Category: Uncategorized

Cultivating Knowledge Shortlisted for the ICAS Book Prize

Posted on June 22, 2021June 22, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

June 22, 2021

We are thrilled to announce that University of Arizona Press author Andrew Flachs’ recent title, Cultivating Knowledge, was shortlisted for the International Convention of Asian Scholars’ Book Prize 2021 English- Best Book in the Social Sciences!

In Cultivating Knowledge anthropologist Andrew Flachs shows how rural farmers come to plant genetically modified or certified organic cotton, sometimes during moments of agrarian crisis. Interweaving ethnographic detail, discussions of ecological knowledge, and deep history, Flachs uncovers the unintended consequences of new technologies, which offer great benefits to some—but at others’ expense. Flachs shows that farmers do not make simple cost-benefit analyses when evaluating new technologies and options. Their evaluation of development is a complex and shifting calculation of social meaning, performance, economics, and personal aspiration. Only by understanding this complicated nexus can we begin to understand sustainable agriculture.

Andrew Flachs is an assistant professor of anthropology at Purdue University. Trained as an environmental anthropologist, his research spans sustainable agriculture, food studies, the anthropology of knowledge, and political ecology.

Congratulations, Andrew!

‘Desert Feast’ and ‘A Good Map’ Top Picks for Southwest Books of the Year 2021

Posted on June 15, 2021June 14, 2021 by Mari Herreras

June 15, 2021

We are thrilled to announce that Carolyn Niethammer‘s A Desert Feast: Celebrating Tucson’s Culinary Heritage, and and Alberto Álvaro Ríos‘s A Good Map of All Things: A Picaresque Novel were selected as top picks for the Pima County Library’s Southwest Books of the Year 2021.

Gregory McNamee: “Tucson is a food city, boasting, as Carolyn Niethammer writes, the best 23 square miles of Mexican food north of Mexico. It is also the first US venue designated as a City of Gastronomy by the United Nations. Why should that be? Niethammer explains: the honor grows from having a food tradition that extends back thousands of years, making use of hundreds of desert plants, and then adding on to it, like so many ingredients in a good bowl of cocido, elements from many other food traditions and cultures. We can eat food from just about every corner of the world here, and we’ve made it part of an almost inexhaustible culinary lexicon. You’ll want to try Niethammer’s carefully curated recipes—and develop a greener thumb by growing ingredients yourself and a broadened geography by visiting the growers and chefs she highlights. Every Southwestern city—every city, period—needs a book like hers, and it’s Tucson’s good fortune to have this.

From Helene Woodhams: “A small town nestled in the Pimería Alta of northern Mexico is home to folks as warmly engaging as they are idiosyncratic in this delightful novel by award-winning poet and author Alberto Álvaro Ríos. Midway through the 20th century, modern ways have just begun to creep into lives long accustomed to swaying in time to the rhythms of tradition, and as a result the local public science society has few members. Far from mundane, the simplicity of the town’s everyday-ness is rendered exquisite in Ríos’s able hands: love emerges and endures, faith is uncompromising, and a good day is one in which nothing much happens. The characters glide in and out of each other’s orbit, weaving their individual stories into a communal chronicle. The narrative is particularly elegant, marked by a poetic charm that makes this memorable work both a comfort and a joy to read–but this is not surprising, coming as it does from Arizona’s first Poet Laureate.

NAISA 2021: New & Recent Indigenous Studies Titles

Posted on June 7, 2021June 9, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

June 9, 2021

Hello, virtual NAISA attendees! We are excited to share our new and recent Indigenous studies titles with you, and we think you’ll enjoy our conference discount as well. From now until July 15, 2021, use the code AZNAISA21 at checkout to receive 40% off all titles, plus free U.S. shipping. We hope to see you all again at a future NAISA conference.

If you have any questions about our publishing program, please visit this page. Alternatively, please contact our Editor-in-Chief, Kristen Buckles, at kbuckles@uapress.arizona.edu or our Senior Editor, Allyson Carter, at acarter@uapress.arizona.edu. If you have questions about course adoptions, please visit this page and/or send an email to shicks@uapress.arizona.edu.

“This collection is essential to American literature and should be required for anyone studying American, First Nations, or world literature.”—Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate

Watch an incredible book release celebration for The Diné Reader here, which features many of the contributors. Then, read a Publishers Weekly review of the book here, and read an excerpt from the book here.

