University of Michigan Press Blog

Francesca Royster’s ‘Sounding Like a No-No’ receives William Sanders Scarborough Prize Honorable Mention

by Phillip Witteveen December 18, 2014

Every year, the Modern Language Association awards the William Sanders Scarborough Prize to the most outstanding contribution in studies of black literature or culture. The Press is proud to announce our own honorable mention in the running for this work of thought, Francesca Royster’s Sounding Like a No-No. Royster’s work places us in an era she calls “Post Soul,” and examines the eccentricities of its performance art and music. It asks us to consider the concepts of “embodied sound,” the distinctions between imaginative and corporeal freedom, and this irreducible sense of being in a world after slavery. Congratulations to Professor Royster! […]

Matt Brim at the New York Public Library

by Phillip Witteveen November 25, 2014

On December 2nd, at 7 p.m., the New York Public Library will be holding a release event for CUNY Professor Matt Brim’s upcoming James Baldwin and the Queer Imagination. Hosted in conversation, Brim will be opposite acclaimed novelist Ayana Mathis, (author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie) to discuss the complex man we have in James Baldwin, something Brim has put a considerable amount of thought into. The Library’s event will be held in its Wachenheim Trustees Room. You can find out more (and RSVP) here.

Remembering Gordon Tullock

by Carolyn Darr November 14, 2014

Calculus of Consent by James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock

Gordon Tullock, one of the founding fathers of public choice theory, passed away November 4th at the age of 92. Originally intending to be a foreign trader, Tullock only took one economics class in his university studies, yet went on to completely change economic thinking by applying it to political issues. Along with his long time collaborator James Buchanan, Tullock produced The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy, a groundbreaking work in the new field of public choice. Growing up in Rockford, Illinois, Tullock attended the University of Chicago where he earned a J.D. in 1947 after serving […]

Celebrating University Press Week: November 9-16

by Phillip Witteveen November 10, 2014

The publishing community celebrates University Press Week November 9-16, 2014. University presses provide access to ideas, playing a unique role in fostering scholarship. Each university press has a diverse list of titles, shaped by their history, directors, acquisitions editors, location, and parent institutions. With titles ranging from maritime studies to folklore and field guides, the unique history and culture of the Mitten State and its Great Lakes are traced in print via the publishing activity of our three university presses. From Michigan State University Press: Beyond Pontiac’s Shadow provides a fresh look at an important moment in the history of Michigan and Canada. Brian […]

In Memoriam: Galway Kinnell

by Phillip Witteveen November 7, 2014

Galway Kinnell – Pulitzer winning poet, essayist and teacher – died October 28, 2014 at age 87. He was a big, square-jawed guy, the kind it might seem you could blunt iron against; he wrote with the soul of a river or a son of Abraham. He did all this at a time of emergent New Criticism (after the advent and aftermath of Pound and Eliot’s Modernism), but didn’t seem to mind it too much (“it” in this case referring to “the sorting algorithm of popular culture”). He was more into the timeless stuff, or maybe better put, the stuff […]

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