iowa

where great writing begins

fall 2016

 University of Iowa Press

reCentlY publiSheD bY the

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A WRESTLING LIFE
THE INSPIRING STORIES OF DAN GABLE

i David N. Wetzel j

THE VA
V NISHING MESSIAH
THE LIFE & RESU R RECTIONS
OF FR ANCIS SCHL ATTER

THE
PENELOPE
PROJECT

THE
PENELOPE
PROJECT

An Arts-Based Odyssey
to Change Elder Care

An Arts-Based Odyssey
to Change Elder Care

edited by
anne basting, maureen towey,
and ellie rose

edited by
anne basting, maureen towey,
and ellie rose

In a modern world of
political correctness and
glad handing, the art of the
fight is highly undervalued.
Allow Dan to show you another
way. tim ferriss, The 4-Hour Body

dan
gable
with scott schulte

A Sugar Creek Chronicle

Observing Climate Change
from a Midwestern Woodland
cornelia f. mutel

SEE YOU IN
THE STREETS
Art, Action, and
Remembering the
Triangle Shirtwaist
Factory Fire

ruth sergel

IOWA where great writing begins

The University of Iowa Press is a proud member of the Green Press
Initiative and is committed to preserving natural resources. This catalog
is printed on fSC-certied paper.

contents

index by subject

Spring 2016 Titles 121

Best-Selling Backlist 2223
New Regional & Iowa Titles
67, 1116
Order Form 24
Sales Information 25

Adult Coloring Book 6

African American Studies 11
Agriculture 1617
American History 20
Architecture 1213
Biography 20
Books 2
Civil War 15
Fiction 45
Iowa 1113, 15
Literary Criticism 10, 1819

uiowapress.org

Midwest 14, 16
Nature 6, 14
Performing Arts 21
Poetry 810
Publishing 2
Theatre 21
Travel 1
True Crime 3
Urban Planning 17
Womens Studies 3

And the Monkey Learned Nothing

Dispatches from a Life in Transit
by Tom Lutz
sIGhtlIne books: The Iowa Series in Literary Nonfiction
Patricia Hampl and Carl H. Klaus, series editors
At a time when travelers are hitting the road hoping for some kind
of personal transformation, or a fantasy to match a postcard in their
heads, Tom Lutz is an old-school adventurer, seeking out the world
as it is. He opens himself to the random encounter in corners of the
world few would embrace and most would go to some lengths to
avoid. Whether its parsing the bribery etiquette at a jungle border
crossing or befriending a street toutand Lutz has a bit of the trickster about him, so surprises are often mutualeach small encounter
speaks volumes. Emotionally stirring, courageous, outrageous, and
laugh-out-loud funny, And the Monkey Learned Nothing is an unqualified delight.Janet Fitch, author, White Oleander

AN D THE
M ON KEY
LEARNED
NOTHING

tom l

disp atc hes fro m

utz

a life in tra nsit

tom lutZ Is on a mission to visit every country on earth. And the To read And the Monkey Learned Nothing
Monkey Learned Nothing contains reports from fifty of them, most is to experience the thrill of visiting new
describing personal encounters in rarely visited spots, anecdotes places coupled with the pleasure of perfrom way off the beaten path. Traveling without an itinerary and sonal and cultural reflection. The sensitivwithout a goal, Lutz explores the Iranian love of poetry, the occupy- ity and moral intelligence that Tom Lutz
ing Chinese army in Tibet, the amputee beggars in Cambodia, the brings to his writing allows us to discover
hill tribes on Vietnams Chinese border, the sociopathic monkeys the unity to be found in our wondrously
of Bali, the dangerous fishermen and conmen of southern India, diverse world.Laila Lalami, author,
the salt flats of Uyumi in Peru, and floating hotels in French Guiana, The Moors Account, finalist, Pulitzer Prize
introduces you to an Uzbeki prodigy in the market of Samarkand, for fiction
an Azeri rental car clerk in Baku, guestworkers in Dubai, a military contractor in Jordan, cucuruchos in Guatemala, a Pentecostal Slip in between the cracks of the world,
preacher in rural El Salvador, a playboy in Nicaragua, employment wiggle through borderlands of language,
agents in Singapore specializing in Tamil workers, prostitutes symbols, and undetermined and frazzled
in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, international bank- cultural archipelagos, surf on the knifeers in Belarus, a teacher in Havana, border guards in Botswana, sharp fractures of peoples hopes, starvatango dancers in Argentina, a cook in Suriname, a juvenile thief tions, desperations, wisdom, luxuries,
in Uruguay, voters in Guyana, doctors in Tanzania and Lesotho, and desires and you will be ambling with
scary poker players in Moscow, reed dancers in Swaziland, young Lutz. I am astounded at Toms ethnocamel herders in Tunisia, Romanian missionaries in Macedonia, graphic fragments, his deep knowledge
and musical groups in Mozambique. With an eye out for both the of the regions and peoples, his relentless
sublime and the ridiculous, Lutz falls, regularly, into the instant openness and outer-inner descriptions,
the ways in which he finds meaning in
intimacy of the road with random strangers.
Tom Lutz is the founder and editor in chief of the Los Angeles Review
of Books. He is the author of Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers,
Loungers, Slackers, and Bums, Cosmopolitan Vistas: American Regionalism and Literary Value,Crying: The Natural andCulturalHistory of Tears,
and American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History. He teaches at
the University of California, Riverside, and lives in Los Angeles,
California.

nods, keywords, and gesture, cultural

performance, and how he is taken by the
human rush of lives as he meets it head
on. Elaborating on the analyses of Geertz,
Marcus, and Rosaldo, Lutz angles new
ways of seeing, encountering, and melting
thought and experience into social life; I
love this bookit leaves me devoured by
a vast borderless humanity.Juan Felipe
Herrera, Poet Laureate of the United States

october

236 pages . 6 x 9 inches

$16.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-449-4
$16.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-450-0

travel

uiowapress.org

Mass Authorship and the

Rise of Self-Publishing
by Timothy Laquintano
Impressions: Studies in the Art, Culture, and Future of Books
Matthew P. Brown, series editor

Anton Maltsev

In the last two decades, digital technologies have made it

possible for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to
rapidly and inexpensively self-publish a book. Once a stigmatized
niche activity, self-publishing has grown explosively. Hobbyists
and professionals alike have produced millions of books, circulating them through e-readers and the web. What does this new
flood of books mean for publishing, authors, and readers? Some
lament the rise of self-publishing because it tramples the gates
and gatekeepers who once reserved publication for those who met
professional standards. Others tout authors new freedom from
the narrow-minded exclusivity of traditional publishing. Critics This is a highly polished, well-organized,
mourn the death of the author; fans celebrate the democratization topical, and informative work that proof authorship.
vides a detailed and knowledgeable
Drawing on eight years of research and interviews with more snapshot of contemporary practices of
than eighty self-published writers, Mass Authorship avoids the po- authorship. It refutes the facile sense that
lemics, instead showing how writers are actually thinking about authorship is being wholly and radically
and dealing with this brave new world. Timothy Laquintano com- changed in the new digital environment,
pares the experiences of self-publishing authors in three distinct while being attentive to genuine novelgenrespoker strategy guides, memoirs, and romance novels ties there. A finely wrought and worthas well as those of writers whose self-published works hit major while book.Mark McGurl, author,
bestseller lists. He finds that the significance of self-publishing The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the
and the challenge it presents to traditional publishing depend on Rise of Creative Writing
the aims of authors, the desires of their readers, the affordances
of their platforms, and the business plans of the companies that Publishing is undergoing significant
provide those platforms.
change, and Laquintano offers a way to
In drawing a nuanced portrait of self-publishing authors today, rethink self-published e-books as someLaquintano answers some of the most pressing questions about thing other than a threat to traditional
what it means to publish in the twenty-first century: How do writ- books. In his detailed case studies of
ers establish credibility in an environment with no editors to judge sophisticated and active self-published
quality? How do authors police their copyrights online without re- e-book authors, Laquintano shows the
course to the law? How do they experience Amazon as a publishing varied jobs these authors accomplish to
platform? And how do they find an audience when, it sometimes get their work published and read.
seems, there are more writers than readers?
Spencer Schaffner, University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Timothy Laquintano lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he is an

assistant professor of English at Lafayette College.