Becoming Hopi is a comprehensive look at the history of the people of the Hopi Mesas as it has never been told before, and is the product of more than fifteen years of collaboration between tribal and academic scholars.

Watch a book trailer for Becoming Hopi on the book’s web page to learn more.

A Coalition of Lineages by Duane Champagne and Carole Goldberg shows how the experience of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians is an instructive model for scholars and provides a model for multicultural tribal development that may be of interest to recognized and nonrecognized Indian nations in the United States and elsewhere.

From the day he was born, Federico Jiménez Caballero was predicted to be a successful man. So, how exactly did a young boy from Tututepec, Oaxaca, become a famous Indigenous jewelry artist and philanthropist in Los Angeles? Federico tells the remarkable story of willpower, curiosity, hard work, and passion coming together to change one man’s life forever.

Watch a recorded book release event here, in which Federico recounts many details from his remarkable life.

Decolonizing “Prehistory” critically examines and challenges the paradoxical role that modern historical-archaeological scholarship plays in adding legitimacy to, but also delegitimizing, contemporary colonialist practices. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this volume empowers Indigenous voices and offers a nuanced understanding of the American deep past.

Carrying the Burden of Peace weaves together stories of Indigenous life, love, eroticism, pain, and joy to map the contours of diverse, empowered, and non-dominant Indigenous masculinities. It is from here that a more balanced world may be pursued.

This book was co-published in collaboration with the University of Regina Press.

A baffling museum murder that appears to be the work of twisted human killers results in an unexpected and violent confrontation with powerful shape-shifters for Choctaw detective Monique Blue Hawk. Blending tribal beliefs and myths into a modern context, The Hatak Witches continues the storyline of Choctaw cosmology and cultural survival that are prominent in Devon A. Mihesuah’s award-winning novel, The Roads of My Relations.

Read a Publisher’s Weekly review of the book here, then read an interview with Devon Mihesuah here. Sign up for the virtual book release event here!

Indigenous Women and Violence offers an intimate view of how settler colonialism and other structural forms of power and inequality created accumulated violences in the lives of Indigenous women. The chapters in this book are engaged, feminist, collaborative, and activism focused, conveying powerful messages about the resilience of Indigenous women in the face of violence and systemic oppression.

In 1924, the United States began a bold program in public health. The Indian Service of the United States hired its first nurses to work among Indians living on reservations. Strong Hearts and Healing Hands shows how field nurses and Native people formed a positive working relationship that resulted in the decline of mortality from infectious diseases. With strong hearts, Indians eagerly participated in the tuberculosis campaign of 1939–40 to x-ray tribal members living on twenty-nine reservations. Through their cooperative efforts, Indians and health-care providers decreased deaths, cases, and misery among the tribes of Southern California.

Read an excerpt from the book here.

Revitalization Lexicography is a unique look under the hood of lexicography in a small community, highlighting how the creation of the Tunica dictionary was intentionally leveraged to shape the revitalization of the Tunica language. It details both the theoretical and the practical aspects that contributed to the Tunica dictionary in manner compelling to readers from all walks of life.

Horsefly Dress is a meditation on the experience and beauty of suffering. Rich in the imagery of autumnal foliage, migrating birds, and frozen landscapes, Heather Cahoon’s collection calls forth the sensory experience of grief and metamorphosis. The transformative powers associated with the human experience of loss belong to the past, present, and future, as do the traditional Salish-Pend d’Oreille stories that create the backbone of these intricate poems.

Watch a recorded virtual book release with Heather Cahoon here, then read her interview with Poetry Northwest here, and her interview with us here.

Narrating Nature opens up dialogue that counters traditional conservation narratives. It offers conservation efforts that not only include people as beneficiaries but also demonstrate how they are essential and knowledgeable members of the conservation landscape itself.

Soldiers, Saints, and Shamans documents how and why the Indigenous Náayari, Wixárika, O’dam, and Mexicanero peoples took part in the Mexican Revolution as they struggled to preserve their cultures, lands, and political autonomy in the face of civil war, bandit raids, and radical political reform. In unpacking the ambiguities that characterize their participation in this tumultuous period, it sheds light on the inner contradictions of the revolution itself.

Read Nathaniel Morris’ field notes and see some photos from his research here, then watch Nathaniel Morris discuss the book with UCLAmericas here.

