Photos from University of Arizona Libraries Spring Author Talk with John P. Schaefer

University of Arizona President Emeritus John P. Schaefer celebrated his new book, Desert Jewels, at the University of Arizona Libraries Spring Author Talk on March 6. The UA Libraries hosted the event at the Tucson Botanical Gardens with introductions from University President Robert Robbins, University Dean of Libraries Shan Sutton, and The University of Arizona Press Director Kathryn Conrad.

Cactus flowers are jewels of the desert—they add brilliant pops of color to our arid surroundings. In Desert Jewels, renowned Tucson photographer John P. Schaefer brings the exquisite and unexpected beauty of the cactus flower to the page. Hundreds of close-up photographs of cactus flowers native to the U.S. Southwest and Mexico offer a visual feast of color and texture, nuance and light.

Dean Sutton and President Robbins explain how President Emeritus John Schaefer brought international recognition to the University of Arizona.
President Emeritus and Author John Schaefer tells how his early life inspired his later creativity in photography.
University of Arizona Press Director Kathryn Conrad introduces John Schaefer.
John Schaefer signs Desert Jewels.

Tucson Festival of Books Photos

Our authors enjoyed presenting at the Tucson Festival of Books, March 4-5, 2023, and signing books at our booth! Readers filled the tent each day and walked away with armfuls of books from our 2023 Spring Catalog, as well as best sellers and unique books from previous years.

Senior editor Allyson Carter and Author Tim Hunter
Authors Miguel Montiel and Yvonne de La Torre Montiel chat with readers.
On the right, author Tom Zoellner speaks at a panel sponsored by UA Press at UA Libraries Special Collections.
Author Devon Mihesuah, Publicity Manager Abby Mogollon, Author Gary Paul Nabhan, and UA Press Director Kathryn Conrad.
Author John P. Schaefer and Editorial Assistant Alana Enriquez.
Author Juan Martinez signs his book.

Author Tom Zoellner signs and chats with readers.
A reader chats with a few Mineralogy of Arizona authors: Harvey Jong, Ron Gibbs, and Jan Rasmussen
Poet and Editor Allison Adelle Hedge Coke and Editor Elizabeth Wilder

AWP 2023: Recent Books, Conference Discounts, and More!

March 6, 2023

Join us at the 2023 AWP conference in Seattle, Washington on March 8-11! Make sure to stop by our booth to browse our latest titles, get your books signed by several of our authors, and purchase books at a 30% conference discount and catch up with our Assistant Editor, Elizabeth Wilder, Ph.D. We hope to catch up with you at the conference, but if you can’t make it to Seattle this year, make sure to browse our latest titles below. Use the code AZAWP23 for 30% off with free U.S. shipping through 4/15/2023. If you have questions about our publishing program, visit this page or contact Elizabeth at ewilder@uapress.arizona.edu.

AWP 2023 Book Signings

Thursday, March 9:

1:30 PM – 2:30 PM: Elizabeth Torres signing copies of Lotería.

Friday, March 10:

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Gloria Muñoz signing copies of Danzirly.

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Jennifer Givhan signing copies of Rosa’s Einstein.

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM: Carlos Aguasaco and Jennifer Rathbun signing copies of Cardinal in My Window with a Mask on Its Beak.

Saturday, March 11:

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM: Cynthia Guardado signing copies of Cenizas.

Cenizas offers an arresting portrait of a Salvadoran family whose lives were shaped by tumultuous global politics. Cynthia Guardado’s poems argue that the Salvadoran Civil War permanently altered the Salvadoran people’s reality by forcing them to become refugees who continue to leave their homeland, even decades after the war.

In Raven’s Echo, Tlingit artist and poet Robert Davis Hoffmann’s poetry grapples with reconstructing a life within Tlingit tradition and history. The destructiveness of colonialism brings a profound darkness to some of the poems in Raven’s Echo, but the collection also explores the possibility of finding spiritual healing in the face of historical and contemporary traumas.

Watch a poetry reading and Q&A with poet Robert Davis Hoffmann here.

Extended Stay is a horror novel about an undocumented brother and sister who end up at a Las Vegas hotel that exploits and consumes anyone who comes into its orbit.

Extended Stay was featured in Book Riot, read more here. Extended Stay was also listed as one of the most anticipated Chicago books of 2023!

In Dance of the Returned, the disappearance of a young Choctaw leads Detective Monique Blue Hawk to investigate a little-known ceremonial dance. As she traces the steps of the missing man, she discovers that the seemingly innocuous Renewal Dance is not what it appears to be. After Monique embarks on a journey that she never thought possible, she learns that the past and future can converge to offer endless possibilities for the present. She must also accept her own destiny of violence and peacekeeping.