october

234 pages . 6 x 9 inches

$25.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-445-6
$25.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-446-3

books / publishing
2

university of iowa press . fall

The Courtship of Eva Eldridge

A Story of Bigamy in the Marriage-Mad Fifties

diane simmons

by Diane Simmons

The Courtship of Eva Eldridge is both a riveting narrative of detection

and a moving story about individual lives caught up in the changing
gender roles generated by World War II.Diane Simmons employs
dogged research, smart analysis, existing scholarship, and lively
prose to create a history that is hard to put down.
Susan Hartmann, author, The Home Front and Beyond: American
Women in the 1940s

the

Courtship
o f eva eld rid ge

eVerYone Got marrIed In the 1950s, then moved to the sub

urbs to have the children of the soon-to-be-famous baby boom. For
A Story of Bigamy in the
Americans who had survived the Great Depression and World War
Marriage-Mad Fifties

II, prosperous married life was a triumph. The unwed were objects
of pity, scorn, even suspicion. And so in the 1950s, Eva Eldridge, no
longer so young and marginally employed, was the perfect target
for handsome Vick, who promised everything: storybook romance, Diane Simmons has brilliantly used a colmarital respectability, and the lively social life she loved. When he lection of never-before-seen World War II
disappeared not long after their honeymoon, she was devastated. letters to tell a story that has all the twists
Eva hadnt always been so vulnerable. Growing up pretty and of a true crime novel. At its heart, this is a
popular in rural Oregon, she expected to marry young and live a poignant, extraordinary tale of a woman
life much like that of her parents, farming and rearing children. who married a man with a secret and a
But then the United States threw its weight into World War II and troubling past.Andrew Carroll, editor,
as men headed to battle, the government started recruiting women War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from
to work in their places. Eva, like many other young women, found American Wars, a New York Times bestseller
that life in the city with plenty of money, personal freedom, and
lots of soldiers and sailors eager to pay court was more exhilarating
than life down on the farm. After the war, she was ambivalent about
getting married and settling downat least until Vick arrived.
Refusing to believe her brand-new husband had abandoned
her, Eva set about tracking down a man who, she now believed,
was more damaged by wartime trauma than she had known. But
instead of a wounded hero, she found a long string of women much
like herselfhard-working, intelligent women who had loved and
married Vick and now had no idea whereor even whohe was.
Drawing on a trove of some eight hundred letters and papers,
Diane Simmons tells the story of Evas poignant struggle to get her
dream husband back, as well as the stories of the women who had
stood at the altar with Vick before and after her. Evas remarkable
life illuminates womens struggle for happiness at a time when
marriageand the perfect husbandmeant everything.
n

Diane Simmons has published two novels, Let the Bastards Freeze
in the Dark and Dreams Like Thunder, which won the Oregon Book
Award. Her short story collection Little America won the Ohio State
University Prize for Short Fiction. She lives in the New York City
area and is a professor of English at Borough of Manhattan Community CollegeCity University of New York.

august

272 pages . 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches

$19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-461-6
$19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-462-3

true crime / womens studies

uiowapress.org

November Storm
by Robert Oldshue
2016 Iowa short fIctIon award

Robert Oldshues debut collection is deceptive. While one could say

these stories are about things as simple as driving in bad weather,
seeing the next client, and visiting an old friend in the hospital,
each of them is a world concentrated and distilled, filled with compassion, insight, and surprise.Peter Turchi, author, Maps of the
Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer
These superb stories are written with a sharp wit, big heart, and profound wisdom.Oldshues genius lies in his ability to bring remarkable emotional complexity to the lives of ordinary characters whom
we recognize as ourselves.A brilliant debut.Helen Fremont,
author, After Long Silence: A Memoir

In each of the storIes in Robert Oldshues debut collection,

the characters want to be decent but find that hard to define.
In the first story, an elderly couple is told that delivery of their
Thanksgiving dinner has been canceled due to an impending bliz- Robert Oldshue writes stories that are as
zard. Unwilling to have guests but nothing to serve them, they rich and self-complicating as novels. Set
make a run to the grocery, hoping to get there and back before mostly in Boston, November Storm explores
the snow, but crash their car into the last of their neighbors. In that citylike Stuart Dybeks Chicago or
The Receiving Line, a male prostitute tricks a closeted subur- Edward P. Joness DCthrough the layban schoolteacher only to learn that the trick is on him. In The ers of its characters memories. Here a
Woman on the Road, a twelve-year-old girl negotiates the compet- twenty-page story seems deepermore
ing demands of her faith and her family as she is bat mitzvahed in densely sedimented with consciousness
the feminist ferment of the 1980s. The lessons she learns are the and retrospectionthan most two-hunlessons learned by a ten-year-old boy in Fergus B. Fergus, after dred-page books. This is a sensitive and
which, in Summer Friend, two women and one man renegotiate accomplished collection.Bennett Sims,
their sixty-year intimacy when sadly, but inevitably, one of them judge, 2016 Iowa Short Fiction Award
gets ill. The Home of the Holy Assumption offers a benediction.
A quadriplegic goes missing at a nursing home. Was she assumed? A dazzling collection of stories, each
In the process of finding out, all are reminded that caring for oth- with the depth and complexity of a
ers, however imperfectlyeven laughablyis the only shot at novel.Utterly compelling, I read this book
assumption we have.
almost in one sitting. Robert Oldshue is
When he isnt writing, Robert Oldshue practices family medicine
at a community health center in Boston. He holds an MFA from
Warren Wilson College, and his work has appeared in the Bellevue
Literary Review, the Gettysburg Review, and New England Review. He is
married and has two children.

october

140 pages . 5 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches

$16.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-451-7
$16.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-452-4

fiction
4

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS . FALL

an exciting and brilliant new literary voice.

