November 17, 2023

Stepping Ashore the Fennoscandian Shield in the Åland Archipelago

Markes E. Johnson

In the narrow Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden, the Åland Islands are dominated by exposures of the 1.6-billion-year-old Rapakivi granite. Limestone is scarce and its fossil content largely unknown to the outside world. Sixty islands are inhabited, surrounded...

November 15, 2023

Q&A: Giving Voice and Data to the Gender Gap in Science

Lisa M. P. Munoz

For more than twenty years, Lisa M. P. Munoz has interviewed hundreds of different scientists about their work in psychology, neuroscience, the geosciences, biotechnology, and immunology, among other disciplines. Time and time again, she heard about the unique struggles facing women...

October 25, 2023

C. S. Lewis’s Claim that Jesus was Either a Liar, a Lunatic, or the Lord Is Either Lame, Ludicrous, or Lousy with Literalism

John D. Caputo

The problem with religion is that, with each passing day, as the Pew polls keep showing, it is making itself more and more unbelievable, and the people who try to defend it make it worse, so we do not know...

October 18, 2023

South Korea Makes Its Own Destiny Amid U.S.-China Competition

Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Sino-American competition is the key driving force of twenty-first-century geopolitics. Whether consciously or unconsciously, all other countries have to define grand strategy and foreign policy in response to the actions and interactions between today’s two only superpowers. No country is...

October 11, 2023

How On-Screen Women Scientists Can Reduce Sexism in Science

Lisa M. P. Munoz

When I was an engineering student at Cornell University, one of my first assignments in a science communications class was to analyze scientists in films to better understand public perception of science. Jurassic Park, Contact, Armageddon, Back to the Future—there...

October 4, 2023

Idiopathic Hypersomnia: The History and Future of Narcolepsy’s Shadowy Sibling

Quinn Eastman

What makes a disease or disorder “real”? More precisely, what attributes allow medical professionals to take a condition — and the people living with it — seriously? My book, The Woman Who Couldn’t Wake Up, explores the history of idiopathic...

September 29, 2023

Alejandra C. Quintana Arocho on Translating Gabriela Mistral’s Desolación

Gabriela Mistral, born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in Vicuña, Chile, has fascinated and puzzled scholars, writers, and artists alike for more than a century. Many have tried to weave together the variegated layers of her persona and her “emotionally outspoken verses,”...

September 28, 2023

Ben De Witte and João Nemi Neto on Translating In the Name of Desire

Let the power of desire not be underestimated, capable of moving mountains. —João Silvério Trevisan João Silvério Trevisan published his third novel, In the Name of Desire (originally Em nome do desejo), in 1983 at a time of climactic political...

September 21, 2023

In Memoriam: Gianni Vattimo 1936-2023

Wendy Lochner

No other philosopher has played a more integral role in the development of Columbia University Press’s list than Gianni Vattimo. He has been part of my program since its inception and even earlier—since I first joined the Press in 2001,...

September 21, 2023

Puppet Flower: How the History of Native Formosa Impacted Global History

Yao-Chang Chen

I was born and raised in Tainan, Taiwan. My ancestors came to Taiwan in 1661, with Ming-dynasty general Koxinga (aka Zheng Chenggong), who led his army to defeat the Dutch and seized Zeelandia (now Tainan). Many readers may know Taiwan...

September 20, 2023

The Ambiguities of Musa Sayrami

Chronicler of Violence in the Uyghur Homeland

Eric Schluessel

“The common people hoped and begged for the Emperor of China, and they wept, and in their weeping, they supplicated as never before.”[1] The first time I read that sentence, it baffled me. It was written in the Uyghur homeland,...

September 18, 2023

Ten Must-Read Books for Climate Week 2023

For more than a decade, Climate Week has brought together some of the foremost international leaders in a variety of different fields to discuss solutions to the climate crisis and celebrate progress. The books on this list do the same:...