Indiana University Press blog

New releases for May

Elie Wiesel
Jewish, Literary, and Moral Perspectives
Edited by Steven T. Katz and Alan Rosen

"[An] illuminating collection of 24 academic essays . . . [and a] valuable look back on Wiesel’s heroic authorial career." —Publishers Weekly

Read an excerpt

Rhinoceros Giants
The Paleobiology of Indricotheres
Donald R. Prothero

"In a look at the biggest of these wonders . . . Prothero delves into these overlooked big guys, the most massive mammals to ever walk the Earth . . . [and] cuts across every aspect of paleontology to tell the story of these vanished giants. Chapters range from entertaining recounting of discoverers . . . to scholarly descriptions of the rules that biologists must follow to name a new species or estimate a vanished rhino's weight." —USA Today

A Legacy of Armenian Treasures
Testimony to a People–The Alex and Marie Manoogian Museum
Edmond Y. Azadian, Executive Editor
Sylvie L. Merian, Editorial Coordinator
Lucy Ardash, General Coordinator

"For centuries Armenia did not exist as an independent state, yet its clerics, poets, artists, and musicians maintained and cultivated a cultural heritage of extraordinary beauty. . . .  This exquisite volume brings to us a vivid portrait of a people whom no empire was able to extinguish. The Manoogian Museum and this beautiful book reveal a glorious, gorgeous past of a determined people." —Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Michigan

Look inside the book

The Electric Pullman
A History of the Niles Car & Manufacturing Company
Lawrence A. Brough

Following the 16-year story of the highly regarded Niles Car & Manufacturing Company—from its surprising success to its sale—this intriguing book includes unpublished photographs and rosters of railway cars and will appeal to railroad enthusiasts everywhere.

Now back in print
Riley Farm-Rhymes
James Whitcomb Riley
Country Pictures by Will Vawter

First published in 1883, this charming book includes many of James Whitcomb Riley's signature poems, including "Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer" and "When the Frost Is on the Punkin."

Teaching Africa
A Guide for the 21st-Century Classroom
Edited by Brandon D. Lundy and Solomon Negash

"A valuable resource for any teacher of African topics, stimulating new ways of thinking about the study of Africa and providing useful ideas about how to improve one's teaching, enhance student engagement with the continent, and expand Africa's presence within the curriculum." —Stephen Volz, Kenyon College

Becoming Soviet Jews
The Bolshevik Experiment in Minsk
Elissa Bemporad

Winner, Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History

"Elissa Bemporad has deepened and enriched our understanding of the social transformations Soviet Jews experienced in the two decades after the revolution. Mining hitherto inaccessible archives, she deftly links larger historical processes to the changes in the lives of ordinary—and some extraordinary—Jews in one of the great centers of Yiddish culture and Judaism." —Zvi Gitelman, author of A Century of Ambivalence: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present

An Ode to Salonika
The Ladino Verses of Bouena Sarfatty
Renée Levine Melammed

"An important contribution to Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) studies as well as to the history of Greek Jews during Holocaust. Melammed has done her best to present Bouena's impressive text." —Shmuel Refael, Bar-Ilan University

The Female Face of Shame
Edited by Erica L. Johnson and Patricia Moran

"This collection features well written, carefully researched essays that analyze an impressive range of fictional, autobiographical, theoretical, and (in one case) cinematic texts. It exemplifies feminist scholarship of the highest order and offers a timely intervention. This is a powerful collection with impressive interdisciplinary strengths." —Mary K. DeShazer, Wake Forest University

Feminist, Queer, Crip
Alison Kafer

"Kafer presents a bold and challenging perspective on potential futures for, and coalitions of, various politicized groups that are usually imagined separately—crips and queers, but also feminists, trans-gendered people, environmentalists, environmental justice activists, reproductive justice activists, 'restroom revolutionaries,' and people with MCS." —Stacy Alaimo, University of Texas at Arlington

Encountering Morocco
Fieldwork and Cultural Understanding
Edited by David Crawford and Rachel Newcomb
Afterword by Kevin Dwyer

"From activism to autism, and from fraught conversation to religious conversion, the range of approaches to the American anthropologist’s encounter with Morocco and Moroccans is impressive. Indeed Morocco itself, and its anthropologist interlocutors, are seen in this collection as through a prism: refracted and brilliant." —Brian T. Edwards, author of Morocco Bound: Disorienting America's Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express

You're gonna flip for the digital flip versions of our catalogs!

OK, so I'm a little late to the "make-a-cool-digital-flip-version-of-your-catalog" party, but I've finally arrived with our first issue using Issuu. Check out our fall 2013 books and journals catalogs, and tell us what you think!

