Cary Wolfe is Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English at Rice University. He is author of What Is Posthumanism? (2009), the 8th installment in UMP’s Posthumanities Series. His previous books include Critical Environments: Postmodern Theory and the Pragmatics of the “Outside” and Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory, and … More Cary Wolfe: What Is Posthumanism?
A few recent articles in the news have praised both Anna Paquin and Livia Firth (married to Colin Firth) on the fabulously “green” dresses they wore to the Golden Globes. (Paquin chose a dress from cruelty-free fashion designer Stella McCartney, and Firth chose a re-purposed wedding dress.) So what exactly is meant when we talk … More Just what exactly is "eco-fashion," anyway?
Dartmouth College has collaborated with Donald E. Pease, author of The New American Exceptionalism, on this video about the book and its notion of “state fantasy.” He describes how recent events such as the “birthers” and Tea Party movements are “designed to take the basic elements of George W. Bush’s war on terror and redescribe … More On the rise of the "birthers" and Tea Party movements
Staying in this weekend? We recommend the following choice titles on haunting and memory. Have a safe and happy Halloween, everyone. The Strange Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer by Louis Kaplan. The story of the birth of spirit photography and the controversy surrounding its discovery. Includes a handful of ghostly images, including a well-known … More Haunting & Memory
Today’s post is by Laurence A. Rickels, professor of German and comparative literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His books include The Devil Notebooks, The Vampire Lectures and the forthcoming I Think I Am: Philip K. Dick (Minnesota 2010). He talks with us about the ascent of the vampire in popular culture; the … More The Ascent of the Vampire
Donald E. Pease is professor of English and Avalon Foundation Chair of the Humanities at Dartmouth College. He is author of The New American Exceptionalism. My book is primarily concerned with the irreconcilable rifts within U.S. political culture that opened up during the lengthy period of transition from the termination of the cold war to … More A U.S. identity built on state fantasies
Dartmouth College’s Donald Pease says America is “the most lonely of superpowers,” an “exception to the laws of (other) nations” and simultaneously “a nation of immigrants, but a nation also hospitable to persons from across the planet.” He discusses Barack Obama’s transnational presidency and our transnational country with Christopher Lydon on Open Source. Pease also … More A ‘transnational’ America
The University of Minnesota Press recently collaborated with U of M News Service to create this video that features Highway 61 Revisited: Bob Dylan’s Road from Minnesota to the World, a compilation of essays edited by Colleen Sheehy and Thomas Swiss.Check it out as Thomas Swiss breaks down Dylan’s Minnesota roots. He analyzes Dylan’s unique … More Bob Dylan: From MN to the World
Thomas Wheatland, who once worked in editorial acquisitions at Harvard University Press, is an assistant professor of German history at Assumption College. This year, Wheatland published The Frankfurt School in Exile, a book with pioneering research on the influence of German intellectuals on postwar American thought, with University of Minnesota Press. He recently answered a … More The first comprehensive history of the Frankfurt School in its American exile: A Q&A with author Thomas Wheatland
In its Sept. 2009 issue, Humanimalia, a journal of human/animal interface studies, reviews Nicole Shukin’s Animal Capital: Rendering Life in Biopolitical Times, the sixth installment in the University of Minnesota Press Posthumanities Series. The article uses this April 2009 AP photo of pigs captured in Hyderabad, India (as an attempt to monitor and contain the … More Market life and animal studies
