Words Worth a Second Look
Nonfiction
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
By Kirstin Downey
(Nan A.Talese)
Before
there was Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice there was Frances Perkins
(MHC 1902), secretary of labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The first
woman to hold a cabinet position, Perkins initiated sweeping changes to
labor laws including the eight-hour workday, Social Security, and
child-labor laws. In this biography, new light is shed on a
largely forgotten figure who was integral to the formation of theNew
Deal.
Kirstin Downey is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist at the Washington Post.
Lessons From Freedom Summer: Ordinary PeopleBuilding Extraordinary Movements
By Kathy Emery, Linda Reid Gold, and Sylvia Braselmann
(Common Courage Press)
In
this book, Emery outlines the impact of the 1964 “freedom schools” in
Mississippi that opened on back porches and in churches in 1964 to teach
confidence, voter literacy, and political organization to
African American citizens long denied all three. It also serves as a case
study illustrating thee lements crucial to the success of a social
movement that can inform present-day activists.
Kathy Emery ’77
was a highschool teacher for sixteen years, coauthored Why is Corporate
America Bashing Our Schools, and is executive director of the San
Francisco Freedom School.
Movi
ng Beyond Racism: Memories, Transformations, and the Start of NewConversations
Edited by Heather PowersAlbanesi and Carole AnnCamp
(White River Press)
Susan
Daniels ’79 and Ivy Tillman ’83 are included in this collection of
twenty-one personal essays regarding race relations and racism in the
twenty-first century. In descriptions of events and memories, the
authors provide personal accounts of their experiences with racism, and
the realities that many Americans of color still face.
Susan
Daniels ’79 is an executive recruiter for Deerfield Associates, an
executive search firm in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Ivy Tillman FP ’83 is
a technical support and repair consultant at the MHC library. (More)
Words Worth a Second Look
Non-Fiction
Sex and Power: Defining History, Shaping Societies
By Rita Banerji (Penguin Books)
In this sociological and historical study, Banerji examines changes in the dynamics of sexual morality and customs in India and argues that the social power hierarchy determines the moral overview of society, not a set of preexisting or enduring ethics. Overpopulation, AIDS, and female genocide are the result of collective sexual malfunctioning, she argues, and must be addressed in the context of the social and economic power hierarchy.
Rita Banerji ’90 is a freelance writer and photographer based in Calcutta. She is the founder of the online campaign, The 50 Million Missing, www.50millionmissing.in featured in the summer 2008 Quarterly.
Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema
By Negar Mottahedeh (Duke University Press)
Throughout the 1970s, feminist scholars bemoaned the fact that the desiring or malegaze approach to camera angles dominated almost all movies and objectified women. Mottahedeh argues that after the revolution in Iran, convention was unintentionally turned upside down when modesty laws required women be veiled at all times, transforming the desiring gaze into an averted one, and national cinema into women’s cinema.
Negar Mottahedeh ’90 is assistant professor of literature and women’s studies at Duke University. She was born in Iran.
On the Line: Inside the World of Le Bernardin
By Eric Ripert and Christine Muhlke (Artisan Books)
On the Line is a fascinating look at the inner workings of the world-class restaurant Le Bernardin in New York. Told from the point of view of the principal players— chefs, maître d’, sommelier—the story lets you feel the creativity and accomplishment as 150,000 plates of culinary perfection are sent out from the kitchen every year.
Christine Muhlke ’92 is an editor at The New York Times. She has written for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Food & Wine, and other publications.
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Nonfiction
Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor
By Elizabeth Young
(New York University Press)
In this book, Young interprets the figure of a black American Frankenstein as it appears throughout nineteenth-and twentieth-century U.S. culture. She argues that the Frankenstein monster has served as a powerful metaphor in U.S. culture over the last two centuries for both reinforcing racial hierarchy and shaping anti-racist critique.
Elizabeth Young is professor of English and gender studies at MHC, and author of Disarming the Nation: Women’s Writing and the American Civil War.