Fall 2013 books catalog

Open publication - Free publishing - More academic

Fall 2013 journals catalog

Open publication - Free publishing - More humanities

New releases for April

The B Word 
Bisexuality in Contemporary Film and Television
Maria San Filippo

 "Maria San Filippo argues convincingly that bisexuality should not be entirely subsumed under the heading of queer studies, but deserves to be as legitimate an object of scholarly attention as gay and lesbian studies. Her argument is provocative and thoughtful." —Tania Modleski, author of Loving with a Vengeance: Mass Produced Fantasies for Women

 IU Press podcast

Sightings
Stories
B. J. Hollars

"All of these stories represent a talented tightrope walk between genres and a gentle lesson in craftsmanship for aspiring storytellers ... An imaginatively sculpted collection of absurdist concepts applied liberally to the equally preposterous notion of growing up." —Kirkus Reviews

 Book trailer

The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor
Dr. Billy Taylor
with Teresa L. Reed

"In this excellent collaboration with author Teresa Reed, Dr. Billy Taylor, one of the most beloved and iconic figures in the jazz world, tells his extraordinary life story in his own words with characteristic humility, warmth, and eloquence. This is a book of major importance not only to the jazz field but also to the study of the African American social and cultural experience in the 20th and early 21st centuries. It is a must read—I couldn’t put it down!" —Dr. David N. Baker, Chair, Jazz Studies, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music; National Endowment for the Arts American Jazz Master

 Read excerpt

Got Sun?
200 Best Native Plants for Your Garden
Carolyn Harstad
Drawings by Jean Vietor

This book will accomplish its purpose if it motivates you to plant some natives. Learn about their history. Google them, look at photographs and decide which ones to bring into your life. Think about native plants that will zing in the sunny parts of your garden throughout the season. Get passionate and go native—and have fun while you are at it!" —from the Preface

Shrubs Large and Small
Natives and Ornamentals for Midwest Gardens
Moya L. Andrews and Gillian Harris
Illustrated by Gillian Harris

"This beautifully illustrated book on landscape gardening addresses shrubs and how to determine which you should plant among your perennials and where. Shrubs provide the foundation for a pleasing, yet low-maintenance garden."

The Fighting Pattons
Brian M. Sobel
Foreword by Major General George S. Patton
With a new Foreword by Joanne Holbrook Patton
And a new Introduction by the Author

"A balanced portrayal of the men and their myths, revealing the father and son to be much alike: dedicated professional men of arms, unswerving in their duty and their devotion to their men." —Library Journal

Now in paperback
Pink and Blue
Telling the Boys from the Girls in America
Jo B. Paoletti

 "This is a fascinating piece of American social history, perhaps raising more questions than it answers. It is of potential interest to students and professionals in fields ranging from child development to gender studies to fashion to marketing, as well as to new and prospective parents." —Library Journal

 IU Press podcast

Post-Revolution Nonfiction Film
Building the Soviet and Cuban Nations
Joshua Malitsky

"Joshua Malitsky here mines a rich seam. By closely comparing Vertov and Alvarez he uncovers 'post-revolutionary nonfiction film' as a discernible entity with commonalities shared across time and cultures. The extensive—indeed vast—archive of newsreels from both filmmakers is well worth the thorough attention he gives it, suggesting a context for their better-known documentaries. And his situating of Esfir Shub's compilations as not so much an alternative to Vertov but rather a wholesale replacement approach to agitprop is also compelling. All in all, Malitsky offers a crucial corrective to much received thinking on 20th century radical film." —Brian Winston, University of Lincoln, UK 

Trash
African Cinema from Below
Kenneth W. Harrow

"Reading these films in this manner becomes a metaphor of how one must understand African nations in a global context  ... highly original and deeply historicized." —Frieda Ekotto, University of Michigan

African Art and Agency in the Workshop
Edited by Sidney Littlefield Kasfir and Till Förster

"A closer examination of the workshop provides important insights into art histories and cultural politics. We may think we know what we mean when we use the term “workshop,” but in fact the organization of groups of artists takes on vastly different forms and encourages the production of diverse styles of art within larger social structures and power dynamics." —Victoria Rovine, University of Florida

Free and French in the Caribbean
Toussaint Louverture, Aimé Césaire, and Narratives of Loyal Opposition
John Patrick Walsh

