The University of Chicago Magazine

February 1997

Books

Honor among thieves (see Children's Literature)

Identity Crisis (see Religion/Philosophy)

BIOGRAPHY AND LETTERS

Mary Alzina Stone Dale, AM'57, A Century of Church Women: The Story of the Board of Managers of the Episcopal Church Home for Aged Persons (Evangel Press). Dale tells the story of the all-female board of managers of a Hyde Park retirement community, now Montgomery Place. The board was responsible for day-to-day operations from the institution's inception in 1888 until 1990, when the board merged with the board of trustees to form one governing body of men and women.

Susan N. Horowitz, AB'66, PhD'88, Queens of Comedy: Lucille Ball, Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Joan Rivers, and the New Generation of Funny Women (Gordon and Breach). Horowitz examines humor, sex appeal, and power, and explores how performers turn personal stories into comedic art.

Clara E. Orban, AB'81, PhD'90, translator, Cytomegalovirus: A Hospitalization Diary, by Hervé Guibert (University Press of America). Orban's English translation of the late French novelist's work records Guibert's observations during a three-week hospital stay, as he confronted his fears about AIDS, cytomegalovirus, and the threat of blindness. The author explores the usefulness of writing as a way to record one's experience and preserve one's dignity.

Marc J. Seifer, AM'74, Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla (Birch Lane Press). This biography of the Croatian-born inventor notes the émigré's contributions to modern technology and provides insights into his relationships with fellow inventors and wealthy underwriters, many of whom later rejected him because of his unusual research pursuits--including attempts to contact other planets.

BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

Butler D. Shaffer, JD'61, In Restraint of Trade: The Business Campaign Against Competition, 1918­1938 (Bucknell University Press). Arguing that business groups use both incentives and coercion to curtail competitive practices, Shaffer claims the business community was a principal force behind the New Deal's National Industrial Recovery Act.

CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Elizabeth A. Scarboro, AB'91, Phoenix, Upside Down (Viking Penguin). When 9-year-old Jamie moves from Colorado to Arizona, she feels unsettled by everything from quirky classmates to her sleepwalking sister until she finds unlikely friends who help her cope.

Megan Whalen Turner, AB'87, The Thief (Greenwillow Books). The king of Soumis assigns Gen, a thief languishing in the royal dungeons, to help the king's scholar find--and then steal--an ancient stone that, once possessed, would confer power over neighboring monarchs. While searching for the stone, Gen, the king's scholar, and two others stumble upon an underwater maze. Gen attempts to steal the stone, escape, and stay alive.

CRITICISM

Anthony Amberg, AB'57, AB'59, AM'62, editor, The Foundling: A Comedy and The Gamester: A Tragedy, by Edward Moore (University of Delaware Press). Amberg's scholarly edition of Edward Moore's sentimental comedy and his domestic tragedy contains a full critical apparatus, including a chronology of Moore's life and textual notes. (This corrects information printed in the Oct.­Dec./96 issue.--Ed.)

Thomas Meade Harwell, Jr., AM'47, Porter and Eliot: "Flowering Judas" and "Burbank-Bleistein" (Universität Salzburg Press/Edwin Mellen Press). In close readings of two crucial works by Katherine Anne Porter and T.S. Eliot, Harwell invokes Aristotle, the Chicago school of criticism, and New Criticism to examine problems of plot and episode; symbolism and inference; time and space; and atmosphere and race.

Grace Zlobnicki Kalay, AM'83, PhD'93, The Theme of Childhood in Elsa Morante (Romance Monographs­University of Mississippi). Kalay analyzes the nature and import of Italian writer Elsa Morante's use of the theme of childhood in her children's literature, short stories, poetry, and novels.

EDUCATION

June Roediger Chapin, AB'52, AM'54, Elementary Social Studies: A Practical Guide (Longman). This guide to teaching elementary social studies emphasizes the critical basics of the subject, covers new standards in the field, and includes material on character education.

Lillian Cohen Kovar, AM'42, PhD'48, Here to Complete Dr. King's Dream: The Triumphs and Failures of a Community College (University Press of America). In this ethnographic study, students and teachers describe the metamorphosis of Bronx Community College during two decades of open admission, a policy instituted in 1970. The author evaluates the triumphs and failures of community colleges and confronts the larger question of what community colleges' mission should currently be.

FICTION AND POETRY

Ivan Argüelles, AB'61, Enigma & Variations: Paradise is Persian for Park (Pantograph Press). This seventh book of the poet's epic poem, Pantograph, intensifies a prevailing current of his earlier work: personal experience in the context of the larger mythic and historical world.

Marilla Argüelles, AB'65, editor, Extracts from Pelican Bay (Pantograph Press). In presenting poetry, drawings, and essays by men in the maximum-control units of a California state prison, this anthology argues against a state's assumption of absolute control over the lives of individuals.

