Duke University Press Log

Benjamin Reiss on Mental-Health Profiling in Higher Education

Featured in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education is an article called "Campus Security and the Specter of Mental-Health Profiling" which looks at the recent Arizona shootings in the context of what colleges and universities are doing in reaction to potentially violent students.  The article is written by Benjamin Reiss, a professor of English and the director of graduate studies at Emory University, and a contributor to the most recent issue of Social Text.  For more on this topic, read his article "Madness after Virginia Tech: From Psychiatric Risk to Institutional Vulnerability," for free here.

Guest Post: Abdeslam Maghraoui on the Roots of the Egyptian Protests

Today's post is by Abdeslam Maghraoui, Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University, and author of Liberalism without Democracy: Nationhood and Citizenship in Egypt, 1922–1936.

The mass protests across Egypt this week seem to be coalescing into an unwavering movement intent on toppling Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime.  The magnitude, momentum, and direction of the protests are similar to the movement that forced president Ben Ali to flee Tunisia in January.  Despite significant social and cultural differences, the movements in both countries are fueled by apprehension about endemic social problems and decades of oppressive, authoritarian rule.  Mubarak’s external support and domestic pockets of resistance may delay and influence change, but a revolutionary outcome seems to be already in the making.

    For one, Egypt’s social problems are in many ways worse than Tunisia’s.  Regardless of the scope and speed of unfolding events, Mubarak’s regime is unlikely to survive the challenge.  Thirty million out of Egypt’s 81 million inhabitants live on less than two dollars a day.  Seventy-five percent of the population is under the age of 30 and many are jobless college graduates.  Increasing inflation, high food prices, and stagnant salaries during the last decade have battered middle class families.  Millions of poor and middle class Egyptians juggle two or three different jobs to make ends meet.  According to recent World Bank figures, one-fifth of Egyptians live bellow the poverty line.  In the meantime, the country’s top political and economic elites, associated with the inner circles of power, lead luxurious life styles.  Cairo’s chic, Beverly Hills’ like neighborhoods stand in sharp contrast to the rest of the country. 

Sophia A. McClennen Shares Insights into Ariel Dorfman's Work

Check out our most recent author interview video! Sophia A. McClennen, author of Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope, answers a few questions about her book and tells Helena Knox, our Exhibits Manager, about her acquaintance with the internationally renowned Dorfman and how that affected the book project.

 

Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope is a critical introduction to the life and work of the internationally renowned writer, activist, and intellectual Ariel Dorfman. It is the first book about the author in English and the first in any language to address the full range of his writing to date.

Shakesqueer Authors Read in Atlanta

Last week Outwrite Bookstore in Atlanta hosted Madhavi Menon, editor of the new book Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare and Richard Rambuss, a contributor to the volume. We're pleased to share a few photos.

Madhavi Menon describing the Shakesqueer project.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Rambuss, a contributor to Shakesqueer, Madhavi Menon, and Philip Rafshoon, owner of Outwrite. 

 

Madhavi Menon and Richard Rambuss and the staff of Outwrite.

Duke Professor and Author Reynolds Price Dies

The Duke community is mourning the death of Reynolds Price, Professor of English for over fifty years and beloved author of more than three dozen books. The New York Times called him "one of the most important voices in modern Southern fiction" in their obituary. At Duke he is remembered also as a beloved teacher whose rich, deep voice was instantly recognizable on campus. Duke President Richard Brodhead told the News and Observer, "Reynolds was a part of the soul of Duke; he loved this university and always wanted to make it better. We can scarcely imagine Duke without Reynolds Price." At Duke Press we were proud to publish Price's notebooks in 1998, in the form of the book Learning a Trade: A Craftsman’s Notebooks: 1955-1997. Critics praised the book for giving readers a look into the workings of the mind of an author. "Learning a Trade is a rare contemporary example of [a published working journal], giving us an almost full documentary of the mind of this author," wrote Alexander Theroux in the Wall Street Journal. Duke University Press Books Marketing Mangaer Emily Young sums up our experience working with Price: "It was an honor to be able to work with him on this project and to share in his unending generosity and enthusiasm for the craft of writing and teaching others about writing. And his deep appreciation for the role of publishing was felt in every email and conversation. He wrote in an email to me, after a meeting to discuss how to market his book, 'delighted to know the staff are hopeful—thanks again for all the good feeling.' And now we say thank you, Reynolds Price, for all the good feeling you brought to our world at here Duke Press. You will be missed."

Jennifer Holberg discusses Pedagogy at the MLA

Jennifer Holberg, founding co-editor of the journal Pedagogy, sat down with us at the recent MLA annual meeting to discuss submissions, recent special issues, her favorite memories of editing the journal, and what sets Pedagogy apart from other journals in its field:

  

Mellon Foundation Announces Art History Publication Initiative

Duke University Press, in collaboration with the University of Washington Press, the Pennsylvania State University Press, and the University of Pennsylvania Press, has been awarded a collaborative publishing grant of $1.257 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to publish first books by scholars in the field of art history. The Art History Publication Initiative (AHPI) will assist in the publication of 40 books over five years through an innovative collaboration that addresses the special challenges facing art historical scholarship in the digital age.

