Penn Press Log

MLK Day Reading List for 2013

Many Penn Press publications, from the journal Humanity to our book series Politics and Culture in Modern America and Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights, address the issues that Martin Luther King, Jr. championed in his campaigns for social justice. From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice, by Thomas F. Jackson, speaks directly to King's fight against poverty. Here are some more recent Penn Press books that also relate to King's legacy and ideals.

Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor
Catherine M. Paden
240 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus.
Cloth 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4297-3 | $55.00 | £36.00
Paper Apr 2013 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2267-8 | $26.50 | £17.50
A volume in the American Governance: Politics, Policy, and Public Law series

In Civil Rights Advocacy on Behalf of the Poor, Catherine M. Paden examines five civil rights organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and explores why they chose to represent the poor—specifically, low-income African Americans—during six legislative periods considering welfare reform.

Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism
Brett Gadsden
352 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4443-4 | $45.00 | £29.50
A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series

Between North and South chronicles the three-decades-long struggle over segregated schooling in Delaware, a key border state and important site of civil rights activism and white reaction, that despite concerted white opposition to reforms produced one of the most progressive desegregation remedies in the nation.

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America
Victoria W. Wolcott
328 pages | 6 x 9 | 18 illus.
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4434-2 | $34.95 | £23.00
A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters tells the story of the battle for access to leisure space in cities across the United States. This detailed and eloquent history shows how African Americans fought to enter segregated amusement areas not only in pursuit of happiness but in connection to a wider movement for racial equality

Dignity Rights: Courts, Constitutions, and the Worth of the Human Person
Erin Daly. Foreword by Aharon Barak
272 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4440-3 | $69.95 | £45.50
A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series

With cases from around the world on a wide range of subjects including prison conditions, employment, sexuality, reputation, and death, this ground-breaking book examines how judicial interpretations of dignity redefine what it means to be human in the modern world.

This Week's New Books

Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship Edited by Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Rogers M. Smith 352 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4456-4 | $79.95 | £52.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0748-4 | $79.95 | £52.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series "Excellent, engaging, and enriching, the essays of Varieties of Sovereignty and Citizenship pursue a wide spectrum of political and methodological approaches to address the state of the national state in the current globalizing moment."--Linda S. Bosniak, Rutgers School of Law-Camden A broad range of scholars from different disciplines reflect on the likely transformation of the world away from the absolute sovereignty of independent nation-states to the proliferation of varieties of plural citizenship, and on the emergence of possible new forms of allegiance.

Now in Paperback Women Warriors for Allah: An Islamist Network in the Netherlands Janny Groen and Annieke Kranenberg. Translated by Robert Naborn. Foreword by Marc Sageman 280 pages | 6 x 9 Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4235-5 | $75.00 | £49.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2233-3 | $29.95 | £19.50 Dutch investigative journalists Janny Groen and Annieke Kranenberg offer an indispensable corrective to the conventional view that Muslim women in jihad are either pacifist nurturers who steer their husbands and brothers away from violence or passive bystanders who play a mere supporting role in networks run by domineering men.

Preparing Today's Students for Tomorrow's Jobs in Metropolitan America Edited by Laura W. Perna 328 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4453-3 | $65.00 | £42.50 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0843-6 | $65.00 | £42.50 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series Written by researchers in education and urban policy, this volume offers useful insights into how to provide urban workers with the educational qualifications they need for real world jobs.

Now in Paperback Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles Marina Peterson 200 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4234-8 | $39.95 | £26.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2236-4 | $22.50 | £15.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0770-5 | $22.50 | £15.00 A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series In Sound, Space, and the City, Marina Peterson explores the processes—from urban renewal to the performance of ethnicity and the experiences of audiences—through which civic space is created at music performances in downtown Los Angeles.

