University of California Press Blog» Anthropology

Merry White Honored for Contributions to Japanese Studies

ssilverman — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:47:30 +0000

We are pleased to announce that the Government of Japan honored UC Press author Merry White today with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon decoration. The award recognizes Professor White’s significant contribution to the development of Japanese studies and the introduction of Japanese culture in the United States.

Merry White, better [more...]

Preserving Healthy Soil for Future Generations

ssilverman — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:46:31 +0000

David R. Montgomery, author of Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations and professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington, was recently profiled as one of Sunset Magazine’s “10 Visionaries, Trendsetters, and Innovators” who are “redefining every aspect of gardening in the West—and changing the way we live, eat, and connect with one another.”

Montgomery was [more...]

UC Press Podcast: Sabine Heinlein on Life After a Murder Conviction

ssilverman — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 23:13:35 +0000

What is it like for a convicted murderer who has spent decades behind bars to suddenly find himself released into a world he barely recognizes? What is it like to start over from nothing? To answer these questions Sabine Heinlein followed the everyday lives and emotional struggles of Angel Ramos and his friends Bruce and [more...]

Roger Lancaster’s NYT Op-Ed on Just Laws for Sex Offenders

ssilverman — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 21:24:47 +0000

Roger N. Lancaster, professor of anthropology and cultural studies at George Mason University and author of Sex Panic and the Punitive State, recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times on how restrictions for sex offenders should be determined and the implications of creating policies in direct response to traumatic events. Read his take below:

Panic [more...]

UC Press Podcast: Suzanne Barston on the Politics of Breastfeeding

ssilverman — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 23:56:51 +0000

Suzanne Barston, subject of the popular web series, “A Parent Is Born,” found that, despite every effort, she couldn’t breastfeed her son, Leo. This difficult encounter with nursing—combined with the overwhelming public attitude that breast is not only best, it is the yardstick by which parenting prowess is measured—drove Barston to explore the silenced, minority [more...]

Trevor Paglen in Conversation with Werner Herzog at Bryant Park

ssilverman — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 18:31:24 +0000

If you’re in New York this September, do whatever it takes to get yourself to Bryant Park on Wednesday, September 19 at 7:00 pm. Live from the NYPL will host legendary director Werner Herzog in conversation with UC Press author Trevor Paglen for a special presentation on The Last Pictures—a golden disc of images created by Paglen, [more...]

Peter Hessler Shares How He Got His Start in China

ssilverman — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:10:05 +0000

Imagine travelling through China in 1994 by way of the Trans-Siberian Railway, with little knowledge of the country’s culture or language, and a plan to spend “as little time as possible there.” New Yorker writer Peter Hessler describes the bizarre details of the experience, from talking alarm clocks that only speak in Russian, to the [more...]

UC Press Podcast: Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You: Busting Myths about Human Nature

ssilverman — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 22:03:51 +0000

There are three major myths of human nature: humans are divided into biological races; humans are naturally aggressive; men and women are truly different in behavior, desires, and wiring. In an engaging and wide-ranging narrative Agustín Fuentes counters these pervasive and pernicious myths about human behavior. Tackling misconceptions about what race, aggression, and sex really [more...]

Deeper Context: Across Atlantic Ice

ssilverman — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 23:58:06 +0000

One of the greatest virtues of science and the scientific method lies not in the many points of agreement and common ground but rather in the places where there isn’t agreement and how competing hypotheses can be understood, discussed, tested and, ultimately, either proven or dis-proven. As it has often been said about the making [more...]

Death of a Poet

ssilverman — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:00:49 +0000

In a recent blog post, Mary Helen Spooner, author of The General’s Slow Retreat: Chile after Pinochet (UC Press, May 2011) sheds light on the exhumation of former Chilean president Salvador Allende’s body, as well as the mysterious circumstances surrounding poet Pablo Neruda’s death.

Salvador Allende with Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who won the 1971 [more...]