A teacher discusses respectful world travel, a historian explores Silicon Valley’s evolution, a professor and violist plays the music of Robert Schumann and a late English faculty member’s meditation on Seattle returns …

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

O’Mara’s ‘Code’: History professor Margaret O’Mara provides a sweeping history of California’s computer industry titans in her book “,” published by Penguin Press. Publishers Weekly wrote: “O’Mara’s extraordinarily comprehensive history is a must-read for anyone interested in how a one-horse town birthed a revolution that has shifted the course of modern civilization.” The New York Times called it an “accessible yet sophisticated chronicle.”   for a 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Award.

Seattle stories: 91̽�� Press is republishing 91̽��English professor ‘s well-loved 1976 reflections on his city, its history and its possible futures, “.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly called the book “an exhilarating critique of Seattle’s birth, growth, sickness, health, promise and fulfillment. Any serious student of Seattle or of recent urban history will now read Roger Sale, and with good reason.” Sale, who taught at the 91̽��for decades, died in 2017. The new edition has an introduction by Seattle writer Knute Berger.

Mindful travel: How can travelers respectfully explore cultures with lower incomes, different cultural patterns and far fewer luxuries? Anu Taranath, lecturer in English and the Comparative History of Ideas program, explores such questions in “,” published by Between the Lines. Taranath has led student trip to India, Mexico and other locations. “Mindful travel in an unequal world,” she says, is about “paying attention, and noticing positionality in relation to each other. It’s about understanding that we are all living in a much longer history that has put us in different positions of advantage and disadvantage, and equipped us with very few tools to talk about it.”

Salish Sea fishes: , curator emeritus of fishes at the Burke Museum and a professor emeritus of aquatic and fishery sciences, teamed with James Orr of the Alaska Fisheries Center for “,” the first-ever documenting of all the known species of fishes that live in the Salish Sea. Published by 91̽��Press, this three-volume set represents the culmination of 40 years of work and features striking illustrations by and details about 260 species of fish, complete with the ecology and life history of each species.

Watras plays Schumann: , professor of viola, offers new music and a masterwork by composer in “Schumann Resonances,” a CD released on Seattle’s Planet M Records. Schumann’s is the centerpiece and artistic jumping-off point for the CD, which is inspired by fairy tales and folklore, and features 91̽��faculty colleagues and . The music and culture blog An Earful wrote: “Besides having a burnished tone and monster technique, violist Watras has a gift for contextualizing the music of the past … with ‘Schumann Resonances,’ Watras continues to prove herself a curator, performer and composer of unique abilities.”

Solo cello, Icelandic composers: Assistant professor of music and cellist has a new release on the Sono Luminus label titled “,” which features music for solo cello by several Icelandic composers and a return to an earlier composition, “Solitaire.” In liner notes, writes: “This project is a compilation of pieces by composers that not only share my mother-tongue and culture, in language and music, but also bring their unique perspective and expression in their compositions … I couldn’t have asked for more generous artists to come into my life and allow me to explore my voice through their music.”

Fanfiction examined: Fan fiction has exploded in popularity in recent years. In their book, “,” and examine fanfiction writers and repositories and the novel ways young people support and learn from each other through participation in online fanfiction communities. Davis is an associate professor in the 91̽��; Aragon is a professor in the . Published by MIT Press.

Here are a few other notable 2019 titles from 91̽��Press.

Seawomen, Icelandic waters: “ by Margaret Willson, affiliate professor of anthropology and a faculty member in the Canadian Studies Center has been released in a paperback edition. The book, first published in 2016, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award.

Asian American voices: A new, third edition of “,” published in 1974 and co-edited by , 91̽��professor of English. The New York Times Book Review : “The stories are … strewn with new insights buried in the flesh of the narrative; they illuminate areas of darkness in the hidden experiences of a people who had been little more than exotic figments of someone else’s imagination.”

Haag remembered: A paperback edition of “,” which explores the career of the founder of the 91̽��Department of Landscape Architecture, best known in Seattle for his . Written by 91̽��architecture professor , who said Haag’s legacy is found in the places he designed, which “inspire students to think beyond what they know … they ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.”

