From the Director

Dear friends of the Press,

As Summer approaches—along with our third year of living in a global pandemic—we are finally beginning to see some light ahead. While we hope we are seeing the end of COVID’s constant presence in our lives, we are excited to continue to offer books that have allowed us to bring an expansive world of ideas to you. Included in our autumn/winter catalog are books that reach far into the world, including books that will introduce Englishspeaking audiences to new books by Italian voices who have been traditionally underrepresented in Italy, as part of our new series, Other Voices of Italy. We are also proud to announce the launch of another new series, Q+ Public, designed to offer books that bridge the academic and general worlds of writing, and we hope this series makes broad interventions into thinking about LGBTQ+ literary and public culture. Also publishing this fall is Dan Burt’s magisterial memoir, Every Wrong Direction, tracing the life of a man who began his life in working-class Philadelphia and who, as a lawyer, played a part in some of the most important moments in American and global affairs and who, as a poet and emigre, offers his own take on American exceptionalism and what it means to punch one’s ticket early in life. We also have new and significant books in film, communications, anthropology, and local history. In the last few years we saw our books as a way of letting our imaginations take us while the pandemic kept us home; I hope that in this coming year we can take our books with us as we finally are able to reconnect with the world.

—Micah Kleit, Director

Recent Highlights

The Baseball Film by Aaron Baker:

• The Brooklyn Rail reviewed The Baseball Film:

“An insightful and necessary analysis of baseball as a sport and a film subgenre through a sociopolitical lens examining race, gender, sexuality, globalization, and more.”

See more highlights on page 91

Haiti Fights Back by Yveline Alexis:

• The Times Literary Supplement selected Haiti Fights Back as a “TLS Book of the Year” on November 26, 2021.

9781978810150

Neo-Burlesque by Lynn Sally:

• Library Journal included a starred review of Neo-Burlesque in the October 2021 issue:

“Striptease, once seen broadly as a symbol of women’s oppression, becomes in Sally’s book a tool of empowerment, and she shows how different artists choose to wield it. Peppered with photographs and film stills from a vast array of performances, the book opens up a vibrant, engaging dialogue. Whether readers are new to or familiar with neoburlesque, they’ll find that Sally’s book is an entertaining and informative study of striptease as performance art.”

The American Girl Goes to War by Liz Clarke:

• Library Journal included a review of The American Girl Goes to War in the December 2021 issue:

“This exciting, well-researched work crosses multidisciplinary boundaries and will be of value to those interested in cinema, gender studies, propaganda, history, and political science.

Recommended for academic libraries.”

The Life and Comics of Howard Cruse by Andrew J. Kunka:

• Lambda Literary listed The Life and Comics of Howard Cruse as one of “December’s Most Anticipated LGBTQIA+ Literature.”

• The International Journal of Comic Art reviewed The Life and Comics of Howard Cruse

“Kunka balances narrative analysis with comics analysis, pointing out where Cruse uses panel borders unconventionally, or how his work with stippling and crosshatching was groundbreaking. Kunka’s commentary balances Cruse’s storytelling with his drawing work, showing how Cruse was the complete package, a true cartoonist. Kunka’s work and critical commentary is an essential read for those interested not only in Howard Cruse, but in how his work impacted a generation of artists, especially in how important Cruse was to helping create the genre of queer comics.”