Read a brief interview with author Devon A. Mihesuah here. Listen to Devon talk about her new book on Native American Calling here.

Lotería is a collection of deeply evocative coming-of-age poems that take the reader on a voyage through the intimate experiences of displacement. In this bilingual collection, Colombian American poet Elizabeth Torres threads together the stories of family dynamics and the realities of migration with the archetypes of tarot and the traditional Lotería game, used for centuries as an object of divination and entertainment. Through these themes and images, the poems in Lotería narrate intimate moments in the lives and journeys of migrants, refugees, and all who have been forced into metamorphosis in order to reach the other side of the river.

Lotería is the winner of the Ambroggio Prize of the Academy of American Poets.

A sharp examination of Arizona by a nationally acclaimed writer, Rim to River follows Tom Zoellner on a 790-mile walk across his home state as he explores key elements of Arizona culture, politics, and landscapes. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in learning more about a vibrant and baffling place.

Photos from We Love the Night Sky celebration

On February 15, Tim Hunter, author of The Sky at Night, spoke at Western National Parks Association, in Oro Valley, Arizona. Fueled by cookies and hot chocolate, participants saw Jupiter and the Galilean moons through telescopes. David Levy, Tim Hunter, and other astronomers pointed out planets, bright stars, and constellations in the sky.

Author Tim Hunter speaks about his book: The Sky at Night: Easy Enjoyment from Your Backyard
Author Tim Hunter explains the planisphere, an analog star chart
We looked at Jupiter from the same telescope as President Obama (POTUS). This telescope went to the White House!
Chuck and Steve from Astronomy Adventures set up Celestron Telescope
Author Tim Hunter signs The Sky at Night
Half moon and star cookies and hot chocolate

AISA 2023: Recent Books, Conference Discounts, and More!

January 30, 2023

Join us at the 24th annual American Indian Studies Association conference in Tempe, Arizona, on February 1-3! Visit our table to browse our recent titles and purchase books at a 30% conference discount, or browse our recent titles below and receive a 30% discount with free U.S. shipping with the code AZAISA23 through 3/5/2023. If you have questions about our publishing program, visit this page.

Postindian Aesthetics is a collection of critical, cutting-edge essays on a new generation of Indigenous writers who are creatively and powerfully contributing to a thriving Indigenous literary canon that is redefining the parameters of Indigenous literary aesthetics.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Our Fight Has Just Begun illuminates Native voices while exposing how the justice system has largely failed Native American victims and families. This book tells the untold stories of hate crimes committed against Native Americans in the Four Corners region of the United States.

Bennett offers a reference point for understanding contemporary issues of racial violence, underscoring the firm entrenchment of systemic racism. Highly recommended.”— G. R. Campbell, CHOICE

Visualizing Genocide engages the often sparse and biased discourses of genocidal violence against Indigenous communities documented in exhibits, archives, and museums. Essayists and artists from a range of disciplines identify how Native knowledge can be effectively incorporated into memory spaces.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

O’odham artist Michael Chiago Sr.’s paintings provide a window into the lifeways of the O’odham people. This book offers a rich account of how Tohono O’odham and Akimel O’odham live in the Sonoran Desert now and in the recent past.

Read about a book celebration we hosted with Western National Parks Association here.

Carbon Sovereignty is a deep dive into the coal industry and the Navajo Nation captures a pivotal moment in the history of energy shift and tribal communities. Geographer Andrew Curley spent more than a decade documenting the rise and fall coal, talking with those affected most by the changes—Diné coal workers, environmental activists, and politicians.

Trickster Academy is a collection of poems that explore the experience of being Native in Academia—from land acknowledgement statements, to mascots, to the histories of using Native American remains in anthropology. This collection illuminates the shared experiences of Indians across many regions, and all of us who live amongst Tricksters.

On the heels of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Department of Diné Education, this important education history explains how the current Navajo educational system is a complex terrain of power relationships, competing agendas, and jurisdictional battles influenced by colonial pressures and tribal resistance. In providing the historical roots to today’s challenges, Wendy Shelly Greyeyes clears the path and provides a go-to reference to move discussions forward.

Read a brief interview with the author here.

Critically examining the United States as a settler colonial nation, this literary analysis recenters Oceti Sakowin (historically known to some as the Sioux Nation) women as their tribes’ traditional culture keepers and culture bearers, while offering thoughtful connections between settler colonialism, literature, nationalism, and gender.

Centering historically neglected Indigenous voices as its primary source material, author David Martínez shows how Carlos Montezuma’s correspondence and interactions with his family and their community influenced his advocacy—and how his important work in Arizona specifically motivated his work on a national level.

A New Deal for Navajo Weaving provides a history of early to mid-twentieth-century Diné weaving projects by non-Natives who sought to improve the quality and marketability of Diné weaving but in so doing failed to understand the cultural significance of weaving and its role in the lives of Diné women.

