Chronicles of Care: A Design History of the COVID-19 Virus

Fernando Galdon, Royal College of Art, UK et al.

April 2024 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-950-8
Availability: In stock
372pp. [Color] ¦ $97 £77 €90

The Covid-19 crisis and the designed interventions that the authors have catalogued in this book prove definitively that design does care. The authors documented this as it evolved every day from the 1st January 2020 to 31st May 2020 inclusive. Then they looked at all of this care and caring from the point of view of design and, by the sheer volume of design interventions they have documented, illustrate that design is good in a crisis. What the Covid-19 pandemic illustrated is that for the first time in modern history, capital was totally irrelevant. Money could not save your life. Only design could. Rapidly designed masks, shelters, hospitals, instructional posters, infographics, dashboards, respirators, sanitisers, virtual and local communities emerged to save us. From January 2020, design became king. The Covid-19 global pandemic presented an ontological reality; design is more than margins or profit. In fact, design became extremely valuable when it stopped concentrating on those things and started to care about peoples’ lives. This brief episode in history is still repositioning the status of design and reconfiguring its signifier from consumption to care. The contents of this book cover the outbreak, lockdown, and the beginning of the reopening in the UK. In between, the book functions as a history of pandemic crisis design interventions. As such it is a “research-in-the-moment project” where we have illustrated our thoughts and insights in tables, charts and diagrams. We have accepted all design interventions as valid and given them the same role and status by presenting each of them in a standard format. No curation. No selection. No position. The task of critical analysis must follow – perhaps by us, certainly by others.

Carmen Boullosa: In Between Brooklyn and Coyoacan

Edited by María del Mar López-Cabrales, Colorado State University and María Rosario Matz, University of Massachusetts Lowell

ISBN: 978-1-64889-907-2
Availability: Available 4 weeks
174pp. ¦ $82 £66 €77

Focusing on the works of Mexican writer Carmen Boullosa for the English reader, this volume provides access to a critical analysis of Boullosa’s writings. Her daily writing has produced an enormous and varied literary corpus that includes narrative, theater, and poetry, in addition to her work in television. This volume is divided into three different segments. The initial part is composed of six essays that analyze Boullosa’s narrative and theatrical works. In these essays contributors evaluate and analyze Boullosa’s literary production, covering many of her novels, including 'Antes' (1989), 'Llanto: novelas imposibles' (1992), 'La Milagrosa' (1993) 'Cielos de la Tierra' (1997), 'La otra mano de Lepanto' (2005), 'La novela perfecta' (2006), 'El complot de los Románticos' (2009), 'Cuando me volví mortal' (2010), 'Las paredes hablan' (2012), 'Texas' (2014), and 'El libro de Ana' (2019) as well as her 'Teatro herético' (1987). By analyzing her literary corpus, contributors explore how she reshapes historical narratives and offers thought-provoking commentaries on our modern society and its problems. Boullosa’s writings invite an in-depth analysis due to their rich complexity and explorations of various themes, therefore this volume presents how her work has a significant social impact, prompting discussions on the topics of gender, power, history, social inequality, and cultural diversity while encouraging critical thinking and empathy. These critical essays are followed by an interview with the author. We decided to also include the Spanish version of this interview for those able to read it. Boullosa’s essay, 'Épica mía/ Mi épica (My Epic)' concludes this volume. When reading this essay, we suggest to the reader to keep in mind how often her works provide a voice to characters for whom History refused to grant one. This volume will provide its reader with a key to discovering the many layers present in Boullosa’s writing.

The Christian Literary Imagination

Edited by Michael Scott, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford and Michael J. Collins, Georgetown University

ISBN: 978-1-64889-902-7
Availability: Forthcoming
$113 £91 €106

What is the Christian literary imagination? That question was put to the writers who have contributed to this collection of essays. They were asked, in answering it, to choose and write about a work of literature that seemed to them to illustrate one of the varied ways in which the Christian imagination sees the world, to define by example the meaning of the term. A variety of beliefs (or indeed unbeliefs) are expressed by the contributors and authors they selected to discuss. But what the essays have in common is an inquiry into the nature of belief and the means by which the reader’s imagination can itself be stirred through the work of the author under discussion. The book is structured chronologically, with essays on literature ranging from Anglo-Saxon England to 21st-Century America, but the contributors show a freedom of movement and reference across the centuries in their essays, sometimes deliberately juxtaposing the historical with the contemporary. What emerges from the collection is a shared inquiry into the enduring Christian vision of God’s engagement with the world.

Premodern Monsters: A Varied Compilation of Pre-modern Judeo-Christian and Japanese Buddhist Monstrous Discourses

Edited by Allan Wright, University of Alberta

ISBN: 978-1-64889-903-4
Availability: Forthcoming
$105 £84 €98

Monster Studies is a rising academic topic. Despite hesitancy at first, the subject is now examined by scholars of various academic interests and backgrounds. However, the dominant monster investigations are from the post-1900s. This volume focuses on Premodern monsters. The purpose of this volume is to examine various monsters from diverse cultures in order to indicate how each monstrous discourse derives from their mythology’s socio-cultural context. The volume examines several Monsters within their socio-cultural matrix. This includes a variety of monstrosities from diverse cultures and time periods. Namely, the examined creatures, or perceived creatures, stem from the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament (Pauline epistles), Reformation England, the Japanese Noh play Dōjōji, Yamauba Myths, and Yōkai Relics from early modern Japanese Buddhism.

Pedagogy: Using Television Shows, Games, and Other Media in the Classroom

Edited by Laura Dumin, University of Central Oklahoma

ISBN: 978-1-64889-901-0
Availability: Available 4 weeks
202pp. ¦ $74 £59 €69

This book takes a dive into moving beyond the essay as the only method for teaching and learning content. Authors range from instructors in K-12 to instructors in higher education and look at concepts as varied as using VR technologies to provide immersive experiences to students to use an app to help supplement teaching. Instructors in a variety of fields, both in and out of the writing classroom, may find project and assignment ideas to argue in their own classrooms. Instructors looking to provide a transformative learning experience in a new way will find lots of options here.