Columbia Press

May 28, 2024 | cup.columbia.edu | Columbia Press

Dear Readers,I am proud to present our Fall 2024 catalog, which features a stellar roster of important authors writing on topics both far and wide and close at hand. Columbia University Press is deeply connected to our New York City home, and many of this season’s titles illuminate the city and its history. Jonathan Conlin’s The Met shows us a new side of the iconic museum. The letters of Joe Brainard give us a fascinating look into the art and literary scenes of the 1960s and ’70s.

Mar 27, 2024 | cupblog.org | Columbia Press

In Scattered and Fugitive Things, Laura E. Helton tells the stories of six Black collectors who played a pivotal role in shaping the early twentieth-century Black archive. From the parlors of the urban North to HBCU reading rooms and branch libraries in the Jim Crow South, these collectors undertook a challenging task: to preserve and celebrate Black history and culture at a time when both were often dismissed or suppressed.

Mar 20, 2024 | cupblog.org | Columbia Press

“Those who do not remember the joke are doomed to continue laughing at it.”—An unidentified feminist philosopher. What is the funniest joke you’ve ever heard? And have you ever laughed so hard you thought you might explode?

Aug 30, 2023 | cupblog.org | Columbia Press

Possessed of a monumentally impressive intellect, the philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was not blessed with a body to match. Bald, short, and unhandsome of feature, he accordingly availed himself of that universal male cosmetic—and prosthetic—of his era, the peruke (figure 1).

Apr 14, 2023 | cupblog.org | Columbia Press

Unnatural Disasters offers a new perspective on our most pressing environmental and social challenges, revealing the gaps between abstract concepts like sustainability, resilience, and innovation and the real-world experiences of people living at risk. Gonzalo Lizarralde explains how the causes of disasters are not natural but all too human: inequality, segregation, marginalization, colonialism, neoliberalism, racism, and unrestrained capitalism.