UHP in Berkeley, CA | Bay Area Book Festival

Bay Area Book Festival

Indoor/Outdoor Free Festival

June 6-7 | Downtown Berkeley’s Art District, CA
Find more information here.
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Drop by our booth for a great discount on some of our most popular titles!

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The Blind Writer: Stories and a Novella
Sameer Pandya

216 pages
Paper | 978-0-8248-4798-2 | $25.00
Cloth | 978-0-8248-3958-1 | $50.00
Sameer Pandya will be a presenter at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference on Monday, June 8. For more info, click here.

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Call Me Captain: A Memoir of a Woman at Sea
Susan Scott

336 pages
Paper | 978-0-8248-3981-9 | $19.99

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Marathon Japan: Distance Racing and Civic Culture
Thomas R. H. Havens

240 pages
Cloth | 978-0-8248-4101-0 | $47.00

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Changing Chinese Cities: The Potentials of Field Urbanism
Renee Y. Chow

224 pages
Cloth | 978-0-8248-5383-9 | $45.00

Debut Fiction: The Blind Writer by Sameer Pandya

NEW RELEASE

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The Blind Writer: Stories and a Novella
by Sameer Pandya
February 2015 | 216 pages
Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8284-3958-1 | $50.00
Paper | ISBN 978-0-8284-4798-2 | $25.00
Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies

This collection gathers together the title novella along with five short pieces that follow the lives of first- and second-generation Indian Americans living in contemporary California. The characters share a similar sensibility: a sense that immigration is a distant memory, yet an experience that continues to shape the decisions they make in subtle and surprising ways as they go about the complicated business of everyday living.

“Sameer Pandya’s stories are fine-tuned and precise, and carry an emotional load that breaks open inside us in ways that are, by turns, delicate and explosive.” —Gretel Ehrlich, author of The Solace of Open Spaces and Facing the Wave

“Pandya writes with grace and authority about characters revealed to us through their fears and dreams, mistakes and successes, longing and regrets.” —Keith Scribner, Oregon State University

Caodaism’s “Outrageous Syncretism” Incorporates Chinese, Buddhist, and Western Religions

NEW RELEASE

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The Divine Eye and the Diaspora: Vietnamese Syncretism Becomes Transpacific Caodaism
by Janet Alison Hoskins
February 2015 | 308 pages | 8 color and 17 b&w illustrations
Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8248-4004-4 | $65.00
Paper | ISBN 978-0-8248-5140-8 | $32.00

Caodaism is a new religion born in Vietnam during the struggles of decolonization, shattered and spatially dispersed by cold war conflicts, and now reshaping the goals of its four million followers. Colorful and strikingly eclectic, Caodaism forces us to reconsider how anthropologists study religious mixtures in postcolonial settings. Its dynamics challenge the unconscious Eurocentrism of our notions of how religions are bounded and conceptualized.

“This examination of the Caodai religious movement is easily the most comprehensive and sympathetic study yet prepared on what is surely the most fascinating yet also the most misunderstood of Vietnam’s ‘new’ (colonial and postcolonial) religions. The work engages critically with existing interpretations of the Caodai faith and ventures a new interpretation of its emergence as a reflexive re-synthesis of Vietnamese religious traditions—a self-defensive re-articulation of identity—in the context of colonial cultural and political domination, frustrated nationalism, diasporic dispersal, and transnational globalism. . . . In the hands of the author, this engaging, complex, and big-hearted Vietnamese religion at last has gained the sensitive and capable treatment it deserves.” —Philip Taylor, The Australian National University

Queer Compulsions Talk by Amy Sueyoshi at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose

AUTHOR EVENT

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Join Dr. Amy Sueyoshi as she discusses the subject of Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and Sexualities in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi on Sunday, October 19, 1:00 p.m., at the Japanese American Museum of San Jose. In her work she explores the complex interaction between lived sexualities and socio-legal mores, tracing how one man negotiated affection across cultural, linguistic, and moral divides to find fulfillment in unconventional yet acceptable ways.

Read more about the event on the JAMsj site.

Calling All ‘Ukulele Fans in Southern California!

Jim Tranquada, author of The ‘Ukulele: A History, will speak at a couple of events in the southern California area — one taking place tomorrow (sorry for the short notice) and the other in April. In each he will be paired with ‘ukulele musicians to create entertaining celebrations of the versatile instrument. The Brittni Paiva concert should be especially awesome!

Saturday, February 23, 2013, 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Grant R. Brimhall Library, 1401 East Janss Road, Thousand Oaks
Musician/teacher Tom Kuznkowski will lead the kanikapila (jam session). Bring your ‘uke and join in! For more details, download the flyer here.

Saturday, April 13, 2013, from 2:00 p.m.
Museum of Making Music, 5790 Armada Drive, Carlsbad
Mark your calendars to head over to Carlsbad for “Sincerely, Ukulele,” featuring Jim Tranquada’s book talk, followed by a performance by ‘ukulele artist Brittni Paiva. For details and to purchase tickets, click here.