Chie Sakakibara shows how knots of connection came into being between humans and nonhuman others and how such intimate and intense relations will help humans survive the Anthropocene. Whale Snow offers an important and thought-provoking look at global climate change as it manifests in the everyday life of the Iñupiat in Arctic Alaska.

We are so thrilled that Whale Snow won the 2020 AAG Meridian Award! Read an interview with author Chie Sakakibara here.

La Raza Cosmética examines postrevolutionary identity construction as a project of settler colonialism that at once appropriated and erased indigeneity. In its critique of Indigenous representation, it also shows how Indigenous women strategically engaged with and resisted these projects as they played out in beauty pageants, films, tourism, art, and other realms of popular culture.

Read the introduction here.

Spiral to the Stars offers a critical and concrete map for community making that leverages Mvskoke way-finding tools of energy, kinship, knowledge, power, and spaces. It is must-have book for community organizers, radical pedagogists, and anyone wishing to empower and advocate for their community.

If you are attending the virtual NAISA conference, there will be a live roundtable about Spiral to the Stars at 1:00 p.m. EDT.

We are thrilled that Spiral to the Stars won the 2020 Beatrice Medicine Award! Read an excerpt from the book here.

Cathead Biscuits and the Warmth of Home: An Excerpt from Moveable Gardens

Posted on June 4, 2021October 28, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

June 4, 2021

Moveable Gardens, edited by Virginia D. Nazarea and Terese Gagnon, highlights itineraries and sanctuaries in an era of massive dislocation, addressing concerns about finding comforting and familiar refuges in the Anthropocene. The worlds of marginalized individuals who live in impoverished rural communities, many Indigenous peoples, and refugees are constantly under threat of fracturing. Yet, in every case, there is resilience and regeneration as these individuals re-create their worlds through the foods, traditions, and plants they carry with them into their new realities.

Below, read an excerpt from contributor Taylor Hosmer’s chapter in Moveable Gardens, titled “The Tale of Cathead Biscuits”.

In most cases, as in my own, southerners never stop to consider why we prefer White Lily over other flours. At first, I staked it all on the traditions and rituals of cross- generational beliefs, but its taste may have even more to do with the cultural, regional, and historical connotations. To be considered a cathead, a biscuit must have a crisp crust and a soft inside. Soft winter wheat has been used to achieve this most desired effect. Since the beginning of the cathead, White Lily has been passed down as the type of flour one uses. Years have passed, and few other flours have found themselves embedded in southern biscuit ideals. Expectations of how a biscuit should look and taste have led to a strict dedication to soft red winter wheat. Ultimately, what may have started off as a regional and historical identity soon ingrained its importance as traditional and cultural markers as well. White Lily has undoubtedly had a role in producing and reproducing southern foodways as a hallmark ingredient that has defined what a biscuit should be.

Without fail the cathead’s taste of place has brought the warmth of my home to me time and time again. In college and far from home, I have often found myself lost in the present moment and at times prone to forgetting connections to my roots. Despite this, no true difficulty presents itself during my efforts to bring forth the warmth of home when I am assisted by a fresh biscuit. That being said, it cannot be just any biscuit. Like champagne, it must meet the requirement to be called a cathead. If it is not a true cathead, it cannot evoke the many rich meanings that are wrapped up inside each bite, and it would not have the power to bring forth the sense of home across hundreds of miles to wherever I might be. A true cathead is, for me, a portable sanctuary in moments such as these. It can transform any reality into the likeness of my home.

With every smell, taste, and texture consumed, memories and feelings present themselves. It is funny to think of a biscuit no larger than a cat’s head as a boundless haven. But it has, without fail, provided a direct link to my home each time I have caught myself drifting away. A central feature in the memories it evokes, the biscuit is vital in the moment of recall. Without it, certain memories may have been forgotten, and feelings may have faded. Instead, it has allowed connections to be made between the people and places associated with it, creating an integrated system of meaning that is steady and at the same time ever changing. Layers of meaning can be added with every new memory made, and even old memories can be altered in light of something newly learned. The cathead biscuit, however, will always be the catalyst for me when I am looking to produce this very particular meaning system.

