Magnetic Woman Delayed

At Christmas time, friends and family reported that Magnetic Woman was unavailable from the publisher and Bookshop.org, and that Amazon had only five copies left. What was happening? Was the book already a massive success?

Alas, the answer proved much less pleasant. Two of my author copies arrived--not sure where the other ten mentioned on the shipping paperwork have gone--and within moments I had discovered that the index ended at Freud. More minutes, and I found that the color plates were in the wrong order. I contacted the press and learned that the entire print run was affected. The book has to be reprinted, which is why few copies have made their way into the world yet.

In these pandemic times, it is unclear how quickly the corrected printing will occur, but I hope it will happen right away.

If you are one of the few people who has managed to get hold of a copy already, it should be fine to read--I am not aware of anything wrong with most of the book--but you will probably want to exchange it for a perfect copy once those are available.

The Last Ghetto

Today seems like the right time to give a shout out to Anna Hájková's new book The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt. This book uses extensive sources, including victim testimonies, that were collected in 99 archives from ten countries on three continents and were written in nine languages. Reviews are already enthusiastic, and according to the publisher, it is the "first modern study of the Theresienstadt ghetto." You can read more about this book here and order your own copy.

The author, much of whose research has focused on women's experience in the Nazi concentration camps and on sexual economics within the camps, has been the target of some attempted censorship as a result of her investigation of lesbian relationships within the camps. You can read more about this at The New Fascism Syllabus, which also offers the opportunity to sign a petition supporting her (I am one of the many scholars to have signed).

The Fastest Game in the World

Bruce Berglund is best known to me as a historian of early Czechoslovakia--we met through Fulbright and both work on the interwar period. We have some other things in common too, like Minnesota origins. Bruce's latest book goes in a direction that gets to those northern roots--hockey and its history! In The Fastest Game in the World: Hockey and the Globalization of Sports, which is just out from University of California Press, Bruce looks at how hockey spread across the world and how games connect with politics, economics, and culture. You can read more about it here and order a copy in either hardback or paperback.

New Journal Founded: Art East/Central

Art East/Central is a new English-language, open access, peer-reviewed journal that will publish original articles on architecture, design and the visual arts in Central and East-Central Europe 1800 to the present. It will also feature book and exhibition reviews, reports, and occasional discussion forums. An international editorial board and a rigorous, double-blind peer review process are intended to ensure the high quality and originality of the contents.

"We welcome your submissions to be considered for future issues at journal@arteastcentral.eu. We are particularly interested in contributions that adopt a transnational approach, examining practices, ideas and traditions that cross the political, linguistic, ethnic, and cultural boundaries of the region. Interdisciplinary approaches, as well as reflection on the particular challenges this region raises for relevant academic practices, are also encouraged. Submissions from graduate students are welcome."
Published by CRAACE (CONTINUITY/RUPTURE: ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN CENTRAL EUROPE 1918-1939), the first issue is expected to be out in early 2021. Check here to find it.

For those of you who teach music, my friends Sam Dorf and Heather MacLachlan, with Julia Randel, have published a brand new anthology for Gateways to Understanding Music! Sam says, "It is designed to help make Rice and Wilson's textbook suitable for music majors and minors and allow them opportunity to work with a wide variety of musical scores from Western Art Music, Jazz, Popular, and Global music cultures." Use the link below and enter the discount code HSM20: https://bit.ly/2KuoEK2

The Tarot of Leonora Carrington

If you use tarot cards or are a fan of the British-Mexican surrealist Leonora Carrington, there is an exciting new book out of Carrington's tarot paintings! The Tarot of Leonora Carrington, published by Fulgur Press, has come out. A limited edition version (including the deck in facsimile) with an essay on tarot by expert Rachel Pollack, an introduction by the artist’s son, Gabriel Weisz Carrington, and essays by art historians Tere Arcq and Susan Aberth, priced up to $400, sold out within days. A limited edition of just the deck also went fast, but will be reissued and can be bought directly from the publisher in January or February. A more affordable trade edition of the book will be available in February for $50.

You can read more about Carrington and the tarot here.

Leonora Carrington, The Hierophant (ca. 1955). Private collection. © Estate of Leonora Carrington/ARS.

Haunted Bauhaus

I'm thrilled to report that my pal and mentor Elizabeth Otto's recent book Haunted Bauhaus: Occult Spirituality, Gender Fluidity, Queer Identities, and Radical Politics, has won the Northeast Popular & American Culture Association’s 2020 Peter C. Rollins Book Prize, awarded annually for innovative scholarship in the fields of American and popular culture by a writer living or working in New York or New England.

The author says, “Throughout Haunted Bauhaus, I sought to show how this art movement was bound up with pressing issues of its own time, that it was more of a movement to reform daily life that drew ideas from its surrounding cultural context than many knew. At the same time, I emphasize how many of the ideas being hashed out at the Bauhaus – on spirituality, gender, sex and politics – are close to ideas we are still grappling with.”

You can read more about the book, its author, and the prize here.

Marking Modern Movement

I've just learned that Susan Funkenstein's Marking Modern Movement: Dance and Gender in the Visual Imagery of the Weimar Republic is now available from University of Michigan Press! I can recommend this, as not only do I know Susan (I sat in on her Design History course when I was in grad school and we run into each other every now and then) but her PhD dissertation was useful to me in thinking about the importance of modern dance in Czech modernism and Czech feminism.

You can read more about it here, and you can get this book in any of three formats:

Paper | 6 x 9 | 342pp. 49 B&W Images, 28 Color Images, 1 Table.
ISBN 978-0-472-05461-9 | $39.95

Hardcover | 6 x 9 | 342pp. 49 B&W Images, 28 Color Images, 1 Table.
ISBN 978-0-472-07461-7 | $85.00

Also available in ebook.

Save 30% by using promotion code UMFUNKENSTEIN at press.umich.edu before 12/31/20.

Author Copies are on Their Way!

Word finally came today that my author copies of Magnetic Woman are ready to ship. Pretty exciting, if slightly delayed! Copies that people have pre-ordered should be shipping at the same time, I am guessing.

A good many people I know are also finally seeing their books in print, and so I'm going to post news of those in the coming days. I won't generally do a review--I haven't read most of these yet--but I do want to help spread the word. I'll try to start with newly published books and then also highlight some that have been out a bit longer.