Books published by University of Minnesota Press

Trolls! They are huge and ugly and very, very dangerous. But luckily, their brains are no bigger than a walnut, so even small children can trick them. First, though, you need to know their weaknesses—and that\u2019s where these stories come in. It is helpful to know what a little girl can do when she finds out that trolls hate loud noises. Or how two brothers might make an entire family of horrible trolls burst and turn to stone. Or what a clever little gnome boy does when he discovers that trolls are ever so easily distracted. Helpful, but also great fun, and it doesn\u2019t hurt to be reminded of all the tricks children already know when it comes to overcoming trolls—or other fearsome beings and things.┬áPatience, kindness, courage, and quick thinking—what works against trolls are the best things about being human. Taken from a wide range of historical and international sources, Seven Ways to Trick a Troll will delight and entertain imaginations of all ages.

In Language and Reality, originally published in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, in 1964, Vil\u00e9m Flusser continues his philosophical and theoretical exploration into language. He begins to postulate that language is not simply a map of the world but also the driving force for projecting worlds and enters then into a feedback with what is projected.Flusser\u2019s thesis leads him to claim, in a seemingly missed encounter of a dialogue with Wittgenstein, that language is not limited to its ontological and epistemological aspects but rather is at the service of its aesthetic. Traversing a diverse area of research and ruminations on cybernetics to poetry, music, the visual arts, religion, and mysticism, Language and Reality can be viewed as a vital transitional work in Flusser\u2019s emerging thought that will eventually lead to his works in the 1970s and 1980s concerning what we would later consider media theory, design, and digital culture.

small portage."There the Ojibwe lived in keeping with the seasons, moving among different camps for hunting and fishing, for cultivating and gathering, for harvesting wild rice and maple sugar. In Onigamiising Linda LeGarde Grover accompanies us through this cycle of the seasons, one year in a lifelong journey on the path to Mino Bimaadiziwin, the living of a good life. In fifty short essays, Grover reflects on the spiritual beliefs and everyday practices that carry the Ojibwe through the year and connect them to this northern land of rugged splendor. As the four seasons unfold—from Ziigwan (Spring) through Niibin and Dagwaagin to the silent, snowy promise of Biboon—the award-winning author writes eloquently of the landscape and the weather, work and play, ceremony and tradition and family ways, from the homey moments shared over meals to the celebrations that mark life''s great events. Now a grandmother, a Nokomis, beginning the fourth season of her life, Grover draws on a wealth of stories and knowledge accumulated over the years to evoke the Ojibwe experience of Onigamiising, past and present, for all time.

A fresh, important intervention into understanding our post-9/11 world

The contemporary university's implications for the future organization of labor

A murderer who eluded him in Munich draws an aging Sherlock Holmes into a monstrous mystery in small-town Minnesota in 1920