front cover of Oasis and Casbah
Oasis and Casbah
Algerian Culture and Personality in Change
Horace M. Miner and Geoge De Vos
University of Michigan Press, 1960
Horace M. Miner and George De Vos report the results of a nine-month cultural study in Algeria.
[more]

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Object Lessons and the Formation of Knowledge
The University of Michigan Museums, Libraries, and Collections 1817–2017
Kerstin Barndt and Carla M. Sinopoli, editors
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Object Lessons and the Formation of Knowledge explores the museums, libraries, and special collections of the University of Michigan on its bicentennial. Since its inception, U-M has collected and preserved objects: biological and geological specimens; ethnographic and archaeological artifacts; photographs and artistic works; encyclopedia, textbooks, rare books, and documents; and many other items. These vast collections and libraries testify to an ambitious vision of the research university as a place where knowledge is accumulated, shared, and disseminated through teaching, exhibition, and publication. Today, two hundred years after the university’s founding, museums, libraries, and archives continue to be an important part of U-M, which maintains more than twenty distinct museums, libraries, and collections. Viewed from a historic perspective, they provide a window through which we can explore the transformation of the academy, its public role, and the development of scholarly disciplines over the last two centuries. Even as they speak to important facets of Michigan’s history, many of these collections also remain essential to academic research, knowledge production, and object-based pedagogy. Moreover, the university’s exhibitions and displays attract hundreds of thousands of visitors per year from the campus, regional, and global communities. Beautifully illustrated with color photographs of these world-renowned collections, this book will appeal to readers interested in the history of museums and collections, the formation of academic disciplines, and of course the University of Michigan.
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front cover of Obligations in Roman Law
Obligations in Roman Law
Past, Present, and Future
Edited by Thomas A. J. McGinn
University of Michigan Press, 2013

Long a major element of classical studies, the examination of the laws of the ancient Romans has gained momentum in recent years as interdisciplinary work in legal studies has spread. Two resulting issues have arisen, on one hand concerning Roman laws as intellectual achievements and historical artifacts, and on the other about how we should consequently conceptualize Roman law.

Drawn from a conference convened by the volume's editor at the American Academy in Rome addressing these concerns and others, this volume investigates in detail the Roman law of obligations—a subset of private law—together with its subordinate fields, contracts and delicts (torts). A centuries-old and highly influential discipline, Roman law has traditionally been studied in the context of law schools, rather than humanities faculties. This book opens a window on that world.

Roman law, despite intense interest in the United States and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, remains largely a continental European enterprise in terms of scholarly publications and access to such publications. This volume offers a collection of specialist essays by leading scholars Nikolaus Benke, Cosimo Cascione, Maria Floriana Cursi, Paul du Plessis, Roberto Fiori, Dennis Kehoe, Carla Masi Doria, Ernest Metzger, Federico Procchi, J. Michael Rainer, Salvo Randazzo, and Bernard Stolte, many of whom have not published before in English, as well as opening and concluding chapters by editor Thomas A. J. McGinn.

[more]

front cover of Obsidian Analyses and Prehistoric Near Eastern Trade 7500 to 3500 B.C.
Obsidian Analyses and Prehistoric Near Eastern Trade 7500 to 3500 B.C.
Gary A. Wright
University of Michigan Press, 1969
In this study of prehistoric trade in the Near East, Gary A. Wright uses obsidian—which comes from just a few sources in the region—to analyze long-distance distribution networks and local exchange.
[more]

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The Occasions of Poetry
Essays in Criticism and Autobiography
Thom Gunn
University of Michigan Press, 1999
"For me the act of writing is an exploration, a reaching out, an act of trusting search for the correct incantation that will return me certain feelings whenever I want them. And of course I have never completely succeeded in finding the correct incantations." --Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn is well-known as a poet, and increasingly as a literary critic. The Occasions of Poetry includes insightful critical pieces on writers ranging from William Carlos Williams and Gary Snyder to Thomas Hardy and Robert Duncan. "The occasion in all cases," writes Gunn, "is the starting point, only, of a poem, but it should be a starting point to which the poet must in some sense stay true." The first loyalty of a writer who is "true to his occasions," he writes, must be to the facts of experience.
The book includes five autobiographical essays, which combine to form an engaging account of the author's development as a poet and to chronicle some of the most significant literary currents of recent decades, both in England and America.
Thom Gunn, born in England in 1929, has lived in America since 1954. His books include Shelf Life: Essays, Memoirs, and an Interview; The Man with Night Sweats; Collected Poems; and The Passages of Joy. The Occasions of Poetry was originally published by Faber and Faber.
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front cover of The Occupations of Migrants in Ghana
The Occupations of Migrants in Ghana
Polly Hill
University of Michigan Press, 1970
In this study, which is statistically based on the 1960 Ghana population census, author Polly Hill attempts to show that economically motivated migration takes a much greater variety of occupational forms than is conventionally supposed. Hill reports on the occupations, geographical distribution, and urbanization of Ghana’s migrant population, and supplies notes on 34 migratory ethic groups.
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The Odyssey
Homer
University of Michigan Press, 2002
The Odyssey is considered to be one of the greatest pieces of world literature. Its basic story--the homecoming of Odysseus--is widely known. Although it has often been translated, earlier versions do not give the reader the full sense of its oral epic nature as a song that came into being through a long tradition of sung performances before writing was widely practiced. When finally written down, it retained its oral-formulaic nature in ways that are clearly discernible, and which this translation successfully captures. Rodney Merrill strictly adheres to the use of dactylic hexameter, the meter by which the formulaic language of Homeric poetry is rendered as musical phrasing rather than as a simple repetition of ideas. Reading this version--especially aloud--will grant both students and teachers fresh insight into the nature of Greek epic and Homer's song about one of the most famous characters of all time.
This epic began life as the music composed by a "singer of tales," not as words on a page. As such, its meter allows for pleasing variations with a strong basic "beat," thus providing a rhythmic impetus that carries the story swiftly forward. The resulting "music" has important repercussions for the reader's perception of the many repeated elements that provide structure for the poem and bring out significant themes, just as the repetitions in a piece of music do.
This edition of the Odyssey includes selections for further reading, a list of proper names (with a guide to pronunciation), and three maps. It also provides introductory discussions of how the work came into being and was transmitted until it became the work we read, how it is divided into six "performance sessions" of four books each, and how the poem's various themes are developed. Rodney Merrill's Odyssey is thus an ideal edition for students, teachers, and general readers.
The audiobook is available on twelve cassettes, and is read by Rodney Merrill. This version will bring Homer's epic masterpiece to life like never before. Perfect for the car or classroom!
Rodney Merrill is retired and an independent scholar. He has taught at Stanford University, the University of San Francisco, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Thomas R. Walsh, Senior Professor at Occidental College, has written articles on Homeric poetics, with a forthcoming book on anger in Homer.
[more]

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An Odyssey Reader
Selections from Homer's Odyssey, Books 1-12
P. A. Draper
University of Michigan Press, 2012

Homer's Odyssey has captivated readers and influenced writers and artists for more than 2,000 years. Reading the poem in its original language provides an experience as challenging as it is rewarding. Most students encountering Homeric Greek for the first time need considerable help, especially with vocabulary and constructions that differ from the more familiar Attic forms. For anyone who has completed studies in elementary Greek, this edition provides the assistance necessary to read, understand, and appreciate the first book of the Odyssey in its original language.

Structured to maximize reading ease, P. A. Draper's volume stands out among introductions to the Greek Odyssey. Readers of this edition will appreciate the positioning of all notes facing the Greek text; the frequent vocabulary entries; the complete glossary; the appendix on basic Homeric forms and grammar; and the copious annotations on vocabulary, grammar, meter, historical and mythological allusions, and literary interpretation.

Primarily designed as a textbook, this volume will be an effective classroom tool and a useful acquisition for any library supporting a classics program. The book will find readers among high school and college Greek students, advanced students in Homer or epic poetry classes, graduate students working on reading-list requirements, and anyone interested in maintaining Greek reading skills.

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front cover of Of Vagabonds and Fellow Travelers
Of Vagabonds and Fellow Travelers
African Diaspora Literary Culture and the Cultural Cold War
Cedric R. Tolliver
University of Michigan Press, 2019
Of Vagabonds and Fellow Travelers recovers the history of the writers, artists, and intellectuals of the African diaspora who, witnessing a transition to an American-dominated capitalist world-system during the Cold War, offered searing critiques of burgeoning U.S. hegemony. Cedric R. Tolliver traces this history through an analysis of signal events and texts where African diaspora literary culture intersects with the wider cultural Cold War, from the First Congress of Black Writers and Artists organized by Francophone intellectuals in September 1956 to the reverberations among African American writers and activists to the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Among Tolliver’s subjects are Caribbean writers Jacques Stephen Alexis, George Lamming, and Aimé Césaire, the black press writing of Alice Childress and Langston Hughes, and the ordeal of Paul Robeson, among other topics. The book’s final chapter highlights the international and domestic consequences of the cultural Cold War and discusses their lingering effects on our contemporary critical predicament.
 
[more]


front cover of The Official MET Go! Practice Test Book
The Official MET Go! Practice Test Book
Michigan Language Assessment
University of Michigan Press, 2019
The MET Go! is a standardized international examination designed by Michigan Language Assessment (MLA), aimed at beginner- to intermediate-level adolescent language learners—A1 to B1 of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages. It assesses general English language proficiency in educational, social, and everyday contexts and emphasizes the ability of the test-taker to communicate effectively in English.

The MET Go! is intended for early adolescents at the middle school to lower-secondary school level who want to measure their general English language proficiency in a variety of linguistic contexts. The test results can be used for educational purposes, such as when finishing an English language course, as a motivational tool to encourage students as they progress in their English study, or as a supporting credential for youth opportunities requiring English skills. It may also be used as a bridge to a higher-level exam such as the MET.

The Official MET Go! Practice Test Book is first book to provide actual practice tests for students preparing to take the MET Go!

The Official MET Go! Practice Test Book includes:
  • 4 complete practice tests (Listening, Reading, Writing)
  • 4 sets of practice Speaking Test prompts
  • tips for practicing the different sections of the tests
  • a progress tracking log for recording practice test cores
  • actual test form instructions and a sample answer sheet
The audio for the Listening section can be accessed at
www.press.umich.edu/elt/compsite/metgo.

More information about the MET Go! is available at www.michiganassessment.org.
 
[more]

front cover of The Official MET Practice Test Book, Classroom Edition
The Official MET Practice Test Book, Classroom Edition
Michigan Language Assessment
University of Michigan Press, 2019
The Michigan English Test (MET) is a standardized international examination designed by Michigan Language Assessment and aimed at upper-beginner to advanced levels—A2 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The test assesses general English language proficiency in educational, social, and workplace contexts.
 
The MET is intended for adults and adolescents at or above a secondary level of education who want to measure their general English language proficiency in a variety of linguistic contexts. The test results can be used for educational purposes, such as when finishing an English language course, or for employment purposes, like when applying for a job or pursuing a promotion that requires an English language qualification.

The Official MET Practice Test Book is the first book to provide specific test-preparation materials for the MET. 
 
