Editor’s Note: The following books have been published by the U-M Press.
Discourses of Sexuality: From Aristotle to AIDS, edited by Domna C. Stanton, professor of Romance languages and of women’s studies. This is the first volume in the series RATIO: Institute for the Humanities.
In Discourses of Sexuality, 14 distinguished artists, critics and scholars examine sexuality from a fascinating array of perspectives, covering history, African American studies, women’s studies, gay and lesbian studies, the visual arts, philosophy, psychoanalysis, law, literature and anthropology.
Selected Poems by Lorna Goodison, author of five volumes of poetry and a book of short stories.
This Jamaican poet confronts the pain and celebrates the spirit of country people in language that slides effortlessly between the codes of standard English and Jamaican Creole. “There’s music in these pages … Goodison is a marvelous poet, one to savor and to chant aloud.”—Booklist.
Double Passage: The Lives of Caribbean Migrants Abroad and Back Home by George Gmelch, professor of anthropology and department chair, Union College.
Gmelch presents, in their own words, the lives and experiences of 13 men and women who emigrated from the island of Barbados to North America and Britain, and then returned home years later. They tell of their decisions to leave the familiarity and security of home for an uncertain future in cities of the industrial world, and explain what it is like to be Black and immigrant in the predominantly white societies in which they settled. “Clearly a sensitive interviewer,” writes Publishers Weekly.
For Whose Protection? Reproductive Hazards and Exclusionary Policies in the United States and Britain by Sally J. Kenney, assistant professor of political science and of women’s studies, University of Iowa.
In For Whose Protection? Kenney places current exclusionary policies in the historical context of protective legislation, exploring how prevailing perceptions about sex differences have been used to exclude women from jobs. She analyzes a number of sex discrimination cases brought against employers in both Britain and the United States. Drawing on interviews with activists, parties to litigation, lawyers and government officials, as well as traditional analyses of legal canons and legislative history, her study considers important moral, legal and public policy questions in the context of real women’s lives.
Suicides and Jazzers, by Hayden Carruth, poet and professor of English, Syracuse University. This is the latest volume in the U-M Press series Poets on Poetry. In Suicides and Jazzers, Carruth reveals as never before the hard experiences that have shaped his life and art. “To be frank,” begins Carruth’s opening essay, “…no topic in fifty years of writing has blocked me as thoroughly and persistently as this one, my own suicide.” He says he will not write an autobiography—he doesn’t trust them. This then, is the closest we will get to the story of a remarkable life.
