Stanford University Press Blog

Pride 2020 Recommended Reading

Free for commercial use. Via Pixabay.

 

To celebrate Pride 2020 we have composed a recommended reading list focused around LGBTQ history, activism, and art.

 

 

Before Trans »

Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France

RACHEL MESCH

"Before Trans is an exceedingly well-written, layered, and compelling account of three overlapping gender-variant biographies. These individuals' stories have never been told together, and Rachel Mesch's beautiful braiding of their lives and loves, their desires and disappointments, offers a fresh and original take on trans history."

—Jack Halberstam, author of The Queer Art of Failure

 

Before the term "transgender" existed, there were those who experienced their gender in complex ways. Before Trans examines the lives and writings of Jane Dieulafoy (1850–1916), Rachilde (1860–1953), and Marc de Montifaud (1845–1912), three French writers whose gender expression did not conform to nineteenth-century notions of femininity.

Dieulafoy, Rachilde, and Montifaud established themselves as fixtures in the literary world of fin-de-siècle Paris at the same time as French writers, scientists, and doctors were becoming increasingly fascinated with sexuality and sexual difference. Even so, the concept of gender identity as separate from sexual identity did not yet exist. Before Trans explores these three figures' lifelong efforts to articulate a sense of selfhood that did not precisely align with the conventional gender roles of their day. Their intricate, personal stories provide vital historical context for our own efforts to understand the nature of gender identity and the ways in which it might be expressed.

Watch Before Trans: A Virtual Event »

Read Behind the Scenes of Gender Stories: A Q&A with Rachel Mesch »

 

 

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique »

SA’ED ATSHAN

"This utterly brilliant book will be a classic. Sa'ed Atshan's comprehensive study of queer Palestinian activism provides a rich understanding of the complex intersections of selfhood, activism, and belonging."

—Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine, author of The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia

 

From Ramallah to New York, Tel Aviv to Porto Alegre, people around the world celebrate a formidable, transnational Palestinian LGBTQ social movement. Solidarity with Palestinians has become a salient domain of global queer politics. Yet LGBTQ Palestinians, even as they fight patriarchy and imperialism, are themselves subjected to an "empire of critique" from Israeli and Palestinian institutions, Western academics, journalists and filmmakers, and even fellow activists. Such global criticism has limited growth and led to an emphasis within the movement on anti-imperialism over the struggle against homophobia.

Sa'ed Atshan explores critical junctures in the history of Palestinian LGBTQ activism, revealing the queer Palestinian spirit of agency, defiance, and creativity, in the face of daunting pressures and forces working to constrict it. Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique explores the necessity of connecting the struggles for Palestinian freedom with the struggle against homophobia.

 

Social Justice Recommended Reading

In light of current events we have composed a recommended reading list focused around social justice,  fighting racism, history, and human rights.

 

 

Crook County»
Racism and Injustice in America's Largest Criminal Court

NICOLE GONZALEZ VAN CLEVE

Winner of the 2019 ASA Distinguished Scholarly Book Award, sponsored by the American Sociological Association (ASA).

 

Winner of the 2017 Eduardo Bonilla-Silva Outstanding Book Award, sponsored by the Society for the Study of Social Problems.

 

NAACP Image Award Nominee for an Outstanding Literary Work from a debut author.

 

"Gonzalez Van Cleve's account of the American criminal justice system, based on thousands of hours of careful observation behind the doors of the Chicago–Cook County courthouse, reveals the paradoxes and pain of our modern legal culture, including the effects on the punished and punishers alike. As Van Cleve's investigation so startlingly lays bare, just because legal institutions profess to be colorblind does not make it so. Reading Crook County helps us see the difference."

—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

 

Americans are slowly waking up to the dire effects of racial profiling, police brutality, and mass incarceration, especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities of color. The criminal courts are the crucial gateway between police action on the street and the processing of primarily black and Latino defendants into jails and prisons. And yet the courts, often portrayed as sacred, impartial institutions, have remained shrouded in secrecy, with the majority of Americans kept in the dark about how they function internally. Crook County bursts open the courthouse doors and enters the hallways, courtrooms, judges' chambers, and attorneys' offices to reveal a world of punishment determined by race, not offense.

Crook County's powerful and at times devastating narratives reveal startling truths about a legal culture steeped in racial abuse. Defendants find themselves thrust into a pernicious legal world where courtroom actors live and breathe racism while simultaneously committing themselves to a colorblind ideal. Gonzalez Van Cleve urges all citizens to take a closer look at the way we do justice in America and to hold our arbiters of justice accountable to the highest standards of equality.

