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Across the country from Camden to Oakland, the contributors engaged with community partners--hospitals, churches, community development corporations, community foundations, and other rooted institutions--to help restore old cities to life. Their collaborative thesis project engaged them with one another and university staff; it may offer a new paradigm for graduate education.

In 2001, the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program began awarding five-year grants to colleges and universities to address a common problem: how to improve the work environment for women faculty in science and engineering. Drawing on the expertise of scientists, engineers, social scientists, specialists in organizational behavior, and university administrators, this collection is the first to describe the variety of innovative efforts academic institutions around the country have undertaken.

Focusing on a wide range of topics, from how to foster women's academic success in small teaching institutions, to how to use interactive theater to promote faculty reflection about departmental culture, to how a particular department created and maintained a healthy climate for women's scientific success, the contributors discuss both the theoretical and empirical aspects of the initiatives, with emphasis on the practical issues involved in creating these approaches. The resulting evidence shows that these initiatives have the desired effects. The cases represented in this collection depict the many issues women faculty in science and engineering face, and the solutions that are presented can be widely accepted at academic institutions around the United States. The essays in Transforming Science and Engineering illustrate that creating work environments that sustain and advance women scientists and engineers benefits women, men, and underrepresented minorities.

Abigail J. Stewart is Sandra Schwartz Tangri Distinguished University Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan.

Janet E. Malley is a psychologist and Associate Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan.

Danielle LaVaque-Manty, former Research Associate at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan, teaches composition at U-M's Sweetland Writing Center.

Cover photo: Joanne Leonard

Transforming Tradition examines the phenomenon of the folk song revival, those vibrant meldings of popular and folk culture that captured public awareness in the 1950s and 1960s. We remember the folk revival as forums for performers like Joan Baez and the Kingston Trio, and as incubators for unlikely radio hits like "Tom Dooley" and "Blowin' in the Wind." But it also gave rise to a bustling and influential subculture of hootenanies, coffeehouses, and blues and bluegrass appreciation, sowing a legacy that remains a vital part of American culture.

Many of the contributors to this collection performed during the revival era. Today, their expertise in folklore, ethnomusicology, and cultural history allow them to blend insider knowledge and trained analysis to offer unique perspectives.

Foreword by John M. Budd; with contributions from Denise E. Agosto, Jeanie Austin, Michael Cart, Mary K. Chelton, Karen Coats, Kate McDowell, Cherie Givens, Mary Ann Harlan, Kafi D. Kumasi, Wendy Schaetzel Lesko, Mike Males, Paulette Rothbauer, Lucia Cedeira Serantes

How should LIS envision its young adult users? Now showcasing an even more rigorous debate about the theory and practice of YA librarianship than its first edition, this "provocative presentation of diverse viewpoints by leaders in the field" (Catholic Library World) has been updated and expanded to incorporate recent advances in critical youth studies. A comprehensive, evidence-based treatment that offers LIS instructors, students, and practitioners a valuable tool for aligning YA services to more fully reflect our diverse populations of young people, this collection delves deeply into such topics as

• the historical roots for current theories and practice;
• how intellectual freedom, storytelling, library collections, and other service topics can connect with the library's notion and vision of young adults;
• diverse YA identities, including critical race theory;
• competing perspectives on young adults’ rights in libraries;
• envisaging YA librarianship from a teen-centered perspective;
• youth identities and the school library; and
• moving beyond coaching to copilot with young adults.

A groundbreaking exploration of the Jewish marriage contract and its evolution in English translation

Translating the Ketubah offers a fresh perspective on the ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract. Traditionally composed in Aramaic, ketubot have been examined in other books within the frameworks of Jewish law and Jewish art. Here, however, Benjamin Steiner shows how translations of the ketubah into English helped Jews adapt to changing social and economic circumstances across more than two centuries.

Steiner uses ketubot to trace the intricate relationship between religious law and secular law, the changing status of women within and outside Judaism, and the complex desire of Jews to be both authentically Jewish and fully acculturated. Steiner further shows how ketubah translation aided Jews to achieve different cultural goals. It has been used to uphold rabbinic law in communities where religious affiliation was voluntary to ensure women's economic security. It has also facilitated socialization with non-Jews and addressed perceived crises within the Jewish family.

Through a nuanced analysis of ketubah translations from England and various regions of the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present, Steiner offers a detailed look at how Jews have adapted ancient tradition to meet the challenges and opportunities of different historical contexts. His work sheds new light on the rich history of American and British Jewry.

A prominent avant-garde poet charts both her personal artistic development and the difficulties faced by women writers pursuing innovative paths.

An accomplished and influential poet, Kathleen Fraser has been instrumental in drawing attention to other women poets working outside the mainstream. Translating the Unspeakable gathers eighteen of her essays written over nearly twenty years, combining autobiography and criticism to examine what it means for any artist to innovate instead of following an already traveled path.

