Temple University Press’s annual Holiday Book Sale

This week in North Philly Notes, we showcase our annual Holiday Book Sale, being held through December 1 from 11:00 am – 2:00 pm at the Event Space in Charles Library, 1900 N. 13th Street in Philadelphia, PA.

Meet Ray Didinger, author of Finished Business and The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions Edition December 1 from 11:00 am – 12:00 pm.

Gift Books and Philadelphia Interest Titles

Salut!: France Meets Philadelphia, by Lynn Miller and Therese Dolan

Salut! provides a magnifique history of Philadelphia seen through a particular cultural lens.

Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia, edited by Paul M. Farber and Ken Lum

Monument Lab energizes a civic dialogue about public art and history around what it means to be a Philadelphian.

Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China, by Jennifer Lin, with a foreword by Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin

A fabulous photo-rich oral history of a boundary-breaking series of concerts the orchestra performed under famed conductor Eugene Ormandy in China 50 years ago.

The Italian Legacy in Philadelphia: History, Culture, People, and Ideas, edited by Andrea Canepari and Judith Goode

Celebrates the history, impact, and legacy of this vibrant community, tracing four periods of key transformation in the city’s political, economic, and social structures.

BLAM! Black Lives Always Mattered!: Hidden African American Philadelphia of the Twentieth Century, by the Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection, Foreword by Lonnie G. Bunch III

The inspiring stories of 14 important Black Philadelphians in graphic novel form!

Real Philly History, Real Fast: Fascinating Facts and Interesting Oddities about the City’s Heroes and Historic Sites, by Jim Murphy

Philly history in bites that are as digestible as a soft pretzel with mustard!

Exploring Philly Nature: A Guide for All Four Seasons, by Bernard S. Brown, Illustrations by Samantha Wittchen

A handy guide to experiencing the flora and fauna in Philly, this compact illustrated volume contains 52 activities for discovering, observing, and learning more about the concrete jungle that is Philadelphia all year long!

Artists of Wyeth Country: Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, and Andrew Wyeth, by W. Barksdale Maynard

An unauthorized and unbiased biographical portrait of Andrew Wyeth that includes six in-depth walking and driving tours that allow readers to visit the places the Wyeths and Pyle painted in Chadds Ford, PA.

The Mouse Who Played Football, by Brian Westbrook Sr, and Lesley Van Arsdall, with illustrations by Mr. Tom.

An inspiring story, based on Westbrook’s own experiences, that encourages young readers to believe in themselves and make their unique differences their strengths.

Do Right By Me: Learning to Raise Black Children in White Spaces, by Valerie I. Harrison and Kathryn Peach D’Angelo

Through lively and intimate back-and-forth exchanges, the authors share information, research, and resources that orient parents and other community members to the ways race and racism will affect a black child’s life—and despite that, how to raise and nurture healthy and happy children. 

The Magic of Children’s Gardens: Inspiring Through Creative Design, by Lolly Tai, with a Foreword by Jane L. Taylor

Landscape architect Lolly Tai provides the primary goals, concepts, and key considerations for designing outdoor spaces that are attractive and suitable for children, especially in urban environments.

The Real Philadelphia Book, Second Edition, by Jazz Bridge

A collection of more than 200 original jazz and blues compositions, arranged alphabetically by song title, showcasing work by generations of Philadelphia musicians.

Listen Up! Temple University Press Podcast, Episode 6: Billy Brown on Exploring Philly Nature

This week in North Philly Notes, we debut the latest episode of the Temple University Press Podcast. Host Sam Cohn interviews author Bernard “Billy” Brown about his book, Exploring Philly Nature: A Guide for All Four Seasons, which provides a handy guide for all ages to Philly’s urban plants, animals, fungi, and—yes—even slime molds.

The Temple University Press Podcast is where you can hear about all the books you’ll want to read next.

Click here to listen

The Temple University Press Podcast is available wherever you find your podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Overcast, among other outlets.

About this episode

Bernard “Billy” Brown is a nature writer and urban herper—that’s someone who recreationally seeks out reptiles and amphibians. In this episode, he talks with podcaster Sam Cohn about his new book, Exploring Philly Nature, a guide to experiencing the flora and fauna in Philly.

This compact illustrated volume contains 52 activities from birding, (squirrel) fishing, and basement bug-hunting to joining a frog call survey and visiting a mussel hatchery. Brown encourages kids (as well as their parents) to connect with the natural world close to home. Each entry contains information on where and when to participate, what you will need (even if it is only patience), and tips on clubs and organizations to contact for access.

The city and its environs contain a multitude of species from the lichen that grows on gravestones or trees to nocturnal animals like opossums, bats, and raccoons. Exploring Philly Nature is designed to get readers eager to discover, observe, and learn more about the concrete jungle that is Philadelphia.

Going snake hunting in Philly—and finding snails

This week in North Philly Notes, urban herper Billy Brown, author of Exploring Philadelphia Nature, recounts his adventures in the concrete jungle and how enjoying the beauty of the natural world can be full of delights and surprises.