The Classroom Edition, designed for school use (the self-study version can be found at
https://www.press.umich.edu/11390380/official_met_practice_test_book_with_answers), includes:
  • 4 complete practice tests (Listening, Reading and Grammar, Writing)
  • 4 sets of Speaking test prompts
  • tips for preparing for the different sections of the tests
  • a progress tracking log for recording practice test scores
  • selected practice test vocabulary lists
  • actual test form instructions and a sample answer sheet
The audio for the Listening section can be accessed online at https://umichigan.pressbooks.pub/metpracticeclassroom/.
For more information about the MET, go to www.michiganassessment.org
 
[more]

front cover of The Official MET Practice Test Book with Answers
The Official MET Practice Test Book with Answers
Michigan Language Assessment
University of Michigan Press, 2019
The Michigan English Test (MET) is a standardized international examination designed by Michigan Language Assessment and aimed at upper-beginner to advanced levels—A2 to C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. The test assesses general English language proficiency in educational, social, and workplace contexts.
 
The MET is intended for adults and adolescents at or above a secondary level of education who want to measure their general English language proficiency in a variety of linguistic contexts. The test results can be used for educational purposes, such as when finishing an English language course, or for employment purposes, like when applying for a job or pursuing a promotion that requires an English language qualification.

The Official MET Practice Test Book is the first book to provide actual practice tests for students preparing to take the MET. 
 
The Official MET Practice Test Book with Answers, designed for self-study (information about the Classroom Edition can be found at
https://www.press.umich.edu/11390089/official_met_practice_test_book_classroom_edition), includes:
  • 4 complete practice tests (Listening, Reading and Grammar, Writing)
  • 4 sets of Speaking test prompts
  • tips for practicing the different sections of the tests
  • a progress tracking log for recording practice test scores
  • selected practice test vocabulary lists
  • answer keys
  • audio transcripts for the Listening section
  • Writing test responses with commentary for two of the tests
  • Examiner scripts for the Speaking test
  • actual test form instructions and a sample answer sheet

The audio for the Listening section can be accessed at www.press.umich.edu/elt/compsite/met

 
For more information about the MET, go to www.michiganassessment.org
 
[more]

front cover of Ohio Hopewell Ceramics
Ohio Hopewell Ceramics
An Analysis of the Extant Collections
Olaf H. Prufer
University of Michigan Press, 1968
Prufer offers the first comprehensive analysis of ceramics from 13 Ohio Hopewell sites, including Harness, Mound City, Seip, Turner, and others. Includes 75+ sherd profiles and photographs.
[more]

front cover of Ohio under COVID
Ohio under COVID
Lessons from America's Heartland in Crisis
Katherine Sorrels, Vanessa Carbonell, Danielle Bessett, Lora Arduser, Edward Wallace, and Michelle L. McGowan, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2023

In early March of 2020, Americans watched with uncertain terror as the novel coronavirus pandemic unfolded. One week later, Ohio announced its first confirmed cases. Just one year later, the state had over a million cases and 18,000 Ohioans had died. What happened in that first pandemic year is not only a story of a public health disaster, but also a story of social disparities and moral dilemmas, of lives and livelihoods turned upside down, and of institutions and safety nets stretched to their limits.  

Ohio under COVID tells the human story of COVID in Ohio, America’s bellwether state. Scholars and practitioners examine the pandemic response from multiple angles, and contributors from numerous walks of life offer moving first-person reflections. Two themes emerge again and again: how the pandemic revealed a deep tension between individual autonomy and the collective good, and how it exacerbated social inequalities in a state divided along social, economic, and political lines. Chapters address topics such as mask mandates, ableism, prisons, food insecurity, access to reproductive health care, and the need for more Black doctors. The book concludes with an interview with Dr. Amy Acton, the state’s top public health official at the time COVID hit Ohio. Ohio under COVID captures the devastating impact of the pandemic, both in the public discord it has unearthed and in the unfair burdens it has placed on the groups least equipped to bear them.

[more]

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Old and New New Englanders
Immigration and Regional Identity in the Gilded Age
Bluford Adams
University of Michigan Press, 2014

In Old and New New Englanders, Bluford Adams provides a reenvisioning of New England’s history and regional identity by exploring the ways the arrival of waves of immigrants from Europe and Canada transformed what it meant to be a New Englander during the Gilded Age. Adams’s intervention challenges a number of long-standing conceptions of New England, offering a detailed and complex portrayal of the relations between New England’s Yankees and immigrants that goes beyond nativism and assimilation. In focusing on immigration in this period, Adams provides a fresh view on New England’s regional identity, moving forward from Pilgrims, Puritans, and their descendants and emphasizing the role immigrants played in shaping the region’s various meanings. Furthermore, many researchers have overlooked the newcomers’ relationship to the regional identities they found here. Adams argues immigrants took their ties to New England seriously. Although they often disagreed about the nature of those ties, many immigrant leaders believed identification with New England would benefit their peoples in their struggles both in the United States and back in their ancestral lands.

Drawing on and contributing to work in immigration history, as well as American, gender, ethnic, and New England studies, this book is broadly concerned with the history of identity construction in the United States while its primary focus is the relationship between regional categories of identity and those based on race and ethnicity. With its interdisciplinary methodology, original research, and diverse chapter topics, the book targets both specialist and nonspecialist readers.

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front cover of Old Birch Island Cemetery and the Early Historic Trade Route
Old Birch Island Cemetery and the Early Historic Trade Route
Georgian Bay, Ontario
Emerson F. Greenman
University of Michigan Press, 1951
Greenman and his team excavated the cemetery on Old Birch Island, in Ontario’s Georgian Bay, in 1938. This report describes the burials and artifacts they found during the excavation. Includes 26 plates, 7 figures, and 4 maps.
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front cover of The Old Testament Manuscripts in the Freer Collection
The Old Testament Manuscripts in the Freer Collection
Henry A. Sanders
University of Michigan Press, 1917
A publication of the Washington Manuscripts of Deuteronomy, Joshua, and the Psalms, The Old Testament Manuscripts in the Freer Collection offers copies of the relevant texts, an analysis of the materials used to create the manuscripts, the hands, and textual problems. Extensive plates of the manuscripts are included.
[more]

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On Burning Ground
Thirty Years of Thinking About Poetry
Sandra M. Gilbert
University of Michigan Press, 2009

The highly esteemed literary critic and poet Sandra M. Gilbert is best known for her feminist literary collaborations with Susan Gubar, with whom she coauthored The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, as well as the three-volume No Man's Land: The Place of the Woman Writer in the Twentieth Century.

The essays assembled in On Burning Ground display Gilbert's astonishing range and explore poetics, personal identity, feminism, and modern and contemporary literature. Among the pieces gathered here are essays on D. H. Lawrence, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, and Louise Glück, as well as reviews and previously unpublished articles.

Sandra M. Gilbert is Distinguished Professor of English Emerita at the University of California, Davis. She is the recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, NEH, and Soros Foundation fellowships and is the author of seven collections of poetry, including Kissing the Bread: New and Selected Poems 1969-1999 and, most recently, Belongings.

Praise for Sandra M.Gilbert

"Sandra Gilbert's poems are beautifully situated at the intersection of craft and feeling. Belongings is a stellar collection by a virtuoso with heart."
---Billy Collins

". . . brilliantly combines literary and cultural criticism with the intimacy of memoir."
---Joyce Carol Oates

"An enduring contribution to the literature of grief."
---New York Times Book Review

Poets on Poetry collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.

[more]

front cover of On Louise Gluck
On Louise Gluck
Change What You See
Joanne Feit Diehl, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 2005
On Louise Glück features essays by leading critics, poets, and scholars that explore the work of recent U.S. poet laureate Louise Glück.

Glück, author of nine books of poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Wild Iris, is noted for her searing honesty and compelling first-person personae. Though compared to world-famous verse by Sappho and Dickinson, Glück's poetry has remained curiously undigested among readers of contemporary poetry for some time. On Louise Glück gathers for the first time a diverse array of essays by the leading critics of this preeminent poet. Featuring a probing, extended interview with Glück, On Louise Glück traces the critical reception of her work and offers new insights into her imaginative, mysterious poetry.

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front cover of On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone
On Music Theory, and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone
Philip Ewell
University of Michigan Press, 2023

Since its inception in the mid-twentieth century, American music theory has been framed and taught almost exclusively by white men. As a result, whiteness and maleness are woven into the fabric of the field, and BIPOC music theorists face enormous hurdles due to their racial identities. In On Music Theory,Philip Ewell brings together autobiography, music theory and history, and theory and history of race in the United States to offer a black perspective on the state of music theory and to confront the field’s racist roots. Over the course of the book, Ewell undertakes a textbook analysis to unpack the mythologies of whiteness and western-ness with respect to music theory, and gives, for the first time, his perspective on the controversy surrounding the publication of volume 12 of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies. He speaks directly about the antiblackness of music theory and the antisemitism of classical music writ large and concludes by offering suggestions about how we move forward. Taking an explicitly antiracist approach to music theory, with this book Ewell begins to create a space in which those who have been marginalized in music theory can thrive.

[more]

front cover of On Parliamentary War
On Parliamentary War
Partisan Conflict and Procedural Change in the U.S. Senate
James I. Wallner
University of Michigan Press, 2019

Dysfunction in the Senate is driven by the deteriorating relationship between the majority and minority parties. Regular order is virtually nonexistent and unorthodox parliamentary procedures are frequently needed to pass important legislation. Democrats and Republicans are fighting a parliamentary war in the Senate to steer the future of the country. James Wallner presents a bargaining model of procedural change to explain the persistence of the filibuster in this polarized environment, focusing on the dynamics responsible for contested procedural change. Wallner’s model explains why Senate majorities have historically tolerated the filibuster, even when it has defeated their agendas, despite having the power to eliminate it. It also shows why the then-Democratic majority deployed the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for an Obama judicial nominee in 2013. On Parliamentary War’s game-theory approach unveils the relationship between partisan conflict and procedural change in the Senate.

[more]

front cover of On Parliamentary War
On Parliamentary War
Partisan Conflict and Procedural Change in the U.S. Senate
James I. Wallner
University of Michigan Press, 2017
Dysfunction in the contemporary Senate is driven by the deteriorating relationship between the majority and minority parties in the institution. In this environment, regular order is virtually nonexistent and unorthodox parliamentary procedures are frequently needed to pass important legislation. This is because Democrats and Republicans are now fighting a parliamentary war in the Senate to help steer the future direction of the country. James Wallner presents a new, bargaining model of procedural change to better explain the persistence of the filibuster in the current polarized environment, and focuses on the dynamics ultimately responsible for the nature and direction of contested procedural change. Wallner’s model explains why Senate majorities have historically tolerated the filibuster, even when it has been used to defeat their agenda, despite having the power to eliminate it unilaterally at any point. It also improves understanding of why the then-Democratic majority chose to depart from past practice when they utilized the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for one of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees in 2013. On Parliamentary War’s game-theoretic approach provides a more accurate understanding of the relationship between partisan conflict and procedural change in the contemporary Senate.
 
