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 found conversations on going to the movies, changes in school disciplines, and people encountering ghosts. What did you read this week?
Columbia University Press has William Paul write about his experience going to the movies in conjunction with his book When Movies Were Theater: Architecture, Exhibition, and the Evolution of American Film. Paul remembers the luxurious “waste” of space and the beautiful architecture that brought the space to life. Today, people can view movies from DVDs to their phones which changes the landscape of how we view media. Reminiscing about his trips to the picture palaces in New Haven, the space made the movies feel magical and dramatic. However, in his book he realizes that these picture palaces did not always have the capacity to provide the highest quality on-screen and made him want to recapture his experience at the Whitney.
From the Square (NYU Press) highlights the National Education Association (NEA) about adopting an official policy position on school discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline. With this adoption, people are recognizing how students of color, LGBTQ, and English Language Learners are more likely to go into the criminal justice system for disciplinary matters. Putting these policies into place is key because in reference to Derek W. Black’s forthcoming book Ending Zero Tolerance: The Crisis of Absolute School Discipline, we also have to advocate for teachers being trained and have alternative processes for the classroom.
John Hopkins University Press compares the current events of Brexit and the Republican Party of the United States to the New Economy of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Society is starting to doubt some of the policies of free trade and globalization and to understand what is happening to the economy, Morgan Stanley economist Enda Curran argues that we should look at the 1930s where governments limited spending and falling inflation. With similar movements of wanting new immigration laws and formations of the Ku Klux Klan, it is equivalent to the United Kingdom leaving the EU and the Republican Party taking on a populist approach.
Temple University Press features Dennis Waskul, author of Ghostly Encounters: The Hauntings of Everyday Life talking about his inspiration for the book. Despite people’s opinions on the subject, many still report having confrontations with ghosts. Dennis and his wife Michele modeled sociologist Gary Marx’s theory of scholars starting off with questions and not answers. With this in mind, both asked questions related to ghosts people encountered and what ghosts do for them. Dennis and Michele kept the readers in mind of providing ethnographic writing that is accessible and enjoyable for the public audience.
University of Toronto Press interviews authors Robert Chernomas and Ian Hudson about their book Economics in the Twenty-First Century. With role models such as Cambridge economist Joan Robinson that makes them continue to research in this area, their book focuses on the failing prediction of the economic crash in 2008 and how the younger generations in this profession interpret it. What makes the field of interest interesting is how economists’s ideas surround us everyday and the type of research that assists us on who benefits and who does not.
Ep. 134—The Therapeutic Benefits of Reading Greek Tragedy