I couldn’t find a brown snake (Storeria dekayi) right away, and it was starting to stress me out. The railroad embankment by the Northeast Water Pollution Control Plant looked perfect: waist-high mugwort and other weeds with the usual assortment of trash that gets dumped in out-of-mind corners of the city. I was planning to return later in the day with a group that had signed up for a nature-themed bike ride. My M.O. for guiding nature excursions is to capture common critters like brown snakes (small, tan, harmless snakes that eat worms and slugs) along the route ahead of time. If the participants don’t manage to find anything themselves, at least I can show them the one I found and then release it. Brown snakes are the most widespread and abundant snake in urban Philadelphia, easily found in gardens, vacant lots, cemeteries—basically anywhere you’ve got more than a couple square yards of vegetation. Everywhere, that was, except where I needed to find them that morning.

I waded through the weeds and lifted everything I could find—old boards, chunks of concrete, parts of furniture. What I was finding, instead of brown snakes, were beautiful yellow and brown snails.

I didn’t recognize them. As far as their shape, there were as basic a snail as you could imagine: a round spiral shell about as wide as a quarter, but what dazzled me was their patterns. No one was like another. Some were plain brown. Others were yellow with one or more dark stripes following the spiral of the shell all the way in.

Eventually, I did find a brown snake under part of a discarded file cabinet and tucked it into a jar for later, but I made a mental note to look up the snails.

It turns out they were grove snails (a.k.a. brown lipped snails or Cepaea nemoralis), a European species that humans have spread to North America. iNaturalist records show they are not uncommon in Philadelphia, yet, somehow I had missed them. Had I just simply not crossed paths with them before? Or, had I ignored them when they weren’t what I was looking for?

The grove snails were a hit for the cyclists and a great launching point for discussing the nature of waste spaces. Too often we ignore weedy railroad embankments as sites to connect with nature the way we might in proper parks. With a little attention, though, they can become outdoor classrooms as well as places to enjoy the beauty of the natural world.

Learning about the natural world can be stimulating in a purely intellectual or academic sense, but it can also open doors to visceral experience. You learn about a new creature, like the grove snail, and you feel something special when you find it. The world isn’t just a background to the routines of your life. It becomes a little more joyful, a little more wonderful, little by little, snail by snail.

A couple years later, I dragged my daughter along on a trip to check out some five-lined skinks that had been reported on an old stone wall in a park in Northeast Philadelphia. Although five-lined skinks are native to the area, these days they seem to only live in old, overgrown industrial sites along the Delaware River. My daughter was not thrilled to be there as her dad did something boring. I told her it would just take a minute to look for the lizards.

We didn’t find any skinks, but grove snails were everywhere. We found them in damp crevices between the stones or under rocks at the base of the wall, and each one was new and beautiful in its own way. We spent much longer than the promised minute, but I wasn’t complaining.

Announcing Temple University Press’ Spring 2022 Catalog

This week in North Philly Notes, we are pleased to present our forthcoming Spring 2022 titles (in alphabetical order).

Africana Studies: Theoretical Futures, edited by Grant Farred
A provocative collection committed to keeping the dynamism of the Africana Studies discipline alive

Beethoven in Beijing: Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China, by Jennifer Lin, with a foreword by Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin

An eye-opening account of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s unprecedented 1973 visit to the People’s Republic of China

Before Crips: Fussin’, Cussin’, and Discussin’ among South Los Angeles Juvenile Gangs, by John C. Quicker and Akil S. Batani-Khalfani

A historical analysis of South Los Angeles juvenile gang life as revealed by those who were there

Elusive Kinship: Disability and Human Rights in Postcolonial Literature, by Christopher Krentz

Why disabled characters are integral to novels of the global South

Ethical Encounters: Transnational Feminism, Human Rights, and War Cinema in Bangladesh, by Elora Halim Chowdhury

Illuminates how visual practices of recollecting violent legacies in Bangladeshi cinema can generate possibilities for gender justice

Exploring Philly Nature: A Guide for All Four Seasons, by Bernard S. Brown, Illustrations by Samantha Wittchen

A handy guide for all ages to Philly’s urban plants, animals, fungi, and—yes—even slime molds

If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress: Black Politics in Twentieth-Century Philadelphia, edited by James Wolfinger, with a Foreword by Heather Ann Thompson

Highlighting the creativity, tenacity, and discipline displayed by Black activists in Philadelphia

It Was Always a Choice: Picking Up the Baton of Athlete Activism, by David Steele

Examining American athletes’ activism for racial and social justice, on and off the field

Just Care: Messy Entanglements of Disability, Dependency, and Desire, by Akemi Nishida

How care is both socially oppressive and a way that marginalized communities can fight for social justice

Letting Play Bloom: Designing Nature-Based Risky Play for Children, by Lolly Tai, with a foreword by Teri Hendy

Exploring innovative, inspiring, and creative ideas for designing children’s play spaces

Loving Orphaned Space: The Art and Science of Belonging to Earth, by Mrill Ingram

Providing a new vision for the ignored and abused spaces around us

Model Machines: A History of the Asian as Automaton, by Long T. Bui

A study of the stereotype and representation of Asians as robotic machines through history

Public Schools, Private Governance: Education Reform and Democracy in New Orleans, by J. Celeste Lay

