Books published by publisher Oregon State University Press, 2012

In Hollowed Ground, author Larry Lankton tells the story of two copper industries on Lake Superior-native copper mining, which produced about 11 billion pounds of the metal from the 1840s until the late 1960s, and copper sulfide mining, which began in the 1950s and produced another 4.4 billion pounds of copper through the 1990s. In addition to documenting companies and their mines, mills, and smelters, Hollowed Ground is also a community study. It examines the region's population and ethnic mix, which was a direct result of the mining industry, and the companies' paternalistic involvement in community building. While this book covers the history of the entire Lake Superior mining industry, it particularly focuses on the three biggest, most important, and longest-lived companies: Calumet & Hecla, Copper Range, and Quincy. Lankton shows the extent of the companies' influence over their mining locations, as they constructed the houses and neighborhoods of their company towns, set the course of local schools, saw that churches got land to build on, encouraged the growth of commercial villages on the margin of a mine, and even provided pasturage for workers' milk cows and space for vegetable gardens. Lankton also traces the interconnected fortunes of the mining communities and their companies through times of bustling economic growth and periods of decline and closure. Hollowed Ground presents a wealth of images from Upper Michigan's mining towns, reflecting a century and a half of unique community and industrial history. Local historians, industrial historians, and anyone interested in the history of Michigan's Upper Peninsula will appreciate this informative volume.

In this moving account of the life, work, and ethics of four Jewish women intellectuals in the world of the Holocaust, Rachel Feldhay Brenner explores the ways in which these women sought to maintain their faith in humanity while aware of intensifying destruction. She argues that through their written responses of autobiographical self-assertion Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, and Etty Hillesum resisted the Nazi terror in ways that defy its horrifying dehumanization.Personal identity crises engendered the intellectual-spiritual acts of autobiographical self-searching for each of these women. About to become a nun in 1933, Edith Stein embarked on her autobiography as a daughter of a Jewish family. Fleeing France and deportation in 1942, Simone Weil examined her inner struggle with faith and the Church in her "Spiritual Autobiography." Hiding for more than two years in the attic, Anne Frank poignantly confided in her diary about her efforts to become a better person. Having volunteered as a social worker in Westerbork, Etty Hillesum searched her soul for love in the reality of terror. In each case, autobiographical writing becomes an act of defiance that asserts humanity in a dehumanized/dehumanizing world.By focusing on the four women's accomplishments as intellectuals, writers, and thinkers, Brenner's account liberates them from other posthumous treatments that depict them as symbols of altruism, sanctity, and victimization. Her approach also elucidates the particular predicament of Western Jewish intellectuals who trusted the ideals of the Enlightenment and believed in human fellowship. While suffering the terror of physical annihilation decreed by the Final Solution, these Jews had to contend with their exclusion from the world that they considered theirs. On yet another level, this study of four extraordinary life stories contributes to a deeper understanding of the postwar development of ethical, theological, and feminist thought. In showing concern about a world that had ceased to care for them, Stein, Weil, Frank, and Hillesum demonstrated that the meaning of human existence consisted in the responsibility for the other, in the protection of the suffering God, in the primary value of relatedness through empathy. Arguing that their ethical tenets anticipated the thought of such postwar thinkers as Levinas, Fackenheim, Tillich, Arendt, and Nodding, Brenner proposes that the breakup of the humanist tradition of the Enlightenment in the Holocaust engendered the postwar exploration of humanist potential in self-givenness to the other.

