Indiana University Press blog

Author event: Richard Brent Turner presents paper at UCLA conference

Richard Brent Turner, author of Jazz Religion, the Second Line, and Black New Orleans, will present a paper June 5 at the Mumbo Jumbo: Critical Perspectives on Black Atlantic Sacred Arts conference. The paper, which is entitled "A Jazz Funeral for 'A City That Care Forgot': The New Orleans Diaspora after Hurricane Karina," is from the epilogue of his book. For more information on the conference, visit UCLA International's website.

Book review: Not Normal, Illinois

"The Midwest can be derided as being the middle of nowhere, but Not Normal, Illinois makes a strong case that it’s actually in the middle of everywhere. The ordered grids of farm land you see as you gaze out the window of a plane flying over this vast, unpopulated region are a deception—look closer and you’ll see immense literary talent sprouting from and feeding off this fertile loam." —Stephanie Hlywak, Rain Taxi

IU Press author announces new horned dinosaur

 From The Cleveland Museum of Natural History:

Michael J. Ryan, Ph.D., a scientist at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, has announced the discovery of a new horned dinosaur, Medusaceratops lokii. Approximately 20 feet long and weighing more than 2 tons, the newly identified plant-eating dinosaur lived nearly 78 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period in what is now Montana. Its identification marks the discovery of a new genus of horned dinosaur.

Ryan, curator and head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Museum, published his findings on the new genus in the book, New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs: The Royal Tyrrell Museum Ceratopsian Symposium, available from Indiana University Press. Ryan was the book’s lead editor.

Read the rest of the museum's press release here.

Three IU Press books receive ForeWord Book of the Year Awards

Congratulations to the authors of FARMfood, Stillness and Light, and The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies for receiving ForeWord Book of the Year Awards! We're very proud to have three books win these prestigious honors! For a complete list of Book of the Year Award winners, visit ForeWord's website.

FARMfood
Green Living with Chef Daniel Orr
Daniel Orr
Gold, Cooking Category

Stillness and Light
The Silent Eloquence of Shaker Architecture
Henry Plummer
Gold, Architecture Category

The Year's Work in Lebowski Studies
Edited by Edward P. Comentale and Aaron Jaffe
Silver, Popular Culture Category

Daniel Orr wins two photography awards

Congratulations to FARMfood author Daniel Orr, who won two photography awards in the Best of Indiana Journalism Awards, sponsored by the Indiana Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. Daniel earned both first and second place in the Multiple Picture Group category for his work in two Bloom Magazine pieces: "A Hoosier 4th of July" (first place, photos from story featured below) and "The IU Campus in the Spring" (second place).

To see a complete list of winners, visit the Indiana Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists' website.

Daniel's wonderful photography is also featured FARMfood. Read more about his cookbook on our website.

Two IU Press books receive IPPY awards

We are pleased to announce that two of our books received silver medals in the Independent Publisher Book Awards! FARMfood tied for a silver medal in the Cookbooks category and T.C. Steele and the Society of Western Artists tied for a silver medal in the Fine Art category. Medals will be presented at a gala awards ceremony in New York on May 25.

For more information on the IPPY Awards, visit the Independent Publisher's website.

IU Press to launch new journal: African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review

Cross-posted from the IU Press Journals blog:

Indiana University Press, in partnership with the Africa Peace and Conflict Network and the West African Research Association, will launch the African Conflict & Peacebuilding Review  (ACPR) in early 2011. It will be edited by Abu Bakarr Bah at Northern Illinois University, with the assistance of Associate Editors Mark Davidheiser (Nova Southeastern University) and Tricia Hepner (University of Tennessee), and published twice a year. Volume 1, number 1 will be available in early 2011. 

ACPR will be an interdisciplinary forum for creative and rigorous studies of conflict and peace in Africa and for discussions between scholars, practitioners, and public intellectuals in Africa, the United States, and other parts of the world. It will include a wide range of theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives on the causes of conflicts and peace processes including, among others, cultural practices relating to conflict resolution and peacebuilding, legal and political conflict preventative measures, and the intersection of international, regional, and local interests and conceptions of conflict and peace.

Read the entire post here.

60 Days of Giveaways: Day 60 - LAST DAY!!!

This is the final week of our trivia contest! I'm suffering from trivia question writing fatigue syndrome, so all this week, you can enter yourself in our book drawing by posting the name of the book you'd like to win in the comments section of our blog. One winner will be selected each day. There are only three rules:

1. You can enter the contest each day until you win, but please limit yourself to one post per day.
2. The book you select must be currently in print.
3. Entries must be received by 11:59 EDT for each day of the contest.

Not sure what book you want? Browse our titles here.

Good luck!

Book review: Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture

"Scholars of the late Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East more generally will undoubtedly find within this work a number of striking parallels between the responses of other individuals and groups to the growing Western influence in the region and those of the vernacular rabbis portrayed in Lehmann's study. The unexpected consequences precipitated by these rabbis' attempts to preserve their religious universe in the face of change similarly offer fruitful points of comparison. Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman Sephardic Culture will therefore also be welcomed by scholars interested in broader debates about the role religion played in the emergence of modernity and about the various ways that religious thinkers became modern, even despite themselves." —Julia Phillips Cohen, H-Levant

60 Days of Giveaways: Day 59

This is the final week of our trivia contest! I'm suffering from trivia question writing fatigue syndrome, so all this week, you can enter yourself in our book drawing by posting the name of the book you'd like to win in the comments section of our blog. One winner will be selected each day. There are only three rules:

1. You can enter the contest each day until you win, but please limit yourself to one post per day.
2. The book you select must be currently in print.
3. Entries must be received by 11:59 EDT for each day of the contest.

Not sure what book you want? Browse our titles here.

Good luck!