A comprehensive examination of education reforms and their political effects on Black and poor public-school parents in New Orleans, pre- and post-Katrina

Regarding Animals, Second Edition, by Arnold Arluke, Clinton R. Sanders, and Leslie Irvine

A new edition of an award-winning book that examines how people live with contradictory attitudes toward animals

School Zone: A Problem Analysis of Student Offending and Victimization, by Pamela Wilcox, Graham C. Ousey, and Marie Skubak Tillyer

Why some school environments are more conducive to crime than safety

Warring Genealogies: Race, Kinship, and the Korean War, by Joo Ok Kim

Examines the racial legacies of the Korean War through Chicano/a cultural production and U.S. archives of white supremacy

Water Thicker Than Blood: A Memoir of a Post-Internment Childhood, by George Uba

An evocative yet unsparing examination of the damaging effects of post-internment ideologies of acceptance and belonging experienced by a Japanese American family

What Workers Say: Decades of Struggle and How to Make Real Opportunity Now, by Roberta Rehner Iversen

Voices from the labor market on the chronic lack of advancement

University Press Week Blog Tour: Manifesto

University Press Week is November 8-12. The UP Blog Tour will feature entries all week long that celebrate this year’s theme, “Keep UP.” This year marks the 10th anniversary of UP Week, and the university press community will celebrate how university presses have evolved over the past decade. 

 

Honoring today’s theme of Manifesto, we provide a brief history of Temple University Press and how it is has evolved over more than 50 years.

On the occasion of the founding of Temple University Press in 1969, Director Maurice English composed the following lines:

At a time when universities are under assault
from the outside and from within
from the forces of repression and from those of confrontation,

The creation of a new university press is an event.
It is a notable event when the new press bears the name
of Temple University
and is therefore meeting a double challenge—

To fulfill its original commitment to urban education,
and simultaneously to foster
that passion of inquiry
which is the essence of scholarship.

For that passion, in the end, determines what men truly know
and therefore how they will act,
if they act well.

Over the subsequent decades, Temple University Press has continued to complement the University’s commitment to urban education English described by publishing more than 2000 titles for scholarly and regional audiences.

In April 1969, nearly 18 months after its approval by the Board of Trustees, the Press was formally established, with Maurice English as its Director. English came to Temple from the University of Chicago Press, where he had been senior editor.

University President Paul Anderson, in consultation with the faculty and the deans, appointed the first Board of Review, responsible for evaluating manuscripts for proposed publication by the Press and upholding a high standard of scholarship.

Temple’s earliest books were tied to the activities of faculty members. The first title put out by the new Press was Marxism and Radical Religion: Essays Toward a Revolutionary Humanism (1970), edited by John C. Raines and Thomas Dean, assistant professors in the Religion Department, who revised the papers presented at a symposium held at Temple on the same subject. Raines continued his relationship with the Press for a number of years, serving as a member of the Board of Review.

Other titles from the first year included Charles Darwin: The Years of Controversy; The Origin of Species and its Critics, 1859-1882 (1970) by Peter J. Vorzimmer, a professor in the Department of History; and Gandhi, India and the World: An International Symposium (1970), edited with an introduction by Sibnarayan Ray, based on another symposium held at Temple.

The productivity of the Press and the quality of its publications did not go unnoticed by its peers; Temple’s rising status was acknowledged when it was elected to full membership in the Association of American University Presses, now the Association of University Presses, in 1972, its first year of eligibility.

David M. Bartlett succeeded English as Director in 1976.  During his tenure, the Press expanded its list and settled into the publishing areas that have come to define its identity.

In keeping with Temple’s mission as a center for urban education, the Press also focused its acquisitions on urban studies and other allied fields, although it did not limit its editorial program to the social sciences. The Press also published in world literature and communications and continued to complement the University’s role as a Philadelphia institution by building a strong list of regional titles.

During the tenures of Directors Lois Patton (1999-2002) and Alex Holzman (2003-2014), the Press’s reporting line shifted from the Provost to the University Library, with the goal of developing joint projects and raising the profile of the Press on campus and in the region.

The Press continues to enjoy this relationship with the Library under Director Mary Rose Muccie, who was hired in 2014. Muccie’s knowledge of electronic and open access publishing helped launch North Broad Press, a joint publishing imprint between the Press and Library. Publishing open textbooks from members of the University community, North Broad Press published its first title, Structural Analysis by Felix Udoeyo, in 2019, and has since published two additional titles.

Muccie was at the helm as the Press returned to publishing journals. The first, Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies, edited by Press author George Lipsitz, launched in 2014 and publishes biannually on behalf of the University of California Santa Barbara’s Center for Black Studies Research. The open-access journal Commonwealth: A Journal of Pennsylvania Politics and Policy, published in partnership with the Pennsylvania Political Science Association, soon followed.

Current Editor-in-Chief Aaron Javsicas continues to broaden the scope of the Press’s list of regional titles, and has launched several new series, including The Political Lessons from American Cities, edited by Richardson Dilworth, which publishes short books on major American cities and the  lessons each offers to the study of American politics. Editor Ryan Mulligan has introduced Studies in Transgressions, which publishes books at the crossroad of sociology and critical criminology, and Shaun Vigil, the latest editorial hire, has expanded the Press lists in ethnic and disability studies.

