New Book: Sabine N. Meyer's We Are What We Drink: The Temperance Battle in Minnesota

A book about the battle over the bottle in the Twin Cities.
We Are What We Drink: The Temperance Battle in Minnesota
by Sabine N. Meyer
University of Illinois Press, 2015

Focusing on the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, Sabine Meyer's We Are What We Drink intertwines national, regional, and urban history during the Progressive era, along with the political motivations and legislative actions at the city and state level in Minnesota, to unravel the temperance movement’s relationship to and effect on identity constructions as well as social, ethnic, racial, religious and political elements.  Covering a 100-year period (1819-1919), the project shows the ways that we are what we drink by examining the formation of civic identities of the cities themselves, Irish and German immigrants, and women in the public sphere and how the groups' involvement in the temperance movement helped to shape their categories of identity and establish a civic role: German immigrants continued to support public drinking to uphold their heritage; Irish immigrants joined religious forces to condemn drinking and to embed themselves in their new homeland; and women sought to protect the domestic sphere by moving their fight into the public sphere. Meanwhile, each Twin City had opposite stances on temperance with St. Paul being liquor friendly and Minneapolis being a hotbed for the liquor reform movement.

Meyer draws on a vast range of primary source materials including newspaper and court archival records and situates her own work within relevant scholarship on temperance, civic identity, Minnesota history, Irish and German American ethnic identity, and construction of female identity in the public sphere. In doing so, Meyer provides a thorough overview about how the role of drink and the attempt to regulate drink in connection with a social movement influenced local, ethnic, and gender identity construction.

This is one of the first books I acquired, and so I am especially pleased to see it out. If you think the cover is awesome, wait until you read what's on the inside!

The Crisis in the Dominican Republic: A Reading List

There is a humanitarian crisis that has been evolving in the Dominican Republic, and it is perplexing why more people aren't talking about it because of its significance regarding law, race, and basic human rights. For decades, Haitians have moved to the Dominican Republic, oftentimes to escape poverty in Haiti. Discrimination against people of Haitian descent is intense in the Dominican Republic (there was a lynching earlier this year), and in 2013 the Dominican Republic courts denied citizenship to all descendants of Haitian-born parents, impacting tens of thousands of people, some of whom have spent their entire lives in the Dominican Republic. Recently, there was news media coverage of authors Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat speaking out about the situation. There is a link to that article below, along with other articles assembled along a timeline that provide a sense of the situation, especially over the past several months as thousands of people face statelessness.

October 15, 2012 article about 1937 event: Parsley Massacre: The Genocide that Still Haunts Haiti-Dominican Relations, International Business Times, by Palash Ghosh

October 7, 2013: The Dominican Republican and Haiti: One Island Riven by An Unresolved Past, The Guardian, by Carrie Gibson

October 24, 2013: Dominicans of Haitian Descent Cast into Legal Limbo by Court, The New York Times, by Randal C. Archibold

May 22, 2014: Dominican Republic Lawmakers Pass Citizenship Bill, BBC News

February 3, 2015: Thousands of Dominicans Woke Up This Week without Citizenship in Any Country, The Huffington Post Latino Voices, Roque Planas

February 11, 2015: Haitian Man Lynched amid Dominican Republic Immigration Controversy, The Huffington Post Latino Voices, Roque Planas

June 16, 2015: Dominicans of Haitian Descent Fear Mass Deportation as Headline Looms, The Guardian, by Sibylla Brodzinsky

June 16, 2015: Dominican Republic Threatens to Deport Haitian Families, The Root, by Nsenga K. Burton

June 25, 2015: Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat Jointly Speak Out Against Dominican Republic Refugee Crisis, Fusion, by Daniel Rivero

June 26, 2015: Haiti PM Warns of "Humanitarian Crisis" Caused by Dominican Deportation Policy, The Guardian, Associated Press

July 2, 2015: The Dominican Time Bomb, The New York Times Magazine, by Jonathan M. Katz

July 5, 2015: Deportations of Noncitizens in Dominican Republic Protested by Activists in Boston, The Boston Globe, by Laura Crimaldi

I have found myself turning the most to the coverage in The Guardian. (Search "Dominican Republic" on The Guardian's homepage for articles on the issue that go back several years.) How will you stay on top of news on this issue?

