Category: Author-Editor Post/Op-Ed

June 21, 2020

Our Parents’ Things—A Father’s Day Reflection

By David Ekerdt

“Downsizing is a must-read; chock-full of wisdom gleaned from interviews with hundreds of older adults who have gifted, donated, or sold their “stuff” before relocating to a smaller home. Ekerdt’s masterful writing poignantly reveals why parting with cherished possessions is...

June 3, 2020

Clothes Make the Person. Clothes Make the Nation
By Guojun Wang

“A marvelous piece of scholarship, Staging Personhood presents an exhaustive study of the function of clothing on stage and off. While speaking to issues of sexuality, gender, masculinity, and status in real society, the book goes beyond the existing literature...

May 28, 2020

COVID-19: War or Virus?
by Sunny Xiang

“Tonal Intelligence is smart and theoretically sophisticated. The book marks a significant contribution to work in Asian American and Asian studies, studies of twentieth-century literature and culture, theories of form and affect, and transpacific studies of late twentieth-century Asia.” ~Denise...

May 26, 2020

The Philippine Revolution Constructs ‘Asia’ and Civilization from the Periphery

By Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz

The turn of the twentieth century is an important moment globally because of the changes in technology, sovereignty, human exchange, and ideology that it wrought. It is also a turning point for a more concentrated area: Southeast Asia—with imperial subjugation...

May 13, 2020

Postpandemic Hopes

By Michael Symons

“As an academic economist and former chef, this is a book I wish I had written. Symons’s work provides a unique contribution through its fusion of philosophy, economics, and food, arguing for the need to reject the acquisitive self-interest ethos...

May 7, 2020

Food as Medicine, Medicine as Food

By Brian R. Dott

“A learned as well as lively book with many surprises. How chile peppers came to China from the New World just starts a story involving taste, regionalism, adaptation, and folklore. Chiles were key to Chinese cuisine’s subtlety and variety, and...

May 5, 2020

In the Leper Colony

By Arthur Bradley

“A conceptual passage of extreme interest that, by rethinking the performative role of negation, widens the boundaries of political ontology. The sources used—ancient, modern, and contemporary—place this work at the center of current philosophical and political debate.” ~Roberto Esposito, author...

April 29, 2020

How Damage to the Environment Leads to the Emergence of Previously Unknown Diseases

By Geoffrey Heal

“Geoffrey Heal’s scholarly work on environmental economics, the role of the state in economic life, and other contributions to economic analysis have been of great importance and wide reputation. He has now prepared a widely accessible yet careful and responsible...

April 23, 2020

Origin Stories

By Mike Chasar

“A persuasive, thoroughly researched, memorable, and often delightful book. Mike Chasar has excelled in his ambitious coverage of primary sources. Moreover, this is a book that addresses questions that come up frequently in the poetry world about where and why...

April 22, 2020

Picturing Wilderness

By James Clarke

“Examines Cameron’s place in the transitional paradigm of a post-analogue, posthuman, and painterly cinema where impossible bodies are rendered through reassuringly old-fashioned narrative and spectacular conventions that have made his films the biggest on the planet. This comprehensive study outlines...

April 16, 2020

Why Stakeholder Capitalism Is a Good Bet in Times of Crisis

By Georgia Levenson Keohane

“Capital and the Common Good shows we are living in a time where financial tools can expand to solve some of the world’s most vexing problems. This book is packed with information and inspiration.” ~Robert J. Shiller, Nobel Laureate in...

April 8, 2020

Three Lessons from COVID-19 for the Next Pandemic: The State, Companies, and Civil Society

By Mark L. Clifford

“In this well-researched and ultimately optimistic account, Mark L. Clifford makes the case that environmental policies ‘can and must be fixed’ and gives us examples of companies that have worked to find private-sector solutions. In doing so, he sheds much-needed...