Two Temple University Press authors acknowledge their recent awards

Adia Harvey Wingfield, author of No More Invisible Man, received the Richard A. Lester Award for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations at Princeton University. The award is presented to the book making the most original and important contribution toward understanding the problems of industrial relations, labor market policies, and the evolution of labor markets.

I am very happy to receive the Richard A. Lester Award for the Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations published in 2013. Given by the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University, this important award “is presented to the book making the most original and important contribution toward understanding the problems of industrial relations and the evolution of labor markets.” As such, it is my pleasure and my honor to be a recipient.

While I am thrilled to receive this award, more credit and attention should go to the men who were the focus of this project. Part of what inspired me to conduct this study and ultimately write this book was the realization that black middle class professional men are largely absent from the literatures on race, gender, and work. Their unique experiences and the ways they are constructed by intersections of gender, race, and class often go unnoticed, particularly as academics and media instead choose to spotlight economically disadvantaged black men who all too frequently are underserved by existing social institutions. Black professional men’s work lives are frequently lumped into general studies of the black middle class or obscured by the focus on their more visible female counterparts. I thank the men of my study for sharing their lives with me and refusing to be the invisible men of years past.

Bindi Shah’s book Laotian Daughters received the Association for Asian American Studies’ Outstanding Book Award in the category Social Science.

I am absolutely delighted to accept this book award from the Association for Asian American Studies. The award is not only recognition of my scholarship in the book, but also of the shift in the discursive representations of young Laotian women from the children of Southeast Asian refugees to active citizens and a positive voice for change.

This book would not have been possible without the Asian Pacific Environmental Network’s early vision in building an Asian American face to the environmental justice movement, and without the participation of young Laotian women in APEN’s Asian Youth Advocates program. The teenagers’ spirit, perseverance and commitment to social justice in the face of adversity provided the inspiration to write a book that challenges dominant narratives of assimilation and incorporation.

I also want to thank two people associated with Temple University Press: Linda Võ, who as one of the series editors of Temple University Press’ Asian American History and Culture Series, believed in the book from the beginning, and Janet Francendese, who supported the project through all its stages.

 

Asian American History and Culture series adds a new editor

This week, we welcome Modeling Citizenship author Cathy Schlund-Vials to the Asian American History and Culture series editorial team.

Temple University Press is pleased to announce the addition of Cathy Schlund-Vials, Associate Professor of English and Asian/Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut-Storrs, to the Asian American History and Culture series editorial team. Schlund-Vials, whose book, Modeling Citizenship , was published by Temple University Press in 2011, joins current series editors David Palumbo-Liu, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ.

Võ, who is the incoming President of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS), acknowledged, “Cathy Schlund-Vials’ impressive academic accomplishments and publication record will make her an invaluable asset to the Asian American History and Culture  editorial team. The range of her expertise in twentieth-century U.S. literature, multi-ethnic literature, immigrant/refugee narratives, refugee cultural production, critical race theory, human rights, and comparative ethnic studies will be important as we identify emergent research that should be highlighted in the series.”

Võ also spoke about her plans for the AAAS. “Next year as we mark the 50-year anniversary of the 1965 Immigration Act and 40 years since the Vietnam War ended, it is important for the Association for Asian American Studies to reflect how both events transformed the cultural, economic, and political trajectory of this nation and its global connections. I intend to make the association a dynamic and inviting intellectual space that fosters innovative research and reimagines the possibilities for Asian American Studies and that also nurtures scholars and community members who are the foundation of our field.”

Saying she was honored to be affiliated with the Temple University Press series, Schlund-Vials highlighted how the Asian American History and Culture  series has been foundational to the discipline. “Since its inception, the series has in many ways not only been witness to the emergence of Asian American studies as a diverse field; it has been at the forefront of its growth as a provocative and productive site of inquiry.”

She also spoke to her plan to foster books for the cultural studies aspect of the series, “I hope to continue the capacious, constantly innovative vision of its founding editors and the press’s forethought with regard to Asian American studies as a viable, sustainable field.”

