University Press Roundup
Welcome to our weekly roundup of the best posts from the blogs of academic publishers! As always, if you particularly enjoy something or think that we missed an important post, please let us know in the comments.
At Beacon Broadside, Carole Joffe discusses why the relationship between doctors and patients is so important, and why the “gotcha” filming of abortion clinic doctors undermines the possibility of such a relationship.
Are you a jazz fan? If so, you should listen to this podcast from the University of California Press Blog, in which John Goodman, author of Mingus Speaks, talks about his interviews with the great composer and performer Charles Mingus.
In the late 17th and early 18th century, cotton textiles and other “Eastern luxuries” were blamed for “corrupt[ing] the moral fibre of society” in Europe. Giorgio Riello tells the story of cotton in Early Modern England at This Side of the Pond, the blog of Cambridge University Press.
At the Florida Bookshelf, the blog of the University Press of Florida, Kathleen Kaska continues her account of the continuing battle to save the endangered whooping crane.
The seventeen-year life cycle of the cicada will come to a head this year when the ground temperature reaches 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Luckily, as May Berenbaum points out in a post on cicadas at the Harvard University Press Blog, “It’s not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people.”
The JHU Press Blog had a couple of excellent posts this week. First, Sue Friedman discusses the consequences of patents on BRCA genes, with the future of BRCA testing in the balance in an ongoing Supreme Court case. Next, JHU Press manuscript editor Michele Callaghan asks whether “it matter[s] to anyone but editors and others who uphold the laws of grammar whether we use nouns or adjectives to describe people,” and answers firmly in the affirmative.
This week is National Transportation Week, and at the MIT Press blog, Joseph DiMento and Cliff Ellis argue that “we are at a critical point of major transportation diversification for some Americans.”
At the University of Minnesota Press, Rachel Hanel argues that “the death industry [has] taken firm hold and convinced Americans to let professionals handle the death and post-death process,” and that TV shows, Six Feet Under, for instance, help 21st-century America deal with “ideas about death that were common at the turn of the 20th century.”
Angelina Jolie recently wrote an op-ed in the NYTimes discussing her decision to undergo a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer. At From the Square, the blog of NYU Press, Kelly E. Happe discusses Jolie’s decision and the BRCA testing process that led to it.
Read an excerpt from Breaking Chains: Slavery on Trial in the Oregon Territory, by R. Gregory Nokes, at the Oregon State University Press blog.
The DSM-5, the latest edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s manual of mental disorders, is scheduled to release next week, and it has already come under a great deal of criticism. This week, the OUPblog has been running a fascinating series of posts on the DSM series, the DSM-5 in particular, and the state of psychiatry in general.
Using the Wayne Brady-Bill Maher feud as a jumping-off point, Adia Harvey Wingfield discusses “black men who remain invisible” in a thoughtful and insightful post at North Philly Notes, the blog of Temple University Press.
Finally, at the Yale Press Log, Edward McCord makes the case for the intellectual as well as moral and practical value of the diversity of species and ecosystems on Earth.
Thanks again for reading this week’s roundup! Have a great weekend, and leave any thoughts in the comments!
