Duke University Press Log

Complete back content for History of Political Economy now available online

Duke University Press is pleased to announce that more than forty years of content for History of Political Economy is now available online for the first time at hope.dukejournals.org. Individuals and institutions with current electronic subscriptions can access more than 200 issues–from the first issue of the journal, published in 1969, to the most recent issue–as part of their paid subscription. Subscribers who have already activated their online access can immediately view the newly posted back content; subscribers who have not yet activated their online access can find instructions on how to do so at dukejournals.org/subscriptions.

For more information, please visit dukeupress.edu .

Polan's The Sopranos in New York Times

Dana Polan's The Sopranos gets a write up in the New York Times book blog, Paper Cuts. It's a pretty snarky one, but it does call attention to Polan's postmodern self-awareness, which we don't think is such a bad thing: "Polan, in his cheerily postmodern way, bounces around between Candide and Ralph Kramden, Theodor Adorno and Donna Reed. At one point he discusses Meadow’s boyfriend at Columbia, Noah Tannenbaum: 'In a caution to any academic who is tempted by overinterpretation of popular culture, Noah tells Tony about a course he’s taking on the gangster film with the title "Images of Hyper-Capitalist Self-Advancement in the Era of the Studio System" — the ironic savvy of The Sopranos here anticipating books by film scholars such as myself!' Well noted, Professor."

Cattelino Interviewed on WMFE

Jessica Cattelino, author of High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty, was interviewed on WMFE Orlando's Intersection. She and interviewer Mark Simpson discuss why the Seminoles first opened a casino in 1979 and what the impact of gambling on the reservations has been, including how gambling revenues have helped the tribe pass on cultural traditions.

Indonesia in the News

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Indonesia today. Indonesia, a democracy, is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and a key ally for the U.S. in Southeast Asia. President Obama lived in Indonesia for several years as a boy while his mother did anthropological research. To learn more about the history, culture, and politics of this fascinating country, check out The Indonesia Reader, edited by Tineke Hellwig and Eric Tagliacozzo. Assembled for the traveler, student, and expert alike, the Reader includes more than 150 selections: journalists’ articles, explorers’ chronicles, photographs, poetry, stories, cartoons, drawings, letters, speeches, and more.

CDS/ Honickman First Book Prize Winner Announced

The Center for Documentary Studies (CDS) has announced the winner of the biennial CDS/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography. Celebrity judge Mary Ellen Mark has selected Jennette Williams as the prestigious prize's fourth winner. Williams will publish a book of her photography, entitled The Bathers, with Duke University Press in November 2009. The previous books in the series are Larry Schwarm's On Fire, Steven B. Smith's The Weather and a Place to Live, and Danny Wilcox Frazier's Driftless: Photographs of Iowa.
Image: Budapest, 2002 by Jennette Williams.

Babylon Girls Reviewed in Times Higher

Jayna Brown's Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern was recently reviewed in the Times Higher Education Supplement. Reviewer Terri Gordon-Zolov calls the book "a remarkable cultural history." She writes, "Brown's richly researched work makes an invaluable contribution to the burgeoning field of performance studies. It is of interest to cultural and dance historians, literary scholars, ethnic and gender studies specialists, dancers and performers and the general public alike."

Cattelino Interviewed in Gulfshore Life

Jessica Cattelino, author of High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty, is interviewed in the Florida magazine Gulfshore Life. The article is about new challenges faced by the Seminole Tribe since the development of their highly successful gaming empire. Cattelino says, "Seminoles, in a single generation, have gone from widespread poverty to a massive shift in economic fortune, and this has allowed them and also forced them to ask tough questions that go to the very heart of dilemmas that we see every day in the United States: What is a just society? How is wealth best distributed? How much of it should go to individuals versus government programs? How do you encourage people to value hard work?"

Negar Mottahedeh discusses Iranian Cinema

Negar Mottahedeh, author of Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema (2008), discusses the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeni, and the International Fajr Film festival.

Duke Authors Win Asian American Studies Awards

Congratulations to the four Duke authors who have won awards from the Association for Asian American Studies. Daisuke Miyao is the winner of 2007 Book Award in History for his Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom. Amie Elizabeth Parry has won the 2007 Book Award in Literary Studies for Interventions into Modernist Cultures: Poetry from Beyond the Empty Screen.  And Jasbir Puar and Celine Parreñas Shimizu are co-winners of the 2007 Book Award in Cultural Studies for Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times and The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/American Women on Screen and Scene. The awards will be presented at the Association for Asian American Studies annual conference in Honolulu in late April.

Health Care Reform in the News

With Tom Daschle's resignation, the future of health reform takes center stage in the news. David Lazarus has an piece in today's Los Angeles Times arguing that health savings accounts (HSAs) should not be a major part of health reform. Cash-strapped employers have been using them to move their employees into high deductible/high premium policies, he says, and workers can barely afford to put any money away in their accounts. Timothy Stoltzfus Jost writes extensively about HSAs in his book Health Care at Risk: A Critique of the Consumer-Driven Movement. Anyone interested in health care reform should take a look at the book, praised by the Journal of the American Medical Association as "an analytic tour de force, comprehensive in scope, scrupulous in scholarship, balanced in approach, and incisive in its policy recommendations."