Cathead biscuits represent a tradition that was a constant throughout my childhood. My brother and I spent every summer roaming the land around Mema’s house, accompanied by the smells and tastes of biscuits. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you could easily claim your fill of biscuit without any true difficulty. Whether we were determined explorers or nature survivalists, we would always give in to our hunger when Mema yelled out “fresh biscuits!” Knapsacks in hand, we would fill them with all sorts of treasures. This, of course, included the delicious golden rounds, which would later be eaten deep inside the woods. We would strike off into the wilderness with our renewed supplies to conduct feasts at our many secret fortresses and hideouts. As children, we associated biscuits with long summer days spent at Mema’s, early morning breakfasts with our cousins, and the knowledge that this food could always fill whatever need we had that day. The biscuit contains within it memories we draw on with each bite taken. In an instant I can travel through space and time to find myself a young child again sitting at my mema’s table. With biscuit in hand, I can close my eyes and hear the laughter of cousins, while the soothing warmth of nostalgia floods my senses. As Sutton explains in his book Remembrance of Repasts (2001), food is so much more than simply a source of energy. Food can be symbolic, and in that symbolism, it can contain countless layers of meaning. Our relationship to the food we eat reflects our cultural beliefs, regional preferences, and socio-economic status, among other things. Most importantly, it can provide us with a link to our past.

***

Taylor Hosmer hails from a small town in southern Georgia. She is an anthropology and geography major at the University of Georgia, with a focus on disaster management. Her ethnobiography takes a new and more personal approach to the history of resilience. Her time spent volunteering at UGArden and William’s Farm, two local community gardens in Athens, Georgia, has taught her that knowing one’s food can have powerful positive impacts from the community level down to each individual.

Paul E. Minnis Receives the Society of Ethnobiology’s 2021 Distinguished Ethnobiologist Award

Posted on May 21, 2021June 3, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

May 21, 2021

We are thrilled to announce that University of Arizona Press author Paul E. Minnis is the recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Ethnobiologist Award from the Society of Ethnobiology! The Society of Ethnobiology announces its Distinguished Ethnobiologist award to honor an ethnobiologist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of ethnobiology and advancing the goals of the Society. In recognition of these contributions, the recipient will be awarded a lifetime honorary membership to the Society of Ethnobiology.

Paul E. Minnis (PhD, University of Michigan) is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, now living in Tucson, Arizona, where he is a visiting scholar in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. He conducts research on the prehispanic ethnobotany and archaeology of the northwest Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. His recent University of Arizona Press books include Famine Foods: Plants We Eat to Survive and The Prehispanic Ethnobotany of Paquimé and Its Neighbors, which he co-authored with Michael E. Whalen.

Congratulations, Paul!

LASA 2021: Explore Our Latest Latin American Studies Titles and Enjoy a Conference Discount

Posted on May 20, 2021May 25, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

May 24, 2021

We are excited to be participating in the second virtual LASA congress! Below, browse and learn more about our recent Latin American studies titles. Through 6/15/2021, use the code AZLASA21 for 40% off all titles, including free U.S. shipping.

Are you interested in our publishing program? Read about the details here, and contact our Editor-in-Chief Kristen Buckles at kbuckles@uapress.arizona.edu, or our Senior Editor Allyson Carter at acarter@uapress.arizona.edu.

By the start of the century, nearly one billion international travelers were circulating the globe annually, placing tourism among the worlds’ most ubiquitous geopolitical encounters. While the COVID-19 pandemic brought the industry to a sudden halt, its geopolitical significance remained. With striking clarity, tourism desires and reinvented mobilities revealed the impermanence of Old World orders as new global alliances were forged. Tourism Geopolitics offers a unique and timely intervention into the growing significance of tourism in geopolitical life as well as the intrinsically geopolitical nature of the tourism industry.

Read an excerpt from the book here, and look at the table of contents on the book’s web page.

“Bringing together leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, this volume explores the connections between structural, extreme, and everyday violence against Indigenous women across time and borders. It makes important contributions to current debates about gender violence and research methods.”—Rachel Sieder, editor of Demanding Justice and Security: Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America

David Barton Bray has spent more than thirty years researching and studying Mexican community forest enterprises (CFEs). In Mexico’s Community Forest Enterprises he shares the scientific evidence for Mexico’s social and environmental achievements and how, in its most successful manifestations, it became a global model for common-property forest management, sustainable social-ecological systems, and climate change mitigation in developing countries.

“Mexico’s Community Forest Enterprises is the culmination of a lifetime of research on how community forests in Mexico are successful and why some of them fail. Bray captures the complexity of Mexican forestry in a masterful way. Amidst all the negative news about global deforestation, Bray makes a compelling case for understanding the stories that we don’t get to hear much on the media, the success of common property regimes in Mexican forests can be a source of hope to the future of community forests.”—José E. Martínez-Reyes, author of Moral Ecology of a Forest: The Nature Industry and Maya Post-Conservation

Read some field notes from author Nathaniel Morris, complete with stunning photographs, here. Then, watch Morris discuss the book in a recorded virtual book launch event here.

