guest post from 2016-2017 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellow and assistant editor, Niccole Leilanionapae’aina Coggins.

Niccole Coggins staff news photoOn October 26, I attended a talk entitled, “hishuk’ish tsawalk—Everything Is One:  Revitalizing Nuu-chah-nulth Foodways and Ecological Knowledge,” by Dr. Charlotte Coté, Associate Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Washington. Professor Coté’s lecture was about her community, the Nuu-chah-nulth-aht, and their history of colonialism and imperialism, as well as their resistance and revival. One way that communities, and indigenous communities in particular, resist colonialism and imperialism is through food sovereignty. The Nyéléni Declaration (2007) defines food sovereignty as, “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustained methods, and their right to define their own food and agricultural systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.”

Coté spoke of her mother teaching her to explore and try various wild plants—minus mushrooms—like qaalh qawi (wild blackberry), may’ii (salmonberry shoots), and quilhtsuup (wild celery), even t’uts’up (sea urchin) from the ocean. Coté shared stories of her aunt going blackberry picking; the family women fishing, in the traditional way, with a net for the first time, and the buckets of salmon they caught, and the hours it took to smoke (and how good salmon jerky is). Coté also talked about her community reclaiming traditional ways of fishing and preparing salmon, kuch’as (salmon cooked over an open pit fire); and reviving the tradition of a whale hunt and the environmentalists that protested.

As Coté talked I started thinking about other communities, especially those in “food deserts,” where it’s hard to access affordable, healthy, quality food, in particular fruits and vegetables. My cousin worked at the Kaiser Permanente Center in Watts where, with the leadership of the community, a weekly farmer’s market occurs. Other KP centers adopted similar programs to access locally grown produce.

I thought about my family and the blackberry bush behind gramma’s house. My aunts and uncles gathering to eat from the bounty of the ocean:  fish, ‘opihi (Hawaiian limpet), limu (seaweed), and wana (sea urchin).

I thought about the colonialism that changed Native Hawaiians’ relationship with food and language. Food was sacred before the missionaries arrived and made food secular. Since then words associated with food do not carry the same weight of sacredness as before. The literal translation of the word hānai (foster child) is “to feed.” When food is sacred, the relationship you have with that person is sacred and carries weight. It circles back to Coté’s talk about food sovereignty, and responsibility and relationships.

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Throwback Thursday: Exploring 100 Years of UW Press History

UPW-Logo-2015It’s Throwback Thursday (#TBT) on the University Press Week blog tour. The fourth annual University Press Week of the American Association of University Presses (AAUP) continues all week (November 8-14, 2015). The University of Washington Press and more than forty other presses are participating in this year’s blog tour, which highlights the continuing value and relevance of university presses in academia and the world at large: Project MUSE celebrates its 20th anniversary. University of Minnesota Press highlights materials for its 90th birthday. University of Chicago Press throws back with a letter from 1991, the year the PDF was founded. University of Manitoba Press pulls from their 48 years of publishing. Duke University Press showcases surprising journal covers. University of Texas Press looks back through the lens of street photographer Mark Cohen. University of Michigan Press explores the evolution of their book Michigan Trees. University Press of Kansas ties in relevant books with “Today in History.” Minnesota Historical Society Press features Mike Evangelist’s Downtown: Minneapolis in the 1970s. University of California Press reflects on the 2010 publication of Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1. University of Toronto Press Journals looks at cover designs over the years. Fordham University Press takes a trip through NYC’s unbuilt subway system.

Since 2015 marks the kickoff of our centenary celebrations, our Throwback Thursday (#TBT) contribution to the #UPWeek blog tour offers a brief history of the University of Washington Press through highlights from each decade. Happy 100 years, UW Press!

1915-1924

The University of Washington Press traces its origins to the first book published by the university, Edmund Meany’s Governors of Washington, Territorial and State in 1915. Five years later, the University of Washington Press publishes The Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, edited by Frederick M. Padelford, under its own imprint.

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UW Press News, Reviews, and Events

News

Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley, our wonderful distribution from the Fowler Museum at UCLA, has been awarded the Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association.  Congratulations to the editors,  Marla C. Berns, Richard Fardon, and Sidney Littlefield Kasfir, as well as all the contributors to this wonderful volume.


