Alan Thomas
@agthomas.bsky.social
Editorial Director, University of Chicago Press. On book publishing, literature, and photography. https://linktr.ee/alnthomas
Great interview with George Lakoff and Srini Narayanan (computational neuroscientist at Google DeepMind) on how brains and AI think differently.
lareviewofbooks.org/article/ever...
lareviewofbooks.org/article/ever...
Everything You Think Is Physical | Los Angeles Review of Books
Julien Crockett discusses cognition and metaphors with George Lakoff and Srini Narayanan, authors of “The Neural Mind: How Brains Think,” in a new installment of the series The Rules We Live By.
lareviewofbooks.org
October 13, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Great interview with George Lakoff and Srini Narayanan (computational neuroscientist at Google DeepMind) on how brains and AI think differently.
lareviewofbooks.org/article/ever...
lareviewofbooks.org/article/ever...
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Oh, wow! Thrilled by this, and a huge thanks to both @longreads.com, which has done so much to make the web a place for good writing, and @placesjournal.bsky.social, which is one of the preeminent venues for anything even remotely related to place, landscape, space, architecture, etc.
“A Map of Radical Bewilderment” by @daeganmiller.bsky.social is featured this week on @longreads.com, in a Reading List on cartographic power and possibility.
A good reminder to return to Miller’s essay, which makes the argument that we can wander in a landscape without insisting it be profitable.
A good reminder to return to Miller’s essay, which makes the argument that we can wander in a landscape without insisting it be profitable.
September 18, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Oh, wow! Thrilled by this, and a huge thanks to both @longreads.com, which has done so much to make the web a place for good writing, and @placesjournal.bsky.social, which is one of the preeminent venues for anything even remotely related to place, landscape, space, architecture, etc.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
#ACLA2025 may be ending, but our virtual exhibit is still open! Browse our virtual exhibit and get 30% off and free domestic shipping using code EX58016: bit.ly/UCPEXACLA.
June 1, 2025 at 1:24 PM
#ACLA2025 may be ending, but our virtual exhibit is still open! Browse our virtual exhibit and get 30% off and free domestic shipping using code EX58016: bit.ly/UCPEXACLA.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Wonderful in-depth piece, with historic California coast photos. The seas are coming for us, every one, you ladies and you gentlemen
"Were you to walk along the beach, keeping a consistent distance from the water, you’d pass through swaths of private land and public land," writes Andrew Malmuth.
California has long allowed an ambiguous boundary on its coastline. Now, climate change is testing the limits of a fragile compromise.
California has long allowed an ambiguous boundary on its coastline. Now, climate change is testing the limits of a fragile compromise.
Property and Permanence on the California Coastline
California has long allowed an ambiguous boundary between public and private land along its coast. Climate change is testing the limits of this compromise.
placesjournal.org
May 20, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Wonderful in-depth piece, with historic California coast photos. The seas are coming for us, every one, you ladies and you gentlemen
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Celebrate Daniel Mendelsohn's landmark new translation of one of the greatest epics of all time, THE ODYSSEY. Join him in person for events around the country this spring to honor this work & his magnificent feat of translation, acclaimed by poets & classicists alike.
March 20, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Celebrate Daniel Mendelsohn's landmark new translation of one of the greatest epics of all time, THE ODYSSEY. Join him in person for events around the country this spring to honor this work & his magnificent feat of translation, acclaimed by poets & classicists alike.
New in the Thinking Literature series: Jennifer Soong’s SLIPS OF THE MIND: POETRY AS FORGETTING and Robert Scott’s READING HEGEL: IRONY, RECOLLECTION, CRITIQUE. 30% off with code #UCPNEW on the UChicago Press website @jennifersoong.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
March 11, 2025 at 10:54 PM
New in the Thinking Literature series: Jennifer Soong’s SLIPS OF THE MIND: POETRY AS FORGETTING and Robert Scott’s READING HEGEL: IRONY, RECOLLECTION, CRITIQUE. 30% off with code #UCPNEW on the UChicago Press website @jennifersoong.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Great piece on university presses now: “The publishers who don’t run away.”