"A fruitful intervention in a growing body of literature and increasingly lively debate on the Haitian Revolution and the figure of Toussaint Louverture, the book also contributes to the emerging scholarship on Césaire, Francophone literature, and postcolonial theory. ... Walsh reveals how these texts [by Louverture and Césaire] are structured, how they function, and what dynamics they contain—and what they have to show us about politics and history." —Gary Wilder, CUNY Graduate Center

American Post-Judaism
Identity and Renewal in a Postethnic Society
Revised Edition
Shaul Magid

"In every case, Shaul Magid's point is that the old paradigms for thinking about Jews and Judaism—specifically the ethnically inflected, assimilation-phobic, chosen/one God model—are dead. But all is not lost. He is optimistic that if we redefine the terms of Jewish survival, we will see just how much Jews have gained in these transformations." —Lila Corwin Berman, Temple University  

Music and the Skillful Listener
American Women Compose the Natural World
Denise Von Glahn

"It is no accident that Denise Von Glahn calls her book The Skillful Listener, as this ability is one that she has in abundance. Her active listening and probing interviews reveal the artistic, spiritual and personal essence of each of the nine composers in this book." —Victoria Bond, composer/conductor

Multiple Identities
Migrants, Ethnicity, and Membership
Edited by Paul Spickard 

"A significant contribution to studies of migration in Europe, ethnic/racial studies, studies of transnationalism, political studies of citizenship and belonging, as well as to the fields of sociology and anthropology." —Rebecca King-O'Riain, National University of Ireland

Loyal Unto Death
Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia
Keith Brown

"Engaging, theoretically sophisticated, and ethnographically detailed. . . . Makes a very complicated period of Balkan history admirably clear." —Loring M. Danforth, Bates College

New releases for March

Touching America's History
From the Pequot War through WWII
Meredith Mason Brown

"A new and interesting take on moments in America's past. It's a page turner ... with good writing and an appreciation that big events are often, maybe always, populated and constructed by people other than the prominent leaders." —Walter Nugent, author of Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion and Into the West: The Story of its People

  IU Press podcast

Blue White Red
A Novel
Alain Mabanckou
Translated by Alison Dundy

"Mabanckou’s provocative novel probes the many facets of the 'migration adventure,' including the shame that accompanies migrants home when their foreign sojourn ends in failure." —Booklist

The Tribal Knot
A Memoir of Family, Community, and a Century of Change
Rebecca McClanahan

"Rebecca McClanahan’s multi-generational memoir artfully weaves together more than a century of family documents, oral history, and historical records. With poetic elegance, McClanahan transforms ordinary life events into meaningful life stories. The Tribal Knot is not only an engaging read, but a literary model for those who yearn to write their own family story." —Sharon DeBartolo Carmack, author of You Can Write Your Family History

 Read excerpt

New Stories from the Midwest
2012
Introduction by Guest Editor John McNally
Edited by Jason Lee Brown and Shanie Latham

"As this fresh anthology proves, there's a mix of writers and sensibilities that inhabit the literary Midwest as to make the term unpredictable." —Stuart Dybek, MacArthur Fellow and author of The Coast of Chicago

Cosmos of Light
The Sacred Architecture of Le Corbusier
Henry Plummer

"It is my firm belief that Henry Plummer is one of the leading authorities on the importance of understanding the valuable role that light plays in the creation of architecture. This would seem to be of major importance now as we deal with sustainable environments and the role of available energy such as daylight." —Richard C. Peters, Professor Emeritus of Architecture, University of California, Berkeley

The Battle for Manchuria and the Fate of China
Siping, 1946
Harold M. Tanner

Putting the battle into the context of the military and political struggles fought, Harold M. Tanner casts light on all sides of this historic confrontation and shows how the outcome has been, and continues to be, interpreted to suit the needs of competing visions of China’s past and future.

 Strangers in the Wild Place
Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945-1952
Adam R. Seipp

"This well-researched and well-documented ... book will contribute to the growing literature of the refugee crisis throughout postwar Europe and the variety of populations gathered on Allied occupied German territory, and thereby forcefully challenge the myth that the conspicuous and anxiety-provoking presence of 'non-Germans' is a new 'problem' for Germany." —Atina Grossmann, New York University

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning In and Across the Disciplines
Edited by Kathleen McKinney

"[Represents] the continuation of an important conversation about the nature of scholarship, a renewed and increasingly sophisticated understanding of teaching, and a shift of focus from teaching to learning that has been occurring in the academy for at least a decade. ...  [S]hows the extent to which a common language and methodologies have emerged as SoTL has matured." —Margaret Miller, University of Virginia

The Arab Revolts
Dispatches on Militant Democracy in the Middle East
Edited by David McMurray and Amanda Ufheil-Somers

