new books - wesleyan university · 2020. 8. 31. · esuivwslrtsll wesleyan university press october...

New Books Fall / Winter 2016

www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

PartlyNew and Selected Poems, 2001–2015rae armantrout

New and selected poetry from Pulitzer prize-winning author Rae Armantrout

Rae Armantrout’s poetry comprises one of the most refined and visionary bodies of work written over the last forty years. These potent, compact meditations on our complicated times reveal her observant sensibility, lively intellect, and emotional complexity. This generous volume charts the evolution of Armantrout’s mature, stylistically distinct work. In addition to 25 new poems, there are selections from her books Up To Speed, Next Life, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award winning volume Versed, Money Shot, Just Saying, and Itself. Including some of her most brilliant pieces, Partly affirms Armantrout’s reputation as one of our sharpest and most innovative writers.

“Rae Armantrout is one of our most inventive and magnetic poets, and she never disappoints: with inspired patience, she embraces the strangeness of our familiar world and refashions it into something new and utterly transporting.” Lydia Davis, author of Can’t and Won’t

“Armantrout’s poems are funny, politically sharp, feminist, anecdotal, and wise.” Cathy Wagner, author of Nervous Device

“You know when you look at a word until it means nothing and then, suddenly and at last, everything? The word is poetry. The poet is Rae Armantrout.” Daniel Handler, author of the national bestseller,

We Are Pirates

“Armantrout discovers that the two cultures of science and the arts can touch down on the same sites of contemporary life.” Peter Middleton, author of Physics Envy: American

Poetry and Science in the Cold War and After

rae armantrout is professor emerita of writing at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of thirteen previous books of poetry.

This project is sponsored in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

August288 pp., 6 x 9"

Cloth, $28.00 • 978-0-8195-7655-2 ($38.00 CAD) Ebook, $21.99 • 978-0-8195-7656-9

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

Wesleyan University Press

Paper, $16.95 · 978-0-8195-7091-8 Ebook, $12.99 · 978-0-8195-7110-6

also of interest

VersedR AE ARM ANTROUT

http://www.upne.com/0819576552.html





In Search of SilenceThe Journals Of Samuel R. Delany, Volume 1, 1957–1969samuel r. delanyedited by kenneth r. james

The personal journals of renowned novelist and critic Samuel R. Delany

For fifty years Samuel Delany has cultivated a special relationship with language in works of fiction, criticism, and memoir that have garnered critical praise and legions of fans. In Search of Silence presents over a decade’s worth of Delany’s private journals, commencing in 1957 when he was still in high school and ending in 1969 when he was living in San Francisco and on the verge of reconceiving the novel that would become Dhalgren. Delany muses on writing the stories that will establish him as a science fiction wunderkind, his marriage to poet Marilyn Hacker, experiences in a New York City commune, and encounters with writers as diverse as Roger Zelazny and Gregory Corso. The selections for this volume include story outlines, poetry, and fragments of novels that have never seen publication. Editor Kenneth R. James provides biographical synopses and extensive endnotes to supply context and link journal material to Delany’s published work.

“Already visible in these pages is the incandescent intelligence that characterize Delany and his extraordinary work.” Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of

Oscar Wao“This is a vital addition to the oeuvre of Delany; to see, in his juvenilia, traces that take full form in his novels—is literally breathtaking.” Matthew Cheney, author of Blood: Stories

samuel r. delany is professor emeritus of English and creative writing at Temple University and is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, most recently Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. kenneth r. james is a noted Delany scholar and author of the introductions to Longer Views and 1984: Selected Letters. He lives in Buffalo, New York.

December720 pp., 17 illus., 8 journal pages, 6B/i x 9W"

Cloth, $40.00 • 978-0-8195-7089-5 ($55.00 CAD) Ebook, $31.99 • 978-0-8195-7693-4

literary collections / diaries & journals

The Journals of Samuel R. Delany


Paper, $29.95 · 978-0-8195-6716-1 Ebook, $23.99 · 978-0-8195-7424-4

also of interest

About WritingSeven Essays, Four Letters & Five InterviewsSA MU EL R . DELANY







October264 pp., 16 illus., 6 x 9"

Cloth, $27.95 • 978-0-8195-7671-2 ($38.00 CAD) Ebook, $23.99 • 978-0-8195-7672-9

science fiction / urban studies

Imagining Urban FuturesCities in Science Fiction and What We Might Learn from Themcarl abbott

Imagining Urban Futures is a remarkable treatise on urban theory, as imagined in science fiction. Carl Abbott brings together literature and urban studies to examine how fictional cities by authors such as Isaac Asimov, Kim Stanley Robinson, and China Miéville help us envision a viable and resilient urban future. Shifting weather patterns will radically impact urban environments, while technology holds out the dream of cities beyond Earth. He delivers a compelling critical discussion of science fiction cities found in literature, television, and films from Metropolis to Blade Runner and The Hunger Games.

