American Studies

Tools fit for purpose: Gabii on Fulcrum

by Charles Watkinson April 2, 2018

You wouldn’t use a fork to eat soup, a saw to cut bread, or a kettle to make stew. But the feeling of having an inappropriate tool for the job is too often the experience of scholars using ebooks. A passion for creating tools that allow specialist users to interact with scholarly publications in a way that is appropriate for their discipline drives the development of University of Michigan Press’s new Fulcrum reading platform, https://www.fulcrum.org, created with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Built on open source software, Fulcrum supports bespoke reading experiences that fit the varying needs of different […]

The Press in Art: Kerry James Marshall’s “SOB, SOB” in NYT Style Magazine

by Lauren Stachew November 4, 2016

The most recent issue of the New York Times Style Magazine received a lot of attention for featuring a series of striking black and white portraits taken by photographer Collier Schorr of First Lady Michelle Obama, accompanied by four thank-you notes written by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, activist Gloria Steinem, editor Jon Meacham, and actress Rashida Jones. However, at the Press, there was another reason entirely for us to be excited about this particular issue. A spotlight article on Chicago-based painter, Kerry James Marshall, famous for his large paintings depicting African American figures, life, and culture, featured several full-color images […]

Celebrating 20 Years of Corporealities

by Charles Watkinson October 11, 2016

On October 11 author Ann McGuire gives the inaugural Tobin Siebers Prize Lecture at the University of Michigan. Professor McGuire is the winner of the inaugural Tobin Siebers Prize for Disability Studies, named in honor of the pioneering scholar and father of disability studies. In the blog post below, Professor David Mitchell of George Washington University, co-editor of the successful book series Corporealities (in which McGuire’s book appears) reflects on the series’ contribution to the field. Corporealities: Discourses of Disability Series Overview will turn 20 years old in 2017. It is now the longest running academic book series devoted exclusively […]

Celebrate Pride with UM Press

by Lauren Stachew June 23, 2016

This month is the 47th annual LGBT Pride Month, which began in June 1969 to commemorate the Stonewall riots in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. This commemorative month not only celebrates sexual diversity and gender variance, but also increases visibility and emphasizes positivity and self-love in the LGBT community. Parades, marches, rallies, and commemorations are held across the world annually during this month. Performing Queer Latinidad by Ramón H. Rivera-Servera highlights the critical role that performance played in the development of Latina/o queer public culture in the United States during the 1990s and early 2000s, a period when the size and influence […]

Daniel Aaron, 1912-2016

by Lauren Stachew May 9, 2016

American author, academic, and founder of the Library of America, Daniel Aaron, passed away on April 30, 2016 at the age of 103. Widely regarded as one of the founders of American Studies, his autobiography The Americanist was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2007. Literary critic Harold Bloom writes, “I have read all of Daniel Aaron’s books, and admired them, but in The Americanist I believe he has composed an intellectual and social memoir for which he will be remembered.” Aaron received his BA from the University of Michigan in 1933 and later received a graduate […]

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