    AHPI aims to make art historical scholarship more widely accessible in both print and electronic forms. Authors whose projects are selected for inclusion in AHPI will receive financial assistance and guided support to acquire illustrations and secure permissions. All books published with AHPI support will appear in both print and digital editions. Once published, AHPI books will have an ongoing web presence on a shared website housing electronic enhancements to standard print publication, including but not limited to audio, video, illustrative material, animation, and podcasts, and will benefit from a robust print and digital marketing program.

Duke Authors at the Modern Language Association 2011 Meeting

We had a great time attending the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Modern Language Association in Los Angeles, CA, January 6-9th. We had a lot of Duke authors and journal editors stop by our booth. Here are some photos we took.

 

Homay King, author of Lost in Translation: Orientalism, Cinema, and the Enigmatic Signifier

 

 

 

 

Monica L. Miller, author of Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity

 

 

 

 

 

Heather Love, special issue editor of "Rethinking Sex," a special issue of GLQ

 

 

 

 

R. John Williams (Yale), winner of the American Literature Section's Foerster Prize

 

 

 

Monika Kaup, co-editor of Baroque New Worlds: Representation, Transculturation, Counterconquest

 

 

 

 

Andrew Parker, co-editor of After Sex?: On Writing since Queer Theory

 

 

 

 

Marshall Brown, editor of MLQ

 

 

 

 

 

Frances Smith Foster, winner of American Literature Section's Hubbell Prize

 

 

 

 

Barbara Foley, author of Wrestling with the Left: The Making of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

 

 

 

 

Richard T. Rodriguez, author of Next of Kin: The Family in Chicano/a Cultural Politics

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth Freeman, author of Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories

 

 

 

 

 

Sophia A. McClennen, author of Ariel Dorfman: An Aesthetics of Hope

 

 

 

 

 

Jennifer Holberg, editor of Pedagogy

 

 

 

 

Jocelyn Dawson, our Journals Assistant Marketing Manager with journal special issue awards for GLQ and positions

 

 

Anne Balsamo, author of Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work

 

Kathryn Bond Stockton, author of The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century

Rachel VanWieren, Edward Chauca, and Victoria Garrett at the minnesota review cash bar

 

The great turn-out at the GL/Q cash bar

 

 

Thanks to our Books Exhibits Manager, Helena Knox, and our Journals Assistant Marketing Manager, Jocelyn Dawson, for these great photos!

Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer

Today's New York Times features a story about women living with metastatic breast cancer, cancer that has returned and spread to other parts of the body. Reporter Roni Caryn Rabin writes that many of these women find that their story does not fit the narrative put forth by many advocacy groups: that women can fight their cancer, cure it, and become "survivors." Rabin quotes Dr. Suzanne Hebert describing how she felt when attending a support group full of recently-diagnosed women: "It was a horrible moment. I had nothing in common with them. I was what scared them." Elon University professor Barbara Gordon, author of Breast Cancer Recurrence and Advanced Disease: Comprehensive Expert Guidance, felt similarly alienated: "When I was thought to have metastatic breast cancer, I could not find the information I needed. I felt somewhat like Dr. Herbert did, that I was facing a different world than those with earlier stages of the disease." Gordon was lead to write her book, which is now available for women facing metastatic breast cancer. It gathers in one place authoritative medical information about recurrent and late-stage breast cancer, and it addresses the practical, emotional, and interpersonal aspects of death and dying. Gordon says, "Even though women with metastatic breast cancer can benefit from medical knowledge to enable them to make treatment decisions and though they have a variety of related concerns that need to be addressed in facing advanced disease, there is far less information available to them than for those with earlier stages of the disease." We hope the publication of her book will help to change that.

Duke University Press Award Winners at MLA

Duke University Press was the proud publisher of three award-winners at this year's Modern Language Association conference, held in Los Angeles, CA January 6-9. 

We'd like to congratulate Anjali Arondekar, author of For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India for winning this year's Alan Bray Memorial Book Award for best book in lesbian, gay, or queer studies in literature and cultural studies from the GL/Q Caucus of the Modern Language Association. 

 

We'd also like to recognize two of our journal special issues for being named Best Journal Special Issue from the Council of Editors and Learned Journals: "Sexuality, Nationality, Indigeneity," a special issue of GLQ.  edited by Daniel Heath Justice,  Mark Rifkin, and Bethany Schneider, and "Beyond the Strai(ght)s: Transnationalism and Queer Chinese Politics," a special issue of positions, edited by Petrus Liu and Lisa Rofel.  

Here are some pictures from the awards ceremonies:

CELJ award ceremony: Bethany Schneider accepts award on behalf of GLQ's "Sexuality, Nationality, and Indigeneity"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anjali Arondekar and "For the Record," which won the Alan Bray Memorial Award from the GL/Q Caucus