Category: Author news

Diné Reader Editors Featured on The Academic Life podcast

Posted on January 23, 2023 by maryreynolds

Esther G. Belin and Jeff Berglund, two of the editors of The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature were recently interviewed by Christina Gessler on The Academic Life podcast.

Esther G. Belin is a Diné multimedia artist and writer, and a faculty mentor in the Low Rez MFA program at the Institute for American Indian She is a second-generation off-reservation Native American resulting from the U.S. federal Indian policies of termination and relocation. Her art and writing reflect the historical trauma from those policies as well as the philosophy of Saah Naagháí Bik’eh Hózho, the worldview of the Navajo people.

Jeff Berglund is the director of the Liberal Studies Program and a professor of English at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, where he has worked since 1999. Dr. Berglund’s research and teaching focuses on Native American literature, comparative Indigenous film, and U.S. multi-ethnic literature.

About the book:

The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature is unprecedented. It showcases the breadth, depth, and diversity of Diné creative artists and their poetry, fiction, and nonfiction prose.This wide-ranging anthology brings together writers who offer perspectives that span generations and perspectives on life and Diné history. The collected works display a rich variety of and creativity in themes: home and history; contemporary concerns about identity, historical trauma, and loss of language; and economic and environmental inequalities.

Article by Miriam Davidson Featured in The Progressive Magazine

Posted on January 19, 2023January 20, 2023 by Savannah Hicks

January 20, 2023

The Progressive Magazine recently featured an article titled “Another Senseless Death in the ‘Decon- stitutionalized Zone’” by University of Arizona Press author Miriam Davidson. Read a brief excerpt from the article below.

On the Mexican side, the continuation and expansion of the pandemic-era restriction known as Title 42—which calls for the immediate expulsion of refugees and migrants no matter their situation—has left many in dangerous limbo in squalid conditions. Some become so desperate they feel they have no choice but to try to enter the United States “without inspection” by fording the river or crossing the desert.

On the U.S. side, a series of crackdowns on drug and migrant smuggling since the mid-1990s, and especially after 9/11, has led to the creation of what activists call a “deconstitutionalized zone.” They contend the border has become a region where the rights of humans and the environment are routinely ignored in the name of fighting the drug trade and terrorism.
Miriam Davidson

Read the full article here.

Miriam Davidson is the author of The Beloved Border, a potent and timely report on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Beloved Border Wins 2022 Southwest Book Award

Posted on January 18, 2023January 20, 2023 by Savannah Hicks

January 19, 2023

We are thrilled to announce that The Beloved Border by Miriam Davidson has been selected to receive a 2022 Southwest Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association!

Since 1971, the Southwest Book Awards have been presented in recognition of outstanding books about the Southwest published each year in any genre and directed toward any audience (scholarly, popular, children).

The Beloved Border is a potent and timely report on the U.S.-Mexico border. Though this book tells of the unjust death and suffering that occurs in the borderlands, Davidson gives us hope that the U.S.-Mexico border could be, and in many ways already is, a model for peaceful coexistence worldwide.

Congratulations, Miriam!

Reyes Ramirez Featured on NPR’s Houston Matters

Posted on January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 by Savannah Hicks

January 12, 2023

University of Arizona Press author Reyes Ramirez was featured on NPR’s Houston Matters on December 15, 2022, to talk about his new short story collection The Book of Wanderers, which was recently featured on NPR’s Books We Love list.

Listen to the podcast here.

Reyes Ramirez is a Houstonian of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. Ramirez’s dynamic short story collection, The Book of Wanderers, follows new lineages of Mexican and Salvadoran diasporas traversing life in Houston, across borders, and even on Mars. Themes of wandering weave throughout each story, bringing feelings of unease and liberation as characters navigate cultural, physical, and psychological separation and loss from one generation to the next in a tumultuous nation.

Brandy Nālani McDougall Selected as New Hawai’i State Poet Laureate

Posted on January 6, 2023January 5, 2023 by Savannah Hicks

January 6, 2023

On January 1, 2023, Brandy Nālani McDougall was selected as the next Hawaiʻi State Poet Laureate as part of the new collaborative initiative between Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities, State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, and the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System. She will be the second Hawaiʻi State Poet Laureate, succeeding Kealoha (2012-2022). She will be the Hawaiʻi State Poet Laureate from 2023-2025. Her inaugural event will be Friday, January 13, 2022, 6-9 pm at the Hawaiʻi State Art Museum as part of the monthly jazz night, The Vibe.

As part of her term as Hawaiʻi State Poet Laureate, McDougall wants to highlight the ways poetry can heal and bring connection. “Poetry really gave me a place and a way to heal, and right now, as we’re all emerging from a space where we’ve been literally isolated for two years—where we weren’t able to meet as much with other people and have genuine human to human connections, or even human to ‘āina connections, so there’s a real need for that healing in this space and time. I think poetry can be that space for a lot of people. As the Hawaiʻi Poet Laureate, I’d like to be able to share that.”

