ART AND ARCHITECTURE
Carrie Golus, AB'91, AM'93, and Patrick Welch, editors, Thurn and Taxis #2 (Goelch Publications). Sixteen artists from the U.S., the U.K., and New Zealand contribute brief narratives to an anthology of "sequential art," or literary comics. Contributors include Golus and Jessica Abel, AB'91.
Cynthia Miller Lawrence, AM'70, AM'72, PhD'78, editor, Women and Art in Early Modern Europe: Patrons, Collectors, and Connoisseurs (Penn State Press). While accepting the standard view that female patronage often did express either conjugal devotion or an attempt to promote social position, this anthology argues that the patrons nevertheless used their selections to declare their own identities and tastes. The book includes an introduction and co-written essay by Lawrence, as well as essays by Elena Ciletti, AM'72, PhD'81, and Marilyn R. Dunn, PhD'85.
BIOGRAPHY AND LETTERS
Laurel Richardson, AB'55, AB'56, Fields of Play: Constructing an Academic Life (Rutgers University Press). Richardson's first-person narrative, depicting her life in academia, pays special attention to matters of current discussion in the profession, such as boundaries between disciplines, officially sanctioned genres of writing, and the ethics and politics of scientific inquiry and representation.
Frank A. Sanello, AB'74, Naked Instinct: The Unauthorized Biography of Sharon Stone (Carol Publishing Group/Birch Lane Press). The unauthorized biographer of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise turns to Sharon Stone, telling tales of the celebrity's private life: her relationships with high-school classmates, her lavish lifestyle, her romantic liaisons, her professional lows, and her six-month paralysis, resulting from a near-fatal car crash.
David S. Shields, AM'75, PhD'82, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters in British America (University of North Carolina Press). Shields examines letters, newspapers, and privately circulated manuscripts exchanged among socially elite British-American women and men who gathered at 18th-century coffeehouses and tea tables, in clubs and literary salons. Their shared pleasure in belles lettres, Shields argues, constructed a form of civil discourse that influenced American culture.
CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Barbara Diamond Goldin, AB'68, Creating Angels: Stories of Tzedakah (Jason Aronson); Coyote and the Fire Stick (Harcourt Brace & Company/Gulliver Books); While the Candles Burn: Eight Stories for Hannukah (Viking); and The Girl Who Lived with the Bears (Harcourt Brace & Company/Gulliver Books). Goldin, the author of more than a dozen children's books, had these four works published in 1996 and 1997. In the first book, 24 stories-culled from Jewish folklore and midrash in Central Europe, Tunisia, and Afghanistan-illustrate the belief that through tzedakah, or charity, people experience the power of "creating angels," or doing good in the world. The second book recounts the Pacific Northwestern Indian legend of how Coyote crafted a plan to steal fire from three scary flamekeepers. The third book tells one story for each night of Hannukah. And in the fourth story-a tale popular among the peoples of the Pacific Northwest-a thoughtless young girl learns to love and respect bears and other animals.
CRITICISM
Christine Froula, AB'71, AM'72, PhD'77, Modernism's Body: Sex, Culture, and Joyce (Columbia University Press). Through intensive readings of works from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake, Froula finds that James Joyce used his artist-protagonists' suffering, transgressions, resistance, masquerade, parody, and play to convert everyday perversities into daring critiques of his culture. Froula maintains that Joyce aligned his ardent efforts with the revolutionary energies of psychoanalysis and feminism to forge a new "conscience" for the Irish.
Philip C. Kolin, AM'67, editor, Venus and Adonis: Critical Essays, (Garland Publishing). These collected essays (including one by James M. Schiffer, AM'74, PhD'80) track the 400-year reputation of Shakespeare's first published work: a long, erotic, narrative poem on the goddess of love and her unwilling prey-who, upon leaving the goddess unfulfilled, is gored to death by a boar. Kolin's own contribution details the poem's fortunes among critics and assesses dramatic adaptations of the work. A 400-entry chronological bibliography catalogs scholarly works, commentaries, performance reviews, and other responses to the piece.