Binational Commons focuses on whether the institutions that presently govern the U.S.-Mexico transborder space are effective in providing solutions to difficult binational problems as they manifest themselves in the borderlands. The volume addresses key binational issues and explores where there are strong levels of institutional governance development, where it is failing, how governance mechanisms have evolved over time, and what can be done to improve it to meet the needs of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in the next decades.

“This excellent book addresses border governance institutions and documents how dynamic events have outgrown institutional capabilities for governance. Exceptional chapters on institutions and governance that address transportation, data generation, planning, energy, health, security, the environment, and other areas of the border reality make this book essential reading for border students, researchers, and practitioners.”—Paul Ganster, author of The U.S.-Mexican Border Today: Conflict and Cooperation in Historical Perspective

“Natasha Varner’s book insightfully traces how nationalists used the female Indigenous body to construct settler colonialism in postrevolutionary Mexico. In the process, it creatively bridges Indigenous studies in the United States and Latin America.”—Rick A. López, author of Crafting Mexico: Intellectuals, Artisans and the State After the Revolution

Read the book’s introduction here.

Taking us on a journey of remembering and rediscovery, anthropologist Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez shares important insights into his development as a scholar and in so doing the development of the interdisciplinary field of transborder anthropology. Reflections of a Transborder Anthropologist shows how both Vélez-Ibáñez and anthropology have changed and formed over a fifty-year period. Throughout, he has worked to understand how people survive and thrive against all odds. Vélez-Ibáñez has been guided by the burning desire to understand inequality, exploitation, and legitimacy, and, most importantly, to provide platforms for the voiceless to narrate their own histories.

We are thrilled that Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez was honored with the 2020 Franz Boas Award, as well as the inaugural AAHHE Distinguished Author Award. Read an excerpt from the book here, then watch a recording of a virtual book launch and discussion here.

Salvador González: Cuba’s Arts Defender and Believer, Recently Died in Havana

Posted on April 27, 2021April 27, 2021 by Mari Herreras

April 27, 2021

In Tom Miller’s Cuba, Hot and Cold, the University of Arizona Press author wrote about Cuban life, but he also included a reverential revival in Afro-Cuban arts, music, and community led by Salvador Gonzalez.

The artist, cultural promoter, and manager of the Callejón de Hamel Community Socio-Cultural Project in the Havana neighborhood of Cayo Hueso, passed away recently in Havana, leaving a remarkable legacy on Cuban culture, essentially in the visual arts and traditional popular culture, to which he was closely linked until his last days, according to TeleSUR. You can read their story on Gonzalez here.

To better understand this Cuban arts defender and believer, read the following excerpt from Miller’s book:

On the Street

No slice of Cuban life is less understood by outsiders than its African-based religions—not its athletic prowess nor its government’s colossal miscalculations nor the power of a machete during the sugar harvest nor its devotion to José Martí. You could visit here for weeks and not encounter Afro-Cuban religion, go home, and be none the wiser. But it’s here, it’s in the air, people wear it on their bodies, you can hear it if you listen, you can see it if you want. It’s even in my family, and I’m not confident I entirely understand it either.

Until recent decades polite society considered Afro-Cuban religions something to dismiss, practiced only by la chusma—the lowest of the low—tucked away out of sight. Gradually, however, the religions surfaced—their music assertive, their rituals open, their societies and deities accessible to all. Brought to the Caribbean by slaves and prac-ticed under cover of Catholicism, these religions now draw domes-tic respectability and worldwide attention. The easiest way to catch a comfortable glimpse of them is on a small side street in Cayo Hueso, a working-class barrio of Centro Habana. On Sundays neighbors start gathering on Callejón de Hamel before noon, joined by habaneros from other parts of town and, now, a considerable turnout of visitors from abroad.

Since 1990 Hamel has grown from an unkempt back alley to a site for impressionistic Afro-Cuban art, music, dance, and drumming. Salvador González deserves credit for this, beginning the transition when he was in his forties with a block-long mural overpowering in theme, presence, and execution. Spinning smoke, water, limbs, eyes, and roots surround feathers, goddesses, and serpents. Yemayá and Ochun, both deities of the Yoruba sect, entwine; others from the Abakuá dominate adjoining segments of the mural. The most recent addition is a thematic paint job on the back sides of the run-down five-story apartment houses that line the callejón, all the way up to the rooftop water tanks hundreds of feet above street level.

