University Press Roundup
Welcome to our weekly roundup of the best articles 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.
The issue of tenure for teachers has been hotly contested recently. Writing at the Voices in Education blog of Harvard Education Publishing, Dale S. Rose argues that improving teacher hiring processes is a better bet for improving education quality than is eliminating teacher tenure.
Jacques Derrida would have turned 84 this past Tuesday, and in honor of the occasion, Cary Wolfe has an article up at the University of Minnesota Press Blog reflecting on Derrida’s legacy and the continuing resonance of his work.
Is new film Maleficent a feminist fairy tale? At From the Square, the blog of NYU Press, Jessie Klein and Meredith Finnerty argue that the movie attempts to “reverse the damage of the common fairy tale motif.”
The 2014 World Cup is now over (congratulations to our German readers), and at the University of Toronto Press Blog, Kirk Bowman provides a post-tournament summary of the politics and identity issues at play in the world’s most popular sporting event.
This week, the OUPblog is running a fascinating four-part series of posts on the epistemology of Christianity, by John G. Stackhouse, Jr. Stackhouse is particularly interested in the interplay between radical faith and radical doubt in the modern “Information Age.”
At the Harvard University Press Blog, Daniel Matlin looks back at a key figure in the attempts by African American intellectuals to help white America understand and appreciate black urban life: psychologist Kenneth B. Clark.
How should we view the place of religion in Rembrandt’s art? At Mercer University Press News, John I. Durham has a guest post explaining the role of faith in Rembrandt’s life and work, and argues that for Rembrandt, The Bible was “a real book more than it was a holy book.”
World War I had a profound impact on literary culture, and in particular on poetry. At the temporarily renamed nineteenfourteen blog of Cambridge University Press (usually fifteeneightyfour), Paul Sheehan looks at the role of pity and pathos in World War I poetry.
Most people view Harvey Milk’s lasting political influence primarily through the lens of his work with LGBT progress. However, at North Philly Notes, the blog of Temple University Press, Miriam Frank claims that this ignores a significant part of Milk’s platform: his vision was one of connected union involvement and LGBT activism.
Those who love air conditioning in the summer take note: July 17 marks the birthday of air conditioning! At the Fordham Impressions blog, Salvatore Basile has a guest post looking at the early history of air conditioning and questioning its future in a “green” society.
Want to write an epitaph but just don’t know how? Fear not! Michael Wolfe, writing at the JHU Press Blog, has broken the epitaph-writing process down to it’s simplest components. Once you’ve mastered the art of the epitaph, he invites you to enter his “epitaph writing contest” on Goodreads!
Finally, we’ll wrap things up this week with a guest post by essayist Sam Pickering (perhaps best known for being the inspiration for Robin Williams’ innovative teacher character in the film Dead Poets Society) at the University of Missouri Press blog. In his post, Pickering ruminates about a life of writing essays about life.
Thanks again for reading this week’s roundup! Have a great weekend, and leave any thoughts in the comments!
