University of Michigan Press Blog

Author of forthcoming UM Press book selected to be Poet Laureate of Vermont

Syndey "Syd" Lea, author of a forthcoming book from University of Michigan Press tentatively titled Hundred Himalayas, has been selected Poet Laureate of Vermont by Governer Peter Shumlin. A public ceremony honoring Lea will be held on November 4 at the Capital Plaza Hotel in Montpelier.

Long a professor on the graduate faculty at Dartmouth, Lea has published extensively, in multiple genres, in a wide variety of places, including the New Yorker, The New Republic, and the New York Times. Among very many distinctions, he is the founder of the New England Review; he was a panelist in 2008 for the NEA poetry fellowships; a Hopwood Prize judge in 2002; and a panelist for fellowships for the Fulbright Foundation.

According to the Vermont Arts Council,

"The Advisory Committee found Sydney Lea’s poetry to be virtuosic in texture and form, yet likely to be engaging to a diversity of readers and listeners because of the work’s dramatic intensity, narrative momentum, and musicality, and because of this poet’s extraordinarily evocative descriptions of northern New England’s landscapes, animal and plant life, and the seasonal panorama. Through all of his books, Lea has paid particular attention to the stories of generations living alongside one another in north-country villages, including the interactions of 'old-timers' and relative newcomers. He continues the tradition of Vermont poets who are both singular — one of a kind — and broadly accessible."

Congratulations, Syd!

UM Press author Diana Beresford-Kroeger chosen as a 2011 'Utne Reader' Visionary

Utne Reader has selected University of Michigan Press author Diana Beresford-Kroeger for its annual list of "visionaries."

"Each year Utne Reader' puts forward its selection of world visionaries—people who don’t just concoct great ideas but also act on them," judges wrote.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger, author of Arboretum Borealis and Arboretum America, is one of those visionaries for 2011, the magazine said. In an article highlighting her passion for nature, Beresford-Kroeger's dedication and heart exudes as she declares her plans to further improve the earth one tree at a time.

Read more at: "Diana Beresford-Kroeger: Tree Walker."

Author David Savran awarded 2011 Kurt Weill Article Prize for 'Highbrow/Lowdown'

American Theatre professor David Savran has been awarded the 2011 Kurt Weill Article Prize for the chapter “Fascinating Rhythm” in his University of Michigan Press book Highbrow/Lowdown:  Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class.  

Described by the panel as “vivid and eminently readable," Savran's work "beautifully contextualizes – from the viewpoint of a theater scholar/cultural historian – George Gershwin’s works for the musical stage.”

“It has wide appeal, as seems fitting for a prize bearing the name Kurt Weill. In fact, in its lucid portrayal of the ‘crossing of categories’ between highbrow and lowbrow elements in 1920s theater, the chapter ‘Fascinating Rhythm’ offers a rich background to the situation of musical theater as Weill found it when he arrived in New York in the mid-1930s and began his own series of ‘crossings,’” the judges wrote.

Savran will receive a a cash award of $2,000 and a plaque commemorating his achievement. He'll be honored at a reception following the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Kurt Weill Foundation, to be held on Dec. 19, 2011. Congratulations, David!

Q&A with Ole R. Holsti, author of American Public Opinion on the Iraq War

Last week, President Obama announced that nearly all American troops would return from Iraq before the end of 2011; if this withdrawal takes place as planned, it would effectively end a war that has sharply divided public opinion since 2003. American Public Opinion on the Iraq War, then, is especially timely, giving context to the public relations campaigns and partisan conflicts that helped shape how America viewed the conflict. The author, Ole R. Holsti, is George V. Allen Professor of Political Science (Emeritus) at Duke University. He is a recipient of the International Society of Political Psychology's Nevitt Sanford Award for distinguished professional contributions to political psychology as well as distinguished lifetime achievement awards from the ISPP and the American Political Science Association. His previous titles with University of Michigan Press are To See Ourselves as Others See Us: How Publics Abroad View the United States after 9/11 (2008) and Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy (revised edition, 2004).

American Public Opinion on the Iraq War is available now

The University of Michigan Press: After your introduction, you begin the book with an overview of America's history with Iraq. You paint a thorough picture in the book itself, but, more briefly, how did the unique dynamic between the two countries develop?

Ole R. Holsti: Viscount Palmerston, a 19^th century British Prime Minister, once declared, “We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies.”  The dynamics of relations between Washington and Baghdad provide ample support for that dictum: lack of diplomatic relations, a quasi-alliance, and two wars.

