Welcome to our weekly roundup of news from university presses! There is much to share from our fellow academic publishing houses and much to learn on What SUP at the social university presses. This week we found university presses discussing Veteran’s Day, everyday ethnography, and Chinese filmmaker Wang Renmei! What did you read this week?

Halloween takes place only once a year, so why are we generally so obsessed with the never-dying species such as zombies and vampires? University Press of Kentucky highlights a recent HuffPo post by Candi K. Cann, author of the book Virtual Afterlives, discusses what this predilection reveals about our culture and human nature.

Wesleyan University Press celebrates a long and distinguished history of publishing in dance and has released its dance-related lineup for this season: Carmen traces the roots of this famous character and how her character has become a fixture of the concert stage. Place of Dance reveals how dance is a part of human nature and our everyday life offstage as well as onstage. Other publications include Engaging Bodies by choreographer and scholar Ann Cooper and Through the Eyes of a Dancer by Dance Magazine editor Wendy Perron.

In honor of Veterans’ Day, Oxford University Press recorded and interview with the managing editor of Oral History Review and the director of the US Air Force Academy Center for Oral History on the topic of how oral history gives us a “usable past” with we can imagine history in an accessibly way.

Also exploring the value of memory, UNC Press presents a guest post by Yale professor Jonathan Scott Holloway that talks about how one faces an ethical quandary in exploiting places of historical significance for the tourism trade when such places were the site of profound trauma or a secular shrine.

Joanna Dreby, guest blogger for Temple University Press, reflects on how family and fieldwork can clash but at times come together in her life as well as in the lives of ethnographers she’s interviewed for her book Family and Work in Everyday Ethnography.

This week, our friends at Stanford University Press contemplated the question “What is a Classic?”  Author Ankhi Mukherjee, whose latest book explores the implications and complications of the question, helps us understand this discussion and what it means in our postcolonial, translation 21^st century world.

This week, Columbia University Press spotlighted the acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Wang Renmei. Check out a few stills from his movies with written commentary by Richard J. Meyer, who has recently released a biography of Renmei.

University of Chicago Press highlights Jonathan Silvertown’s latest book that researches the science of ageing among human and non-human species. What causes ageing? How come we aren’t immortal yet? Silvertown’s excerpted introduction sheds light on the topic.

University of California Press celebrates the centennial of the Los Angeles Aqueduct this week! Check out a video they posted in which NPR’s All Things Considered interviews Boom editor Jon Christensen about the importance of this anniversary and how the LA Aqueduct had an impact on both the U.S. and the world.

Attention bird- and happy hours-lovers! Join Princeton University Press’s happy hour chat via Shindig with Richard Crossly and Dominic Couzens, co-authors of The Crossley ID Guide: Britain and Ireland, on Nov. 21 from 2-3PM EST. BYOB and RSVP to the event here!

Lastly, get ready for University Press Week! From Nov 10-16 the American Association of University Presses is celebrating the 2nd annual week-long event that is chock full of activities and talks. Check out the calendar of events to see if there is an activity being held near you and follow us and many other university presses for next week’s university press  blog tour!