Perhaps the Great American Novel is now
to be found in a collection of extraordinary
short stories.Rosamund Lupton,
author, Sister
Bob Oldshue has populated his emotionally intricate and very wise stories with
lovable, broken people haunted by their
actions or indeed by their failures to act.
In sentences that tumble and spiral with
masterful invisible complexity, November
Storm delivers youngsters searching for
themselves, oldsters searching for the
past, and the middle-aged searching for
redemption.Shannon Cain, author,
The Necessity of Certain Behaviors

Of This New World

by Allegra M. Hyde

OF T H IS

NEW WORL D

2016 John sImmons short fIctIon award

Allegra Hyde is a talented ventriloquist, gifting each of her stories its

own compelling voice,full of history and science, myth and folklore,
humor and heart. But behind every faade lie Hydes unmistakable
talent, her inventive imagination, and her joyful play with language.
This is a great debut, not to be missed.Matt Bell, author, Scrapper
These extraordinary stories illuminate our hunger for utopias both
earthly and transcendent, and the sometimes dangerous lure of love.
In Of This New World, Allegra Hyde writes with a genius scientists impassioned inquiry and a poets lyrical, exquisite precision.
Tara Ison, author, Ball: Stories
Allegra M. Hyde
An ambitious and memorable debut, in which a dozen different characters, looking for a dozen different paradises, all end up learning some
customized version of that ultimate Miltonic lesson: the mind is its
own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
Of This New Worldis the right title for a
Bennett Sims, judge, 2016 John Simmons Short Fiction Award
collection thats so witheringly deadpan
alleGra hYdes debut story collection, Of This New World, of- and compassionate about who we are now.
fers a menagerie of utopias: real, imagined, and lost. Starting with From Adam and Eve to an uprooted flower
the Garden of Eden and ending in a Mars colony, the stories wrestle child to a maimed veteran to a Mexican
with conflicts of idealism and practicality, communal ambition and domestic to a hapless glue-sniffing colonist
individual kink. Stories jump between genresfrom historical on Mars, these protagonists are runaways
fiction to science fiction, realism to fabulismbut all ask those and spirit-seekers who know the power
fundamental human questions: What do we do when we lose our of mystery and license and desire, and
utopia? What will we do to get it back?
believe in resistance and in living the
Over the course of twelve stories, Hyde writes with a mix of solution and the willingness to dream,
lyricism, humor, and masterful detail. A group of environmental even as they confront their own unfulfilled
missionaries seeks to start an ideal eco-society on an island in the promise. Having learned detachment as a
Bahamas, only to unwittingly tyrannize the local inhabitants and survival strategy, they acknowledge a love
disrupt the social ecosystem. The neglected daughter of a floun- that always stops short of fulfillment but
dering hippie commune must adjust to conventional life with her remains exhilarating nonetheless.
ungroovy grandmother. A wounded veteran gets lost in erotic fan- Jim Shepard, author, The Book of Aron

tasies of his twin brothers life. Haunted by her years at a collegiate

idyll, a young woman eulogizes a friendship. After indenturing his With rare style, refined mischief, and a
only son to the Shakers, an antebellum vegan turns to Louisa May fearless spirit of philosophic and scienAlcotts famous family for help. And in the final story, a down- tific inquiry, the twelve stories in Allegra
and-out drug addict gets a second chance at life in a government- HydesOf This New Worldbrilliantly orbit
sponsored space population program, only to be flummoxed by our longing for paradise, our ache for
erectile dysfunction. An unmissable debut, the collection charts some elusive perfection within the human
the worlds born in our dreams and bred in hope.
community.Melissa Pritchard, auAllegra M. Hydes stories have appeared in the Missouri Review, New
England Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, the Gettysburg Review, and the
Pushcart Prize XL: Best of the Small Presses. She lives in Peterborough,
New Hampshire.

thor,PalmerinoandA Solemn Pleasure:

To Imagine, Witness, and Write

october

124 pages . 5 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches

$16.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-443-2
$16.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-444-9

fiction

uiowapress.org

The Wild Midwest

A Coloring Book
by Mark Mller
bur oak books
Holly Carver, series editor

whIle most colorInG books offer fanciful recreations of the

wonders of nature, Mark Mllers realistic drawings allow you to
embellish real-world birds, plants, and animals with all the colors
you can imagine. Layer your creative whimsy on his meticulous
accuracy. Go ahead, ink in a hot pink bison or a turquoise sandhill crane or a buttery yellow tree frog, pouring magic into reality. Turn the tallgrass prairies pale purple coneflowers ruby red,
the black swallowtail butterfly into a green-dotted swallowtail, or
white-tailed deer into fuschia-tailed. Why shouldnt red-winged
blackbirds flaunt salmon epaulets, or American goldfinches turn
coppery, or rose-breasted grosbeaks celadon-breasted? Amid the
creatures teeming in the midwestern grasses and wetlands on these
pages, youll even find the most common invasive speciessee if
you can find the garlic mustard and the emerald ash borer! Here is
the wild Midwest as it really is, for your coloring pleasure.
Mark Mller is a freelance illustrator who lives on a farm near Iowa
City, Iowa. Having sketched and photographed the world from
Alaska to Antarctica, he has illustrated many books of nature writing and natural history, including the perenially popular Prairie in
Your Pocket (Iowa, 2000) and Paul Christiansens An Illustrated Guide
to Prairie Plants (Iowa, 1999).

november

72 pages . 32 line drawings . 11 x 8 1/2 inches

$12.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-469-2

adult coloring book / nature

6

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS . FALL

uiowapress.org

bodys
by Vanessa Roveto

bodys

kuhl house poets

Mark Levine and Emily Wilson, series editors
Vanessa roVetos debut collection, bodys, is a work of stunning strangeness, force, and audacity, generated byand degenerating towardthe unanswerable question at the heart of poetic
speech: What does it mean to be a person? A dizzying hybrid
of poetry and prose, post-human analytics and ribaldry, spiritual
autobiography and grim satire, Roveto lends exacting voice to a
most complicated vocabulary of feeling-your-feelings. Viscerally
drawn to forbidden states and suspicious of its own desires, bodys is
Vanessa Roveto
literature as high-risk, low-tech radiology, mapping the dim edges
of identity and identification: Brain scans indicated the moral
center and the disgust center overlap on the mind field.
Rovetos sentences hurtle forward with withering disjunctive
energy, laying down traps of wordplay, tacking toward and veer- bodys is disturbed. Somewhere in its pasing away from syntactical targets, trying-on and sloughing-off sage from cozy, imaginary singularity
pronoun positions with abandon. Yet for all its postmodern bra- a self-sucient body, a body politic, a
vadoand irreverence, and frequent scary hilaritybodys remains somebodyto the reality of its plural self,
abidingly attached to exploring the problem of a human speaker Rovetos body of work lands in an inaddressing itself to another, and colliding with its own otherness between, stateless state in language, free
along the way. It is the same problemarticulation as disarticula- and delirious, bound and undisciplined.
tionthat animates the great Renaissance sonnet sequences, from bodys is a staggeringly audacious wake-up
which bodys is affectionately, and perversely, descended. What is call to the numb soul. Not quite poetry or
bodyswhat are bodysanyway? A dysfunction in the bodys abil- prose, cultural theory or pseudo-psychoity to multiply itself ? A dysmorphic take on the bodys sense of its analytic case study or memoir, not merely
reality? A dystopian vision of a world in which boundaries between a savagely funny satire of Im scared culselves and others have been overwhelmed by commerce, surveil- ture or an erotically desolate musing on
lance, medical technology, nihilistic agitprop? Last night one of the possibility of love or rapture, bodys is a
the girls asked about the relationship between a body and nobody, dystopian, dyscombobulating, sonorously
Roveto writes. It was the beautiful question.
discordant anatomy of shared disaster. Its
Vanessa Roveto is a writer living in the San Fernando Valley. This
is her first book.
Mom warned, Invest in everything together. She couldnt
retire until I reproduced her efforts. Every evening Brother
visited in a family way. I was taught the value of commodity
from this action. A gallery performance that considered
many corpse painters at once. The traces of workers came
after Brothering. She washed his underpants or how seams
draw something out of another. That was not a sentence,
but a text in a frame. One question they snacked was, Could
your body next time supply napkin and platelets? It was a
show-off process. The speed at which I ruined coherence
increased because the investor met with the dollars of an
others patience. One example of being untitled is someone
willing to tell you their object choice is about you playing
yourself in relation to them as a face.

