University Press Roundup
Welcome to our weekly roundup of the best posts from the blogs of academic publishers! These are just a few of our favorite posts from last week, since we didn’t have a chance to fill you in on Friday (sorry if you missed us!). As always, if you particularly enjoy something or think that we missed an important post, please let us know in the comments.
Since we’ve seen the conclusion of Banned Books Week, we look first to Beacon Broadside, where they’ve surveyed and interviewed members of their staff to compile a brief list of recommendations for those who’ve got a taste for historically subversive or disruptive texts.
University of Texas Press keeps the dialogue of banned books alive with a roundup of their own, cataloging 11 links to informational blogs, sites, videos, and social media elements aimed at generating awareness of the ongoing issue of banned books.
But of course, it’s not only the banning of books that hinders public learning and academic pursuit. Wilfrid Laurier University Press discusses the implications surrounding a recent “breaking point reached after years of funding cuts” to scientific research facilities in Canada. After protests on Parliament Hill and a New York Times op-ed on the growing difficulties in Canada for “publicly financed scientists to communicate with the public and with other scientists,” WLU weighs in on the problem and remarks, “There’s more than one way to burn a book, after all.”
On an unrelated note, we couldn’t help but include Princeton University Press’s Raptor Round-Up, in which they provide a rundown of their titles specializing in migrant raptors. From identification guides to full-color photographic books, PUP boasts a backlist replete with raptors. “[T]he sight of a raptor in the sky is an impressive image.” We couldn’t agree more.
After the recent–and needless–controversy regarding race in selecting a Miss America of Indian descent, NYU Press author Megan Seely questions the notion that crowning a Miss America is beneficial for woman in the first place. Examining the perhaps tacit requirements for success in the pageant–among them being thinness, tallness, heteronormativity, and, historically, whiteness–Seely argues that despite the good such pageants engender, they also do harm in alienating those individuals whose “races, ethnicities, cultural identities, body sizes, genders, sexualities, ages and abilities” are consistently not represented in what is a culturally accepted assertion of what it means to be an American woman.
And lastly, now that we’ve reached the denouement of Walter White’s transformation into sinister drug kingpin, the University of Minnesota Press features a rigorous blog post by author Curtis Marez on the role and treatment of Latinos on the hit television series Breaking Bad, both within the fictional narrative and the development of the show itself. Marez argues that the show demonstrates well “racial capitalism,” a theory positing that the fabrication of racial inferiority was “integral to the historical development of capitalism.” The discussion begins with the perceived symbolism of protagonist Walter White’s initial decision to shave his head. Be sure to read the original post here.
Thanks again for reading this week’s roundup! Have a great weekend, and leave any thoughts in the comments!
