Welcome to our weekly roundup of news from university presses! Once again, there is a lot to share this week from our fellow academic publishing houses and much to learn on What SUP at the social university presses. This week, we see Ratatouille through new eyes, learn about indigenous ethnobotany, and analyze India’s national elections.
Columbia University Press argues that we should trust scientists even though most of us cannot directly evaluate scientific research. Naomi Oreskes, co-author of The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future, makes her case in the form of a TED Talk.
Fordham University Press shares an excerpt from What’s Queer About Europe? in which Laure Murat analyzes the rodent protagonist of Pixar’s Ratatouille (2007) through the lenses of sexuality and nationalism.
Johns Hopkins University Press considers the challenges ISIS may face in its attempt to seize and control Iraq. Mark N. Katz, author of Leaving without Losing, cites regional opposition, reaction to repression, and rifts among radicals as problems for almost any revolutionary movement, ISIS included.
McGill-Queen’s University Press explores the affinities among Indigenous peoples’ knowledge of plants and environments in northwestern North America. Nancy Turner, author of Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge, writes about the origins of her ethnobotanical research.
Temple University Press studies the way racial biases affect nurse-patient relationships in American hospitals. Lisa Ruchti, author of Catheters, Slurs, and Pickup Lines, outlines the problems that nurses of color face in a segment on Al-Jazeera America News.
Oxford University Press interviews pain specialist Mark Johnson about high and low tech ways of treating pain, what factors contribute to chronic pain, and how Johnson’s research on Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation could affect the world.
Stanford University Press discusses India’s recent national elections, and the erosion of pluralism and minority rights they may herald, with the help of Narendra Subramanian, author of Nation and Family: Personal Law, Cultural Pluralism, and Gendered Citizenship in India.
Princeton University Press requests help from all members of the ornithological community in tracking the migratory connectivity of North American birds. The editorial team of The Atlas of Migratory Connectivity for Birds of North America will collect contributions through the end of 2014.
Fashion or Function?