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 why many millennials are not speaking up in politics, the food business, and New York City during the late nineteenth century. What did you read this week?
From the Square (NYU Press) has Assistant Professor Shauna L. Shames write about why millennials are not participating in politics. Shames is teaching a summer course on this year’s election and not receiving the same enthusiasm to talk about it let alone partake in the election. She argues that the government few young people are not running for public office and are missing the real politics of what it can do that other businesses or non-profit may not have the capable of. She believes the government has to be seen has useful and respected again to get the younger generation interested in politics.
Duke University Press has a Q & A with author and Professor Brad Weiss based on his book Real Pigs: Shifting Values in the Field of Local Pork. His research looks into how communities use the term “real food” and the number of ways pigs are raised. In this book, he includes interviews by several communities who are in the food business: farmers, restaurant owners and chefs, and marketers. He found them to be important because he wanted different perspectives and display the complexity of working for food and have a “connection” with the topics he was writing about. He hopes that he will have a diverse group of people reading the book and him contributing to anthropology of food.
University Press of Colorado highlights Professor Shari J. Stenberg on feminist politics and what characteristics are considered to be a leader especially with the current presidential election. Presidential Election nominee Hillary Clinton is very much in the public eye and is criticized “for raising her voice” while Donald Trump or even Bernie Sanders are cheered for loud proclamations. She argues that women are seen as not having to raise their voice and it is rather “unnatural.” Stenberg believes that is a the “feminist” approach of becoming an active listener rather than a sign of weakness.
Indiana University Press has authors John R. Wennersten and Denise Robbins write on behalf of their upcoming book Rising Tides: Climate Refugees in the Twenty-First Century about how the environmental changes around the world are effecting migrants. In 2009, only 30% of Americans believed that climate change existed; by 2012, the percentage went up to 70%. Europe has a large number of refugees migrating to the continent because of the Syrian War that has been going on for over four years. In addition, many people leave their homelands due to tsunamis, rising sea levels, drought, etc. Climate Change is changing how people live.
Syracuse University Press has an interview with the editor Woody Register based on The Muckers: A Narrative of the Crapshooters Club about New York City’s immigrants during the 1890s. A “mucker” was a slang term for boys who ran on the streets in New York City’s neighborhoods. The book offers unofficial manuscripts from William Osborne Dapping that help us understand how the muckers saw themselves and different perspectives on how they viewed the world. The book offers a real sense of the difficulty on living in poverty in the industrial era of the United States.
Burning With Passion: Selected Poems from Catullus