University Press Roundup
Our weekly roundup of recent blog posts and features from other university presses:
As this year’s elections draw closer, Princeton University Press is providing a series of posts explaining the complexities of the American political system in their Election 101 series. Earlier this week, David R. Mayhew wrote a post explaining Presidential elections.
Continuing the political theme, at the UNC Press Blog, Michael H. Hunt and Steven I. Levine offer a detailed explanation and historical analysis of President Obama’s Asia policy.
At the OUPblog, Matthew Flinders claims that, though it has become fashionable to decry the democratic political process, “politics delivers far more than most people appear to realise.” He calls for a rejection of the popular politics of pessimism in favor of a new politics of optimism.
Multiple provisions of the Kyoto Protocol are due to expire at the end of this year, and at Cambridge University Press’s blog, Maxwell T. Boykoff takes a (somewhat worrisome) look at how our ideas of climate change are shaped by the mass media.
Meanwhile, Earth Day is coming soon (April 22) and The MIT PressLog is running a month-long series celebrating the occasion. This week, they take a statistical look at the jungles of Costa Rica .
The Trayvon Martin killing is still causing waves in the media, and Beacon Broadside offers a number of different takes on the significance of the case.
The Chicago University Press blog features a post on Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s performance art pieces in the 1960s critiquing Wall Street (complete with photographs of the naked participants) and how the Occupy movement echoes Kusama’s convictions. The post is perhaps best described by its title, OBLITERATE WALL STREET MEN WITH POLKA DOTS.
The Harvard University Press Blog draws startling comparisons between the professions of Chef and Surgeon, and shows how neither profession is benefiting from a forty-hour work week.
Yale University Press features an examination of and link to a conversation between poet and translator Yves Bonnefoy and author and translator Hoyt Rogers (who translated Bonnefoy’s latest book of poetry to English from French) on the complicated art of translation.
The University of Illinois Press offers a wide-ranging and fascinating interview with scholar Talmage A. Stanley on the history of the “Poco Field,” a coal-rich region comprising parts of mountainous southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, and a place known for its “militant particularity.”
Like something? Think we left something out? Let us know in the comments!