University of Michigan Press Blog

Essays to Read in “A Beat Beyond” by Major Jackson

by Danielle Coty-Fattal January 25, 2023

Major Jackson has long been renowned as a poet of disciplined and exuberant craft, whose daring flights are guided by his deep learning and keen curiosity about the world. Now, in A Beat Beyond, published earlier this year by University of Michigan Press in the Poets on Poetry series, readers have gained a fresh opportunity to encounter the breadth of Jackson’s gifts as a poet and journal editor. We are pleased to share four recommendations of outstanding essays included in the book: (1) “A Mystifying Silence: Big and Black.” (First published in The American Poetry Review, September/October 2007.) Writing against […]

Verbatim Theater: Empathy, Suspicion, and the Desire for the Political

by Briana Johnson January 17, 2023

This guest author post is from Ryan Claycomb, author of In the Lurch: Verbatim Theater and the Crisis of Democratic Deliberation, from the University of Michigan Press. This book is available in hardcover, paper, and open access. Performer and playwright Anna Deavere Smith has been as visible in the past three years as at nearly any point in her career. The 1996 MacArthur Grant winner, whose 19-work series On the Road: A Search for American Character might collectively be one of the greatest achievements of American theater, has become to some observers something of a model for how our cultural […]

Social Media and The Disabled Child

by Danielle Coty-Fattal January 11, 2023

This guest author post is by Amanda Apgar, author of The Disabled Child: Memoirs of a Normal Future, from the University of Michigan Press. This book is available in hardcover, paper, and open access. I have a saved collection of social media posts I call “baby crip romances.” Culled primarily from Instagram and Facebook (the platforms preferred by parents of a certain age), these posts typically feature a photograph of a disabled girl and disabled boy accompanied by a caption describing the children’s romantic connection. In one post, a parent ponders if “betrothed” better describes the best friendship between two pre-pubescent […]

Q&A with “Youth without Representation” Authors Daniel Stockemer and Aksel Sundström

by Briana Johnson December 13, 2022

This guest author post is a Q&A with Daniel Stockemer and Aksel Sundström, authors of Youth without Representation: The Absence of Youth Adults in Parliaments, Cabinets, and Candidacies, from the University of Michigan Press. This book is available in hardcover, paper, and open access. What surprised you the most while researching? The first big surprise to us is the dearth of academic works on youth representation. Youth are probably the most underrepresented group in parliaments, and other political bodies worldwide, but very few scholars have investigated this problem. As such, our book is the first comprehensive study ever published on […]

Announcing the Winner of the 2022 Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities

by Briana Johnson December 12, 2022

The University of Michigan Press is pleased to announce that Cripping Girlhood, by Anastasia Todd, has been chosen for the 2022 Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies in the Humanities. This prize is awarded yearly for the best-proposed book-length manuscript on a topic of pressing urgency in the field. Todd is Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky. Her research investigates the intersections of disability and affect from a feminist disability studies perspective. Her work has appeared in Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal and Transformations: The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy. Anastasia Todd’s Cripping Girlhood offers a new […]

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