Henry S. Maas, PhD'48, Wondrous Worlds: Poems for the End of the 20th Century (Wallace Crescent Press). Maas groups more than 150 of his poems, plus brief excerpts from other writers' works, under seven themes--including art, nature, love, aging, and life transitions.

HISTORY/CURRENT EVENTS

Paul A. Cohen, AB'55, History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (Columbia University Press). Cohen uncovers key aspects of the Boxer uprising and conflicting ways in which it has survived in Chinese consciousness in the 20th century.

Sally M. Miller, AM'63, Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Early 20th-Century American Socialism (Garland). Along with reprints of documents written by American socialists of the World War I era, this book contains essays that explore how the Socialist party then viewed race, ethnicity, and gender.

John A. Taylor, AM'66, PhD'72, British Monarchy, English Church Establishment, and Civil Liberty (Greenwood Press). Taylor argues that, as symbols of civil liberty in Great Britain, the monarchy and the church are fundamental to a British national identity--and that reforms are needed to sustain the viability of these crucial entities. He goes on to suggest possible reforms.

LINGUISTICS

Charles J.N. Bailey, AM'67, PhD'69, Essays on Time-Based Linguistic Analysis (Oxford University Press). Bailey presents numerous subtheories and models of linguistic analysis in which time is a basic parameter. The book argues that grammar books used in schools present English grammar in ways antithetical to both good usage and current linguistic theory. Bailey offers analyses of English case and verb systems.

MEDIA/COMMUNICATIONS

Robert W. Kubey, AM'78, PhD'84, editor, Media Literacy in the Information Age: Current Perspectives (Transaction Publishers). In volume six of the series Information and Behavior, 26 media educators from six countries examine the past, present, and future course of theory and practice in media education.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH

Karen Carlson; Stephanie A. Eisenstat; and Terra Ziporyn, AM'81, PhD'85, The Harvard Guide to Women's Health (Harvard University Press). Drawing on the research and clinical practice of doctors in three Boston-area institutions, this practical reference addresses the health concerns of women from puberty to old age, with more than 300 alphabetized entries and some 250 illustrations and charts.

Liane Kohn Clorfene-Casten, AM'69, Breast Cancer: Poisons, Profits, and Prevention (Common Courage Press). The author argues that 70 percent of breast-cancer cases may result from environmental pollution, then discusses how and why charities, corporations, the FDA, and the EPA have not taken stronger measures to improve prevention.

Judith Walzer Leavitt, MAT'65, AM'66, PhD'75, The Healthiest City: Milwaukee and the Politics of Health Reform (University of Wisconsin Press). In this paperback edition, Leavitt shows how, in response to Milwaukee's late 19th-century population explosion, a coalition of reform supporters galvanized and demanded community education and public responsibility, thus earning for Milwaukee the title of the nation's "healthiest city" by the 1930s.

Merle Sande and Paul A. Volberding, AB'71, editors, The Medical Management of AIDS (W.B. Saunders). The clinically oriented fifth edition of this leading HIV­medicine textbook includes the work of many internationally recognized experts.

POLITICAL SCIENCE AND LAW

Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs, JD'73, AM'73, PhD'75, The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How Corruption Control Makes Government Ineffective (University of Chicago Press). The authors argue that increased regulations and oversight mechanisms designed to prevent or eliminate corruption seriously undermine the government's ability to govern.

Kristen Renwick Monroe, AM'70, PhD'74, Altruism: Perceptions of a Common Humanity (Princeton University Press). Monroe analyzes altruism, critiques rational-action theory, and suggests her own theory of ethical political behavior.

Rosemary O'Leary and David H. Rosenbloom, AM'66, PhD'69, editors, Public Administration and Law (Marcel Dekker). This revised and expanded second edition analyzes changes in administrative and constitutional law and how those changes affect encounters with government made by clients, contractors, public employees, prison inmates, mental health patients, litigants, and others.

Kenneth W. Thompson, AM'48, PhD'51, editor: Elections and Governance; Statesmen Who Were Never President; and The Virginia Papers on the Presidency, Volume XXIX: The Miller Center Forums (University Press of America). Introduction to Disarming Diplomat: The Memoirs of Ambassador Gerard C. Smith, Arms Control Negotiator by Gerard C. Smith's (Madison Books). All four books were copublished by arrangement with the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. The first book, the seventh volume in a series on governance, examines how elections shape the democratic process, domestically and internationally. The second book, volume two in The Statesmen Defeated for President series, offers historical insights into the lives of great statesmen who never held presidential office. The third book contains ten papers by theoreticians and academicians on issues of the American presidency. In the final book, Thompson introduces an ambassador's memoirs.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Don A. Pittman, PhD'87; Ruben L.F. Habito; and Terry C. Muck, Ministry and Theology in Global Perspective: Contemporary Challenges for the Church (Eerdmans Publishing Company). In this seminary textbook, the authors pool their theological reflections with those of numerous other scholars to address the challenges posed by globalization.

