The University Times welcomes information about new books, journals, plays and musical compositions written or edited by faculty and staff.

Newly published works can be submitted through this link. Please keep the book descriptions short and accessible to a general audience.

Journals should be peer-reviewed. Self-published works will not be accepted. The listings also are restricted to complete works, because individual chapters, articles, works of art and poems would be too numerous.

We’ll also be highlighting some books and book talks with connections to Pitt.

If you have any questions, please contact editor Susan Jones at suejones@pitt.edu or 412-648-4294.

Book events

Faculty Book Talk: Anthony Infanti, “Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Tax Opinions”
4:30-5:30 p.m. Nov. 7, Hillman Library, Thornburgh Room (first floor)

Could a feminist perspective change the shape of tax laws? By highlighting the importance of perspective, background, and preconceptions on reading and interpreting statutes, this volume shows what a difference feminist analysis can make to statutory interpretation.

Bhanu Kapil and Jackie Wang
7:30 p.m. Nov. 8, Frick Fine Arts Bulding

Bhanu Kapil is the author of a number of full-length works of poetry, including “The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers,” and Jackie Wang is the author of a number of punk zines, including “On Being Hard Femme”; and the poetry collections “The Twitter Hive Mind Is Dreaming” and “Tiny Spelunker of the Oneiro-Womb.” The talk is part of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series.

Reading and Conversation with Tracy K. Smith
6 p.m. Nov. 14, Hill District Carnegie Library, 2177 Centre Ave.
7 p.m. Nov. 15, Carnegie Library Lecture Hall, Oakland

Tracy K. Smith was appointed the 22nd U.S. Poet Laureate in 2017. She is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir “Ordinary Light” (Knopf, 2015) and three books of poetry, including her most recent “Wade in the Water” (Graywolf, 2018). Her collection “Life on Mars” won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize and was selected as a New York Times Notable Book. Presented by the Center for African American Poetry & Poetics and Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures. Register here.

New books, journals and more

“Studies in Arthurian Illustration” (Pindar Press, London, 2018) by Alison Stones, professor emerita of History of Art and Architecture

These volumes collect and update Professor Stones' papers on Arthurian manuscript illustration. The essays explore aspects of the iconography of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes in French verse, the lengthy Lancelot-Grail romance in French prose, and other versions of the chivalrous exploits of King Arthur's knights. Illustrated copies of these romances survive in huge numbers from the early 13th  century through the beginnings of print, and were read for their text and their pictures throughout the French-speaking world. Of special interest is the cultural context in which these popular works were made and disseminated, by scribes and artists whose work encompassed all kinds of books.