Harvard University Press Publicity Blog

White House joins blog fray

Via Braniac, we learn that White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag has got a blog, and he's using it to engage commentators and critics, including our own Richard Posner (link | link | link), on the question of how, in these trying economic times, we are going to pay for health care reform.

||| "Debating Health Care" at the OMB Blog

New Seminary Co-op column - UPfront

Since without university presses, nerd types like us wouldn't have anything to read, we're glad that there are still some stores dedicated to putting forth what we're putting out, front and center (like literally, on the front table). Among these is of course the legendary Seminary Co-op, going strong in Chicago's Hyde Park (as well as two other locations) since 1961. As you may have learned from a previous post of ours, the Co-op operates an online mag called The Front Table, where they post lists, features, reviews, and the like from employees. Now there's a new column called UPfront (get it?), in which friends and family (well, the spiritual family of UP employees, at least) talk about what's likely to be on the physical front table during the weeks and months to come. The enthusiasm bleeds through pretty strong in these little blurbs -- you may in fact recognize the inimitable style of listmaker extraordinaire John Eklund in the HUP entries on Naming Infinity, A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith, and Worlds Made by Words.

You should do this too

Science fiction / fantasy author Jeff Vandermeer, author of wildly inventive novels and stories (try this interview for a primer), has undertaken to read a book a night from Penguin's beautiful "Great Ideas" series (for a fortuitious intersection between that series and a title of our own, see our post from a few days ago titled "A Tale of Two Editions").

Thus far he's on #4, Thomas à Kempis’ The Inner Life. Entries one, two and three included Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and St Augustine’s Confessions of a Sinner. All in all the posts are shaping up to deliver a series of impressionistic meditations not only on the works consumed, but on the act of reading itself and the trials and tribulations of a relationship with the "great books." Highly recommended.

Take a lesson from the ancients

Alan H. Sommerstein, to whom we owe our fresh translations of the plays of Aeschylus, tells us of the lessons The Orestia holds for us today, and why we can look to Athena (pictured at left in the Loeb Classical Library® logo) for guidance in these times of peril.

Birds, blogs

Small slide show of the inimitable Rosamond Purcell's photos from Egg & Nest, courtesy of Andrea Walker at The New Yorker's "Book Bench" blog.

Disappointment city

Population: Chinese national soccer team.

Or so it would seem from a New York Times article that appears today, upon the team's exit from the Olympic tournament with an 0-3 record.

The jokes have already begun to circulate among Chinese soccer fans bemoaning another underwhelming performance from the men's national team: "The Chinese team just won two red medals" (referring to the two red cards received for unsportsmanlike play); "Our soccer team won the gold medal in martial arts"; and "China has had a weird year, with a freak snowstorm, the Tibetan riots and an earthquake, but the performance of our soccer team shows that some things never change" (funnier, we're guessing, when delivered in the original language).

The article quotes Xu Guoqi, author of Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008, explaining how corrupt management has hobbled the team's efforts to rise to the top tier. Xu wrote an op-ed last month in the Washington Post on the state of Chinese soccer, comparing its long-suffering fans to those of the Chicago Cubs (ouch). Professor Xu is the authority on the intimate ties between athletic achievement and Chinese national self-image, and his thoughts on the soccer team are illuminating for those not familiar with the backstory. Xu also shared his thoughts on the Olympics more generally on an episode of NPR's "Only a Game" that aired last Saturday--listen here.

How to put more food on the table

A new editorial in Scientific American on the global food shortage draws upon the work of Robert Paarlberg, author of Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa, in calling for increased use of GMOs in Africa, the region left most vulnerable during the current crisis. According to the magazine, "the only lasting solution to hunger in Africa and elsewhere must focus on poor agricultural productivity," which is exactly the issue Starved for Science was written to address.

It's not just Americans who are hearing Paarlberg's call. Starved for Science is making the rounds in parliamentary debate on both sides of the Atlantic, most notable in the House of Lords, where one Lord Taverne rose to discuss Starved for Science, "one of the most important books I have read for years." Also, don't miss Paarlberg's blog exchange with Pamela Ronald, author of Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, out now from Oxford University Press, on whose blog the exchange is hosted.

FOOD FIGHT, or, The Future of Food

Over at the always-worth-reading OUPblog, HUP author Robert Paarlberg (Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa) appears to be engaged in a "food fight" with Pamela Ronald, author of Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food, out now from OUP. Perhaps "fight" is too strong a word, though, as the discussion is rather an eminently civil one that addresses a fascinating set of ideas about the future of food (and is there anything more fundamental or important than that?). The discussion is set up as an e-mail conversation along the lines of Slate's popular "Breakfast Table" format, so stay tuned for more back-and-forth between these two leading intellects as the week goes on.

Hong Kong--City Between Worlds

A superbly thorough review of Leo Ou-fan Lee's City Between Worlds: My Hong Kong in PopMatters today. Michael Buening hits all the right notes in his characterization of Lee's approach to his adopted hometown, a city whose myriad identities require an equal variety of analytic techniques if one is to even come close to capturing what it's like to be in Hong Kong, or to be a Hong Konger:

Uncertainty and transience is part of [Hong Kong's] character and in City Between Worlds Leo Ou-fan Lee uses a variety of techniques—travelogue, revisionist history, cultural deconstruction, and personal essay – to pin down what he calls this “confusion and contradiction” while uncovering the deep communal roots that often go unnoticed by outside commentators.

[...]

The very writing of this book is another way Lee gives voice and creation to “his” Hong Kong. City Between Worlds balances probing intellectual analysis, fierce criticism, and gentle warmth, all imbued with the frustrated love any city dweller will immediately recognize as the elusive grasp to define where one lives.

We couldn't have said it better ourselves. As an added bonus, don't miss Leo speaking about his book at the Harvard Coop this coming Monday (June 23) at 7pm. The Coop is located in the heart of Harvard Square--it's pretty hard to miss. Hope to see you there.

Grrlscientist on Kate Jackson

A nice review of Kate Jackson's Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo by Grrlscientist at Living the Scientific Life:

During the years that I have written book reviews for my blog, I have had the great pleasure of reading some astonishingly good books, especially about science. Mean and Lowly Things is one of the best, and in fact, even though this book is newly published, I think it qualifies as the "classic field biology book" that helps to define and explain this sort of research to the public. In view of my own passion to continue researching the parrots of the remote islands in the south Pacific Ocean, I might be overly emotional regarding field work in distant lands, such as what is recounted in this book. However, by the time I finished reading this book, I experienced intense sadness because I felt as though I was closing the covers upon a beautiful world and a dear group of friends whom I had experienced so much with, and whom I wanted to continue working with.

More on Kate Jackson and more on the book.