China: Fragile Superpower
By Susan L. Shirk
(Oxford University Press)
Since the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, Chinese leaders have been haunted by the fear that their days in power are numbered. Unless we understand China’s brittle politics, Shirk argues, the United States faces the possibility of unavoidable conflict with this fragile communist regime.
Susan L. Shirk ’67 is the former deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for U.S. relations with China, and is director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California–San Diego.
Christian Sisterhood, Race Relations, and the YWCA, 1906–46
By Nancy Marie Robertson
(University of Illinois Press)
Robertson has written a “thorough history that while focused on the YWCA, tells the larger story of interracial work,” says a reviewer in the American Historical Review. Robertson finds that even in one of the most progressive organizations of the time—the YWCA ended its own policy of segregation in 1946—the history of civil rights was not one of inevitable progress but of continuing tension and negotiation.
Nancy Marie Robertson ’78 is associate professor of history and philanthropic studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, where she also directs the women’s studies program.
(More)
Words Worth a Second Look
N o n f i c t i o n
Disappearing Destinations: 37 Places in Peril and What Can Be Done to Save Them
By Kimberly Lisagor and Heather Hansen ’94
(Vintage Books)
Eco-tourists need look no further than Disappearing Destinations for a guide to Earth’s breathtaking but beleaguered splendors. From Puerto Rico’s phosphorescent bays to the boreal forests of Finland, the authors show environmentally responsible travelers how to enjoy (and preserve) fascinating but fragile wonders on all seven continents.
Heather Baukney Hansen is a freelance journalist, environmentalist, and world traveler based in Colorado.
Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema
By Angela Dalle Vacche MA’80
(University of Texas Press)
The “diva film” became popular around the turn of the twentieth century, as artists questioned what it meant to be human in an increasingly mechanistic world. Diva is the first authoritative study of this genre, whose films denounced social evils and explored new models of behavior between the sexes.
Angela Dalle Vacche, an internationally recognized expert in European cinema, is an associate professor at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture.
A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade
By Christopher Benfey
(The Penguin Press)
A meditation on a moment in history, Benfey’s book seeks to show how some of the most famous writers of the nineteenth century responded to the Civil War and the era’s dynamic aesthetic, in part, with allusions in their work to the effervescent hummingbird.
Christopher Benfey, professor of English at MHC and an Emily Dickinson scholar, is also a critic and essayist.
(More)
F i c t i o n
Despite Gravity
By Marjory Wentworth ’80
(Ninety-Six Press)
South Carolina’s poet laureate presents a collection of her poems that consider topics from college students affected by 9/11 to her son’s diagnosis with Asperger’s syndrome. The title poem was written for the dedication of Charleston’s dramatic Cooper River Bridge and in honor of a young Mexican man who died during its construction.
This is the second collection of poems by Marjory Heath Wentworth. She also teaches poetry to cancer patients and writes a poetry column for the Charleston newspaper.
(More)
N o n f i c t i o n
CEO of Me: Creating a Life That Works in the Flexible Job Age
By Ellen Ernst Kossek ’79 and Brenda A. Lautsch (Wharton Press)
Are you finding the line between your work and home life blurred? Are you sick of juggling work tasks while trying to spend time with your children? Ellen Kossek’s book helps people clarify their work-life values and learn new ways to manage work-life relationships.
Ellen Ernst Kossek is a professor in the School of Labor and Industrial Relations at Michigan State University and a leading research expert on work and personal life.
My Life and Battles
By Jack Johnson; translated by Christopher Rivers (Greenwood Press)
African American Jack Johnson (1878–1946), whose defeat in 1910 of heavyweight champion Jim Jeffries, who was white, spurred race riots across the country, has been called “the first African American pop culture icon.” My
Life and Battles uncovers Johnson’s depictions of his colorful life and battles as well as the “color line” in boxing and American society in general.
Christopher Rivers is a professor of French at Mount Holyoke. He is writing a book on Georges Carpentier, the celebrated French boxer of the pre– and post–World War I era.