On the eve of World War II, Krystyna Wituska, a carefree teenager attending finishing school in Switzerland, returned to Poland. During the occupation, when she was twenty years old, she drifted into the Polish Underground. By her own admission, she was attracted first by the adventure, but her youthful bravado soon turned into a mental and spiritual mastery over fear. Because Krystyna spoke fluent German, she was assigned to collect information on German troop movements at Warsaw's airport. In 1942, at age twenty-one, she was arrested by the Gestapo and transferred to prison in Berlin, where she was executed two years later. Eighty of the letters that Krystyna wrote in the last eighteen months of her life are translated and collected in this volume. The letters, together with an introduction providing historical background to Krystyna's arrest, constitute a little-known and authentic record of the treatment of ethnic Poles under German occupation, the experience of Polish prisoners in German custody, and a glimpse into the prisons of Berlin. Krystyna's letters also reflect her own courage, idealism, faith, and sense of humor. As a classroom text, this book relates nicely to contemporary discussions of racism, nationalism, patriotism, human rights, and stereotypes.

Jewish Moroccan Folk Narratives focuses on two central elements: textual research to examine the aesthetic qualities of the narrative, their division into genres, the various versions and their parallels, and acculturation in Israel, as well as contextual research to examine the performance art of the narrator and the role of the narrative as a communicative process in the narrating society. The collection includes twenty-one narratives by twelve storytellers; an account of the narrators' lives and a commentary have been applied to each. In contrast to most anthologies of Jewish folktales, the texts in this book were recorded in the natural context of narration and in the language of origin (Judaeo-Arabic), meeting the most vigorous standards of current folklore scholarship.

A wide variety of creatures walk, fly, leap, slither, and swim through fairy-tale history. Some marvelous animal characters are deeply inscribed in current popular culture-the beast redeemed by beauty, the wolf in pursuit of little girls and little pigs, the frog prince released from enchantment by a young princess. But like the adventures of many fairy-tale heroes, a curious reader's exploration in the genre can yield surprises, challenges, and unexpected rewards. Feathers, Paws, Fins, and Claws: Fairy-Tale Beasts presents lesser-known tales featuring animals both wild and gentle who appear in imaginative landscapes and enjoy a host of surprising talents. With striking original illustrations by artist Lina Kusaite and helpful introductions by fairy-tale scholars Jennifer Schacker and Christine A. Jones, the offbeat, haunting stories in this collection are rich and surprisingly relevant, demanding creative reading by audiences aged young adult and up. Schacker and Jones choose stories that represent several centuries and cultural perspectives on how animals think and move. In these ten stories, rats are just as seductive as Little Red Riding Hood's wolf; snakes find human mates; and dancing sheep and well-mannered bears blur the line between human and beast. Stories range in form from literary ballads to tales long enough to be considered short stories, and all are presented as closely as possible to their original print versions, reflecting the use of historical spelling and punctuation. Beasts move between typical animal behavior (a bird seeking to spread its wings and fly or a clever cat artfully catching its prey) and acts that seem much more human than beastly (three fastidious bears keeping a tidy home together or a snake inviting itself to the dinner table). Kusaite's full-color artwork rounds out this collection, drawing imaginatively on a wide range of visual traditions-from Inuit design to the work of the British Arts and Crafts movement. Together with the short introductions to the tales themselves, the illustrations invite readers to rediscover the fascinating world of animal fairy tales. All readers interested in storytelling, fairy-tale history, and translation will treasure this beautiful collection.

Transforming Harry: The Adaptation of Harry Potter in the Transmedia Age is an edited volume of eight essays that look at how the cinematic versions of the seven Harry Potter novels represent an unprecedented cultural event in the history of cinematic adaptation. The movie version of the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, premiered in 2001, in between publication of the fourth and fifth books of this global literary phenomenon. As a result, the production and reception of both novel and movie series became intertwined with one another, creating a fanbase who accessed the series first through the books, first through the movies, and in various other combinations. John Alberti and P. Andrew Miller have gathered scholars to explore and examine the cultural, political, aesthetic, and pedagogical dimensions of this pop culture phenomenon and how it has changed the reception of both the films and books. Divided into two sections, the volume addresses both the fidelity of adaptation and the transmedia adaptations that have evolved around the creation of the books and movies. In her essay, Vera Cuntz-Leng draws on feminist film theory to explore the gaze politics and male objectification operating in the Harry Potter movies. Cassandra Bausman contends that screenwriter Steve Klove's revision of the end of the film version of Deathly Hallows, Part II offers a more politically and ethically satisfying conclusion to the Harry Potter saga than the ending of the Rowling novel. Michelle Markey Butler's "Harry Potter and the Surprising Venue of Literary Critiques" argues that the fan-generated memes work as a kind of popular literary analysis in three particular areas: the roles of female characters, the comparative analysis of books and films, and the comparative analysis of the Harry Potter series with other works of fantasy.While the primary focus of the collection is an academic audience, it will appeal to a broad range of readers. Within the academic community, Transforming Harry will be of interest to scholars and teachers in a number of disciplines, including film and media studies and English. Beyond the classroom, the Harry Potter series clearly enjoys a large and devoted global fan community, and this collection will be of interest to serious fans.

