With Tara Sweeney and Nate Christopherson We are a mother-and-son creative team. A to Zåäö: Playing with History at the American Swedish Institute is our debut picture book. It’s taken nearly four years to complete it. Our individual artistic styles are polar opposites: I use vivid watercolor to create convincing illusions of the observable world; … More Behind the Book: A to Zåäö
JENNIFER E. TELESCA Planetary stewardship, I hope, is mindful of “it.” How we write about, talk about, teach about, scientifically render, develop policy for, and advocate on behalf of sea creatures matters at a time of mass extinction. Surely a living being cannot be “it.” Mere semantics this is not. Simple in approach, trim in … More Cultivating care for one of the ocean’s most majestic creatures
Ian Shaw, The University of Glasgow Marv Waterstone, The University of Arizona Eight men own the same wealth as half the world, and one in 10 people survive on less than $2 a day. We live in an era of staggering levels of global inequality. But even a term like inequality scarcely captures our conjuncture. … More #UPWeek: Citizenship in a Time of Wageless Life
BY JAY WEINER Until the work began on what would become Professor Berman: The Last Lecture of Minnesota’s Greatest Public Historian, I didn’t know Hy Berman very well. For nearly 30 years, I was a reporter for the Star Tribune and Hy was a prominent University of Minnesota professor and political pundit. But a search … More His words, his story, his magnetism: Capturing the voice of Hy Berman, Minnesota’s beloved public historian
BY JACK EL-HAI Early in my writing of The Lost Brothers I considered an ethical question: In telling the story of the 68-year-old case of three young brothers who went missing in Minneapolis and have never been seen since, should I reveal the names of suspects who were never charged with a crime? There were … More When to Name Names
BY BRETT STORYAuthor of Prison Land In June, the federal government announced that it will be rescinding funding for a new federal penitentiary in Letcher County, Kentucky, finally putting to rest a project more than fifteen years in the making. The proposed maximum-security prison was to be built atop a former surface mine, like most … More Understanding the power behind the prison system
BY NICOLE NGUYEN In 2017, James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his silver Dodge Charger into counter-protestors at the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fields’ reckless yet intentional actions killed thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer and injured dozens more. Convicted of first-degree murder, aggravated malicious wounding, hate crime acts, and other federal and state … More Suspects not Citizens: Criminalizing Muslims in the United States
BY OLA LARSMO I guess it was the silence that caught my imagination. It was very deep, in the middle of a bustling city. My wife, Rita, had spent an important year as an exchange student in Minneapolis and wanted to visit old friends. When we first went there in 2006, I knew that I … More Swede Hollow: The surprises and intrigue behind Ola Larsmo’s haunting story of a real place
BY KATE PHILLIPPOLoyola University Chicago’s School of Education It’s hard to miss academic competition these days. In 2019 alone, events abound. Authorities charged public personalities with felony crimes in response to the “Varsity Blues” college admissions cheating scandal. News and social media exploded with debates over the College Board’s experimental inclusion of an “adversity score” … More Learning from youth about competitive school choice policy
The University of Minnesota Press is delighted to welcome its new humanities editor, Leah Pennywark, to the fold this month. She was selected from more than one hundred applicants to the position. As editorial director Jason Weidemann stated in our recent press release, “Leah has a deep understanding and appreciation for what we do at … More Meet Leah Pennywark, our new humanities editor!