“Abbott, one of the most respected urban historians of his generation, brings together both sides of his brain for a guided tour of science fiction cities.” Robert Fishman, University of Michigan

carl abbott is professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at Portland State University. He is the author of the prize-winning books The Metropolitan Frontier, Political Terrain, and Frontiers Past and Future.

What science fiction can teach us about urban planning

January264 pp., 25 illus., 6 x 9"

Unjacketed cloth, $80.00 x • 978-0-8195-7658-3 ($110.00 CAD) Paper, $26.95 s • 978-0-8195-7659-0 ($41.00 CAD) Ebook, $17.99 • 978-0-8195-7660-6

film / science fiction

Wesleyan Film

Escape VelocityAmerican Science Fiction Film, 1950–1982bradley schauer

Today, movie theaters are packed with audiences of all ages marveling at exciting, critically acclaimed science fiction blockbusters. However, when the science fiction film genre first emerged in the 1950s, it was represented largely by exploitation horror films. How did the genre evolve? Escape Velocity charts the historical trajectory of American science fiction cinema, explaining how the genre transitioned from eerie low-budget horror like It Came from Outer Space to art films like Slaughterhouse-Five, and finally to the extraordinary popularity of hits like E.T.

“Through rigorous research, Schauer insightfully revises standard conceptions of genre and productively revises how we do film history.” Dana Polan, New York University

“More than just another genre study, this history reveals the special effects of an entire media industry.” Bob Rehak, Swarthmore College

bradley schauer is assistant professor in the School of Theatre, Film & Television at the University of Arizona. His articles have appeared in Film History and The Quarterly Review of Film and Video.

A cultural and economic history of science fiction cinema, from B-movies to blockbusters







November208 pp., 190 color photos, 4 figs., 8 x 8"

Paper, $24.95 • 978-0-8195-7682-8 ($34.00 CAD) Ebook, $19.99 • 978-0-8195-76835

nature / photography

The Driftless Connecticut Series Garnet Books

The Traprock Landscapes of New EnglandEnvironment, History, and Culturepeter m. letourneau and robert pagini

Stunning photography and text reveal new perspectives on southern New England’s most unique natural region. A picturesque journey through the traprock highlands from New Haven, Connecticut to Amherst, Massachusetts, this book captures the majesty of windswept cliffs and panoramic vistas, and reveals the natural world through the eyes of an artist and the mind of a scientist. By tracing the influence of natural history in Connecticut, the authors assert that the rocky highlands are of national significance. Through informative maps and vibrant photos this book presents the incomparable beauty of the region as never before.

peter m. letourneau, assistant professor of environmental science at Iona College and associate research scientist at Columbia University, has studied the Connecticut Valley for over three decades. robert pagini’s award-winning photographs have been featured in publications by the National Park Service and Diane Smith’s Seasons of Connecticut. He lives in Meriden, Connecticut.

The Driftless Connecticut series is funded by the Beatrice Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

Lavishly illustrated natural history of the distinctive lava highlands in the Connecticut Valley

January560 pp., 22 illus., 6B/i x 9W"

Cloth, $28.00 • 978-0-8195-7676-7 ($38.00 CAD) Ebook, $30.99 • 978-0-8195-7677-4

history / law

The Driftless Connecticut Series Garnet Books

The Connecticut Prison Association and the Search for Reformatory Justicegordon s. bates

The Connecticut Prison Association and the Search for Reformatory Justice examines the role the Connecticut Prison Association played in the formation of the state’s criminal justice system. Now called Community Partners in Action, the Connecticut Prison Association was formed to ameliorate the conditions of criminal defendants and people in prison, improve the discipline and administration of local jails and state prisons, and offer support to people after incarceration. Bates offers a detailed history of their role in fostering a rehabilitative, rather than a retributive, approach to criminal justice.

gordon s. bates is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He was the executive director of the Connecticut Prison Association for almost 20 years, and now lives in Cromwell, Connecticut.

