In Dialogue: What is misunderstood about Blackness? February 27, 2023 For decades, ‘Blackness’ has been a crucial political and cultural category that grounds a public discourse on cherishing a robust historical tradition and systemically uprooting white supremacy. Read More
Ukraine’s memorials February 20, 2023 One of the curiosities of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is how, even amid the deprivations of a savage war, Ukrainians have turned their attention to destroying or de-Russifying Soviet monuments and protecting their own. Read More
Exploring Black Experiences February 07, 2023 First proposed by black educators and the Black United Students at Kent State University in 1969, Black History Month, celebrated annually in February in the US, is an opportunity to celebrate Black voices, achievements, and to reflect on the central role of African Americans throughout US history. Princeton University Press is proud to publish books that engage with serious issues and ideas relating to Black experiences. Read More
Roland Betancourt on White: The History of a Color February 02, 2023 Moving away from those who might wish to find a universal symbolism or archetypal truth in a color, Michel Pastoureau’s The History of a Color series has sought to understand color as first and foremost a social phenomenon, one with historically grounded realities and effects. Read More
Batman’s holy grotto: The psychic resurrection of Bruce Conner February 02, 2023 Bohemian San Francisco gained a new gathering place in 1960 when the deep-pocketed aspiring painter Billie Jahrmarkt and his wife Joan decided to found a gallery for the benefit of their artistic and literary friends. Two such, artist Bruce Conner and poet/playwright Michael McClure, took the project in hand. Read More
The need for material literacy October 03, 2022 In a time of screen saturation, digitized images of objects and manuscripts, and an emphasis on “knowledge workers” rather than craftspeople, we run the risk of becoming materially illiterate. Read More
Aline, Eero, my boyfriend, and me September 20, 2022 A few years ago, after I had just met my boyfriend, we found ourselves driving in circles around a Colorado carpark. He claims the carpark was confusingly oriented, that its architecture seemed to indicate that we would go either up or down if we kept going. Read More
Bénédicte Savoy on Africa’s Struggle for its Art May 09, 2022 For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa’s Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. Read More
In Dialogue with Lucas Bessire and Emmet Gowin April 29, 2022 In The One Hundred Circle Farm, renowned photographer Emmet Gowin (b. 1941) presents stunning aerial images of center-pivot irrigation systems in the western and midwestern United States. In this short discussion with anthropologist and National Book Award finalist Lucas Bessire, author of Running Out, Gowin offers insight into his powerful photographic survey of the impact of irrigation systems on landscape. Read More
Listen in: Africa’s Struggle for Its Art April 14, 2022 For decades, African nations have fought for the return of countless works of art stolen during the colonial era and placed in Western museums. In Africa’s Struggle for Its Art, Bénédicte Savoy brings to light this largely unknown but deeply important history. Read More
How does one communicate with colors? December 20, 2021 Architecture is represented not only with lines, figures, and words, but also with colors. What sounds like a truism today—when colorful, computer-generated renderings of building projects dominate architectural media—is in fact a relatively recent phenomenon. Read More
Humanities to the rescue November 08, 2021 Environmentally speaking, it might be said that Western culture backed the wrong horse with both Christianity and capitalism. Each ingrained a self-centeredness—respectively, inter- and intra-species—that has proven disastrous for the planet. Read More
All stories are stories about food September 27, 2021 A confession: for many years I lived a double life—as a writer, anyway. I started as a scholar of the Renaissance and antiquity who loved to cook, to eat, and to taste wine; then, by various happy accidents, I began to receive requests that I actually write about cooking, eating, and tasting wine. Read More
Listen in: Twelve Caesars September 24, 2021 What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? Read More
Things Fall Together: A Guide to the New Materials Revolution June 03, 2021 Things in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Personal items deteriorate. Yet today’s researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. Read More