Temple’s current list reflects the traditional commitments of the University, the changing terrain of contemporary scholarship, and the shifting realities of the publishing industry. As a child of the 1960s, Temple was quick to recognize the scholarly value and social importance of women’s studies, ethnic studies, and the study of race. The Press has published several notable titles by many of the key figures in these disciplines. Temple’s chair of the Africology and African American Studies department Molefi Asante authored the groundbreaking book The Afrocentric Idea (1987), which was heralded by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Temple was also one of the first presses to become active in the field when it published Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and their Social Context (1982) by Elaine Kim. Under the supervision of then Editor-in-Chief Janet Francendese, Temple launched the groundbreaking book series Asian American History and Culture.

The Press enjoyed tremendous success with the publication of the first edition of The Eagles Encyclopedia (2005), by Ray Didinger and Robert S. Lyons. The book was an instant best seller and generated two subsequent editions, The New Eagles Encyclopedia (2014) and The Eagles Encyclopedia: Champions Edition (2018).

In addition, Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell (2002), More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell (2006), and Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30 (2014) established the Press’s relationship with Mural Arts Philadelphia.  The relationship continued with the publication of Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia (2019).

Other Press best sellers include Olympic gold medalist Tommie Smith’s autobiography, Silent Gesture (2008); Envisioning Emancipation (2013) which won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Non-Fiction and was a Top 25 Choice Outstanding Academic Title; Frankie Manning, a memoir by the famed Lindy hopper (2007); and The Audacity of Hoop (2015), tracking the role of basketball in the life and presidency of Barack Obama.

Temple earned the support of city government, Philadelphia public schools, and area corporations in producing P Is for Philadelphia (2005), a richly illustrated book featuring student art about various aspects of life in the Philadelphia region, from A to Z. The project promoted literacy and civic pride and raised public awareness of the Press and the University as integral parts of the community.

Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America (2010), chronicling the first American civil rights movement, is one of many Press titles on both African American history and social justice. The book, by Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin, was reissued as a paperback in 2017, in conjunction with the unveiling of a new statue commemorating Catto, the first statue on Philadelphia public property to recognize a specific African American.

The Man-Not (2017), by Tommy Curry, which introduced the conceptual foundations for Black Male Studies, was a crossover success, winning the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award and inaugurating Curry’s Black Male Studies series.

In 2019, the Press showcased its relationship with the University with Color Me…Cherry & White: A Temple University Press Coloring Book. The 60-page coloring book features more than twenty iconic Temple University landmarks and is a keepsake for the Temple community worldwide.

More than fifty years from its founding, Temple University Press continues to thrive, pursuing its mission as a prominent voice for socially engaged scholarship and a leading publisher of books that matter to readers in Philadelphia and beyond.

Animal safety in tumultuous times

This week in North Philly Notes, Sarah DeYoung and Ashley Farmer, authors of All Creatures Safe and Sound, write about animal issues in disasters.

When the Surfside Condo collapsed in Miami, Florida last month, people and animals perished. For days and weeks, some residents anxiously awaited news about their relatives, loved ones, and pets. National news fixated on the fate of the people and their companion animals. In one instance, an animal advocate requested an emergency petition to halt the demolition of the building because of possible remaining pets. Her request was denied, and responders reported that no pets were found when they searched the structure that remained.

Other news stories centered on joyful stories of reunification—such as the one of Binx the cat who lived on the ninth floor of the condo. Binx was found alive by a volunteer and reunited with his family. Meanwhile, throughout all the stories, groups circulated information and pleas for help on social media. Sometimes the social media information about animals in the condo collapse conflicted with official information from responders and emergency managers. All these issues—conflicting information, petitions, search efforts, and emotional appeals are common for animal issues in disasters.

In data from our recent book All Creatures Safe and Sound, we found that many disasters are wrought with some degree of tension between animal welfare organizations and emergency or government response agencies. While some of these tensions are amplified by social media, misinformation, or other aspects of the overall communication in the crisis event—there are also actual differences in the ways animal welfare organizations and emergency management address animal issues. After the devastating 2018 Camp Fire in California, residents and organizations lamented over the confusing information, timeline, and protocols for retrieving animals that were stranded behind the fire line. Many animals survived the fire, and ad hoc volunteers and others worked to make sure that the animals received food and water during the weeks-long prohibitory orders barring residents from re-entering. People were still waiting to reunite with their companion animals weeks after the fire and the search for information was confusing and cumbersome. Many residents had to visit multiple websites or physical locations to gather information about lost pets—all while dealing with displacement, trauma, and seeking disaster assistance.

Similarly, in the Hawaii lava flows of 2018 that prompted the evacuation of approximately 2,000 households, many people felt that the agencies in charge of response did not display empathy or render appropriate levels of assistance for animal welfare and concerns about animals. Of course, safety is paramount. People could be injured or worse if they attempt to retrieve their animals in an active lava flow area—or in the case of the Surfside collapse, a structurally unsound building. However, to assuage the concerns of residents, animal welfare organizations, and others, drone footage, information about location of the physical sweeps, and other details should be made available in one central location. Transparency and communication will build trust with community members and between agencies.

