Duke University Press Log

Washington Monthly Praises Armatta's Twilight of Impunity

Wesley Clark pens a rave review of Judith Armatta's Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic in the new issue of The Washington Monthly. Clark, who was Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO during the Kosovo War, calls the book "wonderful and important." He says Armatta "brings a boots-on-the-ground understanding of the Balkans from previous work in Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. In her observations, she proves to be an acute student of law, character, strategy, and history." Clark focuses his review on the lasting importance of the trial, which he says "may have been one of the most important international events of a new century." Both Clark and Armatta believe that if we absorb the lessons of the Milosevic trial, "we will have decisively shattered the notions of sovereign impunity, even in the ambiguous and deliberately obscure machinations of internal conflict." Clark concludes, "Every practitioner and student of international relations should read Armatta’s book."

Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores Interviewed on Jordan Journal

Miriam Jiménez Román and Juan Flores, co-editors of the new book, The Afro-Latin@ Reader: History and Culture in the United States, were interviewed on WBAI 99.5 FM's "The Jordan Journal" last Friday. The show aired at 5pm on Friday, July 2nd, and a clip from the show can be found here. According to the announcement on The Jordan Journal website, the book "is a must-read for those seeking to understand the dynamics of race and culture in the Americas."

Eric Klinenberg, New Editor of Public Culture

Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist at New York University and the author of the books Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago and Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media, has been appointed as the new academic editor of our journal Public Culture. Klinenberg will serve a five-year term, ending in June 2015. Public Culture's editorial office will move from Columbia University to the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University in mid-July.

Fore more information about Eric Klinenberg, please visit sociology.fas.nyu.edu/object/ericklinenberg.

For more information about Public Culture, please visit dukeupress.edu/publicculture.

The Provocative Joan Robinson Wins HES Spengler Award

Congratulations to Nahid Aslanbeigui and Guy Oakes, authors of The Provocative Joan Robinson: The Making of a Cambridge Economist. The book won the Joseph J. Spengler Best Book Prize at the recent History of Economics Society annual meeting. The book is about the life and work of Joan Robinson (1903–83), one of the most original and prolific economists of the twentieth century who is widely regarded as the most important woman in the history of economic thought.

Authors on the Radio

For your listening pleasure, check out these three Duke authors on various radio shows. First up, Randy Weston on NPR's Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland. Weston plays several pieces on the show, including a tribute to Thelonious Monk. McPartland plays her own tribute to Weston. Weston's autobiography, African Rhythms, is out in October. Then you can listen to an Frank Wilderson discuss his new book Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms on KDVS's New Day Jazz. Wilderson's book is a provocative theoretical critique of representations of race in socially engaged films made since the 1960s. Then tonight tune into KPFT's Nuestra Palabra at 7:30 CT to hear AnaLouise Keating  talk about the late great feminist activist and writer Gloria Anzaldúa. Keating is the editor of The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. Enjoy all these great interviews!

Randy Weston Plays Stanford Jazz Festival

Bay Area jazz fans are in for a treat this weekend, when pianist Randy Weston and his African Rhythms Trio play the Stanford Jazz Festival on Saturday night. Fans can also catch Randy in conversation with legendary jazz radio personality Dr. Herb Wong at the Jazz Heritage Center on Sunday. The center will also show a film about Weston's life entitled "Randy Weston on the Road." Duke University Press is proud to be publishing Weston's autobiography, African Rhythms (written with Willard Jenkins) this fall. It's a book every jazz fan will want to read.

Collins Reviewed in Chronicle of Higher Ed

Jim Collins's new book Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture is featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Nota Bene" section this week. Nina Ayoub says the book is "a lively study that moves from strip mall to television to the multiplex to virtual reading communities." Collins takes on book superstores, Amazon.com, Oprah, and Merchant-Ivory film adaptations of novels in his book, an engaging assessment of the robust popular literary culture that has developed in the United States during the past two decades.

Rebecca Karl Interviewed in Huffington Post

Rebecca Karl, author of Mao Zedong and China in the Twentieth-Century World: A Concise History, is interviewed in the Huffington Post today by Jeffrey Wasserstrom. The book is for general readers. Karl says, "Over the years, in my teaching and non-academic life, I have encountered many people - students, family, concerned citizens of various political persuasions - who are baffled and confused about China's past and its current trajectory. I decided I wanted to write a book for all of those people: the ones who are genuinely interested but perhaps not very knowledgeable about China." Karl says the chapter on the Great Leap Forward was the most difficult to write: "For this, I needed to maintain a decent line of analytical rigor, even while being very clear about the hideous results of the period. Since the whole book is designed to counter the idea that Mao was just a crazy meglamaniacal tyrant, I needed to deal with the issues raised by the theorization of the socialist economy - which were, after all, the root of the Great Leap period - without dissolving the human tragedies into abstractions. This was a real challenge." Karl,  Associate Professor of History at New York University, is also the author of Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (2002).

Jody Berland Wins the Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize

Congratulations to Jody Berland, author of North of Empire: Essays on the Cultural Technologies of Space, for winning the Gertrude J. Robinson Book Prize from L'Association canadienne de communication / the Canadian Communication Association (ACC / CCA). The Robinson Book Prize is named in honour of the many contributions of Professor Gertrude J. Robinson to the discipline of communication in Canada and around the world. Nominees for the Robinson Book Prize must have published a monograph in the previous calendar year, and be a member of the Canadian Communication Association.

Dorceta E. Taylor Wins Outstanding Publication Award

Congratulations to Dorceta E. Taylor, author of The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600s-1900s: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change, for winning the Outstanding Publication Award from the Environment and Technology Section of the American Sociological Association. The Outstanding Publication Award is given in alternate years for publications of special noteworthiness in the field of environmental sociology.