 

 

When Words Trump Politics »

Resisting a Hostile Regime of Language

ADAM HODGES

Trumpism has not only ushered in a new political regime, but also a new regime of language—one that cries out for intelligent and informed analysis. When Words Trump Politics takes insights from linguistic anthropology and related fields to decode, understand, and ultimately provide non-expert readers with easily digestible tools to resist the politics of division and hate.

Adam Hodges's short essays address Trump's Twitter insults, racism and white nationalism, "truthiness" and "alternative facts," #FakeNews and conspiracy theories, Supreme Court politics and #MeToo, Islamophobia, political theater, and many other timely and controversial discussions. Hodges breaks down the specific linguistic techniques and processes that make Trump's rhetoric successful in our contemporary political landscape. He identifies the language ideologies, word choices, and recurring metaphors that underlie Trumpian rhetoric. Trumpian discourse works in tandem with media discourse—Hodges shows how Trump often induces journalists and social media agents to recycle and strengthen his spectacular and misleading claims.

Those who study democracy have long emphasized the need for an informed electorate. But being informed on political issues also demands a keen understanding of the way language is used to convey, discuss, debate, and contest those issues. When Words Trump Politics analyzes the political rhetoric of today. The actionable insights in this book give journalists, politicians, and all Americans the successful tools they need to respond to the politics of hate. When Words Trump Politics is an essential resource for political resistance, for anyone who cares about freeing democracy from the spell of demagoguery.

A Look at SUP's SHAFR Virtual Exhibit

SUP is excited to present new titles in the history of American foreign relations and the US in the world. While we wish we could meet with you face-to-face in New Orleans, Acquisitions Editor Margo Irvin is taking pitches from authors working on topics within international Cold War history; American empire and the history of science, technology, and medicine; and projects situated in the Pacific world, Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

In lieu of our booth exhibit, please enjoy this Virtual Book Exhibit and receive a 30% discount and free shipping to the US and Canada on the books listed below using the discount code S20XSHAFR-FM. Offer ends 7/31/2020.

 

Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy »

ROBERT VITALIS

A bracing corrective to the myths that have shaped economic, military, and diplomatic policy, dispelling our oil-soaked fantasies of dependence.

There is a conventional wisdom about oil—that the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees access to this strategic resource; that the "special" relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary to stabilize an otherwise volatile market; and that these assumptions in turn provide Washington enormous leverage over Europe and Asia. Except, the conventional wisdom is wrong.

Robert Vitalis debunks the myths to reveal "oilcraft," a line of magical thinking closer to witchcraft than statecraft. Oil is a commodity like any other: bought, sold, and subject to market forces. Thus, the first goal of this book is to expose the suspect fears of oil scarcity and conflict. The second goal is to investigate the significant geopolitical impact of these false beliefs.

 

Learning the Lessons of Modern War »

EDITED BY THOMAS G. MAHNKEN

Learning the Lessons of Modern War uses the study of the recent past to illuminate the future. More specifically, it examines the lessons of recent wars as a way of understanding continuity and change in the character and conduct of war.

The volume brings together contributions from a group of well-known scholars and practitioners from across the world to examine the conduct of recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. The book's first section consists of chapters that explore the value of a contemporary approach to history and reflect on the value of learning lessons from the past. Its second section focuses on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chapters on Iraq discuss the lessons of the Iraq War, the British perspective on the conflict, and the war as seen through the lens of Saddam Hussein's military. Chapters on Afghanistan discuss counterinsurgency operations during the war, Britain's experience in Afghanistan, raising and training Afghan forces, and U.S. interagency performance. The book's third section examines the lessons of wars involving Russia, Israel, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Georgia, and Colombia. It concludes by exploring overarching themes associated with the conduct of recent wars.

 

Political Fallout: Nuclear Weapons Testing and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis »

TOSHIHIRO HIGUCHI

Political Fallout is the story of one of the first human-driven, truly global environmental crises—radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War—and the international response. Beginning in 1945, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union detonated hundreds of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, scattering a massive amount of radioactivity across the globe. The scale of contamination was so vast, and radioactive decay so slow, that the cumulative effect on humans and the environment is still difficult to fully comprehend.

The international debate over nuclear fallout turned global radioactive contamination into an environmental issue, eventually leading the nuclear superpowers to sign the landmark Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) in 1963. Bringing together environmental history and Cold War history, Toshihiro Higuchi argues that the PTBT, originally proposed as an arms control measure, transformed into a dual-purpose initiative to check the nuclear arms race and radioactive pollution simultaneously. Political Fallout addresses the implications of science and policymaking in the Anthropocene—an era in which humans are confronting environmental changes of their own making.

