University of Michigan Press Blog

Supreme Court Snapshots and Handguns: What Elena Kagan Is Getting Herself Into

As senators on the Judiciary Committee launch into a contentious hearing on Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination (watch live feed at SCOTUS blog), a controversial ruling on handgun bans and gun rights is handed down extending ownership rights for citizens, making it a big news day for the highest court in the land. See below for a few new releases from the University of Michigan Press on the Supreme Court, and click on the cover images for more information: 

   
     

Click HERE for all recent Law titles from the University of Michigan Press

Earthquake in Michigan, Toronto Earthquake, Rochester Earthquake, Cleveland Earthquake, Buffalo Earthquake, Ottawa Earthquake...All the Same Earthquake

As an earthquake rattled our bookshelves a few hours ago, we were reminded of a great interview with Michigan author Michael Brecher on his new release International Political Earthquakes, from McGill Reporter, on the principle of applying earthquake science to international studies:

Click here for more book info.

Professors: Click here to request a free exam copy

BY DANIEL SPITZBERG | If there were a system for measuring the world's political upheavals and their aftershocks, which would rank higher – the Cuban Missile Crisis or the stare down between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan over Kashmir?

It's the kind of question Michael Brecher has been asking – and answering – for years. Brecher, McGill's R.B. Angus Professor of Political Science, considers it his academic raison d'être to chart the escalation, climax and resolution of international military-security crises.

"One of the major threats to our survival is the inability of nations to cope with crises, especially those involving nuclear states, and to avoid war," says Brecher. "Since I was 11, I've seen it too many times. I've seen it in the Middle East and South Asia over and over."

Hurricanes and oil spills could spell disaster for the Caribbean

While Gulf Coast residents scramble to reinforce their property against an expected onslaught of summer hurricanes, concerns that the storms may be accompanied by oil spill debris present a new and unique challenge as Reuters recently reported.

In Haiti and other parts of the Caribbean, relief workers are especially anxious.  Their actions are reminiscent of those made nearly a century ago by the Rockefeller Foundation's pioneering medical campaigns in international health as detailed in University of Michigan Press new release Launching Global Health, by Steven Palmer. 

Listen to Paul Gross talk with Mitch Albom about Michigan weather tonight

Paul Gross, author of the new book Extreme Michigan Weather, will appear tonight on Mitch Albom's radio show at News/Talk 760 WJR. If you're in the Detroit area, you can find it at 760 AM starting at 6:30 p.m. tonight (perfect timing if you're waiting for fireworks). If you're outside the area, you can listen to it live on WJR's site.

UM Press launches groundbreaking series with Bard Graduate Center

The University of Michigan Press announced today that it has formed a partnership with the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, to produce a new series of books. The Bard Graduate Center Cultural Histories of the Material World Series will overcome the boundaries between academic disciplines and the boundaries between print and electronic media to tell the story of how human beings have shaped and interpreted the world around them.

“This is an important series, in an interdisciplinary area that has not received its publishing due, led by a board of outstanding scholars worldwide in a variety of fields,” said Phil Pochoda, director of the University of Michigan Press. “We are thrilled to be part of the exemplary research and the groundbreaking publishing practices that will define this project.”

The series will incorporate the perspectives of archaeology, anthropology, art and design history, economic and landscape history, the history of technology, and philosophy. It will marry the kind of careful attention to material culture once associated only with curators with the evolving cultural historical approaches to materiality across the range of the humanities and social sciences.

“This type of scholarly inquiry did not have an institutional home before the founding of the Bard Graduate Center,” said Peter N. Miller, Bard Graduate Center Dean. “And it did not have a publishing home before the launching of this series with the University of Michigan Press.”

The material in the series will not be limited to traditional print. Rather, it will include a variety of print and digital formats and offerings, ranging from traditional and short-run printing to a robust research Web site, interactive digital material, maps, image and document repositories, databases, discussion sites and stand alone digital monographs, all made widely available to assist scholars in experimenting with creating knowledge in whatever form they feel best enables them to discover and explore.

 

'Lost Eagles' author: Arlington Cemeterey mixup part of problem dating back to WWI

Blaine Pardoe, author of dozens of military novels and the upcoming Lost Eagles: One Man's Mission to Find Missing Airmen in Two World Wars, comments on the news that hundreds of veterans' remains have been misplaced by Arlington National Cemetery:

"The recent revelations about the handling of veterans remains at Arlington National Cemetery have captivated the country. There are many reasons this has caught such national attention – mostly because it seems that we, as a people, should be better equipped to deal with our most honored dead. 

"The reality is, however, this has happened before.