Frederick J. Ruf, AM'77, Entangled Voices: Genre and the Religious Construction of the Self (Oxford University Press). Rejecting the idea of genre as a fixed form that serves as a template for readers and writers, Ruf suggests imagining genres as expressions of different voices: dramatic voice as opaque and contextual; lyric voice as intimate and urgent; and narrative voice as comprehensive, cohesive, and magisterial. In constructing voices, he argues, texts model the human process of constructing selves, thus fulfilling the traditional function of religion. To examine this theory's applications, Ruf looks at Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, Robert Wilson's Einstein on the Beach, Donne's Holy Sonnets, Dinesen's Out of Africa, and Coleridge's Biographia Literaria.
FICTION AND POETRY
Stephen Stepanchev, AB'37, AM'38, Seven Horizons(Orchises Press). Three of the 61 poems in Stepanchev's 10th collection won him Poetry's 1995 Oscar Blumenthal award.
HISTORY/CURRENT EVENTS
William F. Brundage, AB'81, editor, Under Sentence of Death: Lynching in the South (University of North Carolina Press). With their foci ranging in time from the late antebellum period to the early 20th century, and in place from the border states to the Deep South, 15 leading scholars investigate the history and legacy of lynching. Topics include same-race lynchings, black resistance to white violence, and political motivations for lynching. The book inquires into Southern history, race relations, and the nature of American violence, and extends to the entire nation its discussion of racism, injustice, and patterns of violence.
Arden K. Bucholz, Jr., AM'65, PhD'72, editor and translator, Delbrück's Modern Military History by Hans Delbrück (University of Nebraska Press). A professor of history at the University of Berlin, the editor of a political-commentary journal, and a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, Delbrück wrote the classic, four-volume History of the Art of War. Covering the rise and ruin of imperial Germany from 1866 to 1920, it pioneered techniques of modern military history. Alongside letters Delbrück wrote to his mother while serving in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Bucholz's work includes essays, reviews, commentaries, and speeches concerning military figures, historians, and events through World War I.
Robert S. Cantwell, AM'67, When We Were Good: The Folk Revival (Harvard University Press). Analyzing the traditions, ideologies, and personalities that inspired it, Cantwell portrays the folk-music revival of the late 1950s and '60s as a search for authentic democracy. His look at this moment in American popular culture leads him to consider such issues as racial identity, class stratification, and the interplay between art and politics.
Mason C. Doan, AM'40, American Housing Production 1880-2000: A Concise History(University Press of America). In presenting a history of nonfarm housing production, progress, and policy in the U.S. from 1880 to 1990, Doan analyzes the uneven results of federal housing legislation (including efforts to grant all citizens equal access to housing and mortgage markets); considers the recent fate of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and considers future prospects.
Nancy L. Green, AM'73, PhD'80, Ready-to-Wear and Ready-to-Work: A Century of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and New York (Duke University Press). In this critical look at the women's garment industry, both on New York's Seventh Avenue and in the Parisian Sentier, Green examines the tension between mass-production and the artistry of fashion design. She then explores the consequences of that struggle for immigrants working the sewing machines. The study considers issues of gender and ethnicity, historical conflict and consensus, and class and cultural differences.
Andrea Leonard, AB'47, Proprietor's Records, Town of Barnstable, Massachusetts, 1703-95 (Heritage Books). Leonard, a Cape Cod native descended from early Barnstable settlers, draws on town-meeting minutes, land titles, genealogies, and records of land-privatization to detail Cape Cod history. She brings to light 18th-century Barnstable property divisions, lot sizes, public-land uses, inheritance practices, proprietors' attitudes, and dispute settlements. Raphael W. Marrow and Harriet I. Carter, BLS'44, In Pursuit of Crime: The Police of Chicago-Chronicle of a Hundred Years: 1833-1933 (The Flats Publishing Company). This history tells how the Chicago police force, in its first 100 years, organized to fight crime while dealing with internal conflicts and pressures from corrupt politicians. Highlights include stories of the city's great disasters, the force's colorful personalities, and the era's resourceful criminals. The book also reviews officers killed in the line of duty. (This corrects information printed in the April/97 issue.-Ed.) Jonathan H. Stevenson, AB'78, We Wrecked the Place: Contemplating an End to the Northern Irish Troubles (Simon & Schuster/The Free Press). Spurred by the autumn 1994 ceasefires of the IRA and the loyalists, Stevenson, a Belfaster since 1993, looks back on the Irish "troubles." Using interviews with 30 former terrorists from both sides of the conflict, the author contemplates the 17 months of peace and assesses their impact on the potential for lasting resolution.
