UC Press Blog

We’re thrilled to announce our new California Studies in Global Musicology series, led by series editors Joy H. Calico and Daniel K. L. Chua! In this interview, Calico and Chua introduce the series, describe the types of projects they’re looking for, and provide advice for scholars hoping to submit to the series.

For over 4000 years, the Gulf—sometimes called the Persian Gulf—has been a global crossroads while managing to avoid control by the world’s greatest empires. Allen Fromherz explains why.

A special issue of California History commemorates the centennial of the Border Patrol and the Immigration Act of 1924, and offers important historical perspective on our current political moment.

In 2020, the Baltimore Police Department had an aerial surveillance plane that could supposedly photograph and track every person in public view. Spy Plane reveals what happened with this controversial policing experiment.

Emrah Yıldız discusses the values—religious, political, economic, or social—behind the eight-hundred-mile journey across two international borders to the Sayyida Zainab shrine.

Somewhere between the virtuosic parodies of Frank Zappa and the screwball wit of Monty Python, the Firesign Theatre reinvented the comedy album in the 1960s and ’70s. Jeremy Braddock explores their legacy.

Author Laureen Hom explains what urban Chinatowns have to teach us about coalition-building, pushing back against gentrification, and envisioning neighborhood changes that are community-driven and equitable.

In her highly original book, Charlotte Biltekoff explores the role that science and scientific authority play in food industry responses to consumer concerns about what we eat and how it is made. Real Food, Real Facts offers lessons that extend well beyond food choice and will appeal to readers interested in how everyday people come to accept or reject scientific authority in matters of personal health and well-being.

The "Ben Cao Gang Mu" brings together ancient medicine, wisdom, and culture. German scholar and translator Paul U. Unschuld explains why it remains a crucial text — revealing the culture that underlies Chinese health care and politics.

For decades, our own Patricia Aufderheide—who founded this organization’s precursor, the Center for Social Media—has chronicled, studied, and impacted the global community of documentary storytellers who seek to speak truth to power and uphold democracy. In her new book, Kartemquin Films: Documentaries on the Frontlines of Democracy (University of California Press), she brings readers into the six-decade history and living story of the longest-running independent documentary production organization in the United States, Kartemquin Films.