november

66 pages . 6 x 8 inches
$19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-455-5
$19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-456-2

poetry
8

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS . FALL

sensibility is ancient and futuristic. There

isnt a boring or innocent sentence in the
book. It is work of originating genius that
puts the verse back in subversive, and
bites the reader in the ass like no book I
know.Mark Levine
Inhabiting a nightmarish world of anonymous characters with unstable identities
behaving like ids freed of their superegos,
Vanessa Rovetos poems can barely be
contained in the boxes she packs them
into. Their potency oozes out in brilliantly
dark observations, tart puns, a witty archness that burrows subversively into the
deeply sticky matters of sex, family, gender, violence. But the apparatus of selfprotection she builds against the overwhelming exigencies of bodys and their
disembodied parts constantly threatens to
expose a vulnerable core, and it is this tension that makes Rovetos poems a thrilling
reading.Donna Stonecipher

Take Nothing with You

by Sarah V. Schweig

Take NoThiNg WiTh You

kuhl house poets

Mark Levine and Emily Wilson, series editors
What we have in Schweigs poemsfull of dark panache and a cool,
even murderous, witis an auspicious debut.Mark Strand
These poems forge new paths where worlds have disappeared. Out
of the tenuous rises the emphatic, with possibilities offered like
prayers.Ann Beattie
The effect of reading Sarah Schweigs verse is quietly dazzling
and hard to describe: hallucinatory nuggets of feeling are shaped
through extraordinary formal precision, apparently everyday observation, a taste for bathos, repetition, and great precision of utterance. And the whole is full of longing and desire. Tinged with delicious regret and distance, Schweig evokes depth of feeling that will
resonate with the reader. No, this is not nothing, but something fine
indeed. It is a remarkable achievement.Simon Critchley

there are worlds we can imagine, but we live in this one:

contingent and absurd. In her first full-length collection, Sarah V.
Schweig aims to capture something essential and universal about
this faulted inheritance.
These poems operate on the notion that the lyric can be discovered in scattered headlines, office-wide emails, road signsthe
detritus of the everyday. But a poem doesnt stop at found fragments; it creates something from them. These poems question and
requestion what can be truthfully said, rediscovering the lyric in the
very process of thinking, revising, and re-envisioning.
Sarah V. Schweig is the author of the chapbook S. Her poetry has
appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, BOMB, Boston
Review, HTML Giant, the Iowa Review, Tin House, Verse Daily, the Volta,
West Branch, the Winter Anthology, and elsewhere. She currently lives
in New York City.

The Abandonment

Sarah v. SchWeig

These poems issue from a mourning for

a missing one (father, lover, child, God),
an affliction of abandonment that propels
the speaker into a triangulated, contingent
world: a welter of cities, love affairs, dazzling sonic performances, and philosophical
travelincluding treatises on nada and
syllogisms on meaning (there is no heaven,
and no answers / to our questions). Witty,
intellectually ruthless, the mantra of these
poems seems to be: travel lightly in this
world of woe. Take nothing with you. Yet,
however unlikely it may be to believe in, let
alone bear the onus of, anything PURE and
PERFECT, this remarkably mature first book
joins the ages-old dialogue about beauty,
truth, and love: the (trans)figuration inherent in all ardor, all making. Once there was
a man, and then there wasnt, she writes
in a tour de force elegy for the late poet
Mark Strand. How to respond to such loss
except cover my face with my hands?
Lisa Russ Spaar

A man I once loved has built a mountain.

Youre avoiding something, I say when Ive climbed to its crest.
Thats a projection, he says, repairing the thatched roof on his modest hut.
Youre projecting that Im projecting, I say, Because your parents were psychoanalysts.
I sit down in the plastic grass, which hes woven leaf by leaf into the turf.
Youre using description of a moment to avoid whats really at hand, he says.
But I live for my art, I say. I dont have anything else.
You had me once, he says, and you still said that.

When I ask if he would like to go swim in the Lake of Remembrance,

he says, Dont change the subject. When I ask what I can do to help, he says,
Here is a shovel. The mountain never brought him happiness. The mountain never
brought him peace. Now we will bury the ash of our teachers. On this we could agree.

november

86 pages . 6 x 8 inches
$19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-457-9
$19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-458-6

poetry

uiowapress.org

Song of Myself
With a Complete Commentary
by Walt Whitman
introduction and commentary by Ed Folsom
and Christopher Merrill
The Iowa Whitman Series
Ed Folsom, series editor
This is a nearly perfect introduction to Song of Myself, with a great
Whitman scholar and a terrific poet who love this breathtaking,
funny, heartbreaking visionary poem at the center of American literature, talking to each other and to you as they read it. There couldnt
be a better guide except perhaps Whitman himself.Robert Hass,
author, Time and Materials, Poems 19972005, National Book Award
winner
In this book, Ed Folsom and Christopher Merrill are the first to
undertake an attentive and detailed reading of every section of
Walt Whitmans Song of Myself. Their readings offer a gift of wit,
wisdom, and delight that will shape conversations about Whitmans
democratic epic for years to come.Betsy Erkkil, Northwestern
University

An enlivening experiment in contrapuntal criticism. Folsom and Merrilldistinguished critic and poeteach provide
section by section commentary on Song of
Myself. Bold in form, rich in insight, this
is the rare book that will be equally prized
by novices and experts. Few books have
brought me such pleasure.Kenneth M.
Price, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

This book offers the most comprehensive and detailed reading to date of Song of Myself. One of the most distinguished critics
in Whitman studies, Ed Folsom, and one of the nations most
prominent writers and literary figures, Christopher Merrill, carry This book offers the fresh and illuminaton a dialog with Whitman, and with each other, section by section, ing interpretations of a critic and a poet,
as they invite readers to enter into the conversation about how the two longtime readers of Whitmans
poem develops, moves, improvises, and surprises. Instead of pick- poetry deeply engaged in respinning all
ing and choosing particular passages to support a reading of the fifty-two sections ofSong of Myself from
poem, Folsom and Merrill take Whitman at his word and interact their unique and equally perceptive
with every atom of his work. The book presents Whitmans final angles of vision. Highly recommended
version of the poem, arranged in fifty-two sections; each section is for use at both the undergraduate and
followed by Folsoms detailed critical examination of the passage, graduate levels.Jerome Loving, auand then Merrill offers a poets perspective, suggesting broader thor, Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself
contexts for thinking about both the passage in question and the
entire poem.
When most critics write about literary
Ed Folsom, the Roy J. Carver professor of English at the University
of Iowa, is the editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review, codirector of the online Whitman Archive, and editor of the Whitman
Series at the University of Iowa Press. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.
Christopher Merrill has published numerous collections of poetry,
edited volumes, books of translations, and nonfiction, including
Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars, Things of the Hidden
God: Journey to the Holy Mountain, and The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony,
Expedition, War. He is the director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

october

252 pages . 6 x 9 inches

$24.95s paper original, 978-1-60938-465-4
$24.95s e-book, 978-1-60938-466-1

poetry / literary criticism

10 university of iowa press . fall

texts, they focus on their favorite passages and ignore others that happen to
not fit their agenda. Folsom and Merrill
do something far different by entering
into a dialog with Whitmans Song of
Myself, taking on the text of Whitmans
longest and most influential poem in its
entirety. Their alternation of lyrical and
critical voices makes for an entirely new
and exhilarating reading experience that
will open many new doors to Whitmans
greatest work for readers around the
world.Walter Grnzweig, author,
Constructing the German Walt Whitman