"This is easily the best volume on the Arab uprisings yet published. The material is very strong and accessibly written, providing rich background on the political and economic contexts in the region prior to the uprisings as well as after the events of 2011 unfolded, based on substantive knowledge. ... Ideal for students, policymakers, and general readers." —Jillian Schwedler, University of Massachusetts

Africa and France
Postcolonial Cultures, Migration, and Racism
Dominic Thomas

"A hugely impressive piece of scholarship by a leading figure in the field of French Studies who has carved out a position over the past decade as perhaps the most authoritative voice in U.S. academia on relations between France and its former sub-Saharan African colonies." —David Murphy, University of Stirling

The Métis of Senegal
Urban Life and Politics in French West Africa
Hilary Jones

"An important contribution to African history that traces the rise and decline of the métis community of St. Louis-du-Sénégal, one of the mixed race communities that sprouted in the various corners of the European empire." —Martin Klein, University of Toronto

The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard
Richard McCombs

Richard McCombs presents Søren Kierkegaard as an author who deliberately pretended to be irrational in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to provoke his readers to discover the hidden and paradoxical rationality of faith. 

A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross
The Cruciform Self
Brian Gregor

"Makes a sustained contribution to the very important debate over the proper space between philosophy and theology. Original, well researched, beautifully written, and provocative." —Kevin Hart, University of Virginia

New releases for February

America's Poor and the Great Recession
Kristin S. Seefeldt and John D. Graham
Foreword by Tavis Smiley

"This book is an important inquiry into the impact of 'The Great Recession' on America’s precious poor citizens. Don't miss it!" —Cornel West

The Imjin and Kapyong Battles, Korea, 1951
S. P. MacKenzie

"MacKenzie offers a fresh, exhaustively researched and clear-eyed account of a pair of complex battles and of the warring national historiographies to which they gave rise. A thorough tactical analysis is matched by a careful reading of the subsequent accounts and a fair-minded and judicious apportioning of praise and responsibility for the successes and failures in a critical period of the Korean War." —Jeffrey Grey, Australian Defence Force Academy

Euro Horror
Classic European Horror Cinema in Contemporary American Culture
Ian Olney

"Guaranteed to send scholars and fans running back to their DVD outlets, either to discover or revisit some of the oddest and most provocative horror films of all time." —Harry M. Benshoff, author of Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film

The 7 Sexes
Biology of Sex Determination
Elof Axel Carlson

"Carlson does an excellent job presenting the researchers who, over time, worked out the details of sex determination and differentiation. Highly informative and instructive." —Johan Verhulst, MD, Kinsey Institute

Read an excerpt

Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy
Gennett Records and the Rise of America's Musical Grassroots
Revised and Expanded Edition
Rick Kennedy
Foreword by Ted Gioia

"Kennedy’s passion for and years of in depth research of the Starr Piano / Gennett Record label story shines brightly in the new edition of Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy. Not only is it the definitive account of the company’s history, but of the tipping point in both the birth of the modern record business and the introduction of American culture and music to the world." —Charlie B. Dahan, Associate Professor, Recording Industry Studies, Middle Tennessee State University

Watch the book trailer

Cruel City
A Novel
Mongo Beti
Translated by Pim Higginson

Signifying a pivotal moment in African literature and a new kind of writing, this novel tells the story of a young man's bold attempt to cope with capitalism and the rapid urbanization of his country despite enduring a series of misfortunes.

African Migrations
Patterns and Perspectives
Edited by Abdoulaye Kane and Todd H. Leedy

"Population movements have been one of the most important social processes unfolding on the African continent over the past century." —Michael Lambert, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Heidegger and Language
Edited by Jeffrey Powell

"A volume that reappraises the role of language in Heidegger's thought is a welcome addition to the literature." —François Raffoul, Louisiana State University

Now in paperback
Four Seminars
Martin Heidegger
Translated by Andrew Mitchell and François Raffoul

"[This] brilliant translation will prove indispensable for theory and criticism in English. . . . On Kant, Marx, and the meaning of technology, these seminars contain some of Heidegger's most thoughtful insights and arguments. . . . Highly recommended." —Choice

Plato's Laws
Force and Truth in Politics
Edited by Gregory Recco and Eric Sanday

"A diverse set of intelligent and original essays on the Laws featuring some of the best names in American scholarship." —Marina McCoy, Boston College

Genealogy as Critique
Foucault and the Problems of Modernity
Colin Koopman

"Colin Koopman rethinks Foucault's work from the ground up, re-reading his relationships to Kant, Nietzsche, Deleuze and Habermas. In so doing, he opens up fruitful new avenues for connecting Foucaultian genealogical critique to pragmatism and Habermasian critical theory. It is a must read for anyone interested in the relationship between Foucault and critical theory." —Amy R. Allen, Dartmouth College

Gadamer
A Philosophical Portrait
Donatella Di Cesare
Translated by Niall Keane

This sensitive and thoroughly readable philosophical portrait of Hans-Georg Gadamer highlights the central place of Greek philosophy in his work, brings out differences between his thought and that of Heidegger, and connects him with discussions and debates in pragmatism.

