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Faculty Books: Spring 2012

With topics from religious struggle to Haitian history, Duke faculty are filling up local bookshelves

Part of the A Guide to Duke Author Books Series

It's National Library Week, a good time to take a closer look at what's new in Duke Libraries by Duke faculty and staff. Many of these 2012 titles can be found on the Duke authors display shelves near the circulation desk in Perkins Library and some are available as e-books for download to your computer. Most of these titles can also be purchased at the Gothic Bookshop, which features a large section devoted to Duke authors. Below is a short sample of recent publications:

 

John Aldrich: "Improving Public Opinion Surveys: Interdisciplinary Innovation and the American National Election Studies"  (Princeton University Press)

The political science professor has co-edited a collection of essays about polling and the American electorate, including a look at how social scientists measure our ambivalence toward government.

 

Srinivas Aravamudan: "Enlightenment Orientalism: Resisting the Rise of the Novel" (University of Chicago Press)

Dean of Humanities Srinivas Aravamudan focuses on French and British writers in his study of how Eastern-themed tales, pseudo-ethnographies, sexual fantasies and political satires took Europe by storm in the 18th century.

 

Adrian Bejan, with Peder J. Zane: "Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization" (Doubleday)

Bejan, a mechanical engineering professor, takes the recurring patterns in nature -- trees, tributaries, air passages, neural networks and lightning bolts -- and reveals how a single principle of physics accounts for the evolution of these and all other designs in our world. Bejan talks about his constructal law in this recent Public Radio International story.

 

Mary T. Boatwright: "Peoples of the Roman World" (Cambridge University Press)

In this illustrated volume, the Classical Studies professor explores Roman tolerance of difference and community as the Romans expanded and consolidated their power and incorporated other peoples into their empire.

 

Dirk Bonker: "Militarism in a Global Age: Naval Ambitions in Germany and the United States Before World War I" (Cornell University Press)

Bonker, an assistant professor of history, explores the far-reaching ambitions of naval officers before World War I as they advanced navalism, a particular brand of modern militarism that stressed the paramount importance of sea power as a historical factor.

 

John M. Clum: "The Drama of Marriage: Gay Playwrights -- Straight Unions From Oscar Wilde to the Present" (Palgrave Macmillan)

In studying performances of marriage in modern and contemporary British and American drama, the professor emeritus of Theater Studies and English highlights the fact that -- paradoxically -- at a time when theatre was both popular entertainment and high culture, many of the most commercially and artistically successful plays about marriage were written by homosexual men. Clum, also a director and playwright, reviews London theater on his blog: http://clumtheater.blogspot.com.

 

Steve Dalton: "The 2-Hour Job Search: Using Technology to Get the Right Job Faster" (Ten Speed Press)

Dalton, associate director and senior career consultant at Fuqua's Career Management Center, has authored a job-search manual that gives career seekers a systematic formula to efficiently and effectively target potential employers online and secure the essential first interview.

Laurent Dubois: "Haiti: The Aftershocks of History" (Henry Holt and Co.)

History professor Dubois' account reveals what lies behind the familiar moniker of "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere" and illuminates the foundations on which a new Haiti might yet emerge.

 

Wendy Ewald: "Literacy & Justice Through Photography: A Classroom Guide" (Teachers College Press; Center for Documentary Studies)

This practical guide will help teachers to use the "Literacy Through Photography" method developed by Ewald, a senior research associate at the Center for International Studies, to promote critical thinking, self-expression and respect in the classroom.

 

Mary McClintock Fulkerson: "The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theology" (Oxford University Press)

The Divinity School theology professor, with co-editor Sheila Briggs, highlights the relevance of globalization and the insights gender and religious studies have contributed to feminist theology. A final section explores a changing field moving toward new models of theology.

 

Ruth Grant: "Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives" (Princeton University Press, Russell Sage Foundation)

Grant, a political science and philosophy professor and senior fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, considers the potential abuses of incentive in such realms as education, business and government. Grant recently joined Chapel Dean Sam Wells on "The State of Things" for a discussion about the nature of good and evil.

 

Joseph Harris: "A Teaching Subject: Composition Since 1966" (Utah State University Press)

In this new edition, the director of the University Writing Program unfolds a set of issues and tensions that continue to shape the teaching of writing today.