The Driftless Connecticut series is funded by the Beatrice Auerbach Foundation Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

How a groundbreaking advocacy organization has helped shape Connecticut’s criminal justice system since 1875







September376 pp., 13 illus. (1 map, 4 tables), 6 x 9"

Unjacketed cloth, $85.00 x • 978-0-8195-7652-1 ($116.00 CAD) Paper, $27.95 s • 978-0-8195-7653-8 ($42.00 CAD) Ebook, $22.99 • 978-0-8195-7654-5

music

Music/Culture

Punk EthnographyThe Sublime Frequencies Companionedited by michael e. veal and e. tammy kim

This ground-breaking case study examines record production as ethnographic work. Seattle-based record label Sublime Frequencies has produced world music recordings that have been received as radical, sometimes problematic critiques of the practices of sound ethnography. The label’s releases encompass collagist sound travelogues; national, regional and genre surveys—all designed in a style recalling the DIY aesthetic of punk and indie rock. Situated at the intersection of ethnomusicology, sound studies, cultural anthropology, and popular music studies, this timely volume explores the issues surrounding the label while providing critical commentary and charting the impact of the label through listener interviews.

“Raises key questions about the purpose and practice of ethnomusicology.” Eliot Bates, University of Birmingham

michael e. veal is a musician and professor of ethnomusicology at Yale University. He is the author of Fela and Dub. e. tammy kim is a writer and member of The New Yorker’s editorial staff.

A critical companion to the radical DIY record label

November368 pp., 129 illus., 6 x 9"

Unjacketed cloth, $110.00 x • 978-0-8195-7661-3 ($151.00 CAD) Paper, $34.95 • 978-0-8195-7662-0 ($48.00 CAD) Ebook, $27.99 • 978-0-8195-7663-7

dance / art

Trisha BrownChoreography as Visual Art (1962–1987)susan rosenberg

Trisha Brown re-shaped modern dance with her multi-disciplinary explorations of choreography and visual art. Art historian Susan Rosenberg draws on Brown’s archives and numerous interviews to track the artist’s deliberate evolutionary development, with special focus on the first half of her five decade-long career. Brown created over one hundred dances, six operas, one ballet, and a significant body of graphic works. This book discusses the formation of Brown’s artistic principles, and highlights the cognitive-kinesthetic complexity that defined her approach to dance. Rosenberg uncovers the importance of John Cage’s methods to understanding one of the most influential artists of our time. Brown was the first woman choreographer to receive the coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship “Genius Award.”

susan rosenberg is a scholar at the Trisha Brown Dance Company. She directs the Master’s Program in museum administration at St. John’s University, New York, where she is also an associate professor of art.

First in-depth study of the ground-breaking work of artist/choreographer Trisha Brown







September96 pp., 1 color frontis, 5V x 7X"

Cloth, $24.95 • 978-0-8195-7680-4 ($34.00 CAD) Ebook, $18.99 • 978-0-8195-7681-1

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

Archeophonicspeter gizzi

Archeophonics, defined as the archeology of lost sound, is the first collection of new work from poet Peter Gizzi in five years. The book consists of a series of poems linked by repeated phrases and words, and its themes of joy, outrage, and loss. In this way Archeophonics seeks to recover the buried sounds and shapes of languages in the tradition of the art, as well as the multitude of private connections in emotional memory. The book takes seriously the opening epigraph by James Schuyler:

“poetry, like music, is not just song.”

“Gizzi treads eggshell air, eggshell earth, traipse never not shadowed by collapse, as if to sound some depth, some corrected tilt or some righted something gone under, the poems an evaporative track left in its wake.” Nathaniel Mackey, author of Nod House

peter gizzi is the author of six collections ofpoetry including Threshold Songs and In Defense of Nothing. He works at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.


Soulful and intricate lyrics make this Gizzi’s strongest book to date

October120 pp., 13 illus., 6 x 9"

Cloth, $24.95 • 978-0-8195-7678-1 ($34.00 CAD) Ebook, $18.99 • 978-0-8195-7679-8

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

The Work-Shyblunt research group

The Work-Shy documents a secret network of overlooked communities that work in ways that defy work as we know it. Its poetic assemblages offer direct testimony from the first youth prison in California and from asylums for the chronically insane in New York and Germany. Activating what poet Susan Howe calls “the telepathy of the archive,” these poems build portraits of individuals at once denied work and subjected to its punishing routine. By converting the procedures of appropriation and sampling into a poetics of close listening, The Work-Shy operates at the crossroads of lyric and documentary poetries, of singularity and collectivism.

“Herein are the voices of children sacrificed to the barbaric dogmas of eugenics and conformity; an archeology of inhumanity that should haunt us forever.” Michael Davis, author of City of Quartz

blunt research group is an anonymous collective of poets, artists, and scholars from diverse backgrounds. Work by blunt research group has been published by Noemi Press and has appeared in museums across the country.


A poetic archive of subcultures rooted in the lives and language of the unsettled

©University Hospital Heidelberg, Prinzhorn Collection, Agnes Emma Richter (1844–1918), Handmade little embroidered jacket with autobiographical text







January275 pp., 6 x 9"

Unjacketed cloth, $40.00 x • 978-0-8195-7673-6 ($55.00 CAD) Paper, $19.95 • 978-0-8195-7674-3 ($27.00 CAD) Ebook, $15.99 • 978-0-8195-7675-0

poetry anthologies / literary collections

BAX 2016Best American Experimental Writingguest edited by charles bernstein and tracie morrisseth abramson and jesse damiani, series editors

BAX 2016: Best American Experimental Writing is the third volume of this annual anthology compiling the best experimental writing in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. This year’s volume, guest-edited by Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris, features seventy-five works by some of the most exciting authors writing today—like Christian Bök, Sina Queyras, Mark Z. Danielewski, Myung Mi Kim, Samuel R. Delany, and even Barack Obama. BAX 2016 is an ideal literary anthology for contemporary classroom settings.

charles bernstein is the Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. tracie morris is the professor and coordinator of performance and performance studies at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. seth abramson is the author of five poetry collections and an assistant professor of English at the University of New Hampshire. jesse damiani is a contributing writer for Indiewire and The Huffington Post.

An annual anthology of the best new experimental writing

July96 pp., 8 x 10"

Paper, $15.95 • 978-0-8195-7670-5 ($22.00 CAD) Ebook, $12.99 • 978-0-8195-7506-7

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

The Little Edgesfred moten

The Little Edges is a collection of poems that extends poet Fred Moten’s experiments in what he calls “shaped prose”—a way of arranging prose in rhythmic blocks, or sometimes shards, in the interest of audio-visual patterning. Shaped prose is a form that works the “little edges” of lyric and discourse, and radiates out into the space between them. Many of the poems in the book are the result of a request or commission to comment upon a work of art. In Moten’s poems, the matter and energy of a singular event or person are transformed by their entrance into the social space that they, in turn, transform. The Little Edges is a finalist for the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award from Claremont Graduate University.

“Moten pays homage to jazz history, poetry history, and the illimitable future of the imagination.” Publishers Weekly

“The Little Edges work the margins of language.” M. NourbeSe Philip, author of Zong!

fred moten is professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. He is the author of several volumes of poetry.

now in paperback

Poems that play in the sonic texture of discourses







Available now600 pp., 3 illus., 6 x 9"

Paper, $27.95 • 978-0-8195-6777-2 ($38.00 CAD) Ebook, $22.99 • 978-0-8195-7451-0

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

The Collected Poems of Barbara Guestbarbara guestedited by hadley haden guestintroduction by peter gizzi

One of the most notable members of the New York School—and its best-known woman—Barbara Guest began writing poetry in the 1950s in company that included John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Frank O’Hara, and James Schuyler. Now, for the first time in paper, all of her published poems have been brought together in one volume, offering readers and scholars unprecedented access to Guest’s visionary work. Collected Poems moves from her early New York School years through her later work, including some final poems never before published. Switching effortlessly from the real to the dreamlike, this is poetry both gentle and piercing.

“What this collection reveals more than anything else is the striking, cohesive majesty of Guest’s tone.” Publishers Weekly

barbara guest (1920–2006) published over twenty volumes of poetry, and earned awards including the Robert Frost Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Society of America. hadley haden guest is Barbara Guest’s daughter. She lives in Berkeley, California. peter gizzi is the author of six books of poetry. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

now in paperback

The lifework of a preeminent New York School poet


Paper, $15.95 • 978-0-8195-7691-0 ($22.00 CAD) Ebook, $12.99 • 978-0-8195-7518-0

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

Mr. Westsarah blake

Mr. West covers the main events in superstar Kanye West’s life while following the poet during her time spent researching, writing, and pregnant. The book explores how we are drawn to celebrities—to their portrayal in the media—and how we sometimes find great private meaning in another person’s public story, even across lines of gender and race. Blake’s aesthetics take her work from prose poems to lineated free verse to tightly wound lyrics to improbably successful sestinas. This is a daring debut collection and a groundbreaking work.

“Mr. West is tender without being sentimental, funny without being cruel, and obsessive without being exploitative.” Evie Shockley, author of the new black

“Sarah Blake embraces and enacts the long history of sharing and sampling from rap music, elegantly bringing poetry into the present moment.” Kenneth Goldsmith, author of Uncreative

Writing

sarah blake is the founder of the online writing tool Submittrs and a recipient of an NEA Literature Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, FIELD, and The Threepenny Review. She lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

now in paperback

Identities are formed and broken in this unauthorized lyric biography








Paper, $15.95 • 978-0-8195-7692-7 ($22.00 CAD) Ebook, $12.99 • 978-0-8195-7530-2

poetry

Wesleyan Poetry

Heliopauseheather christle

Like the boundary between our solar system and interstellar space, the poems in Heliopause locate themselves on the border of the known and unknown. Christle finds striking parallels between subjects as varied as the fate of Voyager 1, the uncertain conception of new life, the nature of elegy, and the decaying transmission of information across time. Nimbly engaging with current events and lyric past, Heliopause marks a bold shift and growing vision in Christle’s work.

“With her first book, Heather Christle established herself as one of our most exciting new poets. With Heliopause, her astonishing fourth collection, it’s clear she’s one of our most essential. Smart, grave, tender, and fiercely alive, these poems vibrate with the hushed power of just-before-the-storm: magnetic, charged, eerily clear.” Lisa Olstein, author of Little Stranger

heather christle is an award-winning poet and the author of four books of poetry. She lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

now in paperback

Beauty and peril abound in new poems from this spirited poet

September456 pp., 49 illus. (9 color), 7 x 10"

Paper, $29.95 • 978-0-8195-7399-5 ($41.00 CAD) Ebook, $23.99 • 978-0-8195-7400-8

african american studies

Garnet Books

African American Connecticut Explorededited by elizabeth j. normenwith katherine j. harris, stacey k. close, and wm. frank mitchell

This indispensible guide to the African American experience in Connecticut documents an array of subjects from 1630 into the 20th century, through the voices of freeman James Mars, the Black Governors, black abolitionists Amos Beman and James Pennington, the Civil War 29th Colored Volunteers, and the Civil Rights worker and baseball great Jackie Robinson, to name but a few. The book represents the collaborative effort of Connecticut Explored, the Amistad Center for Art & Culture, and other collaborators. An online tool kit is available for educators.

“An ambitious and important book that covers Connecticut’s African American history.” Erica Armstrong Dunbar, University of

Delaware

elizabeth j. normen is the publisher of Connecticut Explored. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut. katherine j. harris is a lecturer at Central Connecticut State University. stacey k. close is a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University. wm. frank mitchell is a consulting historian at the Amistad Center for Art & Culture.

now in paperback

First book for a general readership to present an overview of the African American experience in Connecticut





Order Form — for book reviewers, book awards, and subrights requests

To request print or electronic media review copies, please visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/for-mediaor contact:

Stephanie Elliott Prieto PublicistWesleyan University Press215 Long LaneMiddletown, CT 06459USA

Fax: (860) 685-7712Email: [email protected]

____ Partly: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2015, poetry by Rae Armantrout____ In Search of Silence, The Journals of Samuel R. Delany, Volume 1, 1957-1969, by Samuel R. Delany____ Imagining Urban Futures, by Carl Abbott____ Escape Velocity, by Bradley Schauer____ The Traprock Landscapes of New England, by Peter LeTourneau and Robert Pagini____ The Connecticut Prison Association and the Search for Reformatory Justice, by Gordon C. Bates____ Punk Ethnography, by Michael E. Veal and E. Tammy Kim____ Trisha Brown, by Susan Rosenberg____ Archeophonics, poetry by Peter Gizzi____ The Work-Shy, poetry by BLUNT RESEARCH GROUP____ BAX 2016, guest edited by Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris

NEW in paper:____ The Little Edges, poetry by Fred Moten____ The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest, poetry by Barbara Guest ____ Mr. West, poetry by Sarah Blake____ Heliopause, poetry by Heather Christle____ African American Connecticut Explored, edited by Elizabeth J. Normen

If you are not a book reviewer, book award administrator, or foreign publisher, and would like to make an advanced purchase of one of these titles, or request an academic examination copy, please check our web site at www.wesleyan.edu/wespress for more information, or call our distributor, University Press of New England, at 800-421-1561. To be added to our emailing list for announcements of new books as they become available, please email Jaclyn Wilson at [email protected].

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new books - wesleyan university · 2020. 8. 31. · esuivwslrtsll wesleyan university press october...

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