Tag Archives: ethnicity

January 20, 2020 · 4:27 PM

Books Acquired Recently

Gurba, Myriam. Painting Their Portraits in Winter: Short Stories. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2015.

I saw a presentation on the title story of this collection at MLA two weeks ago and decided to check it out because of its speculative nature.

Loveless, Natalie, ed. Knowings and Knots: Methodologies and Ecologies in Research-creation. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2020.

I read Loveless’s book on research-creation, How to Make Art at the End of the World, about six months ago and loved it, so I pre-ordered this edited collection on the subject. It arrived last week.

Wald, Sarah D., David J. Vázquez, Priscilla Solis Ybarra, and Sarah Jaquette Ray, eds. Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2019.

I heard Priscilla Solis Ybarra speak at MLA and she mentioned that this collection had just come out. It is especially timely considering the crises at the U.S.-Mexico border and in Puerto Rico that have been exacerbated by the Orange One’s administration.

 

 

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June 5, 2019 · 10:33 AM

Books Acquired Recently: Desk Copy Edition

Over the past few months publishers have sent me a number of desk copies for my Fall 2019 courses.

For First-Year Composition:

Blanco, Richard. The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. 2014. New York: Ecco, 2015.

Irby, Samantha. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life: Essays. New York: Vintage Books, 2017.

Knisley, Lucy. Relish: My Life in the Kitchen. New York: First Second, 2013.

Tea, Michelle. How to Grow Up: A Memoir. New York: Plume, 2015.

As is evident from Blanco’s, Irby’s, and Tea’s books, this is sneakily a queer memoir class as well.

For American Literature Before 1865:

Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

This, Irving’s, and Wilson’s books are Penguin Classics, which I love.

Hollander, John, ed. American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Volume One; Philip Freneau to Walt Whitman. New York: Library of America, 1993.

Over the past year I’ve begun the practice of assigning a poetry anthology in all of my literature classes, which has been an excellent decision. We read one or two poems at the beginning of each class and then spend the rest of the class talking about the longer reading for the day.

Irving, Washington. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories. New York: Penguin Books, 2014.

Wilson, Harriet E. Our Nig, Or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black. 1859. New York: Penguin Books, 2009.

For African American Literature:

Delany, Samuel R. Dark Reflections. 2007. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2016.

This is an excellent novel that was out of print for quite a while (an issue that many of Delany’s best novels have, unfortunately). I have been wanting to teach it since I first read it, and am glad that Dover has now made this possible.

Harper, Michael S., and Anthony Walton, eds. The Vintage Book of African American Poetry: 200 Years of Vision, Struggle, Power, Beauty, and Triumph from 50 Outstanding Poets. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, 1982.

This is one of my favorite memoirs ever.

Morrison, Toni. Sula. 1973. New York: Vintage International, 2004.

Walker, Alice. Meridian. 1976. Orlando: Harvest, 2003.

I wrote a dissertation chapter on this novel many years ago, haha.

 

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May 13, 2019 · 11:23 AM

Books Acquired Recently

I received two books in the mail today that I’m quite excited to read. They are both by authors whose previous work I find powerful.

Levins Morales, Aurora. Medicine Stories: Essays for Radicals. Revised and Expanded ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.

I’ve read some of Levins Morales’s poetry but have not previously encountered her essays. I am excited to read more of her work because she occupies a similar intersection as I do as a Puerto Rican from an ethnoreligious tradition.

Lowrey, Sassafras. Healing/Heeling. N.p.: Sassafras Lowrey, 2019.

This is a hybrid memoir that examines Lowrey’s relationships with dogs throughout hir life (ze has been training dogs since ze was a teenager). I am not a dog person but I love Lowrey’s writing and, as I’ve written here before, I’m also currently quite interested in the hybrid memoir genre.

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May 5, 2019 · 12:16 PM

Books Acquired Recently

Jones, Feminista. Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing the World From the Tweets to the Streets. Boston: Beacon Press, 2019.

I received an email about this book from the publisher and ordered an exam copy because it looks like it might be appropriate for several of my courses.

Snow, Cassandra. Queering the Tarot. Newburyport, MA: Weiser Books, 2019.

I heard about this book several months ago when I was beginning my tarot explorations and pre-ordered it immediately on amazon.com. It came out this week.

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January 17, 2019 · 9:24 PM

Books Acquired Recently

Bellatin, Mario. The Large Glass: Three Autobiographies. Trans. David Shook. Los Angeles: Phoneme Media, 2015.