MUSIC
George R. Hill, AM'66, and Norris L. Stephens, Collected Editions, Historical Series & Sets, & Monuments of Music: A Bibliography (Fallen Leaf Press). With this listing of more than 8,000 items, Hill and Stephens offer an exhaustive catalog of numbered sets and composers' collected editions. They also provide complete listings for many publishers' series and anthologies of musicological significance. Cross-references stem from volume names, volume numbers, and editors' names; and standard reference numbers correspond to an index to musical pieces to be included on forthcoming CD-ROMs.
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND LAW
David L. Bartlett, AM'84, The Political Economy of Dual Transformations: Market Reform and Democratization in Hungary (University of Michigan Press). Challenging conventional wisdom concerning central Europe's "dual transformations," Bartlett examines Hungarian political and economic reform from the late Communist period to the mid-1990s. He argues that Hungary's transition to democracy curtailed opportunities for local agents to obtain exceptions to market rules and strengthened the ability of post-Communist state institutions to enforce standard regulations, thus promoting marketization.
Charles C. Hauch, PhB'34, AM'36, PhD'42, La Republica Dominicana y sus Relaciones Exteriores 1844-1882 (Sociedad Dominicana de Bibliofilos). This Spanish translation of Hauch's Ph.D. dissertation examines two themes that dominated Dominican foreign relations in the decades immediately after its independence from Haiti: the fear of renewed Haitian encroachment, and attempts by Dominican leaders to seek the protection of powerful foreign states, including the U.S. and Spain.
Fred A. Lazin, AM'68, PhD'73, and Gregory S. Mahler, editors, Israel in the Nineties: Development and Conflict (University of Florida Press). The essays in this collection address foreign policy and domestic issues, including the peace process, the changing roles of women, Jews who are "less religious," the decline of Zionism, Indian Jewish identity, and the allocation of economic resources.
Steven B. Smith, PhD'81, Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity (Yale University Press). Focusing on Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, Smith argues that Spinoza tried to conceptualize Jewish identity in a manner compatible with the liberal, secular state that was emerging. Smith then questions whether Spinoza's Jewish-liberal symbiosis actually solved the underlying theologico-political problem.
Kenneth W. Thompson, AM'48, PhD'51, editor, The Budget Deficit and the National Debt; The Bush Presidency: Ten Intimate Perspectives of George Bush; and Presidents and Arms Control: Process, Procedures, and Problems (University Press of America). In the first book, nine commentators of varied professions and political bents address the U.S. deficit. In the second book, people who worked closely with Bush give perspectives on his leadership, accomplishments, foreign policy, and intelligence initiatives, and assess his 1992 campaign defeat. In the third book, experts review the records of presidents Kennedy through Clinton on arms control.
PSYCHIATRY/PSYCHOLOGY
Belleruth Krepon Naparstek, AB'64, AM'67, A Meditation to Help You with Weight Loss; A Meditation to Help You Stop Smoking; A Meditation to Help You Recover from Alcohol/Drugs (Time Warner AudioBooks); and Your Sixth Sense: Activating Your Psychic Potential (HarperCollins). In the first three works, all books on tape, Naparstek offers guided-imagery exercises to help with compulsive behavior. In the fourth work, a book, Naparstek summarizes 40 years of research on perception and intuition, explains the "physics" of extrasensory perception, and suggests step-by-step exercises to expand these abilities. Robert E. Valett, AM'51, Spiritual Guides to Holistic Health and Happiness (Poppy Lane). Valett defines good health as a state of physical and mental well-being that requires an integration and balance of mind, spirit, and body. To help readers develop their spiritual powers, he suggests such lifestyle strategies as prayer and meditation, good humor, and the celebration of community.
