Beyond the Margins: The University of California Press Podcast

Saadia Yacoob, "Beyond the Binary: Gender and Legal Personhood in Islamic Law" (U California Press, 2024)

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Saadia Yacoob’s excellent new book, Beyond the Binary: Gender and Legal Personhood in Islamic Law (U of California Press 2024), makes a compellin...

Nicholas Baer, "Historical Turns: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism" (U California Press, 2024)

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Historical Turns: Weimar Cinema and the Crisis of Historicism (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Nicholas Baer reassesses Weimar cinema in...

Townsend Middleton, "Quinine's Remains: Empire’s Medicine and the Life Thereafter" (U California Press, 2024)

28 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What happens after colonial industries have run their course—after the factory closes and the fields go fallow? Set in the cinchona plantations of I...

Andrew deWaard, "Derivative Media: How Wall Street Devours Culture" (U California Press, 2024)

27 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sequels, reboots, franchises, and songs that remake old songs—does it feel like everything new in popular culture is just derivative of something ol...

Emrah Yildiz, "Zainab's Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders" (U California Press, 2024)

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Emrah Yildiz's new book Zainab’s Traffic: Moving Saints, Selves, and Others Across Borders (University of California Press, 2024) is a masterful ...

Kevin Sanson, "Mobile Hollywood: Labor and the Geography of Production" (U California Press, 2024)

20 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future of the film industry? In Mobile Hollywood Labor and the Geography of Production (U California Press, 2024), Kevin Sanson, Prof...

William T. Taylor, "Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History" (U California Press, 2024)

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Which society was the first to domesticate the horse? It’s a difficult question. The archaeological record is spotty, with only very recent advancem...

Shared Paths: Exploring Jewish and Muslim Experiences in America

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week on International Horizons, John Torpey, Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, speaks with sociologists Mucahit Bilici and Samuel Heilman ...

Oumelbanine Nina Zhiri, "Beyond Orientalism: Ahmad Ibn Qasim Al-Hajari Between Europe and North Africa" (U California Press, 2023)

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first in-depth study of the collaborative intellectual exchange between the European and the Arabic Republics of Letters.  Beyond Orientalism: Ah...

Jacques Bertrand, "Winning by Process: The State and Neutralization of Ethnic Minorities in Myanmar" (Cornell UP, 2022)

15 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Winning by Process: The State and Neutralization of Ethnic Minorities in Myanmar (Southeast Asia Program Publications/Cornell UP, 2022) asks why the ...

Iris Jamahl Dunkle, "Riding Like the Wind: The Life of Sanora Babb" (U California Press, 2024)

06 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1939, when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation's collect...

William T. Taylor, "Hoof Beats: How Horses Shaped Human History" (U California Press, 2024)

29 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the Rockies to the Himalayas, the bond between horses and humans has spanned across time and civilizations. In this archaeological journey, Willi...

Eli Revelle Yano Wilson, "Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer" (U California Press, 2024)

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer (U California Press, 2024) unpacks the problems and privileges of pursuing a career of...

Anthony Michael Kreis, "Rot and Revival: The History of Constitutional Law in American Political Development" (U California Press, 2024)

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the great divides in American judicial scholarship is between legal scholars who take the justices at their word and assume that those words de...

Naomi Leite, "Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging" (U California Press, 2017)

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging (U California Press, 2017) is a lively, readable exploration of "chosen" iden...

Eric Hoyt, "Ink-Stained Hollywood: The Triumph of American Cinema’s Trade Press" (U California Press, 2022)

11 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For the first half of the twentieth century, no American industry boasted a more motley and prolific trade press than the movie business—a cutthroat...

Yiman Wang, "To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong's Cross-Media World" (U California Press, 2024)

04 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theatre, radio, and A...

Jessica S. Henry, "Smoke But No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened" (U California Press, 2021)

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Jessica Henry's Smoke But No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened (U California Press, 2021) explores a shocking but all-too...

Kate McDonald on Asian Mobility History as Labor History

29 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks to Kate McDonald, Associate Professor of History at University of California, Santa Barbara, about her fascin...

Kathleen Loock, "Hollywood Remaking: How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture" (U California Press, 2024)

27 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking: How Film Re...

Francine Banner, "Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems" (U California Press, 2024)

21 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Beyond Complicity: Why We Blame Each Other Instead of Systems (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr. Francine Banner is a fascinating cultural...

Stephanie Balkwill, "The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century" (U California Press, 2024)

20 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she h...

Tara Ward, "Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram" (U California Press, 2024)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What does an art history of Instagram look like? Appreciation Post: Towards an Art History of Instagram (University of California Press, 2024) by Dr...

Marsha Gordon, "Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott" (U California Press, 2024)

05 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life b...

Bayley J. Marquez, "Plantation Pedagogy: The Violence of Schooling Across Black and Indigenous Space" (U California Press, 2024)

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, teachers, administrators, and policymakers fashioned a system of industrial education that attempte...

Barbara Klinger, "Immortal Films: 'Casablanca' and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic" (U California Press, 2022)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Casablanca is one of the most celebrated Hollywood films of all time, its iconic romance enshrined in collective memory across generations. Drawing f...

Jennifer S. Clark, "Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women's Liberation" (U California Press, 2024)

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How have women resisted sexism in TV? In Producing Feminism: Television Work in the Age of Women’s Liberation (U California Press, 2024), Jennife...

Duana Fullwiley, "Tabula Raza: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science" (U California Press, 2024)

13 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Tabula Raza: Mapping Race and Human Diversity in American Genome Science (University of California Press, 2024), Duana Fullwiley has penned an ...

Catherine Michael Chin, "Life: The Natural History of an Early Christian Universe" (U California Press, 2024)

09 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A vivid and intimate glimpse of ancient life under the sway of cosmic and spiritual forces that the modern world has forgotten. Life: The Natural Hist...

Asaf Elia-Shalev, "Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth" (U California Press, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Asaf Elia-Shalev's book Israel's Black Panthers: The Radicals Who Punctured a Nation's Founding Myth (U California Press, 2024) tells the story of ...

Aaron Eddens, "Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa" (U California Press, 2024)

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Seeding Empire: American Philanthrocapital and the Roots of the Green Revolution in Africa (University of California Press, 2024), Dr. Aaron Edde...

Matthew D. Morrison, "Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States" (U California Press, 2024)

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Blacksound: Making Race and Popular Music in the United States (U California Press, 2024) explores the sonic history of blackface minstrelsy and the ...

Aya Gruber, "The Feminist War on Crime: The Unexpected Role of Women’s Liberation in Mass Incarceration" (U California Press, 2020)

02 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Aya Gruber, a professor of law at the University of Colorado Law School, has written a history of how the women’s movement in America has shaped the...

Danielle R. Olden, "Racial Uncertainties: Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post–Civil Rights America" (U California Press, 2022)

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Mexican Americans have often fit uncertainly into the white/non-white binary that has goverens much of American history. After Colorado, and much of t...

Sunaura Taylor, "Disabled Ecologies: Lessons from a Wounded Desert" (U California Press, 2024)

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A powerful analysis and call to action that reveals disability as one of the defining features of environmental devastation and resistance. Deep below...

Raven Simone Maragh-Lloyd, "Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age" (U California Press, 2024)

19 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Black Networked Resistance: Strategic Rearticulations in the Digital Age (U California Press, 2024)​ explores the creative range of Black digital u...

Marina Welker, "Kretek Capitalism: Making, Marketing, and Consuming Clove Cigarettes in Indonesia" (U California Press, 2024)

18 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Indonesia is the world's second largest cigarette market: two out of three men smoke, and clove-laced tobacco cigarettes called kretek make up 95 perc...

Jennifer Dorothy Lee, "Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, 1978-1985" (U California Press, 2024)

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I had the great pleasure of talking to Associate Professor Jennifer Dorothy Lee on her new book, Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, ...

Jaime M. Pensado, "Love and Despair: How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico" (U California Press, 2023)

12 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 21st century has witnessed a revolution in how historians approach the study of Roman Catholicism. Long trapped in an unbridgeable chasm between ...

Andre Schmid, "North Korea's Mundane Revolution: Socialist Living and the Rise of Kim Il Sung, 1953-1965" (U California Press, 2024)

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Histories of North Korea typically focus on one man — Kim Il Sung — and one narrative — his grand rise to absolute power. Andre Schmid’s new ...

Pamela Robertson Wojcik, "Unhomed: Cycles of Mobility and Placelessness in American Cinema" (U California Press, 2024)

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Unhomed: Cycles of Mobility and Placelessness in American Cinema (University of California Press, 2024), Dr. Pamela Roberston Wojcik examines Ame...

Nora E. H. Parr, "Novel Palestine: Nation Through the Works of Ibrahim Nasrallah" (U California Press, 2023)

23 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Palestinian writing imagines the nation, not as a nation-in-waiting but as a living, changing structure that joins people, place, and time into a dist...

Ieva Jusionyte, "Exit Wounds: How America's Guns Fuel Violence Across the Border" (U California Press, 2024)

15 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

American guns have entangled the lives of people on both sides of the US-Mexico border in a vicious circle of violence. After treating wounded migrant...

Emily Drumsta, "Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation" (U California Press, 2024)

09 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Ways of Seeking: The Arabic Novel and the Poetics of Investigation (U California Press, 2024), Emily Drumsta traces the influence of detective fi...

Stefan Aune, "Indian Wars Everywhere: Colonial Violence and the Shadow Doctrines of Empire" (U California Press, 2023)

04 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From Black Hawk helicopters to the exclamation "Geronimo" used by paratroopers jumping from airplanes, words and images referring to Indians have been...

Loren D. Lybarger, "Palestinian Chicago: Identity in Exile" (U California Press, 2020)

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chicago is home to one of the largest, most politically active Palestinian immigrant communities in the United States. For decades, secular nationalis...

Emma Frances Bloomfield, "Science V. Story: Narrative Strategies for Science Communicators" (U California Press, 2024)

30 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Listen to this interview of Emma Frances Bloomfield, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. We talk abou...

Tonia Sutherland, "Resurrecting the Black Body: Race and the Digital Afterlife" (U California Press, 2023)

22 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The first critical examination of death and remembrance in the digital age—and an invitation to imagine Black digital sovereignty in life and death....

Is Grad School for Me?: Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students

21 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s book is: Is Grad School for Me? Demystifying the Application Process for First-Gen BIPOC Students (U California Press, 2024), by Dr. Yvet...

David E. Gilbert, "Countering Dispossession, Reclaiming Land: A Social Movement Ethnography" (U California Press, 2024)

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Two decades ago, a group of Indonesian agricultural workers began occupying the agribusiness plantation near their homes. In the years since, members ...

Yolanda Ariadne Collins, "Forests of Refuge: Decolonizing Environmental Governance in the Amazonian Guiana Shield" (U California Press, 2024)

12 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Forests of Refuge: Decolonizing Environmental Governance in the Amazonian Guiana Shield (U California Press, 2024) questions the effectiveness of ma...

Christy Spackman, "The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage" (U California Press, 2023)

08 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever wondered why your tap water tastes the way it does? The Taste of Water: Sensory Perception and the Making of an Industrialized Beverage...

Amy Coddington, "How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race" (U California Press, 2023)

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race (U California Press, 2023) examines the programming practices at commercial radio stations in the 1...

Francesca Sobande, "Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture" (U California Press, 2024)

03 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Can brands really support positive social change? In Big Brands are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (U California Press, ...

Eline van Ommen, "Nicaragua Must Survive: Sandinista Revolutionary Diplomacy in the Global Cold War" (U California Press, 2024)

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nicaragua Must Survive: Sandinista Revolutionary Diplomacy in the Global Cold War (University of California Press, 2023) tells the story of the San...

Gerald Epstein, "Busting the Bankers' Club: Finance for the Rest of Us" (U California Press, 2024)

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bankers brought the global economic system to its knees in 2007 and nearly did the same in 2020. Both times, the US government bailed out the banks an...

The Taste of Water: A Conversation with Christy Spackman

26 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After WAY too long a hiatus, Peoples & Things is back! GET EXCITED!! In this episode, host Lee Vinsel interviews Christy Spackman, Assistant Professor...

Aaron J. Jackson, "Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities" (U California Press, 2021)

25 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Vulnerable narratives of fatherhood are few and far between; rarer still is an ethnography that delves into the practical and emotional realities of i...

Neil Lee, "Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy" (U California Press, 2024)

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How can we build a more equal economy? In Innovation for the Masses: How to Share the Benefits of the High-Tech Economy (U California Press, 2024), ...

John Howland, "Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music" (U California Press, 2021)

18 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Hearing Luxe Pop: Glorification, Glamour, and the Middlebrow in American Popular Music (U California Press, 2021) explores a deluxe-production aesth...

Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre, "Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World" (U California Press, 2022)

16 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Imperial Wine: How the British Empire Made Wine’s New World (University of California Press, 2022) by Dr. Jennifer Regan-Lefebvre is a bold, rigoro...

Marisol LeBrón, "Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico" (U California Press, 2019)

14 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Marisol LeBrón’s new book, Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019), examines ...

Amira Mittermaier, "Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times" (U California Press, 2019)

12 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In her stunning new book, Giving to God: Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Times (University of California Press, 2019), Amira Mittermaier, Associate P...

Calvin John Smiley, "Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition" (U California Press, 2023)

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition (University of California Press, 2023), Calvin John Smiley explores the lives of people who w...

Chrystin Ondersma, "Dignity Not Debt: An Abolitionist Approach to Economic Justice" (U California Press, 2024)

03 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

American households have a debt problem. The problem is not, as often claimed, that Americans recklessly take on too much debt. The problem is that US...

Alex Burchmore, "New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art" (U California Press, 2023)

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why do so many contemporary Chinese artists use porcelain in their work? How do artists make sense of the legacy that porcelain has in China, and how ...

Sarah Diefendorf, "The Holy Vote: Inequality and Anxiety Among White Evangelicals" (U California Press, 2023)

29 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Through two years of ethnographic fieldwork at a megachurch, sociologist Dr. Sarah Diefendorf investigates the ways in which the evangelical church is...

Alka Vaid Menon, "Refashioning Race: How Global Cosmetic Surgery Crafts New Beauty Standards" (U California Press, 2023)

28 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cosmetic surgery was once associated with a one-size-fits-all approach, modifying patients to conform to a single standard of beauty. As this surgery ...

Amanda Lanzillo, "Pious Labor: Islam, Artisanship, and Technology in Colonial India" (U California Press, 2024)

27 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Pious Labour: Islam, Artisanship, and Technology in Colonial India (University of California Press, 2023) focuses on the late nineteenth and early tw...

Paul D. Barclay, "Kondo the Barbarian: A Japanese Adventurer and Indigenous Taiwan's Bloodiest Uprising" (Eastbridge Books, 2023)

22 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Kondo the Barbarian: A Japanese Adventurer and Indigenous Taiwan's Bloodiest Uprising (Eastbridge Books, 2023) is a gripping and revealing account of...

Chelsea Schields, "Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean" (U California Press, 2023)

21 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chelsea Schields's book Offshore Attachments: Oil and Intimacy in the Caribbean (U California Press, 2023) reveals how the contested management of se...

Gustav Cederlof, "The Low-Carbon Contradiction: Energy Transition, Geopolitics, and the Infrastructural State in Cuba" (U California Press, 2023)

15 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the pursuit of socialism, Cuba became Latin America’s most oil-dependent economy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the country lost 86 percent of...

Laura Briggs, "Taking Children: A History of American Terror" (U California Press, 2020)

31 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Laura Briggs’s Taking Children: A History of American Terror (University of California Press 2020) is a forceful and captivating book that readers w...

Jordana M. Saggese, "The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader" (U California Press, 2021)

26 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In The Jean-Michel Basquiat Reader (University of California Press, 2021), Jordana Moore Saggese provides the first comprehensive sourcebook on the ...

James M. Lawson Jr. et al., "Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom" (U California Press, 2022)

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A persuasive account of the philosophy and power of nonviolence organizing, and a resource for building and sustaining effective social movements. Des...

David M. Freidenreich, "Jewish Muslims: How Christians Imagined Islam as the Enemy" (U California Press, 2023)

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Uncovering the hidden history of Islamophobia and its surprising connections to the long-standing hatred of Jews. Hatred of Jews and hatred of Muslims...

Adrienne E. Strong, "Documenting Death: Maternal Mortality and the Ethics of Care in Tanzania" (U California Press, 2020)

21 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Documenting Death: Maternal Mortality and the Ethics of Care in Tanzania (University of California Press, 2020) is a gripping ethnographic account of...

Benjamin A. Wurgaft and Merry White, "Ways of Eating: Exploring Food Through History and Culture" (U California Press, 2023)

17 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

What we learn when an anthropologist and a historian talk about food. From the origins of agriculture to contemporary debates over culinary authentici...

Peter Richardson, "Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo" (U California Press, 2022)

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hunter S. Thompson was never a hippie, but his writing nonetheless helped define the counterculture and the San Francisco scene of the 1960s and early...

Peter Richardson, "Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo" (U California Press, 2022)

15 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Hunter S. Thompson was never a hippie, but his writing nonetheless helped define the counterculture and the San Francisco scene of the 1960s and early...

David Carey, Jr., "Health in the Highlands: Indigenous Healing and Scientific Medicine in Guatemala and Ecuador" (U California Press, 2023)

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Health in the Highlands: Indigenous Healing and Scientific Medicine in Guatemala and Ecuador (University of California Press, 2023) explores how, in...