The Jovellanos, a musical group from Matanzas, had already begun when I arrived. They played on the sweltering street, shaded beneath corrugated tin. The group’s four drummers could be heard blocks away, and soon the crowd grew to two hundred sweaty onlookers, mesmerized by the full-throttle beat as first the singers chanted Yoruba and other incantations, then danced a wild yet precise ritual whose increasing momentum summoned just the right frenzy. The first number was a soft yambú in which a couple acted out in slow motion a rooster and his hen circling and pecking, lunging and leaning. It was meant to be erotic and provocative, and it was both. Next came a faster rumba with rattling maracas that crescendoed as the dancers acted out a fight, then made up as the woman pushed off the man with a turn of the torso, coyly drawing him under her spell. The conga and the batá drums were the lead instruments, accompanied by rhythmic clatter from gourds, a cowbell, and well-defined non-Western free-form singing.

Next, the guaguancó, sweat-drenched dancers’ hips and groins gyrating in sync inches from each other, moving forward, sideways, backward, arms flailing, bodies slowing, building up again, thrusting, almost brushing each other, then pausing, the dancers impressing each other and the captivated crowd.

It was wonderfully suggestive; you can get hot just writing about it. During a break in the dancing, people strolled the alley reading Salvador’s philosophical graffiti, admiring the elaborate structures he’s built. He has a storefront art gallery and a regular work crew, and on weekdays he paces the street, remote phone in hand. He’s built a crude temple inspired by palo monte, a religion with its roots in the Congo and its branches in the New World. It’s a lean-to made with sticks from the Zapata swampland on Cuba’s south coast, with a lifelike couple seated in front of jungle growth. Salvador stopped to explain his complex composition. “It symbolizes the powerful force of nature,” he said, “the waters of the sea, the strength of the rivers, and the volcanic energy we feel from the land. This temple is alive. Look.” He reached far back into the altar, pulled out a machete, and hacked out eyes, a nose, and a mouth in what obviously was not volcanic rock at all. It was the outer growth of a tree stump, still very much alive with thousands of termites that erupted as Salvador sculpted his work.

As for the turnout, Alba Rodríguez a, hospital janitor who lives around the corner, said she’s been coming to the Sunday rumbas faith-fully ever since they began. “I tell people at work to come, but some of them say no, they’re not interested in this, they don’t like it. For me, it’s tranquilo. Tranquilo.”

The crowd eventually thinned out, carrying with it the energy of the rumba. On their way out they passed an empty herb stand, then one of the many dictums painted on the wall: I can wait longer than you, because I am time itself.

The Diné Reader: An Excerpt

Posted on April 8, 2021April 8, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

April 8, 2021

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.

Below, read an excerpt from Sherwin Bitsui‘s foreword to The Diné Reader.

“I’ve met young Navajo college students attending universities throughout the United States who are surprised to discover that Navajos have been writing books for decades—Blackhorse Mitchell’s Miracle Hill was published decades ago, in 1967. The students, excited about stories and poems that reflect their own experiences, ask for the names of Navajo authors and their book titles with hopes of finding them in their local bookstores and libraries. Such works invoke memories of their families, reservation life, and cultural concerns. They also capture the red rock panoramas of their homeland, where stories and everyday life are perpetually intertwined. Each book contains an entire world and gives voice to Navajo thought and worldview with the utmost care and respect for language and ancestral knowledge.

Navajo poets and writers often refer to Diné bizaad as the source for their written work. Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Laura Tohe writes, “Diné bizaad is medicine for healing, was used as a secret code during World War II by the Navajo Code Talkers, and has blessed me in writing poetry, stories, essays, and now writing librettos for operas. It has grounded me to Navajo spirituality and community.”

Whether Diné bizaad was forcibly repressed at boarding schools, or because a generation of traumatized parents were convinced not to teach their children, these writers rediscover it in their written work. The layers of each line, image, or word carry not only personal story but the entirety of a people’s history and worldview. These stories restore memory and reconnect a people, some of whom have moved beyond the sacred mountains to work and live in distant cities. These stories are doorways opening inward, back into the world that is always home.