Informed by personal experience and offering an inclusive view, Diné Identity in a Twenty-First-Century World showcases the complexity of understanding and the richness of current Diné identities.

Watch a conversation about the book with author Lloyd D. Lee here.

Indigenous Economics explains how Indigenous peoples organize their economies for good living by supporting relationships between humans and the natural world. This work argues that creating such relationships is a major alternative to economic models that stress individualism and domination of nature.

Transforming Diné Education honors the perspectives and voices of Diné educators in culturally relevant education, special education, Diné language revitalization, well-being, tribal sovereignty, self-determination in Diné education, and university-tribal-community partnerships. The contributors offer stories about Diné resilience, resistance, and survival by articulating a Diné-centered pedagogy and politics for future generations.

TFOB 2023: Book Signings & Panels with Our Authors

January 26, 2023

Join us for the 2023 Tucson Festival of Books on March 4th and 5th! We will be setting up shop on the University of Arizona campus for a weekend of literary fun. We are thrilled to have a wide variety of our most recent authors presenting on panels and signing books in our booth this year. Take a look at the schedule below to see where you can find University of Arizona Press authors at this year’s festival! We hope you’ll stop by our booth to browse our great titles— which you can purchase for a 25% discount— and to meet our authors and press staff!

Book Signing Schedule

Saturday, March 4:

11:00 AM: Cynthia Guardado, author of Cenizas
12:00 PM: John Schaefer, author of Desert Jewels
2:00 PM: Yvonne de la Torre Montiel and Miguel Montiel, authors of World of Our Mothers
3:00 PM: Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, co-editor of Sing

Sunday, March 5:

10:00 AM: Tim Hunter, author of The Sky at Night
11:00 AM: Tom Zoellner, author of Rim to River
12:00 PM: Ted Fleming, author of Sonoran Desert Journeys
1:00 PM: Devon Mihesuah, author of Dance of the Returned
1:30 PM: Juan Martinez, author of Extended Stay
2:00 PM: Co-Authors of Mineralogy of Arizona, 4th Edition

Saturday, March 4th Panel Schedule

10:00 AM:

Title:Photographing Arizona
Location:UA Library – Special Collections
Date/Time:Saturday, 10:00 am to 11:00 am
Panelists:Virgil Hancock, John Schaefer, Thomas Wiewandt
Moderators:Shan Sutton
Genres:Fine Arts / Photography
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – Integrated Learning Center

Description:
Three expert photographers, one of them former UA President John Schaefer, will discuss their craft and the secrets of shooting the perfect picture.

Title:Going Off Grid
Location:Koffler Room 218
Date/Time:Saturday, 10:00 am to 11:00 am
Panelists:Ted Conover, Janet Fogg, Bob West, Tom Zoellner
Moderators:Mary Holden
Genres:Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – UA BookStore Tent (on Mall)

Description:
Today we will hear several different perspectives of the American West and our authors’ approach writing their reflections about this iconic part of the United States.

1:00 PM:

Title:Arizona, Up Close and Personal
Location:UA Library – Special Collections
Date/Time:Saturday, 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Panelists:Gilbert Storms, Jim Turner, Tom Zoellner
Moderators:Heidi Osselaer
Genres:History / Biography
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – Integrated Learning Center

Description:
Gilbert Storms, Jim Turner and Tom Zoellner have studied Arizona for years, each in their very own way. Today they will explore our state’s past and present, and maybe even look into its future a bit!

2:30 PM:

Title:The Meaning of Home
Location:Nuestras Raíces Stage
Date/Time:Saturday, 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm
Panelists:Cynthia Guardado, Alejandro Varela, Javier Zamora
Moderators:Ernesto Portillo Jr.
Genres:Nuestras Raices
Signing Area:Pima County Public Library/Nuestras Raíces/Craft Tent & Signing Area

Description:
These authors share a common bond regarding home and homeland, through their different genres: literary, poetic and memoir.

Title:Workshop: Infusing Humor, Horror, Joy
Location:UA Main Library 254/Main Floor
Date/Time:Saturday, 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm
Panelists:Juan Martinez
Genres:Nuestras Raices
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – Integrated Learning Center

Description:
We neglect the importance of affect when working on our drafts. We build characters, we engage imagery and plot and language, but we forget to exploit the comic or horrific possibilities in what we’re building. In this session, we’ll explore how to tune a piece so that it’s funnier, scarier, or sadder.

4:00 PM:

Title:Global Deception
Location:Student Union Tucson Room
Date/Time:Saturday, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Panelists:Francine Mathews, Devon Mihesuah, Camilla Trinchieri
Moderators:Wanda Morris
Genres:Mystery / Thrillers
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – UA BookStore Tent (on Mall)

Description:
It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, there are always mysteries to be solved. Just ask Francine Matthews, Devon Mihesuah and Camilla Trinchieri.