Staff discounts: 91̽��Press is offering a 40% discount on all titles during the holidays. Staff and faculty get a 10% discount year-round when ordering through their website using the code WUWE.

• Joanne De Pue, School of Music communications director, assisted with this story.

91̽��Notebook is a section of the 91̽��News site dedicated to telling stories of the good work done by faculty and staff at the 91̽��. Read all posts here.

Recent notable books by 91̽�� faculty members explore the legal history of Indigenous nations and the mentoring benefits of fan fiction. Plus, a 91̽��anthropologist’s book is honored, a former English faculty member is remembered in a biography, and 91̽��Press brings out paperback editions of three popular titles.

Alexandra Harmon’s ‘Reclaiming the Reservation’ examines effects of 1978 Supreme Court decision on tribal sovereignty

A new book by , 91̽��professor of , explores the legal history of Indigenous nations claiming regulatory power over their reserved homelands — and the “promises and perils” of relying on the U.S. legal system in such matters.

Harmon’s “” was published in July by 91̽�� Press.

In the 1970s, Harmon writes, the Quinault and Suquamish tribes, among dozens of Indigenous nations across the United Stated, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to all people on their reservations, and this included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses.

“Tribal governments had long sought to manage affairs in their territories, and their bid for all-inclusive reservation jurisdiction was an important, bold move, driven by deeply rooted local histories as well as pan-Indian activism,” Harmon wrote. “They believed federal law supported their case.”

However, this effort ended with a 1978 that non-Indians were not subject to tribal prosecution for criminal offenses. “The court cited two centuries of U.S. legal history to justify their decision but relied solely on the interpretations of non-Indians,” Harmon writes.

In “Reclaiming the Reservation,” Harmon looks at the histories of Quinault, Suquamish and other tribes to explore the roots of their claims of regulatory power in their reserved homelands. She also shows how tribes have responded in the decades since 1978, “seeking and often finding new ways to protect their interests and assert their sovereignty.”

“Harmon brilliantly explains how tribal nations have sought to assert sovereignty through the extension of civil and criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians living within the boundaries of their nations,” wrote reviewer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “‘Reclaiming the Reservation’ is precisely the kind of history that the field desperately needs.”

For more information, contact Harmon at aharmon@uw.edu.

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Katie Davis, Cecilia Aragon find mentoring lessons in the world of fan fiction

Fan fiction has exploded in popularity in recent years, with more than 1.5 million amateur writers — most in their teens or twenties — publishing 7 million stories and 176 million reviews on a single online site, Fanfiction.net, alone.

In their new book, “,” and examine fanfiction writers and repositories and the novel ways young people support and learn from each through participation in online fanfiction communities. Davis is an associate professor in the 91̽��; Aragon is a professor in the .

They find that “these sites are not shallow agglomerations and regurgitations of pop culture but rather online spaces for sophisticated and informal learning.”

Aragon and Davis call this novel system of interactive advice and instruction “distributed mentoring,” and describe its attributes — each supported, they write, by an aspect of networked technologies.

The two authors combine qualitative and quantitative analyses in a nine-month study of three fanfiction sites, and also analyze the “lexical diversity in the 61.5 billion words on the Fanfiction.net site.”

They consider how distributed mentoring could improve not only other online learning platforms but also formal writing instruction in schools.

“” was published this month by MIT Press.

For more information, contact Aragon at aragon@uw.edu or Davis at kdavis78@uw.edu.

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Seawomen and Seattle architects: Paperback editions coming from 91̽��Press

91̽�� Press will release paperback editions of three popular UW-related books in September.