This anthology will aid in making known to readers the incredible diversity Navajo literature offers. These poems and stories are as vast and dynamic as the land on which they were imagined and created. The editors of this anthology have presented the works in a format that honors culture. They have provided interviews with the authors and resources for teachers to aid in the teaching of these works, elucidating the cultural context to bring greater depth to the reader’s understanding. Elizabeth Woody, in her interview, gracefully sums up the thesis of this collection: “I write from the core belief the word of our ancestors still reverberates in our present. It is a whisper in the grasses moving in all directions.” With the publication of this book, the whisper has grown louder and cannot be ignored any longer. The songs and memories of our ancestors continue to reverberate in these contemporary stories and poems; they bridge worlds and restore beauty within all things.”

—Sherwin Bitsui

Flachs Examines Cotton Cultivation in India in Anthro Magazine Sapiens

Posted on March 15, 2021 by Mari Herreras

March 15, 2021

Andrew Flachs, author of Cultivating Knowledge: Biotechnology, Sustainability, and the Human Cost of Cotton Capitalism in India, recently contributed a story for SAPIENS, an online anthropology magazine, edited by Chip Colwell.

Excerpt from the story by Flachs:

“Organic agriculture also offers an agrarian way of life for younger, educated generations in Telangana at a time when many young people have moved away to find work in larger cities, such as Hyderabad and Bangalore, leaving behind or even selling family land. Staff members recruited from farming communities by various organic projects in Telangana have found a way to give back to their agrarian roots while achieving a new form of rural professionalism.

It would be wrong to frame the success of these programs as either the triumph of eco-friendly clothing sales or as evidence of the inherent superiority of certified organic agriculture. Those perspectives miss the crucial efforts of NGOs and organic companies that make it easier to be a small farmer. They also hide the efforts of charismatic, opportunistic, and earnest farmers and rural professionals who take up the local cause.”

SAPIENS began in 2016 with a mission to bring anthropology to the public, and make a difference in how people see themselves and the people around them. An editorially independent magazine of the Wenner‑Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Published in partnership with the University of Chicago Press.

You can read the entire story, and check out SAPIENS here.

Spring Into 2021 with a Great Discount on Books!

Posted on March 3, 2021March 3, 2021 by Savannah Hicks

March 3, 2021

We are excited to kick off Spring 2021 with some incredible new books, and a great sale to match! From March 1, 2021 to March 15, 2021, use the code AZSPRING21 for 40% off ALL titles, plus free shipping in the continental U.S.

The Great Ages of Discovery is a fascinating conceptual framework for understanding the past 600 years of exploration by Western civilization and its relationship to contemporary society. Stephen J. Pyne expertly organizes the vast narrative of Western exploration into three distinctive ages of discovery.

On Saturday, March 6, Stephen Pyne will be presenting at the Tucson Festival of Books! Authors Simon Winchester and Stephen Pyne will discuss how the quest for land, ownership and discovery have shaped the modern world. . Learn more about this panel. You can also watch a book trailer for The Great Ages of Discovery here.

The Diné Reader: An Anthology of Navajo Literature is a comprehensive collection of creative works by Diné poets and writers. This anthology is the first of its kind.

“This collection is essential to American literature and should be required for anyone studying American, First Nations, or world literature.”—Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate

On Wednesday, April 21, tune into a virtual event with editors Esther G. Belin, Jeff Berglund, Connie A. Jacobs, and contributors to celebrate this ground-breaking anthology. Read more about the event and register here.

“As informative as it is gripping, this supernatural mystery from Mihesuah—the 88th installment of Sun Tracks: An American Indian Literary series—is rooted in Choctaw cosmology and contemporary Native American life. … Readers looking for intelligent, diverse supernatural fiction will be captivated.”—Publisher’s Weekly

Read the entire Publisher’s Weekly review of The Hatak Witches here.

Danzirly is a stunning bilingual poetry collection that considers multigenerational Latinx identities in the rapidly changing United States. Winner of the Academy of American Poets’ Ambroggio Prize, Gloria Muñoz’s collection is an unforgettable reckoning of the grief and beauty that pulses through twenty-first-century America.

On Saturday, March 6, Gloria will be presenting at the Tucson Festival of Books! What does the American Dream look like for Latinx people living in the United States? What does it feel like? Felicia Zamora and Gloria Muñoz explore those questions in their award-winning poetry. They will share their thoughts, and some of their poems, with all of us. Learn more about this panel.