Title:Mundo de Nuestras Madres
Location:Nuestras Raíces Stage
Date/Time:Saturday, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Panelists:Yvonne de la Torre MontielMiguel Montiel, Luis Alberto Urrea
Moderators:Cristina Ramirez
Genres:Nuestras Raices
Signing Area:Pima County Public Library/Nuestras Raíces/Craft Tent & Signing Area

Description:
Three authors share inspiring stories of the historical journeys of brave and courageous women.

Title:Taking it Outside
Location:National Parks Experience
Date/Time:Saturday, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Panelists:Susan Lamb, Tom Zoellner
Moderators:Roger Naylor
Genres:Nature / Environment / Outdoor Adventure
Sponsors:Western National Parks Association
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – Science City

Description:
Sitting down to tell a tale is only a small part of writing a good book about nature. The real work, and the real fun, is being there. Today, Susan Lamb and Tom Zoellner will explain why hitting the trail is so important to getting to know a place.

Sunday, March 5 Panel Schedule

11:30 AM:

Title:Those Starry Skies
Location:Science City – Main Stage
Date/Time:Sunday, 11:30 am to 12:30 pm
Panelists:Lindy Elkins-Tanton, Tim Hunter
Moderators:Timothy Swindle
Genres:Science / Medicine / Technology
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – Science City

Description:
Join authors Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Tim Hunter as they sit down with UArizona’s Space Institute Director Timothy Swindle to discuss what drew them to learning about planets, stars and the vastness of space.

Title:Leaving, Loving, and Returning Home through Poetry
Location:Student Union Kiva
Date/Time:Sunday, 11:30 am to 12:30 pm
Panelists:Cynthia Guardado, José Olivarez, Laura Villareal
Genres:Poetry
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – UA Bookstore, Main Floor

Description:
Join poets Laura Villareal, Jose Olivarez and Cynthia Guardado as they explore poetry’s ability to restore a sense of home and heal the traumatic legacies of exile and the domestic violence.

Title:That Got Weird
Location:Student Union Kachina
Date/Time:Sunday, 11:30 am to 12:30 pm
Panelists:Juan Martinez, Ander Monson
Moderators:Matt Bell
Genres:Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction, Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – UA BookStore Tent (on Mall)

Description:
In this session, Juan Martinez and Ander Monson will chat about finding and deploying horror and science fiction tropes in unexpected places. Moderator Matt Bell is pretty good at that himself!

2:30 PM:

Title:Can Nature Cooperate?
Location:National Parks Experience
Date/Time:Sunday, 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm
Panelists:Stephen Buchmann, Theodore Fleming, Kristin Ohlson
Moderators:Carol Schwalbe
Genres:Nature / Environment / Outdoor Adventure, 2023 Big Read
Sponsors:Western National Parks Association
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – National Parks

Description:
Stephen Buchmann, Theodore Flemming and Kristin Ohlson all write about nature, which means they understand exactly how unpredictable nature can be. We ask them, “Can nature cooperate?”

Title:Wait for It, Wait for It …
Location:Student Union Tucson Room
Date/Time:Sunday, 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm
Panelists:Tracy Clark, Sean Doolittle, Devon Mihesuah
Moderators:Terry Shames
Genres:Mystery / Thrillers
Signing Area:Sales & Signing Area – UA BookStore Tent (on Mall)

Description:
Three of our favorite authors — Tracy Clark, Sean Doolittle and Devon Mihesuah — keep us on the edge of our seats until the last page. How do they know when it’s time to reveal whodunit?

4:00 PM:

Title:Que Susto: What a Fright!
Location:Nuestras Raíces Stage
Date/Time:Sunday, 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Panelists:Ramona Emerson, Juan Martinez, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Moderators:Megan Hellwig
Genres:Nuestras Raices
Signing Area:Pima County Public Library/Nuestras Raíces/Craft Tent & Signing Area

Description:
These authors take you on a roller-coaster ride of terror, horror, and fright. Hold on to your seats!

For the full festival schedule, click here.

Southwest Symposium 2023: Recent Books, Discounts, and More

January 4, 2023

We are excited to be participating in the 2023 Southwest Symposium in Santa Fe, New Mexico! If you are attending the conference on January 5-7, stop by our table to browse our latest books and speak with our Senior Editor, Allyson Carter, Ph.D. We’re offering a 30% discount with free shipping in the continental U.S. with the code AZSWSYMP23 from now until 2/5/23!

If you aren’t able to make it to the symposium this year, make sure to take a look at our latest books below, and visit this page to learn more about our publishing program.

