digitalculturebooks

Andrew Herscher discusses Detroit’s ‘Unreal Estate’ on Michigan Radio

by Brianne Johnson December 18, 2012

During a recent interview with Cynthia Canty on Michigan Radio, Press author Andrew Herscher discussed his new book, The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit, a guide to the emergence of alternative urban cultures in the wake of Detroit’s economic decline. Herscher describes unreal estate as “urban space that has lost economic value to the point where it can support other sorts of value,” and becomes valuable in other ways. While intense attention has been paid to Detroit as a site of urban crisis, this crisis, Herscher asserts, has not only yielded the massive devaluation of real estate that has so often been [...]

Jentery Sayers and Sheila Brennan awarded University of Michigan Press/HASTAC prize

by Shaun Manning June 14, 2012

The University of Michigan Press and HASTAC (the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advance Collaboratory) are pleased to announce the selection of Jentery Sayers and Sheila Brennan as recipients of the UM Press/HASTAC Digital Humanities Publication Prize. Each Prize carries $5,000 in subvention funds and an advance contract with the Press series DigitalHumanities@digitalculturebooks. Jentery Sayers, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Victoria, is working on a hybrid print and digital long-form transmedia work How Text Lost Its Source: Magnetic Recording Cultures. It integrates critical theories of technologies and media with knowledge of materials and historical particulars in the [...]

Q&A with Jennifer Gabrys, author of Digital Rubbish

by The University of Michigan Press July 5, 2011

Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics describes the materiality of electronics from a unique perspective, examining the multiple forms of waste that electronics create as evidence of the resources, labor, and imaginaries that are bundled into these machines. By drawing on the material analysis developed by Walter Benjamin, this natural history method allows for an inquiry into electronics that focuses neither on technological progression nor on great inventors but rather considers the ways in which electronic technologies fail and decay. Ranging across studies of media and technology, as well as environments, geography, and design, Jennifer Gabrys pulls together the [...]

Powering the digital: Author of ‘Digital Rubbish’ tackles electronic waste

by Bridget June 13, 2011

This is a guest blog by Jennifer Gabrys, author of Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics, available now. Electronic waste is an increasing environmental issue. As one of the fastest growing waste streams, e-waste quantities—which are notoriously difficult to gauge due to a whole host of issues including stockpiling in homes and ambivalent classification systems—are estimated to be anywhere between 20-25 million tons per year to 35-40 million tons per year. Some studies suggest that e-waste will “peak” at 70-75 million tons annually by 2015. While countries such as the US and UK have been major contributors to the [...]

‘Poetry’s Afterlife’ wins acclaim, award

by Bridget June 9, 2011

The University of Michigan Press is pleased to announce UM Press author and Illinois Poet Laureate Kevin Stein has been chosen as nonfiction runner-up in the Society of Midland Authors Award for books published in 2010. Stein was recognized for his work, Poetry’s Afterlife: Verse in the Digital Age , released by the University of Michigan Press. At a time when most commentators fixate on American poetry's supposed "death," Stein instead proposes the vitality of its aesthetic hereafter. Poetry's spirited afterlife has come despite, or perhaps because of, two decades of commentary diagnosing American poetry as moribund if not already [...]

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