Excited to have a new piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (@chronicle.com). I’ve been in so many exchanges with people who’ve never heard anything happy about university presses. So I wrote an essay to share with them.
Opinion | This Is a Golden Age for University Presses
The focus on efficiency and innovation misses the point: We are producing fabulous books.
www.chronicle.com
February 7, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Great piece on university presses now: “The publishers who don’t run away.”
Reposted by Alan Thomas
In ON CLOSE READING, John Guillory addresses two puzzles: why the New Critics, who supposedly emphasized close reading, rarely used the term, and why scholars struggle to define it. Guillory explains how these puzzles are connected on our blog. Read more here: https://buff.ly/40pR0bL
January 24, 2025 at 3:06 PM
In ON CLOSE READING, John Guillory addresses two puzzles: why the New Critics, who supposedly emphasized close reading, rarely used the term, and why scholars struggle to define it. Guillory explains how these puzzles are connected on our blog. Read more here: https://buff.ly/40pR0bL
Thinking of Shirley Hazzard, who would have been 94 today. This picture is from my last visit with her, in 2014: she is holding her 1963 portrait by Sam Falk. Savor at least a paragraph today from her great novels, Transit of Venus and The Great Fire.
January 30, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Thinking of Shirley Hazzard, who would have been 94 today. This picture is from my last visit with her, in 2014: she is holding her 1963 portrait by Sam Falk. Savor at least a paragraph today from her great novels, Transit of Venus and The Great Fire.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Congratulations to Jesse McCarthy, author of THE BLUE PERIOD, which has been longlisted for the National Books Critics Circle Awards in Criticism. Part of our Thinking Literature series, THE BLUE PERIOD investigates Black writing in the Cold War era.
2024 NBCC Awards Longlist: Criticism - National Book Critics Circle
Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us by Legacy Russell (Verso) The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War by Jesse McCarthy (University of Chicago)
buff.ly
December 16, 2024 at 10:53 PM
Congratulations to Jesse McCarthy, author of THE BLUE PERIOD, which has been longlisted for the National Books Critics Circle Awards in Criticism. Part of our Thinking Literature series, THE BLUE PERIOD investigates Black writing in the Cold War era.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Thrilled that My Dark Room (University of Chicago Press) has been awarded an honorable mention for the MLA’s 2023 James Russell Lowell Prize! 💫✨💫 www.mla.org/content/down...
www.mla.org
December 10, 2024 at 11:15 PM
Thrilled that My Dark Room (University of Chicago Press) has been awarded an honorable mention for the MLA’s 2023 James Russell Lowell Prize! 💫✨💫 www.mla.org/content/down...
Cover reveal — Allison Carruth’s “Novel Ecologies: Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech” unmasks the tech industry’s quasi-religious faith in environmental engineering. Forthcoming in January. Preorder now with code UCPNEW for 30% off: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
December 7, 2024 at 12:18 AM
Cover reveal — Allison Carruth’s “Novel Ecologies: Nature Remade and the Illusions of Tech” unmasks the tech industry’s quasi-religious faith in environmental engineering. Forthcoming in January. Preorder now with code UCPNEW for 30% off: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
John Guillory’s “On Close Reading” is here! See also Scott Newstok’s companion website, Close Reading Archive: www.closereadingarchive.org
Orders placed directly with Chicago are shipping now (30% off with promo code UCPNEW): tinyurl.com/4ew4tm6h
Orders placed directly with Chicago are shipping now (30% off with promo code UCPNEW): tinyurl.com/4ew4tm6h
December 4, 2024 at 9:52 PM
John Guillory’s “On Close Reading” is here! See also Scott Newstok’s companion website, Close Reading Archive: www.closereadingarchive.org
Orders placed directly with Chicago are shipping now (30% off with promo code UCPNEW): tinyurl.com/4ew4tm6h
Orders placed directly with Chicago are shipping now (30% off with promo code UCPNEW): tinyurl.com/4ew4tm6h
Reposted by Alan Thomas
I will make my usual comment about pardons:
Any executive who has pardon power and does not specifically commit at least a portion of their time to regularly, expeditiously reviewing and acting on pardon requests from nobodies is failing a very clear moral test.
