2015 Topic for U. C. Press's International Competition

*INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPETITION CALIFORNIA SERIES IN PUBLIC
ANTHROPOLOGY*

*The California Series in Public Anthropology encourages scholars in a
range of disciplines to discuss major public issues in ways that help the
broader public understand and address them. Two presidents (Mikhail
Gorbachev and Bill Clinton) as well as three Nobel Laureates (Amartya Sen,
Jody Williams, and Mikhail Gorbachev) have contributed to the Series either
through books or forwards. Its list includes such prominent authors as
Paul Farmer co-founder of Partners in Health, Kolokotrones University
Professor at Harvard and United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti.*

Each year the Series highlights a particular problem in its international
call for manuscripts. The focus this year will be on *STORIES OF
INEQUALITY**.*

We are particularly interested in authors who convey both the problems
engendered by inequality as well as ways for addressing it. Prospective
authors might ask themselves: How can they make their study "come alive"
for a range of readers through the narration of powerful stories? They
might, for example, focus on the lives of a few, select individuals tracing
the problems they face and how they, to the best of their abilities, cope
with them. Prospective authors might examine a specific institution and
how, in various ways, it perpetuates inequality. Or authors might describe
a particular group that seeks to address a facet of the problem. There are
no restrictions on how prospective authors address *STORIES OF INEQUALITY*
– only an insistence that the proposed publication draw readers to its
themes through the inclusion of powerful stories about real people. The
series is directed at the general public as well as college students.

The University of California Press in association with the Center for a
Public Anthropology will review proposals for publication independent of
whether the manuscripts themselves have been completed. We are open to
working with authors as they wind their way through the writing process.
The proposals can describe work the author wishes to undertake in the near
future or work that is currently underway. *The proposals submitted to the
competition should be 3-4,000 words long and describe both the overall work
as well as a general summary of what is (or will be) in each chapter.* We
expect the completed, publishable manuscripts to be between 250-300 pages
(or 60,000-100,000 words) long excluding footnotes and references.
Examples of the types of analyses we are looking for include:

*Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil* by Nancy
Scheper-Hughes

*Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity*
by Katherin Boo

*Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya* by
Caroline Elkins

*American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare*
by Jason DeParle

*Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital* by
Sheri Fink

*There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other
America* by Alex Kotlowitz

We are interested in establishing committed, supportive relationships with
authors that insures their books are not only published but are well
publicized and recognized both within and beyond the academy. We are
committed to insuring the success of winning proposals.

*DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS APRIL 21, 2015*
Submissions should be emailed to: bookseries@publicanthropology.org with
the relevant material enclosed as attachments. They can also be sent to:
Book Series, 707 Kaha Street, Kailua, HI. Questions regarding the
competitions should be directed to Dr. Rob Borofsky at:
bookseries@publicanthropology.org.

*All entries will be judged by the Co-Editors of the California Series in
Public Anthropology:* *Rob Borofsky (Center for a Public Anthropology &
Hawaii Pacific University) and Naomi Schneider (University of California
Press)*