Faculty Bookshelf

Castleton’s faculty members are recognized as experts in their field and are celebrated for their professional achievements.

Explore recent books written by Castleton University faculty members.

COVID Chronicles: Dave Blow

Castleton Media & Communication Professor Dave Blow ‘89 published his second book in April of 2021. Unlike his first – which rounds up stories and columns from his time as a journalist – Blow’s second book turns the spotlight on the work of his students. “COVID Chronicles” collects blog posts from 18 students in his Media Writing course, focusing on their personal experiences navigating life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The personal accounts reflect on adjusting to remote learning, managing changes in their mental health, family members being diagnosed with COVID-19 and their own fear of catching the virus, being afraid to leave their homes, and more.

“I was trying to think of some cool assignment – not cool, even – but some thought-provoking assignment. I start Media Writing with a personal story, so they write that, and I was thinking that this could be a way to just purge their souls a little bit. What I started getting was just so powerful and wellwritten. It was just so raw,” Blow said. “It was halfway through the semester when I really started thinking these needed to be shared.”

Many students, like Mason Svayg, found the positives in the pandemic, like time spent with family they’ve missed while away at college. He reflected on listening to his dad’s old cassette tapes, enjoying sushi for dinner every Sunday night, and adventures with his two dogs.

Students also shared the struggles they’ve encountered. Student Lily Doton shed light on bias and inequality during COVID-19. Doton wrote about witnessing a rise in racism against East Asian people and her experience as a Vermonter of Asian descent.

“I’ve really struggled seeing everything that’s going on in other parts of the country, even though I don’t directly feel unsafe here,” Doton said. “I think it’s messed with my mental state a little bit, but I wrote about those feelings, too, and that’s helped me cope with it.”

The book’s cover art, which depicts a student in a cap and gown sitting in front of a laptop with a panel of masked students behind him, was created by students Jasmin Gomez and Anthony Richichi.

Blow and students Lily Doton, Aris Sherwood, Jacob Gonzalez, Martin Kelly, and Jasmin Gomez presented a panel discussion titled “Making Lemonade out of COVID-19” at the College Media Association’s Spring National College Media Convention in New York City in March. They shared their experience writing about the pandemic’s impact in real time and having their work published.

“COVID Chronicles” can be purchased on Amazon.

The Colors of Love: Multiracial People in Interracial Relationships: Dr. Melinda Mills

“How are multiracial people identifying and how does that impact their romantic relationship choices and their experiences within those relationships?” That’s the question that Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies Melinda Mills’ recent book “The Colors of Love: Multiracial People in Interracial Relationships” aims to address.

“The Colors of Love” was published in December of 2021 and builds off of the foundation laid by Mills’ previous book “The Borders of Race: Patrolling ‘Multiracial’ Identities” as well as her graduate school dissertation.

Mills grew up in an interracial family in the Caribbean and was attending graduate school at Columbia University when the U.S. Census Bureau began to allow multiracial people to claim two or more races on the Census, which inspired her formal research. This work has been expanded on through her published books, addressing different aspects of multiracial identity.

“I was really trying to make space in this book to talk about and try to capture some of the fluidity. What does it mean to be multiracial and to identify as just one race throughout one’s life, but also maybe one race at one particular moment, or in one particular place? And then to have that change over time and space? Or to keep changing, right? How do you grapple with that fluidity and put it on paper?” Mills said.

The fluidity Mills references has a direct impact on how multiracial people engage in romantic relationships. When the cultural expectation is for people to “stick with their own kind or partner with someone who is similar,” as Mills’ frames it; what does similarity look like for someone who is multiracial?

“We have the previous generation of parents who are married or partnered interracially and, depending on how they experienced that they’re saying, “please don’t do that again” and discouraging their children who are mixed race from making a similar choice. So they’re saying, ‘pick this group’… I was finding that pattern emerging over and over again, and that was interesting and surprising to me,” she said.

She also uses the book to bring attention to the evidence of persistent anti-black racism and the ways that it plays out in romantic relationships. She argues the importance of acknowledging that romantic relationships are a social space where broader racial dynamics are still at play.

Mills hopes that readers are able to use her book as a tool for connection, understanding, and appreciation of other people’s experiences. She also hopes that it creates new ways for people to communicate how they identify themselves racially.

“There’s a lot there to celebrate, right? There’s a lot to appreciate. There’s a lot for multiracial people to learn about themselves and their own sort of internalized racism, where it exists. And there’s a lot from their experience that I think other folks can connect to and learn from as well,” she said.

Dr. Melinda Mills and her book, “The Colors of Love: Multiracial People in Interracial Relationships”