Tag Archives: university presses

Celebrating 50 Years of Asian American Literary History at UW Press for AAAS 2024

We are delighted to welcome the Association for Asian American Studies and its members to Seattle for AAAS 2024. This year marks fifty years of contributions to Asian American literary history here at the University of Washington Press and whether or not you’re attending the conference, we have lots in store to celebrate, including author talks and readings that are open to all.

Read on for information about upcoming events and new and forthcoming releases, and visit our virtual exhibit to discover more notable books in Asian American studies. We are pleased to offer AAAS members a 30% discount on all orders to US addresses with promo code WAAAS24 at checkout on our website through May 31, 2024.

New & Forthcoming Books

Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism by Wendy Cheng

Public author talk on April 24, 3:30–5:00 pm

“A fascinating, lively account of the Taiwanese diaspora’s surprising influence on America—and America’s furtive investment in their fates, as well.”
—Hua Hsu, author of Stay True: A Memoir

Transpacific, Undisciplined ed. by Lily Wong, Christopher B. Patterson and Chien-ting Lin

AAAS panel on April 25, 10:00–11:30 am

“This superb collection deepens and necessarily challenges our understanding of the ’transpacific.’”
—Crystal Mun-Hye Baik, author of Reencounters: On the Korean War and Diasporic Memory Critique

Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid by Willyce Kim

Public event on April 26, 7:00–8:30 pm
AAAS panel: The Legacies of Aiiieeeee! on April 27, 1:00–2:30 pm

The newest release in the Classics of Asian American Literature series, “Willyce Kim’s groundbreaking debut novel . . . returns to us now in this beautiful new edition, a new home to these iconoclastic rebel lesbians, giving back to us a much-needed queer classic“ (Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel).

The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History by Greg Robinson with Jonathan van Harmelen

Public author talk on April 25, 6:00 pm
AAAS Roundtable in Honor of Roger Daniels on April 26, 1:00–2:30 pm

“Greg Robinson is the foremost chronicler of not only the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, but also an eminent historian of the life of the community before and after. With a depth of research unlikely to be rivaled . . . he [offers] a glimpse into the fullness of humanity that otherwise would be obscured or forgotten.“
—Frank H. Wu, coauthor of The Good Citizen

Exiled to Motown: A Community History of Japanese Americans in Detroit by Detroit JACL History Project Committee

Drawing from a community-based oral history and archiving project, Exiled to Motown captures the compelling stories of Japanese Americans in the Midwest, filling in overlooked aspects of the Asian American experience.

Resisting the Nuclear: Art and Activism across the Pacific ed. by Elyssa Faison and Alison Fields

“Essential reading—informative, insightful, revealing, and timely. An important invitation to remember lives lost and impacted by nuclear disasters and to pause and review the ways nuclear power has been mobilized in relation to US imperialism and racial-settler capitalism.” —Susette Min, author of Unnamable: The Ends of Asian American Art

Upcoming Public Events

  • Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism Author Talk
    Wednesday, April 24, 3:30 pm at UW, Thomson Hall Room 317
    Drawing on interviews with student activists and extensive archival research, Wendy Cheng documents how Taiwanese Americans developed tight-knit social networks as infrastructures for identity formation, consciousness development, and anticolonial activism. This free event will be held in person and streamed online. For more information and to register, visit the event page here.
  • The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History Author Talk
    Thursday, April 25, 6:00 pm at Densho
    Through stories of remarkable people in Japanese American history, The Unknown Great illuminates the diversity of the Nikkei experience from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day. Acclaimed historian and journalist Greg Robinson, along with his collaborator Jonathan van Harmeen, examines the longstanding interactions between African Americans and Japanese Americans, the history of LGBTQ+ Japanese Americans, mixed-race performers and political figures, and much more. Robinson and van Harmelen will be joined in conversation with Nina Wallace, Densho Media and Outreach Manager, as they shine a spotlight on lesser-known stories and unheralded figures from Japanese American history.

    This event will be held in person at Densho and is free to attend, but registration is required as there will be limited seating. For more information and to register, visit the event page here.
  • 50 Years of Asian American Literary History at the University of Washington Press
    Friday, April 26, 7:00 pm at the Seattle Public Library, Central Library
    From the seminal anthology Aiiieeeee! and Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart to the most recent publication, Willyce Kim’s Dancer Dawkins and the California Kid, join us for a celebration of the UW Press’ contribution to Asian American literature in bringing classic works back into print and championing new writing. Hosted by Shawn Wong and featuring readings from Willyce Kim, Ching-In Chen, and Yanyi, with a Q&A moderated by Eunsong Kim. Books will be available from Elliott Bay Book Company.
    This event is free, and registration is not required.

Read More on the Blog

Behind the Covers: Author Greg Robinson on The Unknown Great

The Controversial Origin of Asian American Studies: Excerpt from Tara Fickle’s Foreword to Aiiieeeee!

Reimagining Taiwan Lives: Series Editor James Lin on Launching Taiwan and the World

Taiwan, a society of twenty-three million people in Asia, can be thought of as living two lives. From one perspective, it is a bright, vibrant democracy at the forefront of LGBTQ+ rights, avant garde art and film, and student activism. On the other hand, it is a geopolitical hotspot, caught in a great power rivalry and a lynchpin of the semiconductor industry, critical for global supply chains and militaries around the world. Between these two poles exist countless social, cultural, and political issues that animate Taiwan and the field of Taiwan studies, rich for scholarly excavation.

These issues drive the field of Taiwan studies at large and encouraged me and my colleagues, William Lavely and Madeleine Yue Dong, to launch a new series: Taiwan and the World.

