An associate professor of political science, Francis will be the editor of a new series of books from Cambridge University Press called .

Francis, on leave and at Harvard for the 2019-2020 school year, answered a few questions about the new book series. The study of race and ethnicity, she said, will be “the unifying characteristic鈥� of all manuscripts in the series.

“I am especially interested in highlighting research that has real-world implications and speaks to the political moment,” she said. “A central focus of this series will be to connect this type of research that happens in the academy to public discussions.”

Despite confusion now reigning in United States politics, she said, it鈥檚 clear that scholars, students and the public want “rigorous and accessible manuscripts that combine an analysis of the political system with a focus on racial politics.”

Francis studies American politics, race, the development of constitutional law, black politics and the post-Civil War South, and wrote the 2014 book .

Will this series truly stand alone as the only one dedicated to those themes?聽

“Yes. Currently, there is not a single book series centered on the diverse subfield of race and ethnicity in political science from a major university press. There are series on 鈥榮ocial movements鈥� and ‘political behavior鈥� and 鈥榤igration,鈥� as well as many on 鈥楢merican politics,鈥� where most of the scholarship of race and politics is subsumed.

“The absence is stunning and represents a great opportunity, especially in an era when mainstream journalists and well-established political scientists have called for analyses to rethink the role of race and ethnicity.”

That said, Francis mentioned “one notable exception” 鈥� the Oxford University Press series “Transgressing Boundaries,” focusing on black politics. But even in 2019, she said, the discipline of political science has no series focusing more broadly on race and ethnicity.

The rise of Donald Trump to the presidency, she said, “and the increasing power of authoritarian regimes abroad (Brazil, Italy, Venezuela)” have in fact increased the need for scholarship that investigates the role of race and equity in politics.”

When will readers begin seeing titles? And what will the process be for you?

“Readers should expect to see titles during fall of 2020 but it will be an incremental rollout with about two to three titles next year and about four to five titles the subsequent three years.

“With my curation of the series, I want to make sure that all of the manuscripts are diverse in terms of what groups they focus on and their methodologies. The goal of this series is focused on publishing important original research on race and聽 ethnicity that will be of wide interest to students, scholars and the larger public.”

The series aims to “shed light on previously understudied topics and groups.” What are examples?

Francis cites understudied topics such as political disinformation between and about racial groups; problems of race and measurement; racial capitalism; ethnicity and national security; religion and race; black women voters; surveillance; racial regimes in Western democracies; and settler colonialism.

You mention seeking work that speaks to the current political moment. How can academic books react more nimbly to current events?

The most frequent complaint she hears from colleagues about academic publishing, Francis said, is how long it can take from submission to publication of articles and books. Amid a broader discussion on institutional norms, she said, many publishers have committed to a shorter peer review process.

“The Elements series presents a revolutionary approach to an academic book, publishing with its projected 12-week production process after final acceptance. This swift timeline will ensure that important work does not languish and instead will make certain important scholarship is quickly disseminated to colleagues, students and the public.

“The shorter publication timeline opens up many opportunities for scholars of race and politics. Reignited old issues such as white supremacists marching and new topics, including the border wall and the historic number of women of color in Congress, have highlighted the pressing need for scholarship to speak to the quickly changing landscape of race and ethnicity in the United States and abroad.”

The election of Trump, Francis said, underscores how central race and ethnicity are to any analyses of the political system.

“Scholarship will not match the speed of Trump鈥檚 tweets,鈥� Francis said, 鈥渂ut the accelerated timeline for review and publication will allow audiences to better understand the quickly shifting political climate.”

* * *

Other book notes:

“Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery” honored: The latest book by , UW professor of English, has received one award and an honorable mention for another from the .

Weinbaum’s “,” has been awarded the , given to a monograph that addresses women and labor issues from intersectional perspectives. There is a $2,000 cash award. The book, published in March by Duke University Press, also received an honorable mention for the association’s Gloria E. Anzald煤a prize, for feminist contributions to women of color/transnational scholarship.

“American Sabor” shares best history award: “” by Marisol 叠别谤谤铆辞蝉-惭颈谤补苍诲补, Shannon Dudley and Michelle 贬补产别濒濒-笔补濒濒谩苍, has of best historical research in recorded rock and popular music for 2019 from the . Sharing the history award with “American Sabor” is “Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940-1946,” a second biography of the famous actor and crooner, by Gary Giddins.

is an affiliate assistant professor and a professor, both of ethnomusicology, in the School of Music. is a professor of gender, women and sexuality studies, and adjunct professor of music. Before it became a book, “American Sabor” was an exhibit at the Experience Music Project, now the Museum of Pop Culture, in 2007.

Robin Stacey history book honored twice: UW history professor has received two honors for her book on Welsh history, “,” which was published in 2018 by University of Pennsylvania Press.

The University of Wales has awarded Stacey its annual . One of three annual awards from the university, it is named for and funded by a bequest from Hull, who taught at Harvard University. And Jesus College, part of the University of Oxford, has named Stacey recipient of its annual , named for a renowned and archivist.

“My thanks to everyone involved,” Stacey said, “including the specialists at the University of Pennsylvania Press who did such a good job with its production.”

Recent notable books by 天美影视传媒 faculty members explore how the U.S. government has historically used credit to create opportunity, how “reproductive slavery” has left lasting ramifications, and how technology design benefits from human values.