Invisible Hawkeyes
African Americans at the University of Iowa
during the Long Civil Rights Era

Fanny Ellison (1936), Library of Congress

edited by Lena M. Hill and Michael D. Hill

Between the 1930s and 1960s, the University of Iowa sought to

assert its modernity, cosmopolitanism, and progressivism through
an increased emphasis on the fine and performing arts and athletics. This enhancement coincided with a period when an increasing
number of African American students arrived at the university, from
both within and outside the state, seeking to take advantage of its
relatively liberal racial relations and rising artistic prestige. The
presence of accomplished African American students performing
in musical concerts, participating in visual art exhibitions, acting
on stage, publishing literature, and competing on sports fields
forced white students, instructors, and administrators to confront
their undeniable intellect and talent. Unlike the work completed Lucidly written and intelligently conin traditional academic units, these students contributions to the ceived,Invisible Hawkeyesis a timely and
university community were highly visible and burst beyond the important volume that introduces readers
walls of their individual units and primary spheres of experience to to the position held by the University of
reach a much larger audience on campus and in the city and nation Iowa, a large, northern land grant unibeyond the universitys boundaries.
versity, in the drama of American racial
By examining the quieter collisions between Iowas polite mid- transformation during the middle of the
western progressivism and African American students determined twentieth century.This vital and imporambition, Invisible Hawkeyes focuses attention on both local stories tant work, recovering the lives of early
and their national implications. By looking at the University of Iowa black students at the university, makes
and a smaller midwestern college town like Iowa City, this collec- even larger claims about the prominence
tion reveals how fraught moments of interracial collaboration, of the Midwest in national conversations
meritocratic advancement, and institutional insensitivity deepen about race and African American art and
our understanding of Americas painful conversion into a diverse artistic styles.Lawrence Jackson, aurepublic committed to racial equality.
thor,The Indignant Generation: A Narrative
People discussed in this collection include Edison Holmes An- History of African American Writers and
derson, George Overall Caldwell, Elizabeth Catlett, Fanny Ellison, Critics, 19341960
Oscar Anderson Fuller, Michael Harper, James Alan McPherson,
Herbert Franklin Mells, Herbert Nipson, Thomas Pawley, William A provocative balance of both local
Oscar Smith, Mitchell Southall, and Margaret Walker.
and national cultural history, Invisible
Lena M. Hill is an associate professor of English and African
American studies at the University of Iowa. She is the author of
Visualizing Blackness and the Creation of African American Literary Tradition
and is the coauthor of Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man: A Reference Guide.
Michael D. Hill is an associate professor of English and African
American studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of The
Ethics of Swagger: Prizewinning African American Novels, 19771993 and
is the coauthor of Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man: A Reference Guide. They
both live in Iowa City, Iowa.

Hawkeyes tells the stories of the University

of Iowas integration in the period of
19301960.The blend of first-person
testimonial and more formal, scholarly
chapters produces a highly engaging,
stirring, and informative book that reveals both the glories and the failures of
the integration movement in American
universities at midcentury.Marc
Conner, author, The New Territory:Ralph
Ellison and the Twenty-First Century

november

228 pages . 2 b&w photos . 6 x 9 inches

$20.00 paper original, 978-1-60938-441-8
$20.00 e-book, 978-1-60938-442-5

iowa / african american studies

uiowapress.org 11

The University of Iowa Guide to

Campus Architecture, Second Edition
by John Beldon Scott and Rodney P. Lehnertz

In thIs GuIde to the University of Iowas architecture, revised

and updated to reflect the numerous changes following the 2008
flood, John Beldon Scott and Rodney P. Lehnertz discuss and illustrate an ensemble of buildings whose stylistic diversity reflects
the breadth of Iowas contributions to research, education, and
creative activities. Current students and their parents, alumni, and
professional and amateur architecture enthusiasts will appreciate
this informative tour of the universitys distinctive campus.
John Beldon Scott is Elizabeth M. Stanley professor of the arts at
the University of Iowa. Rodney P. Lehnertz is senior vice president
for finance and operations at the University of Iowa, and university
architect.

the university of iowa

guide to campus architecture

second edition

john beldon scott & rodney p. lehnertz

People, not structures, make a great

university. However, great structures
inspire and enable great things to
happen in a university. A commitment
to noble architecture makes a clear
statement about the academic excellence to which the university continually aspires. The universitys entry into
the twenty-first century is marked by
the coming to fruition of a number of
exciting new buildings that inspire and
serve us.from the introduction by
Willard L. Boyd, professor of law and
president emeritus, University of Iowa

september

360 pages . 15 maps . 24 color photos . 125 b&w photos

5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches
$19.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-459-3
$19.95 e-book, 978-1-60938-460-9

iowa / architecture

12 UNIVERSITY OF IOWA PRESS . FALL

uiowapress.org 13

Fish in Your Pocket

A Guide to Fish of the Upper Midwest
by Terry VanDeWalle
photographs by Garold Sneegas
A Bur Oak Guide
Holly Carver, series editor

Whether sitting in a boat with a rod and

reel trying to outwit a largemouth bass or watching bluntnose minnows dart among the rocks of
a sparkling stream, many people are attracted to
fish.Hundreds of species can be found in the ponds,
lakes, rivers, and streams of the Upper Midwest,
from the beautifully colored orangethroat darter to
the prehistoric-looking shovelnose sturgeon.This
much needed addition to Iowas popular series of
laminated guidesthe twenty-eighth in the series
describes twenty-nine fish species, including some
of the most sought after game fish like bluegill and
largemouth bass, as well as less common species like
logperch and the snakelike American eel.
Terry VanDeWalle includes a thorough description of each species and covers the Upper Midwest
states of Kansas, Illinois, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota,
Ohio, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.
The careful descriptions and habitat and diet
information in Fish in Your Pocketenhanced with
superb photographs by underwater photographer
Garold Sneegasmake it extremely useful for anglers and naturalists alike.
Terry VanDeWalle has been a naturalist in the Midwest for more than twenty-five years. Author of Snakes
and Lizards in Your Pocket: A Guide to Reptiles of the Upper Midwest, Frogs
and Toads in Your Pocket: A Guide to Amphibians of the Upper Midwest,
Turtles in Your Pocket: A Guide to Freshwater and Terrestrial Turtles of the
Upper Midwest, and Salamanders in Your Pocket: A Guide to Caudates of
the Upper Midwest, he is a senior biologist with Stantec Consulting
Services, Inc., in Independence, Iowa. Underwater photographer
Garold Sneegas specializes in images of native freshwater flora
and fauna in their natural habitats.