The recognition of Flower Worlds is one of the most significant breakthroughs in the study of Indigenous spirituality in the Americas. Flower Worlds is the first volume to bring together a diverse range of scholars to create an interdisciplinary understanding of floral realms that extend at least 2,500 years in the past.

Read an excerpt from the book here, and learn more by watching the book trailer here!

Becoming Hopi is a comprehensive look at the history of the people of the Hopi Mesas as it has never been told before. The product of more than fifteen years of collaboration between tribal and academic scholars, this volume presents groundbreaking research demonstrating that the Hopi Mesas are among the great centers of the Pueblo world.

We are thrilled that Becoming Hopi won the 2022 SAA Best Scholarly Book Award, a Southwest Book of the Year award, and a Southwest Book Award!

Learn more by watching the book trailer here.

The multiple vivid colors of scarlet macaws and their ability to mimic human speech are key reasons they were and are significant to the Native peoples of the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Although the birds’ natural habitat is the tropical forests of Mexico and Central and South America, they were present at multiple archaeological sites in the region yet absent at the vast majority. In Birds of the Sun, leading experts in southwestern archaeology explore the reasons why.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

How people eat today is a record of food use through the ages, and Famine Foods offers the first ever overview of the use of alternative foods during food shortages. Paul E. Minnis explores the unusual plants that have helped humanity survive throughout history.

Watch Paul Minnis and Nancy Turner discuss Famine Foods here, then listen to Minnis on the Foodie Pharmacology podcast here.

The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors is a major ethnobotanical study for the ancient U.S. Southwest and northwestern Mexico. The results reorient our perspective in the rise of one of the most impressive communities in the international region.

Read field notes from the book’s editors, Paul Minnis and Michael Whalen, here.

A Marriage Out West is an intimate biographical account of two fascinating figures of twentieth-century archaeology. Frances Theresa Peet Russell, an educator, married Harvard anthropologist Frank Russell in June 1900. They left immediately on a busman’s honeymoon to the Southwest. Their goal was twofold: to travel to an arid environment to quiet Frank’s tuberculosis and to find archaeological sites to support his research.

Read an excerpt from the book here, then watch a book trailer here!

Oysters in the Land of Cacao delivers a long-overdue presentation of the archaeology, material culture, and regional synthesis on the Formative to Late Classic period societies of the western Chontalpa region (Tabasco, Mexico) through contemporary theory. It offers a significant new understanding of the Mesoamerican Gulf Coast.

Watch a book trailer here!

Pre-order now!

Marjorie Lambert’s life story is intricately entwined in the development of archaeology in the American Southwest. In Shelby Tisdale’s compelling biography, No Place for a Lady, Lambert’s work as an archaeologist, museologist, and museum curator in Santa Fe comes to life and serves as inspiration for today.

Households on the Mimbres Horizon explores variability in Mimbres Mogollon pithouse sites using a case study from La Gila Encantada to further our understanding of the full range of pithouse occupations in the area. Because the site is away from the major river valleys, the data from excavations at the site provides valuable information on the differences in cultural practices that occurred away from the riverine villages, as well as environmental differences, economic practices, and social constructs.

American Anthropological Association 2022: Recent Books, Discounts, and More

November 7, 2022

We are thrilled to be attending the annual American Anthropological Association conference in Seattle, Washington this year! Make sure to stop by our booth to browse and buy our latest anthropology titles and speak with our Senior Editor, Allyson Carter, Ph.D. We are offering a 30% discount on all books at the conference, and you can also receive this discount when you order online with the code AZAAA22 at checkout. Enjoy 30% off all titles, plus free shipping in the continental U.S. from now until 12/15/22.

If you aren’t attending AAA 2022 in person, make sure to learn about our latest anthropology titles below. If you have any questions about our publishing program, visit this page, or contact Allyson Carter at acarter@uapress.arizona.edu.

In Corporate Nature, Sarah Milne draws from personal experience to look inside the black box of mainstream conservation NGOs and finds that corporate behavior and technical thinking dominate global efforts to save nature, opening the door to unethical conduct and failure on the ground.

Visualizing Genocide engages the often sparse and biased discourses of genocidal violence against Indigenous communities documented in exhibits, archives, and museums. Essayists and artists from a range of disciplines identify how Native knowledge can be effectively incorporated into memory spaces.

Guarded by Two Jaguars is an ethnography that examines the role of language and embodied behaviors in producing a congregational split in a Catholic parish serving Guatemala’s Q’eqchi’ Maya people. Drawing on a range of methods from linguistic and cultural anthropology, author Eric Hoenes del Pinal examines how the introduction of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in the parish produced a series of debates between parishioners that illustrate the fundamentally polyvocal nature of Catholic Christianity.

Read field notes from the author here.