[more]

front cover of On SF
On SF
Thomas M. Disch
University of Michigan Press, 2005
Praise for Thomas Disch:

"One of the most remarkably talented writers around."
---Washington Post Book World

"[Disch] is without doubt one of the really bright lights on the American SF scene."
---Fantasy and Science Fiction

This collection by the much-loved and lauded science-fiction writer Thomas Disch spans twenty-five years of his career, during which he has supplemented his creative output with reviews and critical essays in publications as diverse as the Nation, the New York Times Book Review, the Atlantic Monthly, and Twilight Zone.

Disch's perspectives on his genre are skeptical, novel, and often incendiary. The volume's opening essay, for example, characterizes writers of science fiction as "the provincials of literature." Other essays explore science fiction's roots-Poe, Bradbury, Clarke, Asimov, Vonnegut-as well as modern practitioners such as Stephen King, Philip Dick, Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and William Gibson.

Disch entertains and provokes with essays on UFOs, Science Fiction as a Church, and Newt Gingrich's Futurist Brain Trust. Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Madame Blavatsky also get the Disch treatment. Throughout, the writing is lively, agile, and irreverent, exhibiting an incisive honesty that is undiluted by Disch's own attachments as a sci-fi practitioner. On SF will appeal equally to lovers of science fiction and connoisseurs of the finest critical prose.
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On the Banks of the Ganga
When Wastewater Meets a Sacred River
Kelly D. Alley
University of Michigan Press, 2002
In this rich ethnographic study, Kelly D. Alley sheds light on debates about water uses, wastewater management, and the meanings of waste and sacred power. On the Banks of the Ganga analyzes the human predicaments that result from the accumulation and disposal of waste by tracing how citizens of India interpret the impact of wastewater flows on a sacred river and on their own cultural practices.
Alley investigates ethno-semantic, discursive, and institutional data to flesh out the interplay between religious, scientific, and official discourses about the river Ganga. Using a new outward layering methodology, she points out that anthropological analysis must separate the historical and discursive strands of the debates concerning waste and sacred purity in order to reveal the cultural complexities that surround the Ganga. Ultimately, she addresses a deeply rooted cultural paradox: if the Ganga river is considered sacred by Hindus across India, then why do the people allow it to become polluted?
Examining areas of contemporary concern such as water usage and urban waste management in the most populated river basin in the world, this book will appeal to anthropologists and readers in religious, environmental, and Asian studies, as well as geography and law.
Kelly D. Alley is Associate Professor and Director of Anthropology at Auburn University. In addition to being a prolific writer, she has conducted research on public culture and environmental issues in northern India for over a decade. Alley is currently overseeing a project to ameliorate river pollution problems in India.
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front cover of On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë
On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights in Japan
Judith Pascoe
University of Michigan Press, 2017
While teaching in Japan, Judith Pascoe was fascinated to discover the popularity that Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights has enjoyed there. Nearly 100 years after its first formal introduction to the country, the novel continues to engage the imaginations of Japanese novelists, filmmakers, manga artists and others, resulting in numerous translations, adaptations, and dramatizations. On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë is Pascoe’s lively account of her quest to discover the reasons for the continuous Japanese embrace of Wuthering Heights, including quite varied and surprising adaptations of the novel. At the same time, the book chronicles Pascoe’s experience as an adult student of Japanese. She contemplates the multiple Japanese translations of Brontë, as contrasted to the single (or non-existent) English translations of major Japanese writers. Carrying out a close reading of a distant country’s Wuthering Heights, Pascoe begins to see American literary culture as a small island on which readers are isolated from foreign literature.
 
In this and in her previous book, The Sarah Siddons Audio Files, Pascoe’s engaging narrative innovates a new scholarly form involving immersive research practice to attempt a cross-cultural version of reader-response criticism. On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë will appeal to scholars in the fields of 19th-century British literature, adaptation studies, and Japanese literary history.
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front cover of On the Current Situation in the Ukraine
On the Current Situation in the Ukraine
By Serhii Mazlakh and Vasyl' Shakhrai, Edited by Peter J. Potichnyj
University of Michigan Press, 1970
The struggle for national liberation, the freedom to develop an independent identity—these are the issues advocated with fiery eloquence in this absorbing political tract. Written in 1919 by two Ukrainian-born Bolsheviks, On the Current Situation in the Ukraine is the first impressive statement of national communism. Vasyl' Shakhrai and Serhii Mazlakh were passionate advocates of Ukrainian independence, in particular opposition to the policies of Lenin. In their view, Lenin talked about national self-determination, but in actuality his aim was to preserve the territorial integrity of the former Russian Empire and the preeminent status of Russia. On the Current Situation in the Ukraine brought its authors expulsion from the Party; and the book is still suppressed in the Soviet Union. It remains a remarkably relevant discussion of Soviet motives and the national aspirations of states living in the shadow of a great world power.
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front cover of On the Poetry of Philip Levine
On the Poetry of Philip Levine
Stranger to Nothing
Christopher Buckley, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1990

Readers and critics alike have applauded Philip Levine's poems for their eloquent and elegiac narrative and their vivas for the dignity of the human spirit.  In 1987 Levine received the esteemed Ruth Lilly Prize, given by the Modern Poetry Association and the American Council for the Arts in recognition of outstanding poetic achievement. On the Poetry of Philip Levine, the first critical collection to focus on this original and highly acclaimed poet, selects essays and reviews that span three decades.  Included are pieces by Richard Howard, Stephen Yenser, Ralph J. Mills, Jr., and Dave Smith.

UNDER DISCUSSION  Donald Hall, General Editor

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front cover of On the Search for Well-Being
On the Search for Well-Being
Henry J. Bruton
University of Michigan Press, 2001
This book takes on one of the great questions of the day: Why are some countries enormously rich and others so heartbreakingly poor?
Henry J. Bruton organizes the discussion around three basic ideas. The first is that well-being reflects not only the availability and distribution of goods and services, but also employment, values, institutions, and quality of preferences. The second is that ignorance is ubiquitous; hence growth of well-being depends primarily on commitments to searching and learning. The extent of such commitments is embedded in deep-seated characteristics of the society, its history, and the degree to which it can look ahead. The third is that economic policy-making is largely a matter of muddling through; furthermore, the idea that an economy can be assumed to be in a general equilibrium and can therefore be left to itself must be rejected. The author explores these ideas and their implications for the processes of growth and for policies to facilitate that growth.
The book breaks new ground in its emphasis on ignorance and learning and its generalized definition of well-being. Drawing from contemporary work in evolutionary economics, the economics of technological change, analytical economic history, and the new political economy, this work should be of interest to historians, sociologists, and students of technology, as well as economists. While directly concerned with development, it has implications for labor, trade, economic history, and industrial organization.
Henry J. Bruton is Professor of Economics, Williams College.
[more]

front cover of On the Third Hand
On the Third Hand
Wit and Humor in the Dismal Science
Caroline Postelle Clotfelter, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1996
If ever you suspected that economic humor is an oxymoron, read on. This anthology, offering over a hundred selections of economic humor in the form of essays, fables, cartoons, verses, parodies, and epigrams drawn from works ancient and modern, will disabuse you of that notion by way of laughter. The contributors, about evenly divided between economists and noneconomists, share a common urge to poke fun at economics and its practitioners. Their styles and methods, however, range from kind and gentle to mordant and misanthropic; this is not surprising given the diversity of their professions: diplomat, playwright, printer's devil, publisher, columnist, physician, inventor, minister, corporate president, radio star, New York Stock Exchange member, and philosopher, to name but a few.
Bringing economic humor into the light of day, Caroline Clotfelter gathers her collection of materials into recognizable categories: economists as others see them, the language and methods of economics, Econ 101, micro- and macroeconomics, and basic economic models and ideas. Aiding and abetting her include such luminaries as John Stuart Mill, George Bernard Shaw, Mad Magazine, Stephen Leacock, Emily Dickinson, Rube Goldberg, Pogo, and John Kenneth Galbraith. As no other, this book will challenge economists to enjoy jokes at their own expense; noneconomists may have even less difficulty finding something funny in this most dismal of sciences.
Caroline Postelle Clotfelter, former Professor of Economics, Mercer University, is now retired.
[more]

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On William Stafford
The Worth of Local Things
Tom Andrews, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 1995
"[His] poems . . . bear witness to both the care and disregard around us--naming the places, catching the shine of the ordinary, pulling the rug out from under vanity and pretension, giving fresh credit to the selfless and decent, acknowledging the inevitable, nudging us toward observant lives and peaceful interactions."--Jurors, Western Book Awards Lifetime Achievement in Poetry, 1992
The late William Stafford's poetry and essays have had a major influence on contemporary American poetry. Since his book Traveling Through the Dark won the National Book Award in 1963, his awards have grown exponentially as new work has appeared. The range of writers in the past four decades who have celebrated Stafford's work-- from Margaret Atwood to James Dickey-- is remarkable. On William Stafford: The Worth of Local Things helps clarify the precise nature of Stafford's influence by assembling the responses of some of our best poets and critics to his work, including Richard Hugo, Charles Simic, Louis Simpson, Robert Coles, Linda Pastan, and Robert Creeley. This collection offers a unique view of Stafford's sometimes controversial work and insight into several of the liveliest recent debates in poetics.
Tom Andrews is Assistant Professor of English, Ohio University.
[more]

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The One and Only Law
Walter Benjamin and the Second Commandment
James R. Martel
University of Michigan Press, 2014
Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence,” widely considered his final word on law, proposes that all manifestations of law are false stand-ins for divine principles of truth and justice that are no longer available to human beings. However, he also suggests that we must have law—we are held under a divine sanction that does not allow us to escape our responsibilities. James R. Martel argues that this paradox is resolved by considering that, for Benjamin, there is only one law that we must obey absolutely—the Second Commandment against idolatry. What remains of law when its false bases of authority are undermined would be a form of legal and political anarchism, quite unlike the current system of law based on consistency and precedent.

Martel engages with the ideas of key authors including Alain Badiou, Immanuel Kant, and H.L.A. Hart in order to revisit common contemporary assumptions about law. He reveals how, when treated in constellation with these authors, Benjamin offers a way for human beings to become responsible for their own law, thereby avoiding the false appearance of a secular legal practice that remains bound by occult theologies and fetishisms.
[more]

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One Mile Past Dangerous Curve
A Novel
Darrell Spencer
University of Michigan Press, 2005
Praise for One Mile Past Dangerous Curve:

"This book aims to be about the best of us as it shows us at our least. Thank goodness for Darrell Spencer, the only writer in America to be trusted on the subjects of faith, love, weal and woe."
---Lee K. Abbott

" . . . absolutely dire and dear, his best book, a novel about American life right now. . . . this book is accurate, acerbic, and heartfelt at once."
---Ron Carlson

Praise for Darrell Spencer:

"Mr. Spencer's writing crackles with freshness and lucidity, featuring characters who slide into one another in random encounters and relationships."
---New York Times Book Review

"[Spencer] possesses a remarkable ear for the cadence of everyday speech."
---Michael Chabon


From the acclaimed author of Caution: Men in Trees and A Woman Packing a Pistol comes a tale of kinship, love, and lawlessness.

One Mile Past Dangerous Curve is the story of the Dancers---a family on the verge of collapse. Glen Dancer has come to Ohio to set up another in a series of Snapper franchises. But in the midst of construction, Glen finds himself fighting a painful and futile battle with cancer.

