The Department of English has introduced its new , a series of podcasts and YouTube videos in which 91̽��humanities faculty discuss their research and teaching — “including the ways our work contributes to how we experience and seek to understand this time of global crisis.” Each presentation is available in both podcast and YouTube video formats.

In the first of so far, associate professor describes “what studying literature in what’s called ‘the environmental humanities’ teaches us about collectivity during events from Cyclone Amphan to COVID-19.” was a powerful tropical cyclone that caused damage in Eastern India in May.

The second episode features , senior lecturer and associate director of writing programs, on the topic, “What Asian American Studies, Literature and Art Teach Us During COVID-19.” Liu also discusses anti-racist pedagogical practices.

The third episode features associate professor on “Queer Care and Trans Literature During COVID-19.”��With a focus on promoting a “politics of care,” key texts she covers in the talk include “” by Imogen Binnie to “,” by Kai Cheng Thom.

Public scholarship project director for the podcast/video series is lecturer and project manager is Jake Huebsch, coordinator of the department’s Expository Writing Program.

In other podcast news:

Sephardic Studies chair Devin Naar visits two podcasts

, 91̽��professor of history and Jewish studies and chair of the Jackson School’s Sephardic Studies Program, was a guest on two podcasts in recently.

In May Naar discussed the history and cultural legacy of the Ladino language on a about Near Eastern history, language and culture produced by Foreigncy.US. He described the growing , in the Jackson School’s , gathering and digitizing documents pertaining to the Sephardic Jews of the Mediterranean world.

Naar also was a guest in September on a podcast called “Then and Now,” produced by the University of California, Los Angles, Center for History and Policy. The episode was titled “.” Naar discussed the topic from the perspective of Sephardic Jewish history.

“He challenges the imposed racial categorization of Jews in the United States, discusses the erasure and exclusion of Sephardic and Mizrahi identity in mainstream Jewish institutions,” program notes say, “and proposes a historical reclamation of Sephardic identity and a radical reimagining of community spaces.” This podcast was released on Sept. 8.

A novelist’s thoughts on storytelling, a geologist’s soil restoration strategy, an environmentalist’s memoir, a celebration of Latino music influences, a poet’s meditations on her changing city …

Yes, and a best-selling author’s latest work, a podcast reborn as a book, a collaboration of world-class violists and even tales of brave Icelandic seawomen — at this festive time of year, 91̽�� faculty creations can make great gifts for the Dawg on your shopping list.

Here’s a quick look at some gift-worthy books and music created by 91̽��talents in the last year or so — and a reminder of some perennial favorites.

Charles Johnson, “.” Johnson, National Book Award-winning author of “” and longtime professor of English, discusses his art in a book stemming from a year of interviews. “There is winning sanity here,” the New York Times wrote: “Johnson wants his students to be ‘raconteurs always ready to tell an engaging tale,’ not self-preoccupied neurotics.” Published by .

Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Shannon Dudley and Michelle Habell-Pallán, ““ An extraordinary exhibit at the Smithsonian and Seattle’s Experience Music Project (now Museum of Pop Culture) comes to life as a book, detailing Latino influence on American popular music from salsa to punk, Chicano rock to the Miami sound. Berrios-Miranda is an affiliate associate professor of ethnomusicology, Dudley an associate professor of music and Habell-Pallán an associate professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies. It’s a dual-language volume — English on the right side, Spanish on the left. And as a bonus the authors have created an American Sabor on iTunes and Spotify; the book flags specific songs with a playlist icon. Published by 91̽�� Press.

David R. Montgomery, “.” Montgomery, a professor of Earth and space sciences, won praise for his popular 2007 book “.” Several books later he returned in 2017 with this view of environmental restoration based on three ideas – “ditch the plow, cover up, grow diversity.” said Montgomery’s well-expressed views “will convince readers that soil health should not remain an under-the-radar issue and that we all benefit from embracing a new philosophy of farming.” Published by .