This week we learned that two University of Washington Press titles received Association of American University Presses Jacket & Cover Design Awards! Senior designer Thomas Eykemans won for Temple Grove: A Novel, by Scott Elliott and designer Dustin Kilgore won for Church Resistance to Nazism in Norway, 1940-1945, by Arne Hassing. We feel very lucky to have such a talented design team on staff–congratulations to both Tom and Dustin!

Review Highlights

Charming Gardeners by David Biespiel
“On the surface, Biespiel’s poems seem like the private meditations of one man. However, his poems encompass each of us, socially and politically, by illuminating our nation’s contradictory character: a longing for enchantment in a disenchanted world.” -John Ebersole, New Books in Poetry. Listen to the full New Books interview with David Biespiel here.


Car Country: An Environmental History by Christopher W. Wells
“In Car Country, Christopher W. Wells offers a compelling history of America’s signature car-dependent landscapes.The text is at once a deft synthesis of recent literature on motor vehicles, highways, urban planning, suburban development, and land use policy, and a persuasive reinterpretation of these histories through the lens of landscape ecology. With lively anecdotes, effective imagery, and dozens of illustrations, the book also presents an accessible narrative that will help students visualize how Americans gradually and profoundly transformed their nation into a place ‘where car dependence is woven into the basic fabric of the landscape.’”  -Michael R. Fine, American Historical Review

Temple Grove: A Novel by Scott Elliott
“Elliott achieved his goal as a novelist — to help a reader fall in love with the natural world, especially that place perched on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. It’s a book worth reading, especially for those of us who already love the Pacific Northwest…[a] fine, timely work” -Skip Nelson, Walla Walla Union-Bulletin

Upcoming Events

Courage in Action: A Symposium in Honor of the Life and Legacy of Gordon K. Hirabayashi, University of Washington, February 22 with special guest Lane Hirabayashi, coauthor of A Principled Stand: The Story of Hirbayashi v. United States

The annual meeting of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) convenes in Seattle next week. UW Press will be at the meeting, sharing booth 509 with our distribution partners, Lost Horse Press and Lynx House Press. The book exhibit will be open to the public on Saturday, March 1 so swing by our booth to check out our books and meet our authors.

P. Dee Boersma, coeditor of Penguins: Natural History and Conservation, Future of Ice Lecture Series, University of Washington Kane Hall, March 5 at 6:30 p.m.

New Books

Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture by Gary Y. Okihiro
The second edition of this classic work on multiculturalism features a new introduction by the author and a new preface by Moon-Ho Jung. While considering anew the meanings of Asian American social history, Okihiro argues that the core values and ideals of the nation emanate today not from the so-called mainstream but from the margins, from among Asian and African Americans, Latinos and American Indians, women, and the gay and lesbian community.


Family Revolution: Marital Strife in Contemporary Chinese Literature and Visual Culture by Hui Faye Xiao
Reading popular “divorce narratives” in fiction, film, and TV drama, Hui Faye Xiao shows that the representation of marital discord has become a cultural battleground for competing ideologies within post-revolutionary China.


Songs for a Summons by David Guterson / Distributed for Lost Horse Press
Written well into mid-life, Songs for a Summons are explorations and observations of a writing life. David Guterson is the author of Snow Falling on Cedars, recipient of the 1995 PEN/Faulkner Award; East of the Mountains; Our Lady of the Forest; The Other; and Ed King. Songs for a Summons is his first poetry book.

AAUP Listening Tour: Q&A with Peter Berkery

BerkeryPeter Berkery, Executive Director of the Association of American University Presses, stopped by the University of Washington Press offices in Seattle last week as part of his Mellon-funded tour of the AAUP member presses. Peter agreed to sit down and chat with us about what he’s learned from what he calls his “Listening Tour” so far, as well as other thoughts about the changing landscape of scholarly publishing and the value of university presses to their regions and host institutions.

Thanks to Peter for taking the time to answer our questions so thoughtfully and we look forward to hearing further reflections as his listening tour continues. Follow the Listening Tour on the AAUP Digital Digest.

Question: First of all, what inspired you to start the Listening Tour and how has your approach to the meetings with presses evolved over time?

Peter Berkery: The Listening Tour was born of necessity, when I took over the reins at AAUP last March, but quickly became a labor of love. The initial goal was to embrace more aggressively my own learning curve; I knew from prior association management experience that there’s no substitute for meeting with members in their own offices to quickly and fully grasp the challenges and opportunities they—and by extension their association—face. What I wasn’t anticipating was the overwhelmingly warm welcomes and serial invitations I’d receive.

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