Shatterzone of Empires
Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands
Edited by Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz

"It is hard to imagine that anyone in the field of central/eastern Europe will not buy this book. It will also be interesting to anyone working on the First or Second World War, or the history of violence, genocide, Judeocide. It's a big book . . . that will have a big impact." —Alison Frank, author of Oil Empire: Visions of Prosperity in Austrian Galicia

Picturing History at the Ottoman Court
Emine Fetvaci

The Ottoman court of the late 16th century produced an unprecedented number of sumptuously illustrated chronicles. While usually dismissed as imperial eulogies, Emine Fetvacı demonstrates that these books commented on contemporary events, promoted the political agendas of courtiers as well as the sultan, and presented their patrons and creators in ways that helped shape the perspectives of their elite audience.

Gods of the Mississippi
Edited by Michael Pasquier

Exploring the religious landscape along the Mississippi River, this book makes a compelling case for American religion in motion and contributes to a richer understanding of this diverse, dynamic, and fluid religious world.

New releases for January

Butterflies of Indiana
A Field Guide
Jeffrey E. Belth

"This is the complete guide to the appreciation of Indiana’s butterflies." —John Shuey, Director of Conservation Science, Indiana Chapter of the Nature Conservancy and past president of the Lepidopterists' Society

Life Traces of the Georgia Coast
Revealing the Unseen Lives of Plants and Animals
Anthony J. Martin

Have you ever wondered what left behind those prints and tracks on the seashore, or what made those marks or dug those holes in the dunes? Life Traces of the Georgia Coast is an up-close look at these traces of life and the animals and plants that made them. This aesthetically appealing and scientifically grounded book is written in a lively, approachable style for both scientists and enthusiasts of the natural history of the Georgia coast.

Patterns of War—World War II
Larry H. Addington

Drawn from the second edition of Larry H. Addington’s The Patterns of War since the Eighteenth Century, this e-book short discusses the evolution of warfare during World War II. Addington highlights developments in strategies and tactics and logistics and weaponry, providing detailed analyses of important battles and campaigns. It is an excellent introduction for both students and the general reader.

Women in American Popular Music
S. Kay Hoke

This enlightening e-book short features composers, performers, patrons, musical contexts and an expanded view of women in music in America. It is a good source of programming ideas for performers and a handy resource for music lovers.

Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary
Solon Beinfeld and Harry Bochner, Editors-in-Chief

"An essential tool for all in the English-speaking world who want to have access to the incomparable riches to be found in the vast corpus of Yiddish literature, in Yiddish books and a Yiddish press, published on five continents over the last five centuries." —Samuel Norich, publisher of the Forward

The Event
Martin Heidegger
Translated by Richard Rojcewicz

Martin Heidegger’s The Event offers his most substantial self-critique of his Contributions to Philosophy: Of the Event and articulates what he means by the event itself. Richard Rojcewicz’s elegant translation offers the English-speaking reader intimate contact with one of the most basic Heideggerian concepts.

William James in Focus
Willing to Believe
William J. Gavin

Distilling the main currents of James's thought, William J. Gavin focuses on “latent” and “manifest” ideas in James to disclose the notion of “will to believe,” which courses through his work. For students who may be approaching James for the first time and for specialists who may not know James as deeply as they wish, Gavin provides a clear path to understanding James’s philosophy even as he embraces James’s complications and hesitations.