In 2018, after the founding of the Taiwan studies program at the University of Washington, we worked with Lorri Hagman, then UW Press executive editor and now executive editor of special projects, to start a new monograph series that would highlight the groundbreaking humanities and social science scholarship about Taiwan. We see the field as having rich potential, not just for illuminating the issues that are unique to Taiwan, but serving as a cauldron for the larger social and political changes the world is seeing.

We are proud to announce the launch of the first book in our series, Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History by Niki J. P. Alsford. The book explores two dozen individuals from all walks of life—politician, popstar, doctor, prisoner, diplomat, hawker, just to name a few—from the nineteenth century to present. Each of them touches upon a significant event or social transformation in Taiwan, whether its serial colonizations under foreign empires, the White Terror period of martial law, or its transition to democracy. Through the windows of these individual lives, Alsford weaves together a narrative of the complexities of Taiwan’s history. Most important, it centers the voices of the Taiwanese themselves.

Alsford’s groundbreaking book represents the ideals that our series hopes to achieve. It offers a new perspective in approaching Taiwan—in this case, from the ground up, and from the perspective of ordinary and sometimes marginalized peoples. This “people’s history,” as Alsford explains, presents accounts from “the common people,” thus “accentuating the island’s interconnectivity and cultural complexity.” It is also meant to make Taiwan accessible to broader audiences. Focusing not on the geopolitical conflicts of statesmen and wars, Alsford instead brings to fore the lived experiences that readers inside and outside of the classroom can appreciate and relate to.

Taiwan Lives will be followed shortly by the second book in the series, Good Wife, Wise Mother: Educating Han Taiwanese Girls under Japanese Rule by Fang Yu Hu. Examining the complicated period of Japanese imperial rule in Taiwan (1895-1945), Hu explores how Japanese colonialism shaped social roles and cultural identities of women. Hu’s careful historical research offers rich oral history and archival accounts for readers interested in the intersection of education, gender, and empire.

As our series grows, we hope to explore the numerous issues that locate Taiwan on the frontier of social, cultural, and political concerns. As a series of islands situated in the Pacific, Taiwan has been interlinked with maritime communities and is exposed to the same pressures of climate change and ecological interactions as many other Pacific Island communities. Its society is a melting pot of Indigenous peoples, settlers from colonial histories, and newly arrived immigrants seeking better economic opportunities. Issues of indigeneity, identity, and race intersect with concerns of justice and rights. Taiwan has been in the vanguard of LGBTQ+ movements in Asia and has broken the glass ceiling for the highest levels of political office. But beneath the veneer of success also lie complexities over gender and equality. And as Taiwan’s complicated sovereignty is increasingly drawing the attention of nations around the world, its potential for conflict draws eyes to its politics on the largest geopolitical fault lines.

In the coming months and years, we are excited for books in the pipeline that explore Taiwan’s colonial past, its environmental and economic present, and its contested political future. We also welcome monograph submissions from interested authors who see their research and writing breaking new ground in Taiwan studies and who hope to reach wide audiences of students, educators, policymakers, and the general public. We intend for our upcoming books to redefine the frontier of Taiwan studies and emphasize the importance of Taiwan for understanding the major themes and problems in our world and society at large.

Interested authors should send book proposals to acquisitions editor Caitlin Tyler-Richards at ctylerri@uw.edu.

James Lin is assistant professor of international studies at the University of Washington and a historian of modern Taiwan. His research examines international agrarian development, from early twentieth-century rural reform and agriculture in China and Taiwan through its reimagining during later Taiwanese development missions to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Upcoming Event

The UW Taiwan Studies Program welcomes Professor Niki J. P. Alsford to discuss his new book, Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History: March 6, 3:30–5:00 pm at UW, Thomson Hall Room 317. Register to attend online or in person.

Niki J. P. Alsford is professor in Asia Pacific studies and director of Asia Pacific Institutes at the University of Central Lancashire. In addition, he is a research associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS, the University of London, and an associate member of the faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Oxford. Alsford is the author of Transitions to Modernity in Taiwan: The Spirit of 1895 and the Cession of Formosa to Japan (Routledge, 2017).

This event was made possible by the generous support of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.

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

Behind the Covers: Author Greg Robinson on ‘The Unknown Great’

My new book, The Unknown Great: Stories of Japanese Americans at the Margins of History, cowritten with Jonathan van Harmelen, is a collection of short pieces on remarkable people and things in Japanese American history. Beyond being interesting in themselves, when put together, the stories constitute a counter-history of ethnic Japanese in North America, refuting received ideas about the group.

When it came time to think about potential covers for the book, I was not sure what to propose. As the partner of a graphic designer, I long ago learned that producing an acceptable book cover is one of the most difficult aspects of book publishing. The designer must be able to come up with something that will please the author, the press’s marketing department and—one hopes—themself. The design must immediately express the idea of the work and attract the potential reader into choosing it (the old saw notwithstanding, many many people do in fact judge books by their covers!). The author can be as much a hindrance as a help. If an author proposes images for which the rights cannot be obtained or which are not sufficiently clear or high-resolution, it just makes life difficult for the designer.

Especially tricky is producing a cover for a book like The Unknown Great that revolves around a variety of themes. Whether such a cover is typographical or illustrative in nature, the same problem remains: How can the cover designer choose just one aspect of the book to express? How can the contrasting themes be dramatized in a way that leads to a unified presentation? To be sure, my previous collection with University of Washington Press, The Unsung Great, had a cover featuring a mosaic of portraits, and I found it most satisfying. Still, I did not want a cover that looked too similar to that one. On the other hand, none of the photos that I had found to illustrate the individual articles was powerful enough to carry the weight of the entire book’s meaning by itself.

It was then that I hit on the idea of proposing for the cover a striking image that I had just come across. In 2021, my collaborator Jonathan van Harmelen and I wrote a two-part article on the great photographer Toge Fujihira, and in the process of research we interviewed Fujihira’s two children. Toge’s daughter Kay Bromberg graciously invited us to visit the extensive archive that she maintained of her father’s work.

