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New Reads This Spring From Duke Writers

Explore the heart of Islam, cross-class marriages and Renaissance medicine

Part of the A Guide to Duke Author Books Series

women in tahrir sq

Women take the lead in Tahrir Square protests in Egypt. Ellen McLarney's new book (below) looks at how women rose against a dictatorship and how their new political influence won't go away. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

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Spanning architecture, religious history and theology, legal history and media studies, Duke writers explore a wide array of topics in their latest books.

Many 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.]

 

Betsy Alden, editor: “Campus Ministry Memoirs:  The Way It Was, 1964-2014” (CreateSpace)

Alden, founding coordinator for service learning at Duke's Kenan Institute for Ethics, collects the stories of 55 ecumenical campus ministers on campuses across the country, documenting the evolution of campus social justice campaigns, from civil rights to the Dream Act. The writers were innovators in the field of higher education ministry. Alden’s husband, Mark Rutledge, has contributed a chapter as the United Church of Christ campus minister on Duke's Religious Life staff.

  

Edward Balleisen, editor: “Business Regulation” Three volumes. (Edward Elgar)

Balleisen, an associate professor of history and public policy and director of the Kenan Institute Rethinking Regulation initiative, has edited a three-volume multidisciplinary collection conveying leading scholarly ideas on modern regulatory governance since 1871.

 

democracy

Luke Bretherton: “Resurrecting Democracy: Faith, Citizenship and the Politics of a Common Life” (Cambridge University Press)

Bretherton, a professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School and senior fellow at Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics, outlines a way of reimagining democracy, addressing poverty and developing innovative public policy, incorporating a London case study. A Divinity School article says particular attention is given to how community organizing “mediates the relationship between Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and those without a religious commitment in order to forge a common life.”

 

Charles M. Collier, editor: “The Difference Christ Makes: Celebrating the Life, Work, and Friendship of Stanley Hauerwas” (Cascade Press)

Collier, a former student of theologian Hauerwas, has edited three papers delivered in honor of the emeritus divinity professor at a retirement event at Duke in 2013. The book also contains a foreword written by Divinity Dean Richard B. Hays, as well as the day’s liturgy and the sermon preached by Hauerwas, which he titled “A Homily on All Saints.”

 

Darla K. Deardorff: “Demystifying Outcomes Assessment for International Educations: A Practical Approach” (Stylus Publishing)

Deardorff, executive director of the Duke-based Association of International Education Administrators, discusses how university educators can use assessment in their academic programs. The book reflects the author’s experience with international education programs and higher education institutions around the world.

 

Laura Edwards: “A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights” (Cambridge University Press, the  New Histories of American Law series)

Edwards, a Duke history professor, offers a model text for scholars seeking to integrate the history of the law into the broader histories of race, class and gender, using as a focus the period of Reconstruction, which was the most dramatic change in the nation's legal structure since the Revolution. The Legal History Blog says Edwards argues that Reconstruction offered up promises that would prove difficult to sustain.

 

prince

Valeria Finucci: “The Prince’s Body: Vincenzo Gonzaga and Renaissance Medicine” (Harvard University Press)

Finucci, a Duke Romance studies professor, studies the rise of medical science through four notorious moments in the life of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua (1562-1612), a well-known patron of arts and music in Renaissance Italy. Finucci explores changing concepts of sexuality, reproduction, beauty and aging – plus the origins of plastic surgery.

 

Alan Gelfand, co-author: “Hierarchical Modeling and Analysis for Spatial Data” Second Edition. (Chapman & Hall/CRC)

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, the statistical landscape has changed for analyzing space and space-time data. Duke statistical science professor Alan Gelfand and his two co-authors wrote the second edition to reflect the growth in spatial statistics as both a research area and an area of application.

 

Bryan Gilliam:  “Rounding Wagner's Mountain: Richard Strauss and Modern German Opera” (Cambridge Studies in Opera)

In the first book to discuss all 15 of Strauss's operas, music professor Bryan Gilliam sets each work in its historical, aesthetic, philosophical and literary context to reveal what made the composer's legacy special. Addressing Wagner's cultural influence, Gilliam also explores the thematic and harmonic features that recur in Strauss's compositions.