His son Eddie, recently divorced, moves from Las Vegas to help. A sign painter by trade, Eddie finds only intermittent work in town until the day a mysterious and wealthy businessman commissions a series of twenty road signs, each different, all featuring odd, cryptic messages. It is on a back-country road, where Eddie has gone to assemble one of the signs, that some previously vague threats become concrete.

Though Eddie doesn't know it, the neighboring woods hide a secret, a secret that a gun-toting rural gang wants to keep at any cost.
[more]

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One Nation Under A Groove
Motown and American Culture
Gerald Early
University of Michigan Press, 2004
In its heyday Motown Records was a household word, one of the most famous and successful black-owned businesses in American history, and, arguably, the most significant of all American independent record labels.

How it got to be that way and how it changed the face of American popular culture are the subjects of this concise study of Berry Gordy's phenomenal creation. Author Gerald Early tells the story of the cultural and historical conditions that made Motown Records possible, including the dramatic shifts in American popular music of the time, changes in race relations and racial attitudes, and the rise of a black urban population. Early concentrates in particular on the 1960s and 70s, when Motown had its biggest impact on American musical tastes and styles.

With this revised and expanded edition, the author provides an up-to-date bibliography of the major books that have been written about Motown Records specifically, and black American music generally. Plus, new appendices feature interviews with four of the major creators of the Motown Sound: Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and Marvin Gaye.

[more]

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One on One with Second Language Writers
A Guide for Writing Tutors, Teachers, and Consultants
Dudley W. Reynolds
University of Michigan Press, 2009

One-on-one encounters with writers often contribute more to the development of student writing abilities than any classroom activity because they are personalized and responsive to individual needs. For the encounters to be successful, the writing tutor, teacher, or consultant must be prepared, must be knowledgeable of what it means to write and the factors that make writing more and less effective, and must also know the students.

This guide focuses on what those who conference with second language writers need to know to respond best to students, recognize their needs, and steer conversations in productive directions. One on One with Second Language Writers provides tips about activities that can be adapted to individual contexts, student writing samples that can be analyzed for practice, a glossary, a list of useful resources, and a checklist for conferencing sessions.

The book is appropriate for use in university and secondary school writing or learning centers, teacher training programs for both general composition and ESOL instructors, and as an individual reference tool. The book uses non-technical language where possible, but terminology is introduced where it might be useful when conferencing with students.

[more]

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O'Neill's Shakespeare
Normand Berlin
University of Michigan Press, 1993

In O'Neill's Shakespeare , Normand Berlin explores the relationship of William Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neill through detailed, often surprising, intertextual readings of the two great playwrights' work. "Of course, it would have been impossible for O'Neill not to have been influenced by Shakespeare," acknowledges Berlin. But this is an influence of an unusual and extraordinary sort, "a family romance" that transcends their obvious differences—a romance that "takes in all O'Neill's life and art."

In the first book-length study of this crucial literary and dramatic relationship, Berlin probes far beyond the usual listing of allusions and references. This is the exploration of an "essential, basic, even natural" connection, in which Shakespeare is shown to have fundamentally shaped O'Neill's creative imagination. Following O'Neill's career chronologically, Berlin divides his study into two parts. The "first career" (culminating in Mourning Becomes Electra) is explored through recurring themes that evoke Shakespeare: the sea, black and white, and the family. O'Neill's "second career" (from Ah! Wilderness until the last plays) is examined through Shakespearean genre classifications: comedy, history, tragedy, and tragicomedy. Though always grounded in close textual readings, Berlin's analysis spirals outward to encompass O'Neill's artistic and psychological development and touches on the questions of tradition, transcendence, and human nature inevitably raised when such literary connections across history are drawn.

O'Neill's Shakespeare is more than a reminder that Shakespeare continues to haunt Western culture; it is a careful and fascinating analysis of a particular legacy in American drama. The book has insights to offer to specialists in Shakespeare and O'Neill, and to any reader interested in the transmission of ideas through Western culture. Berlin's study of the unconscious and conscious uses of Shakespeare by O'Neill provide a valuable new understanding of O'Neill's artistry. It is also an eloquent, thoughtful account that blends the transcendence of Shakespeare's influence with the particular ways in which every era must refashion Shakespeare so that "the past becomes the present."

[more]

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The One-State Solution
A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock
Virginia Tilley
University of Michigan Press, 2010

"A clear, trenchant book on a topic of enormous importance . . . a courageous plunge into boiling waters. If The One-State Solution helps propel forward a debate that has hardly begun in this country it will have performed a signal scholarly and political function."
---Tony Judt, New York University

". . . a pioneering text. . . . [A]s such it will take pride of place in a brewing debate."
---Gary Sussman, Tel Aviv University

"The words ‘The One-State Solution' seem to strike dread, at the least, or terror, at the most, in any established, institutional, or mainstream discourse having to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. . . . It therefore takes great courage---and I use the word literally---to title explicitly a book under that infamous label. . . . Virginia Tilley is blessed with such courage and complements it with the requisite academic erudition. . . . Weaving her way through the historical progression of Zionism and through late 20th century and current international and Middle Eastern politics, she shows how the additional, pernicious state of settlement expansion (abetted by other massive human rights violations that go with the occupation) has brought us to the point where only a one-state solution can provide a just peace (and not just a state of conflict management going under the misnomer of peace)."
--- Anat Biletsky, Middle East Journal

Recent events have once more put the Israeli-Palestinian issue on the front page. After decades of failed peace initiatives, the prospect of reconciliation is in the air yet again as the principal actors maneuver to end the conflict and---the world hopes---bring peace to the region. A one-state solution is a way toward that peace and needs serious, renewed consideration.

The One-State Solution explains how Israeli settlements have encroached on the occupied territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to such an extent that any Palestinian state in those areas is unworkable. And it reveals the irreversible impact of Israel's settlement grid by summarizing its physical, demographic, financial, and political dimensions.

Virginia Tilley elucidates why we should assume that this grid will not be withdrawn---or its expansion reversed---by reviewing the role of the key political actors: the Israeli government, the United States, the Arab states, and the European Union.

Finally, Tilley focuses on the daunting obstacles to a one-state solution---including major revision of the Zionist dream but also Palestinian and other regional resistance---and offers some ideas about how those obstacles might be addressed.

Virginia Tilley is Chief Research Specialist in the Democracy and Governance Division of the Human Resources Council in Cape Town, South Africa.

[more]

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Open Sesame
Understanding American English and Culture through Folktales and Stories
Planaria J. Price
University of Michigan Press, 1997
We humans learn our language and culture through the stories and rhymes of tales we learned as children. By learning the twenty-six most popular and enduring stories collected in Open Sesame, ESL students learn about Americans and about life in America. Open Sesame facilitates discussions comparing and contrasting American folktales and stories with those of students' native cultures. Specific American cultural values are found in the text and debated by students who often find those values confusing and in conflict with their own values. The allusions learned from these American stories are extremely helpful for fluency. 

 Included are such classic tales as "Cinderella," "The Three Pigs," "Johnny Appleseed," and "Rip Van Winkle," and excerpts from more recent stories such as Charlotte's Web and The Wizard of Oz.
The goals of Open Sesame are to teach reading skills, build vocabulary, stimulate discussion, and develop critical-thinking skills. The text may also be of interest in the disciplines of children's literature, folklore, and cross-cultural studies. 
 
The text is accompanied by cassettes that "tell" the stories for learners who have not yet acquired all the vocabulary needed to read these original stories and folktales on their own.

[more]

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Open the Door
The Life and Music of Betty Carter
William R. Bauer
University of Michigan Press, 2003
Betty Carter's lifelong influence on the music world is unparalleled. Her contributions to music as a jazz singer, composer, arranger, and teacher have fostered a generation of musicians and fans.
This book looks at Betty Carter's contribution to the music world and delves behind the scenes to show Carter's growth as a businesswoman who took charge of her career.
Drawing upon revealing interviews with Carter, the author shows how ever-changing shifts in the music industry affected the singer's life and influenced her music. Bauer shows through his analysis of her musical examples how Carter absorbed various musical influences, from Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday to Miles Davis, and made them her own. From her apprenticeship with Gladys Hampton, Carter grew to become a shrewd dealer who learned to do her own contracting, A&R, and marketing and distribution. By chronicling one of jazz's great singers and composers, the book sheds light on how early jazz musicians got their work to the public and how this process has changed during the past fifty years.
William R. Bauer is Assistant Professor of Music at Rutgers University-Newark, where he directs the Rutgers Newark Student Jazz Ensemble, MOSAIC, and teaches in the Jazz History and Research program. He has written several articles about jazz vocal performance and scat singing, as well as various aspects of music education. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and in Europe and include works for the theater and dance.
[more]

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Open Wound
The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont
Jason Karlawish
University of Michigan Press, 2013

A shotgun misfires inside the American Fur Company store in Northern Michigan, and Alexis St. Martin's death appears imminent. It's 1822, and, as the leaders of Mackinac Island examine St. Martin's shot-riddled torso, they decide not to incur a single expense on behalf of the indentured fur trapper. They even go so far as to dismiss the attention of U.S. Army Assistant Surgeon William Beaumont, the frontier fort's only doctor.

Beaumont ignores the orders and saves the young man's life. What neither the doctor nor his patient understands—yet—is that even as Beaumont's care of St. Martin continues for decades, the motives and merits of his attention are far from clear. In fact, for what he does to his patient, Beaumont will eventually stand trial and be judged.

Rooted deeply in historic fact, Open Wound artfully fictionalizes the complex, lifelong relationship between Beaumont and his illiterate French Canadian patient. The young trapper's injury never completely heals, leaving a hole into his stomach that the curious doctor uses as a window to understand the mysteries of digestion. Eager to rise up from his humble origins and self-conscious that his medical training occurred as an apprentice to a rural physician rather than at an elite university, Beaumont seizes the opportunity to experiment upon his patient's stomach in order to write a book that he hopes will establish his legitimacy and secure his prosperity. As Jason Karlawish portrays him, Beaumont, always growing hungrier for more wealth and more prestige, personifies the best and worst aspects of American ambition and power.

[more]

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Open Wounds
Holocaust Theater and the Legacy of George Tabori
Edited by Martin Kagel and David Z. Saltz
University of Michigan Press, 2022
This volume collects original essays on Hungarian-German playwright and screenwriter George Tabori (1914–2007) and his remarkable contributions to the stage. Tabori, a Jewish refugee and a truly transnational author, was best known for his work in New York theater that irreverently explored the Jewish experience, particularly the Holocaust. Although his illustrious career spanned a century, two continents, several languages, and a variety of literary genres, Tabori’s work has received scant attention in American letters, in spite of its significance for U.S. theater and Holocaust studies.

