Tag Archives: Association of American University Presses

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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Announcing the 2016–2017 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellows

SEATTLE, WA—The University of Washington Press, the MIT Press, Duke University Press, the University of Georgia Press, and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) today announce the recipients of the 2016–2017 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowships. The program is the first cross-press initiative of its kind in the United States to address the marked lack of diversity in the academic publishing industry.

The Mellon University Press Diversity Fellowship was established in 2016 by the four university presses and the AAUP as a pipeline program to diversify academic publishing by offering apprenticeships in acquisitions departments. The program will create cohorts of four fellows per year for three years.

Fellowships are awarded to outstanding candidates who have significant personal experience and engagement with diverse communities and a demonstrated ability to bring the understandings gleaned from such engagement to the daily work of academic publishing.

The yearlong appointments offer each fellow opportunities for one-on-one mentoring as well as monthly cross-press video conferences led by staff at the partner presses covering a range of topics to supplement the hands-on training. Fellows are given the opportunity to connect with one another and engage with industry colleagues at two AAUP annual meetings.

The fellowship program aims to develop best practices for fostering diversity at all levels of the profession. Further, this collaboration will focus attention on the centrality of diversity to the future of global academic discourse and, it is hoped, will inspire related efforts to prioritize diversity more broadly in the publishing industry.

Although university presses have long fostered and supported diversity-related fields such as Native and Indigenous studies; African American studies; women’s, gender, and sexuality studies; and Asian American studies, the fellowship program represents a significant investment in creating career development opportunities and a supportive environment for diversity in publishing.

The 2016–2017 Mellon University Press Diversity Fellows:

Maryam Arain comes to Duke University Press from Chicago, where she has been working as a freelance editor and volunteering at the Crescent Learning Center, a day care that serves refugee populations from Somalia and Burma. She previously worked as a junior commissioning editor at Oxford University Press in Karachi, Pakistan, and as a communications coordinator at the Council on American Islamic Relations in Chicago. Maryam received her BA from Dartmouth and her MA in postcolonial studies from SOAS, University of London.

Niccole Leilanionapae‘āina Coggins comes to the University of Washington Press from the department of history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is currently a PhD candidate working under the direction of Paul Spickard. Her research interests focus on Hawaiian history as well as on identity and mixed-race youth. Niccole’s work with underrepresented communities includes participation in a local hula hālau (school) and various student life programs. Niccole received her BA from Carleton College and her MA in religion and society from the Graduate Theological Union.

Jesús J. Hernández joins the MIT Press. He held two visiting assistant professorships at Williams College and Mount Holyoke College, where his scholarly interests were in the areas of American/ethnic studies, Latina/o studies, literary studies, diaspora studies, and queer theory. He received his BA in ethnic studies from Brown University and his PhD in American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

Christian Pizarro Winting comes to the University of Georgia Press from Chicago, where he has been freelance copyediting and working as a research associate for a corporate recruiting company. Christian has also worked as a graduate intern on the Hemingway Letters Project at Pennsylvania State University and tutored underperforming high school students in the Chicago public school system. Christian has a BA in liberal arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and an MA in humanities (American literature emphasis) from the University of Chicago.

The fellowship program is generously funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with a four-year, $682,000 grant.

Media Contact: Casey LaVela / Publicity and Communications Manager / University of Washington Press / 206.221.4994

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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