Born and raised on Maui in the ahupuaʻa of Aʻapueo in Kula, McDougall is the author of the poetry collection, The Salt-Wind, Ka Makani Paʻakai. She is also a teacher and mother. Her second poetry collection, ʻĀina Hānau, Birth Land, is inspired by her daughters and is forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press in Summer 2023.

Congratulations, Brandy!

Craig Santos Perez Receives MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages

Posted on December 8, 2022December 9, 2022 by Savannah Hicks

December 8, 2022

We are thrilled that the Modern Languages Association is awarding its fourth MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages to Craig Santos Perez, associate professor of English at the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa, for his book Navigating CHamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization! The prize is awarded for an outstanding scholarly study of Native American literature, culture, or languages written by a member of the association.

The MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, or Languages is one of nineteen awards that will be presented on 6 January 2023, during the association’s annual convention, to be held in San Francisco. The members of the selection committee were Deanna Reder (Simon Fraser Univ.); Robbie Richardson (Princeton Univ.); and Cheryl L. Suzack (Univ. of Toronto), chair. The committee’s citation for the winning book reads:

Craig Santos Perez’s Navigating CHamoru Poetry: Indigeneity, Aesthetics, and Decolonization explores the intricate connections and layered histories represented by CHamoru poetry in its addressing the annexation, militarization, and political loss resulting from colonial expansion on Guam. Perez explores how several generations of CHamoru poets have illuminated CHamoru values of inafa’maolek (interdependence), chenchule’ (reciprocity), mamåhla (shame), and respetu (respect) as part of a continuum of resistance to colonization and global imperialism. A CHamoru poet himself, Perez sensitively explores Indigenous local and transnational aesthetics and provides a decolonial path that centers movement and Indigenous epistemologies in dialogue with other Pacific and Indigenous cultures. Perez’s work, urging us to turn our attention to the ongoing Indigenous struggles against American imperialism in Guam, emerges as a key text in Indigenous studies.

The MLA Prize for Studies in Native American Literatures, Cultures, and Languages was established in 2014 and is awarded under the auspices of the Committee on Honors and Awards.

Congratulations, Craig!

Celebrating Tai Edwards and Farina King: Recipients of the Association of University Presses’ StandUP Award

Posted on November 21, 2022November 21, 2022 by Savannah Hicks

November 21, 2022

University presses are deeply embedded in the communities they serve. This weekend, members of the University of Kansas community gathered to celebrate Tai Edwards and Farina King, recipients of the Association of University Presses‘ StandUP Award, for their powerful advocacy on behalf of the University Press of Kansas.

Edwards and King spoke of community and reciprocity as the principles that compelled them to speak out in support of the University Press of Kansas.

We are grateful to Edwards and King for their advocacy on behalf of university presses. And we are grateful for all the authors we have the privilege of working with.

Edwards and King spoke about community and reciprocity as the principles that motivated their advocacy efforts.

Interim Faculty Director Mike Haddock with University of Arizona Press Director Kathryn Conrad.

The University Press of Kansas was founded in 1946 and joined the Association of University Presses that same year.

The StandUP Award honors those who through their words and actions have done extraordinary work to support, defend, and celebrate the university press community.

Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration wins 2022 Edward M. Bruner Book Award

Posted on November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 by Savannah Hicks

November 15, 2022

We are thrilled that Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration by Keri Vacanti Brondo is the winner of the 2022 Edward M. Bruner Book Award from the Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group! The committee noted: This is a remarkable book that moves beyond the study of human tourism on the island of Utila (Honduras) to examine how other species exhibit/display/articulate alternative values to life and death. By de-centering the experiences of individual voluntourists, she foregrounds collaboration as a basis for conservation while also paying close attention to the neoliberal structure of voluntourism and the intersections of questions of race, gender, and whiteness on the island. The book is extremely well-written, weaving together ethnographic vignettes, local histories, oral narratives, fiction, and social media postings. Dr. Brondo combines a sophisticated theoretical analysis and a detailed review of relevant literature with a well-told story. In sum, this is an excellent book which committee members agree is suitable for both undergraduate and graduate discussions.

Congratulations, Keri!

Vox.com Features Interview with John Fleck

Posted on October 14, 2022October 13, 2022 by Savannah Hicks

October 14, 2022

Vox.com recently featured Science Be Dammed and an interview with author John Fleck and Benji Jones in their article “How a 100-year-old miscalculation drained the Colorado River”.

“…this was a stunning revelation for me. The very bottom of the river, where it leaves the United States and enters Mexico, used to be this vast delta — wild and wet and full of beavers and marshes and estuaries. But the river now stops at a place called Morelos Dam, on the US-Mexico border. Downstream from the dam there’s a little trickle of water that’s maybe 10 to 15 feet wide, and then it peters out into the sand. Then you just have dry riverbed. That’s because we’ve taken all the water out of the river upstream to use in our cities and farms.”
John Fleck

Read the entire article here.

The University of Arizona Press