Until Tabori, most dramas about the Holocaust were either rooted in American domestic realism, striving to create a strong empathetic connection between the audience and Holocaust victims, or featured an unembellished documentary style. Tabori staked out a third position, beyond realism and documentation. The volume brings together the voices of international scholars to provide a comprehensive introduction to Tabori’s theater as well as in-depth analyses of his work, discussing all of his major plays. Individual essays address Tabori’s postdramatic theater in relation to sacrificial ritual, performance studies, and post-humanist approaches to the contemporary stage, as well as performance aspects of his productions, questions of ethics and aesthetics raised by his theater, and his plays’ relation to Holocaust representation in popular culture.
[more]

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Opera for Everyone
The Industry's Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age
Megan Steigerwald Ille
University of Michigan Press, 2024
Opera for Everyone: The Industry’s Experiments with American Opera in the Digital Age draws on seven years of multi-sited ethnography to examine the acclaimed experimental productions of Los Angeles-based opera company The Industry. Steigerwald Ille understands The Industry’s productions as part of an emerging wave of U.S. operas that integrate new media and interactive performance through means such as site-specificity and simulcast video, and then traces the company’s path from Crescent City (2012), the company’s first production, to Sweet Land (2020), the company’s final production before switching to a new production model. Steigerwald Ille argues that by moving opera outside of the opera house, The Industry’s productions expose the economic and aesthetic structures key to the circulation of operatic performance at the same time that they deploy opera as a tool for digital listening, community engagement, popular entertainment, and commentary on systemic racism and settler colonialism. Through ethnographic work with The Industry’s creators and performers, and close examination of the company’s first decade of work, this book reveals how The Industry paradoxically provides both a roadmap and boundary line for experimental and traditional companies trying to find new ways to approach operatic performance in the twenty-first century United States.
[more]

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Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age
The Yellow Shirts in Thailand
Aim Sinpeng
University of Michigan Press, 2021

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age is about why ordinary people in a democratizing state oppose democracy and how they leverage both traditional and social media to do so. Aim Sinpeng focuses on the people behind popular, large-scale antidemocratic movements that helped bring down democracy in 2006 and 2014 in Thailand. The yellow shirts (PAD—People’s Alliance for Democracy) that are the focus of the book are antidemocratic movements grown out of democratic periods in Thailand, but became the catalyst for the country’s democratic breakdown. Why, when, and how supporters of these movements mobilize offline and online to bring down democracy are some of the key questions that Sinpeng answers. While the book primarily uses a qualitative methodological approach, it also uses several quantitative tools to analyze social media data in the later chapters. This is one of few studies in the field of regime transition that focuses on antidemocratic mobilization and takes the role of social media seriously.

[more]

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Opposing Power
Building Opposition Alliances in Electoral Autocracies
Elvin Ong
University of Michigan Press, 2022
Opposing Power argues that perceptions of regime vulnerability and mutual dependency by opposition elites shape the building of opposition alliances. When electoral autocracies are consistently dominant, opposition parties eschew fully fledged alliances. At best, they allocate only one candidate to contest against the incumbent in each subnational electoral district to avoid splitting the opposition vote. However, when multiple regime-debilitating events strike within a short period of time, thus pushing an incumbent to the precipice of power, opposition elites expect victory, accepting costly compromises to build alliances and seize power. Opposing Power shows how oppositions build these alliances through case study comparisons in East and Southeast Asia—between the Philippines and South Korea in the late 1980s, and between Malaysia and Singapore from 1965 to 2020.
[more]

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Opposition and Intimidation
The Abortion Wars and Strategies of Political Harassment
Alesha E. Doan
University of Michigan Press, 2007

The abortion fight has long been a crucible of political tactics, with both sides employing strategies ranging from litigation to civil disobedience to outright violence. Anti-abortion activists have arguably been more tactically innovative than their pro-choice peers. Opposition and Intimidation looks at how their use of political harassment fits—or doesn't—with more conventional political efforts in the struggle over abortion.

Alesha Doan's insightful interviews and observations powerfully portray anti-abortion activists' relationship to the objects of their protest. Her portrait is augmented by thorough quantitative analysis of harassment's role within the movement's multitiered strategy—a strategy that Doan shows has forced a decline in the availability and popularity of abortions. Using her unique study of the anti-abortion movement as a model, Doan extends her findings to propose a novel and valuable theory of the new politics of harassment.

"An interesting and sophisticated account. Seamlessly weaves narrative and analysis, tying local action to national strategy. Explores uncharted territory in the abortion controversy and expands our understanding of political action."

—Deborah R. McFarlane, University of New Mexico

"For 40 years, abortion politics have been endlessly fascinating to American scholars and journalists alike because they generate unique political phenomena that challenge traditional theories of political behavior. In this book, Doan goes straight to the heart of the matter by describing, evaluating, and explaining one of the most characteristic and complex of these phenomena—political harassment. In a well-written narrative that weaves qualitative and quantitative data, she gives us the first scholarly look at this political tactic, whose relevance and use go well beyond American abortion politics."
—Chris Mooney, University of Illinois at Springfield

"The book contributes to political theory and knowledge by adding new empirical data gathered from interviews with those in the front lines of the struggle over abortion. The author refines and develops a category of unconventional political participation—political harassment of nongovernmental actors—and explains why it is particularly effective in undermining the rights of women seeking abortions, as well as the rights of abortion service providers."

—Nikki R. Van Hightower, Texas A&M University

Alesha E. Doan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kansas.

[more]

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Oral Arguments and Coalition Formation on the U.S. Supreme Court
A Deliberate Dialogue
Ryan C. Black, Timothy R. Johnson, and Justin Wedeking
University of Michigan Press, 2014

The U.S. Supreme Court, with its controlled, highly institutionalized decision-making practices, provides an ideal environment for studying coalition formation. The process begins during the oral argument stage, which provides the justices with their first opportunity to hear one another's attitudes and concerns specific to a case. This information gathering allows them eventually to form a coalition.

In order to uncover the workings of this process, the authors analyze oral argument transcripts from every case decided from 1998 through 2007 as well as the complete collection of notes kept during oral arguments by Justice Lewis F. Powell and Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Both justices clearly monitored their fellow justices' participation in the discussion and used their observations to craft opinions their colleagues would be likely to support. This study represents a major step forward in the understanding of coalition formation, which is a crucial aspect of many areas of political debate and decision making.

[more]

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Orange Alert
essays on poetry, art, and the architecture of silence
Kazim Ali
University of Michigan Press, 2010

"Orange Alert is a poetic and yogic salvo across the bows of our defensive imperial posturing. Kazim Ali's essays leap deftly from homages to avant-garde artists (Yoko Ono, Agnes Martin, John Cage) to awestruck meditations on ancient architecture, from analyses of poets (Jane Cooper, Agha Shahid Ali, Mahmoud Darwish, Lucille Clifton) to twitter aphorisms. Orange Alert is a revelation, a salve, an invitation to breathe again."
---Philip Metres, Associate Professor, Department of English, John Carroll University

"With their delicacy of attention and bold range of subjects, Kazim Ali's essays hold many quiet surprises. In each art he searches for insight and craft---the virtues of his own patient writing."
---Susan Stewart, Chancellor, Academy of American Poets; and Professor, Princeton University

"Kazim Ali's essays, like his poems, are alive with curiosity and humanity. . . . Orange Alert makes a compelling case for the necessity of poetry on a planet wracked by war and devastation."
---Timothy Yu, Associate Professor, English and Asian American Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.

Whether he is discussing the way cell phones have altered physical intimacy and introduced new verb forms, or the way Emily Dickinson's mysteries are more clearly revealed in French translation, Kazim Ali is at once clear and complex, rigorous and charming, accessible and demanding.

In Orange Alert, Ali discusses poets including Agha Shahid Ali, Jane Cooper, Bhanu Kapil, Semezdin Mehmedinovic, and Samuel Beckett. He considers painters Agnes Martin and Piet Mondrian, musicians Alice Coltrane and Yoko Ono, and philosophers Slavoj Žižek and Jean Baudrillard. Ali links the poetic endeavor to such diverse texts as Moby-Dick, Battlestar Galactica, and Marilyn Buck's prison journals.

Ali discusses contemporary poetry in relation to other art forms and to contemporary television; film; and electronic media, including the Internet, YouTube, and Facebook.

He shines a light on the intersections between cultures in these essays on the craft of poetry, offering a hand to poets either geographically or metaphorically outside the mainstream of Western culture.

Kazim Ali is the author of two books of poetry, The Far Mosque and The Fortieth Day; two novels, Quinn's Passage and The Disappearance of Seth; and a memoir, Bright Felon: Autobiographyand Cities. He is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Oberlin College. He has been a regular columnist for American Poetry Review.

[more]

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Organizing for Foreign Policy Crises
Presidents, Advisers, and the Management of Decision Making
Patrick J. Haney
University of Michigan Press, 2002
Presidents often assemble ad hoc groups of advisers to help them make decisions during foreign policy crises. These advisers may include the holders of the traditional foreign policy positions--secretaries of state and defense--as well as others from within and without the executive branch. It has never been clear what role these groups play in the development of policy. In this landmark study, Patrick Haney examines how these crisis decision groups were structured and how they performed the tasks of providing information, advice, and analysis to the president. From this, Haney investigates the links between a president's crisis management structure and the decision-making process that took place during a foreign policy crisis.
Haney employs case studies to examine the different ways presidents from Truman through Bush used crisis decision-making groups to help manage foreign policy crises. He looks at the role of these groups in handling the Berlin blockade in 1948, the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Tet offensive in 1968, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the Panama invasion in 1989, among other crises. He extends our understanding of the organization, management and behavior of the decision-making groups presidents assemble during foreign policy crises. This book will appeal to scholars of the American presidency and American foreign policy.
Patrick Haney is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Miami University of Ohio.
[more]

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Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism
Teaching Writing in the Digital Age
Caroline Eisner and Martha Vicinus, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2008

"At long last, a discussion of plagiarism that doesn't stop at 'Don't do it or else,' but does full justice to the intellectual interest of the topic!"
---Gerald Graff, author of Clueless in Academe and 2008 President, Modern Language Association

This collection is a timely intervention in national debates about what constitutes original or plagiarized writing in the digital age. Somewhat ironically, the Internet makes it both easier to copy and easier to detect copying. The essays in this volume explore the complex issues of originality, imitation, and plagiarism, particularly as they concern students, scholars, professional writers, and readers, while also addressing a range of related issues, including copyright conventions and the ownership of original work, the appropriate dissemination of innovative ideas, and the authority and role of the writer/author. Throughout these essays, the contributors grapple with their desire to encourage and maintain free access to copyrighted material for noncommercial purposes while also respecting the reasonable desires of authors to maintain control over their own work.

Both novice and experienced teachers of writing will learn from the contributors' practical suggestions about how to fashion unique assignments, teach about proper attribution, and increase students' involvement in their own writing. This is an anthology for anyone interested in how scholars and students can navigate the sea of intellectual information that characterizes the digital/information age.