Accessible and engaging, Latinx Belonging underscores and highlights Latinxs’ continued presence and contributions to everyday life in the United States as they both carve out and defend their place in society.

Gardening at the Margins tells the remarkable story of a diverse group of neighbors working together to grow food and community in the Santa Clara Valley in California. Based on four years of deeply engaged ethnographic field research via a Participatory Action Research project with the people and ecosystems of La Mesa Verde home garden program, Gabriel R. Valle develops a theory of convivial labor to describe how the acts of care among the diverse gardeners—through growing, preparing, and eating food in one of the most income unequal places in the country—are powerful, complex acts of resistance.

Set in the arid lands of northwestern Mexico, Bountiful Deserts foregrounds the knowledge of Indigenous peoples who harvested the desert as bountiful in its material resources and sacred spaces. Author Cynthia Radding uses the tools of history, anthropology, geography, and ecology to re-create the means of defending Indigenous worlds through colonial encounters, the formation of mixed societies, and the direct conflicts over forests, grasslands, streams, and coastal estuaries that sustained wildlife, horticulture, foraging, hunting, fishing, and—after European contact—livestock and extractive industries. She returns in each chapter to the spiritual power of nature and the enduring cultural significance of the worlds that Indigenous communities created and defended.

Children Crossing Borders draws much-needed attention to the plight of migrant children and their families, illuminating the human and emotional toll that children experience as they crisscross the Americas. Exploring the connections between education, policy, cultural studies, and anthropology, the essays in this volume navigate a space of transnational children’s rights central to Latin American life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Running After Paradise looks at social-environmental activism in one of the world’s most important and threatened tropical forests—Southern Bahia, Brazil. It explores what it means to be in and of a place through the lenses of history, environment, identity, class, and culture. It uncovers not only what separates people but also what brings them together as they struggle and strive to create their individual and collective paradise.

Pachamama Politics examines how campesinos came to defend their community water sources from gold mining upstream and explains why Ecuador’s “pink tide” government came under fire by Indigenous and environmental rights activists.

Indigenous Archaeology in the Philippines illustrates how descendant communities can take control of their history and heritage through active collaboration with archaeologists. Drawing on the Philippine Cordilleran experiences, Indigenous Archaeology in the Philippines discusses how changing historical narratives help empower peoples who are traditionally ignored in national histories.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

The Community-Based PhD explores the complex and nuanced experience of doing community-based research as a graduate student. Contributors from a range of scholarly disciplines share their experiences with CBPR in the arts, humanities, social sciences, public health, and STEM fields.

The multiple vivid colors of scarlet macaws and their ability to mimic human speech are key reasons they were and are significant to the Native peoples of the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest. Although the birds’ natural habitat is the tropical forests of Mexico and Central and South America, they were present at multiple archaeological sites in the region yet absent at the vast majority. In Birds of the Sun, leading experts in southwestern archaeology explore the reasons why.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

American Studies Association 2022: Recent Books, Discounts, and More

October 31, 2022

We are thrilled to be participating in the annual American Studies Association meeting in New Orleans, LA this year! If you are attending the conference in person, make sure to stop by our booth to browse our latest titles and chat with our Editor-in-Chief, Kristen Buckles! Use the code AZASA22 at checkout to receive 30% off all of our titles, plus free shipping in the continental U.S., through 12/15/22.

If you can’t make it to New Orleans for this year’s meeting, take a look at some of our newest books below. If you have questions about our publishing program, visit this page, or send Kristen a note at kbuckles@uapress.arizona.edu.

Accessible and engaging, Latinx Belonging underscores and highlights Latinxs’ continued presence and contributions to everyday life in the United States as they both carve out and defend their place in society.

World of Our Mothers highlights the largely forgotten stories of forty-five women immigrants in the early twentieth century. Through interviews in Arizona mining towns, Phoenix barrios, and selected areas of California, Texas, and the Midwest, we learn how they negotiated their lives with their circumstances.

In 1981, Chicana feminist intellectuals Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa published what would become a foundational legacy for generations of feminist women of color—the seminal This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. To celebrate and honor this important work, editors gloria j. wilson, Joni B. Acuff, and Amelia M. Kraehe offer new generations A Love Letter to This Bridge Called My Back.

Read an excerpt from the book here. We’re thrilled that La Bloga featured the book here!

Postindian Aesthetics is a collection of critical, cutting-edge essays on a new generation of Indigenous writers who are creatively and powerfully contributing to a thriving Indigenous literary canon that is redefining the parameters of Indigenous literary aesthetics.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Latinx Teens examines how Latinx teenagers influence twenty-first-century U.S. popular culture. The book explores the diverse ways that contemporary mainstream film, television, theater, and young adult literature invokes, constructs, and interprets adolescent Latinidad.