Sometime later, I accepted Kay’s invitation and visited the archive. I was bowled over by the variety and depth of Fujihira’s photography. While reviewing his work from the wartime period, which he had spent in New York City, I discovered a set of snapshots he took in the mid-1940s, at a beach on what looked like Long Island. In the snaps were a number of Nisei men and women in bathing suits; he photographed them alone and in teams—even one with them all together, piled on each other in a pyramid. While the majority of the images were of women, my eye was caught by one that featured a pair of smiling Japanese American men in bathing suits, happily embracing. Their affection for each other and the obvious ease they felt in holding their (shirtless) bodies against each other shined through.

Fujihira’s photo . . . expressed so many of the “marginal” stories and themes I had discovered in Japanese American history: Nisei outside the West Coast; the postwar lives that Japanese Americans built following their wartime incarceration; the presence of creative artists, including photographers, in their communities; and yes, Japanese American sexuality.

Greg Robinson

The photographs did not list any of the names of the people involved, and neither Kay nor I was able to identify the men in the picture. It was unclear whether they were friends, colleagues, or brothers, or whether they were romantic partners (though homosexuality would have generally been considered taboo in the United States at that time, and an openly gay couple shocking). The very mystery of their identities and connection to each other heightened the both the power and ambiguity of the image: Was it homoerotic, homosocial, or fraternal? Whichever the case, it was clear that in an era when Nisei, like other American men, were conditioned to restrain their emotions, at least in public, an image showing such open warmth between them was exceptional.

Kay generously gifted me a duplicate print of the image and agreed to let me publish it. At first, I wasn’t sure in what context I should present it. While it was unlikely that the men in the photo were still alive, some seventy-five years later, I worried whether they might have descendants who would criticize me for misrepresenting them. When I had the opportunity to propose a cover image for The Unknown Great, I realized that the image of the men from Fujihira’s photo would be perfect. It expressed so many of the “marginal” stories and themes I had discovered in Japanese American history: Nisei outside the West Coast; the postwar lives that Japanese Americans built following their wartime incarceration; the presence of creative artists, including photographers, in their communities; and yes, Japanese American sexuality. Yet it evoked these themes in symbolic, not representative, fashion.

In the end, it worked out superbly. Heng Wee Tan, the cover designer, agreed to incorporate the Fujihira photo into his design. Meanwhile, he had the happy idea of putting the type on a slant, which makes it appear that the image is in motion, passing from the margin toward the center. The color is an unusual shade of orange, marking the unorthodox nature of the contents. All these elements work together to highlight the book’s examination of the margins of Japanese American history.

Greg Robinson is professor of history at l’Université du Québec à Montréal and author of several books, including The Unsung Great: Stories of Extraordinary Japanese Americans and After Camp: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life.

Related Books

Repeat Photography and Global Warming: An Excerpt from ‘Capturing Glaciers’ by Dani Inkpen

Photographs of receding glaciers are one of the most well recognized visualizations of human-caused climate change. These images, captured through repeat photography, have become effective with an unambiguous message: global warming is happening, and it is happening now. But this wasn’t always the case. The meaning and evidentiary value of repeat glacier photography has varied over time, reflecting not only evolving scientific norms but also social, cultural, and political influences.

In Capturing Glaciers, Dani Inkpen historicizes the use of repeat glacier photographs, examining what they show, what they obscure, and how they influence public understanding of nature and climate change. Though convincing as a form of evidence, these images offer a limited and sometimes misleading representation of glaciers themselves. Furthermore, their use threatens to replicate problematic ideas baked into their history.

Excerpt from Capturing Glaciers

I visited an old friend recently. It had been years since seeing the Bow Glacier. Both of us had changed. I was last in her neighborhood on a winter day so bright and cold it transformed my breath into crystals that shivered and sparkled in the air. She was indisposed, hibernating beneath her billowy robes of winter snow. I had to content myself with a view of her front garden, soft and rounded, blue and white. In summer she presides over one of the most breathtaking scenes on the (for now) aptly named Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies. Perfectly framed by peaks, the glacier perches above the indigo waters of Bow Lake, to which she is connected by thundering Bow Falls and a creek that winds its way through rainbow-pebbled flats. The whole scene can be taken in from the front porch of red-roofed Bow Lake Lodge, set on the lake’s shore by packer and guide Jimmy Simpson. In 1898 he deemed this a good spot to “build a shack.”

I met the Bow Glacier the summer I left home, one of those free-spirited summers that Hollywood films coat thickly with nostalgia. Freshly released from the corridors of teenagedom, I chose a seasonal job that could not possibly advance the career I was preparing for in college but that would give me plenty of time in the mountains: housekeeping at a historic alpine lodge. In my time off I often scrambled up chossy peaks where I met wobbling marmots and grizzlies lounging in full-blooming meadows. I drank from swift, icy streams and camped wherever suited me (because, like many seasonal workers, I believed that national park rules didn’t apply to me). The Bow Glacier looked on with dignified indifference. I stood on her surface, secure in mountaineering harness and crampons (though a couple foolish times not) and marveled at the white westing plains of the Wapta Icefield from which the Bow drains, dreaming of even grander vistas beyond. I knew in those moments I was one of thousands to behold that sight yet felt like the world had just taken form. My happiness was untouchable, not yet complicated by the conundrums of adulthood. I was immortal; death did not exist and time would never run out.

Old friends: The Bow Glacier and the author, 2003.