"Eisner and Vicinus have put together an impressive cast of contributors who cut through the war on plagiarism to examine key specificities that often get blurred by the rhetoric of slogans. It will be required reading not only for those concerned with plagiarism, but for the many more who think about what it means to be an author, a student, a scientist, or anyone who negotiates and renegotiates the meaning of originality and imitation in collaborative and information-intensive settings."
---Mario Biagioli, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, and coeditor of Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science

"This is an important collection that addresses issues of great significance to teachers, to students, and to scholars across several disciplines. . . . These essays tackle their topics head-on in ways that are both accessible and provocative."
---Andrea Lunsford, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English, Claude and Louise Rosenberg Jr. Fellow, and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University and coauthor of Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing

digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

[more]

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The Origins of Christian Democracy
Politics and Confession in Modern Germany
Maria D. Mitchell
University of Michigan Press, 2012

This book is a pioneering contribution to the history of the founding of the West German political system after the Second World War. The political cooperation between Catholics and Protestants that resulted in the formation of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in occupied and early West Germany represented a significant change from a long history of hostility in confessional relations. Given that the CDU went on to dominate politics in West Germany well into the 1960s, Maria D. Mitchell argues that an understanding of what made this interconfessional party possible is crucial to an exploration of German history in the postwar period. She examines the political history of party formation as well as the religious beliefs and motivations that shaped the party's philosophy and positions. She provides an authoritative guide to the complex processes of maneuvering and negotiation that produced the CDU during 1945-46. The full range of political possibilities is discussed, including the suppressed alternatives to the Adenauer/Erhard axis that eventually defined the party's trajectory during the 1950s and the abortive Christian Socialism associated with Jacob Kaiser.

[more]

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The Origins of Free Verse
H. T. Kirby-Smith
University of Michigan Press, 1998
H. T. Kirby-Smith offers a far-ranging and intellectually engaging study of the literary history of the debated genre of free verse, aimed not at perpetuating a particular dispute but instead at discovering the generative points of this often celebrated, often maligned form.
Though free verse became a dominant poetic mode only in the twentieth century, Kirby-Smith finds its roots in seventeenth-century England. Beginning his study with writers such as John Milton--who was considered by T. S. Eliot to be the greatest writer of free verse in English--the author places recent and divisive topics in poetics in context, showing them to be attenuated remnants of issues first broached hundreds of years ago.
The book seeks to establish a consensus on the nature of free verse, with reference to critics and poets including Pound, Eliot, Williams, Amy Lowell, Yvor Winters, and Hugh Kenner. Good free verse, argues Kirby-Smith, arises as a reaction to a well-established set of conventions. Likewise, The Origins of Free Verse goes against the conventions of existing poetic scholarship, offering an encompassing yet fresh--and controversial--literary history of free verse.
"At moments, this study is revelatory. . . . In its range and detail it offers a way of thinking about the history of English-language prosody which recognizes the importance of the poet's individual choices and undercuts our century's vanity. . . . Poetry is a learned art, and Kirby-Smith brings both insight and much learning to reading it." --Times Literary Supplement
"The best study of free verse I have seen. . . . The Origins of Free Verse is a book that all students of prosody will want to read. " --Harvard Review
". . . a witty and polemical account of the emergence and development of free verse." --Choice
H. T. Kirby-Smith is Professor of English, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
[more]

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Origins of Liberal Dominance
State, Church, and Party in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Andrew C. Gould
University of Michigan Press, 1999
How did liberal movements reshape the modern world? Origins of Liberal Dominance offers a revealing account of how states, churches, and parties joined together in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany to produce fundamentally new forms of organization that have shaped contemporary politics.
Modern political life emerged when liberal movements sought to establish elections, constitutions, free markets, and religious liberty. Yet liberalism even at its height faced strong and often successful opposition from conservatives. What explains why liberals overcame their opponents in some countries but not in others? This book compares successful and unsuccessful attempts to build liberal political parties and establish liberal regimes in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Germany from 1815 to World War I.
Andrew Gould argues that relations between states and churches set powerful conditions on any attempt at liberalization. Liberal movements that enhanced religious authority while reforming the state won clerical support and successfully built liberal institutions of government. Furthermore, liberal movements that organized peasant backing around religious issues founded or sustained mass movements to support liberal regimes.
Origins of Liberal Dominance offers striking new insights into the emergence of modern states and regimes. It will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists, comparative historians, and those interested in comparative politics, regime change and state-building, democratization, religion and politics, and European politics.
Andrew C. Gould is Assistant Professor of Government and Kellogg Institute Fellow, University of Notre Dame.
[more]

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The Origins of Mexican Catholicism
Nahua Rituals and Christian Sacraments in Sixteenth-Century Mexico
Osvaldo F. Pardo
University of Michigan Press, 2004
"Pardo's study provides a persuasive criticism of the widespread assumption that the process of Christianization in Mexico can be conceived as the imposition of a complete and fool-proof system that did not accept doubts or compromises. The Origins of Mexican Catholicism will become an invaluable tool for future researchers and enrich future debates on the subject."
---Fernando Cervantes, Bristol University, UK

"Pardo does an excellent job of balancing and contrasting sixteenth-century Catholic theology with Nahua thought and belief."
---John F. Schwaller, University of Minnesota


At first glance, religious conversion may appear to be only a one-way street. When studying sixteenth-century Mexico, one might assume that colonial coercion was the driving force behind the religious conversion of the native population. But The Origins of Mexican Catholicism shows how Spanish missionaries instead drew on existing native ceremonies in order to make Christianity more accessible to the Nahua population whom they were trying to convert.

Osvaldo F. Pardo explains that religious figures not only shaped native thought, but that indigenous rituals had an impact on the religion itself. This work illustrates the complex negotiations that took place in the process of making the Christian sacraments available to the native peoples, and at the same time, forced the missionaries to reexamine the meaning of their sacraments through the eyes of an alien culture.

For Spanish missionaries, ritual not only became a focus of evangelical concern but also opened a window to the social world of the Nahuas. Missionaries were able to delve into the Nahua's notions of self, emotions, and social and cosmic order. By better understanding the sociological aspects of Nahua culture, Christians learned ways to adequately convey their religion through mutual understanding instead of merely colonial oppression.

Given its interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of interest to specialists in Latin American intellectual and literary history, the history of religion, and anthropology, and to anyone interested in cross-cultural processes.
[more]

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The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia
Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and the Social Question, 1815-70
Hermann Beck
University of Michigan Press, 1997
Prussia's social and political structure, institutions, and values were in many ways formative for German history after 1871. After unification Prussia accounted for roughly two-thirds of the empire's size and population, but its weight within Germany was even greater because Prussia in large part molded the German identity and shaped Germany's image abroad.
The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia examines this Prussian/German identity. It investigates the complex traditions of ideas, institutions, and social policy measures that lay at the root of the conservative Prussian welfare state. The examination of the ideas and policies of Prussian officials brings out a peculiar welfare state mentality of benevolence and patriarchal concern, pervaded by authoritarian streaks, that was unique in nineteenth-century Europe. In addition, the study analyzes the historiographical implications of the question of continuity and discontinuity in German history.
The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia is of interest to scholars and students of German history as well as to students of governmental social policy and of the workings of a welfare state.
Hermann Beck is Associate Professor of History, University of Miami.
[more]

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Ornamentalism
The Art of Renaissance Accessories
Edited and with an Introduction by Bella Mirabella
University of Michigan Press, 2011
Ornamentalism is the first book to focus on Renaissance accessories, their histories and meanings. The collection's eminent contributors bring accessories to the center of a discussion about material culture, dress, and adornment, exploring their use, significance, and multiple lives. Defining an “accessory” in the broadest sense—including scents, veils, handkerchiefs, lingerie, codpieces, dildos, jewels, ruffs, wax seals, busks, shoes, scissors, and even boys—the book provides a rich cultural history that’s eclectic and bold, including discussions of bodily functions, personal hygiene, and sexuality.

Lively, well-written, and richly illustrated with color plates, Ornamentalism will appeal to scholars of the material past and social practice, and those interested in fashion studies, manners and morals, gender and sexuality, theater and performance.

[more]

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Orpheus in the Bronx
Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry
Reginald Shepherd
University of Michigan Press, 2010

"Orpheus in the Bronx not only extols the freedom language affords us; it embodies that freedom, enacting poetry's greatest gift---the power to recognize ourselves as something other than what we are. These bracing arguments were written by a poet who sings."
---James Longenbach

A highly acute writer, scholar, editor, and critic, Reginald Shepherd brings to his work the sensibilities of a classicist and a contemporary theorist, an inheritor of the American high modernist canon, and a poet drawing and playing on popular culture, while simultaneously venturing into formal experimentation.

In the essays collected here, Shepherd offers probing meditations unified by a "resolute defense of poetry's autonomy, and a celebration of the liberatory and utopian possibilities such autonomy offers." Among the pieces included are an eloquent autobiographical essay setting out in the frankest terms the vicissitudes of a Bronx ghetto childhood; the escape offered by books and "gifted" status preserved by maternal determination; early loss and the equivalent of exile; and the formation of the writer's vocation. With the same frankness that he brings to autobiography, Shepherd also sets out his reasons for rejecting "identity politics" in poetry as an unnecessary trammeling of literary imagination. His study of the "urban pastoral," from Baudelaire through Eliot, Crane, and Gwendolyn Brooks, to Shepherd's own work, provides a fresh view of the place of urban landscape in American poetry.

Throughout his essays---as in his poetry---Shepherd juxtaposes unabashed lyricism, historical awareness, and in-your-face contemporaneity, bristling with intelligence.

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation.
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Oscar Wilde's Decorated Books
Nicholas Frankel
University of Michigan Press, 2000
Oscar Wilde's Decorated Books addresses Wilde's obsession with the visual appearance or "look" of his published writings. It examines the role played by graphic designers in the production of Wilde's writings and demonstrates how marginal and decorative elements of the printed book affect interpretation.
Nicholas Frankel approaches Wilde's writings as graphical or "printed" phenomena that reveal their significance through the beautiful and elaborate decorations with which they were published in Wilde's own lifetime. With extensive reference to and exposition on Wilde's theoretical writings and letters, the author shows that, far from being marginal elements of the literary text, these decorative devices were central to Wilde's understanding of his own writings as well as to his "aesthetic" theory of language. Extensive illustrations support Frankel's arguments.
While its principal appeal will be to students of Oscar Wilde and the Victorian fin-de-siècle, this book will also appeal to textual and literary scholars, art historians, and linguistic philosophers interested in the graphical nature of the linguistic sign.
Nicholas Frankel is Assistant Professor of English, Virginia Commonwealth University.
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Ostraka and Other Inscribed Material from Bir Shawish, Small Oasis
Excavation Seasons 2005 and 2007
Marek Dospel
University of Michigan Press, 2020

Informal documents and remains of material culture, when analyzed properly, offer a unique window into the daily lives and workings of ancient civilizations. Published here in their archaeological context and with any relevant artifacts, the documents and inscriptions excavated recently in Egypt’s Western Desert represent a valuable addition to our meager documentation of the Bahriya Oasis in the first centuries CE.

This is the first comprehensive treatment of an archaeological dataset from the archaeological exploration of Bīr Shawīsh. Dating to around 400 CE, these primary historical sources include documentary texts written on ostraka, informal inscriptions on various ceramic objects, plus a group of incised lids. The core of the volume consists of an annotated edition and analytical indices. This is prefaced by the historical and archaeological context and is followed by a synthesis of selected issues inherent to the published material. The book includes appendices and pictures of all published objects. Doubling the number of texts and inscriptions published to date from the Small Oasis, this new corpus furthers our understanding of the economic, administrative, and social history of Late Antique Egypt.

