Books published by University of Minnesota Press

A wide-ranging collection of interviews and profiles from twenty years of Jonathan Cott’s remarkable writings  “All I really need to do is simply ask a question,” Jonathan Cott occasionally reminds himself. “And then listen.” It sounds simple, but in fact few have taken the art of asking questions to such heights—and depths—as Jonathan Cott, whom Jan Morris called “an incomparable interviewer,” one whose skill, according to the great interviewer and oral historian Studs Terkel, “is artless yet impassioned and knowing.” Collected here are twenty-two of Cott’s most illuminating interviews that encourage readers to listen to film directors and musicians, actors and writers, scientists and visionaries. These conversations affirm the indispensable and transformative powers of the imagination and offer us new ways to view these lives and their worlds. What is it like to be Bob Dylan making a movie? Carl Sagan taking on the cosmos? Oliver Sacks doctoring the soul? John Lennon, on December 5, 1980? Elizabeth Taylor, ever? From Chinua Achebe to Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Federico Fellini to Werner Herzog, and Oriana Fallaci to Studs Terkel, Listening takes readers on a journey to discover not ways of life but ways to life. Within these pages,Cott proves himself to be, in the words of Brain Pickings’s Maria Popova, “an interlocutor extraordinaire,” drawing candid insights and profound observations from these inspired and inspiring individuals.

The compassionate and redemptive story of a prominent Black woman in the Twin Cities literary community Carolyn Holbrook’s life is peopled with ghosts—of the girl she was, the selves she shed and those who have caught up to her, the wounded and kind and malevolent spirits she’s encountered, and also the beloved souls she’s lost and those she never knew who beg to have their stories told. “Now don’t you go stirring things up,” one ghostly aunt counsels. Another smiles encouragingly: “Don’t hold back, child. Someone out there needs to hear what you have to say.” Once a pregnant sixteen-year-old incarcerated in the Minnesota juvenile justice system, now a celebrated writer, arts activist, and teacher who helps others unlock their creative power, Holbrook has heeded the call to tell the story of her life, and to find among its chapters—the horrific and the holy, the wild and the charmed—the lessons and necessary truths of those who have come before. In a memoir woven of moments of reckoning, she summons stories born of silence, stories held inside, untold stories stifled by pain or prejudice or ignorance. A child’s trauma recalls her own. An abusive marriage returns to haunt her family. She builds a career while raising five children as a single mother; she struggles with depression and grapples with crises immediate and historical, all while countenancing the subtle racism lurking under “Minnesota nice.” Here Holbrook poignantly traces the path from her troubled childhood to her leadership positions in the Twin Cities literary community, showing how creative writing can be a powerful tool for challenging racism and the healing ways of the storyteller’s art.

"Alison Mountz traces the global chain of remote detention centers used by states of the Global North to confine migrants fleeing violence and poverty, using cruel measures that, if unchecked, will lead to the death of asylum as an ethical ideal"--

"This critical history examines the work of zoological and science film pioneers Jean Painlevae and Geneviaeve Hamon from 1924-1949, illuminating the significant contributions that their wildlife cinema made to philosophical and political thought"--

Lowell W. Adams reviews the impact of urban and suburban growth on natural plant and animal communities.

William Styron - American Writers 98 was first published in 1971. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Vladimir Nabokov - American Writers 96 was first published in 1971. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

William James - American Writers 88 was first published in 1970. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Van Wyck Brooks - American Writers 71 was first published in 1968. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Wright Morris - American Writers 69 was first published in 1968. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

William D. Howells - American Writers 63 was first published in 1967. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Willa Cather - American Writers 36 was first published in 1964. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Washington Irving - American Writers 25 was first published in 1963. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

William Carlos Williams - American Writers 24 was first published in 1963. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Wallace Stevens - American Writers 11 was first published in 1961. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Walt Whitman - American Writers 9 was first published in 1961. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

These are some of the items that Adrian Hoover jotted down on his to-do list, soon after he and his wife, Helen, gave up urban comforts for the deeper delights of the wilderness in 1954. The Years of the Forest by Helen Hoover elaborates on that deceptively short list and describes the difficulties inherent in accomplishing each of those tasks. In fact, it would take sixteen years to check off every item. This is the story of the Hoovers' education in wilderness housekeeping, and of the surprising challenges they faced at each step.There are priceless hints and how-to's for solving the problems of living close to nature and on good terms with one's neighbors -- bluejays, weasels, field mice, and deer. There is plenty of magic in this guide, delightfully illustrated by Adrian Hoover. Now in paperback for the first time, this book tells the story of going bark to the land, with all its rough edges and incomparable rewards.

How we respond to pain, what we think about it, what we say, and what we do, is the focus of this work. It discusses biomedical responses, surgical interventions, pharmacology and positions that embrace pain. Each section includes analyses, poetic and literary texts, and discussions by activists.

Intended for students and researchers in social and political theory, this book offers a critique of theoretical approaches to social action, and rethinking of contemporary notions of human agency.