In autobiographical passages Fraser tells how her generation was influenced by revolutions in art and philosophy during the early 1960s and how she spent years pursuing idiosyncratic means of rediscovering the poem's terms. By the 1970s her evolving poetics were challenged by questions of gender, until immersion in feminist/modernist scholarship led her to initiate greater dialogue among experimentalist poets. 

Other essays examine modernist women writers, their contemporary successors, and the visual poetics they have practiced. By exploring the work of such poets as H. D., Mina Loy, Lorine Niedecker, and Barbara Guest, Fraser conveys their struggle to establish a presence within accepted poetic conventions and describes the role experimentation plays in helping women overcome self-imposed silence.

All of Fraser's writings explore how the search to find one's own way of speaking into a very private yet historic space—of translating the unspeakable—drives poetic experimentation for women and men alike. This provocative book provides a glimpse into the thought processes of
the poetic mind, enhancing our understanding of innovative writing.
 

Beyond an adrenaline ride or a chronicle of bravura heroics, this unflinching view of a Minneapolis firefighter reveals the significant toll of emergency response

In this remarkable memoir, Jeremy Norton marshals twenty-two years of professional experience to offer, with compassion and critique, an extraordinary portrayal of emergency responders. Trauma Sponges captures in arresting detail the personal and social toll the job exacts, as well as the unique perspective afforded by sustained direct encounters with the sick, the dying, and the dead.

From his first days as a rookie firefighter and emergency medical technician to his command of a company as a twenty-year veteran, Norton documents the life of an emergency responder in Minneapolis: the harrowing, heartbreaking calls, from helping the sick and hurt, to reassuring the scared and nervous, to attempting desperate measures and providing final words. In the midst of the uncertainty, fear, and loss caused by the Covid pandemic, Norton and his crew responded to the scene of George Floyd’s murder. The social unrest and racial injustice Norton had observed for years exploded on the streets of Minneapolis, and he and his fellow firefighters faced the fires, the injured, and the anguish in the days and months that followed.

Norton brings brutally honest insight and grave social conscience to his account, presenting a rare insider’s perspective on the insidious role of sexism and machismo in his profession, as well as an intimate observer’s view of individuals trapped in dire circumstances and a society ill equipped to confront trauma and death. His thought-provoking, behind-the-scenes depiction of the work of first response and last resort starkly reveals the realities of humanity at its finest and its worst.

History passed in review along the highways of Texas in the century 1761–1860. This was the century of exploration and settlement for the big new land, and many thousands of people traveled its trails: traders, revolutionaries, missionaries, warriors, government agents, adventurers, refugees, gold seekers, prospective settlers, land speculators, army wives, and filibusters. Their reasons for coming were many and varied, and the travelers viewed the land and its people with a wide variety of reactions. Political and industrial revolution, famine, and depression drove settlers from many of the countries of Europe and many of the states of the United States. Some were displeased with what they found in Texas, but for many it was a haven, a land of renewed hope. So large was the migration of people to Texas that the land that was virtually unoccupied in 1761 numbered its population at 600,000 a century later.

Several hundred of these travelers left published accounts of their impressions and adventures. Collectively the accounts tell a panoramic story of the land as its boundaries were drawn and its institutions formed. Spain gave way to Mexico, Mexico to the Republic of Texas, the Republic to statehood in the United States, and statehood in the Union was giving way to statehood in the Confederate states by 1860. The travelers’ accounts reflect these changes; but, more important, they tell the story of the receding frontier.

In Travelers in Texas, 1761–1860, the author examines the Texas seen by the traveler-writer. Opening with a chapter about travel conditions in general (roads or trails, accommodations, food), she also presents at some length the travelers’ impressions of the country and its people. She then proceeds to examine particular aspects of Texas life: the Indians, slavery, immigration, law enforcement, and the individualistic character of the people, all as seen through the eyes of the travelers. The discussion concludes with a “Critical Essay on Sources,” containing bibliographic discussions of over two hundred of the more important travel accounts.

John Wright's collection of interviews and stories about Ralph Stanley puts readers around a campfire at a bluegrass festival while old-timers weave yarns far into the night. Told by those who create, produce, stage, love, and virtually live for old-time mountain music, these tales come from the longtime coworkers, sidemen, promoters, friends, and others in the orbit of the music legend. The storytellers include a scholar who knew Stanley from the early days, the housewife who ran the Stanley Brothers Fan Club, and a souvenir seller for whom the discovery of Stanley's music was almost a religious experience.

Wright also uses these invaluable oral histories as a foundation to describe and evaluate Stanley's long career with the Clinch Mountain Boys and the development of his music after the death of his brother Carter. An appendix covers Ralph's prolific recording activity through the mid-1990s, including a breathtaking forty-five albums compromising more than 550 songs and tunes.