I heard about Bellatin, whose work is mostly only available in Spanish, at MLA a few weeks ago and he sounded intriguing, so I decided to buy the one book of his I could find in English. I bought this and Muñoz’s book from amazon.com’s network of independent booksellers.

Gallop, Jane. Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.

I received an email advertising this book from the publisher and ordered it immediately because it sounds like it relates to some issues I am currently encountering in my personal life.

Muñoz, Manuel. Zigzagger: Stories. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2003.

As I have written in this space before, I have recently been researching the queer-Latinx intersection. I encountered a reference to Muñoz’s collection during this research and decided to buy it.

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January 1, 2019 · 12:07 PM

Books Acquired Recently: Holiday Gift Edition

Happily, I received a number of books as gifts this holiday season!

Brown, Craig. Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

I have become fascinated with Princess Margaret as a result of watching The Crown and look forward to reading this oral history about her. Incidentally, it drives me nuts that FSG does not use the Oxford Comma in their company name.

Johnson, Davey, with Erik Sherman. Davey Johnson: My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2018.

Johnson  managed the 1986 New York Mets and thus played a major role in my childhood. I read the book the day after I received it and enjoyed it, though it was not as introspective as I would have liked it to be.

Knecht, Rosalie. Who is Vera Kelly? Portland: Tin House Books, 2018.

I had not heard of Knecht, but began reading this novel as soon as I got it and enjoyed it. Her writing is beautiful and clear.

Miller, Linsey. Mask of Shadows. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Fire, 2017.

I read a review of this book that intrigued me, but now I can’t remember why it intrigued me, so it will be a fun surprise when I get around to reading it!

Posey, Parker. You’re on an Airplane: A Self-Mythologizing Memoir. New York: Blue Rider Press, 2018.

I enjoy Posey’s work in Christopher Guest’s mocumentaries.

Sánchez González, Lisa. Boricua Literature: A Literary History of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

I still do not know nearly enough about Puerto Rican literature in either the U.S. or on the island, and am thus excited to read this book.

Schaberg, Christopher. The Textual Life of Airports: Reading the Culture of Flight. 2011. New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.

I fly frequently as part of my job and thus spend a depressing amount of time in airports. I look forward to reading this book about literary representations of that experience.

Shapiro, Bill, with Naomi Wax. What We Keep: 150 People Share the One Object That Brings Them Joy, Magic, and Meaning. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2018.

A friend recently posted about this book on Facebook and I wanted to buy it immediately because I am very interested in the issue of personal archiving and am teaching a course on it this coming semester. I bought it with a Barnes & Noble gift certificate that I received.

Wiebe, Joseph R. The Place of Imagination: Wendell Berry and the Poetics of Community, Affection, and Identity. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017.

I read a review of this book and it sounded interesting because of its methodology of reading literature theologically. I can’t stand Wendell Berry, but I am hoping that I can pick up some writing tools from Wiebe’s approach.

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November 13, 2018 · 2:39 PM

Books Acquired Recently

The problem with reading a lot like I do is that my reading suggests other books to me, whether directly via citations or indirectly via discovering new authors that I like, and of course I have to buy them! Those in this latest batch all fit within my two primary fields of study, queer literature and Mennonite literature. All of the books were purchased from amazon.com. I realize that I need to work to shop less with amazon, but it is difficult because they have the best selection and often the best prices, especially when one includes shipping costs. People tend to forget how difficult it used to be to find non-mainstream books (which is basically all I read these days) in bookstores or libraries before online shopping. My life would be so completely different in a negative way if I had been born ten years earlier because of how the books I’ve been able to buy online have affected all aspects of my life, and I just would not have had access to most of them otherwise.

Allison, Dorothy. Trash: Stories. 1988. New York: Plume, 2002.

—. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. 1995. New York: Penguin Books, 2017.

I recently read Allison’s book of essays Skin and absolutely loved it, so I decided that I need to read more of her work.

Brandt, Di. Glitter and Fall: Laozi’s “Dao De Jing” Transinhalations. Winnipeg: Turnstone Press, 2018.

Brandt is one of my favorite poets (she’s the one Mennonite in this post) and has not published a new book in nearly a decade, so I am very excited to read these translations of the Dao, which is a text that I also have some interest in.

Martínez, Ernesto Javier. On Making Sense: Queer Race Narratives of Intelligibility. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013.

This book is right at the intersection of the queer/ethnic focus of my research.

Meneghetti, Monica. What the Mouth Wants: A Memoir of Food, Love and Belonging. Halfmoon Bay, BC: Dagger Editions, 2017.

I recently heard about this queer memoir and decided to buy it because food writing is another genre that I have also been exploring of late.