As disasters are becoming more frequent, we urge agencies responding to and managing disasters to view companion animal well-being as linked with human well-being. This means that the goals of keeping people and their pets safe are not competing interests, despite the complexities that may arise in crisis scenarios. We also argue that risk communication can harness the power of attachment that people have with animals to bolster overall community well-being. A few years ago, a meme circulated on social media that read, “Don’t drink and drive, your dog won’t understand why you never came home.” The same approach might be effective for other public health outreach messages. For example, the possibility of a pet losing their human to COVID might very well just be enough cause some hesitant individuals to decide to get the COVID vaccine.

As for the responders, survivors, animals, and others involved in the Surfside Condo collapse, our research also indicates that there will be lasting trauma from this event. People who engaged in body recovery should be screened for PTSD—and this may include volunteers who were also focused on animal rescue. People who lived in the condo who were unable to evacuate with their animals may experience lasting feelings of remorse, guilt, or other emotions. In past disasters, we found this to be a common theme for other disaster survivors who were unable to locate their pet after a fire or flood. While it’s impossible to moderate all news stories and social media posts about the animal angles in this and other events—it is important to consider the nuance that people may have unintentionally left their pets behind because the disaster happened so quickly. Once again, this acknowledgement can reduce shaming or blaming after the event.

We hope these harm reduction approaches through using social and behavioral science will spark new framings, conversations, and possibly even new policies regarding pets in disasters.

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Examining our fraught relationship with food

This week in North Philly Notes, Jeffrey Haydu, author of Upsetting Food, writes about how food is ethically identified—and why that matters.

On May 28, 2021, the New York Times reported a lawsuit against Vital Farms. Plaintiffs charged that Vital Farms misled consumers by advertising its eggs as, “‘delicious, ethical food you don’t have to question.'” Three years earlier, a leading proponent of alternative agriculture, The Cornucopia Institute, rounded up different egg labels (ranging from “All Natural” to “Omega-3”). Of eleven examined, the Institute found five to be meaningless, misleading or “seriously flawed.”

These disputes testify to our fraught relationship with food. Concerns about the safety, nutritional value, and ethical virtues of what we eat are pervasive. Increasingly, consumers rely on third-party programs to certify a food as “good,” whether for body or soul, local community or planet. Upsetting Food: Three Eras of Food Protest in the United States, shows that such doubts about commercial food date back to the early 19th century. But the ways in which conscientious consumers sought to resolve those doubts have changed. Consumers have looked to quite different markers of trustworthy food from one era to another.

In the 1830s, Sylvester Graham warned his followers of the dangers of meat, commercial bread, and spices. What were the hallmarks of trustworthy foods? Those sanctified by the Bible, but also those prepared at home with the loving hands of wives and mothers. Such food, wrapped in piety, family, and tradition, was good for the body. It also met ethical goals by quieting men’s and women’s baser impulses.

Food reformers of the 1890s and 1900s voiced some similar concerns over suspect bread, contaminated meat, “unnatural” preservatives, and adulterated beverages. In this era, however, consumers were told to trust food that had been vetted by the federal government; that conformed to the new science of nutrition; and that had been prepared in modern, “hygienic” factories. Here too, more than health was at stake. The new regulatory and educational regime would restore honesty to markets and expertise to tradition-bound homemakers.

In the 1960s, some additional concerns emerged: “artificial” foods and pesticides joined fluffy white bread and preservatives on the list of anxieties. But now, food untainted by modern technology and nutritional science—”natural” food—represented the gold standard. And food acquired through alternative institutions like small farms, natural food stores, and neighborhood co-ops was deemed more reliable. By patronizing these alternatives, moreover, consumers were joining a virtuous conspiracy against Big Ag, corporate capital, and a servile state.

These differences among the three eras mostly reflect the larger movement cultures in which food reformers moved. Graham applied to diet a more general evangelical template for social uplift, one already in use to address the problems of slavery, intemperance, and “fallen women.” Proponents of pure food legislation and nutritional science applied to food the standard Progressive playbook: modern science can identify solutions for social ills, and government regulation can implement those solutions. Early organic advocates shared with a wider counterculture a deep suspicion of organized politics and modern technology. They shared, too, its belief that by living our lives differently we could bit by bit build a better society. Nowadays, many activists retain doubts about government as a lever for change. And partly for that reason, we have more faith in our ability to achieve social justice through concerted consumer choices. For a better food system, vote with your fork!

But there is more to the story than that. Upsetting Food also shows how reformers’ ideals of trustworthy food built on—or deliberately repudiated—the efforts of their predecessors. Progressive reformers were deeply skeptical of religion and tradition as guides to social practices, whether in managing factories or cooking food. Early organic advocates, in turn, explicitly rejected modern science and government—the Progressive stalwarts—for being little more than shills for big business. And contemporary food reformers are often guided by the perceived failures of the organic movement. Its eventual embrace of minimalist government standards and its cooptation by large food companies, we hear, doomed organic as a genuinely alternative food system. Hence the appeal both of labels less easily coopted by global corporations (“local”) and of third-party certifiers (Non-GMO Project, Certified C.L.E.A.N.) who, we hope, can themselves be trusted. And thus the outrage (channeled through legal action) when the virtues proclaimed by labels (“delicious, ethical food”) prove illusory.