Read a brief interview with authors Trevor Boffone and Cristina Herrera here. We are thrilled that Latinx Teens received an honorable mention for the International Latino Book Awards!

Latinx TV in the Twenty-First Century offers an expansive and critical look at contemporary television by and about U.S. Latinx communities. This volume unpacks the negative implications of older representation and celebrates the progress of new representation, all while recognizing that television still has a long way to go.

Watch editor Frederick Luis Aldama (aka Professor Latinx) and Mighty Peter discuss their top 5 Latinx TV shows here, then watch a special conversation series with some of the contributors here.

For the first time, Navigating CHamoru Poetry focuses on Indigenous CHamoru (Chamorro) poetry from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). In this book, poet and scholar Craig Santos Perez navigates the complex relationship between CHamoru poetry, cultural identity, decolonial politics, diasporic migrations, and native aesthetics.

Border Women and the Community of Maclovio Rojas is a book about hope, struggle, and possibility in the context of gendered violences of racial capitalism on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

New Books Network interviewed author Michelle Téllez about the book: listen here. We are thrilled that Border Women received an honorable mention for the International Latino Book Awards! We held a fantastic book release event in Tucson for this book, read about it here.

In The Sound of Exclusion, Christopher Chávez critically examines National Public Radio’s professional norms and practices that situate white listeners at the center while relegating Latinx listeners to the periphery. By interrogating industry practices, we might begin to reimagine NPR as a public good that serves the broad and diverse spectrum of the American public.

KUOW NPR’s Soundside host Libby Denkmann interviewed Christopher Chávez about the book: listen here. NiemanLab’s Hanaa’ Tameez also interviewed Chávez about the book: listen here. New Books Network featured the book on their podcast here. Chávez was part of a PubWest event that featured a Q&A with three authors, watch it here. Current shared an excerpt from the book, read it here. The Latinx Project at New York University shared an op-ed from the author, read it here. We are thrilled that The Sound of Exclusion received an honorable mention for the International Latino Book Awards!

Visualizing Genocide engages the often sparse and biased discourses of genocidal violence against Indigenous communities documented in exhibits, archives, and museums. Essayists and artists from a range of disciplines identify how Native knowledge can be effectively incorporated into memory spaces.

Nuclear Nuevo México recovers the voices and stories that have been lost or ignored in the telling of U.S. nuclear history. By recuperating these narratives, Myrriah Gómez tells a new story of New Mexico, one in which the nuclear history is not separate from the collective colonial history of Nuevo México but instead demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico.

Read a brief interview with the author here.

Children Crossing Borders draws much-needed attention to the plight of migrant children and their families, illuminating the human and emotional toll that children experience as they crisscross the Americas. Exploring the connections between education, policy, cultural studies, and anthropology, the essays in this volume navigate a space of transnational children’s rights central to Latin American life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Colonialism has the power to corrupt. Finding Right Relations argues that even the early Quakers, who had a belief system rooted in social justice, committed structural and cultural violence against their Indigenous neighbors.

Read a brief interview with authors Marianne O. Nielsen and Barbara M. Heather here.

Native American doctoral graduates of American Indian Studies (AIS) at the University of Arizona, the first AIS program in the United States to offer a PhD, gift their stories. In American Indian Studies, Native PhD recipients share their journeys of pursuing and earning the doctorate, and its impact on their lives and communities.

Read an excerpt from the book here, then watch a book celebration for the book here.

Transforming Diné Education honors the perspectives and voices of Diné educators in culturally relevant education, special education, Diné language revitalization, well-being, tribal sovereignty, self-determination in Diné education, and university-tribal-community partnerships. The contributors offer stories about Diné resilience, resistance, and survival by articulating a Diné-centered pedagogy and politics for future generations.

On the heels of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Department of Diné Education, A History of Navajo Nation Education explains how the current Navajo educational system is a complex terrain of power relationships, competing agendas, and jurisdictional battles influenced by colonial pressures and tribal resistance. In providing the historical roots to today’s challenges, Wendy Shelly Greyeyes clears the path and provides a go-to reference to move discussions forward.

Read a brief interview with the author here.

Western History Association 2022: Discounts, New Books, and More

October 12, 2022

We are thrilled to be participating in the 2022 Western History Association meeting in San Antonio, Texas this week! Make sure to stop by our booth to browse our latest history titles, and meet with our Editor-in-Chief, Kristen Buckles. If you aren’t attending the meeting in person, check out some of our recent history titles below!

Use the code AZWHA22 for 30% off with free continental U.S. shipping through 11/15/22. To learn more about our publishing program, click here.

We are excited to be launching two new series, BorderVisions and Arizona Crossroads, this year! Learn more below.

