DeLibris/New Releases

new releases

William R. Cross ’77

Winslow Homer: American Passage

In a richly illustrated book on the life of Winslow Homer (1836–1910), biographer William Crossreveals the artist’s surprising role in American culture and identity as the visual counterpart to better-known figures in literature such as Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. The tale he tells is not only of this one American life, but also of race, class conflict, justice, and technical innovation—issues with which Homer engaged.

Homer was witness to the Civil War, to colonial tyranny, and to the rhythms of sea, storm, tide, and season, as women and men confronted powers far greater than their own. The Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts Crosscurrents, the largest Homer retrospective in nearly thirty years (through July 31), making the story especially timely. Filmmaker Ken Burns wrote that Winslow Homer: American Passage brings “to life this most American of painters” while Pulitzer-winning Caroline Fraser called it “a narrative as well as an aesthetic genius…with the moral heart of a historian.”

Andrew P. Porter ’64

Unanswerable Questions, Ambiguity & Interpersonhood

Transcendence is commonly taken to be about another world, one that transcends this one. Instead, the author argues that transcendence is about unanswerable questions, and unanswerable questions arise naturally in human life. We deal with them without answering them (or answering them only with irony, for example, in the comic strips). But philosophers are usually loath to admit that there are any unanswerable questions. Philosophy of religion usually starts with familiar questions such as “Is there a God?” (That’s kind of like “Do neutrinos exist?” or “Is there a luminiferous ether?”)

David Porter suggests beginning instead with more basic questions: What is your idea of ultimate reality? What does it mean to “succeed” in life? Where does your ultimate reality show itself in life and the world?

Unanswerable Questions is the sequel to The Accountant’s Tale: A Reading of the History of Biblical Religion.

James Boyd White ’56

Let in the Light: Learning to Read St. Augustine’s Confessions

The Confessions of St. Augustine is heralded as a classic of Western culture. Yet when James Boyd White first tried to read it in translation, it seemed utterly dull. Its ideas struck him as platitudinous, and its prose felt drab. Only when he started to read the text in Latin did he begin to see the originality and depth of Augustine’s work.

In Let in the Light, the author invites readers to join him in a close encounter with the Confessions, to share his experience of the book’s power and profundity by reading at least some of it in Augustine’s own language. He offers an accessible guide to reading the text in Latin, line by line—even for those who have never studied the language.

Equally attuned to the resonances of individual words and the deeper currents of Augustine’s culture, Let in the Light considers how the form and nuances of the Latin text allow greater insight into the work and its author. It guides readers to experience the immediacy, urgency, and vitality of Augustine’s Confessions.

► Please send information about your new releases to quarterly@groton.org.