january

laminated fold-out guide

29 color photos
16 3/4 x 16 7/8 inches folds to 4 1/8 x 9 inches
$11.95 paper original, 978-1-60938-463-0

nature / midwest

14 university of iowa press . fall

Largemouth bass

Rosyface shiner

Black crappie

The Sacred Cause of Union

Iowa in the Civil War
by Thomas R. Baker
Iowa and the Midwest Experience
William B. Friedricks, series editor

The Sacred Cause of Union highlights Iowans important role in reuniting the nation when the battle over
slavery tore it asunder. In this first-ever survey of the
states Civil War history, Thomas Baker interweaves
economics, politics, army recruitment, battlefield
Battle of Shiloh by Thure de Thulstrup; restoration Adam Cuerden
performance, and government administration. Scattered across more than a dozen states and territories, Iowas fighting men marched long distances and won battles against larger The authordoes a particularly good job
rebel armies despite having little food or shelter and sometimes of illustrating connections between the
poor equipment. On their own initiative, the states women ven- battlefield and home front and between
tured south to the battlefields to tend to the sick and injured, and events in the three main theaters of
farm families produced mountains of food to feed hungry federal the war. He also excels in situating
armies. In the absence of a coordinated military supply system, Iowas wartime role firmly in the context
womens volunteer organizations were instrumental in delivering of its position as a new midwestern
food, clothing, medicines, and other supplies to those who needed state.Robert Cook, author,Troubled
them. All of these efforts contributed mightily to the Union victory Commemoration: The American Civil War
and catapulted Iowa into the top circle of most influential states Centennial, 19611965
in the nation.
To shed light on how individual Iowans experienced the war, The Sacred Cause of Union is a long overdue
the book profiles six state residents. Three were well-known. An- detailed examination of the motivations
nie Wittenmyer, a divorced woman with roots in Virginia, led the and experiences of Iowans in civil life and
states efforts to ship clothing and food to the soldiers. Alexander military service during the Civil War era. It
Clark, a Muscatine businessman and the son of former slaves, is a valuable contribution to understandeloquently championed the rights of African Americans. Cyrus ing how these people shaped the state for
Carpenter, a Pennsylvania-born land surveyor anxious to make generations.Leo Landis, State Curator,
his fortune, served in the army and then headed the states Radical State Historical Museum of Iowa
Republican faction after the war, ultimately being elected governor.
Three never became famous. Ben Stevens, a young, unemployed carpenter, fought in an Iowa regiment at Shiloh, and then
transferred to a Louisiana African American regiment so that he
could lead the former slaves into battle. Farm boy Abner Dunham
defended the Sunken Road at the Battle of Shiloh, before spending seven grim months in Confederate prison camps. The young
Charles Musser faced pressure from his neighbors to enlist and
from his parents to remain at home to work on the farm. Soon
after he signed on to serve the Union, he discovered that his older
brother had joined the Confederate Army. Through the letters and
lives of these six Iowans, Thomas Baker shows how the Civil War
transformed the state at the same time that Iowans transformed
the nation.
Thomas R. Baker is the associate dean of students at the University
of Iowa. A judicial administrator since 1988, he specializes in civil
rights investigations. He lives in Muscatine with his partner, Neva
Rettig Baker.

november

268 pages . 5 maps . 10 illustrations . 6 x 9 inches

$27.50 paper original, 978-1-60938-435-7
$27.50 e-book, 978-1-60938-436-4

civil war / iowa

uiowapress.org 15

The Future of Family Farms

Practical Farmers Legacy Letter Project
edited by Teresa Opheim

PFI and its members are an inspiration! They remind us all that family, community, and stewardship are at the heart of farming. Their
stories are a call to action to everyone who belongs to the land:
start the conversation about your farms legacy today. The future of
rural communities and regional food systems may depend on it.
Jim Habana Hafner, executive director, Land for Good

A monumental transfer of farmland is occurring in the

United States. The average American farmer is fifty-eight years
old, and the 40 percent of farmland owners who lease their land
to others are even older: sixty-six on average. Five times as many
farmers are over sixty-five as are under thirty-five. What will happen As a company geared toward holding
to this land? Who will own it? What if one child wants to farm but farmland indefinitely, we understand
cant afford to buy out the nonfarming siblings? What if keeping deeply the emotional commitment farmthe farm in the family means foregoing the significant profits that ers make to building their business from
could be earned from selling it? These sometimes painful and the land. It means everything for young
divisive questions confront many farmers and farmland owners farmers to be able to own their land sometoday. How they answer them will shape their families and the land day and then hopefully pass it along to the
for generations to come.
next generation. It is, in fact, what is worth
The Farm Legacy Letter project, developed by the member-driven working for. Teresas work bridges the
nonprofit Practical Farmers of Iowa, is designed to help farmers entire life and hopes of farm families.
and farmland owners think about their farms future and talk about Dave Miller, CEO & cofounder,
it with their families. An essential complement to handbooks on Iroquois Valley Farms, LLC
business succession, this book gathers the letters and stories of
midwestern families about the land they cherishhow they ac- The Future of Family Farmsis a timely and
quired it, what they treasure most about it, and their hopes for its important new book about the future of
future. Some of the writers descend from families who have owned farmland and the hopes and challenges
a particular patch of the earth since the 1800s, while others became of the families who farm it.More than 40
farmland owners more recentlyone as recently as 2015. Some are percent of Americas agricultural landno longer farmland owners at all, becauseafter careful thought scape is owned by seniors aged sixty-five
about what mattered most to themthey sold their land to the next and older so, as the author notes, were
generation of farmers.
in for a lot of drama in the coming years.
All of these writers hope that, by sharing their farmland legacies, The books framing chapters make a comthey will encourage others to ponder and then write about the his- pelling case for action, and the Practical
tories, accomplishments, challenges, and hopes for their farmland Farmers stories are both moving and
for the generations who come after they are gone.
relevant, reinforcing the need for families
Teresa Opheim has worked for the Iowa Environmental Council,
the Environmental Law Institute, and the US Environmental Protection Agency. She led the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working
Group before serving as the executive director of Practical Farmers
of Iowa from 2006 to 2016. Opheim is coauthor of Our National
Wetland Heritage. She continues to work on farm transfer issues
from her home in the Twin Cities.

september

164 pages . 28 b&w photos . 6 x 9 inches

$24.95s paper original, 978-1-60938-453-1
$24.95s e-book, 978-1-60938-454-8

agriculture / midwest

16 university of iowa press . fall

not only to have shared commitment but

also a vision and plan for the future
whether theyve been farming for more
than a hundred years, or are beginning
farmers.Julia Freedgood, assistant
vice president of programs, American
Farmland Trust

Cities of Farmers
Urban Agricultural Practices and Processes
www.community-food.org

edited by Julie C. Dawson and Alfonso Morales

Cities of Farmersseeks to expand and deepen a growing

topical concern for scholars and practitioners in urban
planning, social justice, and the built environment: the
role and practice of urban agriculture. The book is quite
successful.Branden Born, University of Washington

