University of Michigan Press Blog

New York Times calls Karlawish's historical novel "marvelous"

The New York Times reviewed Dr. Jason Karlawish's historical novel Open Wound: The Tragic Obsession of Dr. William Beaumont, praising its precise treatment of the doctor/patient relationship--in particular, the unique doctor/patient relationship that existed between frontier physicial Dr. William Beaumont and gut-shot trapper Alexis St. Martin in the early 19th century.

Setting the unusual circumstances of Beaumont's care in the context of more familiar terms--and suggesting that, despite radical advancements in the fields of medicine, some things never change--the Times said:

The relationship between doctor and patient is hard enough to parse when both are in the same room. When one opts out, it becomes even harder. And of the gallons of ink spilled over the centuries in attempts at clarification, few efforts in recent memory lay out the frustrations and confusions and crystalline moments of grace better than Dr. Jason Karlawish’s marvelous new book “Open Wound[.]”

Karlawish also dicussed his book on the Times' Science Times podcast -- listen here in your browser or click here to download in iTunes. His segment begins at 9:34.

In 1822, St. Martin came under Beaumont's care when an accidental gunshot left St. Martin with a hole in his abdomen. Though St. Martin recovered, the wound never fully healed, giving Beaumont the (ethically dubious) opportunity to observe the human digestive system at work. St. Martin, unsurprisingly, was not always entirely pleased with this arrangement.

Karlawish's Open Wound, bringing the conflicts, responsibilities, and interdependencies between Beaumont and St. Martin to life, is available now from the University of Michigan Press.

Poker as Poetry of Money

Guest blogger Ole Bjerg is the author of Poker: The Parody of Capitalism, available now from the University of Michigan Press. His book argues, among other things, that the poker is a form of cultural expression not unlike fine arts and literature, and here he discusses briefly how to consider the game in similar terms.

The relationship between money, economy, and gambling is comparable to the relationship between language, prose, and poetry. In prose, the functioning of language is more or less taken for granted, and language is used as a medium for conveying meaning, for instance, stating a fact or telling a story. In (good) poetry, however, there is a wondering and probing into the very character of language. Rhythm and rhyming make us aware of language as an independent entity with material properties; verbal ambiguity questions the very signifying function of language; and so on. Similarly, in our use of money in “ordinary” economy we take for granted its function as neutral medium of exchange, measure, and store of value. In gambling, however, money enters a different kind of circulation whereby the very functioning of money is put into question. Playing with money means experimenting with money, revealing properties not otherwise immediately visible. In this sense, gambling may be viewed as a kind of “poetry of money.” Gambling offers the opportunity to play with money in the same way that poetry offers the opportunity to play with words.

In Slavoj Zizek’s words, “Poetry takes place within language, but twists and turns it against itself, thus making it tell the truth.” Truth in poetry is not the kind of truth found in propositions about a factual state of affairs in the world. It is perhaps rather a kind of truth about language itself. Along similar lines, there is a certain kind of truth about money that reveals itself in gambling.

In gambling, money enters a form of circulation that is distinct from the way it circulates in the “ordinary” economy. As we know from the Marxist analysis of the transformation of money into capital, the properties of money are contingent upon the form of circulation in which they appear. The same applies to money in gambling. When money is introduced into the gambling game, the very properties of money are transformed. This extends to poker in general and Texas Hold ’Em in particular. What is particular about Texas Hold ’Em as a gambling game is that it offers the opportunity to play with money in a way that is both distinctively different from the circulation of money in the “ordinary” economy, yet at the same time very similar to the “ordinary” economy. Texas Hold ’Em is an eminent parodic simulation of the circulation of money in contemporary financial capitalism.

 

Tamara Piety Discusses Implications of First Amendment on Pharmaceutical "Speech"

Tamara Piety, author of the forthcoming University of Michigan Press title Brandishing the First Amendment: Commercial Expression in America, recently spoke with the Pharmalot blog on the implications of expanding First Amendment protections to corporate marketing speech, specifically as it relates to the pharmaceutical industry. At the heart of the discussion is a Supreme Court decision striking down a Vermont law that restricted data mining--in this case, records of which doctors prescribe which medicines--for marketing purposes.

Piety explained that "the data mining and pharmaceutical companies argued that Vermont’s singling out of marketing for different treatment than say, research or law enforcement was discriminatory," a tactic that serves to "leverage the language of civil rights and political speech to suggest that somehow the regulation of marketing is discriminatory." She went on to say that, even in the doctrines establishing protections for commercial speech in the mid-1970s, marketing speech was considered under a different set of standards due to the inherent financial incentive in such speech. While these standards are nominally in effect today, this and other recent court decisions have gone a long way toward eroding the boundaries that separate marketing from other speech under the First Amendment.