Now in Paperback Asymmetric Autonomy and the Settlement of Ethnic Conflicts Edited by Marc Weller and Katherine Nobbs 360 pages | 6 x 9 | 2 illus. Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4230-0 | $59.95 | £39.00 Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2238-8 | $29.95 | £19.50 Ebook 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0575-6 | $29.95 | £19.50 A volume in the National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century series "A useful collection of articles that analyses issues of autonomy and asymmetry from a multi-dimensional perspective."--International Journal on Minority and Group Rights This collection of new case studies assesses the ability of asymmetrical autonomy agreements to resolve violent struggles between central governments and separatist groups within their borders.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Paul's Pick: a Free Article on the Cost of Higher Education from Dissent

Every month, Paul Chase in the Penn Press Journals department invites our blog readers to download a complimentary article from one of our many scholarly journals.

Paul's pick for November is "The Corporatization of Higher Education"  by Nicholaus Mills, professor of American Studies at Sarah Lawrence College. The article appears in the Fall 2012 issue of Dissent. Mills writes:

When our current period of slow economic growth will end is anybody’s guess, but even when it does end, colleges and universities will certainly not be rolling back their prices. These days, it is not just the economic climate in which our colleges and universities find themselves that determines what they charge and how they operate; it is their increasing corporatization.

 

Click here to download this free article and learn more about Dissent, a quarterly publication of politics and culture that ranks among the handful of political journals read most regularly by U.S. intellectuals.

Check the Penn Press Log in December for Paul's next pick.

This Week's New Books: Between North and South, The Sovereign Citizen, and Capricious Fancy

Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism Brett Gadsden 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 13 illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4443-4 | $45.00 | £29.50 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0797-2 | $45.00 | £29.50 A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series Between North and South chronicles the three-decades-long struggle over segregated schooling in Delaware, a key border state and important site of civil rights activism and white reaction, that despite concerted white opposition to reforms produced one of the most progressive desegregation remedies in the nation.

The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic Patrick Weil 224 pages | 6 x 9 Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-2212-8 | $34.95 | £23.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0621-0 | $34.95 | £23.00 A volume in the Democracy, Citizenship, and Constitutionalism series Present-day Americans may feel secure in their citizenship, but there was a time when citizens could be denationalized. Patrick Weil examines the twentieth-century legal procedures, causes, and enforcement of denaturalization to illuminate an important and neglected dimension of American citizenship, sovereignty, and federal authority.

Capricious Fancy: Draping and Curtaining the Historic Interior, 1800-1930 Gail Caskey Winkler. Foreword by Roger Moss 408 pages | 9 1/2 x 11 | 293 color illus. Hardcover | ISBN 978-0-8122-4322-2 | $85.00 | £55.50 Capricious Fancy chronicles the changes in American and European curtain and drapery styles from 1800 to 1930 resulting from the Industrial Revolution. This lavishly illustrated book contains 325 rare archival images and historical commentary from a leading historic preservation educator and practitioner.

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

School Reform Then and Now: Legacies of the Civil Rights Era

Guest blogger John P. Spencer, author of In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform, comments on the history behind contemporary public education debates.

Legacies of the Civil Rights Era: Accountability and Attention to Poverty

The past decade has brought a steady stream of commentary on how education is the “civil rights issue of our time,” most recently from Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. But education has been a civil rights issue for decades—and not just in Brown v. Board of Education or Little Rock, but in urban communities with low-performing schools.

Revisiting the 1960s shows us that the civil rights era left a dual legacy in school reform, half of which echoes loudly today and half of which is too often ignored. The part that still echoes is an ethos of accountability: sixties-era activists and educators helped to pioneer the idea that urban schools should be held accountable for student achievement. The part that is being ignored is a recognition that achievement is also powerfully shaped by what goes on outside of schools—especially the effects of poverty. Unfortunately, neglect of the latter lesson is seriously undermining the potentially useful impact of the former one.

This Week's New Books: In the Crossfire and Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters

In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform John P. Spencer 352 pages | 6 x 9 | 11 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4435-9 | $34.95 | £23.00 Ebook 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0766-8 | $34.95t | £23.00 A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series In the Crossfire brings a much-needed historical perspective to contemporary debates about educational inequality by tracing the life and work of Marcus Foster, an African-American educator who struggled to reform urban schools in the 1960s and early 70s. Read more . . .

Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America Victoria W. Wolcott 328 pages | 6 x 9 | 18 illus. Cloth 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4434-2 | $34.95 | £23.00 Ebook | ISBN 978-0-8122-0759-0 | $34.95 | £23.00 A volume in the Politics and Culture in Modern America series Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters tells the story of the battle for access to leisure space in cities across the United States. This detailed and eloquent history shows how African Americans fought to enter segregated amusement areas not only in pursuit of happiness but in connection to a wider movement for racial equality. Read more . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson. Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

An English Major in the Workforce

English major Sam Lawyer shares her optimistic employment outlook in the third installmemt of our summer intern blog post series.

There is one question that is the bane of every hopeful English major’s existence: What are you going to do with that degree? It is not a question at all really, but rather a warning in disguise presuming we will all waste away in a life long attempt to write the next great American novel. Some of us definitely will write the next great American novels, but if there is one thing I’ve learned this summer as an intern at the Penn Press, it’s that the rest of us need not fret about a total absence of future employment opportunities. The Press has given me exposure to the variety of important roles that its staff members play, roles that will always be necessary in the publishing industry—yes, even when today’s young adults enter into the workforce.

The Acquisitions Department carefully selects which books the Press will publish, a duty which is highly significant and subsequently demands a refined expertise in language, literature, and sometimes the subject matter of the specific manuscripts they encounter. Their selection process is based upon the quality of the proposed work, what it might add to the collection the Press has already published in its specific subject area, and finally, how the work fits into the conversation among the different authors in this collection. These judgments stem from a strong background in scholarly writing, the kind of preparation specially provided by a degree in the liberal arts. Without qualified individuals to hold these gate-keeping positions, it would be nearly impossible for publishers to develop a repertoire among scholarly circles or become a trustworthy source for the academic community. The Acquisitions Department will always be a central feature of publishing companies, and graduates passionate about the humanities are the strongest candidates for these positions.

Next, the Managing Editorial Department provides a similarly crucial function whose link to a degree in English needs little explicating. Any liberal arts student knows that while Spell Check is certainly helpful, it is no substitute for the proofreading offered by a sagacious human eye. As long as they write, authors will make typos and misplace commas, which means there will always be a need in the Press for those of us who are sticklers for grammar and detail-oriented in general. Not only are English majors qualified for such a job, it allows them to get paid to do something they enjoy: read books (in the making).

Once editing is done, there are the physical details of the books that need to be planned for. That is where the Production staff comes in. While the font, binding color, and type of paper used in the books we read is often take for granted, these design elements don’t materialize from the thin air. Various employees at publishing houses work hard to make them possible. While these roles may not require a background in English, they can certainly be performed by Enlighs majors who are visual, organized, and efficient.

Even after books have been released, there are many roles that the Press performs that provide entry-level positions for ambitious young adults. There are jobs in the Marketing Department, carrying out the valiant task of publicizing the Press’ newly published works to the journals, conferences, and news networks. These efforts help spread an otherwise undiscovered wealth of information to intellectual communities that will then use it to inform their own work and others.

There are also positions in Rights and Administration which require an analytical mind such as that effectively fostered by an English or other liberal arts degree. Rights and adminstration professionals parcel out reproduction and translation rights, which are only granted to sources that the Press feels confident will do justice by the work and promote the integrity of their organization. This ability to discern where the works of the Press belong is incredibly important, as it maintains the credibility of its content and the context in which it is used. Both the Marketing and Rights and Administration Departments are excellent employment opportunities for English majors that are effective communicators and negotiators. These abilities have become increasingly valuable in the age of Wikipedia and a host of other Internet sources with little regulation.

The plethora of work required to run a publishing house does not negate tight budgets and the surplus of candidates looking for jobs, but it is undoubtedly work that gets done by someone. English majors, like graduates in any other academic discipline, are going to have to be competitive in order to thrive in this industry and getting a job is by no means easy. What we can feel confident about is that we are equipped with an important skill set that has a place in the workforce, and that a love of literature is not necessarily a sentence to life as a starving artist. With the right combination of motivation, networking, and timing, it is certainly possible to gain employment even against what might appear to be frightening odds. Next time someone asks me what I’ll be doing with my English major, I still probably won’t be certain, but it won’t be for lack of options.