Information School’s Friedman, Hendry co-author ‘Value Sensitive Design’

and , faculty members in the UW , have co-authored the new book “

With technology affecting all aspects of life and the growing concerns over privacy, security and inclusion, the authors ask: “How should designers, engineers, architects, policymakers, and others design such technology? Who should be involved and what values are implicated?”

Value Sensitive design “brings together theory, methods and applications for a design process that engages human values at every stage.” And its methods, they write, “in short, catalyze moral and technical imaginations for design and engineering.”

With heightened awareness of bias in artificial intelligence systems and its negative social and economic impacts, the authors add: “Value sensitive design stands out as an approach that helps position engineers and technologists to get on the front end of these problems before systems are developed and deployed.”

The book offers 17 concrete methods for value sensitive design, they write, and demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach “through case studies from large-scale public transportation to security for implantable medical devices.

Friedman and Hendry cite social media and artificial intelligence as examples of technologies that would benefit from value sensitive design. Social media companies, in favoring young adult users, “tend not to consider other key stakeholders such as children and the elderly,” and AI systems are often inscrutable “black boxes” of automatic decision making.

“Value sensitive design offers concrete approaches and methods for broadening the focus of AI systems, away from a singular focus on efficiency to responsible innovation and such values as fairness and lack of bias, diverse stakeholder inclusion, and most broadly social justice.”

“Value Sensitive Design: Shaping Technology with Moral Imagination” was published in May by MIT Press.

For more information, contact Friedman at batya@uw.edu or Hendry at dhendry@uw.edu

* * *

‘American Bonds’: Creating opportunity through government credit

In her book “,” UW associate professor of sociology explores how the United States government has long used financial credit programs to create economic opportunities for American citizens.

Though federal housing finance policy and mortgage-backed securities became well known in the 2008 financial crisis, publisher’s notes for “American Bonds” say, government credit has been part of American life since the nation’s founding.

“From the 1780s, when a watershed national land credit policy was established, to the postwar foundations of our current housing finance system, ‘American Bonds’ examines the evolution of securitization and federal credit programs.”

Since westward expansion, Quinn argues, the U.S. government has used financial markets to manage the nation’s social divides, and politicians and officials of all political stripes have used land sales, home ownership and credit “to provide economic opportunity without the appearance of market intervention or direct wealth redistribution.”

Government credit programs supported the growth of industries, helped with disaster relief, foreign policy and military efforts “and were promoters of amortized mortgages, lending abroad, venture capital investment and mortgage securitization.”

“American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation” is being published this month by Princeton University Press.

For more information, contact Quinn at slquinn@uw.edu.

* * *

‘State of being stateless’: Juliet Shields co-edits volume on migrants in 18^th, 19^th centuries

, UW professor of English, is co-editor, with of Central Michigan University, of a book of essays titled “.” Publishers notes say the volume “initiates transnational, transcultural and interdisciplinary conversations about migration in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.”

Migrants have often existed “historically in the murky spaces between nations, regions or ethnicities.” The essays “traverse the globe, revealing the experiences 鈥� real or imagined” of such migrants, and “explore the aesthetic and rhetorical frameworks used to represent migrant experiences during a time when imperial expansion and technological developments made the fortunes of some migrants and made exiles out of others.”

“These frameworks continue to influence the narratives we tell ourselves about migration today and were crucial in producing a distinctively modern subjectivity in which mobility and rootlessness have become normative.”

“Migration and Modernities” was published in January by Edinburgh University Press.

For more information, contact Shields at js37@uw.edu

* * *

Biocapitalism, black feminism and the ‘commodification of the human reproductive body’

In her book, “,” UW English professor examines “the continuing resonances of Atlantic slavery in the cultures and politics of human reproduction that characterize contemporary biocapitalism.”

Biocapitalism is a form of racial capitalism that relies on the commodification of the human reproductive body, its parts and its biological processes. It is dependent on what Weinbaum calls the “slave episteme 鈥� the radical logic that drove four centuries of slave breeding in the Americas and Caribbean.”

Weinbaum uses texts from Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” to Octavia Butler’s dystopian fiction, from Marxist theory to histories of slavery and legal cases of surrogacy to show how “the slave episteme continues to affect reproduction today, especially through the use of biotechnology and surrogacy.”

Black feminist contributions from the 1970s through the 1990s, she argues, “constitute a powerful philosophy of history 鈥� one that provides the means through which to understand how reproductive slavery haunts the present.”

“The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery” was published in March by Duke University Press.

For more information, contact Weinbaum at alysw@uw.edu.

* * *

History professor Bet-Shlimon writes of Kirkuk in new book ‘City of Black Gold’

, UW assistant professor of history, tells of Iraq’s most multilingual city and the historic heart of its powerful petroleum industry in her new book, “.”

It was 1927 when a foreign company first struck oil in Kirkuk, which had for millennia been home to a diverse population. “City of Black Gold,” publisher’s notes say, “tells a story of oil, urbanization and colonialism in Kirkuk 鈥� and how these factors shaped the identities of Kirkuk’s citizens, forming the foundation of an ethnic conflict.

“Ultimately, this book shows how contentious politics in disputed areas are not primordial traits of those regions, but are a modern phenomenon tightly bound to the society and economics of urban life.”

“City of Black Gold” was published in May by Stanford University Press.

For more information, contact Bet-Shlimon at shlimon@uw.edu