6 IUP books named Choice Outstanding Academic Titles for 2015

Every year, Choice magazine selects the most prestigious scholarly books for its Outstanding Academic Titles award. We are pleased to announce that six IU Press titles were chosen out of 7,000 that were reviewed in 2015 by the magazine's editors! IUP winners include:

Geographies of the Holocaust edited by Anne Kelly Knowles, Tim Cole, and Alberto Giordano with Erik B. Steiner, explores the geographies of the Holocaust from various human experiences. Through six cases studies, geographers and historians come together to research the places and spaces of the genocide.

Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema by Ruth Ben-Ghiat looks at the study of documentary and feature films produced under Mussolini’s fascist regime. Films by experienced and novice filmmakers alike, these pictures reinforced Fascist racial and labor policies, corruption and war. Ben-Ghiat restores these films and their history and opens our eyes to the cinema of dictatorship.

Materialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic edited by Akinwumi Ogundiran and Paula Saunders, is a compilation of essays focusing on everyday rituals of African-descended communities in the Atlantic world. The book gives insight into the material of rituals and ritualistic acts associated with birth, death, healing and protection and how these rituals have been transformed by African communities through cultural formation, commerce, enslavement and colonialism.

New Voices in Arab Cinema by Roy Armes gives a historical overview and critical analysis of Arab filmmaking since the 1980s, and gives special consideration to films from the Middle East and North Africa since the Arab Spring and the Syrian crisis. While also looking at the longer history of Arab cinema, Armes touches on themes of production, the role of the state and private film industry, key filmmakers, and how current notions like globalization, immigration and exile play into film as well.

Nollywood Stars by Noah A. Tsika explores how the industry’s top on-screen talents have catapulted Nollywood beyond West Africa and into the diaspora to become one of the most diverse media producers in the world. As on-screen talents and working agents, this book follows Nollywood stars from Lagos to London, from New York to Los Angeles all while they hope to integrate Nollywood into various entertainment cultures while maintaining their African roots.

The Subject of Holocaust Fiction by Emily Miller Budick examines the subjective experiences of fantasy, projections and repression cultivated in Holocaust fiction and the reader’s encounter with it. Budick claims that fictional representations of horrific events run the risk of undercutting efforts to verify historical knowledge and may heighten our ability to respond ethically to human experiences of devastation. Investigating works by Cynthia Ozick, Art Spiegelman, Aharon Appelfeld, Michael Chabon, and others, Budick discusses how the reader makes sense of these fictional representations of memory, trauma, victims and victimizers.