#AAUP2015

The Association of American University Presses (AAUP) met in Denver, Colorado, June 18 to 21, 2015. I travel to several academic conferences each year for acquisitions purposes where organizations meet to network, exchange ideas, promote professional development, and to present ideas about their current findings; the AAUP meeting is not much different. At Denver #AAUP15, people in all aspects of university press (UP) publishing convened, from production and marketing, to journals and design, to business and acquisitions. Much like UPs attend scholarly conferences to exhibit books to their target audiences, vendors that provide services for publishers attend AAUP, exhibiting while AAUP members dipped in and out of panels and catch up with old friends.

The theme of this year's meeting was "Connect, Collaborate," and that is truly what attendees did. To give a sense, I connected with people from press departments at a similar stage in their career, acquisitions editors at all career levels, early career and first time AAUP members, and a cohort of people who are tapped into social networking and the ways we can harness the power of social media for scholarly publishing purposes across a spectrum. There were also some panels dedicated to exploring the possibility of the intersection of scholarly and social. A roundtable panel that I was a part of asked "Should Scholarly Be Social?" Our conclusion: yes. Yes, because our mission as university presses is to disseminate scholarship to the broadest possible audience, and a tweet, a blog post, and an Instagram are in service of this. Yes, because we have to look to our authors and scholars in the fields we publish and take cues from their practices (oh, and how marvelously you scholars are tweeting and engaging in various media). Yes, because we are at a disadvantage if we don't think openly about the newest technologies at our disposal. Another session at the conference, "Scholarship in 140 Characters? Using Social Media in Acquisitions," spoke about social media specifically from the acquisitions perspective. The conclusions here were the same: the opportunities that social networking creates for you to build relationships far outweighs any potential drawbacks to what you might not be able to predict someone might post/share/tweet.

While the conferences panels are structured and offer enriching insights, some of the most valuable opportunities at the meeting are the informal discussions that happen between panels, during breaks, or over drinks. I see this as crucially beneficial on two main fronts. The first is that these candid moments of telling personal stories can bring to light different processes among jobs or presses that can lead to more efficient operations, whether institutionally, departmentally, or individually. The second is that the connections we make within the organizations have potential to grow into friendships and exchanges that will help to shape the organization and the future of university press publishing. To have established relationships that facilitate open dialogue and multiple perspectives prevent the risk of one, monolithic idea of what UP publishing has to be, because this breeds mediocrity and stifles possibility. The collegiality, generosity, respect toward different practices, and general enthusiasm that pervaded the meeting certainly bodes well for an industry that is always being told it is in crisis.

Of course, this post only covers a smidgeon of what happened. No post could adequately itemize the diverse, dynamic, and multifaceted exchanges throughout keynotes, lunches, and panels. Fortunately, the association has some very dedicated Tweeters, so take a look through the #AAUP15 hashtag, whether you are in publishing and looking for more insight into UP publishing specifically, are a prospective author who wants more insight into the functioning of the UP world, or are someone at a UP who wasn't able to attend the conference this year. 

Mario Lopez: A Classic Writer of Our Time

I know that it was simply misshelved, but seeing Mario Lopez' Entre Nosotros mistakenly next to the classics/poetry sign amused me. Maybe it is a great literary work, but Mario Lopez will always be A.C. Slater to me.

I spotted this in a Salt Lake City airport bookstore before I boarded my plane. In looking more closely at this picture, I'm not quite sure I'd classify any of these books as classics, and I don't see any poetry.

Jurassic World and A Jurassic Library Sequel?

As someone whose entire social media presence is predicated on the concept of a reading dinosaur, I feel absolutely obligated to post about Jurassic World. First impression: the movie was awesome! Last impression: the movie was awesome! I suspect anyone who didn't think it was awesome didn't want to think it was awesome, and went into the movie waiting to be disappointed.

Universal Pictures, how about Jurassic Library as the next movie in the franchise? With short arms and eyes on the side of his head, reading is pretty close to impossible for T-Rex, who clearly needs some help. The plot of Jurassic Library begins as BD Wong genetically engineers a T-Rex with longer arms and more forward eye placement for better binocular vision.

