Duke is doing a series of anthologies of Latin American countries and the latest release, scheduled for February 2009, is The Ecuador Reader: History, Culture Politics, edited by Carlos de la Torre and Steve Striffler. Duke does a whole series on Latin America, and Striffler was co-editor of their book Banana Wars: Power, Production and History in the Americas. The new book contains many Ecuadorian pieces translated into English for the first time. Of the previous books in the series, The Peru Reader has been reprinted in a second edition, and The Mexico Reader has sold the best. These are handy, well illustrated books that serve a real purpose. They are going to expand the series with some countries in Asia, like Indonesia, and also include readers on different Latin American cities.
Did anyone know that James Baldwin spent 10 years of his life, 1961 – 1971, living and hanging out in Turkey? James Baldwin’s Turkish Decade by Magdalena J. Zaborowska, a professor of American Culture at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, frames a literary biography of Baldwin, and re-introduces readers to an important part of Baldwin’s life. The book has 55 “stunning photographs,” to quote Harvard University’s Werner Sollors. “A small throwaway reference to Istanbul in Another Country now appears momentous.” Zaborowska interviewed many people who know Baldwin in Turkey, and she comes up with fresh material about artists and intellectuals who were in his inner circle. “Baldwin’s Turkish sojourns enabled him to re-imagine himself as a black queer writer and to revise his views of American identity …”
Anthropology is one of Duke’s strong areas of publishing, and a really interesting new book is High Stakes: Florida Seminole Gaming and Sovereignty, by Jessica R. Cattelino. It appears the Seminoles revolutionized the gaming industry when they opened their first casino in 1979. They made a lot of money and proceeded to take care of their own people with free health care and education, and to buy the Hard Rock Café franchise. This book is an accessible ethnography of the Seminole Tribe and their efforts at self-determination. It discusses the interplay between economics, political power and culture and how their renewed political self-governance and economic strength has reversed decades of U.S, settler control.
A book for all sports sections and the anthropology bookshelf would be The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and the Mexican National Identity by Heather Levi. This is an insider’s view of professional wrestling in Mexico. There are some great stories here. Duke did a previous book on professional wrestling called Steel Chair to the Head. Levi traces the history of wrestling in Mexico, starting with a match in Eagle Pass, TX in 1933, and explains in fascinating detail how this sport became an iconic symbol of Mexican cultural authenticity.
A pretty off-the-wall book, but none the less fascinating, is The Assassination of Theo Van Gogh, by Roy Eyerman. Van Gogh was a controversial Dutch filmmaker who was killed in the streets of Amsterdam in November 2004. A twenty-six year old Moroccan-Dutchman shot Van Gogh and proceeded to mutilate his body. He then pinned five-page indictment of Western society to his body. The murder set off a wave of anti-Muslim violence in the city. Eyerman, a professor of sociology at Yale University, uses what he calls social drama and cultural trauma theory to evaluate the reactions to and effects of the murder. In a highly theoretical argument he takes a performance studies approach to the event, and goes on to discuss its effects on the wider culture of the Netherlands. He relates it to significant events in Dutch history, such as the country’s treatment of the Jews in during the German occupation, and the failure for Dutch troops to protect Muslims in Srebrenica, Bosnia in 1995. There was a big trade book that came out about this event called Murder in Amsterdam, by New York Review of Books columnist Ian Buruma. This book adds another element to the mix.
Duke does film and TV studies, and a book about a cool Japanese director will come out in August: -- The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, by Catherine Russell. Russell is a professor of Cinema at Concordia University in Montreal, and she brings well-deserved critical attention to Mikio, the director of 89 films in Japan between1930 – 1967. He was known as a director of “women’s films,” and four of his films are available on DVD now (Russell wrote the liner notes). One of the films is called When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Criterion Collection). This book also sheds important new light on the Japanese studio system of the time.
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