Need an interesting read this winter? Spanning religious history and theology, electoral and global politics, and environmental threats, Duke writers explore an array of topics in their latest books.
Read MoreMany of the books, including new editions of previous titles, can be found on the "Duke Authors" display shelves near the circulation desk in Perkins Library. Some are available as e-books for quick download. Most can also be purchased through the Gothic Bookshop.
[Duke Today will provide similar updates in the future. If you are a member of the Duke faculty or staff who will be publishing a book of interest to a general audience, send us a message about it along with your publisher's brief description.]
Hubert Bray: "Trevor the Time Traveler and the Murkian Threat” (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
A professor of mathematics and physics who studies black holes, dark matter and the curvature of space and time, Hubert Bray hopes his new children’s book will help promote math and science education. “I wrote this story for my kids to teach them as many of the coolest, mind blowing ideas as I could, as well as how to be a good person,” Bray says. “But when I was done, I realized this was a fun book for adults as well." Where else will you find general relativity explained to a fifth grader in a story with wormhole jump ropes, bullies, secret agents, gamblers, dinosaurs, aliens and a flying unicorn?
Jeffrey Brantley: “Calming Your Angry Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You from Anger and Bring Peace to Your Life” (New Harbinger Publications)
Dr. Jeffrey Brantley, the founder and director of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at Duke's Center for Integrative Medicine, uses MBSR and compassion practices to help individuals better handle the anger, fear and hostile emotions that can wreak havoc at home, work and in relationships. In addition, he details self-awareness skills to help readers stop overreacting and improve communication with others. Brantley talked about his research recently as a guest on WUNC’s “The State of Things.”
Douglas Campbell: Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (Eerdmans)
Divinity School professor Douglas Campbell's new biography of Paul challenges prejudicial assumptions about the chronology, authorship and historical context of the apostle's letters. Watch a publisher’s interview with Campbell here.
William H. Chafe: “The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II” Eighth Edition (Oxford University Press)
In this new edition, Duke historian William Chafe revises the discussion on President Kennedy, focusing particularly on his foreign policy with the Soviet Union and Cuba and his assassination. Chafe also takes a detailed look at the impact of President Clinton's marriage on the politics of the 1990s and offers a new chapter on President Obama's administration, assessing his promises and the realities that he encountered.
Rey Chow: “Not Like a Native Speaker: On Languaging as a Postcolonial Experience” (Columbia University Press)
The Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature and director of Duke’s Program in Literature, Rey Chow takes on the issue of "languaging," the racialization of bodies via the loss of native languages or accented speech, drawing on examples and controversies from Algeria to Hong Kong. Read a publisher’s interview with Chow here.
Steven Churchill: “Thin on the Ground: Neandertal Biology, Archeology and Ecology” (Wiley Blackwell)
Anthropologist Steven Churchill, an expert in physical anthropology, has synthesized the current knowledge about our sister species the Neandertals, highlighting the differences between the species and early modern humans and analyzing the reasons for Neandertal extinction and the debate over the role of human expansion in that extinction.
Craufurd D. Goodwin: “Walter Lippmann: Public Economist” (Harvard University Press)
Craufurd Goodwin, the James. B. Duke Professor of Economics, published two articles on the famed American journalist -- the first nearly 15 years ago -- and always felt the icon deserved longer treatment in a book. It wasn’t until Duke’s Perkins Library purchased the microfilms of the Walter Lippmann Papers MS 326 from Yale University on Goodwin’s behalf, that his project became a reality. It took the economic historian about a year to read most of Lippmann’s correspondence and other materials, and about another year to “figure out what it all meant.”
In the new book, Goodwin presents Lippmann as a “truly exceptional journalist” and public intellectual who introduced Keynesian and other economic thought to the American public. Kirkus Reviews calls it a “finely limned portrait of a man whose career was based on standards and purposes that seem to have largely disappeared from public life.”
Ellen Davis: “Biblical Prophecy: Perspectives for Christian Theology, Discipleship and Ministry” (Westminster John Knox Press)
Divinity School Professor Ellen Davis’ new book explores the roles of biblical prophecy in scripture, connecting it with the work and faith of contemporary Christians. Davis concludes the book with a short essay on reading biblical traditions in respectful conversation with Islam – another world religion that is rigorously prophetic in orientation.
Neil De Marchi, co-editor: “Moving Pictures: Intra-European Trade in Imagery, 1450-1800” (Belgium: Brepols Press)
Supported by a grant from the Luce Foundation, economics professor De Marchi and collaborators explore the economics of the art market in early modern European times, a period of growth and changing demand, particularly driven by an increase in interest for devotional paintings.
