International and Area Studies Library at Illinois

Day 3 of National Library Week! 📚

Today we're celebrating library workers & mixing in a little outreach with highlighting IAS's graduate assistants. PART ONE of their day in the life ✨

- Library Graduate Assistants (also known as GAs) have a variety of tasks:
✩ Supporting public services
✩ Managing specialized, behind-the-scenes projects
✩ "Weeding" Collections & Creating LibGuides

If you want to learn more about being a GA, read here:
https://exlibris.lib.wvu.edu/news/2025/04/23/libraries-graduate-assistantships-go-beyond-librarian-skills-and-graduation

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Day 3 of National Library Week! 📚

Today we're celebrating library workers & mixing in a little outreach with highlighting IAS's graduate assistants. PART TWO of their day in the life ✨

- Library Graduate Assistants (also known as GAs) have a variety of tasks:
✩ Supporting public services
✩ Managing specialized, behind-the-scenes projects
✩ "Weeding" Collections & Creating LibGuides

If you want to learn more about being a GA, read here:
https://exlibris.lib.wvu.edu/news/2025/04/23/libraries-graduate-assistantships-go-beyond-librarian-skills-and-graduation

Happy Arab American Month 🖤🤍💚❤️ Check out our new exhibits in Main Library rooms 321 and 309 called “Across Borders and Languages: The Middle East and Its Diasporas.”

Special thanks to our librarian of Middle East and North African Studies, Dr. Laila Hussein Moustafa 📚 Swipe to see the details!

📚 New Title Tuesday: The Philosophy of No-Mind by Nishihira Tadashi (English translation)

SUMMARY FROM PUBLISHER:
Nishihira Tadashi, one of Japan's leading philosophers, introduces the deeply experiential philosophy of no-mind (mushin). In everyday Japanese, mushin is when one loses oneself in the reality of the present and becomes one with it, resulting in one's best performance. However, behind this everyday use is a concept that touches the core of Japanese spirituality. This book explores no-mind in its dynamic complexity. It is both the letting go of the calculations of mind and at the same time the arising of a vibrant consciousness in unity with reality. This gives rise to various tensions: Is it about negating or affirming self? Is stillness or activity? How does it relate with social ethics, or religious transcendence? And what is stopping no-mind from descending into mere mindlessness? These tensional facets are explored through philosophy and history of thought in Japan, from pre-Buddhist Japanese thought, to Zen Buddhism in D.T. Suzuki and Toshihiko Izutsu, to swordsmanship and Noh theater. These historical approaches are brought to the here-and-now, dialoguing with psychology, ethics, and the experiences of everyday life, and ending with two preliminary practical explorations-What does it mean to care for another and to educate from the point of view of no-mind?

FIND IT HERE:
Catalog Permalink: https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/6mgi1h/alma99955676135805899
IASL Call Number: New Books B5243.H84 N5713 2024

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🎉 Holiday Highlight: International Women's Day

Women's Day has been observed in some form since 1909, but it was formally established by the United Nations in 1977. Celebrated around the globe on March 8th, this holiday applauds the accomplishments of women and promotes gender equality.

Interested in learning more? Check out our New Books collection here at the IASL. Sections HN and HQ (partially depicted here) cover social history, social reform, women's studies, and gender studies.

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📚 New Title Tuesday: Akwaba Africa - African Renaissance in the 21st Century edited by N'Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba

This book is dedicated to “the African people globally for their attainments asserting their consequential agency and futurist roles in the future of humanity.” Each chapter features an essay from a different scholar in the community.

SUMMARY FROM PUBLISHER:
The in-depth studies and analyses by specialists in the disciplines represented in this remarkable book confirm my own conviction that the 21st century will be the century of Africa, the African Renaissance.

FIND IT HERE:
Catalog Permalink: https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955612187105899
IASL Call Number: New Books DT30.5 .A93 2024

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💡 Faculty Publications

Our awesome subject specialists always have new research and publications coming out! Familia y poder en Puerto Rico (2025) is the most recent work from our Librarian of Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Dr. Antonio Sotomayor Carlo.

ABSTRACT: La familia Sotomayor ha estado presente en la isla de Puerto Rico desde el siglo XVI y ya para finales del siglo XVIII contaba con muchísima descendencia. Este libro constituye un estudio profundo de esta familia en Puerto Rico y sus lazos consanguíneos con otras familias. Nuestro análisis parte de doña Isabel de Sotomayor, nacida en San Juan a mediados del siglo XVI, perteneciente a una noble y poderosa familia de conquistadores de Puerto Rico, que se había casado con el capitán Pedro Mexía Benítez de Lugo, a su vez descendiente de conquistadores de Tenerife. Tras un pormenorizado estudio de dispensas matrimoniales revelamos tres patrones significativos en la composición de nuestra sociedad antigua: la transmisión legítima de apellidos maternos, el acaparamiento de los cargos de cabildo y oficialidad militar, y la endogamia. De esta manera, el estudio de la familia Sotomayor y sus parientes revela la reproducción del poder a lo largo de los siglos, un comportamiento heredado de siglos anteriores en la península ibérica. Por ello, nuestro trabajo muestra la importancia del estudio de las familias en la historia social y política de la Época Moderna en el entorno antillano.

LINK: https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/familia-y-poder-en-puerto-rico-los-sotomayor-y-sus-parentelas-ent/

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📚 New Title Tuesday: Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers, & Spies by Robert Whiting

Happy February! Let's kick off the new month with a hot new recommendation.

SUMMARY FROM PUBLISHER:
Critically acclaimed author and longtime Japan resident Robert Whiting turns his attention to the fascinating stories of foreigners who made waves and achieved notoriety in post—World War II Japan. In this rare insider's look at Japan through the eyes of foreigners, this book covers a fascinating swathe of Japanese history, from the immediate postwar period up to the 2022 assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The fascinating stories of the gamblers, dreamers, and other chancers who made their mark in modern Japan include US servicemen running Vegas—style gambling dens; baseball managers Like Bobby Valentine; hostesses, bar managers and wannabe yakuza gangsters; religious fanatics such as Members of the Moonies, and businessmen like disgraced Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn.

FIND IT HERE:
Catalog Permalink: https://i-share-uiu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01CARLI_UIU/gpjosq/alma99955676244105899
IASL Call Number: New Books DS832.7.A1 W45 2024

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Welcome back, Illini! 🧡💙 Feeling cold? I hear our reference stacks are nice and warm!

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