Celebrating the Magic of Children’s Gardens

This week in North Philly Notes, Lolly Tai, author of The Magic of Children’s Gardens, explains why spring is a great time to visit Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library and the Magic of Enchanted Woods.

Great news! Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is open during the pandemic. It is a gorgeous garden to visit year-round, but springtime is particularly spectacular. Children and families have the opportunity to come visit and enjoy the beautiful landscape filled with vast breathtaking swaths of colorful plantings. The splendor of seasonal color, texture, and fragrance is part of the experience while strolling through the garden.

Every year, I look forward to visiting Winterthur and exploring Enchanted Woods, the fairy tale children’s garden there. It is my favorite children’s garden and is featured in The Magic of Children’s Gardens. At Enchanted Woods, children can have fun discovering the enchantment in the landscape while engaging in creative and active play. The Faerie Cottage, Acorn Tearoom, Tulip Tree House, Bird’s Nest, Fairy Flower Labyrinth, Forbidden Fairy Ring, Story Stones, Gathering Green, Watering Trough and Frog Hollow are some of the elements of enchantment!  

Something new is always happening at Enchanted Woods! The Bird’s Nest has been refreshed and rewoven with new branches and vines and its wooden eggs are ready to be discovered inside. The Faerie Cottage, Tulip Tree House, and Acorn Tea Room are adorned with charming children’s furniture with whimsical squirrel- and acorn motif perfect for playing make believe. Under the Troll Bridge are hidden “treasures” that are waiting to be found. Behind the Rhododendron shrubs is a giant-sized Green Man’s Lair to be discovered. 

Visitors can enjoy a skip along the Fairy Flower Labyrinth with terrific views of the magnolias in the Sundial Garden.  They can step into the Forbidden Fairy Ring and experience the surprise of the fog filled mushroom ring. They can swing on the Gathering Green benches or dance around the Maypole among the tiny daffodils planted there. 

Spring ephemerals such as daffodils (Narcissus species), Siberian squill (Scilla siberica), and glory of the snow (Chionodoxa species) are blooming in Enchanted Woods, as well as hellebores. In the adjacent Sundial Garden, the magnolias and flowering quince are blooming. In the greater garden, Italian windflowers and bloodroot are carpeting the woodland floors in blue and white while hellebores, winterhazels, cherries, forsythia, and pieris, are blooming. The daffodils are starting with peak flowering a few weeks away. There are over 500,000 daffodils. It is really a great time to visit!

Check out the bloom reports for Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library at http://gardenblog.winterthur.org/. 

Winterthur Museum, Garden and Library is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00am to 5:00pm. It is located at 5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur, DE 19735. For more information, visit http://www.winterthur.org/.

Celebrating Earth Day

This week in North Philly Notes, we celebrate Earth Day with a handful of recent Temple University Press titles about nature and the environment.

In Defense of Public Lands: The Case against Privatization and Transfer, by Steven Davis
Debates continue to rage over the merits or flaws of public land and whether or not it should be privatized—or at least radically reconfigured in some way. In Defense of Public Lands offers a comprehensive refutation of the market-oriented arguments. Steven Davis passionately advocates that public land ought to remain firmly in the public’s hands. He briefly lays out the history and characteristics of public lands at the local, state, and federal levels while examining the numerous policy prescriptions for their privatization or, in the case of federal lands, transfer. He considers the dimensions of environmental health; markets and valuation of public land, the tensions between collective values and individual preferences, the nature and performance of bureaucratic management, and the legitimacy of interest groups and community decision-making. Offering a fair, good faith overview of the privatizers’ best arguments before refuting them, this timely book contemplates both the immediate and long-term future of our public lands.

Sinking Chicago: Climate Change and the Remaking of a Flood-Prone Environment, by Harold L. Platt
In Sinking Chicago, Harold Platt shows how people responded to climate change in one American city over a hundred-and-fifty-year period. During a long dry spell before 1945, city residents lost sight of the connections between land use, flood control, and water quality. Then, a combination of suburban sprawl and a wet period of extreme weather events created damaging runoff surges that sank Chicago and contaminated drinking supplies with raw sewage. Chicagoans had to learn how to remake a city built on a prairie wetland. They organized a grassroots movement to protect the six river watersheds in the semi-sacred forest preserves from being turned into open sewers, like the Chicago River. The politics of outdoor recreation clashed with the politics of water management. Platt charts a growing constituency of citizens who fought a corrupt political machine to reclaim the region’s waterways and Lake Michigan as a single eco-system. Environmentalists contested policymakers’ heroic, big-technology approaches with small-scale solutions for a flood-prone environment. Sinking Chicago lays out a roadmap to future planning outcomes.

