UC Press Takes Home 7 Awards at AAA

The AAA Annual Meeting, which took place in Washington, D.C. this year, was quite a whirlwind for UC Press. Seven different awards for six books. Non-stop meetings. Dinners, parties, and die-ins.

Here are some of the highlights:

We threw a dinner for Seth Holmes, who won the prestigious Margaret Mead Award. Executive Editor Naomi Schneider reports the dinner was attended by a wide array of senior anthropologists—Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Philippe Bourgois, Charles Briggs—who reconfirmed their commitment to social justice and human rights as guiding principles of their intellectual work.
We held a book party for Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think, as well as a dinner to celebrate Joseph Hankin‘s new book, Working Skin.
There was a “die-in” in which primarily African-American anthropologists expressed their rage about the recent non-indictments in Ferguson and New York.
Issues surrounding the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against Israel were a predominant theme of the meeting and AAA members rejected a proposed resolution opposing the academic boycott of Israel.

Seth Holmes' acceptance speech for the Margaret Mead Award — Seth Holmes’ acceptance speech for the Margaret Mead Award

Congratulations to this year’s award winners:

Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human, 2014 Gregory Bateson Award in Cultural Anthropology
Nick Harkness‘s Songs of Seoul: An Ethnography of Voice in Christian South Korea, 2014 Edward Sapir Book Prize in Linguistic Anthropology
Tine Gammeltoft’s Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Reproduction in Vietnam, 2014 AES Senior Book Prize
Seth Holmes’ Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies: Migrant Farmworkers in the United States, 2014 Margaret Mead Award
Lochlann Jain‘s Malignant: How Cancer Becomes Us, 2014 Diana Forsythe Prize and the Victor Turner Prize
Sarah Besky‘s The Darjeeling Distinction, The Society for Economic Anthropology’s Book Prize

These wonderful authors stopped by to say hello:

Tine Gammeltoft, author of *Haunting Images*

Sarah Besky, author of The Darjeeling Distinction — Sarah Besky, author of *The Darjeeling Distinction*

Cheryl Mattingly, author of Moral Laboratories — Cheryl Mattingly, author of *Moral Laboratories*

Jarrett Zigon, author of "HIV is God's Blessing" — Jarrett Zigon, author of *“HIV is God’s Blessing”*

Ruben Andersson, author of Illegality, Inc. — Ruben Andersson, author of *Illegality, Inc.*

For more research and insights on this year’s AAA theme, “Producing Anthropology,” be sure to check out our author blog series (and use hashtag #AAA2014 when sharing). Thanks to everyone for a great meeting; we can’t wait to do it again next year!