Temple University Press published the first two titles in the Asian American History and Culture  series — Entry Denied, by series founder Sucheng Chan and Cane Fires, by Gary Okihiro — in the spring of 1991. There are now 65 titles in the series. Under the guidance of Temple University Press Editor in Chief, Janet Francendese, and series editor Chan, the Asian American History and Culture  series focused on titles grounded in original research. The books in the series changed the notion that Temple’s Asian American titles simply added to its acquisitions in ethnic studies; they represented a commitment to an emerging academic field that has from the start been rooted in communities and unique experiences of race and ethnicity.

About the Series

Founded by Sucheng Chan in 1991, the Asian American History and Culture  series has sponsored innovative scholarship that has redefined, expanded, and advanced the field of Asian American studies while strengthening its links to related areas of scholarly inquiry and engaged critique. Like the field from which it emerged, the series remains rooted in the social sciences and humanities, encompassing multiple regions, formations, communities, and identities. Extending the vision of founding editor Sucheng Chan and emeritus editor Michael Omi, series editors David Palumbo-Liu, K. Scott Wong, Linda Trinh Võ, and Cathy Schlund-Vials continue to develop a foundational collection that embodies a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to Asian American studies.

Is gender stifling our scientific imaginations?

This week, we showcase Conceiving Masculinity author Liberty Walther Barnes’ recent TEDx talk at Cambridge University. 

Is Gender a Liquid or a Solid?

In sociology we like to say that gender is “flexible and fluid,” because gender norms change over time and across cultures.  Men and women can choose to enact, perform, and express masculinity and femininity in a variety of ways regardless of their sex chromosomes or anatomy.  Just as liquids take the shape of their containers, we can shape our gender identities to fit us.

While personal gender identities and expressions are malleable, the gender system that structures our social world has proven able to withstand some pretty impressive seismic shifts. As sociologists Cecilia Ridgeway and Shelley Correll explain, the gender system is a large apparatus that determines who gets access to resources and opportunities. The gender system – invisible yet ubiquitous – is solidly grounded in very traditional gender beliefs, which prevent the system from being toppled. Because gender beliefs are pervasive and durable, we might say gender is a solid.

Most of us agree that gender stereotypes are silly. We laugh when people break the “rules” of gender in TV sit-coms and films. In our everyday lives we feel free to break the rules of gender to accommodate our personal preferences and life goals. In other words, we appreciate the fluidity of gender.

While researching male infertility for my book, Conceiving Masculinity, I discovered that gender is a more powerful social category than most of us realize. Just how solid is gender? As I explain in my TEDx talk, when gender and science come crashing together, something’s gotta give. And it’s not gender.

Gender, it turns out, is a stronger, more solid, and more powerful social category than science. Whodathunkit? Science is rigorous and robust, defined by hard facts and well researched, evidence-based truths, right? If we had to categorize science as a liquid or a solid, we would certainly call it a solid.

However, gender beliefs shape science. How we think about men and women, masculinity and femininity, channels the direction of scientific thought and shapes medical practices. Sometimes society has a hard time accepting scientific truths when they are glaring us in the face, because we cling to gender ideology. Rather than reconsider our gender beliefs, we bend science to accommodate our timeworn gender beliefs.

Appreciating Philadelphia’s Mural Arts @ 30

In this blog entry, David Updike, co-editor of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts @ 30, offers his thoughts on the book and what he learned about Mural Arts along the way.

I think it’s safe to say that over the last thirty years, Philadelphia has become a city of murals. As you crisscross the city, you find them in just about every neighborhood, often where you’d least expect them. They’ve become a part of our landscape, and something that people here and elsewhere associate with Philadelphia. A lot of the credit for that goes to Jane Golden, because it wouldn’t have happened without her energy and her vision, but it also wouldn’t have been possible if the city itself hadn’t embraced the idea that public art matters. And it matters, not just because it improves our aesthetic environment, but more importantly, because it has a lasting impact on the people who participate in the process.

The Mural Arts offices are a buzzing hive of activity. In the hallways you pass a steady stream of people coming and going, to and from mural sites, or classes, or canvassing neighborhoods. And these are people who, to borrow an old phrase from Bill Clinton, look like Philadelphia. They’re young and old, they’re black, white, Asian, Hispanic. And they all carry themselves with a sense of purpose. In the gallery downstairs you’ll see exhibitions of art—some of it quite remarkable—made by everyone from elementary school students to inmates serving life sentences at Graterford. And then there’s the room upstairs with the very skylight under which Thomas Eakins painted The Gross Clinic. And I suspect that our city’s greatest painter, were he alive today, would approve of this populist endeavor, which seeks to embrace the city he loved in all of its aspects.