Dreaming America: Popular Front Ideals and Aesthetics in Children's Plays of the Federal Theatre Project by Leslie Elaine Frost traces how the tumultuous politics of the late 1930s shaped the stories and staging of federally funded plays for children. Indeed, children's theater was central to the Federal Theatre Project's vision of building a national theater. Frost argues that representations of the child and childhood in the FTP children's plays stage the hopes and anxieties of a nation destabilized by both economic collapse and technological advances. A declining economy and the first stagnant birthrate in three centuries yoked the national economy to the individual family. Profound disagreements over appropriate models of education and parenting, as well as over issues of ethnicity and class, constituted fundamental arguments over democratic values and social norms. Frost locates these plays within the immediate context of the production materials in the FTP archives, as well as within the broader culture of the Great Depression, drawing on disparate primary materials-from parenting magazines to strike literature to political journals-and referencing a range of popular events-from the Joe Louis/Max Schmeling fights to Hollywood movies. As the focus of Depression-era adult anxieties and hopes and as the embodiment of vigor, dynamism, and growth, children carried symbolic value both as the future of America and as the America of the future. Frost examines representative plays' connections to other media, culture, and politics to situate their singular trajectories in the social history of the Federal Theatre Project and Popular Front culture.

Throughout the history of the Great Lakes many organizations have played important roles in the growth and development of the water system. Charting the Inland Seas highlights the work done by the U.S. Lake Survey, one of the most notable, yet least known, organizations in the history of the Great Lakes. With the first great influx of settlers into the Great Lakes region came the need for extensive surveys and accurate navigational charts. In the 1830s shipowners and masters pressed the federal government to begin a thorough survey of the Great Lakes in order to make available detailed maps and charts of the various routes by which the lakes could safely be sailed. In 1841, Congress appropriated $15,000 for the Corps of Topographical Engineers to begin a survey of the northern and northwestern lakes, thus marking the formation of the United States Lake Survey. Arthur M. Woodford documents how the role and responsibility of the Lake Survey grew as conditions on the Great Lakes changed over the next 135 years. Great Lakes ships evolved into larger vessels with greater drafts, creating the need for new and more exact surveys and charts. In order to more accurately predict the water levels of the Great Lakes, special forecasting techniques evolved. When erosion of beaches threatened to destroy valuable lakefront property, extensive studies by the Lake Survey determined the causes. And as the number of recreational crafts increased, a program began for the design and publication of large scale book charts for boaters to use. In addition, the U.S. Lake Survey was one of the military's major suppliers of maps and charts during the two world wars and the Korean conflict.In 1970 the federal government established the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the Department of Commerce, and brought together, in a single agency, the major federal programs dealing with the seas and the atmosphere, and the U.S. Lake Survey was reorganized. In 1976, the U.S. Lake Survey was completely phased out, concluding an important chapter in the history of the Great Lakes.

