December 12, 2025 — Each year, Fresno State faculty contribute fresh scholarship, creative work and new ideas that deepen understanding across disciplines. The 2025 collection of faculty-published books spans science, cultural studies, memoir, poetry, children’s literature and more — reflecting the breadth and imagination of the university’s academic community.
Among this year’s publications, several works stand out for their literary impact and emotional resonance.
Poet Mai Der Vang’s Primordial offers a powerful meditation on ecological crisis, Hmong identity and generational memory. Centering the rare and endangered saola of Southeast Asia, Vang connects environmental precarity with themes of exile, belonging and survival. Written during a difficult pregnancy and postpartum period, her collection underscores the urgent intersections of climate, history and personal narrative.
In Sing Me a Circle, Samina Najmi crafts a memoir-in-essays that reflects on love, loss and the search for home across continents. Drawing on her life as a Pakistani American scholar rooted in Fresno, Najmi blends personal history with cultural insight. Winner of the 2024 Aurora Polaris Prize in creative nonfiction, her work captures the shifting contours of identity across generations and geographies.
The anthology The Gate of Memory, co-edited by Brynn Saito, brings together 66 poets who are descendants of those incarcerated in U.S. and Canadian camps during World War II. Through a collective act of remembrance, the book explores intergenerational trauma and the enduring legacy of incarceration on families and communities. Saito’s editorial leadership helps preserve a vital chapter of Japanese American history while giving voice to its contemporary echoes.
These literary achievements appear alongside a wide range of faculty publications in 2025, from scientific research and sociological analysis to children’s mediation stories, historical translations and practical guides. Together, they represent Fresno State’s commitment to scholarship that informs, inspires and expands understanding.
Other Notable 2025 Faculty Books
-
Azorean History Themes — Translated by Diniz Borges; a vivid look at Azorean resistance and cultural identity.
-
Decolonizing Environmentalism — Written by Prakash Kashwan and Aseem Hasnain; a timely reimagining of global climate justice and environmental action.
-
Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland — Written by Jenny Banh; an insightful study of globalization, culture and corporate power.
-
Foodways in the Twentieth-Century City — Written by Maria-Aparecida Lopes and María Cecilia Zuleta; a global history of how urban life shaped what—and how—we eat.
-
Raízes e Horizontes — Written by Diniz Borges; a sweeping narrative of the Azorean diaspora and its evolving identity.