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Donald E. Capps, AM'66, PhD'70, Men, Religion, and Melancholia (Yale University Press). Using Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia" and "The Uncanny" as interpretive keys, the author explores James's The Varieties of Religious Experience, Otto's The Idea of the Holy, Jung's Answer to Job, and Erikson's Young Man Luther. Capps emphasizes that melancholy is central to these theorists' ways of understanding religion, arguing that all four psychologists experienced an influential early-childhood trauma: a perceived loss of their mothers' unconditional love.
Richard H. Davis, AB'73, PhD'86, Lives of Indian Images (Princeton University Press). In this series of case studies, Davis traces, over many centuries, the biographies of selected Hindu Indian religious icons. He contends that a variety of recurring human practices-ritual consecration, medieval dynastic looting, religious iconoclasm, colonial collecting, nationalist revalorization, and modern art marketing-have formed and reformed the significance of these objects.
Daniel R. Finn, AM'75, PhD'77, Just Trading: On the Ethics and the Economics of International Trade (Abingdon Press). From the perspectives of both economics and Christian ethics, Finn weighs the arguments for and against increased international trade by the U.S. and Canada. He focuses on three controversial areas in the trade debate: agriculture, employment, and the environment.
G. Michael McCrossin, AM'69, PhD'70, Broken Rainbows: Growing Faith in a Changing World (Sheed & Ward). McCrossin reviews basic Christian concepts-God, sin, scriptures, Jesus, and the church-in light of evolution, quantum mechanics, democracy, and non-Western religion. Then, linking traditional imagery with the contemporary world, he proposes new ways of expressing religious faith.
Gerald L. Sittser, PhD'89, A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches and the Second World War (University of North Carolina Press). Sittser examines WWII in light of the reactions it provoked-reserved, ambivalent, even critical-among members of diverse Christian denominations. Religious concerns included civil rights, the internment of Japanese Americans, Jewish suffering, the dropping of the atomic bomb, and postwar planning. Sittser argues that the churches' ministry during the war attracted large numbers of postwar followers, initiating a significant cultural trend in America.
SOCIAL SCIENCES
Carole Cox and Paul H. Ephross, PhD'69, Ethnicity and Social Work (Oxford University Press). Aiming to help social workers build more effective interpersonal and intersystemic relationships, this social-work text provides models of ethnic identities and suggests how these identities influence perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of individuals, groups, families, and communities. Additional chapters cover ethnocultural dimensions of both health-care and social-policy issues. (This corrects information printed in the June/97 issue.-Ed.)
Kerry J. Pataki-Schweizer, SB'60, On Reproduction: Views from Men in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea (University of Papua New Guinea Press). Based on comparative fieldwork conducted in everyday language, Pataki-Schweizer presents the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions of Papua highlands men on reproduction.
Virginia Drew Watson, AM'43, PhD'65, Anyan's Story: A New Guinea Woman in Two Worlds (University of Washington Press). When Watson did her anthropological field work in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, Anyan was her language aide. Here, Watson chronicles Anyan's life, which encompassed the transformation of her homeland from simple and horticultural to an amalgam of indigenous, simple, horticultural elements and Western, complex, technical ones.
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, AM'71, PhD'76, The Divorce Culture (Alfred A. Knopf). Whitehead draws upon psychological and sociological research as well as children's books; greeting cards; and the literature of self-help, etiquette, and advice to provide historical perspective in showing how Americans, who once viewed divorce as a last resort, have come to see it as an entitlement. She cautions that casual divorce creates a culture of low commitment, in which we define our relationships through the breaking of bonds and increasingly neglect the interests and needs of our children.
Stephen L. Whittington, AB'77, coeditor Bones of the Maya: Studies of Ancient Skeletons (Smithsonian Institution Press). This volume brings together the contributions of bioarchaeologists who have studied human skeletons excavated from ancient Mayan sites in Mexico and Central America. Topics include cultural modifications of bones and teeth, the role of diet in the millennium-old collapse of the classic Mayan civilization, and the use of mitochondrial DNA to define relationships between the Maya and other Americans.
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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