"For most of our history, we have thought it appropriate to regulate marketing and to treat commercial speech differently than expressive or political speech," Piety said. "This ruling suggests it’s not appropriate to make that distinction."

Brandishing the First Amendment will be published in February 2012.

British Press Adores 'First Actresses' Exhibition

The First Actresses, an exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery celebrating the first women to take to the stage in Britain following the Restoration in 1660, has set tongues wagging in the major UK newspapers. Focusing largely on two portraits of Nell Gwynn, an actress and mistress of King Charles II, The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Daily Telegraph have all weighed in with praise for the exhibition. From The Times (subscription required):

From Lely to Lawrence, the leading artists of the day took them into their studios, the singers and dancers as well as the actresses, there to capture to our enduring benefit something at least of what it was they had, that so charmed their world. ...

Yet this is a show not about them, but about the beautiful and talented women they celebrated ... and first among them all, lovely Nell Gwyn. The full package indeed.

In October, the University of Michigan Press published Gil Perry, Joseph Roach, and Shearer West's The First Actresses: From Nell Gwynn to Sarah Siddons to coincide with the NPG's exhibition. The book offers new insights on the often controversial nature of women on the stage in Restoration theatre and examines how celebrity culture emerged around female performers in the 18th century.

"Lost Eagles" Makes List of Top 50 Books on the Great War

Blaine Pardoe's Lost Eagles: One Man's Mission to Find Missing Airmen in Two World Wars (University of Michigan Press, 2010) is among the top 50 entries on the Great War Essential Reading List. The list, which includes listings for and discussions of more than 1200 titles, featured Lost Eagles on its Facebook page counting down the best of the best titles on World War I from its exhaustive registry.

Pardoe's biography of Frederick Zinn details how Zinn developed a system for determining the fates of air force pilots shot down behind enemy lines, a system that has continued from its early deployment in World Wars I and II through to today.

Congratulations to the author on making the list!

"When Protest Makes Policy" Author Speaks with Time Magazine on Occupy Wall Street

As Occupy Wall Street nears the end of its second month and the future of encampments across the country becomes an increasingly pressing question, Time magazine spoke with When Protest Makes Policy author S. Laurel Weldon for her perspective on what has become an international movement. In the article, Weldon suggested that the two most likely outcomes for any large protest movement are victory or a gradual fading.

“Protests are successful when they generate attention or influence the political agenda,” Weldon says as the movement has already spread across over 70 U.S. cities. “Occupy Wall Street protesters want attention to an issue, not policy. Their power lies in their ability to talk about a solution, forcing elected officials, political candidates and business leaders to respond to the protesters.”

When Protest Makes Policy was released in February 2011, before the events of Occupy Wall Street and during the early days of the Arab Spring. Yet the massive protest movements all over the world this year have made her book especially timely, with its stufy of role and efficacy of social protest groups for disadvantaged groups.

The Times Weighs in on Reverend Billy

Coinciding with his appearances at Occupy London events, The Times (UK) has recently featured University of Michigan Press author Bill Talen--best known in his Reverend Billy persona--twice within its pages. In the first, occasioned by the reviewer receiving The Reverend Billy Project: From Rehearsal Hall to Super Mall with the Church of Life After Shopping just at the moment when November 5--Guy Fawkes Night--took on the new significance of Bank Transfer Day, The Times' Erica Wagner said (subscription required):

Listening to the Archbishop of Canterbury speak about the protest made me wonder what the Rev would say. ... Too few voices in this movement have thought hard about what they want and what they believe in — the Rev is one of them. Listen out and hear the word — amen.

The November 9 edition of the Times (subscription required) recapped Reverend Billy's appearance the previous afternoon outside St. Paul's Cathedral. The paper reported that Talen drew a crowd as he warmed up his Reverend Billy persona.

Wearing an oversized dog collar, white cowboy boots and a white suit, the 6ft blond threw his hands in the air as he cried: “Revolujah!” “Stop your shopping, stop your Starbucks!” he shouted in an impressive baritone. “Except to use the toilet — praise the Lord — or use your computer. Amen.”

Talen has also released a video titled "We are the 99%," which he describes as an anthem for the Occupy Protests:

As the Occupy protests continue on Wall Street, in Oakland, and elsewhere around the world, Reverend Billy plans to stage events in many locations. For updates on Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping, visit revbilly.com.