Reading in the Wild: Provo, Utah, and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones

Work travel recently took me to Provo, Utah, in the gorgeous Utah Valley. As a Phoenix native, I feel most at home when I'm near mountains, and the snow-covered peaks of the Utah Valley mountains made quite the impression on me. Though it was my first time visiting Utah, I felt right at home.

Book Counter, Pioneer Book, Provo, UT

When I'm traveling for work, it might go without saying that I don't have much in the way of free time, but I got to sneak in a couple of quick treats during my time in Provo. My first night in town, an open schedule coupled with a late 9 pm sunset gave me the opportunity to explore the small, adorable downtown area. Filled with small restaurants and shops, I came across Pioneer Book, and never able to resist a bookstore (and a used one at that!), I went in to explore. I came to find that it was a newer establish, but I am not exaggerating when I say it was one of the most organized bookstores I've seen. I lost track of time browsing the fiction shelves, and before I knew it, the music volume turned up as a gentle reminder that the store was closing. I checked out with the exceptionally kind staff member who agreed to pay my loyalty card forward to the next local shopper,  and I left quite happy with my decision to get Elie Wiesel's Dawn (it is my name after all!) and Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones. 

When I settled in for the night in my spacious yet noisy Marriott Hotel room, unmotivated to continue with my current read, Continental Divide by Russell Banks, which I've been forcing myself to read because I'm not a quitter, I picked up The Lovely Bones. I picked it up and carried it right up a mountain with me.

Y Mountain is one peak in the Wasatch Mountain Range. Because of it's proximity to the Brigham Young University campus, the mountain became involved in some junior versus senior class prank over a hundred years ago. In the years since, it became tradition to maintain a Y on the mountain. This must have been no easy feat. Now at least there is a trail, but one that consists of 11 painful switchbacks, not to mention the elevation change. I felt like a champion when I reached the top of the Y, only to discover a trail that goes further, but after I realized that proper hiking boots rather than sneakers might fit the bill better, I turned around, followed the trail to the bottom of the Y, and parked myself there reading until the sun rose over the mountain.

Over the next few days, I read the book in every spare moment, and due to several hours of frustrating travel delays out of Salt Lake City, I finished The Lovely Bones before the plane even left the runway. The book is moving and suspenseful. About the tragic murder of a young girl in a small community, the book details the struggle of the victim looking down from heaven as her family mourns and wonders if her murderer will ever be discovered. I was left with the thought that we would all hope to be fortunate to have a family that passionately remembers and seeks justice for their lost loved one, but simultaneously melancholy at the family's reality that the death grew into an obsessive life of its own.

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones. New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2007.

Punctuated Post: Breaking Bad As A Retelling of Yogi Bear

So, bear (pun!) with me on this, but I made an offhanded comparison between the relationship between Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo as they share a quest for stealing picnic baskets illegally to the relationship between Walter White and Jesse Pinkman as they share their quest for an illegal, successful drug business. I didn't think much about it when I first said it, but then I thought more about it.

First, the distribution of power seems odd in both relationships, and nothing any rational person would put up with over a prolonged period of time. Why do Boo-Boo and Jesse have such dysfunctional loyalty to Yogi and Walter, respectively, so much? They would both be in far less trouble, and are possibly more capable of acting on their own than in the shadow of the large egos of their partners in crime.

The other similarity, I realized, is the relationship between the criminals and the law enforcement. Park Ranger Smith and Yogi have always been a little too chummy for logic. The Ranger always knows what Yogi is up to, yet the bear always seems to elude him or consequences. Slightly different, but with obvious similarities, Hank always knows what Heisenberg is up to, but the drug dealer always eludes him. In this case, the law and criminal are also chummy; of course, in this case, Hank isn't aware of this. But from time to time, don't we wonder: how can Hank not suspect, just a little, if he really chose to see what was in front of him?

So, what I'm saying here is, if Albuquerque is Jellystone, and we equate the epidosidic goal of the criminal pairs, which is to subvert the law to cover up their activity, then perhaps we are left with an acclaimed drama that is little more than a nefarious Hanna-Barbera plotline.

