University Press Roundup
Get excited! It’s time for our weekly look at the best articles from the academic press blogosphere:
We kick things off this week at The Chicago Blog of the University of Chicago Press with the full transcript of Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous commencement address, “The Great Society,” given on May 22, 1964 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The verdict in the Dharun Ravi case (in which the former Rutgers student was accused of a variety of crimes after using a webcam to tape and broadcast his roommate in a sexual encounter with another man) was given on May 21. At From the Square, the blog of the NYU press, Jessie Klein argues that Dharun Ravi should take a leadership role in helping others understand the impact of cyberbullying.
One clear difference between President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney lies in their strategies for the conflict in Afghanistan. At the OUPblog, Andrew J. Polsky takes a detailed look at both men’s positions.
North Philly Notes, the Temple University Press blog, has a provocative guest post by philosopher George Yancy, author of Look, A White!: “Why We Need to Name Whiteness.” In this post, Yancy addresses the tendency for white Americans to dismiss the importance of thinking about race.
The Harvard University Press Blog offers a detailed account of what political scientist Bernard Harcourt calls “the neoliberal penalty”–“a belief in the government’s obligation to respect the illusory freedom of markets can thrive alongside an urge to continually restrict the freedom of people”–and uses pictures taken of Chicago protestors and police to drive home the point.
Geoff Mulgan, writing for Princeton University Press’s Election 101 blog series, believes that the 2012 presidential election has a chance to fix a structural problem with modern American capitalism: that “finance has become as much a predator on the rest of the economy as a source of wealth.”
On a happier note, summer is almost here! The University of Minnesota Press Blog offers a breakdown of great National Park vacation destinations by art historian Thomas Patin to help those trying to plan a getaway, complete with a selection of beautiful photographs!
Continuing the getaway theme, Alexis Rizzuto, an editor at Beacon Press, has a fascinating post on Beacon Broadside about her trip to Mount Hornaday. Rizzuto had worked with Stefan Bechtel on Mr. Hornaday’s War, a book about William Temple Hornaday, an early conservationist who led a crusade to save the bison. Her trip to see the bison for herself left a deep impression.
The OU Press Blog is featuring a review of their new book Telling Stories in the Face of Danger, an examination of the attempts to renew and save various Native American languages.
Finally, William Dowell has a guest post on the AMACOM Books Blog discussing the growing impact of China on global business. He claims that “any Western executives who hope to compete in this environment, it is critical to understand the changes that are taking place in China today.”
Thanks for reading! As always, please let us know in the comments if you particularly enjoyed any of the posts or if you think that we missed something important.