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Unnatural Selections: Eugenics in American Modernism and the Harlem
Renaissance
by Daylanne K. English (University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
288 pages, $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper)
Challenging conventional constructions of the Harlem Renaissance
and American modernism, Daylanne English links writers from both
movements to debates about eugenics in the Progressive Era. She
argues that, in the 1920s, the form and content of writings by figures
as disparate as W.E.B. Du Bois, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein and
Nella Larsen were shaped by anxieties regarding immigration, migration
and intraracial breeding.
English's interdisciplinary approach brings together the work of
those writers with relatively neglected literary, social scientific
and visual texts. She examines anti-lynching plays by Angelina Weld
Grimké as well as the provocative writings of white female
eugenics field workers. English suggests that current scholarship
often misreads early 20th century visual, literary and political
culture by applying contemporary social and moral standards to the
past. Du Bois, she argues, was actually more of a eugenicist than
Eliot.
She contends that because eugenics was widely accepted in its time
as a progressive ideology, we need to consider the long-term implications
of contemporary genetic engineering, fertility enhancement and control,
and legislation promoting or discouraging family growth.
English is assistant professor of English and teaches African American
literature at Macalester.
The Tribunal
by Peter Robinson '75 (iUniverse, Inc., 2004. 270 pages, $17.95)
This novel is a legal thriller about an American prosecutor assigned
to defend a Serbian warlord at a war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The lawyer faces a suspicious client, a self-righteous prosecutor
and hostile judges. When his spunky 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped,
the lawyer is plunged into a battle to win his client's freedom
and to save his daughter's life.
Peter Robinson is a former assistant U.S. attorney and criminal
defense lawyer. He is currently defending the former president of
the Rwanda National Assembly at the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda and the former chief of the Yugoslavian Army at the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
African Environment and Development: Rhetoric, Programs, Realities
edited by William G. Moseley and B. Ikubolajeh Logan (2004, Ashgate
Publishing Limited. 256 pages, $89.95 cloth)
This volume, co-edited by William Moseley, assistant professor of
geography at Macalester, explores the connections between African
rural livelihoods, environmental integrity and broader scale political
economy. The book features a series of case studies by a mostly
new generation of top environmental scholars. It employs a political
ecology approach to examine a wide range of livelihood activities
and environmental issues in Southern, West and East Africa. The
studies demonstrate the necessity of grounding environment and development
policy discussions within a broader understanding of the economy,
history, politics and power.
Ulysses S. Grant
by Kate Havelin '83 (Lerner Publications Co., 2004. 112 pages, $26.60
cloth)
This children's book, aimed at grades 6<en dash>12, tells
the story of the general who led the Union to victory during the
Civil War and later worked to peacefully reunite the Northern and
Southern states. Ironically, Grant graduated near the bottom of
his class at West Point, was forced to resign from the army and
suffered failure after failure in his early career. As president,
he fought to establish civil rights for both Native Americans and
African Americans, strengthened the currency and retained his reputation
as an honest man in spite of the many corruption scandals surrounding
his administration.
This is Kate Havelin's 10th book for young readers. She lives with
her husband and two sons in St. Paul.
Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Drugs and
Society
edited by Raymond Goldberg (McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2004. $22.50 paperback)
A chapter by Jonathan Leo '86, an associate professor of anatomy
at Western University of Health Sciences, appears in this debate-style
reader designed to introduce students to controversies in drug use
and abuse. His chapter, "Attention Deficit Disorder: Good Science
or Good Marketing?," which originally appeared in Skeptic
magazine, argues that the science behind the diagnosis
and subsequent stimulant treatment for attention deficit/hyperactivity
disorder is weak. Leo has written several articles critical of the
widespread use of medications to treat emotional distress.
Safe Schools Manual
edited by Alan Horowitz and Grant Loehnig '02 (St. Paul Public Schools,
2003. 137 pages, $10 paperback)
This manual, published by the St. Paul Public Schools' Out for Equity
program, provides materials to help combat homophobia and other
forms of disrespect in schools. Materials cover topics such as analyzing
school climate, building and strengthening gay-straight alliances,
dispelling myths about sexuality and gender identity, reaching out
to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families and incorporating
LGBT issues into the classroom.
Grant Loehnig began work on the Safe Schools Manual as an intern
at Out for Equity through Macalester's Women's and Gender Studies
Program. After graduation, he worked with Out for Equity as a pro-gram
assistant. He is currently pursuing his master's in collaborative
piano in New York City.
For more information about the book, call 651-603-4942 or see www.stpaul.k12.mn.us/outforequity.
Cooper's Lesson
by Sun Yung Shin '94 (Children's Book Press, 2004. 31 pages, $16.95
cloth)
This children's book tells the story of Cooper, a biracial Korean
American boy, in side-by-side texts printed in English and Korean.
