Why the Working Class Can't Get Elected, What Marx Got Wrong About Africa and Other Fall Books

Explore the ‘cash ceiling’ holding back working-class candidates for office, the debate about the Second Amendment's purpose, the checkered history of some Christian practices and a new exhibit of Latino pop art in recent and forth coming books by Duke authors.

Below, we offer a roundup of titles worthy of attention.

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.]

Jeremy Begbie, author: A Peculiar Orthodoxy: Reflections on Theology and the Arts  (Baker Publishing Group)

Begbie, the inaugural Thomas A. Langford Distinguished Professor of Theology and director of the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts, both at Duke Divinity School, writes about the role of a biblically grounded creedal orthodoxy as he shows how Christian theology and the arts can not only enrich each other in doing so but recover fresh confidence in its power. In the book, he argues that notions such as "beauty" and "sacrament" are too often adopted uncritically without due attention given to how an orientation to the Triune God's self-disclosure in Christ might lead us to reshape and invest these notions with fresh content.

Joseph Blocher and Darrell A.H. Miller: “The Positive Second Amendment: Rights, Regulation, and the Future of Heller” (Cambridge University Press)

In “The Positive Second Amendment,” Duke School of Law professors Blocher and Miller provide the first comprehensive post-Heller account of the history, theory and law of the right to keep and bear arms. Their aim is not to pick sides in the gun debate, but rather to show how a positive account of the “constitutional” Second Amendment differs from its political cousin and to suggest a “third way” that may provide grounds for compromise.

 

Kate Bowler, Russell E. Richey, contributors: “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion in America” (Oxford University Press)

Divinity School professor Bowler and visiting professor Richey are among the scholars offering new interpretations of crucial topics and themes in this fully interdisciplinary work.

 

Kyle Bradbury, contributor: “Digital Decarbonization: Promoting Digital Innovations to Advance Clean Energy Systems” (Council on Foreign Relations)

Bradbury, a senior research associate and managing director of the Energy Data Analytics Lab at the Duke University Energy Initiative, is one of 13expert authors. He explores how data science can enable the evolution of energy systems.

 

Allen Buchanan: “Institutionalizing the Just War” (Oxford University Press)

Buchanan, the James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law, takes a new approach to just war theory, arguing that a systematic account of the morality of war-making must take into account both existing institutions that affect decisions to go to war and the potential for institutional innovation. Buchanan is also the co-author of the recent “The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory”(Oxford University Press), which contributes to the contemporary literature on human rights by showing how the modern human rights movement exemplifies the most important gains in inclusivity, how fragile its achievements may be, and why it occurred when it did.

Nicholas Carnes: “The Cash Ceiling: Why Only the Rich Run for Office -- and What We Can Do About It” (Princeton University)

In his new study, Carnes discusses structural barriers to lower-income and working-class Americans' running for office, and considers ways to increase the economic diversity of governing institutions. In a recent review, Publishers Weeklystated that Carnes, a professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy, “deserves credit for focusing attention on an under-the-radar issue.” 

 

Joan Clifford and Deborah S. Reisinger: “Community-Based Language Learning: A Framework for Educators” (Georgetown University Press)

Two Romance Studies professors offer a new framework for educators interested in integrating community-based language learning into their teaching and curricula, helping students build both language skills and stronger relationships as they engage with world language communities in the United States. As director of the Community-Based Language Initiative in Duke Service-Learning, Clifford consults with faculty across disciplines and supports community-based learning in world language courses in Arabic, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Persian and Spanish. Reisinger is director of Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum and teaches service-learning courses on refugee resettlement and social entrepreneurship.

 

Charles T. Clotfelter: “Big-Time Sports in American Universities” Second Edition (Cambridge University Press, November 2018)

In this new edition of Clotfelter’s influential book, the Sanford School of Public Policy professor continues to examine the role of athletics in American universities, building on his argument that commercial sports have become a core function of the universities that engage in them. Drawing on recent scandals on large-scale college campuses and updates on several high-profile court cases, Clotfelter does an economic analysis of the variety of issues that sports raise for university and public policy. These offer a basis for constructive conversations about the value of big-time sports in higher education.

 

Edgardo A. Colón-Emeric: Óscar Romero’s Theological Vision: Liberation and the Transfiguration of the Poor (University of Notre Dame Press)

Colón-Emeric,the Irene and William McCutchen Associate Professor of Reconciliation and Theology at Duke Divinity School and also the director of the school’s Center for Reconciliation, explores the life, thought and theological vision of Óscar Romero, who was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis on Oct. 14. In one of the first full-length investigations into Romero’s theology, Colón-Emeric explores how the mystery of transfiguration was the focus of his life and theological work. Romero, the former Archbishop of San Salvador who was assassinated as he celebrated Mass in El Salvador nearly four decades ago, is considered one of the founders of liberation theology, which interprets biblical scripture through the plight of the poor.

