We are proud to announce the launch of Transformations, a new series at UIP dedicated to innovative visions of scholarship in womanism, feminism, and indigeneity. Series editor AnaLouise Keating, a professor of women’s studies at Texas Woman’s University, envisioned a series that would showcase the transformative contributions women-of-color scholarship can make in dialogue with mainstream academic disciplines and theories. She writes that her goal for Transformations was to provide “opportunities for authors to take risks in their work: to build on but move beyond disciplinary- or interdisciplinary-specific rules and, through these risks, to invent new (transdisciplinary) perspectives and methods.” Scholarship published in the series will be highly readable and practical while remaining intellectually sophisticated and in conversation with recent developments in the field. Senior acquisitions editor Dawn Durante reflects, “When AnaLouise and I began developing the Transformations series, we were dedicated to creating a publishing home for work that was radically committed to postoppositional, transdisciplinary, and transformative approaches to knowledge production and social justice.”

“I could not have dreamed of a more fitting first book for Transformations. Teaching with Tenderness beautifully exemplifies so many of the core commitments of the series.”—Dawn Durante, senior acquisitions editor

Becky Thompson’s Teaching with Tenderness explores the twinned ideas of embodied teaching and a pedagogy of tenderness. Thompson boldly examines contemporary challenges to teaching about race, gender, class, nationality, sexuality, religion, and other hierarchies. It examines the ethical, emotional, political, and spiritual challenges of teaching power-laden, charged issues and the consequences of shifting power relations in the classroom and in the community. Attention to current contributions in the areas of contemplative practices, trauma theory, multiracial feminist pedagogy, and activism enable us to envision steps toward a pedagogy of liberation. The book encourages active engagement and makes room for self-reflective learning, teaching, and scholarship.

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A reception to celebrate the new series will be held at the Illinois Press booth at NWSA on Friday, November 17 at 3pm. We hope you can join us and help us celebrate this exciting new series!