Short Takes

Kirkus Reviews has given Sarah Gorham's forthcoming creative nonfiction book, STUDY IN PERFECT, a starred review! "Fear during a daughter's life-threatening illness, grief over her mother's death, nostalgia for family gatherings in summers past: All lead Gorham to consider how perfection is interlaced with pain, desire and even sin. A contemplative, lyrical, splendid collection."

THE WORLD OF THE SALT MARSH by Charles Seabrook is a "delightful read," according to Georgia Library Quarterly. "Seabrook's love for these areas is abundantly clear . . . in this beautiful elegy to the important and endangered salt marshes found on our southeastern coast."

On last Tuesday's (June 3) program of "Against the Grain," Sebastian Kaempf answered questions about the chapter he contributed to the volume THE FUTURE OF JUST WAR on KPFA-FM in Berkeley. Listen and/or download the program here.

Dr. Louis Sullivan, founding dean and first President of the Morehouse School of Medicine and former Secretary of Health and Human Services says the VA Hospital problem is fixable. Find out how and more about his new book, BREAKING GROUND, on Doc Talk.

USCatholic.org recommends Lawrence J. McAndrews' WHAT THEY WISHED FOR as a good summer read. "WHAT THEY WISHED FOR maps these movements [by Catholics] of presidential policies and politics, and shows how American Catholics have successfully shaped the political dialogue starting with the election of President John F. Kennedy."

In David Correia's PROPERTIES OF VIOLENCE, "[o]ne of the book's strengths lies in its ability to deconstruct the social production and articulation of property rights as a set of privileges conferred by a particular nation-state," according to a recent review in Western Historical Quarterly. The Journal of American History call it a "must-read for historians of the American Southwest."

The Journal of American History names SIGNPOSTS "a worthwhile collection" and praises co-editors Sally E. Hadden and Patricia Hagler Minter for "help[ing] generate new ways of thinking about southern legal history that are sure to yield similarly fascinating efforts in the future."

The Journal of American History also reviews Robert J. Cottrol's THE LONG, LINGERING SHADOW:

This book represents the most coherent, lucid, and explicit update of Frank Tannenbaum's famous thesis concerning comparative slavery and race relations in the Americas to date. . . . THE LONG, LINGERING SHADOW is an important, ambitious, and thought-provoking book that offers a comprehensive comparison of slavery, race, and the law in the Americas. For scholars and students of race and inequality. . .this book is a must-read.

Co-editors Carmaletta M. Williams and John Edgar Tidwell were interviewed about their book, MY DEAR BOY, by Hopeton Hay Monday (June 9) morning for the KAZI Book Review on KAZI 88.7FM in Austin. A link to the interview will be available soon.

Congratulations, Jingle Davis! Her book, ISLAND TIME, is the winner of the 2014 Georgia Author of the Year Award in the Specialty Book category given by the Georgia Writers Association. Winners were announced at Saturday night's banquet at Kennesaw State University.

Short Takes

Gillian Hart argues, during a recent interview with KPFA 94.1's "Against the Grain," that the African National Congress's rule in South Africa has been disappointing to many since it began in 1994. Hart is the author of the new book, RETHINKING THE SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS. Listen to the podcast here.

Kate Sweeney answered questions about her new book, AMERICAN AFTERLIFE, during a recent interview with WFAE 90.7's "Charlotte Talks." Listen to the podcast here. Also be sure to check-out her recent television interview with GPB's "On the Story." Watch the video here. (Sweeney's segment begins around the 15:00 mark.)

Patricia Vasquez gave a talk at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC on March 21 related to her new book, OIL SPARKS IN THE AMAZON. Oil & Gas Journal has a write-up about the event and Vasquez's book. Watch the video below to see the full talk or watch the webcast of the talk on the Wilson Center website.

Carmaletta M. Williams and John Edgar Tidwell discussed their book, MY DEAR BOY, on Channel 6 Lawrence's "The Not So Late Show." Watch the video here.

Los Angeles Review of Books calls Idra Novey's EXIT, CIVILIAN "imperative and timely."

The Santa Barbara Independent recommends Frank X Walker's TURN ME LOOSE as a must-read for National Poetry Month.

The Electronic Green Journal reviewed THE WORLD OF THE SALT MARSH, saying the author Charles Seabrook "makes an impassioned and impressive appeal in this book for the protection of the South Atlantic Bight."

Spring 2014 Sneak Peak 4

We were all saddened to hear of Nelson Mandela's passing last week. At the age of 95, Mandela lived a long life that impacted many, both in South Africa and the rest of the world. In a televised address Thursday night, President Jacob Zuma said, "Our nation has lost its greatest son." The video of the address is available here from the New York Times. On the Nelson Mandela Foundation website, Mandela's biography is summed up like this: "Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he never answered racism with racism. His life has been an inspiration to all who are oppressed and deprived, to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation."

In her forthcoming book, RETHINKING THE SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS: NATIONALISM, POPULISM, HEGEMONY, Gillian Hart's insightful study of the ongoing social, political, and economic struggles in post-apartheid South Africa gives much attention to Mandela and his efforts.

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa has become an extreme yet unexceptional embodiment of forces at play in many other regions of the world: intensifying inequality alongside "wageless life," proliferating forms of protest and populist politics that move in different directions, and official efforts at containment ranging from liberal interventions targeting specific populations to increasingly common police brutality.

RETHINKING THE SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS revisits long-standing debates to shed new light on the transition from apartheid. Drawing on nearly twenty years of ethnographic research, Hart argues that local government has become the key site of contradictions. Local practices, conflicts, and struggles in the arenas of everyday life feed into and are shaped by simultaneous processes of de-nationalization and re-nationalization. Together they are key to understanding the erosion of African National Congress hegemony and the proliferation of populist politics.

The problem, however, with the question of ‘how to move beyond Mandela without becoming [Robert] Mugabe’ is who is to decide where ‘politics proper’ begins, and what form will it take. Clearly, there has been considerable movement beyond Mandela’s brand of liberalism, but it has gone in different directions. A key implication of taking passive revolution seriously is that any political strategy to confront the brutalities of the present and construct a different future has to begin with actually existing practices and meanings in the arenas of everyday life, while also stretching out to forge relations and connections with forces at play elsewhere.
(excerpt from RETHINKING THE SOUTH AFRICAN CRISIS)

This book provides an innovative analysis of the ongoing, unstable, and unresolved crisis in South Africa today. It also suggests how Antonio Gramsci's concept of passive revolution, adapted and translated for present circumstances with the help of Martinique-born French psychiatrist and philosopher Frantz Fanon, can do useful analytical and political work in South Africa and beyond.