But time does run. And glaciers, compressions of time in frozen water, are excellent gauges of its passage. Mountain glaciers like the Bow are disappearing at rapid—and accelerating—rates. When Jimmy Simpson pondered building his shack, the Bow cascaded down to a forest abutting the lake in three undulating lobes, with the topmost flaring like outstretched eagle wings. I studied its shape from a black-and-white photograph hanging in the lobby of the lodge. Crevasse-torn icefalls separated the lobes, giving the glacier an intimidating look. It was big. It was beautiful. But the Bow Glacier has since receded. When I arrived one hundred years later, only the topmost lobe remained; dark cliff bands, wetted by Bow Falls, stood where crevasses once churned. The eagle wings were gone, and the glacier’s surface was noticeably lowered. Yet you could still see its toe from the lodge. Today it has retracted even further. Like a wounded spider, it now huddles on the lip of the cliff over which it draped in 2003, barely visible from Bow Lake Lodge.

Photographs of glaciers are about more than just glaciers. They’re also about nature, land, how we can know about such things, and the value we ascribe to them. Grasping this allows us to better appreciate repeat glacier photographs for what they can tell us about global warming, but also how they are conditioned by history and where they fall short.

Dani Inkpen

For many people who are not climate scientists, drastic recession of mountain glaciers like the Bow is clear and persuasive evidence of global warming. Since most folks have never been to a glacier, photographs are often how they learn of disappearing ice. This is achieved through what are called repeat photographs: juxtapositions of old photographs and recent re-creations taken from the same perspective at the same time of year (because glaciers fluctuate with the seasons). Curiosity about the historical photographs in repeat series, like the one hanging in Bow Lake Lodge’s lobby, eventually pulled my carefree summer in the Rockies into the trajectory of a professional life.

My book, Capturing Glaciers, is the result: it is about the people who photographed glaciers repeatedly and systematically to produce knowledge about glaciers and a variety of other subjects such as ice ages, wilderness, the physics of ice, and global warming. Throughout the twentieth century those studying glaciers used photography to capture changes in glacier extent and distribution, but they did so for different reasons and with different consequences. I trace the evolving motivations behind the use of cameras to capture images of ice and concomitantly changing ideas about what is (or is not) being captured.

The book title is thus a double entendre, referring to both the enduring allure of glaciers as repeat photographic subjects that “capture” beholders and the variety of ways people sought to capture glaciers with their cameras. I pay especial attention to the perceived value of repeat photographs as a form of evidence. Doing so illuminates some of the ways repeat photography has encapsulated and conveyed changing ideas about what glaciers are and why they matter. Photographs of glaciers are about more than just glaciers. They’re also about nature, land, how we can know about such things, and the value we ascribe to them. Grasping this allows us to better appreciate repeat glacier photographs for what they can tell us about global warming, but also how they are conditioned by history and where they fall short. It helps us see them not as static representations of the present situation, but as still-evolving elements in a process much bigger and more complex than any photograph could possibly capture.

I take a photograph-centered approach, following the photographs to archival information about the practices behind their creation. The history of how repeat photography was used to study glaciers in North America is checkered and discontinuous. Its value as a form of evidence ebbed and flowed based on ideas about what glaciers were and what knowledge-makers wanted to know. This was more than just a scientific matter. While many of the actors who populate the pages of the book were scientists, producing knowledge of glaciers required an extensive host of characters and institutions. And the meanings of repeat glacier photographs broke the bonds of scientific intention and interpretation, drawing from and circling back to potent cultural associations. We will see, then, that the value of a form of evidence is conditioned by nonscientific elements, including political and practical considerations. Evidence, like objectivity, has a history. And history continues to make itself felt in the present.

Dani Inkpen is assistant professor of history at Mount Allison University.

More from the Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books Series

Queer Cowfolx and the History of Gay Rodeo: Q&A with Elyssa Ford and Rebecca Scofield, authors of ‘Slapping Leather’

Campy and competitive, gay rodeo offers a community of refuge that straddles the urban and rural, providing space to both embrace and challenge the idealized masculinity associated with the iconic cowboy of the US West.

Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo brings together over a decade of research by Elyssa Ford and Rebecca Scofield, historians of gender and sexuality in the American West. The book explores the complex history of gay rodeo from the late 1960s through the 2010s as a case study for western cultural performance, LGBTQ+ community building, queer philanthropy, and the creation of a racialized and gendered image of the queer cowboy.

As part of the American Historical Association annual meeting, taking place in San Francisco from January 4 to 7, we are pleased to offer AHA members a 30% discount. Find Slapping Leather and other new and notable books through our virtual booth and take advantage of the conference discount with promo code WAHA24 at checkout through February 15, 2024.

To start, can you share about your scholarly backgrounds and what led you to gay rodeo?

Ford: My senior year in college, I decided to explore my interest in museums and completed an internship at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas. The very limited racial diversity of the museum in the early 2000s made me ask questions about women, race, and rodeo in the US, and those are themes I studied in both my MA and PhD. I came across gay rodeo at that time, but it didn’t fit into the scope of my work until my first book, Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo (University Press of Kansas, 2020), when I included a chapter on that rodeo circuit.

Scofield: While completing a master’s degree in Regional Studies: East Asia, I was in Tokyo looking at the acrylic nail industry when I saw a store called Rodeo Clowns, which was selling cowgirl boots to Japanese teenagers. It completely changed my academic trajectory, and I began researching the rise of western wear and looking at how the “cowboy” became a straight white man when so many people outside that limited definition were participating in country western culture. As a part of this, my first book, Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West (University of Washington Press, 2019), included a chapter on gay rodeo.

There was so much more to examine in gay rodeo than we were able to tackle in just our single chapters. Rather than pursuing separate book projects, we decided to work together so we could combine our decade worth of research and bring our overlapping—but also different—areas of interest within gay rodeo into a single volume.

Many queer cowfolx narrate finding the rodeo as a moment of finding community. They had been convinced they were the only gay person who loved country music, riding horses, or line dancing. The ability to do the sport they loved in a safe space was revolutionary.