This Too Is Diplomacy: Stories of a Partnership
By Dorothy J. Irving ’43 (AuthorHouse)
An occupied city, an active volcano, and a presidential visit were all part of Dorothy Irving’s experience as a Foreign Service spouse, which she faithfully examines in this book. Irving paints a broad canvas of raising three children in numerous countries; coping with unfamiliar customs and languages; and how to accept humbly the special treatment often accorded diplomats.
Dorothy Petrie Irving has long been involved in interracial and intercultural activities and has received several awards in this field, including an MHC Sesquicentennial Award.
(More)
N o n f i c t i o n
I Got the Idear: My Love Affair With Maine Language
By Marion Kingston Stocking ’43 (Maine Folklife Center)
Marion Kingston Stocking began a love affair with the numerous Maine dialects while teaching English at the University of Maine in the 1950s. In this small book, she outlines her personal journey with the Yankee lingo, the problem of class distinction in language, and offers a collection of the peculiar spellings used by her Maine students from “the days before we all sounded the same.”
After a long career as a Romantics scholar, Marion Kingston Stocking is writing memoirs. She also is an editor of the Beloit Poetry Journal.
Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks: The Story of the Lake, the Land, and the People
Annette Jones Lux ’47, contributor (Midwest Book Review)
Travel back to the 1870s with Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks: The Story of the Lake, the Land, and the People. This well-documented story describes the growth of the lakeside community made famous by the incident that inspired Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. The book includes black-andwhite photographs that paint a revealing picture of humble daily life across the span of a century.
Annette Jones Lux spent nine years working on this book. She lives near Big Moose Lake five months each year.
The Intersection of International Law, Agricultural Biotechnology, and Infectious Disease
By Meredith Mariani ’98 (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Brill)
Mariani examines current global and regional legal frameoff works for infectious disease and genetically modified organisms. She weighs the positive and negative effects of using biotechnology from a public-health perspective and then analyzes the related legal issues.
Meredith Mariani has written articles on stemcell legislation for the University of Notre Dame Journal of Legislation and the International Center for Technology Assessment. She lives in Northern Virginia.
Women, Religion, & Space: Global Perspectives on Gender and Faith
Edited by Karen M. Morin and Jeanne Kay Mountain Guelke ’71 (Syracuse University Press)
Women, Religion, & Space offers various perspectives on women who practice or interact with the gender norms and spaces of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The writers include observations based on fieldwork in Jerusalem, Istanbul, Pakistan, and Los Angeles. In the sixth chapter on missionary women in early America, Guelke references the religious focus of Mount Holyoke in its early years.
Jeanne Kay Guelke recently retired as professor of geography at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Her articles have been published in The Professional Geographer, the Journal of Historical Geography, and Environmental Ethics.
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F a c u l t y W o r k s
Blank Verse: A Guide to Its History and Use
By Robert B. Shaw (Ohio University Press)
Familiar to many as the form of Shakespeare’s plays and Milton’s Paradise Lost, blank verse— unrhymed iambic pentameter—has provided poets with a powerful and versatile metric line for centuries. Shaw analyzes the work in this meter by these great poets but also gives emphasis to modern and postmodern poets working in the form, the meter’s technical features, and its many uses.
Robert B. Shaw is professor of English at MHC and frequently writes on modern and contemporary poetry. His own books of poems include Below the Surface and Solving for X.
F i c t i o n
Not Like You
By Deborah Davis ’79 (Clarion Books)
Touted by one reviewer as the best mother-daughter story she’d ever read, Not Like You tells the story of fifteen-year-old Kayla, who must learn to take care of herself—even if that means no longer taking care of her alcoholic mother. The book is an emotionally complex novel for teens, and its moving, realistic storyline builds to a hopeful conclusion.
Deborah Davis’s other novels are My Brother Has AIDS and The Secret of the Seal. She was also the editor of You Look Too Young to Be a Mom: Teen Mothers Speak Out on Love, Learning, and Success. Check out her Web site, www.deborahdavisauthor.com.
(More)
The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience
Lessons From Freedom Summer: Ordinary PeopleBuilding Extraordinary Movements
ng Beyond Racism: Memories, Transformations, and the Start of NewConversations