Highlife Saturday Night
Popular Music and Social Change in Urban Ghana
Nate Plageman

"Going beyond a mere account of highlife's origins and development, it offers a history of popular music and its relationship to the cultural, gendered, political, and social fabric of urban Ghana." —Stephan F. Miescher, University of California, Santa Barbara

This book is generously enhanced by audiovisual material on the Ethnomusicology Multimedia website

A Dance of Assassins
Performing Early Colonial Hegemony in the Congo
Allen F. Roberts

"As close as a thoroughly scholarly and intimately researched monograph gets to a veritable page-turner. In the hands of consummate narrator Roberts, this precisely engineered keyhole of a story opens a door on the ambiguities of colonial encounter. A Dance of Assassins blends historical writing and anthropological interpretation at its best, and tells it all like it was—and is—in all its complexity and nuance." —John Mack, University of East Anglia

Ecologies of Faith in New York City
The Evolution of Religious Institutions
Edited by Richard Cimino, Nadia A. Mian, and Weishan Huang
Foreword by Nancy T. Ammerman

"A great resource for students in congregational, religious, and urban studies [and] a valuable installment in the resurrection of urban religious ecology." —Omar McRoberts, University of Chicago

Cinematic Flashes
Cinephilia and Classical Hollywood
Rashna Wadia Richards

"This is a beautifully written book—one marked not just by clarity, but by striking and evocative turns of phrase. It is extraordinary for the way Richards balances and intertwines traditional academic analysis with a more poetical logic." —Christian Keathley, author of Cinephilia and History, or The Wind in the Trees

Climate Change in the Midwest
Impacts, Risks, Vulnerability, and Adaptation
Edited by S. C. Pryor

The research presented in this volume focuses on identifying and quantifying the major vulnerabilities to climate change in the Midwestern United States. By providing state-of-the-art spatially disaggregated information regarding the historical, current, and possible future climate within the region, the contributors assess the risks and susceptibility of the critical socio-economic and environmental systems.

IU Press launches new digital shorts imprint

Today, Indiana University Press launched a new digital imprint, INshort, which will publish short e-content on contemporary and historical issues and provide discerning readers with short, engaging views of important and compelling topics in multiple formats. Titles in the series will feature original content from award-winning authors and will also showcase carefully selected excerpts from previously published IU Press books and journals.

Women in American Popular Music, by S. Kay Hoke, is a chapter from the edited volume Women and Music: A History, featuring composers, performers, patrons, musical contexts and an expanded view of women's contributions to music in the 20th century.

Patterns of War—World War II, by Larry H. Addington, is taken from his second edition of The Patterns of War since the Eighteenth Century and is an excellent introduction for students and general readers on the evolution of warfare during World War II.

“We chose to launch our INshort series with titles in music and military history because these are two of the most prominent areas in which IU Press publishes, and because our military history and music titles have traditionally done well for us as e-books,” said Kate Caras, Director of Electronic and Serials Publishing.

Titles planned for next season are on women in jazz and on Abraham Lincoln. Future plans for the imprint include the release of at least four shorts a year in the same wide spectrum of subject areas in which IU Press currently publishes.

“We’ve launched our INshort effort with the repurposing of previously published materials and with the goal of adding, in the very near future, original essays on topics of immediate interest,” said Caras. “We expect to receive the manuscript of our first original essay—on Martin Luther King and race in America in the age of Obama—early next calendar year.”

INshorts are available for purchase through all major e-book retailers and the IU Press website. The first two titles retail for $2.99 and $4.99.

“It is increasingly clear that the digital environment is the inevitable future of scholarly publishing. If we are to remain successful, we must be more responsive to the demands of our market and take advantage of the promises of these technologies,” said Caras. “Our INshort series is an attempt to do ‘right-size publishing’ in answer to our market’s current interest in online short-form content. It is the beginning of what I hope is a shift in our thinking about how we can use technology more effectively for the benefit of our readers.”

New releases for December

Barry Gealt, Embracing Nature
Landscape Paintings, 1988-2012
Rachel Berenson Perry
Foreword by Kathleen A. Foster

"Atmospheric and appealing to the imagination, [Gealt's] paintings are also sensationally tactile, sculptural in their sense of modeled paint. . . . Thrilling and dramatic, they . . . remind us of the sublime and the ancient abiding in the landscape of rural Indiana and France. . . . The passion of the artist reveals the power of place; place, depicted, reflects the spirit of the artist." —Kathleen A. Foster, Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Dodo and the Solitaire
A Natural History
Jolyon C. Parish

"The Dodo and the Solitaire . . . meticulously traces human encounters with these ill-fated large flightless birds . . . Parish's book is rich with contemporary images, evocative descriptions, and later anatomical studies." —Library Journal

Wet Britches and Muddy Boots
A History of Travel in Victorian America
John H. White Jr.

Providing a fascinating glimpse into a time when travel was a true adventure, this book takes the reader on a trip to 1880s America, by exploring canal boats, oceangoing vessels, passenger trains, and crossing paths with the people who made the systems run.

FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944
David M. Jordan

2012 AAUP Public and Secondary School Library Selection

"David M. Jordan tells the story of the 1944 presidential election, and he tells it very well. In a clearly written, well-researched narrative he describes the various contenders for the Republican nomination, which eventually went to Thomas E. Dewey." —Journal of American History

Read an IU Press blog interview with the author

Al Capone and His American Boys
Memoirs of a Mobster's Wife
William J. Helmer
With Georgette Winkeler's one-of-a-kind record of her life with the Chicago mob

Silver Medal, True Crime category, 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards
2012 AAUP Public and Secondary School Library Selection

"Al Capone and his American Boys is highly recommended for those interested in an insider's view of the major criminal events of the Gangster Era." —Informer

Beauty Unlimited
Edited by Peg Zeglin Brand

Emphasizing the human body in all of its forms, Beauty Unlimited expands the boundaries of what is meant by beauty both geographically and aesthetically. Peg Zeglin Brand and an international group of contributors interrogate the body and the meaning of physical beauty in this multidisciplinary volume.

Levinas and the Crisis of Humanism
Claire Elise Katz

"Claire Elise Katz makes great strides in resolving our current cultural war over the role of religion in the public sphere. By turning to Levinas's writings on education, she shows how religion as a cultural form can engender ethical agents in a way that standard philosophical accounts fail to do." —Martin Kavka, Florida State University

Bukharan Jews and the Dynamics of Global Judaism
Alanna E. Cooper

"Innovative and thought provoking, this well researched and well constructed book . . . provides a valuable contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of Jewish identities." —Hagar Salamon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Music and Narrative since 1900
Edited by Michael L. Klein and Nicholas Reyland

"A triumphant demonstration of structuralism as a living force in contemporary music studies, this volume assembles some of the brightest and best to illuminate the narrative in music and the music in narrative. Klein & Reyland's rich and varied collection marks an important step for music theory’s narrative turn." —Michael Spitzer, author of Music as Philosophy: Adorno and Beethoven's Late Style

Almost Worthy
The Poor, Paupers, and the Science of Charity in America, 1877-1917
Brent Ruswick

Ruswick examines a prominent national organization for scientific social reform and poor relief in Indianapolis in order to understand how these new theories of poverty gave birth to new programs to assist the poor.

Zimbabwe's Cinematic Arts
Language, Power, Identity
Katrina Daly Thompson

"A nuanced and convincing approach to evaluating the role of media in shaping African identities." —James Burns, Clemson University

New releases for November

Railroads and the American People
H. Roger Grant

"With plenty of detail, Grant brings a bygone era back to life, addressing everything from social and commercial appeal, racial and gender issues, safety concerns, and leaps in technology. But Grant never loses sight of the big picture and the essential role the railroads played in American life. He writes with authority and clarity in a work that can appeal to both casual and hardcore enthusiasts." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Howard Fast
Life and Literature in the Left Lane
Gerald Sorin

"All in all, this is a notable study of a thorny protagonist whose life has much to reveal about the times in which he lived and about the interplay of political belief, personal identity, art, and ambition." —Publishers Weekly

Anne Frank Unbound
Media, Imagination, Memory
Edited by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and Jeffrey Shandler

"These essays provide fresh takes on Anne Frank, her diary, and historical magnitude. The volume leaves the reader in a new place of discovery and awareness." —Shelley Hornstein, coeditor of Image and Remembrance: Representation and the Holocaust

IU Press podcast with author Jeffrey Shandler

The Great Fossil Enigma
The Search for the Conodont Animal
Simon J. Knell

"Quite a remarkable and well-executed story. . . . It should be of great interest not only to conodontologists but to paleontologists in general as well as to everyone interested in the history of science. I cannot think of any other comparable work dealing so thoroughly with the exploration history of a widespread and important fossil group." —Stig M. Bergström, Ohio State University

A History of Korea
From "Land of the Morning Calm" to States in Conflict
Jinwung Kim

"Using the latest sources, including recently declassified Communist documents, Jinwung Kim’s book holds promise of becoming the textbook of choice. Benefiting from his direct and intimate knowledge of the country, he writes with great clarity, providing rich and interesting descriptions of political, social, cultural, economic, and diplomatic developments throughout the history of Korea." —James I. Matray, California State University, Chico

In Passage Perilous
Malta and the Convoy Battles of June 1942
Vincent P. O'Hara

"A very readable account of the convoy battles fought inside the Mediterranean in 1942. Drawing heavily on Italian sources, In Passage Perilous is carefully researched, objective, balanced and well written. It is likely to become the standard account of the critical phase of the Mediterranean conflict." —H. P. Willmott, author of The Last Century of Sea Power

Doing Physics
How Physicists Take Hold of the World
Second Edition
Martin H. Krieger

