Boom
Boom
A Journal of California

Editor(s): Carolyn de la Peña and Louis Warren
 
University of California Press is pleased to announce the forthcoming publication of Boom: A Journal of California.

Written in a scholarly but accessible fashion, Boom is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal, which aims to create a dialog about the vital social, cultural, and political issues of our time. Thoughtful, provocative, and at times playful, Boom speaks not only to the scholarly community but also to the broader public, in California and beyond.

Enter your e-mail address below and we'll send you updates as the publication of Boom gets closer!





Headed by Editors Carolyn de la Peña, Professor of American Studies at UC Davis and Director of the Davis Humanities Institute, and Louis Warren, UC Davis’ W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History, the journal will include a wide range of works, including two to three scholarly articles forming the gravitational center of each issue, and setting the foundation for other shorter, often informal works.

The first issue of Boom will publish in February 2011 both in print and online.

Click here to download the full press release.


Boom: A Journal of California
Table of Contents (tentative, 2/09/10)
Volume 1, Issue 1

Inquiries
"How to Fix a Broken State" -- Mark Paul & Joe Mathews (New America Foundation)
Prescriptions for reform from the authors of California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It (UC Press, forthcoming).

"Whose Eden?  Race and the California Crisis" -- Daniel HoSang (University of Oregon)
How rightwing anti-immigrant politics drew crucial inspiration from environmentalism.

"Pastures of Plenty to Working Man's Blues: The Sound of California Country"-- Jesse Drew (UC Davis)
How country music emerged out of Central Valley working-class experiences (e.g. Merle Haggard) and how it reshaped American culture.

Analyses
"The Crossroads of Mission Viejo" -- Wade Clark Roof (UC Santa Barbara)
The city of Mission Viejo has a well-known crossroads designated for religious and secular displays and uses a lottery system for choosing the groups to establish these displays.  It’s unusual, whimsical, and, in a way, very Californian.

The State We’re In
"Dashboard Microwave" -- Susan Straight (UCR)
How students at a California public university, many of whom are first generation students with parents from Mexico, Cambodia, China, and elsewhere, are learning about literature and about each other.

Californians
"Tenants Together" -- Sasha Abramsky (UC Davis)
The foreclosure crisis is tossing thousands of tenants onto the streets, even when they’ve paid the rent.  Sasha Abramsky conducts a Q&A with San Francisco-based Tenants Together, an organization working to secure tenants rights.

Producing Culture
Interview with Randall Grahm, author of Been Doon So Long -- Carolyn de la Peña (UC Davis)
Carolyn de la Peña talks with Randall Grahm about terroir’s potential to create a taste of California, and what the wine industry and its consumers will have to do differently to achieve it.

Sights and Sounds
"California, el otro Mexico" -- Josh Kun (USC)
How norteno and banda music speak to  California culture and politics.

Line by Line
"Water Writes" -- Mike Ziser (UC Davis)
Review essay:  William Vollman, Imperial  (Viking), Brenda Hillman, Practical Water (Wesleyan UP), and David Carle, Introduction to Water in California (UC Press), William Kahrl, Atlas of California Water (William Kauffman).

Contested Ground
"25 Stories" --Tracy Perkins and Julie Sze (UC Davis)
"25 Stories" pairs photographs of environmental toxins in California’s Central Valley with stories from the women who are fighting to make this region safer for its inhabitants.