Elyssa Ford and Rebecca Scofield

In writing the book, you drew on multiple archives and over seventy oral interviews. Can you share more about your process and how the book took shape?

Co-authorship is not particularly common in the field of history, and neither of us had approached a project in this way before. And we had never met. In fact, we never met in person until the book was finished! However, the changes to digital communication during COVID really worked to our advantage, with Zoom and Google Docs allowing us to collaborate, communicate, and share materials. We already had conducted much of the necessary research and interviews during our first book projects, and we both knew the material so well that we quickly identified the chapters we wanted to include. We also were lucky that our specific interests within gay rodeo combined in such a way that we each developed several chapters individually and then worked collaboratively on others.

The archival materials and oral interviews were such an integral part of this project. We revisited the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles to complete a comprehensive examination of their International Gay Rodeo Association (IGRA) collection, and we continued to conduct interviews with participants as part of the Gay Rodeo Oral History Project. Both added new dimensions to our chapters and helped us tell a more complete story about the complexity of gay rodeo’s origins and evolution.

International Gay Rodeo Association Finals rodeo program. Courtesy of the Autry Museum of the American West.

You write that “as rodeo professionalized, it also narrowed the boundaries of the cowboy.” Can you elaborate on this and the effect it had on gay rodeo in its nascency?

Phil Ragsdale, and later the IGRA, initially created gay rodeo as a fundraising event and as a place for queer cowfolx to compete in rodeo. Yet it also was rooted in a hegemonic masculinity so that gay cowboys in particular could adopt, demonstrate, and exert the traditional white masculinity of the American cowboy of western mythology. This vision for gay rodeo clashed with the presence of lesbians, drag queens, and camp events, and while some participants fought for those elements, others pursued a rodeo modeled on the professional rodeo circuit. As gay rodeo struggled in the 1990s for legitimacy in the straight rodeo world, it became increasingly difficult to find space for the elements of gay rodeo that failed to fit into the dominant rodeo narrative.

Gender, politics, and geography all play into the history of gay rodeo, which you call a “case study for belonging.” Can you share more about community-building within the sport and a few examples of the tensions LGBTQ+ people faced both within and outside of the gay rodeo arena?

Many queer cowfolx narrate finding the rodeo as a moment of finding community. They had been convinced they were the only gay person who loved country music, riding horses, or line dancing. The ability to do the sport they loved in a safe space was revolutionary. However, it also came with a lot of negotiation as all the assumptions of what it meant to be a cowboy still played out in gay rodeo, often with drag queens and lesbians being made to feel less welcome at times.

Additionally, gay rodeo emerged at a time when the mainstream LGBTQ+ movement was gaining steam but came of age in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic. So the organization always had to balance the desire to be visible with an increasingly hostile public who could use AIDS as a reason for hate. Gay rodeos have been protested by religious groups, animal-rights groups, and many others. This brought gay rodeoers together to support their own efforts and also saw them combine forces with other LGBTQ+ organizations for AIDS fundraising and Pride events, and other rodeo groups, to counter animal-rights protests.

Between chapters, stories from gay rodeo participants are included as oral history vignettes. Why did you choose this type of framing?

It was important to us to share how real people expressed their gratitude and love for this space and illustrate that while we are taking an academic approach, this is a living, thriving community that allowed us access to their stories.

What does the future of gay rodeo look like?

That is the $100 question! And, it is the question that keeps many in gay rodeo awake at night. Gay rodeo is at a crossroads today as it attempts to overcome the serious impact of COVID, a changing and more welcoming society for queer people, and the lack of a single unifying force, such as AIDS or extreme homophobia. As we discuss in our final chapter, IGRA today is grappling with these questions and looking for ways to reach new groups of participants and new audiences.

What do you hope readers take away from the book?

This is a group of people who never easily fit into society’s assumptions about politics, geography, or culture. We hope this helps people rethink with more nuance who belongs where.

Elyssa Ford is associate professor of history at Northwest Missouri State University and author of Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion: Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo. Rebecca Scofield is associate professor of American history at the University of Idaho and author of Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West.

Related Books

New & Forthcoming in History

Celebrating a Year of Award-Winning Publishing

As 2023 comes to a close, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate our authors whose work was recognized this year by many of the leading professional associations and organizations in their field. Please join us in celebrating these authors for their dynamic, engaged, and pathbreaking scholarship.

Winners

What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming by Aurelia Campbell, Winner of the 2023 Bei Shan Tang Monograph Prize, recognizing outstanding and innovative sole-authored monographs on Chinese art history published in the English language, sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies.

Spawning Modern Fish: Transnational Comparison in the Making of Japanese Salmon by Heather Anne Swanson, Winner of the Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology.

Wetlands in a Dry Land: More-Than-Human Histories of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin by Emily O’Gorman, Winner of the inaugural Book Prize from the Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand Environmental History Network.

This is an innovative work that tells living histories not just through people, but also through rivers, gardens, berry patches, and more. This dynamic and engaging book pursues an Indigenous-centered methodology that speaks to health and healing, ecology and environment, community and sovereignty, past, present, and future, and beyond.

Western History Association awards committee on A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast

A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast by Charlotte Coté, Winner of the 2023 Donald L. Fixico Award for most innovative book on American Indian and Canadian First Nations history from the Western History Association.

People of the Ecotone: Environment and Indigenous Power at the Center of Early America by Robert Michael Morrissey, Winner of the 2023 Hal K. Rothman Book Prize for best book in western environmental history from the Western History Association.

Labor under Siege: Big Bob McEllrath and the ILWU’s Fight for Organized Labor in an Anti-Union Era by Harvey Schwartz and Ronald E. Magden, Winner of the 2023 National Indie Excellence Award.

Healing with Poisons: Potent Medicines in Medieval China by Yan Liu, Winner of the 2023 William H. Welch Medal, sponsored by the American Association for the History of Medicine.

