Böcker utgivna av University of Minnesota Press

Duluth may be the city of “untold delights” as lampooned in a Kentucky congressman’s speech in 1871. Or it may be portrayed by a joke in Woody Allen’s film Manhattan. Or then again, it may be the “Zenith City of the unsalted seas” celebrated by Dr. Thomas Preston Foster, founder of the city’s first newspaper. But whatever else it may be, this city of granite hills, foghorns, and gritty history, the last stop on the shipping lanes of the Great Lakes, is undeniably a city with character—and characters. Duluth native Michael Fedo captures these characters through the happy-go-melancholy lens nurtured by the people and landscape of his youth. In Zenith City Fedo brings it back home. Framed by his reflections on Duluth’s colorful—and occasionally very dark—history and its famous visitors, such as Sinclair Lewis, Joe DiMaggio, and Bob Dylan, his memories make the city as real as the boy next door but with a better story.Here, among the graceful, poignant, and often hilarious remembered moments—pranks played on a severe teacher, the family’s unlikely mob connections, a rare childhood affliction—are the coordinates of Duluth’s larger landscape: the diners and supper clubs, the baseball teams, radio days, and the smelt-fishing rites of spring. Woven through these tales of Duluth are Fedo’s curious, instructive, and ultimately deeply moving stories about becoming a writer, from the guidance of an English teacher to the fourteen-year-old reporter’s interview with Louis Armstrong to his absorption in the events that would culminate in his provocative and influential book The Lynchings in Duluth. These are the sorts of essays—personal, cultural, and historical, at once regional and far-reaching—that together create a picture of people in a place as rich in history and anecdote as Duluth and of the forces that forever bind them together.

Snakes on the patio, salamanders in the basement, frogs crossing the road, and turtles nesting on the shore in the land of 10,000 lakes: from the enchanted child to the curious adult, from the amateur naturalist to the dedicated conservationist, living with wildlife in Minnesota means finding amphibians and reptiles in prairies and forests and your own backyard.Amateur and professional alike will find this book a comprehensive source and a user-friendly guide, invaluable for discovering, identifying, and learning about any of the state’s fifty-three amphibian and reptile species from the common American Toad to the little seen Western Ratsnake. This handbook takes readers through the steps for studying these species in the field.Including current information about designations of species in need of conservation, this reference covers the latest research and work on environmental threats and amphibian and reptile protection, such as the deformed frog phenomenon, turtle legislation, climate change, and habitat restoration. With more than 200 photographs, written descriptions, county-based maps, habitat and distribution data, life histories, and circular keys to adult and larval specimens, the book brings readers up-to-date on Minnesota’s new species and changes to scientific names. Amphibians and Reptiles in Minnesota is the most complete and authoritative guide of its kind.Information in this book was partly funded by proceeds of the Minnesota Environmental and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources.

Carisa R. Showden is associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina–Greensboro. She is the author of Choices Women Make: Agency in Domestic Violence, Assisted Reproduction, and Sex Work (Minnesota, 2011). Samantha Majic is assistant professor of political science at John Jay College/CUNY. She is the author of Sex Work Politics: From Protest to Service Provision.

Jen Gilbert investigates the breakdowns, clashes, and controversies that flare up when sexuality enters spaces of schooling. She draws attention to the explosive but also compelling force of erotic life in teaching and learning, illustrating how the most intimate of our experiences can come to shape how we see and act in the world.

Fighting for Peace brings to light an important yet neglected aspect of opposition to the Iraq War-the role of veterans and their families. Drawing on extensive participant observation and interviews, Lisa Leitz demonstrates how the harrowing war experiences of veterans and their families motivated a significant number of them to engage in peace activism.

The creators of "Big Belching Bog" take young readers on a trip to another of Minnesota's important ecosystems: the prairie. Here they explain how changes in one part of the system affect every other part: when prairie plants are destroyed, the animals that eat those plants and live on or around them are harmed as well. Full color.