A cousin teases him for being "half and half." When Cooper
feels uncomfortable trying to speak Korean in Mr. Lee's grocery,
one moment changes everything. He comes to realize that questions
of identity are never simple, whether you talk about it in English
or Korean.
Sun Yung Shin was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1974. She was adopted
by American parents in 1975 and grew up in the Chicago area. A poet,
essayist and teacher, she lives in Minneapolis with her husband
and two young children.
The Full Matilda
by David Haynes '77 (Harlem Moon, 2004. 370 pages, $14 paperback)
In his new novel, David Haynes describes an African American family
legacy of serving the upper crust. Matilda Housewright's family
has been in "service" for generations in Washington, D.C.
Matilda grew up in the house of a powerful senator and learned how
to be a hostess extraordinaire. But after her father dies and she
starts an ill-fated catering business with her brother, she begins
to question who she is and what, exactly, she is serving.
Haynes teaches creative writing at Southern Methodist University
in Texas and in the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers.
Named one of America's best young writers by Granta
magazine, he has had his short stories recorded
for National Public Radio's "Selected Shorts."
Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics
and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy, 1900-1930
by Emily S. Rosenberg (Duke University Press, 2004. 334 pages, $22.95
paperback)
Originally published in 1999 by Harvard University Press and now
reissued in paperback, Financial Missionaries to the
World won the Society for Historians of American
Foreign Relations Robert H. Ferrell Book Prize. Emily Rosenberg,
the DeWitt Wallace Professor of History at Macalester, establishes
the broad scope and significance of "dollar diplomacy"--the use of international lending and advising--to U.S. foreign
policy in the early 20th century. Combining diplomatic, economic
and cultural history, she shows how private bank loans were extended
to leverage the acceptance of American financial advisers by foreign
governments. In an analysis that is relevant to contemporary debates
over international loans, she reveals how a practice initially justified
as a progressive means to extend "civilization" by promoting
economic progress became embroiled in controversy. Critics charged
that American loans and financial oversight constituted a new imperialism,
and even early supporters of dollar diplomacy worried that it might
induce the very instability that it supposedly worked against.
Noise and Spirit: The Religious and Spiritual Sensibilities of Rap
Music
edited by Anthony B. Pinn (NYU Press, 2003. 240 pages, $55 cloth,
$18 paperback)
Although rap music is often seen as a black secular response to
pressing contemporary issues, it has deep connections to African
American religious traditions, this book shows. Noise
and Spirit explores the diverse religious dimensions
of rap stemming from Islam, Rastafarianism and humanism as well
as Christianity. The volume examines rap's dialogue with religious
traditions, from the ways in which Islamic rap music is used as
a method of religious and political instruction to the uses of both
the blues and black women's rap for considering the distinction
between God and the devil.
Anthony B. Pinn is a professor of religious studies at Macalester.
He is also the co-editor of Peoples Temple and Black
Religion in America (Indiana University Press,
2004). The Peoples Temple movement ended in 1978 when more than
900 men, women and children died in a ritual of murder and suicide
in Jonestown, Guyana. Although the leader of the movement, Jim Jones,
was white, most of his followers were black. Scholars from various
disciplines assess the impact of Peoples Temple on the black religious
experience.
The Path to Partnership: A Guide for Junior Associates
by Steven C. Bennett '79 (Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004. 208
pages, $34.95)
Steven C. Bennett, a litigation partner in the New York offices
of Jones Day, has written a primer for law students considering
firm practice. Drawing upon his many years in training and developing
junior associates, he discusses some of the most common problems
that can affect the career development of new lawyers and offers
practical advice for navigating the crucial first years. He offers
practical guidance on topics ranging from determining whether firm
life is the right fit to preparing for partnership.
A former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New
York, Bennett has taught at Fordham School of Law and the Brooklyn
Law School. His column on career development appears regularly in
the New York Law Journal.
The Rhetoric of Self in Robert Bly and Adrienne Rich: Doubling and
the Holotropic Urge
by Paul Wadden '79 (Peter Lang Publishing, 2003. 174 pages, $57.95
cloth)
This book shows how two of America's most prominent poets engage
in a process that is both dialectic and holotropic as they continually
create--through doubling--fuller and more fluid self-identity.
Ultimately, their use of alter-selves to deepen their subjectivity
and transform otherness expands their voice and vision, culminating
late in their careers in a polyphony of self, Paul Wadden argues.
Bridging literary scholarship and writing pedagogy, he concludes
by illustrating how the two poets' writing practices offer invigorating
models and departure points for writing students in contemporary
literature and composition classrooms.
Wadden's articles on literature and literary studies have appeared
in College Literature, Mediations and The Hemingway
Review. He teaches English at International Christian University
in Tokyo.
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