I’m very fortunate to work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one of our city’s other great cultural institutions. And it occurred to me as I started working on this book that, in a way, the Art Museum and the Mural Arts Program have opposite but entirely complementary missions. At the Museum we work very hard to get people to come to us and experience great art. But Mural Arts brings art to the people in the places where they live and work. And what Mural Arts brings to these communities is not a particular product or aesthetic. Rather, it’s a process of engagement and dialogue and co-creation that takes place over months and years, and whose effects remain long after the paint on the walls has dried.

This book seeks, above all else, to document what takes place off the walls. And really, this gets to the heart and soul of what Mural Arts does. Yes, it’s about transforming places, but mostly it’s about transforming people. We wanted to look at that process and its effects through many lenses, so we brought together a diverse group of authors from different disciplines—social sciences, public health, art education, restorative justice—to paint as broad a picture as possible of what a socially engaged art practice looks like, and what it can do, especially when it works in tandem with other organizations to address big issues like homelessness, youth violence, or urban blight.

In the book, Jeremy Nowack aptly refers to what happens in the course of creating a mural as a kind of “social contract” that arises between all of the stakeholders involved in a project—neighbors, business owners, community leaders, schools, artists. And the key word here is “stakeholders.” People feel a sense of investment and ownership in the murals. They take pride in them. They show them off to visitors. New stories and rituals grow up around them. People now ride the Market-Frankford El in West Philly just to see Steve Powers’ 50 Love Letters unfold. Inspired by the murals, couples have gotten engaged and even married on that 20-block stretch along Market Street.

Other stories around the murals are more painful, more challenging, but also rewarding in ways that aren’t necessarily visible to someone looking only at the end result. A particularly poignant example is James Burns’s Finding the Light Within, which took on the issue of youth suicide, not just with a very powerful and personal mural, but also with community meetings, writing workshops, collage workshops, and a participatory blog, all of which provided safe, supportive spaces in which survivors could share their stories. More than 800 people participated in those activities, and hopefully found some measure of healing in the process.

Elizabeth Thomas begins her essay with a provocative question: “Who makes culture?” In other words, Who decides what messages we see and read and hear? Whose stories count? Every day we’re bombarded by images and messages that tell us what we should wear, eat, drink, watch, listen to. But how often do we see our own struggles and achievements reflected in our environment, or our own stories projected into the public discourse? Socially engaged art practice has begun to address this problem of who gets represented—and who does the representing—in public culture. It’s happening in different ways in different cities around the country, but in Philadelphia its most visible proponent is the Mural Arts Program.

Much of the work that Mural Arts has done in recent years has sought to expand the definition of what a mural is and what it can do. For the mural project called Peace Is a Haiku Song, the poet Sonia Sanchez initiated what became, in essence, a citywide collaborative poem cycle. She began with a mental image of haiku by children hanging like cherry blossoms from the trees in Philadelphia. This evolved into an invitation to people of all ages to contribute poems in a series of community workshops and through a dedicated website. The poems didn’t end up hanging from the trees, but many of them ended up on posters around the city that were created by youth working with graphic designer Tony Smyrski.

The experience of seeing your own words and your own images projected into the world is an empowering one, especially for young people. As Cynthia Weiss points out, kids participating in mural projects often gain practical, real-world skills, like photography and graphic design. But they also gain a sense of agency that may be hard to come by elsewhere in their lives. And that type of experience can have a lasting impact on a person’s life in ways that we’re really only beginning to understand.

This is the essence of what Mural Arts does. It’s about creating situations in which people are drawn out of their everyday selves and both challenged and empowered to reach for something more. So while this book marks a milestone in the history of the Mural Arts Program, our hope is that it also points the way forward for others who want to use the power of art to change things for the better.

To listen to a podcast of David Updike and Jane Golden’s presentation at the Free Library of Philadelphia from March 26, click here: http://libwww.freelibrary.org/authorevents/podcast.cfm?podcastID=1216