Where Dragon Veins Meet: The Kangxi Emperor and His Estate at Rehe by Stephen H. Whiteman, Winner of the 2023 On the Brinck Book Award, presented by the University of New Mexico School of Architecture + Planning.

Love Your Asian Body: AIDS Activism in Los Angeles by Eric C. Wat, Winner of the 2023 AAAS History Book Award, sponsored by the Association for Asian American Studies.

Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future by James Morton Turner, Winner of the Susanne M. Glasscock Book Prize from the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University.

Honorable Mentions, Shortlisted Books, and Finalists

Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future by James Morton Turner, Finalist for the 2023 Cundill History Prize, the leading international prize for history writing.

There’s a deep protest hidden in the friendly words of this beautifully written book.

Eve Troutt Powell, 2023 Cundill History Prize Juror on Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future

A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast by Charlotte Coté, Honorable Mention for the Labriola Center American Indian National Book Award.

Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World by Christopher B. Teuton and Hastings Shade, Second Place for the 2023 Chicago Folklore Prize from the American Folklore Society.

Surviving the Sanctuary City: Asylum-Seeking Work in Nepali New York by Tina Shrestha, Honorable Mention for the Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prize for International Scholarship in Transnational American Studies, sponsored by the American Studies Association.

[A] model of community engagement. . . The book’s unique layout reflects the cultural group’s worldview, values, and ethics, making the information accessible to readers in a way that is itself engaging.

American Folklore Society prize committee on Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World

Mumbai Taximen: Autobiographies and Automobilities in India by Tarini Bedi, Best Read for the General Public: IBP 2023 Accolades in the Humanities by the International Institute for Asian Studies.

Unshaved: Resistance and Revolution in Women’s Body Hair Politics by Breanne Fahs, Shortlisted for the 2023 ASU IHR Book Award, sponsored by Institute for Humanities Research of Arizona State University.

Upland Geopolitics: Postwar Laos and the Global Land Rush by Michael B. Dwyer, Honorable Mention for the 2022 CAPE Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Cultural and Political Ecology specialty group of the American Association of Geographers.

A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing by Rachel Silberstein, Honorable Mention for the 2023 Bei Shan Tang Monograph Prize, sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies.

Distributed Books

Christina Fernandez: Multiple Exposures edited by Rebecca Epstein and distributed for the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, Winner of the Silver Medal in Best Art Books and the Bronze Medal in Best Cover Illustration or Photo in the 2023 International Latino Book Awards.

Introducing the UW Press Spring 2024 Catalog

We are excited to share our Spring 2024 catalog, packed with great books to come in the new year. Inside you’ll find definitive books on Native history and culture; the first biography of one of Montana’s most celebrated writers, Norman Maclean; richly illustrated books on the natural world; essential histories; illuminating art books and exhibition catalogs from our publishing partners, including the Seattle Art Museum, National Nordic Museum, and the Autry Museum of the American West; and more.

Photograph by Mary Randlett, PH Coll 723. Courtesy of University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections, Mary Randlett, photographer, UW 41874.

The catalog cover, taken from the forthcoming book Treaty Justice, features a photograph of Billy Frank Jr. (1931–2014), a leader for treaty rights and environmental stewardship, and author and longtime tribal advocate Charles Wilkinson (1941–2023) on traditional Nisqually land at the southerly reach of Puget Sound. An expert and compelling account of the Boldt Decision, which affirmed the fishing rights and tribal sovereignty of Native nations in Washington State, Treaty Justice will be published in January to coincide with the 50th anniversary of this landmark civil rights event.

We invite you to view the full catalog and explore all of our forthcoming books. Now is also a great time to subscribe to our newsletter or update your preferences so that you can receive email alerts when your favorite books are released.

Ten Essential Books for Your Native American Heritage Month Reading List

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, we’ve collected some of the many books that provide testament to the enduring, resilient nature of that history. The books below feature Indigenous authors, contributors, and collaborators, reflecting our longtime commitment to sharing Native American perspectives on their cultures. These essential books will help you discover the rich contributions and history of Indigenous people—from the cultural teachings of Coast Salish elders and stories from the Northwest Coast food sovereignty movement to a celebration of the Cherokee cosmos and parka-making conversations in Southwest Alaska.

Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders
By Children of the Setting Sun Productions

“A rich visual feast that honors Pacific Northwest Indigenous life” (Library Journal), Jesintel brings the cultural teachings of nineteen Coast Salish elders to new generations through interviews and photographs. Jesintel—”to learn and grow together”—characterizes the spirit of this richly illustrated book, which illuminates the importance of ethical reciprocal relationships and the interconnectedness of places, land, water, and the spirit within all things.

A Drum in One Hand, A Sockeye in the Other: Stories of Indigenous Food Sovereignty from the Northwest Coast
By Charlotte Coté

Drawing from her academic and personal expertise, Charlotte Coté (Tseshaht/Nuu-chah-nulth) explores the politics of food sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Northwest. Coté shares contemporary Nuu-chah-nulth practices of traditional food revitalization and offers evocative stories of her Tseshaht community’s and her own work to revitalize relationships to haʔum (traditional food) as a way to nurture health and wellness. As Indigenous peoples continue to face food insecurity due to ongoing inequality, environmental degradation, and the Westernization of traditional diets, Coté foregrounds healing and cultural sustenance via everyday enactments of food sovereignty.

Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California
By Kaitlin Reed

Foregrounding Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories, Settler Cannabis offers a groundbreaking analysis of the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation in California. Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida) demonstrates how the “green rush” is only the most recent example of settler colonial resource extraction and wealth accumulation. Situating the cannabis industry within this broader legacy, the author traces patterns of resource rushing—first gold, then timber, then fish, and now cannabis—to reveal the ongoing impacts on Indigenous cultures, lands, waters, and bodies.