 

 

Lisa Griffin and Neil Siegel, contributors: "The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" (Cambridge University Press)

Law professors Griffin and Siegel weigh in on a legal icon’s impact on the law and society. The editor is Scott Dodson (Duke Law ’00), currently research chair and professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law. Siegel briefly explains in this publisher’s blog why he and a colleague believe a case that is unfamiliar to many, Struck v. Secretary of Defense, will come to define Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy decades from today.

  

Mark B.N. Hansen: “Feed-Forward: On the Future of Twenty-First-Century Media” (University of Chicago Press)

Hansen, a professor of literature and media arts and sciences at Duke, sees an opportunity for a new vision of human becoming, based on the fact that from social media to data-mining to new sensor technologies, contemporary media is no longer separate from us but has become an inescapable part of our very experience of the world.

  

Jerry F. Hough: co-author: “The Long Process of Development: Building Markets and States in Pre-Industrial England, Spain and Their Colonies” (Cambridge University Press)

Hough describes how change occurs by examining in detail why England and Spain developed so slowly from 1000 to 1800. This theory of change leads to new historical interpretations, including the role of the merchant-navy alliance in England and the key role of George Washington's control of the military in 1787. Hough is a professor of political science who has taught at Duke since 1973.

 

Dr. Brandon Kohrt, co-editor: “Global Mental Health: Anthropological Perspectives” (Left Coast Press, March 31) 

Drawing on well-known experts, the book illustrates that mental illnesses are not only problems experienced by individuals but must also be treated at the social and cultural levels. Kohrt, a global mental health expert, is an assistant professor in the Duke Global Health Institute and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He conducts global mental health research focusing on populations affected by war-related trauma and chronic stressors of poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to health care and education.

  

Helen F. Ladd, co-editor: “Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy” Second edition. (Routledge Press)

Ladd, a professor of public policy and economics at the Sanford School, has assembled education research findings in one place, with new chapters on teacher evaluation, alternatives to traditional public schooling and cost-benefit analysis.

  

Bruce Lawrence: “Who is Allah?” (UNC Press)

Lawrence, an emeritus professor of Islamic studies at Duke, provides a vivid introduction to the heart of Islam. Among Lawrence’s other books is “The Qur’an: A Biography” (Grove Press, 2006).

 

Michèle Longino: “French Travel in the Ottoman Empire” (Routledge Press)

Longino, a professor of French and Italian studies, explores the history of the French experience of the Ottoman world and Turkey, visiting the accounts of six early modern travelers for the insights they bring to the field of travel writing.

 

Seymour Mauskopf, co-editor: “Chemical Knowledge in the Early Modern World” (University of Chicago Press)

Mauskopf, a history professor emeritus, reviews the history of early modern chemistry, examining the affinities between chemistry and the allied fields of alchemy and chymistry from the 16th to the 18th centuries.

  

Ellen Anne McLarney: “Soft Force: Women in Egypt's Islamic Awakening” (Princeton University Press, May 2015)

Challenging Western conceptions of Muslim women as being oppressed by Islam, the assistant professor of Arabic literature and culture shows how Muslim women in Egypt used “soft force” -- a women’s jihad characterized by nonviolent protest -- to oppose secular dictatorship and articulate a public sphere that was both Islamic and democratic.

 

Emerson Niou, co-author: “Strategy and Politics: An Introduction to Game Theory” (Rutledge) 

Niou, a professor of political science, covers aspects of game theory, examining the very phenomena that power political machineries -- elections, legislative and committee processes and international conflict.

 

Carl Nordgren: “Anung’s Journey” (Light Messages Publishing)

Nordgren, a Markets & Management Studies instructor, tells the story of Anung, an orphaned Ojibway boy who traverses the land to share with the greatest chief of the nations how all the men and women of his tribe cared for him when his parents died. This story proffers a message of harmony with nature, community members and the world’s people. “Anung’s Journey” was named one of the Top 10 Middle Grade Novels of 2014 by Foreword Reviews.

