Duke University Press Log

"Our Expanding Oceans" Exhibit Premiere and Book Signing

On June 23rd, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosted the "Our Expanding Oceans" exhibit premiere with a reception and book signing. Scientist Orrin H. Pilkey and his son Keith C. Pilkey signed copies of their new book, Global Climate Change: A Primer (2011), with artist Mary Edna Fraser.

The exhibit will run from June 25th-November 6th and features more than 50 hand-dyed silk batiks by Mary Edna Fraser. The exhibit and accompanying book were developed by Mary Edna Fraser and Orrin H. Pilkey.

Here are a few photos from the book signing, lecture, and reception. To see more, please visit our Facebook Fan Page.

 

View of the outside of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

 

 

 

Artist Mary Edna Fraser and co-authors Orrin H. Pilkey and Keith C. Pilkey sign copies of their new book, Global Climate Change: A Primer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Edna Fraser and Orrin H. Pilkey's lecture. Mary Edna Fraser described the process by which she creates her colorful batiks, and Orrin H. Pilkey explained about global climate change.

 

 

The exhibit premiere and reception.

 

 

Jody Berland Wins the Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize

Congratulations to Jody Berland, author of North of Empire: Essays on the Cultural Technologies of Space, for winning the Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize from L'Association canadienne de communication / the Canadian Communication Association (ACC / CCA). The Robinson Book Prize is named in honour of the many contributions of Professor Gertrude J. Robinson to the discipline of communication in Canada and around the world. Nominees for the Robinson Book Prize must have published a monograph in the previous calendar year, and be a member of the Canadian Communication Association.

Remembering Julie Graham

We are sad to learn of the death of Julie Graham, co-editor of the book Re/Presenting Class: Essays in Postmodern Marxism. She wrote under the pen name J. K. Gibson-Graham with her friend and collaborator Katherine Gibson. Graham was Professor of Geography at University of Massachusetts. Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and colleagues.

Public Space and the Legacy of Racism in Johannesburg

Today's New York Times has an interesting article about the difficulties getting a bus system set up in Johannesburg. Much of the city's poorer black population lives in the outer suburbs of the sprawling metropolis and for decades has had to rely on private minibus taxis to get them to jobs in the city center and wealthy close-in neighborhoods. The 2010 World Cup was supposed to finally bring reliable bus service from Soweto to Sandton, but lingering racism and "not in my backyard" activism by wealthy suburbanites has complicated things. The article mentions a number of geographical curiosities about Johannesburg, such as how a wasteland of mine dumps, factories, and vacant land still separates black from white neighborhoods. Duke Press recently published Johannesburg: The Elusive Metropolis, a collection of essays about the teeming megacity and this coming fall we'll publish a new book that specifically addresses how the lingering effects of Apartheid continue to shape the city's geography. Look for City of Extremes: The Spatial Politics of Johannesburg by Martin J. Murray next December. And for more general background on the spread of megacities in the Global South, check out the collection edited by Andreas Huyssen, Other Cities, Other Worlds: Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age and AbdouMaliq Simone's For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities.