The Chicago Blog

Newton Minow will be signing books and answering questions at a virtual booksigning this Saturday, June 14th, at 12 noon CDT. Minow is co-author with Craig L. LaMay of the recently released Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future.

The booksigning will be webcast from the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop at 357 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago. You may attend in person or online. The webcast will be available from VirtualBookSigning.net.

On our own site we revisit some of the memorable moments from presidential debates, supplemented with images and links to online videos where available. Nixon sweating, “I knew Jack Kennedy,” presidential scowls and more. We also have an excerpt about the first televised debate between Nixon and Kennedy.

If you're interested in how a virtual booksigning works, take a look at this program from Book-TV.

Archived in Author Events | Film and Media | Politics and Current Events
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It's time for another Printers Row Book Fair! This weekend June 7-8 from 10am until 6 pm the Printers Row Book Fair, the Midwest's largest literary event, will feature scores of author readings and discussion panels, over one hundred booksellers and exhibitors, and a variety of other fun events for the whole family. Among this year's lineup of University of Chicago Press authors making appearances at the event are:

Richard Cahan and Mark Jacob, authors of Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News.

Erin Hogan, author of Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West.

Joel Greenberg, author of Of Prairie, Woods, and Water: Two Centuries of Chicago Nature Writing.

Peggy MacNamara, author and illustrator of Architecture by Birds and Insects: A Natural Art.

Newton Minow and Craig LaMay, authors of Inside the Presidential Debates: Their Improbable Past and Promising Future.

Jonathan Kern, author of Sound Reporting: The NPR Guide to Audio Journalism and Production.

Anne Whiston Spirn, author of Daring to Look: Dorothea Lange's Photographs and Reports from the Field.

Gerald Rosenberg, author of The Hollow Hope: Can Courts Bring About Social Change? Second Edition.

Seth Lerer, author of Children's Literature: A Reader's History from Aesop to Harry Potter.

For times and locations navigate to our author events page, or see the Chicago Tribune's official Printers Row Book Fair website for the complete schedule.

The University of Chicago Press will also be exhibiting at the Fair with a fine selection of books for general readers, books about Chicago, and books by authors appearing at the Fair. The Press tent will be at the corner of Congress and Dearborn.

Archived in Author Events
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Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1945. Madwomen: The “Locas mujeres” Poems of Gabriela Mistral is the first appearance in English of all twenty-six poems of the “Locas mujeres” series, including those left unpublished at her death.

Randall Couch edited and translated Madwomen and he recently gave a reading of seven poems from the book (together with a reading of the Spanish texts) at the Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania. The complete one-hour reading can be downloaded from the Writers House site.

Archived in Author Events | Poetry
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Tomorrow, November 2, as part of the three month long Festival of Maps, the Field Museum will open the exhibit, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. On display will be some of the most fascinating cartographic artifacts ever shown. And just in time for opening day, the Press has released a companion volume of the same name edited by exhibit curators James R. Akerman and Robert W. Karrow, Jr. Like the exhibit, the book surveys a huge range of cartographic sources to explore the many ways that maps have changed our lives and helped us understand the environment in which we live. From a review in Discover magazine:

From religious pilgrimages and vacation road trips to depictions of the ocean floor and the magical landscapes of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, maps chart both physical and imaginary worlds. As geographer Denis Cosgrove explains, "world' is a social concept … a flexible term, stretching from physical environment to the world of ideas, microbes, of sin. Arguably, all these worlds can be mapped." And they are in this compelling and very readable companion volume to the current exhibition at the Field Museum in Chicago.

To find out more about the book, see this special website where you can view a sampling of images organized by theme from just of few of the many fascinating maps in the book.

And if you're planning a day out tomorrow to go see some of these maps in person, you can check out the Field Museum's exhibition highlights online at their website which includes ticket sales, a list of special events, and a primer on what you can expect too see if you go.

In addition to the exhibit at the Field Museum many other Chicago institutions including the Newberry Library and the Chicago History Museum are participating in the Festival of Maps over its three month time span, making it one of the most ambitious celebrations of maps ever. For those looking for a more comprehensive rundown of the entire Festival, navigate to the Chicago Tribune's festival website which includes a guide to the Festival's various venues, video presentations by the Tribune's Patrick Reardon, and even a special blog with reviews and commentary on the Festival's many exhibits. The Tribune also links to the Festival's official website where you can find an indispensable map (of course) of the Festival of Maps and other online features.

Archived in Anthropology | Art and Architecture | Author Events | Cartography and Geography | History
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Updated on August 24: The Daily Show interview of Lt. Col. Nagl is viewable on YouTube. It may not be there for long.

Making our debut as the inside source for UCP celebrity news, we're excited to announce that Lt. Col. John Nagl will be appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight at 10:00 PM CST, to discuss The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. The result of unprecedented collaboration among top U.S. military experts, scholars, and practitioners of U.S. counterinsurgency operations, The Manual documents a revolutionary change in U.S. military doctrine. Nagl, who wrote a foreword for the Manual, will presumably be discussing how the document's emphasis on the importance of decentralized decision-making, the need to understand local politics and customs, and the key role of intelligence in winning the support of the population promises a vast change in U.S. military strategy—but on the Daily Show you never know.

Nagl has also recently contributed to the Press's re-publication of the United States Army's Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II, and released a book, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam—both offering more relevant and fascinating insights into U.S. military strategy.

Read an excerpt from the Counterinsurgency Field Manual or the preface to Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife.

Archived in Author Events | History | Politics and Current Events
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Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl, author of Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, will speak this coming Saturday, July 14, at 10:00 am at the Pritzker Military Library in downtown Chicago. According to the library's website "Nagl, recently returned from Iraq and now commanding a battalion, will share his observations, experiences and thoughts while discussing the recently updated Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife." (You can read Nagl's new preface to the book online.) See the Library's website for more details about the event.

Invariably, armies are accused of preparing to fight the previous war. In Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, Lieutenant Colonel John A. Nagl—a veteran of both Operation Desert Storm and the current conflict in Iraq—considers the now-crucial question of how armies adapt to changing circumstances during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared. Through the use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both engagements, Nagl compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960 with what developed in the Vietnam War from 1950 to 1975.

Nagl also contributed a foreword to our edition of the The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual as well as a foreword to our republication of Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq during World War II.

Archived in Author Events | History | Politics and Current Events
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Photographs by Paul D'Amato are currently on exhibit at the Stephen Daiter Gallery. The show includes some of the work that we published in Barrio: Photographs from Chicago's Pilsen and Little Village, as well as photographs from a more recent project on Lake Street.

In Barrio, D'Amato made the narratives of daily life in Pilsen and Little Village manifest in photographs of children at play, teenagers out in the night, graffiti, families in their homes, gangs in the alleys, weddings, and more. His photos are beautifully composed and startling—visual narratives that are surreal and dreamlike, haunting and mythic.

The Stephen Daiter Gallery is at 311 West Superior Street in Chicago. The showing continues through July 28. Also, visit Paul D'Amato's website.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Chicago
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The annual Printers Row Book Fair is this weekend, June 9-10, in the historic Printers Row district in Chicago’s south loop. Along with more than a hundred publishers and bookstores plying their wares, the fair offers the opportunity to meet firsthand the literary masterminds behind some wonderful UCP books, including readings and author signings from:

Joel Greenberg, author of A Natural History of the Chicago Region and Sally A. Kitt Chappell author of Chicago's Urban Nature: A Guide to the City's Architecture + Landscape. June 9, 3:00 pm at Grace Place, Sanctuary, second floor.

Carl Smith author of The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City. June 10, 1:00 pm at the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry stage.

Mary Pattillo, author of Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City. June 10, 1:30 pm at University Center / Private Dining Room.

Paul D'Amato author of Barrio: Photographs from Chicago's Pilsen and Little Village. June 10, 3:30 pm at University Center / Private Dining Room.

The University of Chicago Press will be located in Tent A at Congress and Dearborn and will be offering books from the above authors and many more.

Check the Printers Row Book Fair website for updated locations and schedules. See our author events page for other appearances by our authors.

Archived in Author Events
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Author Mary Pattillo was featured Tuesday on Chicago Public Radio's daily news-radio talk show Eight Forty-Eight. Pattillo speaks with host Richard Steele about her new book Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City and the revitalization of Chicago's North Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood. Their conversation explores the problems facing this rapidly gentrifying black community to touch on broader issues of race and class in contemporary urban America. You can find archived audio of the show on the Chicago Public Radio website.

Pattillo will also be at 57th Street Books today at 7pm to read from her book. In the meantime, you can check out an excerpt on our website.

Archived in Anthropology | Author Events | Black Studies | Chicago | Politics and Current Events | Sociology
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Susan Bielstein, author of Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property will appear on Library Café, a program on WVKR Independent Radio FM 91.3 in Poughkeepsie, NY, on March 27th at 11 am CST. Bielstein will join host Thomas Hill to discuss her book. You can tune in to a live broadcast online at the Library Café where they should also post archived audio after the show.

Organized as a series of "takes" that range from short sidebars to extended discussions, Permissions, A Survival Guide explores intellectual property law as it pertains to visual imagery. How can you determine whether an artwork is copyrighted? How do you procure a high-quality reproduction of an image? What does "fair use" really mean? Is it ever legitimate to use the work of an artist without permission? Bielstein discusses the many uncertainties that plague writers who work with images in this highly visual age, and she does so based on her years navigating precisely these issues. As an editor who has hired a photographer to shoot an incredibly obscure work in the Italian mountains (a plan that backfired hilariously), who has tried to reason with artists' estates in languages she doesn't speak, and who has spent her time in the archival trenches, she offers a snappy and humane guide to this difficult terrain.

Read an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Reference and Writing
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Author James Attlee was interviewed by Danny Cox of BBC Radio Oxford on the occasion of the 2007 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival. Attlee discussed his book Isolarion: A Different Oxford Journey. You can listen to archived audio (RealMedia format) of the interview.

In Isolarion Attlee delivers a thoughtful, streetwise, and personal account of his pilgrimage to a place he thought he already knew—the Cowley Road in Oxford, right outside his door. Though a lesser known local on Oxford's lower east side, Attlee reveals Cowley to be a thoroughly modern, impressively cosmopolitan, and utterly organic collection of shops, restaurants, pubs, and religious establishments teeming with life and reflecting the multicultural makeup of the surrounding neighborhood. In his interview Attlee expands on that notion by focusing on his account of the Cowley Road as a story not only about this quaint Oxford neighborhood, but a more universal tale of modern cities generally.

We have an excerpt from the book.

Archived in Author Events | Literature
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Tonight—Monday, January 8—at 10 p.m. 98.7 WFMT Radio's Critical Thinking with Andrew Patner will present the first of two programs with University of Chicago musicologist Philip Gossett discussing his new book Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, illustrating his points on bel canto opera performance with musical extracts. The second program will air Monday, January 15, at 10 p.m.

Divas and Scholars is a dazzling and beguiling account of how opera comes to the stage, filled with Philip Gossett's personal experiences of triumphant—and even failed—performances and suffused with his towering and tonic passion for music. Writing as a fan, a musician, and a scholar, Gossett, the world's leading authority on the performance of Italian opera, brings colorfully to life the problems, and occasionally the scandals, that attend the production of some of our most favorite operas.

Read an excerpt.

Archived in Author Events | Music
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Bernard Harcourt, author of the recent Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age, gave a talk last month for the Chicago's Best Ideas series at the University of Chicago Law School exploring and expanding on the topics he discusses in his new book. According to the Law School's Faculty Blog, "the talk was a very interesting look at law enforcement profiling and whether it works. Professor Harcourt approached this empirically, discussing whether it works on a practical level, injecting a new element in a debate that is traditionally about morals and ethics."

You can listen to the podcast of Harcourt's talk and follow along with the slides from his PowerPoint presentation. You can find his book on our website. Either way it would be ill advised to overlook his timely and revealing critique of the methods underlying our modern law enforcement policy.

Update: Chicago Public Radio's 848 also recently interviewed Harcourt about his new book. The audio can be found on the 848 website. Enjoy!

Archived in Author Events | Law
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Chicago poetry lovers will have a difficult choice to make tomorrow: Bernstein or Sereni? The work of both poets will be featured in events the evening of Thursday, November 30.

Language poet Charles Bernstein, author of over 30 books, including Girly Man, My Way, and With Strings is one of the most important figures working in the genre. He will be at the University of Chicago for a reading at 5:30 pm Thursday night in Rosenwald Hall, room 405, 1101 E. 58th Street. He will lecture on Friday at 1:00 pm in Classics, room 110. In preparation you can check out some Bernstein writings, including "Report from Liberty Street" and "Against National Poetry Month as Such".

Meanwhile downtown, Peter Robinson will present his English translations of the works of Italian poet Vittorio Sereni—one of the most important avant-garde Italian poets of the twentieth century—collected in the volume The Selected Poetry and Prose of Vittorio Sereni: A Bilingual Edition. The event will take place at 6:00 pm at the Italian Cultural Institute, 500 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1450.

Choose your poetics, choose a poet, you must choose.

Archived in Author Events | Poetry
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We have previously noted the fond regard that geeks hold for the Whole Earth Catalog. Two more testimonials have burbled up through the ether. Tim O'Reilly, publisher of all those techie books with animals on their covers, says on his blog, O'Reilly Radar:

We shamelessly copied the name of the Whole Earth Catalog for our groundbreaking Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog, but that's the least of our debts to Stewart [Brand] and crew. A huge amount of the O'Reilly sensibility, a mix of practicality and idealism, was learned from the Whole Earth Catalog.

Cory Doctorow also notes his affection and the influence of WEC, writing on BoingBoing:

Count me among those who were heavily influenced by the Catalogs. I have a complete set in a storage locker in Toronto. I used to pore through them for hours on rainy days, marvelling at the flowering of the mission of "access to tools and ideas."

The comments of O'Reilly and Doctorow are occasioned by the announcement of the Stanford University Libraries' upcoming symposium From Counterculture to Cyberculture: The Legacy of the Whole Earth Catalog. Taking its title from Fred Turner's recent book, the symposium will explore the the "extraordinary impact of the Whole Earth Catalog and the American counterculture on contemporary computing and everyday life." The symposium will be held on November 9, 2006, 7–9 pm, at Stanford's Cubberley Auditorium.

If you'd like to find out more about the ways that Stewart Brand has shaped modern digital culture, check out our excerpts from Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture. We have the introduction to the book as well as an excerpt from Chapter Four, "Taking the Whole Earth Digital.

Archived in Author Events | Film and Media | History
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On November 9, 2006, Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, will join panelists Kevin Kelly, Howard Rheingold, and Fred Turner at Stanford University's Cubberley Auditorium to discuss the "extraordinary impact of the Whole Earth Catalog and American counterculture on contemporary computing and everyday life." Turner, author of the recent book From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Catalog, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, will moderate the panel discussion from 7:00 to 8:30 pm to be followed by a public reception with the panelists. More info on the symposium is available at Stanford's Web site.

Stewart Brand and the Whole Earth Network formed a group of artists and entrepreneurs who worked to bring together the disparate worlds of high technology and back-to-the-earth hippies of the '60s and '70s. Through their innovative adaptation of modern technologies they transformed the instruments of the military-industrial complex into tools with which to forge the new, positive, sustainable culture envisioned by the radical social movements they they embraced. Between 1968 and 1998, via such familiar venues as the National Book Award–winning Whole Earth Catalog, the computer conferencing system known as the WELL, and, ultimately, the launch of the wildly successful Wired magazine, Brand and the Whole Earth network were able to broker a long-running collaboration between San Francisco flower power and the emerging technological hub of Silicon Valley that has remained a powerful influence on American attitudes towards technology ever since. Thanks to their vision, counterculturalists and technologists alike joined together to reimagine computers as tools for personal liberation, the building of virtual and decidedly alternative communities, and the exploration of bold new social frontiers.

To learn more about Brand, the Whole Earth Catalog, and digital culture read the introduction and an excerpt from chapter four of Turner's book.

Archived in Author Events | History | Politics and Current Events
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Mark your calendar and set your Tivo accordingly … Carl Smith will be discussing his latest book, The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City tomorrow, October 18, at 7 PM on WTTW's Chicago Tonight. A busy week for Smith: he will also be discussing his new book this Sunday, October 22, at the Chicago History Museum, starting at 3 PM. Light refreshments will be served and the program is free with admission to the newly renovated museum.

After the infamous fire of 1873 that burned the city of Chicago to the ground, city planners were faced with the daunting task of rebuilding from scratch one of the developing nation's most important cities. The man who imagined a better and more beautiful city was Daniel Burnham. Chronicling Burnham's efforts to remake the city of Chicago, Carl Smith's new book sheds light on the Plan of Chicago and artfully shows how the Plan has continued to influence generations of city planners.

Archived in Author Events | Chicago | History
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On Tuesday, September 12, 9:30 AM, authors Clair Brown, John Haltiwanger, and Julia Lane will hold a press conference to release the findings in their book, Economic Turbulence: Is a Volatile Economy Good for America?, at the National Press Club in Washington D.C.. You can listen to the conference live via a web cast hosted by the National Opinion Research Center. The press conference will be followed by a symposium to discuss their research at the National Academy of Sciences.

In Economic Turbulence Brown, Haltiwanger, and Lane explore the real impact of volatility on American workers and businesses alike. According to the authors, while any number of events—shifts in consumer demand, changes in technology, mergers and acquisitions, or increased competition—can contribute to economic turbulence, our economy as a whole is, by and large, stronger for it, because these processes of creation and destruction make it more flexible and adaptable. Basing their argument on an up-close look into the dealings and practices of five key industries—financial services, retail food services, trucking, semiconductors, and software—the authors demonstrate the positive effects of turbulence on career paths, employee earnings, and firm performance.

The first substantial attempt to disentangle and make clear the complexities of this phenomenon in the United States, Economic Turbulence will be viewed as a major achievement and the centerpiece of any discussion on the subject for years to come.

The webcast of the press conference will be archived by NORC. You may also read an excerpt from the book.

Update: NPR's Morning Edition also ran an informative piece on the book, archived audio from the September 13th broadcast can be found here.

Archived in Author Events | Economics
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Tonight at 6:00 p.m., Gilfoyle will discuss and sign Millennium Park at the Harold Washington Library. Items from the official archives of Millennium Park will be on view during the event. The event is free and open to the public.

Timothy J. Gilfoyle's reading was chosen by the Chicago Reader as its Critic's Choice of the week. Harold Henderson wrote, "The story of Millennium Park, as told by Loyola historian Timothy J. Gilfoyle in Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark, is three uplifting tales in one: the site, up from the lake and the post-Fire rubble; the politics, up from a landfill's worth of failed plans; and the culture, up from a conservative vision of merely filling out the north end of Grant Park to a tightly packed series of walkways, sculptures, and theatrical spaces.… This impressively organized and lavishly illustrated book itself wouldn't exist without financial support from the Minow Family Foundation. Those uncomfortable with the project's delays, cost overruns, privatized process, or jangly outcome get their say, but the mayor has the last word."

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Cartography and Geography | Chicago | History | Reviews
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Tonight, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, author of Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark, will appear on WTTW's "Chicago Tonight" television program. The show airs at 7:00 p.m. (CST).

Tomorrow morning, Gilfoyle will be interviewed by Gretchen Helfrich on WBEZ 91.5 FM radio's "Eight Forty-Eight" program (9:00-10:00 a.m.). In addition to regular broadcast, the show will be accessible via an online audio stream on the WBEZ Web site.

Next Wednesday, June 21 at 6:00 p.m., Gilfoyle will speak at the Harold Washington Library's Cindy Pritzker Auditorium (400 South State Street). Gilfoyle will discuss and sign Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark. Items from the official archives of Millennium Park will be on view during the event.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Cartography and Geography | Chicago | History
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On Sunday, June 18 at 1:15 pm (CST), C-SPAN2's Book TV will feature a program from the 2006 Printers Row Book Fair, which features Louise W. Knight, author of Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy and Katherine Joslin discussing Jane Addams.

Jane Addams was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Now Citizen, Louise W. Knight's masterful biography, reveals Addams's early development as a political activist and social philosopher. In this book we observe a powerful mind grappling with the radical ideas of her age, most notably the ever-changing meanings of democracy.

Read an excerpt.

Archived in Author Events | Biography | Chicago | History
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On Monday, June 5, Bernard E. Harcourt, author of Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy appeared on Chicago Public Radio's morning talk show Eight Forty-Eight. Listen to the segment as posted to the WBEZ Web site. Harcourt is also the author of Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age, which we will publish in the fall.

Archived in Author Events | Law | Politics and Current Events | Sociology
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No plans for the weekend? Well, it's supposed to be beautiful, and what better way to spend the day then wandering along Dearborn Street buying books?! The Printer's Row Book Fair takes place this weekend, and the University of Chicago Press will be there selling books in tent A at the corner of Congress and Dearborn.

Press authors will also be represented in the events this weekend. Stuart Dybek, author of Childhood and other Neighborhoods speaks Sunday at 2 pm at the Harold Washington Library; Joel Greenberg, author of A Natural History of the Chicago Region speaks Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Grace Place/2nd floor; James Grossman, editor of The Encyclopedia of Chicago appears at 11 a.m. Sunday in the University Center/Lake Room, and Louise Knight, author of Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy, speaks at 1 p.m. on Saturday in the University Center/Lake Room. Of course, there are many more scheduled events, including appearances by John Updike, Dave Eggers, Nikki Giovanni, and Curious George—not currently scheduled to appear together, but who knows what can happen on Chicago streets at a book fair on a beautiful weekend in June?

For a full schedule of events with a map of venues see the Printers Row Book Fair Web site.

Archived in Author Events | Chicago
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Earlier today, Stefan Timmermans, author of Postmortem: How Medical Examiners Explain Suspicious Deaths, appeared on BBC Radio 4's "Thinking Allowed" program. You can listen to an audio file of the program on the Thinking Allowed Web site.

Postmortem goes deep inside the world of medical examiners to uncover the intricate web of pathological, social, legal, and moral issues in which they operate. Stefan Timmermans spent years in a medical examiner's office, following cases, interviewing examiners, and watching autopsies. While he relates fascinating cases here, he is also more broadly interested in the cultural authority and responsibilities that come with being a medical examiner.

Archived in Author Events | History and Philosophy of Science | Sociology
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On May 27 and 28, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., the University of Chicago is hosting a symposium in honor of Professor Anthony C. Yu (1025 E. 58th Street). Yu is translator and editor of the Journey to the West series and the forthcoming abridgment of The Journey to the West titled The Monkey and the Monk. The symposium, Pleasure and Passion in Chinese Literature, will gather Yu's student's friends, and colleagues in Chinese and Comparative literature whose work has been influenced by his scholarship.

Anthony C. Yu's celebrated translation of The Journey to the West reinvigorated one of Chinese literature's most beloved classics for English-speaking audiences when it first appeared thirty years ago. Yu's abridgment of his four-volume translation, The Monkey and the Monk, finally distills the epic novel's most exciting and meaningful episodes without taking anything away from their true spirit.

Archived in Author Events | Literature
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On May 11 at 4:30 p.m., Rachel DeLue, author of George Inness and the Science of Landscape will lecture at the University of Chicago's Cochrane-Woods Art Center (5540 S. Greenwood Avenue). Her lecture is titled "Diagnosing Pictures: The Science of Looking in America circa 1900." The event is free and open to the public.

George Inness (1825-94), long considered one of America's greatest landscape painters, has yet to receive his full due from scholars and critics. Rachael Ziady DeLue's George Inness and the Science of Landscape—the first in-depth examination of Inness's career to appear in several decades—demonstrates how the artistic, spiritual, and scientific aspects of Inness's art found expression in his masterful landscapes.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events
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Yesterday, Dominic A. Pacyga appeared on WBEZ radio's Eight Forty-Eight program to give his perspective on this week's immigrant rally and how it compares to past immigrant movements in Chicago. Pacyga, an expert on immigrant and labor history, is author of Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922. This book explores the lives of immigrants in two iconic South Side Polish neighborhoods—the Back of the Yards and South Chicago—and the stockyards and steel mills in which they made their living.

Listen to an audio file of the program by scrolling down to May 2, 2006.

Archived in Author Events | Chicago | History | Sociology
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On April 19 at 4:00 p.m., Slavoj Zizek, documentary film star, Critical Inquiry visiting professor, and co-author of The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology, will present another lecture at the University of Chicago. This week's lecture, "The Uses and Misuses of Violence," will take place at the Max Palevsky Cinema (1212 E. 59th Street). The event is free and open to the public.

In The Neighbor, three of the most significant intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory collaborate to show how the problem of neighbor-love opens questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that suggest a new theological configuration of political theory. Their three extended essays explore today's central historical problem: the persistence of the theological in the political. In "Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Zizek's "Neighbors and Other Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.

Archived in Author Events | Literature | Philosophy | Religion
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Yesterday, Jamie L. Mullaney discussed her new book Everyone Is NOT Doing It: Abstinence and Personal Identity on BBC Radio 4's program "Thinking Allowed." Mullaney and host Laurie Taylor discussed abstinence and the significant role it plays in the formation of personal identity. In contrast to such earlier forms of abstinence as social protest, entertainment, or an instrument of social stratification, not doing something now gives people a more secure sense of self by offering a more affordable and manageable identity in a world of ever-expanding options.

You can listen to an audio file of the program by visiting the Thinking Allowed Web site.

Archived in Author Events | Sociology
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Last week, Bernard Harcourt lectured at the University of Chicago Law School. His lecture was based on his book Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy. In the book, Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-male correctional facility, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies.

The University of Chicago Law School Faculty Blog features an audio file of Harcourt's talk, along with slides that accompanied his presentation.

Archived in Author Events | Law | Sociology
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On April 12 and April 19 at 4:00 p.m., Slavoj Zizek, Critical Inquiry visiting professor and co-author of The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology, will present two lectures at the University of Chicago (1126 E. 59th Street). The April 12 lecture is titled "The Ignorance of Chicken, or, Who Believes What Today." The April 19 lecture is titled "The Uses and Misuses of Violence." Both events are free and open to the public.

In The Neighbor, three of the most significant intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory collaborate to show how the problem of neighbor-love opens questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that suggest a new theological configuration of political theory. Their three extended essays explore today's central historical problem: the persistence of the theological in the political. In "Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Zizek's "Neighbors and Other Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.

Archived in Author Events | Literature | Philosophy
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On April 5 at 12:15 p.m., Bernard Harcourt will speak at the University of Chicago Law School's Fourth Annual Chicago's Best Ideas series. Harcourt will lecture on "Language of the Gun: A Semiotic for Law & Social Science." The event is free and open to the public.

Harcourt is author of Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy. Legal and public policies concerning youth gun violence tend to rely heavily on crime reports, survey data, and statistical methods. Rarely is attention given to the young voices belonging to those who carry high-powered semiautomatic handguns. In Language of the Gun, Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-malecorrectional facility, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies. In the process, Harcourt redraws the relationships among empirical research, law, and public policy.

We will publish Harcourt's new book, Against Prediction: Profiling, Policing, and Punishing in an Actuarial Age, later this year. See our earlier post about the subject of that book.

Archived in Author Events | Law
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Walter H. Calvin has received the 2006 Walter P. Kistler Book Award for his book A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change. The award, presented by the Foundation For the Future, recognizes authors of science-based books that contribute to society's understanding of the factors that may impact the long-term future of humanity.

Mankind has recently come to the shocking realization that our ancestors survived hundreds of abrupt and severe changes to Earth's climate. In A Brain for All Seaons, William H. Calvin takes readers around the globe and back in time, showing how such cycles of cool, crash, and burn provided the impetus for enormous increases in the intelligence and complexity of human beings—and warning us of human activities that could trigger similarly massive shifts in the planet's climate.

On April 6, at 7:00 p.m., the University of Washington will host an award ceremony for Calvin. He will be interviewed, participate in a Q&A session, and sign books. The event is free and open to the public.

Read an excerpt.

Archived in Anthropology | Author Events | Awards | Biology | Books for the News
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On March 25, at 8:00 p.m., the 18th Annual Nelson Algren Birthday Party will take place at Acme Art Works (1714 N. Western Avenue). Algren (1909-1981), author of Chicago: City on the Make, is being honored by the Nelson Algren Committee, a group dedicated to promoting interest in Algren, who "made Chicago his trade." The event will feature readings, music, a photographic exhibition, a drawing for Algren books and memorabilia, and of course, birthday cake.

Ernest Hemingway once said of Nelson Algren's writing that "you should not read it if you cannot take a punch." The prose poem, Chicago: City on the Make, filled with language that swings and jabs and stuns, lives up to those words. This 50th anniversary edition is newly annotated with explanations for everything from slang to Chicagoans, famous and obscure, to what the Black Sox scandal was and why it mattered. More accessible than ever, this is, as Studs Terkel says, "the best book about Chicago."

We also publish H. E. F. Donohue's Conversations with Nelson Algren, a collection of frank and often devastating conversations in which Algren reveals himself with all the gruff humor, deflating insight, honesty, and critical brilliance that marked his career. Algren discusses everything from his childhood to his compulsion to write to his relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. The result is a masterful portrait of a rebel and a major American writer.

Archived in Author Events | Biography | Chicago | Literature
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This week (March 22-26), Charlottesville hosts the Twelfth Annual Virginia Festival of the Book. This free event features readings, panels, and discussions with authors, illustrators, and publishing professionals. Four of our authors will participate:

Joel Agee, translator of Hans Erich Nossack's The End: Hamburg 1943 will appear on an "Individual Voices" panel on March 24, noon, at UVa Wilson Hall Auditorium, Room 402, (UVa Central Grounds)

Johanna Drucker, author of Sweet Dreams will explore how artists draw inspiration and materials from popular culture on March 22, 2 p.m., at the UVa Art Museum, Pine Room (UVa Central Grounds)

Louise W. Knight, author of Citizen: Jane Addams and the Struggle for Democracy will appear on the "19th Century Women: Biography" panel on March 25, noon, at New Dominion (404 E. Main Street)

Lawrence Weschler, author of A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces will interview comic artist Art Spiegelman on March 25, 8 p.m., at the Culbreth Theatre (UVa Central Grounds). Weschler will make a second appearance, lecturing on modern art on March 26, 1:30 p.m., at the Culbreth Theatre (UVa Central Grounds)

Read an excerpt from The End.

Read an excerpt from Sweet Dreams.

Read an excerpt from Citizen.

Read the foreword to A Wanderer in the Perfect City.

Archived in Art and Architecture | Author Events | Biography | Chicago | History | Literature
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On March 27 at 8:00 p.m., Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominee Gail Mazur will read from Zeppo's First Wife: New and Selected Poems at the Blacksmith House (56 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA). The event is part of the Blacksmith House Poetry Series, which Mazur founded in 1973.

Zeppo's First Wife, which includes excerpts from Mazur's four previous books, as well as twenty-two new poems, is epitomized by the worldly longing of the title poem, with its searching poignancy and comic bravura.

In his review of Zeppo's First Wife, former United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky wrote, "Audacity and modesty: In Mazur's work, those apparent opposites reveal their secret kinship: Modesty from its place on the sidelines can see through the conventional sham of the rules, and audacity has the confidence to embrace the plain, ordinary truth. In the face of demons or emptiness, Mazur offers a song."

Read a poem from Zeppo's First Wife.

See all our books by Gail Mazur.

Archived in Author Events | Poetry
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On March 15 at 7:30 p.m., Lawrence Weschler, author of A Wanderer in the Perfect City: Selected Passion Pieces, will sign books at Skylight Books in Los Angeles (1818 N. Vermont Avenue).

Lawrence Weschler was a staff writer at the New Yorker for twenty years, where his work shuttled between political tragedy and cultural comedy. A Wanderer in the Perfect City is a collection of his cultural forays, now republished with a new foreword by Pico Iyer. Read the new foreword.

Read an excerpt on the Web site of the New York Times, from an earlier edition.

See all our books by Lawrence Weschler.

Archived in Author Events | Literature
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On Saturday, March 11, at 11:00 a.m., Ann Durkin Keating will discuss her new book Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in the Railroad Age at the Newberry Library in Chicago (60 West Walton Street ). The event is free and open to the public. Copies of Chicagoland will be available for purchase.

Historian and coeditor of the acclaimed The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Ann Durkin Keating resurrects for us here the bustling network that defined greater Chicagoland. Taking a new approach to the history of the city, Keating shifts the focus to the landscapes and built environments of the metropolitan region. Organized by four categories of settlements-farm centers, industrial towns, commuter suburbs, and recreational and institutional centers-that framed the city, Chicagoland offers the collective history of 230 neighborhoods and communities, the people who built them, and the structures they left behind that still stand today.

See tours of Chicagoland.

Visit the Encyclopedia of Chicago Web site.

Archived in Author Events | Chicago | History
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On March 9 at 7 p.m., Andrew Wachtel will discuss his new book Remaining Relevant after Communism: The Role of the Writer in Eastern Europe at the No Exit Café in Chicago (6970 N. Glenwood in Rogers Park).

More than any other art form, literature defined Eastern Europe as a cultural and political entity in the second half of the twentieth century. Although often persecuted by the state, East European writers formed what was frequently recognized to be a "second government," and their voices were heard and revered inside and outside the borders of their countries. This study by one of our most influential specialists on Eastern Europe considers the effects of the end of communism on such writers.

According to Andrew Baruch Wachtel, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the creation of fledgling societies in Eastern Europe brought an end to the conditions that put the region's writers on a pedestal. In the euphoria that accompanied democracy and free markets, writers were liberated from the burden of grandiose political expectations. But no group is happy to lose its influence: despite recognizing that their exalted social position was related to their reputation for challenging political oppression, such writers have worked hard to retain their status, inventing a series of new strategies for this purpose. Remaining Relevant after Communism considers these strategies from pulp fiction to public service documenting what has happened on the East European scene since 1989.

The event, co-sponsored by openDemocracy, is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in the lot at the corner of Glenwood & Estes.

Archived in Author Events | History | Literature
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Gail Mazur will read from Zeppo's First Wife: New and Selected Poems on March 4 at 8 p.m., at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.

Yesterday, the Provincetown Banner featured an article about Mazur. Sue Harrison asked Mazur if writing poems about her husband was off limits:

"I'm unsentimental and I don't write love poems," she says, adding that if she does there is usually some wry twist.

An exception to that is "Air Drawing" from They Can't Take That Away From Me, which was a National Book Award finalist.

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