Any executive who has pardon power and does not specifically commit at least a portion of their time to regularly, expeditiously reviewing and acting on pardon requests from nobodies is failing a very clear moral test.
December 2, 2024 at 2:31 AM
I will make my usual comment about pardons:
Any executive who has pardon power and does not specifically commit at least a portion of their time to regularly, expeditiously reviewing and acting on pardon requests from nobodies is failing a very clear moral test.
Any executive who has pardon power and does not specifically commit at least a portion of their time to regularly, expeditiously reviewing and acting on pardon requests from nobodies is failing a very clear moral test.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Anyone else waiting to see if the CMOS shop is going to maybe have a cyber Monday sale tomorrow? Just me? Because new edition means new merchandise and yellow just happens to be my favorite color.
CMOS 18 Logo Women T-Shirt | The Chicago Manual of Style
CMOS 18 Logo on Women T-Shirt – We are excited to announce the 18th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style! You are undeniably stylish. You are an unabashed trendsetter. You're walking on sunshine!
chicagomanual.threadless.com
December 1, 2024 at 10:54 PM
Anyone else waiting to see if the CMOS shop is going to maybe have a cyber Monday sale tomorrow? Just me? Because new edition means new merchandise and yellow just happens to be my favorite color.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Such a nice shoutout for my #Homer #Odyssey —and from such an unexpected quarter:
nytacrostics.com/nyt-acrostic...
nytacrostics.com/nyt-acrostic...
NYT Acrostic December 1, 2024 - New York Times Acrostics
Homeward Bound The Odyssey enjoys a richly deserved prime spot in our literary canon. Homer’s […]
nytacrostics.com
December 1, 2024 at 2:20 AM
Such a nice shoutout for my #Homer #Odyssey —and from such an unexpected quarter:
nytacrostics.com/nyt-acrostic...
nytacrostics.com/nyt-acrostic...
New this fall, the 11th and 12th books in Chicago’s Thinking Literature series: Julia Jarcho’s “Throw Yourself Away: Writing & Masochism” and Leah Middlebrook’s “Amphion: Lyre, Poetry, & Politics in Modernity.” @uchicagopress.bsky.social
November 26, 2024 at 12:01 AM
New this fall, the 11th and 12th books in Chicago’s Thinking Literature series: Julia Jarcho’s “Throw Yourself Away: Writing & Masochism” and Leah Middlebrook’s “Amphion: Lyre, Poetry, & Politics in Modernity.” @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Reposted by Alan Thomas
FIELD NOTES: REPAIR #4
The latest in the series, feat. words by Simon Sadler, @tamigraph.bsky.social, Nina Briggs, @kavitaurbanist.bsky.social, Aaron Cayer, Ifeoma Ebo, Elke Krasny, @johanpries.bsky.social, Kyle Spence, Phineas Harper & Gabu Heindl.
Observations on repair in a broken world:
The latest in the series, feat. words by Simon Sadler, @tamigraph.bsky.social, Nina Briggs, @kavitaurbanist.bsky.social, Aaron Cayer, Ifeoma Ebo, Elke Krasny, @johanpries.bsky.social, Kyle Spence, Phineas Harper & Gabu Heindl.
Observations on repair in a broken world:
November 15, 2024 at 6:52 PM
FIELD NOTES: REPAIR #4
The latest in the series, feat. words by Simon Sadler, @tamigraph.bsky.social, Nina Briggs, @kavitaurbanist.bsky.social, Aaron Cayer, Ifeoma Ebo, Elke Krasny, @johanpries.bsky.social, Kyle Spence, Phineas Harper & Gabu Heindl.
Observations on repair in a broken world:
The latest in the series, feat. words by Simon Sadler, @tamigraph.bsky.social, Nina Briggs, @kavitaurbanist.bsky.social, Aaron Cayer, Ifeoma Ebo, Elke Krasny, @johanpries.bsky.social, Kyle Spence, Phineas Harper & Gabu Heindl.