Cherokee Earth Dwellers: Stories and Teachings of the Natural World
By Christopher B. Teuton and Hastings Shade

Ayetli gadogv—to “stand in the middle”—is at the heart of a Cherokee perspective of the natural world. From this stance, Cherokee Earth Dwellers offers a rich understanding of nature grounded in Cherokee creature names, oral traditional stories, and reflections of knowledge holders. During his lifetime, elder Hastings Shade created booklets with over six hundred Cherokee names for animals and plants. With this foundational collection at its center, and weaving together a chorus of voices, this book emerges from a deep and continuing collaboration between Christopher B. Teuton (Cherokee Nation), Hastings Shade, Larry Shade, and other Cherokee speakers, educators, and cultural traditionalists. From clouds to birds, oceans to quarks, the expansive Cherokee view of nature reveals a living, communicative world and humanity’s role within it.

Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers
Edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton

Using weaving techniques such as coiling and plaiting as organizing themes, editors Elissa Washuta (Cowlitz) and Theresa Warburton ground this anthology of essays by twenty-seven contemporary Native writers in the formal art of basket weaving. The result is “a veritable feast of First Nations and Native American writers that readers may otherwise never have discovered” (World Literature Today). These ambitious, creative, and visionary works demonstrate the slippery, shape-changing possibilities of Native stories and continue to animate the study and practice of distinct Native literary traditions in North America.

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

This deeply personal account of the revitalization of the women’s coming-of-age ceremony for the Hoopa Valley Tribe uses a framework of Native feminisms to locate this revival within a broad context of decolonization. Rooted in Indigenous knowledge, Risling Baldy, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, brings us the voices of people transformed by cultural revitalization and considers how this renaissance of women’s coming-of-age ceremonies confounds ethnographic depictions of Native women; challenges anthropological theories about menstruation, gender, and coming-of-age; and addresses gender inequality and gender violence within Native communities.

Painful Beauty: Tlingit Women, Beadwork, and the Art of Resilience
By Megan A. Smetzer

For this first dedicated study of Tlingit beadwork, Megan A. Smetzer worked with museum collection materials, photographs, archives, and interviews with artists and elders to reframe this often overlooked artform as a site of historical negotiations and contemporary inspirations. At a time when Indigenous cultural practices were actively being repressed, beading supported cultural continuity and gave Tlingit women the freedom to innovate aesthetically, assert their clan crests and identities, support tribal sovereignty, and pass on cultural knowledge. This thoughtful and accessible book demonstrates Tlingit women’s resilience, strength, and power and contributes to the expanding literature addressing women’s artistic expressions on the Northwest Coast.

Sharing Honors and Burdens: Renwick Invitational 2023
By Lara M. Evans, Miranda Belarde-Lewis, and Anya Montiel
Copublished with the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Renwick Gallery

Based on the exhibition of the same name, this richly illustrated catalog features the work of six artists from Indigenous Nations: Joe Feddersen (Arrow Lakes/Okanagan), Erica Lord (Athabascan/Iñupiat), Geo Neptune (Passamaquoddy), sisters Lily Hope and Ursala Hudson (Tlingit), and Maggie Thompson (Fond du Luc Ojibwe). Their craft speaks to the responsibility of ushering forward cultural traditions while shaping the future with innovative works of art. Through these works, the artists share the honors and burdens that they carry. The exhibition is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Musuem’s Renwick Gallery through March 31, 2024.

The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir
By Ernestine Hayes

Weaving together strands of memoir, contemplation, and fiction, Ernestine Hayes (Tlingit) articulates an Indigenous worldview in which all things are connected, in which intergenerational trauma creates many hardships but transformation is still possible. Using the story of Raven and the Box of Daylight (and relating it to Sun Tzu’s equally timeless Art of War), Hayes expresses an ongoing frustration and anger at the obstacles and prejudices still facing Alaska Natives in their own land, while also recounting her own story of attending and completing college in her fifties and becoming a professor and a writer. Now a grandmother and thinking very much of the generations who will come after her, Hayes speaks for herself but also has powerful things to say about the resilience and complications of her Native community.

Tengautuli Atkuk / The Flying Parka: The Meaning and Making of Parkas in Southwest Alaska
By Ann Fienup-Riordan, Alice Rearden, and Marie Meade

Parkas are part of a living tradition in southwest Alaska. Based on nearly two decades of conversations with Yup’ik sewing groups and visits to the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of Natural History, this volume documents the social importance of parkas, the intricacies of their construction, and their exceptional beauty. Featuring over 170 historical photographs and contemporary images, full bilingual versions of six parka stories, and a glossary in Yup’ik and English, this book is a celebration of the vitality of these culturally important garments.

#UPWeek 2023: Humanities Washington Helping UW Press Authors #SpeakUP

We’re now approaching the end of University Press Week 2023 and the final day of the UP Week Blog Tour. Thanks to you and our university press colleagues for celebrating the ways that university presses give voice to the scholarship and ideas that shape conversations around the world with this year’s theme, #SpeakUP.

Prompted by today’s UP Week Blog Tour theme, “Where do university presses #SpeakUP?,” we are excited to feature one of the many organizations that help to amplify our authors’ work: Humanities Washington.

Humanities Washington works with authors and scholars to bring vital public programming and events to cities and towns across Washington State, in partnership with libraries, museums, and other cultural organizations.

“Humanities Washington helped me connect with communities all across the state that I would not have otherwise,” said Eric Wagner, author of After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens. “Having spent the last five years trying to tell just one part of the story of Mount St. Helens, I loved hearing all the stories other folks had from the eruption. . . . I probably learned more about the mountain from the audience than they did from me.”