World Cup Spotlight: South Africa

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is the 19th and current FIFA World Cup, the premier international association football tournament. It is being held in South Africa, beginning on 11 June and scheduled to conclude on 11 July 2010, matching the 2008 Summer Olympics as the sports event with the most competing nations. The final is forecast to be among the most-watched events ever, possibly behind only the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games. This is also the first time that the tournament has been hosted by an African nation, after South Africa defeated Morocco and Egypt in an all-African bidding process. See below for a list of titles from the University of Michigan Press focusing on the South Africa outside the stadium, beginning with new release The Next Twenty-Five Years.

The Next Twenty-five Years
Affirmative Action in Higher Education in the United States and South Africa

David L. Featherman, Martin Hall, and Marvin Krislov, editors
Foreword by Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan Foreword by Njabulo Ndebele, Former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town

A penetrating exploration of affirmative action's continued place in 21st-century higher education that assembles the viewpoints of some of the most influential scholars, educators, university leaders, and public officials. Its comparative essays span the political spectrum and dissect debates in two nations to elucidate the legal, political, social, economic, and moral dimensions of affirmative action in higher education and its role in contributing to a just, equitable, and vital society.

Fergus Millar, author of the UM Press book 'The Crowd in Rome,' is knighted

The University of Michigan Press is delighted to congratulate Fergus Millar, Camden Professor of Ancient History Emeritus at the University of Oxford, on the occasion of his being knighted in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honors, for service to scholarship.

Sir Fergus is the author, among many other books, of The Crowd in Rome in the Late Republic (University of Michigan Press, 1998), based upon his Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures at the University of Michigan and the American Academy in Rome.

Previously a Fellow of Brasenose College and Leverhulme Fellow at Oxford's Oriental Institute, Sir Fergus is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003), the recipient of the British Academy's Kenyon Medal for Classical Studies (2002), and Oxford's Conington Prize (1963), among many other awards and honors.

During his Ann Arbor sojourn as Jerome Lecturer and on subsequent visits, Fergus Millar has always been exceptionally welcoming to students at all levels, and unfailingly generous to his faculty colleagues, willingly sharing his time, knowledge, and enthusiasm for classical antiquity.

When asked by the BBC to comment on his knighthood, with characteristic self-effacement he stated that the honor was a "recognition of the subject that I do."

Is having a child a good choice? 'New York Times' questions, author of book on childhood in the media responds

Ellen Handler Spitz is the author of Illuminating Childhood, a forthcoming book examining portrayals of childhood in film, fiction, and drama. She responds to a New York Times editorial this week that calls into question the decision to have children:

“Should This Be the Last Generation?” is a disquieting article.  Published online as an “Opinionator” column in the global New York Times, it asks, in the voice of its author, Princeton professor Peter Singer: “Have you ever thought about whether to have a child?”

This question, with its implicit subversive thrust, dovetails with the last chapter of my forthcoming book, Illuminating Childhood, to be published by the University of Michigan Press this November - a book that begins with a joyous celebration of Piero della Francesca’s pregnant Madonna, the exquisite and pensive “Madonna del Parto.” I was, therefore, fascinated to read it.

Although the challenges, vicissitudes, and ambiguities of being a parent are much discussed in the press these days and continue to form the subject of countless articles, films, courses, lectures, and self-help books, the question Professor Singer poses, that of becoming one, is rarely broached.  This is because we still take for granted the truism that the birth of a child is a good beyond question.

Paul Gross, author of 'Extreme Michigan Weather,' reports on Michigan tornadoes

Meteorologist Paul Gross of WDIV-TV (NBC Channel 4 in Detroit) spent the week reporting on the tornadoes that touched down across the state, including the one that wreaked havoc in Dundee. Paul is the author of the new book Extreme Michigan Weather.

You can read an excerpt from the book specifically on tornadoes as part of the University of Michigan Press Open Text Project. You can also see video of Paul reporting on the storms: Volunteers lend a hand cleaning up Dundee and How do you tell if damage is from a tornado?

While the tornadoes in Monroe and Lenawee counties are the ones getting the press in southeast Michigan, there were hits across the state, he said.

"Tornadoes also hit Calhoun, Berrien, Cass, and St. Joseph counties, for a total of eight tornadoes in Michigan this past Saturday night and early Sunday morning," he said. The rundown, he said:

• Calhoun:  The southern outskirts of Battle Creek. A strong tornado (EF2 on the 0 to 5 scale). Considerable tree damage, and some homes severely damaged.
• Berrien: 2 miles north-northeast of Baroda. Numerous trees damaged, and some homes de-roofed.
• Berrien: 4 miles north-northwest of Berrien Springs. Trees and structures damaged.
• Cass: 2 miles south of Dowagiac. Strong tornado (EF2). Numerous homes damaged in the Pokagan subdivision. Extensive tree damage.
• St. Joseph: 2 miles south of Constantine. Strong tornado (EF2). Two cell phone towers downed, numerous trees damaged, and several structures damaged.