Youth and Migranthood

How young people navigate migration and deportation in Central America

LAUREN HEIDBRINK

A ceremony circle in Tacaná, Guatemala honoring migrants. Photo credits: Lauren Heidbrink

 

“The Guatemalan government treats us like we don’t belong—even on the lands of our ancestors—and blocks us at every turn. Bad schools, no work, no medical care. They treat us like indios sucios [dirty Indians] while they rob gold from under our lands. Believe me, I never wanted to migrate. I’d heard the stories from my cousin--about the dangers of the journey, living in a cramped apartment, working twenty hours a day and never saving--but I had no choice. My mother and sister got sick; the [Marlin] mine contaminated our water and spoiled the crops. They call it “desarrollo” [development], but it is not developing our communities; it is devastating them. They are killing us slowly.”

- Juan Gabriel, seventeen years old

 

Juan Gabriel is one of a growing number of young people migrating unaccompanied from Central America to the United States. Often dismissed as mere victims of poverty or stigmatized as gang members, these young people are social actors who contribute to the survival of their households through their care, labor, and mobility. In spite of his desire to remain in Guatemala, Juan Gabriel migrated due to the environmental repercussions of a gold mine near his hometown of Sipacapa that imperiled his mother’s and sister’s health when it contaminated the soil and local water sources. The U.S. and Guatemalan governments contend that foreign investment—often in the form of extractive industries, free trade zones, and agricultural initiatives—create alternatives to migration through employment opportunities, improved infrastructure, and investment that, in theory, trickles down to communities. For Juan Gabriel, however, the adverse consequences resulting from “development” in tandem with a failing public health system spurred his transnational migration. For other young migrants, limited employment and education opportunities, high rates of unemployment, scarce arable land, financial debt, and family emergencies (such as accidents or death) prompted their migration.

Although cast as objects of policy, not participants, Indigenous youth are not passive recipients of securitization policies, development interventions, or discourses of migranthood.

Behind the Scenes of Gender Stories

A Q&A with Rachel Mesch

RACHEL MESCH

Card depicting Jane Dieulafoy. Public domain.

 

Last month, Stanford University Press hosted an online discussion between Rachel Mesch, author of the recently released Before Trans: Three Gender Stories from Nineteenth-Century France », and renowned queer theorist Jack Halberstam. The book follows the lives of Jane Dieulafoy, Rachilde, and Marc de Montifaud, three gender non-conforming writers who explored their sense of self through a variety of late nineteenth-century discourses. Because attendees of the talk posed far more questions than could be answered in a short amount of time, we invited Rachel to continue the conversation here.

 

Could you share more of your book’s genesis story? How did you become interested in the topic and in these three figures in particular?

I became interested in the writer Jane Dieulafoy while I was researching my previous book on French women’s magazines in the Belle Epoque, where Dieulafoy stood out in tailored men’s suits alongside her similarly appareled husband, Marcel. I first tried to understand her in the context of my work on fin-de-siècle feminisms, but I quickly realized that what was at stake for Dieulafoy was something different. Two of her novels—Frère Pélage and Volontaire—told of young women who disguised themselves as men and achieved fame and glory, which then allowed them to continue to live as their masculine identities. These narratives mapped right onto Dieulafoy’s own life: she began wearing pants during the Franco-Prussian War and then resumed the practice while on an archaeological mission to the Middle East. I realized that she was working out her own self-understanding through the stories she told— an imaginative process that I recognized from contemporary trans memoirs. This led me to the idea of the “gender story,” which I argue was what constituted gender identity before modern discourses had been developed. I then started to think about other writers I had encountered who were preoccupied with gender and expressed themselves in ways that didn’t fit neatly into nineteenth-century categories.

 

How were these three figures’ behavior and gender expression seen at the time by their peers and society? Were these individual stories or did Dieulafoy, Rachilde, and Montifaud have a sense of community or collectivity?

Although they lived in the same place and time, life was different for each of my three subjects. They knew of each other, but they frequented slightly different academic and literary spheres. While they were sometimes mentioned together in newspaper articles about women wearing pants, they weren’t the subject of any kind of collective outcry, in part because there wasn’t an obvious way to group them together beyond the pants-wearing. In the book, I follow their individual lives and the starkly different ways that they each made sense of themselves in relationship to the world around them, showing that not only has gender variance existed for a very long time, but that it has existed in uniquely personal ways. 