Full-scale food production in cities: is it an impossibility? Or I do not think we will be able to survive in
is it a panacea for all that ails urban communities? Today, its a real- the future without a dramatic change in
ity, but many people still dont know how much of an impact this the way we produce food. There are going
emerging food system is having on cities and their residents. This to be 3.1 billion new people on Earth in
book showcases the work of the farmers, activists, urban planners, the next forty years, and we cannot even
and city officials in the United States and Canada who are advanc- feed our population with good food now.
ing food production. They have realized that, when its done right, The only way that we are going to be able
farming in cities can enhance the local ecology, foster cohesive to survive is to grow food closer to where
communities, and improve the quality of life for urban residents. people liveinside cities where there is a
Implementing urban agriculture often requires change in the lot of vacant land.From the foreword
physical, political, and social-organizational landscape. Beginning by Will Allen, founder and CEO, Growing
with a look at how and why city people grew their own food in the Power, Inc.
early twentieth century, the contributors to Cities of Farmers examine
the role of local and regional regulations and politics, especially This is a rare find! An academic book
the creation of food policy councils, in making cities into fertile that is highly readable, relevant, well
ground for farming. The authors describe how food is produced researched, and, as the topic requires,
and distributed in cities via institutions as diverse as commercial down to earth. Especially helpful to city
farms, community gardens, farmers markets, and regional food planners, health promoters, community
hubs. Growing food in vacant lots and on rooftops affects labor, leaders, and all who love what a garden
capital investment, and human capital formation, and as a result does for a day outdoors, a yard or parurban agriculture intersects with land values and efforts to build kette, a great meal, and quality time with
affordable housing. It also can contribute to cultural renewal and others.Wayne Roberts, author, The No
Nonsense Guide to World Food and Food for
improved health.
This book enables readers to understand and contribute to their City Building
local food system, whether they are raising vegetables in a community garden, setting up a farmers market, or formulating regulations for farming and composting within city limits.
Julie C. Dawson is an assistant professor in the department of horticulture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the state extension specialist for urban and regional food systems. She focuses
on diversified vegetable production for local markets in and around
cities. More information on her program is at dawson.horticulture.
wisc.edu. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Alfonso Morales is a
professor in the departments of urban and regional planning and
civil society and community studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The founder of the Foodglossary website, he also
cofounded and currently cohosts openair.org, a website on street
vendors and public markets.He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

november

326 pages . 18 figures . 13 tables . 6 x 9 inches

$55.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-437-1
$55.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-438-8

agriculture / urban planning

uiowapress.org 17

How to Revise a True War Story

Tim OBriens Process of Textual Production
by John K. Young

John Youngs new study of the multiple versions of Tim OBriens

work(s) is an indispensable study of the author and a pathbreaking
work of textual scholarship and narratology that significantly revises
our understanding of authorship and of what constitutes a work of
literature.Mark Heberle, author, A Trauma Artist: Tim OBrien and
the Fiction of Vietnam

You can tell a true war story if you just keep on telling it, Tim
OBrien writes in The Things They Carried. Widely regarded as the
most important novelist to come out of the American war in Viet The quality of John Youngs scholarship is
Nam, OBrien has kept on telling true war stories not only in nar- uniformly high. This book does fully what
ratives that cycle through multiple fictional and nonfictional ver- a new book is supposed to do: supply
sions of the wars defining experiences, but also by rewriting those original knowledge. It is well-grounded
stories again and again. Key moments of revision extend from early in current theories of textual criticism,
drafts, to the initial appearance of selected chapters in magazines, and in practice the textual analysis, freacross typescripts and page proofs for first editions, and through quently involving major revisions in wellcontinuing post-publication variants in reprints.
known and much written about titles, is
How to Revise a True War Story is the first book-length study of meticulous.Philip D. Beidler, author,
OBriens archival papers at the University of Texass Harry Ran- Late Thoughts on an Old War: The Legacy
som Center. Drawing on extensive study of drafts and other pre- of Vietnam
publication materials, as well as the multiple published versions
of OBriens works, John K. Young tells the untold stories behind
the production of such key texts as Going After Cacciato, The Things
They Carried, and In the Lake of the Woods. By reading not just the texts
that have been published, but also the versions they could have
been, Young demonstrates the important choices OBrien and his
editors have made about how to represent the traumas of the war
in Viet Nam. The result is a series of texts that refuse to settle into
a finished or stable form, just as the stories they present insist on
being told and retold in new and changing ways. In their lack of
textual stability, these variants across different versions enact for
OBriens readers the kinds of narrative volatility that is key to the
American literature emerging from the war in Viet Nam. Perhaps in
this case, you can tell a true war story if you just keep on revising it.
John K. Young is a professor of English at Marshall University.
He is the author of Black Writers, White Publishers: Marketplace Politics in Twentieth-Century African American Literature and, with George
Hutchinson, the coeditor of Publishing Blackness: Textual Constructions
of Race since 1850. He lives with his family in Lexington, Kentucky.

january

272 pages . 7 figures . 2 tables . 6 x 9 inches

$55.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-467-8
$55.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-468-5

literary criticism

18 university of iowa press . fall

Larry D. Moore

The New American Canon

The Iowa Series in Contemporary Literature and Culture
Samuel Cohen, series editor

After the Program Era

The Past, Present, and Future of
Creative Writing in the University
edited by Loren Glass
with an afterword by Mark McGurl
The New American Canon
The Iowa Series in Contemporary Literature and Culture
Samuel Cohen, series editor
The publication in 2009 of Mark McGurls The Program Era Building on the achievement of Mark
provoked a sea change in the study of postwar literature. Even McGurls The Program Era,After the Program
though almost every English department in the United States Era is an outstanding collection of essays
housed some version of a creative writing program by the time that stages a vital and ongoing debate
of its publication, literary scholars had not previously considered about postwar American literature and the
that this institutional phenomenon was historically significant. university.Evan Brier, author, A Novel
McGurls groundbreaking book effectively established that the Marketplace: Mass Culture, the Book Trade,
rise of the creative writing program stands as the most important and Postwar American Fiction
event in postwar American literary history, forcing us to revise
our understanding not only of the relationship between higher Mark McGurls The Program Era made
education and literary production, but also of the periodizing ter- clear that it is impossible to understand
minology we had previously used to structure our understanding postwar literature without attending to
of twentieth-century literature.
institutions. Glass et al. take this insight
After the Program Era explores the consequences and implications, in important new directions, discussing
as well as the lacunae and liabilities, of McGurls foundational such disparate phenomena as the early
intervention. McGurl focuses only on American fiction and the twentieth-century precursors of the writtraditional MFA program, and this collection aims to expand and ing program, Cold War diplomacy, and
examine its insights in terms of other genres and sites. Postwar contemporary poetry readings. The case
poetry, in particular, has until now been neglected as a product of studies are compelling, and the volume as
the Program Era, even though it is, arguably, a purer example, a whole does the vital service of reminding
since poets now depend almost entirely on the patronage of the us how much work remains to be done.
university. Similarly, this collection looks beyond the traditional Andrew Hoberek, University of Missouri
MFA writing program to explore the prehistory of writing programs
in American universities, as well as alternatives to the traditionally
structured program that have emerged along the way.
Taken together, the essays in After the Program Era seek to answer
and explore many of these questions and continue the conversations McGurl only began.
Loren Glass is a professor of English at the University of Iowa, with
a joint appointment at the Center for the Book. He is the author
ofAuthors Inc.: Literary Celebrity in the Modern United States, 18801980
and Counter-Culture Colophon: Grove Press, the Evergreen Review, and the
Incorporation of the Avant-Garde. He lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