On Wednesday, April 14, Gloria Muñoz will read from her new collection, Danzirly, presented by the American Academy of Poets and the University of Arizona Press. Registration is required. Learn more here.

Transversal takes a groundbreaking, disruptive approach to poetic translation, opening up alternative ways of reading as poems get translated or transcreated into entirely new pieces. In this collection, Urayoán Noel masterfully examines his native Puerto Rico and the broader Caribbean as sites of transversal poetics and politics.

Learn more about the collection by reading an interview with Urayoán here. On Wednesday, March 17, celebrated poet Urayoán Noel will read from his new poetry collection, Transversal, joined by Camino del Sol series editor Rigoberto González for an online event. Registration is required. Learn more here.

On Wednesday, April 7, learn about Federico Jiménez Caballero’s remarkable life and work during this online book release celebration and discussion with author Jiménez Caballero and editor Shelby Tisdale. Registration is required. Learn more about the event here.

UNDOCUMENTS is an expansive multi-genre exploration of Greater Mexican documentality that reveals the complicated ways all Latinx peoples, including the author, become objectified within cultures. John-Michael Rivera remixes the Florentine Codex and other documents as he takes an intense look at the anxieties and physical detriments tied to immigration.

Read an excerpt from UNDOCUMENTS here.

On Wednesday, March 31, join a special virtual event to celebrate the book release of UNDOCUMENTS with a reading a discussion with its author John-Michael Rivera. Registration is required. Learn more about the event here.

“Editors Johnson and Cokinos have created a profoundly stirring evocation of the glory and tragedy of spaceflight that lets us better see not only worlds beyond but also ourselves.”—Lee Billings, Scientific American

Mark McLemore, host and producer of Arizona Public Media’s Arizona Spotlight, recently interviewed Christopher Cokinos and Julie Swarstad Johnson, co-editors of Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight. Listen to the interview here. PBS’ The Open Mind featured Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight‘s co-editors Julie Swarstad Johnson and Christopher Cokinos talking about the new poetry anthology and this celebration of poetics and the space sciences. Watch here.

The poetry anthology was also featured on Planetary Radio, the Planetary Society’s weekly podcast brilliantly hosted by Mat Kaplan. Listen here. Then, watch an incredible event with the editors and some contributors to the volume here! Ready to take your own space poetry journey? Read Swarstad Johnson’s post and writing prompts.

“Ríos’s finely crafted chronicle brings great depth to the vicissitudes of life in a small Mexican village.”—Publishers Weekly

Alberto Álvaro Ríos is presenting at the Tucson Festival of Books on Sunday, March 7! Arizona authors Alberto Álvaro Ríos and Lydia R. Otero will discuss their newest books, both of which explore the power of place and community along the border. Learn more about this panel.

We are thrilled that A Good Map of All Things was chosen as a Southwest Book of the Year! Listen to a KJZZ interview with Alberto Álvaro Ríos here, then read an interview with him here.

“The writings in this collection echo, each in their own ways, the surprising declaration made by contributor Paul Mirocha in ‘Staring at the Walls,’ an essay on Southern Arizona public art: “The desert is succulent—it’s downright juicy out there.”—Kristine Morris, Foreward Reviews

Watch editor Gary Nabhan and contributor Francisco Cantú discuss The Nature of Desert Nature here. The Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill hosted a special online event to celebrate the book release of The Nature of Desert Nature, watch it here. Read an excerpt from the book here.

“Indispensable, Niethammer’s book is fascinating, taking us through the cultural and historical significance from 4,000 years ago at the base of “A” Mountain to the modern-day celebration of artisan growers and chefs who have all been a part of making Tucson a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. This is not a book to finish in one sitting, but something to be savored along with the book’s many recipes, time and time again.”—Barry Infuso, President, Chefs Association of Southern Arizona

We are thrilled that A Desert Feast was chosen as a Southwest Book of the Year, and it also won a Pubwest Book Design Award! Read an excerpt from the book here, then watch a Tucson Festival of Books virtual event with Carolyn Niethammer and #ThisIsTucson food writer Andi Berlin here. Watch a fun series of videos from people featured in the book here!

“It is such a pleasure to experience so many Old Stories told in and between the lines of Heather Cahoon’s gorgeous poems.”—Chris La Tray, High Country News

Read an interview about Horsefly Dress with poet Heather Cahoon here, then watch a virtual poetry reading with Heather here.

The University of Arizona Press