• “,” by . This is the paperback version of a second edition published in 2014. The book was first published in 1994. This edition includes four additional profiles. Ochsner, a 91̽��professor of architecture, said the book seeks to show “the wide variety of kinds of architectural achievement and the extraordinary diversity of those who contributed to making Seattle’s built environment.”
• “” explores the career of the founder of the 91̽��Department of Landscape Architecture, best known in Seattle for his . Author and 91̽��architecture professor said Haag’s legacy is found in the places he designed, which “inspire students to think beyond what they know … they ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.”
• “” uses extensive historical and field research to document the women who have withstood the trials of fishing in Iceland from the historic times of small open rowboats to today’s high-tech fisheries. A finalist for the 2017 Washington State Book Award in general nonfiction/history, the book is by , affiliate associate professor of anthropology, also with the Canadian Studies Arctic Program.

Other book notes:

Honor for Sareeta Amrute’s ‘Encoding Class’: The has given its top book honor in social sciences for 2019 to “,” by 91̽��associate professor of anthropology. The group presented the award to Amrute at its annual conference, in Leiden, the Netherlands. “Encoding Class” was published in 2016 by Duke University Press.

Joanna Russ, who taught at UW, remembered in biography: “Experimental, strange, and unabashedly feminist, ‘s groundbreaking science fiction grew out of a belief that the genre was ideal for expressing radical thought,” states from fellow sci-fi writer . Russ was a Hugo and Nebula award-winning writer who from 1977 to 1991; her work is widely taught and studied. In 2006, editors of the 91̽��alumni magazine Columns named Russ’s 1975 novel “” among the top .

is an associate professor of landscape architecture in the 91̽�� and author of “” She answered a few questions about the book and the work of Haag, whom she often fondly calls “Rich.”

Q: Here we have an affectionate and detailed biography of , well-known landscape architect and founder in 1964 of the UW’s . How did you come to write this book?

TW: When I arrived in Seattle to teach at the 91̽��in 2007, I needed a project that would ground me in my new place — so as a historian I looked for a good story, one that would allow me to discover this place and the community I had joined. Rich Haag was a terrific story as he had founded the department I was now teaching in and he was known for pushing the boundaries of design, something I wanted to do as a teacher and writer.

Q: Haag spent 1953 to 1955 in Japan on a Fulbright Fellowship. How did his time there affect his later career? What influences from that time can be seen in his public work?

TW: There is a whole chapter on this so I will refrain here, except to say that Rich’s photographs of Japan inspired a whole generation of architecture students to become landscape architects — including , , Bob Hanna, and Frank James among others. Rich’s view of the world is deeply embedded in a mix of his Kentucky youth and his Japan experience.

Q: Haag will always be associated with his award-winning work creating Seattle’s Gas Works Park on a ruined, toxic industrial site. Why, unlike so many other possible plans for the area, did he decide to keep the industrial buildings there?

TW: Re-seeing the industrial buildings and the toxic landscapes of Gas Works reveals the power and magic of a good designer — one who is an artist, a scientist and an activist. Rich re-imagined the post-industrial wasteland because he saw and continues to see the world through the lens of design, imagination and art. He preserved the character of the landscape because it was and remains a part of our urban history, our cultural legacy — it is a part of us — and thus not something we can simply throw away and make disappear.

By engaging our legacy instead of covering it over and throwing it out, he is suggesting through the design of a public place that we can learn from and with and of our places — from the simplest corner of overgrown meadow to the sweeping landforms of Gas Works to the towers and the barns.

As people and as communities we mark, transform and shape our landscapes. Re-seeing these places after we have damaged them should not require merely hiding them. For Gas Works Park Rich helped us re-imagine the landscape and make a place that we continue to learn with. It inspires us to think carefully about how we mark, transform and shape our future landscapes. It instigates activism and civic engagement. It gives pleasure and joy.

Q: You repeat landscape architect and writer Gary R. Hilderbrand’s comment that “for a group of idealistic, young people rebelling against architecture, Haag, with an almost religious zeal, delivered an epiphany: The landscape is the site for urgent and meaningful work.” What was his meaning, and why were these young idealists said to be rebelling against architecture?

TW: In the early 1960s many young people, college students, wanted to foster a different relationship with the world than what they saw around them — they wanted to steward the environment, to be a part of a larger community that questioned the authority of past generations, and they wanted to be fully engaged in the arts, in experience.