More specifically, Iraq broke relations with the U.S. following the Yom Kippur War and Washington listed Iraq as supporter of terrorism.  After Iraq’s invasion of Iran--by now a fundamentalist Islamic regime--the Reagan administration took a number of steps to restore relations with Baghdad.  By removing Iraq from the terrorist list, it permitted the sale of “dual use” equipment to that country, including chemicals that were used in warfare against Iran and Iraq’s own Kurdish population.  Combined with the military intelligence provided to Baghdad, Iraq was able to avoid defeat by its larger and more populous neighbor.

In 1990 the Saddam Hussein regime invaded Kuwait, perhaps assuming that the U.S. would turn a blind eye to the aggression.  In fact the George H.W. Bush administration demanded an immediate withdrawal of Iraqi forces and, when Iraq failed to do so, it took the issue to the U.N. Security Council.  Supported by a series of S.C. resolutions, the U.S. led an impressive coalition of 34 countries, including many Islamic regimes, that invaded Iraq and forced the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  Not wanting to control Iraq, President Bush ordered the invading forces to stop short of Baghdad.  Saddam Hussein later recognized Kuwait’s independence, but Iraq fell short of complying with demands that inspectors be allowed to determine if it was in compliance with postwar prohibitions against weapons of mass destruction.

When the George W. Bush administration came to office in 2001, it was committed to dealing with Iraq and what it assumed was Iraq’s possession of WMDs.  The September 11 terrorist attacks, which most top administration officials assumed were linked to Baghdad, put Iraq at the top of the Washington’s foreign policy agenda.  An invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. Special Forces expelled the Taliban regime from Kabul and were shortly thereafter withdrawn to prepare for the invasion of Iraq.

U.S. forces, aided by those from the UK, invaded Iraq in 2003.  The stated rationale was to remove a regime that possessed WMDs and had links to the al Qaeda terrorists who had conducted the 9/11 attacks.  Two expert teams of American inspectors who had been allowed into Iraq had been unable to find any WMDs, but President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed that the invasion would nevertheless take place.

The invading forces captured Baghdad in less that three weeks, but the following years saw a near civil-war in Iraq that resulted in almost 4,500 U.S. military deaths.  At the end of 2008 the outgoing Bush administration signed an agreement with Iraq’s al-Maliki regime, subsequently approved by the Obama administration, that would result in the withdrawal of American forces by the end of 2011.  A plan to leave a small contingent of U.S. forces in Iraq past 2011 is, at this writing, very much in doubt as the al-Maliki government has stated that those forces would not be granted immunity.

Ruby Cohn, renowned theater and Beckett scholar and UM Press author, dies at 89

Ruby Cohn, renowned theater scholar and specialist on the work of Samuel Beckett, died in Oakland, California on October 18 at the age of 89. Cohn was the author of many influential books, including A Beckett Canon, published by the University of Michigan Press in 2001. The obituary below is excerpted from a longer version by her former student Elin Diamond, Professor of English at Rutgers University. See the New York Times obit here.

Ruby Cohn was Professor of Comparative Drama at the University of California, Davis where, for thirty years, she was a member of the Comparative Literature, Theater, English, and French departments, and taught courses on modern and experimental drama, Shakespeare’s legacies in modern drama, dramatic genres and on Samuel Beckett and his contemporaries. She retired from U.C. Davis in 1992, yet continued to teach and write. At her death Ruby Cohn was the author or editor of over twenty monographs and anthologies, among which was the first of many influential books on Samuel Beckett and on modern and contemporary U.S., British and continental drama.

UM Press launches #NewBooksIn5Words

October 24, 2011— The University of Michigan Press today announced one of the shortest marketing campaigns in the history of new books: #NewBooksIn5Words, a Twitter hashtag that accompanies micro-previews of new scholarly and trade titles.

You can see the first postings at the UM Press Twitter feed.

For example:

Annie Finch’s A Poet’s Craft turns into: Be poet – now show it. #NewBooksIn5Words http://bit.ly/nguzLH

Christopher Bigsby’s Arthur Miller: 1962–2005 is: After Marilyn: Miller, Act Two. #NewBooksIn5Words http://bit.ly/oQbCER

And Theo Cateforis’ Are We Not New Wave? is: All Hail the Mighty Devo. #NewBooksIn5Words http://bit.ly/kz8qnw

The Press began posting teases for books marked with the new hashtag today.

2011 University of Michigan Press Book Award Winner Announced

The University of Michigan Press recently named Tobin Siebers, author of Disability Aesthetics, the recipient of the 2011 University of Michigan Press Book Award. The first attempt to theorize the representation of disability in modern art and visual culture, Disability Aesthetics explores the rich but hidden role that disability plays in art and in aesthetic judgments.

The Press Book Award is given to the best work published by the University Press in the prior two calendar years and written by a member, or members, of the University of Michigan faculty.