. . . or maybe not, but what's the fun of watching an outlandish amount of television if you can't making speculative connections to amuse yourself from time to time.

Paul Auster's Oracle Night

Paul Auster's Oracle Night is writing (n.) about writing (v.). Our main character Sidney Orr is a New York author who, when we meet him, is convalescing after an accident that had him on the brink of death. As we get to know Sidney, we learn he is madly attracted to his wife Grace, who works in book design, and that his best friend is another author, John. Our stable of characters is entrenched in a literary world, and as such there is a great deal of material devoted to authorly things, like the frustrations of crafting a story and deep appreciation of stationary and notebooks.

At the core of the story, though, are characters who are struggling with nostalgia, mortality, and fulfillment.The theme of fulfillment is pervasive.(At this point, I'll caution that there are a number of spoilers in the following sentences. Skip to the last paragraph if you don't care to know major plot points.The novel is a veritable Russian nesting doll of stories; however, we find Sidney unable to bring any of his writerly pursuits to fruition. He takes one story to the point where the main character is locked into a room; instead of letting him die or writing him an escape route, Sidney abandons the story. Sidney wanders on daily walks, searching for fulfillment in meaningless encounters, but a stationary store that amuses him closes; the notebooks he finds the most inspiring are no longer in production; and Sidney's pinacle of sexual fulfillment is a result of infidelity, resulting in guilt and ultimate lack of fulfillment. One of the greatest sources of happiness for Sidney is Grace's pregnancy, yet she miscarries; an event which epitomizes how aligned the issues of mortality and fulfillment are in this text.

What we have here is a book with some really exceptional writing, but the fulfillment that lies out of reach for the characters in the novel in a Tantulus-like manner also creeps into the readers sense of fulfillment as the book transpires. Of course, this is an impact skillfully created by the author, but I still yearn for resolution for some of the subplots in the book. The point though, of course, is that fulfillment is not always obtainable, and the ways in which we seek fulfillment may not always result in it.

Auster, Paul. Oracle Night. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003.

Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son

I'll get straight to the point: I loved this book. This is the first book I finished in 2015, and if every book I read this year is even half as good, I will be one happy reader. The Orphan Master's Son follows the story of one man. The story isn't about one man, though; it is about survival, identity, memory, and love. It is about interconnectedness and truth (or assessing what truth is). It is about the son of an orphan master, who unlike the orphans at the orphanage knows his parents and lives with his father, but who like the orphans ends up spending a life wondering where his parents are and of being identified by others as an orphan.

The book is divided into two parts, clearly identified as Part I and Part II, and also signaled by a significant narrative shift. I have no doubts as to why this book has been so acclaimed. The story is intriguing, the writing is excellent, and the plot is so impressive--everything happens for a reason, either because it is important to the plot as it unfolds or because it is lousy with meaning later in the book. Sometimes a plot point functions as both and makes for the most pleasurable reading. 

When we first meet our protagonist, we see him caring for the orphans who come through the Long Tomorrow's orphan house in rural North Korea. He even names the orphans, and he symbolically names them after the 100 Korean martyrs; it is significant that he knows the names and stories of each of the martyrs, significant that he has the power of naming the orphans, and significant that he names the orphans based on characteristics that remind him of the martyrs. These opening scenes lay the groundwork for the themes of identity, heroism, and sacrifice as well as give us a glimpse into the communist political climate and the squashing of individuality (the names of the orphans are not even their own; they are someone else's). From here, we move forward into a story that is very much set in the present, and yet the pages are filled with vignettes of humanity that are familiar and timeless. With descriptive prose, inventive narrative turns, and clever conceptions of plot and storytelling, Adam Johnson achieved a book that is moving and entertaining, is melancholy while inviting, and tells a story while also making a reader think about larger implications for politics and propaganda. By now, I am sure it is clear that I recommend this exceptional book, and along with it Johnson's 2003 work Parasites Like Us, which I read years ago and explores some of the same themes of existence and memory.

Johnson, Adam. The Orphan Master's Son. New York: Random House, 2012.