Paul Griffiths: “Decreation: The Last Things of All Creatures” (Baylor University Press)
Paul Griffiths, the Warren Professor of Catholic Theology at Duke Divinity School, explores how orthodox Christian theology, which is rich in theology about post-death life for humans, might be developed to include the ends for all creatures. Griffiths imagines heaven as a home for all beings, including non-human animals, inanimate creatures and angels.
Jennifer Groh: “Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are” (Harvard University Press)
A professor at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Jennifer Groh traces the mental detective work that goes into our sense of location. She makes the case that spatial processing permeates all our cognitive abilities. Groh talked about the book on WUNC’s “The State of Thing.”
Richard Hays: “Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness” (Baylor University Press)
In his new book, the Divinity School Dean Richard Hays maps the surprising ways the four Gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) interpreted the Old Testament to craft their distinct witnesses to the church’s one Christ.
Adam Hollowell: “Power and Purpose: Paul Ramsey and Contemporary Christian Political Theology” (Eerdmans, Jan. 30, 2015)
Duke Chapel director of student ministry Adam Hollowell underscores the contemporary relevance of a once-respected and now-neglected ethicist.
Mohsen Kadivar: “The Green Call: A Narrative of the Iranian Green Movement” (self-published e-book)
Reformist Iranian cleric and visiting professor Mohsen Kadivar brings together the writings of the dissident “Green Movement” protesters who rallied against the June 2009 Iranian presidential election results. The material was originally published on Kadivar’s website and the Jonbesh-e Rah-e Sabz Jaras (Green Path Movement) website.
Helen F. Ladd, co-editor: “Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy” Second edition. (Routledge Press, Jan. 18, 2015)
Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), the second edition of this prominent handbook adds new chapters on teacher evaluation, alternatives to traditional public schooling and cost-benefit analysis. Helen Ladd, a professor of public policy studies and economics at the Sanford School of Public Policy, and her co-editors have collected a wealth of factual information, data and recommendations to help educators improve the quality of education.
Richard Lischer: “Reading the Parables” (Westminster John Knox Press)
Richard Lischer’s new book explores the parables of Jesus as a resource for teaching and preaching in the church. Lischer, a professor of preaching at Duke Divinity School, proposes a distinction between reading and interpreting the parables. Reading offers breathing space to explore historical, literary, theological and socio-political dimensions of the parables and their various meanings.
Jonas Monast and Tim Profeta, contributors: “Old Law, New Tricks: Using the Clean Air Act to Curb Climate Change” (Environmental Law Institute)
The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions began investigating regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act nearly five years before such regulation became a reality. Now the insights of institute professors Jonas Monast and Tim Profeta are presented in a new e-book highlighting suggestions for ways in which the act should or should not be used to address climate change.
Michael Munger: “Choosing in Groups: Analytical Politics Revisited” (Cambridge University Press)
To understand how political institutions work, it is important to isolate what citizens -- as individuals and as members of society -- actually want. Political science and economics professor Michael Munger’s book is an introduction to the logic and analytics of group choice. Munger was the Libertarian candidate for North Carolina governor in 2008.
Orrin H. Pilkey, co-author: “The Last Beach” (Duke University Press)
Orrin Pilkey, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, and J. Andrew G. Cooper of the University of Ulster argue that immediate action must be taken to save the world’s beaches from the negative impacts of development, mining and pollution. Their new book, spotlighted on the Nicholas School website, discusses the dynamic nature of beaches and how current practices such as shoreline stabilization and beach nourishment work against beaches’ natural processes. A reviewer for The Times Higher Education Supplement says this “invaluable book” offers a terrifying portrait of our misguided policies affecting the sands that protect the coast from danger.
Christy Lohr Sapp, contributor: “Interreligious Learning and Teaching: A Christian Rationale for a Transformative Praxis” (Fortress Press)
Christy Sapp, associate dean for religious life at Duke Chapel, comments on author Kristin Johnston Largen’s proposals for promoting interreligious dialogue.
John Supko, composer: “s_traits” (Cotton Goods CD)
Imagine a dystopian future in which all that is left of recorded music are shards of vinyl, unspooled nests of tape and corrupted digital files. “s_traits,” a collaboration between composer and assistant professor of music John Supko and media artist Bill Seaman, imagines the music of such a future. The album is collected from more than 110 hours of source material culled from Supko’s percussion duo straits, field recordings, 1960s and ’70s soundtracks and the collaborators’ “cavortings” with a piano. The CD was the album of the week on WQXR-New York’s “Q2” program.