"Conjuring the Folk" Author Joins Georgetown Press as Editor

Dr. David G. Nicholls, author of Conjuring the Folk: Forms of Modernity in African America (University of Michigan Press, 2000) and editor of Harlem Calling: The Collected Stories of George Wylie Henderson (2005), has joined Georgetown University Press's Georgetown Languages Division as an acquisition editor. He will be responsible for acquiring multimedia foreign language learning materials, linguistics texts, and reference works. Previously, Dr. Nicholls had served as the Director of Book Publications for the Modern Languages Association and has been involved on committees with the Association of American University Presses and the Association of American Publishers.

We at the Press heartily congratulate Dr. Nicholls on his new position!

'Bytes & Backbeats' Author Confronts Egan's 'Goon Squad'

Guest blogger Steve Savage, whose Bytes & Backbeats: Repurposing Music in the Digital Age is available now from the University of Michigan Press, examines the factors that influence the sound of contemporary popular music--and how these factors are perceived.

Sometimes the greatest reinforcement for ones academic work comes in popular literature.  Such occurred for me as I was reading Jennifer Egan’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad.  With research on very contemporary issues there’s always the fear that the cultural issues your book engages will have dissipated by the time the book is available to the public.  This fear was quickly allayed for me by the following quote that sums up widespread attitudes toward the type of digital work that I address in my book.  In the brief space of one character’s dramatic inner dialog Egan sums up attitudes toward digitization, confirms the absolute commodification of popular music, and taints most contemporary media.  The speaker is a middle-aged record executive, reflecting on the current status of his record company and the music that it is releasing:

Driving to pick up his son, Bennie alternated between the Sleepers and the Dead Kennedys, San Francisco bands he’d grown up with.  He listened for muddiness, the sense of actual musicians playing actual instruments in an actual room.  Nowadays that quality (if it existed at all) was usually an effect of analogue signaling rather than bona fide tape—everything was an effect in the bloodless constructions Bennie and his peers were churning out.  He worked tirelessly, feverishly, to get things right, stay on top, make songs that people would love and buy and download as ring tones (and steal, of course)—above all, to satisfy the multinational crude-oil extractors he’d sold his label to five years ago.  But Bennie knew that what he was bringing into the world was shit.  Too clear, too clean.  The problem was precision, perfection; the problem was digitization, which sucked the life out of everything that got smeared through its microscopic mesh.  Film, photography, music: dead.  An aesthetic holocaust!  Bennie knew better than to say this stuff aloud (Egan, 23).

This expression of technological determinism amplifies the negative effects of digital technologies without acknowledging their creative potentials, misdirecting the speaker’s rage.  While there certainly may be problems in the brave new world of popular music, there is also much to celebrate regarding the enormous creative gifts that digital audio workstations (DAWs) have provided us in the realm of music production.  The ability to revise, recompose, reinvent, rearrange, reuse, reimagine, reimprovise—in short, the ability to repurpose audio has revolutionized the production of musical recordings.  At the same time the basic creative impulses and processes that have always been at the center of music production remain central to this new “constructionist” model of songwriting and composition. 

Notwithstanding Bennie’s tirade above—he’s right, popular music today may well be “too clear, too clean”—the heart of the problem is not to be laid at the feet of digitization.  The real demon that Bennie identifies in his tirade is manifested by his attempts “to satisfy the multinational crude-oil extractors he’d sold his label to five years ago.”  Commodification is the primary force that squeezes the life out of music, not the details of the production techniques being used.  Francis Bacon said “There is no excellent beauty, that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.”  It’s the notion that the marketplace will not tolerate strangeness that is at the heart of Bennie’s aesthetic holocaust. 

The Guardian Praises Press Author's African Memoir

Alexandra Fuller, writing for prominent British newspaper The Guardian, has selected Toyin Falola's A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt: An African Memoir (University of Michigan Press, 2004) as one of the ten greatest memoirs to come out of Africa. Fuller, who was born in the UK but moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) when she was two, herself has written several memoirs about her life in several countries on the African continent, most recently Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness. Of Falola's book Fuller said:

This Nigerian coming-of-age memoir is irreverent, poetic and filled with the kind of ordinary information that makes Nigeria feel oddly familiar, even in its loud, exuberant foreignness. It's easy to see the influences of both Chinua Achebe and Wole Solinkya in these pages, and yet Falola has a voice all his own too. Something modern and jazzy and shoulder-shrugging and altogether itself.

A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt has previously won the 2004 Association of Third World Studies (ATWS) President's Distinguished Leadership and Scholarship Award and the West African Oral History Association's E.J. Alagoa Prize for the best book for 2003-2004, and was a finalist for the 2005 Association of African Studies Melville J. Herskovits Award and the Association of Third World Studies (ATWS) Cecil B. Curry Award that same year.

As one of the continent's great historians, Falola's memoir draws upon not only his own experiences but also historical and communal stories as well as the shifting political and cultural enivornments surrounding Nigeria's push for independence.