Observations on repair in a broken world:
Reposted by Alan Thomas
A book we published in 1955 that's trending now. Offered without need for additional comment: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... @uchicagopress.bsky.social
They Thought They Were Free
“When this book was first published it received some attention from the critics but none at all from the public. Nazism was finished in the bunker in Berlin and its death warrant signed on the bench a...
press.uchicago.edu
November 15, 2024 at 7:16 PM
A book we published in 1955 that's trending now. Offered without need for additional comment: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Attending the American Studies meeting in Baltimore? I’ll be there and eager to see you at the UChicago Press booth. Check out our featured titles here: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/vi... @uchicagopress.bsky.social
press.uchicago.edu
November 14, 2024 at 1:42 PM
Attending the American Studies meeting in Baltimore? I’ll be there and eager to see you at the UChicago Press booth. Check out our featured titles here: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/vi... @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Reposted by Alan Thomas
A review of The Virtual Sentence, eight writing exercises by Kyle Booten, D. Graham Burnett, Brian Dillon, Jeff Dolven, Jan Mieszkowski, Sally O’Reilly, Mónica de la Torre, and Elena Vogman.
You Could Use the Exercise
In the face of AI, the time is right to practice our writing techniques for invention and surprise.
www.publicbooks.org
September 24, 2024 at 3:11 PM
A review of The Virtual Sentence, eight writing exercises by Kyle Booten, D. Graham Burnett, Brian Dillon, Jeff Dolven, Jan Mieszkowski, Sally O’Reilly, Mónica de la Torre, and Elena Vogman.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
NEXT Weds. 11/20. Throw Yourself Away: Writing and Masochism. A Book Talk with Julia Jarcho. 4pm Pembroke Hall 305. Responses from Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in English Kevin Quashie & Asst. Professor of English Kyle C. Frisina (Holy Cross). Learn more: https://buff.ly/40iy403
November 13, 2024 at 12:00 PM
NEXT Weds. 11/20. Throw Yourself Away: Writing and Masochism. A Book Talk with Julia Jarcho. 4pm Pembroke Hall 305. Responses from Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in English Kevin Quashie & Asst. Professor of English Kyle C. Frisina (Holy Cross). Learn more: https://buff.ly/40iy403
Reposted by Alan Thomas
Field Notes on Repair #2 is out now!
This second installment in the survey series features words on repair, maintenance & care by Joan Ockman, David Theodore, Ana Miljački, David Gissen, Amber Wiley, Huda Tayob, Brett Milligan, Mireille Roddier, Nishiko, Jeremy Till, Nora Wendl & Alison B. Hirsch.
This second installment in the survey series features words on repair, maintenance & care by Joan Ockman, David Theodore, Ana Miljački, David Gissen, Amber Wiley, Huda Tayob, Brett Milligan, Mireille Roddier, Nishiko, Jeremy Till, Nora Wendl & Alison B. Hirsch.
November 13, 2024 at 6:26 PM
Field Notes on Repair #2 is out now!
This second installment in the survey series features words on repair, maintenance & care by Joan Ockman, David Theodore, Ana Miljački, David Gissen, Amber Wiley, Huda Tayob, Brett Milligan, Mireille Roddier, Nishiko, Jeremy Till, Nora Wendl & Alison B. Hirsch.
This second installment in the survey series features words on repair, maintenance & care by Joan Ockman, David Theodore, Ana Miljački, David Gissen, Amber Wiley, Huda Tayob, Brett Milligan, Mireille Roddier, Nishiko, Jeremy Till, Nora Wendl & Alison B. Hirsch.
Reposted by Alan Thomas
We are thrilled to share that our Spring 2025 seasonal catalog is now available! Check out more than 500 books from Chicago and our client publishers and ReadUP:
University of Chicago Press Spring 2025 Seasonal Catalog
More than 500 books from the University of Chicago Press and our client publishers.
buff.ly
November 13, 2024 at 4:22 PM
We are thrilled to share that our Spring 2025 seasonal catalog is now available! Check out more than 500 books from Chicago and our client publishers and ReadUP: