F A C U LT Y C A N O N professor of sociology and gender studies, traces a generational shift in the U.S. veterans’ peace movement through life-history interviews with six veterans of color.
Breaking News
Exploring the tragic event that sparked the first live television news coverage in America.
THE GLOBAL INDIES: BRITISH IMPERIAL CULTURE AND THE RESHAPING OF THE WORLD, 1756-1815 Yale University Press / Ashley Cohen, associate professor of English, weaves a complex portrait of the imaginative geography of British imperialism, exploring the pairing of India and the Atlantic world from literature to colonial policy.
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AN ECONOMIST’S LESSONS ON HAPPINESS: FAREWELL, DISMAL SCIENCE! Springer / University Emeritus Professor of Economics Richard Easterlin, known as the “father of happiness economics,” draws on a half century of his own research to reveal what makes us truly happy — and what doesn’t.
UNCONVENTIONAL COMBAT: INTERSECTIONAL ACTION IN THE VETERANS’ PEACE MOVEMENT Oxford University Press / Michael Messner,
TARELL ALVIN McCRANEY: THEATER, PERFORMANCE, AND COLLABORATION Northwestern University Press / David Román, professor of English and American studies and ethnicity, has edited — with Sharell D. Luckett and Isaiah Matthew Wooden — the first scholarly study of the work of McCraney, one of the most significant writers and theatremakers of the 21st century.
A CULTURAL HISTORY OF COMEDY, VOLUMES 1-6 Bloomsbury Academic / Andrew McConnell Stott, professor of English, vice provost for Academic Programs and dean of the Graduate School, explores how comedy has developed from antiquity to the present day.
CRY BABY MYSTIC Parlor Press / Daniel Tiffany, professor of English and comparative literature, has composed a book-length poem inspired by 15th-century English mystic Margery Kempe.
FISCUS PHOTO COURTESY OF WILLIAM DEVERELL/RICK CASTBERG COLLECTION
On April 8, 1949, 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus ran across a field of spring grass in San Marino, California, and fell into an uncovered well. Within hours, the small plot of land had erupted into a frenzy of activity as rescue workers attempted to retrieve her. Thousands of gawkers gathered to observe and pray while bright klieg lights sent from 20th Century Fox illuminated the scene. Drawn to the excitement, television and radio reporters showed up. For 24 hours of the two-day rescue operation, the scene was broadcast to television sets across Los Angeles and on radio waves around the nation, thanks to the newly installed transmission towers on nearby Mt. Wilson, which towered above the field. A new book by William Deverell, professor of history, spatial sciences and environmental studies, titled Kathy Fiscus: A Tragedy That Transfixed the Nation (Angel City Press, 2021), explores how this event kicked off the phenomenon of live, breaking TV news coverage. “After this event, the number of TV sets sold in greater L.A. goes through the roof,” says Deverell. “There are probably about 20,000 TVs in 1949 in greater Los Angeles County and within a handful of years … there are 300,000.” Reporters interviewed bystanders and workmen and filmed the parade of circus thin men and jockeys who appeared, volunteering to attempt to retrieve the little girl from the narrow well shaft. For two days, L.A. residents remained glued to their sets. Hundreds gathered in front of department store windows filled with TV displays, while others raced to neighbors’ houses to watch. The cameras were still on when Paul Hanson, the physician who had delivered Kathy at birth, announced over a crackling P.A. that she had not survived the fall. Rescuers and bystanders began to cry. Viewers at home wept with them, miles away but still present thanks to the live television coverage that would redefine how Americans get their news. —M.C.
THE COMMITTED Grove Press / Viet Thanh Nguyen, University Professor and Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English, American studies and ethnicity and comparative literature, explores commitment and betrayal in the sequel to his 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer.
BOYLE HEIGHTS: HOW A LOS ANGELES NEIGHBORHOOD BECAME THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY University of California Press / George Sánchez, professor of American studies and ethnicity and history, has produced an in-depth history of this dynamic, multiracial community.