Gone Goose: The Remaking of an American Town in the Age of Climate Change, by Braden T. Leap

Sumner, MO, pop. 102, near the Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge, proclaims itself “The Wild Goose Capital of the World.” It even displays Maxie, the World’s largest goose: a 40-foot tall fiberglass statue with a wingspan stretching more than 60 feet. But while the 200,000 Canada geese that spent their falls and winters at Swan Lake helped generate millions of dollars for the local economy—with hunting and the annual Goose Festival—climate change, as well as environmental and land use issues, have caused the birds to disappear. The economic loss of the geese and the activities they inspired served as key building blocks in the rural identities residents had developed and treasured. In his timely and topical book, Gone Goose, Braden Leap observes how members of this rural town adapted, reorganized, and reinvented themselves in the wake of climate change—and how they continued to cultivate respect and belonging in their community. Leap conducted interviews with residents and participated in various community events to explore how they reimagine their relationships with each other as well as their community’s relationship with the environment, even as they wish the geese would return.

Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture: The Educational Legacy of Lewis Mumford and Ian McHarg, by William J. Cohen

Lewis Mumford, one of the most respected public intellectuals of the twentieth century, speaking at a conference on the future environments of North America, said, “In order to secure human survival we must transition from a technological culture to an ecological culture.” In Ecohumanism and the Ecological Culture, William Cohen shows how Mumford’s conception of an educational philosophy was enacted by Mumford’s mentee, Ian McHarg, the renowned landscape architect and regional planner at the University of Pennsylvania. McHarg advanced a new way to achieve an ecological culture―through an educational curriculum based on fusing ecohumanism to the planning and design disciplines. Cohen explores Mumford’s important vision of ecohumanism—a synthesis of natural systems ecology with the myriad dimensions of human systems, or human ecology―and how McHarg actually formulated and made that vision happen. He considers the emergence of alternative energy systems and new approaches to planning and community development to achieve these goals.

Latinx Environmentalisms: Place, Justice, and the Decolonial, Edited by Sarah D. Wald, David J. Vázquez, Priscilla Solis Ybarra, and Sarah Jaquette Ray.
The whiteness of mainstream environmentalism often fails to account for the richness and variety of Latinx environmental thought. Building on insights of environmental justice scholarship as well as critical race and ethnic studies, the editors and contributors to Latinx Environmentalisms map the ways Latinx cultural texts integrate environmental concerns with questions of social and political justice. Original interviews with creative writers, including Cherríe Moraga, Helena María Viramontes, and Héctor Tobar, as well as new essays by noted scholars of Latinx literature and culture, show how Latinx authors and cultural producers express environmental concerns in their work. These chapters, which focus on film, visual art, and literature—and engage in fields such as disability studies, animal studies, and queer studies—emphasize the role of racial capitalism in shaping human relationships to the more-than-human world and reveal a vibrant tradition of Latinx decolonial environmentalism. Latinx Environmentalisms accounts for the ways Latinx cultures are environmental, but often do not assume the mantle of “environmentalism.”

The Winterthur Garden Guide: Color for Every Season, by Linda Eirhart
Intended as a guide for the everyday gardener, The Winterthur Garden Guide offers practical advice—season by season—for achieving the succession of bloom developed by Henry Francis du Pont in his garden. This handy book highlights the design principles that guided du Pont and introduces practical flowers, shrubs, and trees that have stood the test of time—native and non-native, common as well as unusual. Lavishly illustrated, with new color photography, this handbook features close-ups of individual plants as well as sweeping vistas throughout. Whether addressing the early color combinations of the March Bank, the splendor of Azalea Woods, or the more intimate confines of the Quarry Garden, The Winterthur Garden Guide presents the essential elements of each plant, including common and botanical names; family origins and associations; size, soil, and light needs; bloom times; and zone preferences—everything the gardener needs to know for planning and replicating the “Winterthur look” on any scale.

Temple University Press’s Annual Holiday Give and Get

This week in North Philly Notes, the staff at Temple University Press suggest the Temple University Press books they would give along with some non-Temple University Press titles they hope to read and receive this holiday season. 

Mary Rose Muccie, Director

Give: My family is full of Philadelphia sports fans, so there are two recent Press titles that make perfect gifts for them. Stan Hochman Unfiltered, edited by Gloria Hochman, contains almost 100 Philadelphia Daily News columns by the late sportswriter.  Columns by another late Daily News sportswriter, Phil Jasner, are collected by his son Andy in Phil Jasner “On the Case”. Jasner covered the 76ers for almost 30 years, while Hochman’s columns cover all sports. Both collections are great reads and capture Philly sports hits and misses, many of which fans will never forget.

Get: I already gifted myself and have recommended to numerous friends Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill. In it, Farrow details his investigation into Harvey Weinstein and the lengths powerful men went to to cover it up, as well as the intimidation tactics used against him as he dug for the truth.  It’s a riveting account of the ways money and power were used to protect predators and silence women, and the strength and courage of those women as they stood against it.

Karen Baker, Associate Director, Financial Manager
Give: I would like to give Contested Image by Laura Holzman because my family is from Philadelphia and was always very interested in art and the local museums.

Get: I would like to receive I’m a Good Dog: Pit Bulls, America’s Most Beautiful (and Misunderstood) Pet, because I have a pit bull, and while I know how great they are, I would like to read the stories of others and all of their inspirational stories.