[more]

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Other Floors, Other Voices, Twentieth Anniversary Edition
A Textography of a Small University Building
John M. Swales
University of Michigan Press, 2018
“John Swales’ textography might also be called ‘comparative rhetoric in a small building,’ offering proof, once again, that another culture may be only a trip up or down a flight of stairs. . . .such an appealing and original book.” ---BAAL News
 
Originally published in 1998, Other Floors, Other Voices uses texts to capture the lives of three communities operating within a single building (the North University Building, or NUBS) on the University of Michigan campus. Swales' thoughtful exploration of the three units—the Computer Resource Site, the University Herbarium (botany), and the English Language Institute—centers around the individuals who work on each floor and the discourse-related activities they engage in.
 
The Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Other Floors, Other Voices includes: a new preface, an introductory essay on the value of rereading this volume many years after publication, and an epilogue that reflects on and reveals what has happened to the three units in the past 20 years.
 
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Other Germans
Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich
Tina M. Campt
University of Michigan Press, 2005
It's hard to imagine an issue or image more riveting than Black Germans during the Third Reich. Yet accounts of their lives are virtually nonexistent, despite the fact that they lived through a regime dedicated to racial purity.
Tina Campt's Other Germans tells the story of this largely forgotten group of individuals, with important distinctions from other accounts. Most strikingly, Campt centers her arguments on race, rather than anti-semitism. She also provides oral history as background for her study, interviewing two Black Germans for the book.
In the end, the author comes face to face with an inevitable question: Is there a relationship between the history of Black Germans and those of other black communities?
The answers to Campt's questions make Other Germans essential reading in the emerging study of what it meant to be black and German in the context of a society that looked at anyone with non-German blood as racially impure at best.
[more]

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Othermindedness
The Emergence of Network Culture
Michael Joyce
University of Michigan Press, 2001

Michael Joyce's new collection continues to examine the connections between the poles of art and instruction, writing and teaching in the form of what Joyce has called theoretical narratives, pieces that are both narratives of theory and texts in which theory often takes the form of narrative. His concerns include hypertext and interactive fiction, the geography of cyberspace, and interactive film, and Joyce here searches out the emergence of network culture in spaces ranging from the shifting nature of the library to MOOs and other virtual spaces to life along a river.

While in this collection Joyce continues to be one of our most lyrical, wide-ranging, and informed cultural critics and theorists of new media, his essays exhibit an evolving distrust of unconsidered claims for newness in the midst of what Joyce calls "the blizzard of the next," as well as a recurrent insistence upon grounding our experience of the emergence of network culture in the body.

Michael Joyce is Associate Professor of English, Vassar College. He is author of a number of hypertext fictions on the web and on disk, most notably Afternoon: A Story.

His previous books are Of Two Minds: Hypertext Pedagogy and Poetics and Moral Tale and Meditations: Technological Parables and Refractions.

[more]

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The Otherness of Self
A Genealogy of Self in Contemporary China
Xin Liu
University of Michigan Press, 2002
An exploration of the conflict between traditional Chinese ideology and modern Chinese business practice
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Ottoman Eurasia in Early Modern German Literature
Cultural Translations (Francisci, Happel, Speer)
Gerhild Scholz Williams
University of Michigan Press, 2021

Even a casual perusal of seventeenth-century European print production makes clear that the Turk was on everyone’s mind. Europe’s confrontation of and interaction with the Ottoman Empire in the face of what appeared to be a relentless Ottoman expansion spurred news delivery and literary production in multiple genres, from novels and sermons to calendars and artistic representations. The trans-European conversation stimulated by these media, most importantly the regularly delivered news reports, not only kept the public informed but provided the basis for literary conversations among many seventeenth-century writers, three of whom form the center of this inquiry: Daniel Speer (1636-1707), Eberhard Werner Happel (1647-1690), and Erasmus Francisci (1626-1694). The expansion of the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries offers the opportunity to view these writers' texts in the context of Europe and from a more narrowly defined Ottoman Eurasian perspective.

Ottoman Eurasia in Early Modern German Literature: Cultural Translations (Francisci, Happel, Speer) explores the variety of cultural and commercial conversations between Europe and Ottoman Eurasia as they negotiated their competing economic and hegemonic interests. Brought about by travel, trade, diplomacy, and wars, these conversations were, by definition, “cross-cultural” and diverse. They eroded the antagonism of “us and them,” the notion of the European center and the Ottoman periphery that has historically shaped the view of European-Ottoman interactions.

[more]

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Our Ancient Wars
Rethinking War through the Classics
Victor Caston and Silke-Maria Weineck, editors
University of Michigan Press, 2016
Many famous texts from classical antiquity—by historians like Thucydides, tragedians like Sophocles and Euripides, the comic poet Aristophanes, the philosopher Plato, and, above all, Homer—present powerful and profound accounts of wartime experience, both on and off the battlefield. These texts also provide useful ways of thinking about the complexities and consequences of wars throughout history, and the concept of war broadly construed, providing vital new perspectives on conflict in our own era.

Our Ancient Wars features essays by top scholars from across academic disciplines—classicists and historians, philosophers and political theorists, literary scholars, some with firsthand experience of war and some without—engaging with classical texts to understand how differently they were read in other times and places. Contributors articulate difficult but necessary questions about contemporary conceptions of war and conflict.

Contributors include Victor Caston, Page duBois, Susanne Gödde, Peter Meineck, Sara Monoson, David Potter, Kurt Raaflaub, Arlene Saxonhouse, Seth Schein, Nancy Sherman, Hans van Wees, Silke-Maria Weineck, and Paul Woodruff.

[more]

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Our Sisters' Promised Land
Women, Politics, and Israeli-Palestinian Coexistence
Ayala Emmett
University of Michigan Press, 2003
In this powerful and timely book, Ayala H. Emmett examines the political roles of women in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Emmett's insights come from numerous trips to the region that included in-depth interviews with many of the participants. Excerpts from the interviews give voice to the women who played vitally important yet often overlooked roles in the political transformations of the contemporary Middle East. Emmett's observations on women's actions in political venues have global implications, transcending the specific political and social contexts of the region and shedding light on both the strengths of female activism and the resistances of male political institutions.
Emmett investigates the successes and failures of women in the Israeli political landscape, particularly the harassment experienced during the leadership of Right and ultra-Right groups before the ascension to office of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Her account of women's activism in Israel provides a rich backdrop for viewing the compelling events that have taken place in the Middle East throughout the 1990s and offer insights into the future of women's political activism, both in the ever-changing Israeli political climate and in the broader world of women in politics.
"Brilliant in conception and theory, based on superb fieldwork, and clearly written for both specialist and non-specialist reader." --Maurie Sacks, Montclair State University
"A groundbreaking study. . . .Ayala Emmett brings an unusual voice of clarity into the muddled politics of the Middle East. Where most studies ignore or marginalize women's role in the peace process, Emmett highlights women as political actors and shows their capacity to bridge the chasm between two hostile peoples." --Cynthia Saltzman, Rutgers University, Camden
Ayala Emmett is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Rochester.
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Our Women Are Free
Gender and Ethnicity in the Hindukush
Wynne Maggi
University of Michigan Press, 2001
The Kalasha are a dynamic community of about three thousand people living in three tiny finger valleys near Chitral, Pakistan. A tumultuous history has left them the only remaining practitioners of cultural and religious traditions that once extended across the Hindukush into Afghanistan. The Kalasha differ in many ways from the conservative Muslim communities now surrounding them.
Yet despite their obvious religious differences with nearby communities, when asked what makes the Kalasha unique, both men and women often reply, "Our women are free" (homa istrizia azat asan). The concept that Kalasha women are "free" (azat), that they have "choice" (chit), is a topic of spirited conversation among the Kalasha. It touches at the heart of both individual women's identities and the collective identity of the community.
Our Women are Free introduces the historical and cultural landscape of the Kalasha and describes the role that "women's freedom" plays as an ethnic marker for the entire community. Throughout the narrative, Wynne Maggi stays close to conversations and events that illustrate the daily life of the community, focusing particularly on the Kalasha people's sense of humor; on the pleasure they take in work, children, ritual, and relationships; as well as on the complexity and seriousness of their social lives.
Accessible and thought-provoking, Our Women are Free will be of interest to professional anthropologists, area scholars, and other social scientists.
Wynne Maggi teaches anthropology and women's studies at the University of Colorado.
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Out of the Closets and into the Courts
Legal Opportunity Structure and Gay Rights Litigation
Ellen Ann Andersen
University of Michigan Press, 2004
Over the past 30 years, the gay rights movement has moved from the margins to the center of American politics, sparking debate from bedroom to boardroom to battlefield. Out of the Closets and into the Courts analyzes the most recent gay rights cases, and explores the complex relationship between litigation and social change. Ellen Andersen describes what happens when these cases—many overseen by the Lambda Legal Defense Fund, the nation's oldest and largest gay rights defense firm—enter the courtroom, and explains why they have met with mixed success.

Out of the Closets and into the Courts explores both the promise and the limits of using legal mobilization to effect social change. Crossing disciplinary boundaries, Ellen Andersen draws on the accumulated knowledge of political science, law, and sociology to explain the origins and outcomes of gay rights litigation. The resulting book is essential reading for anyone interested in gay rights, legal change, and social movements.
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Out of the Red
Building Capitalism and Democracy in Postcommunist Europe
Mitchell A. Orenstein
University of Michigan Press, 2001
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the countries of East-Central Europe embarked on a journey to transform themselves into democratic capitalist societies. Their governments searched for strategies that would allow them to pursue radical market reforms within the context of nascent democratic politics. Poland adopted a neoliberal strategy that attempted to push through as much reform as possible before an antireform backlash could occur. In the Czech Republic, a social liberal strategy for transformation attempted to combine neoliberal macro-economic policies with social democratic measures designed to avert such a backlash.
A detailed analysis of Poland and the Czech Republic suggests that alternation between strategies has been the secret to the success of East-Central European countries.
This comparative case analysis identifies the significance of reform mistakes during transition and the corrective benefits of policy alternation, its claims illustrated with an in-depth study of privatization policy in the two countries.
Mitchell A. Orenstein delves into the historic struggle to build capitalism and democracy during a decade of post- communist transition in East-Central Europe and develops a model that explains why democratic policy alternation may accelerate policy learning under conditions of uncertainty and constraint.
Out of the Red is accessible to a general audience and as such is suitable for both graduate and undergraduate courses on political economy. It will be of particular interest to economists, political scientists, sociologists, students of postcommunism, and anyone interested in the relations between capitalism and democracy in the contemporary world.
Mitchell A. Orenstein is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Syracuse University.
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Out of Time
History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse
Nicholas Thomas
University of Michigan Press, 1996
Despite the enormous amount of work that has attempted to combine historical and anthropological approaches in recent years, few books have outlined the underlying premises that make integration of the two fields difficult. In Out of Time, Nicholas Thomas argues that a "historical perspective" cannot simply be added to conventional anthropology, which systematically takes ethnography "out of time." Drawing examples from the Polynesian anthropological literature, he points to discredited social evolutionary ideas that have persisted even after apparently dramatic theoretical shifts and to the need to take seriously sources that anthropologists have previously dismissed.
When it was first published in 1989, Out of Time generated much-needed discussion on the appropriate models for historical anthropology. Thomas considered that both the historical structuralism of Marshall Sahlins and neo-Marxist regional systems theory had failed to transcend crucial limitations of conventional anthropology. Yet they provided elements of a more stimulating and critical perspective, which would also take account of contemporary political developments in the Pacific region.
For this second edition, Thomas has added an afterword that reflects on the book's initial reception and brings its critique up to date. He suggests a need to historicize the professionalization of anthropology as a discipline to understand shifts in practice and the need to acknowledge the historical specificity and limits of all forms of cultural knowledge, whether "Western" or indigenous.
Out of Time will be a useful text for graduate courses in anthropology, history, and cultural studies.
"This book displays rare integrity: Thomas' intellectual stance toward the theoretical approaches of others is fully consistent with his own discursive practices." --Contemporary Pacific
Nicholas Thomas is Senior Research Fellow, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University.
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Outside the Lines
Talking with Contemporary Gay Poets
Christopher Hennessy, Editor
University of Michigan Press, 2005
"Outside the Lines explores the personal and historical forces that have shaped the work of a dozen gifted poets. The answers given to Hennessy's astute, perfectly tailored questions remind a reader how exciting poetry can be, and how writers create, through language, the world as we have never known it. These adventuresome interviews will stir anyone who cares about the making of art."
---Bernard Cooper, author of Maps to Anywhere

Editor Christopher Hennessy gathers interviews with some of the most significant figures in contemporary American poetry. While each poet is gay, these encompassing, craft-centered interviews reflect the diversity of their respective arts and serve as a testament to the impact gay poets have had and will continue to have on contemporary poetics.

