In the media conscious debate about national identity. In her new book, Lynn Staley suggests that the trope of Britain as an island garden catalyzed two crucial historical perspectives and, thus, two analytic modes. As isolated and vulnerable, England stood in a potentially hostile relation to the world outside its encircling sea. As semi-enclosed and permeable, it also accepted recuperative relationships with those who moved across its boundaries. Identifying the concept of enclosure as key to Britain’s language of place, Staley traces the shifting meanings of this concept in medieval and early modern histories, treatises, and poems. Staley is Colgate’s Harrington and Shirley Drake Professor of the humanities and medieval and Renaissance studies.
Instant Songwriting: Musical Improv from Dunce to Diva
Nancy Howland Walker ’87 (Satyagraha Publishing)
Instant Songwriting is a how-to for musical improvisers and an excellent resource for songwriters. With more than two decades of musical improv experience, Nancy Howland Walker guides the reader with clear, logical, and fun step-bystep exercises, from the very basics of putting a song together, to highly advanced song techniques. She has written the book for all levels — whether you’re new to the art form or experienced, your songs are improvised or written, or you write songs just for fun or for a profit. Musical tracks are included for each exercise, to accompany you as you practice and master each step along the way. With her new book, Walker is hoping to coach you to become the songwriting diva you were meant to be.
Those We Love Most
Lee McConaughy Woodruff ’82 (Voice) In her first novel, Woodruff writes about marriage, family, and the ties
that bind us all. On a bright June day, Maura Corrigan wakes up happy and secure, with a loving husband, and three healthy, vivacious children. By the end of the day, her entire world will be shattered. In the aftermath of tragedy, the fractures in both Maura’s life and her marriage become all-too-clear not just to her and her husband, Pete, but also to her parents, who are grappling with strain within their own marriage. Told through the alternating perspective of these four people over the course of a year, Those We Love Most chronicles how a twist of fate forces them to examine their mistakes, fight for their most valuable relationships, and ultimately find their way back to each other.
Also of note:
In his new children’s book, Watts and the Nightlight (Larch Press), Gaston Blom ’41 writes about a young boy, Henry, who can’t fall asleep and Watts — an imaginary character living in the nightlight — who helps Henry with his fear of the dark. An educational comic book, Self-Talk: A Child’s Bulletproof Vest Against Emotional Gunfire (RoundTable Comics), released by Devin Hughes ’91, teaches children about “self-talk,” a strategy they can use to combat negativities stemming from issues like bullying, learning disabilities, familial dysfunction, and peer pressure. Meghan Arcuri Moran ’98 has published her story, “Inevitable,” in Chiral Mad (Written Backwards), a new psychological horror anthology whose profits are donated to Down syndrome charities. Fitting into the theme of chirality (when an object is not identical to its mirror image, or cannot be superposed onto itself), “Inevitable” is a story of changing identity. Some days Bud looks into the mirror to find he’s become another person. Today he’s a little girl. In a few days, he’ll be invisible. And in a few more days, he’ll become someone else — someone he finds deplorable. Follow Bud’s descent into the darker side of his humanity.
“I think people just want to feel less alone. When you feel like the circus freak and the people on the soccer sidelines don’t know what to say to you, you want that collectivity and connectivity.” — Lee McConaughy Woodruff ’82 on the Today show discussing her new novel, Those We Love Most
“I do believe that this is a critical moment for Africa, and a critically optimistic moment where Africans will be making a set of choices that will affect their economies and their political economies for many years to come.” — President Jeffrey Herbst at the CATO Institute during the launch of his new book, Africa’s Third Liberation
“For the Maya, everything has to be brought together in terms of whole multiples and that’s where Venus comes in. It has a five-to-eight rhythm with the sun.” — Anthony Aveni, professor of astronomy and anthropology and Native American studies, in Archaeology Magazine
“Choices have consequences. We should never stop learning.” — Beverly Low, associate dean for administrative advising and first-year students, in her Huffington Post op-ed piece
“It’s interesting that the Russians are claiming that they found a gigantic deposit of diamonds in a meteoriteimpact crater, because, from what we’ve seen so far, it’s kind of unlikely.” — Geology professor Richard April comment- ing to Yahoo news about a claim from Russian scientists
“The result is an authoritative analysis of an episode that ... has utterly failed to penetrate the popular historical memory.”
— A review in the Atlantic, which listed history professor R.M. Douglas’s book as one of its “Books of the Year 2012.” Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of Germans After the Second World War was published by Yale University Press in June 2012.
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