As spring turns to summer, IU Press is still turning out great new titles. Here's a quick look at some of what's hitting shelves this month.
[RE]Imagining Science
Christoph Irmscher and Rosamund Purcell
The visual arts and sciences have a shared history of creativity and parallel paths of experimentation, goal seeking, and trial and error. Both disciplines employ innovative techniques and novel materials that help their practitioners develop new ideas, discoveries, and visual products. [RE]Imagining Science, a catalogue featuring art and science projects primarily based at Indiana University, highlights distinctive types of collaborations that occur within this genre of contemporary practice.
Cosmopolitan Film Cultures in Latin America, 1896-1960
Edited by Rielle Navitski and Nicolas Poppe
Cosmopolitan Film Cultures in Latin America examines how cinema forged cultural connections between Latin American publics and film-exporting nations in the first half of the twentieth century. Predating today’s transnational media industries by several decades, these connections were defined by active economic and cultural exchanges, as well as longstanding inequalities in political power and cultural capital. The essays explore the arrival and expansion of cinema throughout the region, from the first screenings of the Lumière Cinématographe in 1896 to the emergence of new forms of cinephilia and cult spectatorship in the 1940s and beyond.
Amateur Movie Making (enhanced ebook)
Edited by Martha J. McNamara and Karan Sheldon
Foreword by Alice T. Friedman
With contributions by Dino Everett
A compelling regional and historical study that transforms our understanding of film history, Amateur Movie Making demonstrates how amateur films and home movies stand as testaments to the creative lives of ordinary people, enriching our experience of art and the everyday. Here we encounter the lyrical and visually expressive qualities of films produced in New England between 1915 and 1960 and held in the collections of Northeast Historic Film, a moving image repository and study center that was established to collect, preserve, and interpret the audiovisual record of northern New England. Contributors from diverse backgrounds examine the visual aesthetics of these films while placing them in their social, political, and historical contexts. Each discussion is enhanced by technical notes and the analyses are also juxtaposed with personal reflections by artists who have close connections to particular amateur filmmakers.
The Emergence of Early Yiddish Literature
Jerold C. Frakes
While much early Yiddish literature belonged to pious genres, quasi-secular genres—epic, drama, and lyric—also developed. Jerold Frakes contends that the historical context of the emergence of Yiddish literature is an essential factor in any understanding of its cultural relevance in a time and place where Jewish life was defined by expulsions, massacres, and discriminatory legislation that profoundly altered European Judaism and shook the very foundations of traditional Jewish society.
Rising Tides
John R. Wennersten and Denise Robbins
Global climate change is undeniable. Over the next few decades, as sea levels rise, storms intensify, and drought and desertification run rampant, hundreds of millions of civilians will abandon their homes, cities, and even entire countries. What will happen to these massive numbers of environmental refugees? Where will they go, what rights will they have, and who will take care of them?
Rising Tides sounds an urgent wakeup call to the growing crisis of climate refugees, and offers an essential, continent-by-continent look at these dangers. The crisis is everywhere and it is imminent. Detailing a number of solutions, John R. Wennersten and Denise Robbins argue that no nation can tackle this universal problem alone. The crisis of climate refugees requires global, concerted solutions beyond the strategic, fiscal, and legal capability of a single country or agency.