Dieulafoy was a celebrity because of her successful Orientalist exploits (there is a Dieulafoy room in the Antiquities Wing of the Louvre) and was part of a conservative upper-class milieu. She actually modeled herself on a certain conservative male imperialist culture. She truly avoided controversy, perhaps because everything else about her upheld social structures. Rachilde was seen as a rebel outlaw, and while she first found this reputation painful, she eventually embraced the persona—as well as a loveless marriage— because it allowed her the freedom to behave as she pleased. Montifaud struggled mightily against public perceptions through her many battles with the legal system. She was sentenced repeatedly to prison for her erotic writing and was continually enraged that she was expected to serve time at the women’s prison, where they sent prostitutes, rather than the all-male prison for censored writers and artists. But at the end of the day, she really just wanted to be left alone in the library. She hadn’t been seeking fame in the first place. My point is that these three formulated very distinct gender stories, despite all having lived at the same time, and likely at least brushing past each other at some point on the streets of Paris.

Association of University Presses Releases Equity and Anti-Racism Statement

Stanford University Press emphatically supports the statement of equity and anti-racism made by our trade group the Association of University Presses:

June 2, 2020 (New York, NY; Washington, DC)—The Association of University Presses (AUPresses) holds among our core values diversity and inclusion. As an organization and as a community, we mourn the lost lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others, stolen by the systemic racism at work in the US. We condemn police brutality and other forms of socially sanctioned racist violence. And we stand in solidarity with all who continue to seek justice, to imagine equity, and to enact a different world.

Many of our member presses put the values of diversity and inclusion into the world in a tangible way, playing major roles over the last few decades in amplifying the voices of scholars who originated African American Studies, Native Studies, and LGBTQ studies, among other groundbreaking fields. These works are readily available to provide insights and are frequently cited as resources in response to police brutality or white supremacist violence.

But we have only to look to evidence such as that found in the Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Survey, indicating in 2019 that our ranks are 76% white, to know that holding a value is not sufficient. Every day our professional community—just as our personal communities—must work towards equity, towards inclusion, and towards justice.

Today we issue the AUPresses Statement on Equity and Anti-Racism, declaring that upholding these core values requires "introspection, honesty, and reform of our current practices, the interests they serve, and the people and perspectives they exclude." Drafted by our Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, taken through a rigorous review process by our Equity, Justice, and Inclusion (EJI) Committee, and approved by the AUPresses Board of Directors, this statement points a way forward:

"Only with systems of accountability in place to protect and lift up those who have been historically harmed and silenced by our collective inaction will we succeed in dismantling the white supremacist structure upon which so many of our presses and parent institutions were built. How to support these efforts sustainably across the industry must be considered a priority for the Association, its members, and its executive board as well as the main focus of the Equity, Justice, and Inclusion Committee."

We acknowledge with gratitude the volunteer efforts of our EJI Committee, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, and Gender, Equity, and Cultures of Respect Task Force in calling us to this work. Download a PDF of the Statement on Equity and Anti-Racism.

Our inaugural EJI Community Read is another piece of this witness and work, and many member presses are organizing their staffs to read these essential selections: White Fragility by Robin D'Angelo (Beacon, 2018) and Invisible People by Alex Tizon (Temple, 2019). Our community's full list of nominations for the Community Read project provides a wider lens through which to understand current events across the US as people protest and seek to right the wrongs of systematic racism and the long injustices of white supremacy.

As a community of publishers we are called to discuss and absorb what these authors have to say and to act on our colleagues' specific recommendations—such as explicitly anti-racist training for managers, amelioration of the no- and low-wage entry points to our industry, and new recruitment and promotion strategies—with a goal of making equity a lived experience.

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Michael Brown. The devastating list goes on and on. Yes, say their names. Yes, do the reading. But we must also live and work as though we have listened.

Teaming up

Coronavirus brings partner ecosystems to the fore, says Peter Williamson of Cambridge Judge Business School.

PETER J. WILLIAMSON

Free for commercial use. Image has been cropped. Via Pixabay.

 

Commenting on the challenge of coronavirus, Germany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier summed up the new reality perfectly: “No single entity covers the medical, economic, and political elements required to produce a vaccine for all”.

The same holds true as manufacturers such as Ford Motor Co.  try to overcome the technical, logistical and regulatory hurdles of moving from cars to supplying ventilators in the tens of thousands. As expert as companies are in their specific fields, they need to collaborate with other companies and individuals to contribute in new and vital ways.

Ford is helping 3M scale up production of its air-purifying respirators and collaborating with GE Healthcare to boost production of a simplified version of GE’s existing ventilator design.

This underlines a crucial point in today’s interconnected economy and society: Whether it is keeping their supply chains moving, redeploying their staff to new roles, or pivoting their business models to online sales, companies across the world are recognising the critical nature of collaborators – the quality and depth of ecosystem partners.  Innovative responses require access to the capabilities of such an ecosystem of partners, drawing on know-how and capacity in a wide variety of related industries. This is the topic of a new book, Ecosystem Edge », I have co-authored with Arnoud De Meyer of Singapore Management University.