 

Dr. Adam Perlman, co-author: “meQuilibrium: 14 Days to Cooler, Calmer, and Happier” (Harmony)

Perlman, executive director of Duke Integrative Medicine, is a researcher and educator in the field of alternative medicine and wellness. Perlman and his co-authors have created a three-pronged approach to managing stress peacefully and without the need to radically change your life.

 

Russell Richey: “Formation for Ministry in American Methodism: Twenty-First Century Challenges and Two Centuries of Problem-Solving” (General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, UMC)

Richey, a visiting professor at the Divinity School’s Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition, addresses the question of what is the future of formation for ministry in the digital age. Richey also describes how Methodists in America have identified and formed their ministers since the late 18th century.

 

four books

Carlos Rojas, translator: “The Four Books” by Yan Lianke (Grove Press)

Rojas, an associate professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, has translated the new novel by Man Booker International Prize finalist Yan Lianke, who with biting satire portrays the persecution of intellectuals in a re-education camp during the Great Leap Forward.

 

Kevin L. Smith: “Owning and Using Scholarship: An IP Handbook for Teachers and Researchers” (Association of College and Research Libraries)

Smith, Duke’s director of Copyright and Scholarly Communication, has written a handbook on copyright and related issues for teachers and researchers. In his Duke Libraries blog, Smith introduced the book, its approach and his motivations.

  

Dr. Neil Spector, "Gone in a Heartbeat: A Physician's Search for True Healing" (Triton Press)

Spector, a Duke oncologist and researcher, has written a memoir of his survival of a near fatal illness. He describes in great detail how he was misdiagnosed and, despite being a medical insider, was often discounted by his fellow physicians.

 

Orin Starn, editor: “Writing Culture and the Life of Anthropology” (Duke University Press, April 3)

Referencing the 1986 book “Writing Culture,” which remains a controversial critique of cultural anthropology, the 13 essays in the book consider the field's past, document the current state of the discipline, and outline its future possibilities. Cultural anthropology professors Starn, Anne Allison and Charles Piot are among the contributors.

  

Rebecca L. Stein, co-author: “Digital Militarism: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age” (Stanford University Press)

Associate professor of cultural anthropology Rebecca Stein traces the rise of Israeli “digital militarism,” exploring how social media functions as a crucial theater in which the Israeli military occupation is supported and sustained. Writing for the news blog Mondoweiss, she said Israel's army has a history of failure with social media.

 

Jessi Streib: “The Power of the Past: Understanding Cross-Class Marriages” (Oxford University Press)

Sociology assistant professor Jessi Streib’s new book illustrates that when individuals are raised in different classes, merged lives do not lead to merged ideas about how to lead those lives. Streib talked about her research with in this interview with New York Magazine.

 

Annabel Jane Wharton: “Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings” (University of Minnesota Press)

Buildings are not benign; according to art historian Annabel Wharton, they commonly manipulate and abuse their human users. She treats buildings as bodies, writing biographies of a range of places, from the Cloisters Museum in New York City and the Palestine Archaeological Museum (renamed the Rockefeller Museum) in Jerusalem to the grand Hostal de los Reyes Católicos in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Las Vegas casino resorts.

 

Brittany Wilson: “Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts” (Oxford University Press, April 2015)

Wilson, assistant professor of New Testament at the Divinity School, examines key male characters in Luke's two volumes in relation to constructions of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world.

 

wearing god

Lauren Winner: “Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God” (HarperOne)

Divinity School assistant professor Lauren Winner combines reflection and scholarship in exploring some of the Bible’s more obscure metaphors for God. Her book, to be published March 31, was rated as one of the top 12 books to read in 2015 by Relevant magazine.

 

Ruth Wolever, co-author: “The Mindful Diet: How to Transform Your Relationship with Food for Lasting Weight Loss and Vibrant Health” (Scribner, April 7)

From the Duke Integrative Medicine Center, “The Mindful Diet” combines health psychology with nutrition research and provides recommendations for eating mindfully and breaking the yo-yo diet cycle. Wolever is a clinical health psychologist and associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences.

 

Anatoliy I. Yashin, co-editor: “Aging and Health: A Systems Biology Perspective” (Karger)

Yashin, a research professor at Duke’s Center for Aging, collects a range of essays on the development of interventions to delay or to reverse the features of aging.