Marya S. Schechtman, AB'82, The Constitution of Selves (Cornell University Press). Schechtman argues that analytic philosophy has so far failed to offer a satisfying account of how people establish a sense of personal identity because it inadequately distinguishes between two approaches to the problem: a historical approach ("reidentification") and an approach concerned with beliefs, values, and the actions they prompt ("characterization"). Asserting that questions related to characterization are frequently undermined or unrecognized, Schechtman proceeds to develop a narrative account of this approach.

Gilson A.C. Waldkoenig, PhD'94, Symbiotic Community: E.W. Mueller's Approach to the Rural Social Crisis (University Press of America). The author examines how, in response to dramatic rural social change in 20th-century America, E.W. Mueller--who had worked for 24 years in the National Lutheran Council and its successor, the Lutheran Council in the U.S.A.--applied Lutheran theology to the shift. Mueller proposed a community of interdependent agricultural and urban entities in which individuals and institutions would each fulfill their own vocations and so enhance the quality of their shared lives.

Mark I. Wallace, PhD'86, editor, and David W. Pellauer, AM'69, PhD'78, translator, Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, by Paul Ricoeur (Fortress Press). The most comprehensive anthology of Ricoeur's religious writings, this indexed book groups its 21 papers under five themes: the study of religion, philosophers of religion, the Bible and genre, theological overtures, and practical theology.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

William P. Sheehan, AM'78, The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery (University of Arizona Press). Sheehan traces the human fascination with Mars, including the belief that the planet harbors life. He documents early astronomers' ideas and modern spacecrafts' stunning images of a cold, dry planet with the largest volcanoes and canyons in the solar system.

Allen M. Young, PhD'68, Lives Intertwined: Interrelationships between Plants and Animals (Grolier/Franklin-Watts). The author explores pathways of ecological dependency in the Central American rainforest and contrasts these with the ecology of the temperate zone.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

Ellen Lewin, AB'67, editor, Inventing Lesbian Cultures in America (Beacon Press); and William Leap, editors, Out in the Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (University of Illinois Press). In the first book, contributors consider what it means to be a lesbian and explore a wide range of cultural expressions that bind various lesbian communities together. In the second book, through discussions of their personal experiences, lesbian and gay anthropologists illustrate professional lives both closeted and "out," and discuss the alignment of career goals and sexual preferences.

Joseph A. Maxwell, AM'71, PhD'86, Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach (Sage Publications). In presenting his model for qualitative-study design, Maxwell explores issues such as purpose, conceptual context, research questions, methods, and validity. He also explains how to make the transition from research design to a dissertation or funding proposal.

Sylvia Méluzin, AM'69, Further Investigations of the Tuxtla Script: An Inscribed Mask and La Mojarra Stela, (Brigham Young University/New World Archaeological Foundation). Examining an ancient hieroglyphic script, the author presents a sign list, devises a bilingual system for deciphering the hieroglyphs, and discusses hieroglyphic features relevant to the origins of writing in Mesoamerica.

Jean Paulson Peterman, AB'64, Telling Their Stories: Puerto Rican Women and Abortion (Westview Press). Peterman's interviews with Puerto Rican women in Chicago examine the contradiction between conservative cultural norms and Latinas' relatively high abortion rates, and suggest that for most women interviewed, the abortion experience was a "moral passage" leading them to reconsider gender relationships.

Yue-man Yeung, PhD'72, coeditor, Emerging World Cities in Pacific Asia (United Nations University Press); editor, Global Change and the Commonwealth (Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies); coeditor, Shanghai: Transformation and Modernization under China's Open Policy (Chinese University Press). The first book considers Pacific Asia's "world cities" in the context of global economic changes since the 1980s. The second book presents the rich variety of empirical experience and analytical diversity of commonwealth countries and examines socioeconomic, technological, economic, and physical dimensions of global change. The third book covers topics related to the physical and socioeconomic transformation of Shanghai since 1978.

TRAVEL AND LEISURE

Cari L. Myford, MBA'85, and Robert P. Seass, MBA'70, Best Bistros & Brasseries in New York City (The French Connection Press). This practical guide reviews and ranks more than 250 casual, affordable places to dine in Manhattan and also features a few of the authors' favorite bistros in San Francisco and Paris.

For inclusion in "Books by Alumni," please send the book's name, author, publisher, field, and a short synopsis to the Books Editor, University of Chicago Magazine, 1313 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637, or by E-mail: uchicago-magazine@ uchicago.edu.

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