BorderVisions, edited by Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez and Yvette J. Saavedra, engages the U.S.-Mexico borderlands’ dynamic histories and cultures and expands our understanding of the borderlands beyond a site of geopolitical inquiry. The series conceptualizes borderlands as both a place and a methodology and addresses the constraints of traditional fields, challenging authors to think creatively and critically about the expansive frameworks and possibilities of borderlands studies. This series will deepen our understanding of the ways in which gender, class, race, sexuality, and other intersectional concerns are reflected in humanities and humanistic social science borderlands scholarship. This series will publish monographs and edited collections by new and established authors who employ innovative interdisciplinary methodologies on topics reflecting both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. We seek to foster an intellectual space that envisions and manifests the multitude of perspectives for understanding the borderlands through interdisciplinary humanities and humanistic social sciences scholarship. We are especially interested in books that address the complexities and richness of borderlands experiences at different historical, cultural, and sociopolitical moments.

Watch a recording of the series launch for BorderVisions here.

Arizona Crossroads, edited by Anita Huizar-Hernández, Eric V. Meeks, and Katherine G. Morrissey, is a series in collaboration with the Arizona Historical Society that explores the history of peoples and cultures, events and struggles, ideas and practices in the place we know today as Arizona. Throughout its history, Arizona has long served as a crossroads between Native peoples, settler colonists, and immigrants from around the world. It has been a contested site among peoples, nations, and empires; it is also a place where events, decisions, and struggles have had far-reaching consequences beyond its shifting borders. As the series title suggests, we welcome books that deepen our understanding of Arizona as a diverse crossroads and meeting ground within broad national and transnational contexts, whether topical, thematic, or geographic (the region, the nation, the borderlands). Open to any topic within any time period of Arizona history, the series will publish scholarship that is cutting-edge and innovative, yet generally accessible and readable to an educated general audience. We are open to a variety of book formats: monographs, multi-authored works, and edited collections, as well as broader more synthetic works. Interdisciplinary projects that engage the past are encouraged.

Watch a recording of the series launch for Arizona Crossroads here.

For questions or to submit a proposal to either of these series, please contact Kristen Buckles, kbuckles@uapress.arizona.edu.

On the heels of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Department of Diné Education, A History of Navajo Nation Education explains how the current Navajo educational system is a complex terrain of power relationships, competing agendas, and jurisdictional battles influenced by colonial pressures and tribal resistance. In providing the historical roots to today’s challenges, Wendy Shelly Greyeyes clears the path and provides a go-to reference to move discussions forward.

Read a brief interview with the author here.

A New Deal for Navajo Weaving by Jennifer McLerran provides a history of early to mid-twentieth-century Diné weaving projects by non-Natives who sought to improve the quality and marketability of Diné weaving but in so doing failed to understand the cultural significance of weaving and its role in the lives of Diné women.

The Greater San Rafael Swell by Stephen E. Strom and Jonathan T. Bailey offers the story of how citizens of a small county in the rural West – Emery County, Utah—resolved perhaps the most volatile issue in the region – the future of public lands.

Explore field notes from Jonathan T. Bailey here, and explore field notes from Stephen E. Strom here.

Visualizing Genocide, edited by Yve Chavez and Nancy Marie Mithlo, engages the often sparse and biased discourses of genocidal violence against Indigenous communities documented in exhibits, archives, and museums. Essayists and artists from a range of disciplines identify how Native knowledge can be effectively incorporated into memory spaces.

Nuclear Nuevo México recovers the voices and stories that have been lost or ignored in the telling of U.S. nuclear history. By recuperating these narratives, Myrriah Gómez tells a new story of New Mexico, one in which the nuclear history is not separate from the collective colonial history of Nuevo México but instead demonstrates how earlier eras of settler colonialism laid the foundation for nuclear colonialism in New Mexico.

World of Our Mothers by Miguel Montiel and Yvonne de la Torre Montiel highlights the largely forgotten stories of forty-five women immigrants in the early twentieth century. Through interviews in Arizona mining towns, Phoenix barrios, and selected areas of California, Texas, and the Midwest, we learn how they negotiated their lives with their circumstances.

Set in the arid lands of northwestern Mexico, Bountiful Deserts foregrounds the knowledge of Indigenous peoples who harvested the desert as bountiful in its material resources and sacred spaces. Author Cynthia Radding uses the tools of history, anthropology, geography, and ecology to re-create the means of defending Indigenous worlds through colonial encounters, the formation of mixed societies, and the direct conflicts over forests, grasslands, streams, and coastal estuaries that sustained wildlife, horticulture, foraging, hunting, fishing, and—after European contact—livestock and extractive industries. She returns in each chapter to the spiritual power of nature and the enduring cultural significance of the worlds that Indigenous communities created and defended.

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