 

Michaeline A. Crichlow, co-editor, “Race and Rurality in the Global Economy” (Fernand Braudel Center & SUNY Press) 

Crichlow, a professor of African and African American Studies and sociology, has assembled a slate of scholars who explore globalization’s effects on diverse populations. Essays address matters such as “the heightened risks and multiple states of insecurity in the global economy” and “the steady decline in the livelihoods of people of color globally.”

 

Dr. Sharon Fekrat, editor; Dr. Dilraj Grewal, co-associate editor: “Curbside Consultation in Retina: 49 Clinical Questions” Second Edition (SLACK Books)

In this Q&A-formatted reference work, Drs. Fekrat and Grewal provide new information related to the retina delivered with the simplicity of a conversation between two colleagues. Dr. Fekrat is a vitreoretinal surgeon at the Duke University Eye Center and a professor of ophthalmology. Dr. Grewal is an associate professor of ophthalmology at Duke.

 

Esther Gabara, author; Sarah Walker Schroth, contributor: “Pop América, 1965-1975” (Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University Press)

This richly illustrated, bilingual catalogue accompanies the first traveling exhibition to stage pop art as a hemispheric phenomenon, revealing the skill with which Latin American and Latino/a artists adapted familiar languages of mass media, fashion and advertising to create experimental art in a startling range of mediums. Esther Gabara, an associate professor of Romance Studies and associate professor in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies, is faculty guest curator of Pop América, 1965-1975, which will be on display at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke from Feb. 21 to July 21, 2019. Among the contributors is Nasher museum director Sarah W. Schroth.

Brandon L. Garrett, co-author: “The Death Penalty” (West Academic)

From law professor Brandon L. Garrett and his co-author, a scholarly examination of the debate over the death penalty. It begins with Furman v. Georgia, which doubles as the Supreme Court’s only decision striking down the death penalty and as the origin of modern American capital punishment.

 

Joel Greenberg, co-editor: “X-Ray Diffraction Imaging: Technology and Applications” Devices, Circuits, and Systems series. (CRC Press, Nov. 15)

Greenberg, an assistant research professor of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics and the Medical Physics Program, brings together an international group of authors who explore the novel use of X-ray diffraction technology, which has opened an new field of looking at objects, human organs, baggage suitcases or contraband substances. 

 

Jennie Grillo, contributor: “Evil Lords: Theories and Representations of Tyranny from Antiquity to the Renaissance” (Oxford University Press)

Grillo, an assistant professor of Old Testament in the Graduate Program in Religion, presents case studies exploring Hebrew conceptions and representations of bad or tyrannical government. Her chapter contribution is titled “'A King Like the Other Nations': The Foreignness of Tyranny in the Hebrew Bible.”

 

Malachi Hacohen: “Jacob & Esau: Jewish European History Between Nation and Empire” (Cambridge, October 2018)

Hacohen, a professor of history and director of the Religions and Public Life Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, uses the biblical story of the rival twins, Jacob and Esau, and its subsequent retelling by Christians and Jews throughout the ages as a lens through which to illuminate changing Jewish-Christian relations and the opening and closing of opportunities for Jewish life in Europe.

 

Stanley Hauerwas, co-author: “Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness; Expanded Edition” (IVP Books)

Theologian Stanley Hauerwas, a professor emeritus at Duke Divinity School, collaborates with Jean Vanier, founder of the worldwide L'Arche communities. This updated work, originally published in 2008, includes a series of study guide questions.

 

Laurence R. Helfer, co-editor: “International Court Authority” (Oxford University Press)

Helfer, a law professor and co-director of Duke’s Center for International and Comparative Law, draws on expert commentaries in comparing 13 international courts operating in Africa, Latin America and Europe, as well as on a global level. The scholars grapple with the new approach to international authority that this book proposes.

 

Herbert Kitschelt, contributor: “Welfare Democracies and Party Politics: Explaining Electoral Dynamics in Times of Changing Welfare Capitalism” (Oxford University Press)

Kitschelt, the George V. Allen Professor of International Relations, is the co-author of the chapter, “Determinants of Dimension Dominance.”

 

Jack Knight, editor: “Immigration, Emigration, and Migration” (NYU Press)

Knight, a professor of law and political science, brings together scholars who advance the examination of questions of travel and migration across national borders. The volume explores questions of border control and enforcement, criminalization of borders and how to address current debates and changes in regards to migration and immigration.