When Detroit was settled over three hundred years ago, beavers (then known by the French name "castors") were one of the most numerous and important animals in North America. Yet the aggressive beaver pelt trade in Detroit and elsewhere decimated the animal's population, and the region's remaining beavers were unable to reestablish their homes in the city's industrial landscape once the trapping ended. In A Beaver Tale: The Castors of Conners Creek, author and illustrator Gerald Wykes tells the incredible story of one beaver family's return to the Detroit River in 2008, more than one hundred years after beavers were last seen in the area.Wykes shows readers how the beavers were discovered at the Conners Creek Power Plant on the city's east side, after people noticed trees were being mysteriously cut down. He combines real observations of this pioneering beaver colony with background about the important history of the beaver in Michigan, from its relationship to the Native occupants of the Great Lakes to its "discovery" by Europeans as a source of valuable furs. He explores some of the beaver's unique physical features, including its impressively webbed hind feet, delicate fingered "hands," waterproof fur, and famous flat tail, and also explains how today's strict pollution laws and shoreline improvements have turned the Detroit River into a hospitable place for beavers once again. Wykes's full-color illustrations and kid-friendly text tell a serious tale of environmental recovery in a fun and accessible way. Young readers aged 8 to 12 will enjoy the unique natural and cultural history in A Beaver Tale.

“Papa says my arrival in this mortal world was a new beginning. Papa says that every day is a new beginning and every day is heralded by the dawn. Thus he chose to name me Aurora as the daughter of the dawn, for Aurora is the goddess of the dawn. But Papa is a Christian man and leads his own flock of believers so he did not want my name to be seen as some pagan symbol. Rather he wants my name and my presence here as a mortal to be a symbol of new beginnings. I like that and my life has been very full of new beginnings.” —from Aurora As she lies ill from smallpox, thirteen-year-old Aurora recalls in her journal the important events of her short life. Though apprehensive when she learned her family would be leaving Missouri for a new home in the West, soon she was looking forward to the long journey, which finally began on May 23, 1855. The pages of Aurora’s compelling journal describe her family’s adventures on the Oregon Trail and her hopes for a new beginning in her new home.Aurora is a novel based on the life of Aurora Keil, whose father William founded one of the more successful Oregon utopian communal societies in the nineteenth century on the Pudding River in Marion County in 1856. Named for his daughter, the Aurora Colony (or Aurora Mills, as it was also known) grew to a population of more than 600 individuals who followed Keil’s basic Christian beliefs. The Aurora Colony became known for its orchards, food, music, textiles, furniture, and other crafts as well as its communal lifestyle and German traditions. Readers of all ages, from middle school students to adults, will appreciate this intimate and personal glimpse into a compelling chapter in Oregon history.Drawings by Clark Moor Will.

While the main action of the Revolution swirled along the Atlantic seaboard. Ohio was a no man’s land between the Colonists’ Fort Pitt and the British Fort Detroit. A campaign to neutralize Detroit and win the allegiance of the Indians in Ohio was instigated by General Washington in 1778, and in the fall of that year Fort Laurens was erected on the banks of the Tuscarawas River as the planned first step to secure the Western Frontier. But fortunes of war, logistics, and supplies, to say nothing of reconsiderations by the higher command, doomed the venture to failure. Fort Laurens remains the deepest―indeed, the only―Revolutionary War military settlement in what is now the state of Ohio.The brief history of Fort Laurens is a story of courage mixed with confusion, of bravery and hardship, of a little Valley Forge on the western side of the struggling nation. The long winter in which an ill-equipped handful of men scrounged for food and withstood attack to maintain their outpost in the wilderness is an undeservedly neglected part of the Revolutionary War story and a thrilling beginning to the Ohio story. This book is the first complete account of the episode, drawing on all the documentary evidence available and placing it in the context of the larger struggle for independence.Today the site of Fort Laurens is a state historical monument with a visitors’ center and museum visited by thousands each year. It is also the scene of an archaeological dig which is more firmly establishing the outlines and structure of the original fort as well as confirming and clarifying the historical evidence. Fort Laurens brings this part of the story up to date, and new maps help the reader appreciate the scope of the Fort Laurens campaign and the odds it faced.