CONTRIBUTORS:
Seth Abramson, Greg Barnhisel, Eric Bennett, Matthew Blackwell,
Kelly Budruweit, Mike Chasar, Simon During, Donal Harris,
Michael Hill, Benjamin Kirbach, Sean McCann, Mark McGurl,
Marija Rieff, Juliana Spahr, Stephen Voyce, Stephanie Young

january

274 pages . 9 figures . 1 table . 6 x 9 inches

$35.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-439-5
$35.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-440-1

literary criticism

uiowapress.org 19

Stanton in Her Own Time

A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn
from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs
by Family, Friends, and Associates
edited by Noelle A. Baker

Noelle Baker has performed an invaluable service of original scholarship in this marvelous assembly of writings about Elizabeth Cady
Stanton by her contemporaries. Bakers work allows us both to illuminate Stantons contributions and at the same time to chart the
changing reception she received throughout the half-century of her
career.Ellen Carol DuBois, UCLA

Library of Congress

Writers in Their Own Time

Joel Myerson, series editor

Among nineteenth-century womens rights reformers, A valuable new teaching and research tool,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (18151902) stands out for the maternal Noelle Bakers Stanton in Her Own Time also
and secular advocacy that shaped her activism and public recep- provides a moving and nuanced portrait
tion. A wife and mother of seven, she was also a prolific writer, of an extraordinary American whose trials
transatlantic womens rights leader, popular lecturer, congres- and triumphs resound through the centusional candidate, canny historian, and freethought champion. Her ries to inspire and motivate us today.
lifelong interest in womens sexual and reproductive rights and late Megan Marshall, Pulitzer Prizewinning
efforts to reform institutional religion are as relevant to our time author, Margaret Fuller: A New American Life
as they were to her own.
Stantons professional life lasted a half-century, ranging from
antebellum womens rights organization and oratory, to a post
Civil War career as a lyceum lecturer, to a late-century role as an
incisive religious and cultural critic. Acutely aware of the medical,
religious, legal, and educational barriers to womens independence, she advocated for married womens right to vote, obtain a
divorce, gain custody of their children, and own property. As she
grew more radical over the years, she also demanded judicial reform, the separation of church and state, free love, progressive coeducational opportunities, and womens right to limit their fertility.
In this richly contextualized collection of primary sources,
Noelle A. Baker brings together accounts of Stantons life and
ideas from both well-known and recently recovered figures. From
the teacher chiding an assertive young woman to erstwhile allies
worrying about her growing radicalism, their voices paint a vivid
portrait of a woman of vaunting ambition, powerhouse intellect,
and her share of human failings.
An independent scholar living in Denver, Colorado, Noelle A. Baker
is the coeditor of The Almanacks of Mary Moody Emerson: A Scholarly
Digital Edition.

november

212 pages . 13 b&w photos . 1 drawing . 6 x 9 inches

$65.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-433-3
$65.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-434-0

biography / american history

20 university of iowa press . fall

Performing Whitely in the Postcolony

Afrikaners in South African Theatrical and Public Life
by Megan Lewis
Studies in Theatre History and Culture
Heather S. Nathans, series editor

What does it mean to perform whiteness in the postcolonial

era? To answer this questioncrucial for understanding the changing meanings of race in the twenty-first centuryMegan Lewis examines the ways that members of South Africas Afrikaner minority Pieter-Dirk Uys as Evita Bezuidenhout, at the Boere
Museum/Nauseum; courtesy of Pieter-Dirk Uys
have performed themselves into, around, and out of power from the
colonial period to the postcolony. The nations first European settlers and in the twentieth century the architects of apartheid, since This is an important book, rather over1994 Afrikaners have been citizens of a multicultural, multilingual due and commendable for its range and
democracy. How have they enacted their whiteness in the past, and depth of theoretical resourcefulness. It
how do they do so now?
would be a valuable teaching tool, as it
Performing Whitely examines the multiple speech acts, political aligns a range of thinkers who one would
acts, and theatrical acts of the Afrikaner volk or nation in theatri- not easily find so provocatively juxtacal and public life, including pageants, museum sites, film, and posed. The writing is clear and strong,
popular music as well as theatrical productions. Lewis explores the at times perhaps rather emphatic in its
diverse ways in which Afrikaners perform whitely, and the tactics sense of urgency.Yvette Hutchison,
they use, including nostalgia, melodrama, queering, abjection, author, South African Performance and
and kitsch. She first investigates the way that apartheids architects Archives of Memory
leveraged whiteness in support of their nation-building efforts in
the early twentieth century. She then turns to apartheid- and post- This interesting book engages with very
apartheidera performances, including those of Pieter-Dirk Uys, under-researched material, and also uses
whose alter ego Evita Bezuidenhout became the nations favorite excellent methodology. In such terms
brutally frank, queer Afrikaner aunty. Attracting huge crowds nos- it is an important study.Jane Taylor,
talgic for the past, Deon Opperman simultaneously depicts a heroic author, Ubu and the Truth Commission
Boer history in his musical melodramas and reflects upon the desire for it. By contrast, Peter Van Heerden performs visceral abjections of the iconic white, male Afrikaner body, and the musicians
Jack Parow and Die Antwoord turn Afrikaner history and identity
politics into kitsch. A case study of the South African experience,
Performing Whitely also offers parables for global whitenesses in
the postcolonial era.
Megan Lewis is assistant professor of theatre in the dramaturgy
program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She currently
lives and works in the Pioneer Valley of Amherst, Massachusetts.

december

272 pages . 29 b&w photos . 6 x 9 inches

$55.00s paper original, 978-1-60938-447-0
$55.00s e-book, 978-1-60938-448-7

theatre / performing arts

uiowapress.org 21

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uiowapress.org 23

 Index by Author
Baker, Noelle A. 20
Baker, Thomas R. 15
Dawson, Julie C. 17
Folsom, Ed 10
Glass, Loren 19
Hill, Lena M. 11
Hill, Michael D. 11
Hyde, Allegra M. 5

Laquintano, Timothy 2
Lehnertz, Rodney P. 1213
Lewis, Megan 21
Lutz, Tom 1
Merrill, Christopher 10
Morales, Alfonso 17
Mller, Mark 67
Oldshue, Robert 4

Opheim, Teresa 16
Roveto, Vanessa 8
Schweig, Sarah V. 9
Scott, John Beldon 1213
Simmons, Diane 3
VanDeWalle, Terry 14
Whitman, Walt 10
Young, John K. 18

Index by Title
After the Program Era 19
And the Monkey Learned Nothing 1
bodys 8
Cities of Farmers 17
The Courtship of Eva Eldridge 3
Fish In Your Pocket 14
The Future of Family Farms 16
How to Revise a True War Story 18
Invisible Hawkeyes 11
Mass Authorship and the Rise of Self-Publishing 2

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Second Edition 1213
The Wild Midwest 67

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