“The reach of Humanities Washington throughout Washington State and their network of libraries, community organizations, senior centers, and professional associations provides a robust platform for educating Washington State residents about our region’s critical environmental and cultural history,” said BJ Cummings, author of The River That Made Seattle: A Human and Natural History of the Duwamish.

Read more in our Q&A with Humanities Washington program manager Sarah Faulkner.

First, for those not already familiar, please briefly describe Humanities Washington and the work that you do.

Humanities Washington is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to open minds and bridge divides by creating spaces to explore different perspectives. To this end, we provide cultural programs to tens of thousands of Washingtonians each year. We run a variety of programs, including Prime Time Family Reading, a six-week reading and discussion program for families of young children; Think & Drink, which brings experts to local taprooms to discuss vital issues in a relaxed environment; the Poet Laureate program, which promotes poetry for all; and our Speakers Bureau, which sends forty experts across the state to give free, public presentations in partnership with museums, libraries, and other community venues. All our programs are dedicated to sparking conversation and critical thinking in every corner of Washington.

What is the role that scholars play in Humanities Washington programs? 

Scholars are essential to Humanities Washington programs. They serve as panelists for our Think & Drink programs, thus bringing their expertise directly to the public; guide families through reading discussions in our Prime Time Family Reading Program; and serve as ambassadors for the humanities through our Speakers Bureau program.

As a part of the Speakers Bureau, our experts guide audiences through a one-hour interactive presentation that’s designed to teach them something new, help them consider a new perspective, and spark conversation. Scholars share new humanities research and give explanations of complicated topics in accessible yet nuanced language. They’re thought-provoking, engaging, and an immense boon to creating a better informed and engaged Washington. Our programs are especially appreciated in rural areas that may not have access to a university or college, allowing the community to interact with experts from across the state.

Every year, the Speakers Bureau program brings hundreds of free events to cities and towns across the state and many of these events feature UW Press authors. Can you share a highlight or two from the 2021–2023 season?

We’re constantly impressed by the fantastic work our speakers do across the state. UW Press author Eric Wagner did an astounding thirty-five presentations on the ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens. His presentation, entitled “After the Blast: Mount St Helens 40 Years Later,” bridged the gap between the sciences and the humanities to help audiences see the immense impact of human choices on the living world around us.

Wagner traveled to twenty-two different cities, seventeen counties, all ten Congressional Districts, and reached over thirteen hundred Washingtonians through his presentations. I had the pleasure of seeing him present to an audience of 102 people at the Harstine Island Community Club, an incredibly engaged group in rural Mason County. Eric’s warmth, humor, and immense knowledge helped every audience member—from ages ten into the nineties—learn something new and enjoy doing it.

Collectively, the 2021-2023 roster offered almost 400 presentations, over half of which were quickly and deftly adapted to be delivered via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are so grateful to our presenters, who help us deliver what one Speakers Bureau host calls “their lifeline to ideas.”

The 2024–2025 Speakers Bureau roster was recently announced and includes four UW Press authors. What excites you about these authors and their topics? Can you share more about the presentations that are planned?

We are beyond excited about these authors and their topics! We strive to provide a wide variety of topics on our roster to serve the largest possible audience. We partner with Washington nonprofits to organize these presentations, and our hosts include libraries, museums, historical societies, high schools, carceral institutions, community centers, and more! Thus, we try to provide presentations on a variety of topics, including art, literature, philosophy, society, history, and more. The work of our four UW Press scholars gives a good idea of the variety we have to offer.

In his presentation “Stomp and Shout: The Untold Story of Northwest Rock and Roll,” author and historian Peter Blecha (author of Stomp and Shout: R&B and the Origins of Northwest Rock and Roll) takes us on a sweeping musical journey that covers not only the Greatest Hits of the Northwest but also the lesser known yet vitally important bands that laid the foundation for what Blecha calls “the Northwest Sound.”

Author and journalist David George Gordon returns to the Speakers Bureau with a presentation called “Heaven on the Half Shell: Washington State’s Oyster Odyssey.” In conjunction with the second edition of his coauthored book by the same name, Gordon leads Washingtonians through a natural and social history of the Pacific Northwest’s most beloved bivalve with his famous good humor and passion.

University of Washington professor Josephine Ensign (author of the Washington State Book Award Finalist Skid Road: On the Frontier of Health and Homelessness in Seattle) asks audiences to be vulnerable and compassionate as she guides them through her presentation, “Homelessness and the Meaning of Home.” Drawing on both her scholarly research and her personal experience of homelessness, Ensign teaches the history of homelessness and explores the contemporary crisis throughout our state and country through a deeply personal lens.

Ingrid Walker, professor emerita of University of Washington Tacoma (and author of High: Drugs, Desire, and a Nation of Users) asks a bold question: “What If We’re Wrong about Drugs?” Tackling contemporary issues like the opioid crisis, drug (de)criminalization and stigmatization, medical drug use, and addiction, Walker asks if changing our cultural stories about drugs and their users can help us take a new approach to drugs.

And these are just four of the forty presentations we offer (you can find all forty here). We’re incredibly proud of the upcoming roster and the work they’ll do to spark meaningful connections and conversations among neighbors in our state. Whether folks attend to have fun, to debate, to challenge themselves, or to learn about a new culture or topic, we hope that all Speakers Bureau attendees will leave with a new perspective on the world around them.

If you’re interested in any of these presentations, please reach out to Humanities Washington at speakers@humanities.org to see how you can bring them to your city!

Thank you, Sarah, for taking the time to answer our questions!

Thank you, UW Press, for the amazing work that you do to open minds across the state! Happy UP Week!

Visit the UP Week Blog Tour page to learn more about how community organizations, booksellers, libraries, and scholarly societies work with university presses to amplify authors’ work in various communities around the world and join in the celebration of university presses on social media with the #UPWeek and #SpeakUP hashtags!