Month: April 2013

Ruth Behar Events this Spring in San Francisco and Florida

Traveling Heavy
is a deeply moving, unconventional memoir by the master storyteller and
cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar. Through evocative stories, she
portrays her life as an immigrant child and later, as an adult woman who
loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. With an open
heart, she writes about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family, as
well as the strangers who show her kindness as she makes her way through
the world. Watch the book trailer.

Nilo Cruz, author of Anna in the Tropics
and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, has said "Ruth Behar takes
us deep into geographies she has charted, transcending anthropological
reportage and finding the poetry that is there not only in the places
she has mapped but also in history. She has written an observant and
surprisingly compassionate book, full of warmth. I enjoyed reading every
page; it is full of wisdom and devastating sincerity."

May 7, 2013

7:00 p.m.

Jewish Community Library

1835 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA

May 8, 2013

7:00 p.m.

Modern Times Bookstore Collective

2919 24th Street, San Francisco, CA

May 9, 2013

7:00 p.m.

The Emerald Tablet

80 Fresno Street, San Francisco, CA

May 20, 2013

8:00 p.m.

Books & Books

265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL

A listing of all DUP author events is also available on our Google Calendar.

Watch the trailer:

Indigenous Rights and the Environment in Mexico’s Colorado Delta

Today's New York Times science section covers the efforts of Mexico to relieve the parched Colorado River delta, deprived of water by dams upstream in the U.S. Sixty years ago, the river flowed freely into the Gulf of California, creating a rich estuary where shrimp, fish, and dolphins were abundant. But during the second half of the twentieth century, the U.S. damned the river and diverted it to supply water for agriculture and a growing population and the delta is now mostly a dry, cracked wasteland. An amendment to a treaty between the two countries should lead to more water sharing over the next five year. Perhaps hardest hit by the lack of water in the region has been the local Cucapá indigenous people, who had long survived by fishing in the Delta. In her new book Where the River Ends: Contested Indigeneity in the Mexican Colorado Delta, Shaylih Muehlmann talks about how the Mexican government has also diverted water away from the lands of the Cucapá, preventing them from earning a livelihood. When the Cucapá fish anyway, they are pressured by federal inspectors to stop, and are blamed for the ecological damage in the region. Muehlmann writes, "The Cucapá people have experienced the brunt of the environmental damage done to the delta, while simultaneously being targeted as objects of intervention because of their alleged blame in the crisis. As is always the case in narratives that blame the victim, this focus exonerates the more powerful political actors and institutions that have prevented the Colorado River from reaching the Sea of Cortez. This ethnographic case, therefore, illustrates how environmental conflicts are never just about 'the environment.'" (172) Where the River Ends is a moving look at how the Cucapá people have experienced and responded to the diversion of the Colorado River and the Mexican state's attempts to regulate the environmental crisis that followed. It's available for 50% off during our Spring Sale.

Duke Press Authors on the Venezuelan Elections

The Venezuelan elections were held yesterday, April 14, and it now appears that Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s handpicked political heir, has won. Duke Univerisity Press authors blanketed the media this weekend talking about the elections and the future of Venezuela.

George Ciccariello-Maher's We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution is just out and he is burning up Twitter and the airwaves. He appeared on Al-Jazeera, Russia Today, and on BBC Radio 5. In an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer, he debunks five common myths about Venezuela. In Counterpunch, he compared reactions to the deaths of Chávez and Margaret Thatcher. He was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, the Miami Herald, and Brazil's InterJournal.

Sujatha Fernandes, author of Who Can Stop the Drums? Urban Social Movements in
Chávez’s Venezuela is quoted in the Christian Science Monitor, discussing the importance of women in Venezuelan politics. “Chávez made popular women central protagonists in his politics,” she says. "It was really important in giving women a sense of what they could achieve in life." She also appeared on NY1.

Miguel Tinker Salas, author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture, and Society in Venezuela, appeared on a panel with filmmaker Oliver Stone at a special screening of his film on Hugo Chávez. Salas commented on the importance of this election and the future of Venezuela: “What’s at stake is really two different visions of Venezuela, two different visions of Latin America, and two different visions of how the north and the south should relate to each other. Fundamentally what’s at stake here is control over the largest oil reserve in the world,” he said. Tinker Salas also appared on the PBS News Hour, Russia Today, Al-Jazeera, Telemundo, Pacifica, Telesur, and CCTV.

David Smilde, co-editor of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Democracy: Participation,
Politics, and Culture under Chávez, liveblogged the elections yesterday, calling the results "a devastating victory" for Maduro. "It leaves him weakened within his own coalition and facing an emboldened opposition," he writes. Smilde appeared on BBC Radio 5, Latin Pulse at Link TV, and on Al-Jazeera discussing the elections.

And don't forget, these books and all in-stock books are on sale for 50% off until May 15, 2013!

Spring Sale Starts Today!

Love books but short on cash? Want to stock up on books to read over summer break? We are excited to announce the first-ever online Duke University Press Spring Sale! Today until May 15, all in-stock print books and special journal issues are 50% off on our web site.

Since most of our titles sell for $23.95-$27.95 at regular price, this great Spring
Sale means you'll be able to stock up on our great books for only $12-$14 each. And if you buy six books, we'll throw in a cool Duke University Press tote bag absolutely free.

To get your discount, simply enter coupon code SPECSALE when you check out. Please note that the sale is for North American orders only and that it does not apply to journals subscriptions or society memberships. See all the fine print here.

Happy reading, happy saving, happy Spring!

B. Ruby Rich Events this Spring in San Francisco and New York

If you're in San Francisco or New York this spring catch B. Ruby Rich talking about her new book New Queer Cinema: The Director’s Cut. Rich designated a brand new genre, the New Queer Cinema (NQC), in her groundbreaking article in the Village Voice
in 1992. This movement in film and video was intensely political and
aesthetically innovative, made possible by the debut of the camcorder,
and driven initially by outrage over the unchecked spread of AIDS. The
genre has grown to include an entire generation of queer artists,
filmmakers, and activists. Rich has been inextricably linked to New
Queer Cinema from its inception. This volume presents brings together
the best of her writing on NQC along with her new thoughts on the topic.

John Waters has said "I thought I knew a lot about gay movie history until I read New Queer Cinema
and realized what a dunce I was. Ruby Rich has to be the friendliest
yet toughest voice of international queerdom writing today. She's sane,
funny, well-traveled, and her aesthetics go beyond dyke correctness into
a whole new world of fag-friendly feminist film fanaticism."

April 18, 2013

7:00 p.m.

Reading and book signing

City Lights Books

261 Columbus Avenue at Broadway, San Francisco, CA

May 2, 2013

7:00 p.m.

Screening and book signing

Film Society of Lincoln Center

The Walter Reade Theater, 165 W. 65th Street, New York, NY

May 6, 2013

7:00 p.m.