University of Michigan Press Blog

Research Confidential: Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have

  

By Eszter Hargittai, Editor. This collection of essays aims to fill a notable gap in the existing literature on research methods in the social sciences. While the methods literature is extensive, rarely do authors discuss the practical issues and challenges they routinely confront in the course of their research projects. As a result, editor Eszter Hargittai argues, each new cohort is forced to reinvent the wheel, making mistakes that previous generations have already confronted and resolved. Learn more about the book...

 

Watch "Cyberspace is Segregated," Eszter Hargittai.

Also, watch: "Google Culture," Eszter Hargittai on CNN's The Flip Side

|Eszter Hargittai's website|
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|Wikipedia: Eszter Hargittai|

One Big (Straight, Gay, Multi-cultural, Traditional) Happy Family

by John Kenneth White, author of Barack Obama’s America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended the Reagan Era

ALSO READ: John Kenneth White on:

MICHEAL JACKSON       SARAH PALIN

AT LEFT: Photo from MODERN FAMILY on ABC, a new show about a single family that must bridge generational, cultural, and social gaps.

"In 1970, Richard Scammon and Ben Wattenberg famously defined the Real Majority of the U.S. electorate as being “un-young, un-poor, and un-black.” Today, Scammon and Wattenberg’s Real Majority is increasingly an historical artifact. Certainly, George W. Bush helped hasten the end of this Republican-leaning coalition by his poor performance. But Ronald Reagan also helped by getting much of his conservative agenda enacted into law. Redefining what is means to be a conservative is a central problem for the Republican Party in the Barack
Obama era.

But other factors are working to create a new majority poised to elect more Democrats. Since 1970, the U.S. has had four revolutions: (1) a racial revolution where whites will be a minority of the US population by mid-century; (2) a family revolution where having a mom, dad,
and kids living at home with their biological parents is no longer the norm; (3) a gay rights revolution where greater tolerance toward homosexuals is prevalent; and (4) a religious revolution where the location of faith is not necessarily in a church building, but in the heart of
the individual.

Getting to Grassroots: Author Clarence Lang

by Clarence Lang, author of new release GRASSROOTS AT THE GATEWAY: CLASS POLITICS AND BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLE IN ST. LOUIS, 1936-1975

"All scholarship is autobiographical.  I often wonder, then, whether my scholarly interest in the dynamics of class among African Americans stems from a desire to grapple with my own contradictions as someone from a working-class background who grabbed certain opportunities, squandered others, and in the process became a black middle-class professional who lives and works very differently from most African Americans.       

When I think of the experiences that may have contributed to my research, I can pull from the fragments of my memory moments from my childhood when I gazed at manifestations of race and class, long before I developed the language to interpret what I was seeing.  It is significant that I grew up in an apartment building in a declining commercial district of Chicago’s South Loop, in a transition point between downtown and the South Side.  I remember that many of the people who constituted the high rise’s community were, like my mother, strivers who worked downtown and considered the building a stepping-stone to greater respectability. 

The University of Michigan Press and The Google Settlement

A Letter from Press Director Phil Pochoda
Michigan Digital Transition

"As you have heard, a class action lawsuit was brought by authors and publishers against Google for digitizing millions of books without permission of their copyright holders and publishers. The terms of the Google Settlement will be reviewed in a Fairness Hearing by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on October 7, 2009. At this time any comments and objections received by the Court to the terms of the Settlement will be considered, and the Settlement will be approved, amended, or disapproved.

University of Michigan Press has decided to opt in to the terms of the Settlement and is beginning the process of claiming books digitized by Google under its Book Search program. We will claim all titles under copyright on behalf of our authors.

Books published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, but most books published by the Press are still protected by copyright. Some books under copyright may have been out of print in prior years, but we have been putting these into commercial offerings again recently (e.g., digital products). By doing this, we will ensure the copyright for these titles are clearly known to be held by us and by you as rightsholder.

Please note that if you hold copyright or if the Press released publication rights back to you, you are solely responsible for claiming them with Google. If copyrighted titles did not revert to you, even if out of print, we will claim these on behalf of authors and the Press as publisher.

The Settlement terms will govern future revenue-generating plans for books in the Google repository, but claims for the books whether by us, you, or both will yield one-time payments of not less than $60/book. This payment is solely the authors' where rights have reverted, and will be shared via contracted royalty terms following payment by Google otherwise. Please come to our website for regular updates, and please do not hesitate to contact us with questions."

-Phil Pochoda

MORE INFO:
Michigan Digital Transition        University Press 2.0         Michigan Launches iPhone Catalog

Toronto, Ontario - American Political Science Association 2009 Recap

Michigan Press staff went lake-jumping this past week to display our latest political science titles at the American Political Science Association's 2009 Annual Exhibit in Toronto, Ontario. We had great booth traffic, lots of sales, and some great face-to-face conversations with interested professors and authors, especially regarding Michigan's new Digital Transition (click for more info)--not to mention some great weather!

See below for just a few of the authors who stopped by to say hi, and some Toronto-area staff photos:

   
Seth Masket (left), author of No Middle Ground: How Informal Parties Control Nominations and Polarize Legislatures, and Michael Brecher (right), author of International Political Earthquakes.

Andy Karch (left), author of Democratic Laboratories: Policy Diffusion Among the American States and Steven Lobell (right), author of The Challenge of Hegemony: Grand Strategy, Trade, and Domestic Politics

Q&A with John Kenneth White, author of Barack Obama's America

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency marks a conclusive end to the Reagan era, writes John Kenneth White in Barack Obama's America: How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended the Reagan Era. Reagan symbolized a 1950s and 1960s America, largely white and suburban, with married couples and kids at home, who attended church more often than not.  The demographics, however, have shifted: Marriage is at an all-time low. Cohabitation has increased from a half-million couples in 1960 to more than 5 million in 2000 to even more this year. Gay marriages and civil unions are redefining what it means to be a family. And organized religions are suffering, even as Americans continue to think of themselves as a religious people.

John Kenneth White is Professor of Politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

  Listen to the podcast

Political Scientist? Stop by the UMP double booth (#418, 420) at the American Political Science Association Exhibit, Toronto, Sept 3-6

The University of Michigan Press will be going north o' the border this week to host a double booth at the American Political Science Association Exhibit in Toronto, Sept 3-6, with discounts, doughnuts, and delightful conversation. If you're around, stop by and check out some of our new releases below (and say hi)!

APSA 2009 FEATURED NEW RELEASE:

Barack Obama’s America
How New Conceptions of Race, Family, and Religion Ended the Reagan Era
John Kenneth White
Cloth: 978-0-472-11450-4
Paper: 978-0-472-03391-1
More Info

NEW! Click to listen to the PODCAST interview with John Kenneth White, author of Barack Obama's America

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for other POLITICAL SCIENCE NEW RELEASES:
http://www.press.umich.edu/polisci/index.jsp