University of Minnesota Press Books

What does it mean to refuse? To not participate, to not build a better world, to not come up with a plan? To just say "no"? Against the ubiquitous demands for positive solutions, action-oriented policies, and optimistic compromises, The Big No refuses to play. Here leading scholars traverse the wide range of political action when "no" is in the picture, analyzing topics such as collective action, antisocialism, empirical science, the negative and the affirmative in Deleuze and Derrida, the "real" and the "clone," Native sovereignty, and Afropessimism.0In his introduction, Kennan Ferguson sums up the concept of the "Big No," arguing for its political importance. Whatever its form-he identifies various strains-the Big No offers power against systems of oppression. Joshua Clover argues for the importance of Marx and Fanon in understanding how people are alienated and subjugated. Theodore Martin explores the attractions of antisociality in literature and life, citing such novelists as Patricia Highsmith and Richard Wright. Francois Laruelle differentiates nonphilosophy from other forms of French critical theory. Katerina Kolozova applies this insight to the nature of reality itself, arguing that the confusion of thought and reality leads to manipulation, automation, and alienation. Using poetry and autobiography, Frank Wilderson shows how Black people-their bodies and being-are displaced in politics, replaced and erased by the subjectivities of violence, suffering, and absence. Andrew Culp connects these themes of negativity, comparing and contrasting the refusals of antiphilosophy and Afropessimism. 0Thinking critically usually demands alternatives: how would you fix things? But, as The Big No shows, being absolutely critical-declining the demands of world-building-is one necessary response to wrong, to evil. It serves as a powerful reminder that the presumption of political action is always positive

Humanists, scientists, and artists collaborate to address the disjunctive temporalities of ecological crisis. In 2016, Antarctica’s Totten Glacier, formed 34 million years ago, detached from its bedrock due to warming ocean waters. This event exemplifies the disjunctive temporalities of the Anthropocene’s ecological crises: the rapid degradation of our planet’s life-supporting environment that developed over millennia. The editors argue that to effectively represent and respond to these crises—such as climate change, rising sea levels, and biodiversity loss—requires a reframing of time itself, highlighting the connections between past, present, and future, as well as between human lifespans and the planet’s history. The collection features engaging essays that bring together oceanographers, geophysicists, geologists, and anthropologists with literary scholars, art historians, and archaeologists. They explore the interplay of geological deep time and historical context, ecological crises and cultural expression, environmental policy and social constructs, restoration ecology and future visions, and the balance between constructive pessimism and actionable hope. Additionally, three complementary “etudes” showcase artists discussing experimental works that investigate the various timescales of ecological crisis. Contributors include scholars and artists from prestigious institutions, creating a rich tapestry of interdisciplinar

Introduction : Architecture and Technics / Zeynep Çelik Alexander -- Rendering : On Experience and Experiments / Lucia Allais -- Modeling : A Secret History of Following / Matthew C. Hunter -- Scanning : A Technical History of Form / Zeynep Çelik Alexander -- Equipping : Domestic Sleights of Hand / Edward A. Eigen -- Specifying : The Generality of Clerical Labor / Michael Osman -- Positioning : Architecture of Logistics / John Harwood -- Repeating : Cybernetic Intelligence / Orit Halpern -- Afterword : Architecture in Real Time / John May.

"Swedish Folktales and Legends is a diverse and representative collection of stories from Sweden's centuries-old folklore tradition. Ranging from the ribald to the romantic, from the rustic to the mythical, these are lively translations of 150 tales drawn from unique sources including the Swedish National Folklore Archives and numerous private collections, while the humorous and dramatic illustrations are gathered from classic volumes of Swedish folktales. Lone Thygesen Blecher's engaging introduction details the purpose and background of folktales and legends as well as the history of their collection. This distinctive selection presents the storytelling artistry of Sweden's lush folkloric tradition.

Creative and diverse approaches to ethnographic knowledge production and writing  Ethnographic research has long been cloaked in mystery around what fieldwork is really like for researchers, how they collect data, and how it is analyzed within the social sciences. Naked Fieldnotes , a unique compendium of actual fieldnotes from contemporary ethnographic researchers from various modalities and research traditions, unpacks how this research works, its challenges and its possibilities.   The volume pairs fieldnotes based on observations, interviews, drawings, photographs, soundscapes, and other contemporary modes of recording research encounters with short, reflective essays, offering rich examples of how fieldnotes are composed and shaped by research experiences. These essays unlock the experience of conducting qualitative research in the social sciences, providing clear examples of the benefits and difficulties of ethnographic research and how it differs from other forms of writing such as reporting and travelogue. By granting access to these personal archives, Naked Fieldnotes unsettles taboos about the privacy of ethnographic writing and gives scholars a diverse, multimodal approach to conceptualizing and doing ethnographic fieldwork.    Courtney Addison, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria U of Wellington; Patricia Alvarez Astacio, Brandeis U; Sareeta Amrute, U of Washington; Barbara Andersen, Massey U Auckland, New Zealand; Adia Benton, Northwestern U; Letizia Bonanno, U of Kent; Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier, U of Victoria; Michael Cepek, U of Texas at San Antonio; Michelle Charette, York U; Tomás Criado, Humboldt-U of Berlin; John Dale, George Mason U; Elsa Fan, Webster U; Kelly Fayard, U of Denver; Michele Friedner, U of Chicago; Susan Frohlick, U of British Columbia, Okanagan, Syilx Territory; Angela Garcia, Stanford U; Danielle Gendron, U of British Columbia; Mascha Gugganig,  Technical U Munich; Natalia Gutkowski, Hebrew U of Jerusalem; T. S. Harvey, Vanderbilt U;  Saida Hodžić, Cornell U; K. G. Hutchins, Oberlin College; Basit Kareem Iqbal, McMaster U; Emma Kowal, Deakin U in Melbourne; Mathangi Krishnamurthy, IIT Madras; Shyam Kunwar; Margaret MacDonald, York U in Toronto; Stephanie McCallum, U Nacional de San Martín and U de San Andrés, Argentina; Diana Ojeda, Cider, U de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia; Valerie Olson, U of California, Irvine; Patrick Mbullo Owuor, Northwestern U; Stacy Leigh Pigg, Fraser U; Jason Pine, Purchase College, State U of New York; Chiara Pussetti, U of Lisbon; Tom Rice, U of Exeter; Leslie A. Robertson, U of British Columbia, Vancouver; Yana Stainova, McMaster U; Richard Vokes, U of Western Australia; Russell Westhaver, Saint Mary’s U in Nova Scotia; Paul White, U of Nevada, Reno.

"Answering methodological challenges posed by the Anthropocene, this collection retools the empirical study of the socioecological chaos of the contemporary moment across the arts, human science, and natural science. The methodological companion to Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet, it provides empirical studies of the multispecies messiness of contemporary life that investigate some of the critical questions of our time"