University of California Press Blog

Episode 2 of the UC Press Podcast Series Now Available

Episode 2 of the UC Press podcast series is now available.  In April's episode, Chris Gondek of Heron and Crane Productions interviews Bill Ivey, the author Arts, Inc: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights, and Elias Aboujaoude, the author of Compulsive Acts: A Psychiatrists Tales of Ritual and Obsession.  The audio for episode 2 is included herewith.  You may subscribe to the monthly podcast feed that contains the individual episodes using your RSS aggregator or directly via the iTunes store.  You can listen to individual author interviews from the episodes at www.ucpress.edu/podcast or on the individual book pages using the embedded player.

Painted to Life: Portraits by Cecilia Beaux

The long-ago faces in Cecilia Beaux's portraits are infused with vitality—as if their next moments, long cold in earthly history, still lay ahead for them. Their smiles, scowls, and moments of reflection are painted to life by an artist whose talent has been unjustly eclipsed since her death. Edited by Sylvia Yount, Cecilia Beaux: American Figure Painter is a collection of essays about Beaux's legacy, and a gallery of her paintings. The essays provide the facts and critical perspectives on Cecilia Beaux's life and art, but the images reveal her character and sensitivity, and her ability to conjure her subjects' spirits with the precision of an uncanny medium.

My Bombay Kitchen and Food: The History of Taste Nominated for James Beard Awards

The annual James Beard Foundation Awards applaud the year's most outstanding achievements in the world of gastronomic delights, and to be nominated is a high honor. This year, we are proud to announce that two UC Press books are in the running: Niloufer Ichaporia King's My Bombay Kitchen is nominated in the Asian Cooking category, and and Paul Freedman's Food: The History of Taste is nominated in the Reference category. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony in New York City on June 8. Read more about the nominees and about the James Beard  Foundation here.

Niloufer King, author of My Bombay Kitchen, Featured on NPR's Morning Edition

On today's Morning Edition, The Kitchen Sisters profiled Niloufer Ichaporia King, the author of My Bombay Kitchen, in their feature on Parsi cooking. The story reveals King's deliciously artistic world, which, like her recipes, is a feast of fresh ingredients and delightful flavors, enriched by her Parsi history and the joy of inspiring the kitchens of others.

Listen to the full story here.

Special Issue of The Public Historian: Sites of Conscience

University of California Press Journals and Digital Publishing is proud to announce the publication of a special issue of The Public Historian, the official journal of the National Council on Public History. “Sites of Conscience: Opening Historic Sites for Civic Dialogue,” (Volume 30, Number 1) is concerned with the ways in which society’s response to museums, memorials, and historical sites can grow from passive observation to active engagement.

Says editor Randolph Bergstrom in his introduction, “Public historians are coming to recognize that their sites can be more than important places of encountering the past. Astute practitioners are learning to use the distinct opportunity these sites afford to promote civic engagement.”

Click here to view the table of contents.
Click here to download the press release as a PDF.

The Reluctant Communist Reviewed in The Wall Street Journal

Gabriel Schoenfeld reviewed Charles Jenkins's The Reluctant Communist in today's Wall Street Journal:

"This extraordinary book opens a window on a world of fathomless evil, and it tells a heartbreaking story—of a life lived in adversity and conducted with a mixture of fortitude, resignation, tenderness and regret. Clearly Charles Robert Jenkins emerged from his years of ordeal with his Americanness intact. True patriotism can come in many forms."

Read the full review here.

From a Whisper to a Scream: Breaking the Silence of Mexico's Zona Galactica

Patty Kelly provides a voice for the women of the Zona Galactica, a legal brothel in Chiapas, Mexico. These women work hard in a government-sanctioned industry, but are often treated with disrespect, scorn, and indifference, eroding their dignity and chipping away at their dreams. In Lydia's Open Door, Kelly explores this experience and brings it to life through conversations with the women. She writes as an advocate and listens as a friend, enhancing the women's personal stories with economic and historical background.

"This exceptional book makes several key contributions to the field and shows how freedom and anxiety, and the market and morality, tensely coexist in the business of sex. . . . Kelly's analysis is conveyed through vivid portraits of the lives of sex workers, showing that the women involved are neither victims nor heroines but something else: actors caught between agency and constraint."–Roger N. Lancaster, author of The Trouble with Nature

"In this tour de force of feminist anthropology, Patty Kelly gives her heart to the remarkable women who toil in the bawdy sweatshops of the Zona Galactica, a 'reformed' red-light district in the Chiapas capital of Tuxtla Gutiérrez. In fact, as Kelly shows, it is just the ultimate low-wage industrial district."–Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and In Praise of Barbarians

"The clarity of Kelly's perspective is neither apologetic, nor presumptive (as is usually the case); her focus is always on the political context of these women's lives. Patty Kelly writes like a poet and novelist, so much so that this work begs to be a movie."–Carol Leigh, a.k.a. "Scarlot Harlot," author of Unrepentant Whore

UC Press Celebrates Women's History Month

Books have extraordinary power—they bridge the gaps between past and present, allow the dead to speak, and give a voice to the silenced. In honor of Women's History Month, we'd like to pay special attention to how books empower women. UC Press authors give women of the past the opportunity to speak to their descendants, and allow today's women to tell their stories to the world. We publish books that cover the spectrum of female experience, addressing important issues and celebrating women as  leaders, activists, mothers, scholars, goddesses, artists and so much more.
The National Women's History Project has chosen "Women's Art: Women's History" as this year's Women's History Month theme. This month we will feature a selection of our latest books about remarkable women in all roles, particularly the arts.

The Talented Women of the Zhang Family, by Susan Mann
During the 18th and 19th centuries in China, the Zhang women recorded their experiences, poems and thoughts. Blending historical background with the Zhang women's narratives, Susan Mann reconstructs their lives, revealing the often obscured female experience in China during that time.

New Author Podcast Series

This week, UC Press is pleased to announce the start of a brand new author podcast series.  The podcasts can be found on our podcast page.  The series is produced by Chris Gondek of Heron and Crane Productions, and the initial show features interviews with UC Press authors Gayle Greene, the author of Insomniac, and Rajmohan Gandhi, the author of Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire.  The monthly podcasts will become a regular feature of the website.  Individual interviews with authors are featured on the podcast page, and you may subscribe to the monthly podcast feed with your RSS aggregator or directly via the iTunes store.  This month's entire show is available as part of this post.