And for young architects, architecture as a traditional profession and practice appeared to have too many rules and boundaries and barriers. On the other hand, landscape was wide open, literally and figuratively. Rich made such work the place of difference — he demonstrated through his own work that designing the public realm of parks, plazas, streets and campuses could be critical contributions to society.

He inspired students to realize the potential of public space to foster democracy as they imagined it. Cities are knit together by their public landscapes, by the public realm. Rich opened the eyes of young designers to the potential of focusing on this amazing domain or space of design — essentially designing the urban landscape.

Q: Speaking of those students, what is Haag’s ongoing legacy among current and future students of the 91̽��College of Built Environments?

TW: Rich’s legacy is in his places that continue to inspire and ignite — they inspire students to think beyond what they know, to push their own imagination beyond the places they have seen. They ignite civic engagement and public service, for Rich’s most important work was in the public realm.

Such work underscores the amazing contributions of designers to the public realm, and not just to the facades but to the very fabric that makes the city a place to live, work and dream.

Students continue to come to the 91̽��and the College of Built Environments to follow in those footsteps. Today our focus on community participatory design is another extension of this focus on the public realm and the city. This is all part of Richard Haag’s legacy.

• Video by 91̽�� Press

is a senior lecturer with the 91̽�� and a writer in residence with the . She worked with well-known photographer to create a book featuring portraits of Northwest artists, writers and arts advocates. “” was published in September by . McCue answered a few questions about the work.

Q: How did this book come about?

A: Mary and I worked together on “,” my book about the poet Richard Hugo and the Northwest Towns that he wrote about. That collaboration came from a glint in the eye of Pat Soden, then the director of 91̽��Press.

Pat said: “I want you to work with Mary Randlett. You two would get a kick out of each other.” Pat is a great artistic matchmaker. I loved working with Mary. The more I got to know her, the more I saw that the scope of her work was phenomenal. Then, Rachael Levay, the wonderful publicist at 91̽��Press, suggested that I do this portraits book.

Mary likes working so it was easy to convince her. Sometimes, I’ve said that the whole project was an excuse to hang out with Mary. And, hang out we did — for two years in and in her garage, rifling through prints. We had a lot of half-finished sandwiches laying around.

Q: Several featured in this book are or were members of the 91̽��community, including , , , , , , , and others. How did you decide who to include?

A: We had these criteria: 1) we wanted to focus on artists, writers and advocates of the arts; 2) we wanted the photographs to be compelling, exposing some essence of their subjects and 3) we wanted to include people whom Mary had loved and worked with or who provided a window into the range of work being done in this region.

Q: You wrote an essay to accompany each of the subjects of the book. Would you tell a bit about your research process? 

A: I spent a lot of time reading whatever articles, books, blogs and essays I could find about the people whom we chose. Then, I dug into the rich world of Special Collections — a place where Gary Lundell, reference specialist, and Nicolette Bromberg, visual materials curator, really helped me find some fantastic prints of Mary’s and letters to and from some of the people in the book.

Special Collections is a treasure trove; it’s a great hangout and the people who work there are immersed in the history of our region. Gary, for example, was a friend of ‘s and of ‘s — two artists whom I wrote about.

Then, there were the drives with Mary herself. To get her talking, you really have to be driving. She loosens up and tells great stories when she is on the road. So, I hung a tape recorder from the heating vent in the dashboard, and off we went. I love the material from those interviews and Mary’s quotes appear throughout the book.

Checking the facts, confirming memories — all of that happened with as many of the folks as I could reach and with a great assistant on the project, Shannon Foss. Shannon is an undergraduate in the Honors Program and a genius at collecting citations.

The last part, and one of the most important, involved my own speculations about the compositions of the photographs themselves. I looked and wrote and devised reactions and theories about the portraits as art.

And, I got some terrific help by asking Barbara Johns, the fabulous art historian, and Sheila Farr, one of our region’s great art critics, to peruse my work. As Richard Hugo once said, “A good teacher can save you 10 years.” Barbara and Sheila certainly saved me from years of flailing and I’ll be forever grateful to them.

• “Mary Randlett Portraits” also features an afterword by Nicolette Bromberg.