ShelfLife@Texas

University of Texas at Austin faculty and alumni authors will share their expertise on topics ranging from the fate of Savannah during the Civil War, to mapping a career path, to the culture of Texas barbecue at the 2009 Texas Book Festival Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at the Texas Capitol and surrounding areas.

More than 200 writers will showcase their books, including a host of authors from our university. Some of the presenters include:

Author: Jeffrey Abramson, professor of law and government
Book: “Minerva’s Owl:
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Thomas McGarity and Wendy Wagner won the $10,000 grand prize at the Hamilton Book Awards for their book, “Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research” on Oct. 28 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin.

McGarity is the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Administrative Law, and Wagner, is the Joe A. Worsham Centennial Professor in Law at The University of Texas at Austin. Their book was published by Harvard University Press.

The awards are the highest honor
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Could today’s youth be the ultimate experts in the digital evolution?

Craig Watkins, associate professor of Radio-Television-Film, answers this question and takes us into the world of new media in his latest project, “The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future” (Beacon 2009). “The Young and the Digital” explores highs and lows of digital media and how it affects lives of today’s youth from tweens, to teens, to
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University of Texas law professor Kristine A. Huskey will discuss and sign her new book, “Justice at Guantanamo: One Woman’s Odyssey and Her Crusade for Human Rights,” at BookPeople at 7 p.m., Thursday, October 22.

Huskey, who teaches in the Law School’s National Security Clinic and is a fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, will also talk about the future of Guantanamo; and the current federal policy on preventive detention.

“Justice at Guantanamo” (Lyons Press, June 2009) is a memoir,
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You don’t have to be an Einstein to learn more about Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, thanks to Alberto Martínez’s accessible writing style in his new book titled “Kinematics: The Lost Origins of Einstein’s Relativity” published by Johns Hopkins University Press 2009.

Martínez, an assistant professor in the Department of History, will present a talk on the process of writing and publishing his new book at The University of Texas History of Science Colloquium from noon to 2 p.m., Friday, Oct. 16,
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Sarah Bird’s favorite description of herself as an author came from a high school student who was forced to attend a literary reading by her English teacher. She says,  “Sarah Bird was tall and thin and wore these cute reading glasses on the tip of her nose. If I recall correctly, she forgot her reading glasses and had to borrow somebody’s in the audience. Regardless of the reading glasses situation, she was very genuine and you could just tell on
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Why women have sex has long been a vexing question. In hopes of providing new insight into this provocative topic, psychologists Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss collected candid stories from more than 1,000 women from 46 states, eight Canadian provinces, three European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and China. The findings, detailed in their new book “Why Women Have Sex,” reveal a shocking array of reasons – from boredom to self-loathing to painful headaches to jealousy. We sat down with the
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Contrary to the famous proverb about windows to the soul, political communication expert Rod Hart would argue that language is the window to the soul, not the eyes. He should know. Hart has spent the past 40 years studying the language of American politics.

Earlier this month, his book “Campaign Talk: Why Elections Are Good for Us,” (Princeton University Press, 2000) received the Graber award, honoring the best political communication book of the past 10 years, from the American Political Science Association. The
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The Harry Ransom Center kicked off Poe Mania, in anticipation of the exhibition “From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe,” which is now open.

Several Poe-centric online features were unveiled:

• View a video preview of “From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe.”

• Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” has been one of his most popular poems since its publication in 1845 in the New York Evening Mirror newspaper. This popularity has led
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C.D. Wright is a poet who defies labels. Over a distinguished career and  twelve published volumes of poetry, prose, and a slippery mix of the two, she has continually reinvented herself.

Variously described as narrative, experimental, Southern, deeply personal, and fiercely political, Wright credits her roots in the Arkansas Ozarks for her resistance to joining a single, identifying “ism” of the poetry world—she was born to a stubborn independence.  And the breadth of her range is as great as the remove between
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