Sam Lawyer is a student at the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts & Sciences.

A Publishing Internship Packing List

In this installment in our series of summer intern blog posts, Julie Carlson shows prospective scholarly publishing beginners how to pack light for their cubicle adventures.

Whenever summer draws to a close, I inevitably feel the urge to run off and spend a few days in some exotic, sunny locale. Unfortunately, even if such an impromptu vacation was financially feasible, I know myself well enough to know that I would inevitably find my voyage taxing, my skin burnt, and my feet blistered; basically, I would hate the trip. Nevertheless, my wanderlust persists. Foreseeing this conflict of interests, I preemptively decided to pass this summer in the relatively-relaxing environ of Philadelphia, where I’ve spent 10 weeks on an exciting safari through the world of a scholarly press. For like-minded peers who may wish to follow in my footsteps, here are a few items for your packing list.

This Week's New Books: "The Bagnios of Algiers" and "The Great Sultana," The Conversion of Herman the Jew, The Folkstories of Children,

Now in Paperback
"The Bagnios of Algiers" and "The Great Sultana": Two Plays of Captivity
Miguel de Cervantes. Edited and translated by Barbara Fuchs and Aaron J. Ilika
208 pages | 6 x 9 | 1 map
Cloth 2009 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4209-6 | $34.95 | £23.00
Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2215-9 | $19.95 | £13.00

The first English translation of two captivity plays by Cervantes, set in Algiers and Constantinople. Featuring a lively cast of corsairs, captives, and renegades, they offer important insights into early modern Spain's conception of the world of Islam. Read more . . .

 

 

Now in Paperback
The Conversion of Herman the Jew: Autobiography, History, and Fiction in the Twelfth Century
Jean-Claude Schmitt. Translated by Alex J. Novikoff
320 pages | 6 x 9 | 9 illus.
Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4254-6 | $59.95 | £39.00
Paper 2012 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2219-7 | $26.50 | £17.50
A volume in the Middle Ages Series

Jean-Claude Schmitt examines a unique and controversial conversion narrative to explore its meaning within the society and culture of its period as well as what it has to tell us about the way historians think and write. Read more . . .

 

Now in Paperback
The Folkstories of Children
Brian Sutton-Smith
328 pages | 6 x 9
Paper 1981 | ISBN 978-0-8122-1108-5 | $22.50 | £15.00
A volume in the Publications of the American Folklore Society series

The Folkstories of Children, first published in 1981, features nearly five hundred stories that were volunteered by fifty children between the ages of two and ten and transcribed word for word. The stories are organized chronologically by age of the teller, revealing the progression of the children's cognition and verbal competence. Read more . . .

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Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson at jorobin@upenn.edu.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

This Month's Podcast: John P. Spencer on Marcus Foster and American Public School Reform

In the August Penn Press podcast, John P. Spencer, Associate Professor of Education at Ursinus College and author of In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and the Troubled History of American School Reform, talks about the work of a leading public educator who was assassinated in 1973. Spencer shares Foster's success stories and struggles in the Philadelphia and Oakland school systems, and explains what Foster's comprehensive, bridge-building approach can teach us in an age of finger-pointing debates about failing urban schools.

From the interview:

Foster was a pioneer of. . . the current movement to insist on achievement and eradicating achievement gaps, just as in many of these high-performing charter schools that get a lot of attention in the film Waiting for Superman and Geoffrey Canada's project in the Harlem Children's Zone. I see him as a real precursor to that. But on the other hand. . . he took the larger society to task for expecting that we could do this on the cheap and that you could pretend that resources were adequate for these schools.

In this clip, Spencer explains why Foster's legacy is relevant to today's school reform efforts.

In the Crossfire: Marcus Foster and School Reform Interview Excerpt by PennPress

The complete interview is available at the Penn Press podcast page.