"This is an important and provocative book, timely and full of insight. Fail to read it, and you may miss out on the physics of the future." —John Gribbin, New Scientist

Blockbuster History in the New Russia
Movies, Memory, and Patriotism
Stephen M. Norris

"Norris composes a history of post-Soviet cinema in Russia while writing a history of Russian patriotic ideas. . . . smart, superbly researched, richly contextualized." —Serguei Oushakine, author of The Patriotism of Despair: Nation, War, and Loss in Russia

Between Word and Image
Heidegger, Klee, and Gadamer on Gesture and Genesis
Dennis J. Schmidt

"Convincingly contends that Gadamer's work allows us to extensively elaborate what Klee's work would have entailed for Heidegger, and , even more significantly, its importance for thought about art after him. Probing and lucid." —Stephen H. Watson, University of Notre Dame

Hip Hop Africa
New African Music in a Globalizing World
Edited by Eric Charry

Hip Hop Africa explores a new generation of African performers and musicians who are not only consumers of global music but also active participants in the worldwide culture of hip hop and rap.

New releases for October

An American Tune
A Novel
Barbara Shoup

"An American Tune is about the '60s but it's about now, too. It's about a mother finding herself in her daughter, for better and for worse, and it's about generations of women forever realizing that even though we try our best to prevent them, our children were born to make their own mistakes. Nora will become your honest-to-God best friend because she reminds us of where we've been, what we're doing, and what we are looking for." —Margaret McMullan, author of In My Mother's House and When Warhol Was Still Alive

Listen to an IU Press podcast with the author

The Most Fundamental Right
Contrasting Perspectives on the Voting Rights Act
Edited by Daniel McCool

Passed in 1965 during the height of the Civil Rights movement, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) changed the face of the American electorate, dramatically increasing minority voting, especially in the South. The Most Fundamental Right is an effort to understand the debate over the Act and its role in contemporary American democracy

Mr. Tuba
Harvey Phillips
Foreword by David N. Baker

With warmth and humor, tuba virtuoso Harvey Phillips tells his amazing life story from his Missouri childhood, through his days as a performer with circuses, his training at the Juilliard School, a stint with the US Army Field Band, and his freelance days with the New York City Opera and Ballet. Enhanced by an extensive gallery of photographs, Mr. Tuba conveys Phillips's playful zest for life while documenting his important musical legacy.

Read an excerpt from the book

The Past Ahead
A Novel
Gilbert Gatore
Translated by Marjolijn de Jager

The story of the destinies of two people after their experiences of genocide in Rwanda, this stunning and powerfully written novel lays bare the unfathomable human cost of this international tragedy.

Forest and Labor in Madagascar
From Colonial Concession to Global Biosphere
Genese Marie Sodikoff

"An important and lively contribution to the study of 'green neoliberalism.' An obvious choice for undergraduate teaching on ecology, rights, international political economy, development, and a host of other topics." —David Graeber, University of London

Medicine, Mobility, and Power in Global Africa
Transnational Health and Healing
Edited by Hansjörg Dilger, Abdoulaye Kane, and Stacey A. Langwick

"This interesting and timely volume shows how African health issues can no longer be thought of as being sealed within Africa—that transnational flows are fundamentally shaping health practices." —Mark Hunter, University of Toronto Scarborough

Rewind
British Artists' Video in the 1970s & 1980s
Edited by Sean Cubitt and Stephen Partridge

This anthology explores the pioneering period of the British video art form that has become a hallmark of contemporary art. Drawing on interviews, ephemera, archived tapes, and installations from the period, Rewind brings together leading scholars in the field to lay the groundwork for a history of the people, activities, institutions, and interventions that made video art the one true avant-garde genre in 20th-century Great Britain.

Between Still and Moving Images
Photography and Cinema in the 20th Century
Edited by Laurent Guido and Olivier Lugon

Between Still and Moving Images traces the evolving concepts of movement, duration, and the moment grounded in the fusion of still and moving images. By examining the relationship between different forms of visual media, the essays in this collection demonstrate the impact of such visual fusion on artistic production across mediums.

Performing the US Latina and Latino Borderlands
Edited by Arturo J. Aldama, Chela Sandoval, and Peter Garcia

"This collection brings together a wealth of Latino Studies scholars in a dynamic interdisciplinary dialogue around issues of performance, identity, and de-colonization. The valuable conversations that emerge from their essays extend into many scholarly disciplines, including Latin American Studies, Queer and Gender Studies, and African American Studies." —Emily Maguire, author of Experiments in Cuban Literature and Ethnography