Ashley Petrucci, Rights and Contracts Coordinator and Editorial Assistant

Give: Invisible People: Stories of Lives at the Margins by Alex Tizon and edited by Sam Howe Verhovek: Like many others, I saw “My Family’s Slave” from The Atlantic shared on Reddit back in 2017 and found Lola’s tale so compelling that I made sure to pass the article along to several friends.  Working on this book a little over a year later was such a pleasant surprise, and I’m excited to have a whole book of Alex’s work to share with the same friends that I sent the story to back in 2017.

Get: None!  I have two tall bookcases full of books, so I don’t think I can fit anymore!  As a matter of fact, I should probably begin “the purge” (only to then replace them with more books, I’m sure…)

Aaron Javsicas, Editor-in-Chief

Give: Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia. This is a catalog of the temporary monuments installed throughout the city in Fall 2017 in answer to the question, “What is an appropriate monument for the current city of Philadelphia?” It’s the latest book to emerge from our long collaboration with Mural Arts Philadelphia, and it’s in some ways the boiled-down essence of what Temple University Press publishing is all about. It’s daring, it’s urban, and it’s about Philly, and it makes an important contribution to scholarship with writing that’s approachable for any reader. It’s also beautifully designed and illustrated. Very, very giftable. Gift it.

Get: What I’d really like to get is that one manuscript I’ve been waiting on. Meanwhile, I hope someone gives me Eric Loomis’s A History of America in Ten Strikes. The labor movement in this country has endured body blow after body blow, and a book rounding up the moments in our history when labor action caused fundamental change seems like a smart way to frame how it’s been definitionally important and could be again.

Ryan Mulligan, Editor,

Give: Stan Hochman Unfiltered, Sports columnists today tend to be either passionate avatars of their cities, channeling the frustrated voice of the people into provocative takes, or erudite scribes digging into the human interest stories of the people behind the uniforms. Stan Hochman brought the best both in his columns and he started doing it before most any other writer was doing either. His writing was acerbic, cathartic, funny, and revealing.

Get: The Nickel Boys. Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad was one of my favorite books of the past decade so sign me up for his next effort.

Sarah Munroe, Editor

Give: Set in Kamchatka, Julia Phillips’s Disappearing Earth is billed as a mystery because two young girls disappear in the very beginning. But the way the story unfolds is so much more. Each chapter is told from a different person’s perspective and the characters overlap in each others’ stories in big and small ways throughout. Underneath runs the current of the girls’ disappearance and we see the ripples throughout other lives. Phillips swiftly and deftly brings the reader into each new life in such a compelling way that I wanted to read a whole book about each of the protagonists. Disclaimer: I could be biased because there’s a scene in which a couple encounters a bear while camping, which happened to my husband and I this summer because of our overly zealous small dog.  

Get:  A two-fer: Lawn People: How Grasses Weeds and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are by Paul Robbins and Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have by Tatiana Schlossberg. I’ll soon be moving to a house with an actual yard that’s mine to care for the first time in my adult life, and I frequently worry about climate change, famine, and water scarcity. What I do when I worry is read about my worry. Both of these books think about individual choices as part of local and global ecologies.

Ann-Marie Anderson, Marketing Director

Give: I want Monument Lab as the book to give to my artist friends who grapple with questions of public art.

Get: I want to get On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, a novel about a Vietnamese American family, to read during my lengthy, leisurely holiday break.

Irene Imperio, Promotions Manager

Give: Gifting for my young readers: Art Museum Opposites by Katy Friedland is a book of opposites for young readers, based on the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collections.

Get: Hoping to get: Life Is Magic: My Inspiring Journey from Tragedy to Self-Discovery, the new memoir from former Philadelphia Eagles long snapper Jon Dorenbos.

Gary Kramer, Publicity Manager

Give: I would give my cinephile friends a copy of Greg Burris’ The Palestinian Idea, as it contains an analysis of films by Annemarie Jacir and Hany Abu-Assad, two of my favorite filmmakers. Burris examines radical perspectives on Palestinian media and popular culture, making it a provocative book that should generate considerable thought and discussion.

Get: What I would like to get is John Waters’s Mr. Know-It-All, which I’ve been meaning to buy and read since it was published. If I get a copy, that will prompt me to finally read it!

Kate Nichols, Art Manager

Give and Get: I am both giving family members, and myself Alex Tizon’s Invisible People.

Joan Vidal, Senior Production Editor 

Give: I plan to give Alex Tizon’s Invisible People: Stories of Lives at the Margins, a collection of the award-winning journalist’s masterful stories of those who are commonly dismissed and disregarded.

Get: I’d like to receive None of the Above, by Michael Cocchiarale, a novel about the childhood and young adulthood of Midwesterner Increase “Ink” Alt and the trials and tribulations that put his maturity to the test when he returns to his hometown in his thirties.

Dave Wilson, Senior Production Editor

Give: Stan Hochman Unfiltered because his unique take on the Philadelphia sports scene.

Get: Me: Elton John, the official autobiography of this music icon that has spanned generations.