Life & Letters

Books

  • How Bias Sneaks into Big-Data Policing

    Like all human endeavors, technology is at its core still social, argues Sarah Brayne in her new book Predict and Surveil: Data, Discretion, and the Future of Policing.

    Alex Reshanov

  • Want to Learn More About Race in America? Read this.

    Authors from UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts describe their books and what they hope readers will learn.

    Rachel White

  • Turning the Past into Poetry

    H.W. Brands hopes his latest book, Haiku History: The American Saga Three Lines at a Time, won’t be a page turner.

    Alex Reshanov

  • This Summer is One For the Books

    Summer 2020 books from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • Race By Any Other Name

    In her award-winning book, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages, Geraldine Heng argues that race did exist even if the language of the time had yet to capture the phenomenon.

    Alex Reshanov

  • Books in Bloom

    Spring 2020 books from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • Season’s Readings

    Winter 2019-20 books from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • The Taco Truck: Author Takes His Research to the Streets

    Robert Lemon examines the evolution of taco trucks and how it transforms U.S. cities.

    Rachel White

  • Dreams of El Dorado

    The rapid growth of America came as a shock to some, as it was the only country whose expansion occurred with such little government supervision.  In Dreams of El Dorado, author H.W. Brands recounts the rich history of the American West. Beginning with the purchase of the Louisiana territory, which propelled future Western expansion of…

    Tori Miller

  • Affording Jane Austen

    In The Lost Books of Jane Austen, Janine Barchas explores the burgeoning popularity of Jane Austen’s novels beginning in the nineteenth-century. Through photographs and unique historical perspectives, Barchas shares some of the earliest and cheapest reprints of Austen’s work that brought the author recognition in the working-class, leading to the reputation she has today. Learn…

    Tori Miller

  • Leave No Page Unturned

    Fall 2019 books from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • Drawing Inspiration

    Edward Carey’s office is filled with fanciful artwork, including several large drawings of the gloomy-eyed characters who inhabit his books.

    Alex Reshanov

  • Bring Your Brain to Work

    In “Bring Your Brain to Work,” Art Markman shares what you need to know to succeed at work.

    Tori Miller

  • Soak in Our Summer Reads

    Summer 2019 titles from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • Books: Spring 2019

    Spring 2019 titles from our college community.

    Tori Miller

  • Books: Winter 2018-19

    Winter 2018-19 titles from our college community.

    Tori Miller

  • Books: Fall 2018

    Fall 2018 titles from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • What’s in Your Library?

    Over a period of five years (2013-18) a Faculty Committee on Influential Books discussed, debated and finally compiled a list of intellectually and culturally significant books to encourage reading by undergraduates and provide inspiration for continued reading by college alumni. The committee benefited from student suggestions and criticism in drawing up the list that mainly…

    Michelle Bryant

  • A Shoemaker’s Dilemma: Q&A with English Alum and Author Spencer Wise

    Set in contemporary South China, The Emperor of Shoes is about a young Jewish Bostonian preparing to take over his family’s shoe business. But he ends up falling in love with a factory worker who may or may not be using him as a pawn to start a pro-democratic revolution in the factory. For author…

    Katie Lazarowicz

  • Living in a Material World: Philosopher Galen Strawson tackles a few of life’s nagging questions

    Writer and actor Stephen Fry says Galen Strawson “opens windows and finds light-switches like no other philosopher writing today,” and novelist Ian McEwan simply dubs Strawson “one of the cleverest men alive.” High praise for this UT professor of philosophy, who discusses his latest book, Things That Bother Me: Death, Freedom, The Self, Etc. with Life…

    Michelle Bryant

  • Books: Spring & Summer 2018

    Spring and Summer 2018 titles from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • Books: Fall & Winter 2017-18

    Fall 2017 and Winter 2017-2018 titles from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant

  • Tropical Storm: How Cuba Sent Revolutionary Waves Around the World

    When it comes to staging a revolution, timing is everything. In 1959 an island nation of 7 million revolted against its U.S.-backed dictator, and with its subsequent export of revolution to Latin America became a major driver of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. In a story as compelling as it is complex, Professor…

    David Ochsner

  • Texas Book Festival Presents: “Dopers in Uniform” by John Hoberman

    Since 1995, the Texas Book Festival has connected Texas authors with readers through literary panels and readings, book signings, demonstrations, live music, family-fun and local eats. This year at the festival, Germanic Studies Professor John Hoberman will present his third book on the social impacts of anabolic steroids, Dopers in Uniform: The Hidden World of Police…

    Rachel White

  • Books: Summer 2017

    Summer 2017 titles from our college community.

    Michelle Bryant