Margaret Willson, Willson is an affiliate associate professor of anthropology and the Canadian Studies Arctic Program. In her years working as a deckhand she came across historic accounts of a woman sea captain known for reading the weather, hauling in large catches and never losing a crew member in 60 years of fishing. “And yet people in Iceland told me there had been few seawomen in their past, and few in their present,” she said. “I found this strange in a country of such purported gender equality. This curiosity led to the research and all that came from it.” Published by .

Estella Leopold, “.” Leopold is professor emeritus of biology and the youngest daughter of , who wrote the 1949 classic of early environmentalism, “.” She returns to scenes of her Wisconsin childhood in this follow-up, describing her life on the land where her father practiced his revolutionary conservation philosophy. Published by .

David Shields, “.” Shields is a professor of English and the best-selling author of many books, starting with his 1984 novel “.” In 2017 he brought out this collection of essays that the New York Times called “a triumphantly humane book” and him “our elusive, humorous ironist, something like a 21^st century Socrates.” The paper’s praise continued: “He is a master stylist — and has been for a long time, on the evidence of these pieces from throughout his career. . . All good writers make us feel less alone. But Shields makes us feel better.” Published by .

Joseph Janes, “.” The year 2017 saw Janes’ popular podcast “” become a book under a slightly different title. Janes is an associate professor in the Information School who writes here about the origin and often evolving meaning of historical documents, both famous and less known. Some of his favorite “documents” are Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s fictional list of communists, the Fannie Farmer Cookbook and the backstory to what’s called the Rosie the Riveter poster. Published by .

Frances McCue, Well-known Seattle poet, teacher and self-described “arts instigator,” McCue is a senior lecturer in English. She was a co-founder of Hugo House, a place for writers, and served as its director for 10 years. Those experiences fuel this book of poems about the changing nature of the city. “This is Seattle. A place to love whatever’s left,” she writes. Published by .

Scott L. Montgomery, “.” Scientific research that doesn’t get communicated effectively to the public may as well not have happened at all, says geoscientist Montgomery in this second volume of a popular 2001 book. A prolific writer, Montgomery is a lecturer in the Jackson School of International Studies. “Communicating is the doing of science,” he adds. “Publication and public speaking are how scientific work gains a presence, a shared reality in the world.”�� Published by .

Odai Johnson, “.” The true cultural tipping point in the run-up to the American Revolution, writes Johnson, a professor in the School of Drama, might not have been the Boston Tea Party or even the First Continental Congress. Rather, he suggests, it was Congress’ 1774 decision to close the British American theaters — a small act but “a hard shot across the bow of British culture.” Published by .

Here are some recordings from 2017 involving faculty in the 91̽��School of Music:

Melia Watras, “.” Music professor Watras offers a collaboration from of world-class violists performing and sharing their own compositions with each other. Her own playing has been described in the press as “staggeringly virtuosic.” Richard Karpen, School of Music director, is among several guests. The title comes from the number of strings on the instruments used: two violas, one violin, and the 14-string viola d’amore. .

Cuong Vu 4-Tet, “.” A live collaboration between Vu, 91̽��Jazz Studies chair, and renowned jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, who is an affiliate professor with the School of Music. Recorded in 2016 at Meany Theater, Vu and Frisell were joined by artists in residence Ted Poor on drums and Luke Bergman on bass. Released on .

Craig Sheppard, “.” Sheppard, longtime professor of music and a world-class pianist, plays sonatas and mazurkas by Frederic Chopin recorded live at Meany Theater in February 2017. The Seattle Times said of an earlier Chopin concert of Sheppard’s that his playing featured “exquisite details … it was playing that revealed layer after layer of music in each piece, as if one were faceting a gemstone. Released on .