 

J. Lorand Matory: “The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make” (Duke University Press, October 2018)

Matory, the Lawrence Richardson Professor of Cultural Anthropology and director of the Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic Project, casts an Afro-Atlantic eye on European social theory to show how Marx's and Freud's conceptions of the fetish illuminate and misrepresent the nature of Africa’s gods while demonstrating that Afro-Atlantic gods have their own social logic that is no less rational than European social theories.

 

Philip Napoli, editor: “Mediated Communication”Handbooks of Communication Science, Vol. 7 (Mouton de Gruyter)

In this resource for media scholars and students, Sanford School professor Philip Napoli leads an exploration of the state of contemporary media research.

 

Gregory Nelson: “The Analytics Lifecycle Toolkit: A Practical Guide for an Effective Analytics Capability” (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)

In this manual for managers, Nelson, an adjunct professor of business administration, details the concepts, people and processes that contribute to exemplary results, and shares an organizational framework for analytics team functions and roles.

Mohamed A. F. Noor: “Live Long and Evolve: What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Evolution, Genetics, and the Origins of Life” (Princeton University Press)

Biology professor, Bass Fellow and die hard-Trekkie Mohamed Noor gives readers an entertaining vehicle to deconstruct some of the powerful science behind one of the longest-running science fiction series in popular culture.

 

Marilyn Oermann, co-author: “Writing for Publication in Nursing” Fourth Edition (Springer)

This updated edition expands the content on conducting and writing systematic, integrative and literature reviews; disseminating evidence and writing papers on clinical topics; and reporting quality-improvement studies. Oermann is the Thelma M. Ingles Professor of Nursing in Duke’s School of Nursing.

 

Subhrendu Pattanayak, co-editor: “Handbook of Environmental Economics, Vol. 4” (Elsevier)

The latest in an ongoing series, this book answers key policy questions facing environmental agencies in developed and developing economies. Pattanayak is Oak Foundation Environmental and Energy Policy Professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy. 

 

Salvatore V. Pizzo, editor and contributor: “Cell Surface GRP78, A New Paradigm in Signal Transduction Biology” (Elsevier)

Pizzo, Distinguished Professor of Pathology in the School of Medicine, is the researcher who identified cell surface expression of the molecular chaperone GRP78 as a major factor in prostate cancer and other malignancies. The book presents an extensive treatment of the biological underpinnings of GRP78 and its connection to disease.

 

Alex Rosenberg: “How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of our Addiction to Stories” (The MIT Press, Oct. 9)

Our hard-wired ability to anticipate the behavior of others makes us think we can understand history -- what the Kaiser was thinking in 1914, why Hitler declared war on the United States -- by uncovering the narratives of what happened and why. In fact, philosophy professor Rosenberg argues, we will only understand history if we don't make it into a story. Rosenberg discusses the book in Time magazine here.

 

William H. Willimon: “Making Disciples: Mentor Guide” Revised edition. (Abingdon Press)

Using an “apprenticeship” approach to Christian confirmation, Divinity School professor Willimon has produced a series of learning experiences where adult mentors and confirmands are both teachers and learners at the same time. In some denominations, such as the Anglican Communion and Methodist churches, confirmation bestows full membership in a local congregation upon the recipient. Willimon is retired bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church and former dean of Duke Chapel.

 

Lauren Winner: “The Dangers of Christian Practice on Wayward Gifts, Characteristic Damage, and Sin” (Yale University Press)

Challenging the central place that “practices” have recently held in Christian theology, Lauren Winner explores the damages these practices have inflicted over the centuries. Winner proposes that the register in which Christians might best think about the Eucharist, prayer, and baptism is that of “damaged gift.” Winner -- a leading writer at the crossroads of culture and spirituality -- is associate professor of Christian spirituality at Duke Divinity School and the author of several other books, including “Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God.”

 

Norman Wirzba: Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating (Cambridge University Press) 

In this second edition of his 2011 book, Wirzba provides a theological framework for assessing the significance of eating. Drawing on diverse theological, philosophical and anthropological insights, it offers fresh ways to evaluate food production and consumption practices as they are being worked out in today's industrial food economy. Unlike books that focus primarily on vegetarianism and hunger-related concerns, this book broadens the scope of consideration to include the sacramental character of eating, the deep significance of hospitality, the meaning of death and sacrifice, the Eucharist as the place of inspiration and orientation, the importance of saying grace, and the possibility of eating in heaven. Throughout, eating is presented as a way of enacting fidelity between persons, between people and fellow creatures, and between people and Earth.