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October 8, 2018 · 2:31 PM

Books Acquired Recently

Alvarado, Leticia. Abject Performances: Aesthetic Strategies in Latino Cultural Production. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018.

I am beginning to work more with Latinx literature in my scholarship, and thus have been working to build my library of criticism and theory in the field. This book looks relevant to that task, so I bought it directly from the publisher.

Hughes, Langston. I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey. 1956. New York: Hill and Wang, 1964.

A colleague gave me this and the Hughes and Bontemps anthology because she was de-accessioning some books and knows that I am interested in African American literature. I was very happy to receive them, partly because I love preserving old books and partly because, in the case of I Wonder as I Wander I’ve been meaning to read it for a long time and in the case of the anthology I am obsessed with poetry anthologies. The autobiography is stamped “The African-Caribbean Bookstore, 2319 E. 71st Street, Chicago, IL, 60649, (312) 288-0880” (which is apparently no longer in existence according to a quick Google search) and the anthology is inscribed “P.S. Kipp, Feb. 1963.”

Hughes, Langston, and Arna Bontemps, eds. The Poetry of the Negro, 1746-1949: A Definitive Anthology. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949.

This anthology, which is in excellent condition, was ahead of its time in that it includes poetry from all over the world rather than just from the U.S. Unfortunately, only one poet from Africa is included, which indicates just how unexplored African literature was at the time, but there are numerous poets from Central and South America and the Caribbean.

Kitano, Christine. Birds of Paradise. Spokane, WA: Lynx House Press, 2011.

Kitano gave a poetry reading at Utica College last week, and I decided to buy her first collection because she said it has a lot of poems about ghosts, and it was the third time in less than a week that ghosts had come up for me, which felt significant because of the rule of threes. I had dinner with her and her husband after the reading and she seems like quite a nice person.

Morales, Ed. Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture. London: Verso, 2018.

I received a promotional email about this book several weeks ago and ordered an exam copy immediately. It came in the mail at the end of last week and I hope to begin reading it later today.

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September 20, 2018 · 8:34 PM

Books Acquired Recently

Cuevas, T. Jackie. Post-Borderlandia: Chicana Literature and Gender Variant Critique. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018.

I just heard about this book, which is at an intersection (queer+Latinx) I am beginning to explore in my work, so I decided to buy it. I acquired it, Maurensig’s, and Shapiro’s books from amazon.com.

Maurensig, Paolo. Theory of Shadows. 2015. Translated by Anne Milano Appel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

I greatly enjoyed Maurensig’s 1993 chess-themed novel The Lüneburg Variation when I read it about a decade ago, thus when I heard he had published another novel on the game I put it on my list.

Shapiro, Laura. What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories. 2017. New York: Penguin Books, 2018.

I assign a food essay in my first-year composition course, and am always looking for good food-related books to read alongside it. I received a promotional email about Shapiro’s book from the publisher and decided to buy an examination copy for $3.00 to see whether it might be worth teaching.

Shawl, Nisi. Everfair. 2016. New York: Tor, 2017.

Shawl is an author I have been wanting to read as part of my continuing exploration of speculative fiction by people of color. Everfair was recommended to me as a good place to start.

Toews, Miriam. Women Talking. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2018.

I bought Toews’s newest novel as soon as it was published. It won’t be out in the U.S. until next year, so I had to order the Canadian edition from amazon.ca. I read it as soon as I received it and it is amazing, powerful, an absolute must-read.

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August 7, 2018 · 2:55 PM

Books Acquired Recently

Castillo, Ana. Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma. Updated edition. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2014.

I am working on an essay about Castillo, one of the most significant Latinx authors in the U.S. during the past several decades, and bought this and Trujillo’s book as part of my research for it. I purchased it from amazon.com.

Kasdorf, Julia Spicher, and Steven Rubin. Shale Play: Poems and Photographs from the Fracking Fields. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 2018.

Kasdorf is one of the most important Mennonite poets and has been a major influence on my thinking, so I bought this book from the publisher as soon as it was released and read it immediately. It is an excellent, heartbreaking book. Be grateful if, like I do, you live in a state that has banned fracking because it is a horrible, destructive practice.

Trujillo, Carla. Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About. Berkeley, CA: Third Woman Press, 1991.

I’ve begun reading this anthology and am enjoying it thus far. I appreciate that it includes a number of genres. I’ve heard of some of the writers, but as with most older anthologies I encounter, I am more compelled by wondering about what happened to all of the other contributors who have fallen by the wayside, who had to be well enough known by someone to get included in the anthology but then moved onto other things. I purchased it from abebooks.com.

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