The latest and upcoming books from the UW faculty include those from the Department of Political Science, the Department of History, the Jackson School of International Studies, and the Department of American Ethnic Studies.
Political experts often point to federalism as a test of the strength of any party in the American democracy; In their opinion, the state government influences the lives of citizens more directly and thus counterbalances the domination of one party at the national level.
But as Jake Grumbach explains in his new book, Laboratories Against Democracy, the issues and interests that guided national party agendas, such as immigration and the strengthening or restriction of electoral rights, also penetrated the state level. As an assistant professor of political science at the University of Warsaw, Grumbach outlines the ways in which party politics and interest groups, especially over the past two decades, have essentially determined state party agendas and inspired candidates at the state level.
It is this shift of politics into states, he says in the book, “it doesn’t just change the place of political battles. It fundamentally changes the field of US politics, providing new benefits to groups that have the information capacity to monitor politicians at lower levels of government, and groups that can move political and economic resources across borders. “
Grumbach analyzed the years 2000-2018 – before the latest events on the national scene – to create what he calls the National Democracy Index, or “a measure of democratic health in 50 states.” Using statistical modeling, Grumbach based the measurement on 61 indicators of democracy, such as voter registration rules, how and where to vote, and inequality with respect to voting and gerrymandering.
“The State Democracy Index shows that states are diverge: some states have expanded access to voting and made their neighborhood maps more sustainable, while other states have experienced a major democratic deviation,” Grumbach said. “The differences between high-scoring states like Washington and lower-scoring states like North Carolina and Wisconsin are not as great as the difference was during the Jim Crow period, but the differences are significant. The quality of democracy in countries determines whose voice is heard in our political system – and the politicians that shape our lives. ”
In his book, Grumbach maintains that while other studies have assessed states for specific measures such as educational outcomes or the business climate, little has been done about the role of state governments in preserving democracy. He made the Index of State Democracy available on his website, potentially for use by students, researchers and journalists – anyone interested in monitoring the democratic deviation.
“As the Supreme Court brings abortion rights and other policies to the state level – including potentially new powers over federal elections – the quality of democracy in the states will become even more important,” Grumbach said.
Laboratories against Democracy is published by Princeton University Press.
For more information, please contact Grumbach at grumbach@uw.edu.
Racism, Eugenics in the Early Gay Rights Movement
In the article “Racism and the Making of Gay Rights: A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love,” published in May 2022 by the University of Toronto Press, history professor Laurie Marhoefer shows how the sexologist Magnus Hirschfield laid the foundations for a gay modern day. . laws. But while Hirschfield is considered one of the founders of gay rights politics, he also borrowed from racist, imperial and eugenic ideas, including anti-black racism.
“It’s hard to do justice to the power of this book,” said reviewer Leila J. Rupp, professor of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Let me just say that when you open it, you’ll have a hard time tearing it away.”
The book tells how in 1931 Hirschfield met and fell in love with medical student Li Shiu Tongu. Li became Hirschfield’s assistant in a lecture, the first of such a scale, in which a famous expert advocated homosexuality.
Following the couple’s journeys through the American, Dutch and British empires and the exile of Adolf Hitler to Europe, Marhoefer presents a detailed picture of queer life in the 1930s.
Research by Marhoefer, Jon Bridgman’s history professor, showed that Li was also a sexologist and activist whose views fit better with the present day. In later years, Li began writing a book on his own theory of sexuality. Marhoefer found the only known copy in Berlin. The book serves as a double biography of Hirschfield and Li.
“Racism and the creation of gay rights” decentrates Magnus Hirschfeld, long revered as the “founding father” of gay liberation, revealing the racist and imperialist investments behind his over-focus on white, cisgender men, still an all-too-common trait of queer representation, said the reviewer Angela Zimmerman, professor of history at George Washington University.
“Most importantly, Laurie Marhoefer introduces the possibility of a better, more queer liberation in the minds of Chinese research assistant and perhaps Hirschfeld’s lover, Li Shiu Tong. It’s a queer story for a brighter future. “
For more information, please contact Marhoefer at marl@uw.edu.
Evolution – and flourishing – of Filipino American Studies
Edited and introduced by Rick Bonus, professor of American Ethnic Studies, the new volume explores how Filipino American Studies, founded several decades ago, are following new directions.
The 34-essay volume of Filipinx American Studies: Reckoning, Reclamation, Transformation is framed both as a study critique and as a project to move forward in this field. Book edited by Antonio Tiongson Jr. from Syracuse University was published by Fordham University Press.
In the introduction, Bonus and Tiongson lay the foundations of the Philippine American study of the historical experience – violence and colonization first by Spain and then by the United States – which manifested itself in racism and the extraction of labor. They write: “But despite their persistent characterization as an unacceptable race problem or as unfavorable troublemakers, and despite their status as colonial subjects who did not qualify for citizenship, Filipinos proactively and creatively invented ways to resist, recover, and remember.”
Bonus and Tiongson describe how Filipino American Studies has evolved as an interdiscipline, both in alliance with other groups, communities, and disciplines, and as opposed to the more “US-centric and therefore narrow and restrictive means of analysis” often found in more conventional American and research ethnic.
“It’s an established tradition in our industry,” said Bonus. “We’ve always wondered how our identities relate to others, how we cross national and ethnic boundaries when it comes to community building, and how certain rules of belonging do not apply to us. As a result, other fields of study based on race and ethnicity admired and imitated us as we continue to challenge and exemplify the strength of both solidarity and resistance. “
The book aims to move science forward, from the historical ideas of immigration, settlement and assimilation to the ways of imperialism, globalization and racism today. The editors advocate a reorientation of what it means to be a Filipino American so that the United States is not the only determining factor. Among the essays are those that analyze Filipino American Studies and the identity of students in higher education; gender and sexuality; and various forms of work.
For more information, please contact rbonus@uw.edu.
How the revolution changed the Russian Jewish community
How the Soviet Jew Was Made is the first book by Sasha Senderowicz, assistant professor at the Jackson School of International Studies and the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.
A book recently published by Harvard University Press uses post-revolutionary Russian and Yiddish literary, film, and journalistic sources to explore how the Jewish community of the former tsarist empire was transformed by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and during the first two decades of Bolshevik rule.
The requirement that most Jews live in Russia’s western frontier – known as the settlement zone – was lifted in 1917.
With this new opportunity, many Jewish communities moved to larger cities or headed to Europe, America, Palestine, or the new Jewish Autonomous Region in the Far East, a Soviet experiment that has since waned. It was developed as a home for the Jewish population of the Soviet Union, but there was no mass migration to the area. Today, most of the settlers in the region are ethnic Russians.
“In addition to my colleagues, I am grateful to the students for my course on the Soviet Jewish experience, which I have now offered three times at the University of Warsaw,” said Senderowicz, who is also a faculty affiliate at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. “Discussing some of the materials I wrote about in my book with them has enriched my thinking.”
For more information, please contact Senderovich at senderov@uw.edu.
Tags: College of Arts & amp; Sciences • Department of American Ethnic Studies • Department of History • Department of Political Science • Jackson School of International Studies • Jake Grumbach • Laurie Marhoefer • Rick Bonus • Sasha Senderovich