The book includes twelve frank, intense interviews with some of America's best-known and loved poets, who have not only enjoyed wide critical acclaim but who have had lasting impact on both the gay tradition and the contemporary canon writ large, for example, Frank Bidart, the late Thom Gunn, and J. D. McClatchy. Some of the most honored and respected poets, still in the middle of their careers, are also included, for example, Mark Doty, Carl Phillips, and Reginald Shepherd. Each interview explores the poet's complete work to date, often illuminating the poet's technical evolution and emotional growth, probing shifts in theme, and even investigating links between verse and sexuality.

In addition to a selected bibliography of works by established poets, the book also includes a list of works by newer and emerging poets who are well on their way to becoming important voices of the new millennium.
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Over the Rainbow
Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature
Edited by Michelle Ann Abate and Kenneth Kidd
University of Michigan Press, 2011

"Over the Rainbow is lively, engaging, and thoughtful. More to the point, the field of children's literature needs such a collection."
---Katherine Capshaw Smith, University of Connecticut

In spite of the growing critical interest concerning gender and sexual nonnormativity in and around narratives written for young readers, no book-length volume on the subject has yet appeared. Over the Rainbow: Queer Children's and Young Adult Literature is the first collection of essays dedicated to LGBTQ issues in children's literature. Bringing together significant essays and introducing new work, Over the Rainbow is intended to serve both as a scholarly reference and as a textbook for students of children's studies; gender/queer studies; and related disciplines such as English, history, sociology, and education. Editors Michelle Ann Abate and Kenneth Kidd showcase important essays on the subject of LGBTQ children's and young adult literature ---including Harriet the Spy, Rainbow Boys, Little Women, the Harry Potter series, and A Separate Peace---while providing a provisional history of both the literature and the scholarship and examining the field's origins, current status, and possible future orientations.

Over the Rainbow collects essays by Jes Battis, Robin Bernstein, Thomas Crisp, June Cummins, Elizabeth A. Ford, Sherrie A. Inness, Christine A. Jenkins, Vanessa Wayne Lee, Biddy Martin, Robert McRuer, Claudia Nelson, Jody Norton, Tison Pugh, Catherine Tosenberger, Eric L. Tribunella, Roberta Seelinger Trites, and Andrea Wood. These pieces will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of children's literature, American Studies, LGBTQ and queer studies, cultural studies, and literary criticism.

Cover art: Original title page of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Frank L. Baum, illustrated by W. W. Denslow. New York: George M. Hill, 1900.

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Ovid's Causes
Cosmogony and Aetiology in the Metamorphoses
K. Sara Myers
University of Michigan Press, 1994
Ovid’s Causes offers a new reassessment of the poet’s longest and most difficult poem, the Metamorphoses. This poem has long been denied epic stature because of its stylistic and thematic diversity. K. Sara Myers demonstrates that the poem must be understood as the inheritor and interpreter of the Roman tradition of cosmological epic. She situates the poem in the traditions and conventions of Roman poetry and considers the ways in which it both fulfills and overturns the expectations of the epic genre.
 
The first and final chapters of this book examine the scientific and cosmological framework of the poem. Ovid’s juxtaposition of scientific and mythological explanations is an aspect of his sophisticated manipulation of truth and fiction, and of the claims of philosophical poetry and mythological poetry.
 
This illuminating study presents much useful material for students of Roman poetry or of Greek literary influences that profoundly influenced its development. Students and scholars of ancient poetical traditions will likewise find much of interest.
 
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Ovid's Literary Loves
Influence and Innovation in the Amores
Barbara Weiden Boyd
University of Michigan Press, 1997
Ovid's poetry has in recent years enjoyed a remarkable renaissance: in particular, there has been a surge of interest in the Heroides, the Fasti, and his exile poetry. Ovid's Literary Loves, by Barbara Weiden Boyd, reopens the Amores for the modern reader. The volume establishes a context for the recent reception of the Amores, and proposes an alternative approach to the collection by discussing recent trends in the discussion of imitation in Roman poetry. A premise basic to most Ovidian studies has been that the Amores are not only imitative, but parodic, both of the elegiac genre writ large and of Propertius in particular. In contrast, Boyd emphasizes the many nonelegiac, non-Propertian features of the collection. Ovid's irony and its consequences are also discussed with special attention to the narrative structure of the three books.
Boyd's thoughtful approach to imitation in Latin poetry brings into prominence the formative role played by Virgil in shaping Ovid's "poetic memory," even in the Amores. The detailed examination of Ovidian extended similes shows how the poet exploits the literary past precisely in order to free himself from generic restraint and to expand the narrow horizons of elegy. Boyd argues that this paradox is the essence of Ovidian poetics.
Ovid's Literary Loves is an imaginative approach to imitation in Latin poetry and makes a significant contribution to current discussions of the subject. This is one of the first contemporary scholarly monographs on the Amores, and it will find a large and welcoming audience of Latinists at all levels of study.
Barbara Weiden Boyd is Associate Professor of Classics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine.
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Ovid's Women of the Year
Narratives of Roman Identity in the Fasti
Angeline Chiu
University of Michigan Press, 2016
Roman love-poet Ovid, best known for the epic Metamorphoses, offers in his Fasti the self-proclaimed goal of exploring and explicating the Roman calendar. Published in his maturity circa 14 CE, the Fasti presents claims of aetiological, astronomical, and even antiquarian interests, but more importantly the poem highlights an extraordinary prominence of female characters at work, play, and worship in its verses. From flirtatious goddesses to talkative old women, beautiful puellae to stern prophetesses and beyond, Ovid’s “calendar girls” appear in a vast and kaleidoscopic array of guises and narratives, importing and transforming literary genre and expectation alike in a poem that already in shape and purpose is unique in Latin literature. The poet’s long-standing fascination with female figures that had first appeared in his earliest work and then accompanied him throughout his career now resurfaces in a much more complex form.

Of interest to literary scholars, antiquarians, and those studying the social and political roles of ancient women, Ovid’s Women of the Year offers an intriguing view of an Ovidian poem now coming into its own.

[more]

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Owning Performance | Performing Ownership
Literary Property and the Eighteenth-Century British Stage
Jane Wessel
University of Michigan Press, 2022
In 1710, England’s first copyright law gave authors the ability to own their works, but it was not until 1833 that literary property law was extended to protect dramatic performance. Between these dates, generations of playwrights grappled for control over their intellectual property in a cultural and legal environment that treated print differently from performance. As ownership became a central concern for many, actors fought to possess their dramatic parts exclusively, playwrights struggled to control and profit from repeat performances of their works, and managers tried to gain a monopoly over the performance of profitable plays.

Owning Performance follows the careers of some of the 18th century’s most influential playwrights, actors, and theater managers as they vied for control over the period’s most popular shows. Without protection for dramatic literary property, these figures developed creative
 extra-legal strategies for controlling the performance of drama—quite literally performing their ownership. Their various strategies resulted in a culture of ephemerality, with many of the period’s most popular works existing only in performance and manuscript copies. Author Jane Wessel explores how playwrights and actors developed strategies for owning their works and how, in turn, theater managers appropriated these strategies, putting constant pressure on artists to innovate. Owning Performance reveals the wide-reaching effects of property law on theatrical culture, tracing a turn away from print that affected the circulation, preservation, and legacy of 18th century drama.
 
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front cover of Owning the Olympics
Owning the Olympics
Narratives of the New China
Monroe E. Price and Daniel Dayan, Editors
University of Michigan Press, 2008

"A major contribution to the study of global events in times of global media. Owning the Olympics tests the possibilities and limits of the concept of 'media events' by analyzing the mega-event of the information age: the Beijing Olympics. . . . A good read from cover to cover."
—Guobin Yang, Associate Professor, Asian/Middle Eastern Cultures & Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University

From the moment they were announced, the Beijing Games were a major media event and the focus of intense scrutiny and speculation. In contrast to earlier such events, however, the Beijing Games are also unfolding in a newly volatile global media environment that is no longer monopolized by broadcast media. The dramatic expansion of media outlets and the growth of mobile communications technology have changed the nature of media events, making it significantly more difficult to regulate them or control their meaning. This volatility is reflected in the multiple, well-publicized controversies characterizing the run-up to Beijing 2008. According to many Western commentators, the People's Republic of China seized the Olympics as an opportunity to reinvent itself as the "New China"---a global leader in economics, technology, and environmental issues, with an improving human-rights record. But China's maneuverings have also been hotly contested by diverse global voices, including prominent human-rights advocates, all seeking to displace the official story of the Games.

Bringing together a distinguished group of scholars from Chinese studies, human rights, media studies, law, and other fields, Owning the Olympics reveals how multiple entities---including the Chinese Communist Party itself---seek to influence and control the narratives through which the Beijing Games will be understood.

digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

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front cover of Ozu’s Anti-Cinema
Ozu’s Anti-Cinema
Yoshida Kiju; Translated by Daisuke Miyao & Kyoko Hirano
University of Michigan Press, 2003
Yoshida starts his award-winning Ozu’s Anti-Cinema with a story about his trip to Ozu’s deathbed. Yoshida writes that a dying Ozu whispered to him twice, as if speaking to himself, “Cinema is drama, not accident.” These cryptic last words troubled Yoshida for decades, and throughout this book he examines Ozu’s films and tries to uncover what Ozu really meant.
Ozu’s Anti-Cinema concerns Ozu’s films, but it is also Yoshida’s manifesto on films and filmmaking. In other words, this book is Yoshida’s personal journey into Ozu’s thoughts on filmmaking and, simultaneously, into his own thoughts on the nature of cinema. Every page displays the sensibility of one artist discussing another—this is probably a book that only a filmmaker could write. Within Yoshida’s luminous prose lies a finely tuned, rigorous analysis of Ozu’s films, which have rarely been engaged as closely and personally as here.
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