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A Reading List for When You’re Longing for the Tropics

By PublicityTeam on February 6, 2025

One grey day after another. February may be the shortest month but the cold and damp make it drag on forever. We’re all looking to escape the dreary weather, aren’t we? Here is a list of books that will help you dream of warmth, the sun, and maybe a tropical

Five Questions with Philip Seaton and Lawrence W. Zettler, authors of “Saving Orchids”

By PublicityTeam on January 28, 2025

Until recently, a myriad of lifeforms enriched our lives. In some places, listening to a nighttime chorus of frogs in the neighborhood marsh was an archetypal touchstone of childhood. Children would search for tadpoles just steps away from native Lady’s Tresses orchids. Yet year by year, the chorus became quieter

Read an excerpt from “On Close Reading” by John Guillory

By PublicityTeam on January 23, 2025

What exactly is “close reading,” and where did the term come from? In On Close Reading, John Guillory takes up two puzzles. First, why did the New Critics—who supposedly made close reading central to literary study—so seldom use the term? And second, why have scholars not been better able to

Five Questions with Alexander Wood, author of “Building the Metropolis”

By PublicityTeam on January 9, 2025

Between the 1880s and the 1930s, New York City experienced explosive growth as nearly a million buildings, dozens of bridges and tunnels, hundreds of miles of subway lines, and thousands of miles of streets were erected to meet the needs of an ever-swelling population. In his book Building the Metropolis, Alexander Wood

Read an Interview with Poet and Translator Aaron Coleman

By PublicityTeam on December 21, 2024

To celebrate new Phoenix Poets books, we’re introducing Phoenix editors, poets, and translators through a series of short interviews. Here, we spoke with poet and translator Aaron Coleman, whose new translated bilingual edition of Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén’s The Great Zoo has recently published. In this interview, he discusses his

Read an Excerpt from “Yet Another Costume Party Debacle” by Ingrid A. Nelson

By PublicityTeam on December 19, 2024

Drawing on interviews and archival research, Yet Another Costume Party Debacle shows how colleges both contest and reproduce racialized systems of power. Sociologist Ingrid A. Nelson juxtaposes how students and administrators discuss race with how they behave in the aftermath of racially charged campus controversies. Nelson shows how the underlying campus structures

Read an Excerpt from “The Politics of Utopia” by Arnaud Orain

By PublicityTeam on December 17, 2024

Published this summer, The Politics of Utopia is a fascinating retelling of the first banking and financial collapse in eighteenth-century France. This week, we’re sharing a short excerpt from the book’s introduction. Since the end of the seventeenth century, utopians, theologians, travelers, economists, and what Daniel Defoe called projectors—individuals who

Read an Excerpt from “Einstein and the Quantum Revolutions” by Nobel Prize–Winner Alain Aspect

By PublicityTeam on December 3, 2024

At the start of the twentieth century, the first quantum revolution upset our vision of the world. New physics offered surprising realities, such as wave-particle duality, and led to major inventions: the transistor, the laser, and today’s computers. Less known is the second quantum revolution, arguably initiated in 1935 during

Read an Excerpt from Cave of My Ancestors

By PublicityTeam on November 26, 2024

In her new book, Cave of My Ancestors, Kirin Narayan offers a reflective exploration of family stories that reveal the rich history of a seventh-century Buddhist shrine. In this excerpt, we share a snippet from the book’s introduction. Joining Palms at Ellora My father always loved a far-fetched story. He

Five Questions with Christian Warren, author of “Starved for Light”

By PublicityTeam on November 19, 2024

Rickets, a childhood disorder that causes soft and misshapen bones, transformed from an ancient but infrequent threat to a common scourge during the Industrial Revolution, as malnutrition and insufficient exposure to sunlight led to severe cases of rickets across Europe and the United States. By the late 1800s, it was

A Reading List of Journal Articles that #StepUp to Face Present Challenges

By PublicityTeam on November 14, 2024

The Journals Division of the University of Chicago Press publishes more than 90 journals covering subjects from the humanities to the life sciences and historical periods from antiquity to the cutting edge of the contemporary. Within this broad portfolio, many of the journal’s editors work to amplify scholarship that enriches

How to Celebrate “Go to an Art Museum Day”

By PublicityTeam on November 8, 2024

November 9 is “Go to an Art Museum Day,” and we’re celebrating by highlighting some fantastic exhibitions currently on view at museums around the US and Canada. Can’t make it to the shows? Learn more about these exhibitions and their subjects from wherever you are with corresponding books from UCP

Five Questions with David E. Campbell and Christina Wolbrecht, coauthors of “See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People”

By PublicityTeam on November 1, 2024

Ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election, today’s politics reflect one of the most polarized ideological landscapes in US history and, as a result, America’s democratic identity is increasingly fractured. So how then do young citizens relate to and find hope within such a divided system? From Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris

Read an Excerpt from “Blue” by Rachel Louise Moran

By PublicityTeam on October 10, 2024

Today, October 10 marks World Mental Health Day— a day for raising awareness of mental health issues and mobilizing efforts in support of mental well-being. In celebration of this very important day, we’re pleased to share an excerpt from Rachel Louise Moran’s new book Blue: A History of Postpartum Depression

Read an Excerpt from “The Pandemic Workplace”

By PublicityTeam on September 30, 2024

In The Pandemic Workplace, anthropologist Ilana Gershon turns her attention to the US workplace and how it changed—and changed us—during the pandemic. In this excerpt, we share a snippet from the book’s introduction. Introduction At some point in the week of March 9, 2020, people’s daily lives in the United States

Read an Excerpt from “Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era” by Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler

By PublicityTeam on September 24, 2024

As Americans digest the first—and possibly last—Presidential Debate, many questions now loom even larger than before concerning the future of American democracy. Today’s politics reflect one of the most polarized ideological landscapes in our nation’s history—one where national politics subsume and transform local politics. The result: American democracy finds itself

Read an Interview with Poet Jonathan Thirkield, author of “Infinity Pool”

By PublicityTeam on September 19, 2024

Continuing our series of interviews with the poets in our Phoenix Poets series, we’re happy to feature Jonathan Thirkield, whose new collection, Infinity Pool, publishes this month. Jonathan discusses a range or influences and methodologies that impact his work—from coding languages and AI to grief and chronic illness. He invites

5 Questions with Meredith McKittrick, author of “Green Lands for White Men”

By PublicityTeam on September 17, 2024

In 1918, South Africa’s climate seemed to be drying up. White farmers claimed that rainfall was dwindling, but government experts insisted that the rains weren’t disappearing; the land, long susceptible to periodic drought, had been further degraded by settler farmers’ agricultural practices—an explanation that white South Africans rejected. So when