ShelfLife@Texas

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
Read More …

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
Read More …

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
Read More …

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
Read More …

Activist, fisherwoman, mother….Diane Wilson has been called by many names, but the one she was always reluctant to give herself was author. In fact, her 93-year old mother once told her that if she ever actually got a book published, she would stand on her head in the middle of traffic.

Two highly acclaimed books later, the self-taught writer can add another moniker to her list…Paisano Fellow. The Dobie Paisano Fellowship, sponsored by The University of Texas at Austin and the
Read More …

Nadine Eckhardt will read from her memoir Duchess of Palms on March 31 at 5:30 p.m. in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.

In her funny and honest memoir, Eckhardt tells the remarkable story of a “fifties girl” who lived through the politically powerful men in her life, acclaimed political novelist Bill Brammer and, later, U.S. Congressman Bob Eckhardt.

From her beginnings as a teenage “Duchess of Palms” beauty queen, to her entrée into the political and literary circles of Washington D.C.
Read More …

During the economic boom of the Second World War, Mexican laborers experienced unparalleled occupational gain in the United States. However, Emilio Zamora, associate professor of history, points out that discrimination impeded their movement from low-wage, low-skill agricultural jobs to better-paying jobs in rapidly expanding industries.

In “Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II” (Texas A&M University Press, 2009), Zamora traces the wartime experiences of Mexican workers in America and their struggle
Read More …

Chris Barton is a University of Texas alumnus and Austin-based children’s literature author who will be previewing his book The Day-Glo Brothers as part of the University of Texas Libraries’ “Books for Kids” program on March 7.

In addition to writing fiction and nonfiction for young readers, Barton has blogged at Bartography for the past four years.

The Day-Glo Brothers is being published by Charlesbridge Publishing and is set for release this summer.

Barton took some time out of his schedule to provide a peek into
Read More …

While statistics vary, watchdog organizations estimate the pornography industry generates between $10 and $15 billion a year in the United States. By comparison, the Hollywood box office generates about $10 billion a year.

For several years, Associate Professor of Journalism Robert Jensen researched the pornography industry by interviewing producers, analyzing the films they make, following the trade press and speaking with pornography consumers via formal and informal interviews. The result is “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity” (South End Press,
Read More …

Australian novelist Peter Carey lands on campus this spring as the Michener Center’s Residency Award Author. The special residency program brings writers of international acclaim to the center each year for short, intensive seminars.

Carey’s latest book, “His Illegal Self,” is out in paperback from Vintage this month, and like each of his ten novels, it is boldly inventive and tackles new territory.

Whether drawing upon his own experience as an advertising executive-turned-commune dweller in “Bliss,” or re-imagining the life of a Dickens’
Read More …