U. of Minnesota Press

Against ecological sovereignty; ethics, biopolitics, and saving the natural world.

Smith (philosophy & environmental studies, Queen's U.) argues that too little has been written about the ecological implications of political sovereignty. For that reason, environmentalists are at a disadvantage at challenging the systemic role sovereign political decisions have in defining what is or isn't an ecological crisis. Drawing on political theorists like Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt, Smith lays out a much needed critique of what he calls ecological sovereignty that challenges the biopoliticization of natural resources. He suggests an anarchic approach to ecological politics that rejects limiting politics to constititonal citizenry, insteading opting for a mutualism. He comments on the politics of primitivism, "saving the world," ecological ethics, and risk. He does not offer a blue-print for a future society or even a set of policy suggestions, but an assessment of the political and ethical challenges to responding to ecological crises. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Blue guitar highway.

Metsa, a musician and songwriter from Minnesota, tells the story of his life and career in Minneapolis, from his childhood playing guitar at family gatherings to growing up in the sixties to sharing the stage with musicians like Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger, and Bruce Springsteen and interacting with others like the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Joey Ramone, Bettye LaVette, and Prince. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Body and soul; the Black Panther Party and the fight against medical discrimination.

This is a history of the health politics of the Black Panther Party (BPP) in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which Nelson (sociology, Columbia U.) sees as both reflective and an amplification of "the distinctiveness of a tradition of black health advocacy in which pragmatic matters of disease and healing (e.g., the founding of health institutions) were coextensive with broader political matters (e.g., challenges to racism)." She characterizes the BPP's approach as a "social health" position that drew upon the World Health Organization's framing of health as a human right, African American traditions, and Marxist understandings of the "medical-industrial complex" in order to fashion a multifaceted, but interconnected, challenge to racial health disparities that involved the establishment of free community medical clinics, ideological critique of biomedical authority (particularly in relation to racial theories of violence), coalition building with other radical groups and radicalized medical professionals, and health education campaigns. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Citizens' media against armed conflict; disrupting violence in Colombia.

Rodríguez (communication, U. of Oklahoma) looks at how citizen media operate in the context of armed conflict in Columbia, particularly in disrupting the violence. In chapter one, she looks at the use of community radio in the southern Columbian community of Belén de los Andaquíes to counter the culture of war amidst drug, state and left-wing guerilla factions. In chapter two, she examines the formation of media schools in northern Columbia and their and the Communications Collective of Montes María's role in creating an alternative cultural environment that stresses peace for the equally war-torn people. In chapter three, she covers how community radio-stations in central Columbia strengthened good-government and transperancy, and civic participation in local decision-making. In the fifth chapter she deals more directly with media pioneers in Columbia who sought to embolden community resistance to violence, and concludes with a chapter synthesizing a theory of the use of citizen's media in the context of armed conflict. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Cosmopolitics II.

In order to find consistency among the contradictory or mutually exclusive visions, ambitions, and methods regarding knowledge derived from modern science, Stengers (philosophy, U. Libre de Bruxelles) argues for an ecology of practices. She presents her argument in seven steps spanning two volumes. This second volume contains the sections quantum mechanics, in the name of the arrow of time, life and artifice, and the curse of tolerance. The French original Cosmopolitiques II was published in 2003 by Éditions La Découverte. Bononno is a teacher and translated in New York City. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Discourse, figure.

Jean Francois Lyotard was a late 20th-century French philosopher and literary theorist associated with postmodernism, perhaps most famous for announcing the collapse of "grand narratives." This text was published as his doctoral thesis in France and remained untranslated until now. In addition to discussions of structuralism, post-structuralism, philosophy of language and poetry, Lyotard meditates on the 20th century's two dominant quasi-psychological, quasi-philosophical methods for investigating consciousness: phenomenology and psychoanalysis. He does this probing the materiality of consciousness, which leads him to comment on aesthetics in the context of politics, particularly Marxism. Supplementing these discussions of art are 15 pages of high quality b&w plates of abstract and classical paintings. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The face of America; plays for young people.

Brosius and Adams, who are associated with the Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis, collect four plays written for the company that portray diversity and cultural and identity issues: Snapshot Silhouette by Kia Corthron, Brooklyn Bridge by Melissa James Gibson, Esperanza Rising by Lynne Alvarez, and Average Family by Larissa Fasthorse. They include Somali, African American, Puerto Rican, West Indian, Russian, Mexican, Native American, and Caucasian characters exploring relationships with each other, and each play lists premiere information, the creative team, and the original cast. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Filipino crosscurrents; oceanographies of seafaring, masculinities, and globalization.

Fajardo (American and Asian-American studies, U. of Minnesota) provides an interdisciplinary ethnography of the Filipino seamen who are approximately 20 percent of the 1.2 million international maritime transportation workers. The author explores the cultural politics of these workers at sea, Filipino maritime masculinities, globalization in the Philippines, and other related topics. And in that exploration he asks readers to re-examine traditional definitions of masculinity and manhood. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

German autumn. (reprint, 1988)

Dagerman wrote his account of the circumstances of the German people after their defeat in WWII as a reporter for a Swedish newspaper in 1946, publishing the accounts as a book shortly afterward. This paperback reprint of the 1988 English translation, featuring a foreword by writer Mark Kurlansky, makes available to English readers his compelling, open-eyed account of the suffering, ironies, destruction, and injustices of life in postwar Germany. The work remains perpetually relevant by evoking so effectively the universal human experience found in the aftermath of any war. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Growing shrubs and small trees in cold climates, rev. ed.

