Matthew S. Hopper— Last month, path-breaking investigative journalism—most prominently Ian Urbina’s “Outlaw Ocean” series in The New York Times—exposed tragic connections between global consumer demand and contemporary slavery. These investigations revealed how men and boys across Southeast Asia have been coerced, captured, or sold into slavery or harsh, slave-like conditions aboard
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 both happy and tragic anniversaries, including the
Margo Anderson— In these dog days of summer 2015, the 2016 presidential election campaign is already in full swing. Twenty-two announced candidates (seventeen Republicans and five Democrats) are already filling the airwaves with their pitches, though the first actual delegate selection event, the Iowa Caucuses, is not for another five
Bernie Krause— Nearly twenty years ago, while exploring links between natural soundscapes and music, my dear late father-in-law introduced me to the writings of Paul Shepard. The book, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human, contained a chapter titled “The Gift of Music.” One particular line in that section stood
Mark Polizzotti— The Paris of Patrick Modiano’s fictions is a city that no longer exists, and perhaps never did. There is a character and a topology typical of his version of the city, a peculiar atmosphere (even when the sun is blazing, the streets seem shrouded in gray), an architecture,
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 Cecil the Lion, the concept of
Janet Polasky— The interconnections of today’s global society are inescapable. So why should we imagine that the founding fathers dreamed of freedom in isolation? The Atlantic World had never been as tightly interconnected as at the end of the eighteenth century. Two centuries before the Arab Spring, without electronic social
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 Thalidomide, World Elephant Day, and the
Matthew P. Dziennik— Close your eyes and try to conjure an image of an eighteenth-century Highlander. What comes to mind? Barren glens populated by windswept warriors, clad from head to toe in tartan plaids, highly skilled and heavily armed—and equally heavily bearded. Or maybe a diet of Hollywood movies and
Iryna Vushko— In the twenty-first century, the streets of L’viv in Western Ukraine beam with life. The central squares and coffee shops, packed with people into the wee hours of the night, look similar to squares in Poland’s Krakow, which is some six hours away by train, or Hungary’s Budapest