Here are some other notable recent UW-authored books:

• Research on poverty and the American suburbs in “,” by Scott Allard, professor in the Evan School of Public Policy & Governance.
• Literature meets science to contemplate the geologic epoch of humans in “,” co-edited by Jesse Oak Taylor, associate professor of English.
• A popular science exploration of machine learning and the algorithms that help run our lives in “,” by Pedro Domingos, professor of computer science and engineering.
• A close look at four of America’s electoral adventures in “” by Margaret O’Mara, professor of history.
• A fully revised second edition of Earth and space sciences professor Darrel Cowan’s popular 1984 book, “.” This 378-page paperback is filled with details about Washington state geology.
• The story of a city’s transition from the Ottoman Empire to Greece in “” by Devin Naar, professor of history and Jewish studies.
• A city that “thinks like a planet” is one both resilient to and ready for the future that the changing Earth will bring, says Marina Alberti, professor in the College of Built Environments in “.
• Todd London, professor and director of the School of Drama, follows the professional theater experiences of 15 actors from the 1995 class of Harvard’s American Repertory Theater in “.”
• Dr. Stephen Helgerson, a 91̽��School of Public Health alumnus and physician in preventive medicine for four decades, uses the novella form to tell of the influenza epidemic’s arrival in his state in “.”
• On the 500^th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, an exploration of faith that results in the common good in “,” co-authored by Steve Pfaff, professor of sociology.
• Calm down from holiday — and tech-induced stresses — by thinking mindfully with “” by communication professor David Levy.

Finally, still-popular and pertinent books from a few years back include the second edition of “” by Jeffrey Ochsner, professor of architecture; “” by Randlett with Frances McCue; “” by Cliff Mass, professor of atmospheric sciences; and the ever-popular “” by Bill Holm, professor emeritus of art history. All of these were published by , which has many other great titles.

The epoch — the proposed name for this time of significant human effect on the planet and its systems — represents a new context in which to study literature. A new book of essays co-edited by a 91̽��English faculty member argues that literary studies, in turn, also can help us better understand the Anthropocene.

“” is a book of essays co-edited by of the University of California, Davis, and , 91̽��associate professor of English. It was published in October by Penn State Press. Taylor is director of undergraduate programs for the 91̽��.

The book, Taylor said, grew from seminars he and Menely held at the American Comparative Literature Association conferences in 2015 and 2016. The essays were written specifically for the volume, he said, and contributors heard versions of the papers at the seminars, making the project “truly collaborative.”

Taylor said the questions he and Menely posed of contributors was essentially, “How should we read in the Anthropocene?” Other questions flowed from that, including:

• “What kinds of interpretive strategies are necessary to situate literary works within a geological time scale?
• How does the breakdown between “human” and “natural” history resulting from this geological era affect our understanding of literary history?

Dating the Anthropocene epoch poses a problem for critical reading, Taylor said, with “tensions between the protocols of Earth system science on the one hand and the stratigraphy on the other.” The era is, after all, “dependent on the inscription of human history within the geologic record.”

In the end, Taylor said, the volume argues that the Anthropocene is not just a new context in which to understand literary works, “but also that the methods of literary analysis and the vantage that literature opens on history are themselves integral to conceptualizing, dating, and ultimately confronting the Anthropocene itself.”

The Anthropocene, he added, “reorients our understanding of history and thus shifts the way we think about literary history as well,” such that “on some level, all literary works become potential records of human interaction with the planet, whether through energy systems, geological events or climatological restraints.”

Essays in the book come from academics at Yale University; the University of Chicago; the University of California, Berkeley; Columbia University; Georgetown University and the University of Melbourne, among others.

Taylor is also the author of the 2016 book “.” The book, he said, focuses on Victorian London as perhaps the first-ever example of “a thoroughly manufactured habitat, in which everything, including the weather, bore the legible imprint of human action — that is to say, precisely the challenge posed by the Anthropocene, albeit at smaller scale.”

Taylor also runs a on the Anthropocene at the 91̽��Simpson Center for the Humanities, together with , 91̽��assistant professor of Germanics.

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For more information, contact Taylor at jot8@uw.edu.