Many shrubs and small trees, even some magnolias, are suitable for gardening in USDA Hardiness Zones 1-5. Lonnee (horticulture editor, Northern Gardener) and other garden writers and nursery industry veterans who live in Minnesota (zone 4) present profiles of some 950 cold-hardy species and cultivars. The well-illustrated guide includes the hardiness map, care and basic design tips, lists of plant varieties rated for adaptability and ornamental features, recommended plants for special landscape uses, sources, and a glossary. Originally published in 2001 by Contemporary Books. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The neoliberal deluge; Hurricane Katrina, late capitalism, and the remaking of New Orleans.

This collection of twelve essays analyzes neoliberalism not as mere ideology, but as a really existing form of social organization, by focusing on the role neoliberalization had on the Hurricane Katrina disaster that struck New Orleans in 2005, though one essay also looks at the response to the SE Asian tsunami in Sri Lanka also in 2005. They do this because, argues editor Johnson (african american studies, U. Of Illinois, Chicago), cities have been a key target in neoliberal rollbacks. The book is organized into four thematic sections on governance, urbanity, planning, and inequality. Essays cover topics on disaster management, the erasure of race under neoliberalism, refugees and neoliberal self-governance, charter-schools, identity politics in the post-Katrina public housing movement, grassroots privatization, and sexual and racial inequality in rebuilding New Orleans. The contributors are mostly academics with backgrounds in sociology, political science, education, public policy, social geography, and media studies. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Once there were castles; lost mansions and estates of the Twin Cities.

This attractive book is oversize (10x11.5 inches) and well designed, gracefully integrating photos and text. Millett sets the context, pointing out that tearing down lovely buildings is not just a phenomenon of recent years, as evidenced by a 1922 newspaper excerpt in which such activities are lamented. He offers well-researched narrative and a generous display of archival photos to document the lost buildings of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. This volume is a companion to his earlier work on vanished architecture in the downtown areas, Lost Twin Cities. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Rifftide; the life and opinions of Papa Jo Jones.

This autobiography of the legendary jazz drummer "Papa" Jo Jones explores the life of one of the most influential rhythm musicians of the swing era, discussing Jones' long tenure with Count Basie's band and his enduring influence on the genre. The work is derived from a collection interview recordings made by jazz writer Albert Murray during the nineteen seventies and eighties and provides a deeply personal narrative of the life and times of a jazz musician in the twentieth century. The text has been edited into book form by Devlin, a doctoral student at Stony Brook University. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Taking place; location and the moving image.

Utilizing a diverse array of theories and methodologies, the 15 essays presented here by Rhodes (literature and visual culture, U. of Sussex, England) and Gorfinkel (art history and film studies, U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, US) explore the topic of place (or location) and the moving image. The contributions have been thematically organized into sections that explore the relationship of certain film styles to specific urban histories; the ways that places can be made and remade by the activities of film production; ways in which films deploy disparate geographies to make political claims on specific places, but in ways that resonate globally; and philosophic approaches to the theoretical understanding of place and its image in film and television. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The transit of empire; indigenous critiques of colonialism.

This collection of writings on colonialism provides an indigenous viewpoint on the destruction of cultures and the development and decay of the American system. The volume touches on key moments in the settler-native dialectic and includes discussion of Indian removal, inclusion and exclusion in "democratic" structures, and adaptation of dominant powers structures in indigenous communities. Byrd is a Chickasaw Indian and a professor of American Indian studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Triangulations; narrative strategies for navigating latino identity.

Examining autobiographical literature from some of the late twentieth century's most important Latino writers, this comparative analysis of identity creation discusses the way in which existing and established cultural markers can be used as reference points to create new and unique meaning. The volume covers the works of Jesús Colón, Piri Thomas, Julia Alvarez and others as it explores issues of cultural nationalism, gender and inter-cultural exchange in social justice and literature movements. Vázquez is a professor of English at the University of Oregon. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Whiskey breakfast; my Swedish family, my American life.

Lindberg, a Chicago-based Swedish-American author, writes a memoir and family history. This engaging account begins with stories of his Swedish immigrant grandparents who arrived in the American midwest in the 1880s. Lindberg himself appears about halfway through the book. His parents divorced soon after his birth, and Lindberg grew up between two different difficult households, suffering bullying at school, and ultimately working hard to become a writer. He describes the intricacies and flaws in his family relationships with insight and understanding. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Writing. (reprint, 1998)

Of interest to students and scholars of literary criticism as well as modernism, the five short essays gathered in this volume are representative of Duras's sparse visual style of writing. This is a reprint of the original 1998 hardback edition of Polizzotti's lovely, light, and perfectly lucid translation. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)