 

Beth Holmgren: "Starring Madame Modjeska: On Tour in Poland and America" (Indiana University Press)

The Slavic and Eurasian Studies professor traces the fabulous life and career of Poland's leading actress in 1876, who emigrated to southern California to establish a utopian commune, changed her name, and became a leading star on the American stage. (See Duke Today story here.)

 

Kevin Hoover: "Applied Intermediate Macroeconomics" (Cambridge University Press)

The economics professor's textbook offers a course in applied macroeconomics that emphasizes the application of economic theory to real-world data and policy, making it especially helpful in understanding recent economic crises.

 

Sonke Johnsen: "The Optics of Life: A Biologist's Guide to Light in Nature" (Princeton University Press)

The Duke biologist introduces the fundamentals of optics to biologists and nonphysicists, giving them the tools they need to successfully incorporate optical measurements and principles into their research.

 

Lisa Keister: "Inequality: A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class and Gender" (Cambridge University Press)

The sociology professor's textbook challenges students to apply stratification research to their social world.

 

Mark Leary: "Handbook of Self and Identity" (Guilford Press)

The psychology professor, with co-editor June Price Tangney, updates the second edition of this authoritative reference with nine new chapters, including one looking at self-regulation and health.

 

Mark Leary: "Introduction to Behavioral Research Methods" (Pearson)

Leary shows undergraduates how to conceptualize questions, measure variables, design studies and analyze data.

 

Joanne McCallie: "Choice Not Chance: Rules for Building a Fierce Competitor" (Wiley)

Coach P, head coach of the Duke women's basketball team, shares lessons for building a strong player and describes the pressures of simultaneously being a mom, wife and Division I basketball coach. The book, which includes a foreword by Mike Krzyzewski, was recently featured in the Durham Herald-Sun.

 

Sydney Nathans: "To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker" (Harvard University Press)

History professor emeritus Nathans' book describes the heart-wrenching story of a mother who escaped slavery in North Carolina and then commenced a years-long effort to reunite with her children. Publishers Weekly calls it "as spellbinding as a novel."

 

Henry Petroski: "To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure" (Harvard University Press)

In his 17th book, the professor of civil engineering and of history uses case studies of the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse, the 2010 Gulf oil spill and other disasters to examine the wider context, beyond design, in which accidents happen. Publishers Weekly says Petroski "does a terrific job of identifying and communicating not only what went wrong (in a series of famous catastrophes), but what was learned from the failure and how that knowledge has since been put into practice."

 

Thomas Pfau: "Romanticism and Modernity" (Routledge)

The Duke English professor contributes to this republication of a special issue of European Romantic Review that explores a half century (1780-1830) of rapid societal and intellectual change.

 

David L. Rabiner, edited with Helene Raskin White: "College Drinking and Drug Use" (Guilford Press)

The associate research professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience co-edited this title, part of a Duke series in child development and public policy, which looks at exemplary intervention, prevention and support programs.

 

Alexander Rosenberg: "Philosophy of Social Science" (Westview Press)

In this fourth edition of his book, the philosophy professor discusses the enduring relations between the social sciences and philosophy. Three new chapters deal with philosophical anthropology, functionalism as a research program and theories of cultural evolution. The third edition of his "Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction" has also recently been published. Rosenberg also shared some of his views on the humanities and hard sciences in this New York Times commentary.

 

Charlotte Sussman: "Eighteenth-Century English literature, 1660-1789" (Polity)

The associate professor of English explores cultural developments in relation to well-known works by such authors as Defoe, Swift, Pope, Richardson, Gray and Sterne, while also bringing attention to less familiar figures, such as Charlotte Smith, Mary Leapor and Olaudah Equiano.

 

Robyn Wiegman: "Object Lessons" (Duke University Press)

Wiegman, professor of women's studies and literature, examines key debates in the social sciences by considering the political aspirations that shape them.

 

Lauren Winner: "Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis" (HarperOne)

In her new book, the Divinity School assistant professor writes about the spiritual crisis she experienced when she was "no longer in the glow" of converting to Christianity. NPR featured the book in February, and Winner talked about her book as a guest on "The State of Things."