Sahana Ghosh, "A Thousand Tiny Cuts: Mobility and Security Across the Bangladesh-India Borderlands" (U California Press, 2023)

10 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drawing on a decade of fieldwork in the borderlands of northern Bangladesh and eastern India, A Thousand Tiny Cuts: Mobility and Security Across the ...

Tracy E. Perkins, "Evolution of a Movement: Four Decades of California Environmental Justice Activism" (U California Press, 2022)

03 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Despite living and working in California, one of the county's most environmentally progressive states, environmental justice activists have spent deca...

Daniel Herbert, "Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film" (U California Press, 2023)

02 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Daniel Herbert's book Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film (U California Press, 2023) tells the improbable stor...

Mira Balberg, "Fractured Tablets: Forgetfulness and Fallibility in Late Ancient Rabbinic Culture" (U California Press, 2023)

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Rabbinic Sages of the Tannaitic era were fixated on memory and terrified of forgetfulness. In promulgating their own interpretations of Jewish law...

Musab Younis, "On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought" (U California Press, 2022)

13 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the Scale of the World: The Formation of Black Anticolonial Thought (U California Press, 2022) examines the reverberations of anticolonial ideas t...

Xaq Frohlich, "From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age" (U California Press, 2023)

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Xaq Frohlich’s From Label to Table: Regulating Food in America in the Information Age (U California Press, 2023) is a biography of the Nutrition ...

Graham Denyer Willis, "Keep the Bones Alive: Missing People and the Search for Life in Brazil" (U California Press, 2022)

03 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Every year at least 20,000 people go missing in São Paulo, Brazil. Many will be found, sometimes in mundane mass graves, but thousands will not. Kee...

Özge Yaka, "Fighting for the River: Gender, Body, and Agency in Environmental Struggles" (U California Press, 2023)

23 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Fighting for the River: Gender, Body, and Agency in Environmental Struggles (U California Press, 2023) portrays women's intimate, embodied relationsh...

Orisanmi Burton, "Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt" (U California Press, 2023)

17 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt (University of California Press, 2023) boldly and compellingly arg...

Christopher John Bosso, "Why SNAP Works: A Political History--And Defense--of the Food Stamp Program" (U California Press, 2023)

14 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

How did the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program evolve from a Depression-era effort to use up surplus goods into America's foundational food ass...

Hieyoon Kim, "Celluloid Democracy: Cinema and Politics in Cold War South Korea" (U California Press, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Before South Korea became the democracy and media powerhouse that it is today, it underwent several decades of authoritarian rule during the Cold War ...

Timur Warner Hammond, "Placing Islam: Geographies of Connection in Twentieth-Century Istanbul" (U California Press, 2023)

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, the Mosque of Eyüp Sultan has been one of Istanbul’s most important pilgrimage destinations, in large part because of the figure bur...

Damani Partridge, "Blackness As a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin" (U California Press, 2022)

24 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In this bold and provocative new book, Blackness as a Universal Claim: Holocaust Heritage, Noncitizen Futures, and Black Power in Berlin (University...

Phaedra C. Pezzullo, "Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care" (U California Press, 2023)

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Addressing plastics can feel overwhelming. Guilt, shame, anger, hurt, fear, dismissiveness, and despair abound. Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution a...

C. J. Pascoe, "Nice Is Not Enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High" (U California Press, 2023)

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Nice is not enough: Inequality and the Limits of Kindness at American High (University of California Press, 2023) by Dr. C. J. Pascoe is a provocativ...

Daniel Jaffee, "Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice" (U California Press, 2023)

17 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In just four decades, bottled water has transformed from a luxury niche item into a ubiquitous consumer product, representing a $300 billion market do...

William Darity et al., "The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice" (U California Press, 2023)

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

A surge in interest in black reparations is taking place in America on a scale not seen since the Reconstruction Era. The Black Reparations Project: ...

Jacob Bloomfield, "Drag: A British History" (U California Press, 2023)

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Drag: A British History (University of California Press, 2023) is a groundbreaking study of the sustained popularity and changing forms of male drag ...

Nicole Fabricant, "Fighting to Breathe: Race, Toxicity, and the Rise of Youth Activism in Baltimore" (U California Press, 2022)

10 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Industrial toxic emissions on the South Baltimore Peninsula are among the highest in the nation. Because of the concentration of factories and other c...