PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 11, Dec. 7, 2006

brief notes

Dalkey Archive Press
Literary publisher moving to UI
The leading independent publisher specializing in literary translations of contemporary international titles, mostly fiction, will make its new home on the UI’s Urbana-Champaign campus.

Dalkey Archive Press, which has been in Normal, Ill., since 1992, will take up residence on the UI campus this month. Dalkey recently canceled its plans to settle at the University of Rochester, citing “unexpected circumstances.” Illinois was one of several schools the press had been in discussions with. Dalkey had been looking for a new home since 2005.

Also moving with Dalkey are its director, John O’Brien; several staff members; the press’s journal, The Review of Contemporary Fiction; and its magazine, Context: A Forum for Literary Arts and Culture. Dalkey Archive Press began in 1980 in Chicago.

John Kulka, senior editor at Yale University Press and a member of Dalkey’s board, called the new partnership “an exciting opportunity for us to create in Champaign-Urbana a translation center of global reach and importance. It is the logical extension of Dalkey’s publishing program in literature in translation and of the University of Illinois’ many excellent programs and departments in foreign languages.”

Dalkey Archive Press publishes 30 titles a year in English and has more than 300 books in print. It also has an annual Web site readership of 600,000, and has received many honors, including having been chosen by the New York Public Library and The Globe and Mail, published in Toronto, as one of the best literary resources on the Internet. Dalkey’s first location will be the Computer Applications Building on Springfield Avenue in Urbana, which formerly housed the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Its permanent home will be the former Printing Services South Building on Wright Street in Champaign.

‘Spatial Thinking in the Social Sciences and Humanities’
NCSA hosts workshop Dec. 18-19
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications will host “Spatial Thinking in the Social Sciences and Humanities” on Dec. 18-19. All faculty and staff members and students may attend the free event.

The workshop will bring together leading figures from various disciplines in the social sciences and humanities who use spatial analysis and geographic information system (GIS) in their work. The objective is to reflect on how spatial thinking affects substantive findings and changes the way research questions are approached and to assess the role of computation. Discussion will be led by Luc Anselin, UI professor and director of the Spatial Analysis Laboratory. The keynote speaker will be Michael Goodchild from the department of geography at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The goal is to develop insights and recommendations on the requirements for cyberenvironments and cyberinfrastructure for the social sciences and humanities.

In addition to the research component of this workshop, participants may receive a hands-on introduction to ArcGIS, a GIS and mapping program. This training will focus on conducting classroom activities using GIS and will be held concurrently with breakout sessions from the main program on Dec. 19. This portion of the workshop will be led by Maryalice S. Wu and Dawn Owens-Nicholson of the Atlas Group (Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts and Sciences) and Larry Thurow of Parkland College. Materials and software will be supplied to those who attend.

Portions of the event also will be available through the Access Grid. More information and registration is online.

‘Improving the Odds for Youth’
Lecture encourages investment in children
Karen Pittman, executive director and co-founder of the Forum for Youth Investment in Washington, D.C., will speak on “Improving the Odds for Youth: A Call for Community Leadership” in the Knight Auditorium of the Spurlock Museum at 7 p.m. Dec. 7. The lecture is free and open to the public.

“Research shows that not enough young people are ready for college, work and life at 21. Only four out of 10 young people are doing well by the time they reach adulthood,” Pittman said.

The forum endorses a “big picture” approach to planning, research, advocacy and policy development among organizations that help communities invest in children, youth and families, Pittman said. “We encourage the alignment of ideas, resources, and stakeholders to make youth development a priority,” she said.

The lecture is sponsored by The Pampered Chef Family Resiliency Program, a partnership between The Pampered Chef and the UI department of human and community development. The Family Resiliency Program, directed by professor Laurie Kramer, supports a lecture series, faculty research grants and graduate fellowships in order to strengthen families.

Back to Index