BOOK S H E L F
Recent Releases Admissions: A Memoir of Surviving Boarding School Kendra James ’10 GRAND CENTRAL PUBLISHING
Don’t let the sly wit and pop culture slant fool you—Admissions is a serious, nuanced look at the privileges James had and the privileges she was denied as a smart, financially comfortable Black student at Taft, the preppy Connecticut boarding school her father also attended. Admissions makes its points with sharply observed, often humorous, details. Her “Respectability Politics” mother, James writes, “couldn’t understand a rap lyric until approximately five and a half years into the Obama presidency.” Even the laugh-out-loud moments pack a poignant punch. James describes a pep rally in which the name of their own school is set on fire. “I’m not sure why we were burning ourselves in effigy, especially since with two Ts in the word Taft, every picture from one of those rallies looks like it’s a Klan-hosted cross burning.” Admissions is a privilege to read.—Jeff Hagan ’86
Fleeting Monuments for the Wall of Respect Romi Crawford ’88, Editor GREEN LANTERN PRESS
Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective Elizabeth Otto ’94 and Patrick Rössler
Eleutheria Allegra Hyde, Oberlin Assistant Professor of Creative Writing
OBERLIN ALUMNI MAGAZINE 2022 SPRING
Opening up this volume of profiles of the women who were part of the groundbreaking, influential Bauhaus art school is like stumbling onto a buried treasure. The 45 brief sketches include examples of the work of these women, and despite nearly a century intervening, the art feels fresh and exciting, embodying the Bauhaus ideal of integrating art and technology. Also apparent here is its humor and optimism: Few modern art movements offer up as many images of its practitioners smiling as the Bauhaus does. In another book of art historical rescue, Haunted Bauhaus, Otto explores the more transgressive aspects of the school. —JH
JOYFUL NOISE
VINTAGE BOOKS
HERBERT PRESS
There is no longer any sign of the Wall of Respect, a 1967 Chicago mural that depicted Black heroes across cultural and political spheres. Its ephemeral nature suits Crawford, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, whose book argues against permanent monuments for this or any other historical event. She asked a range of artists and writers to create strategies for “impermanent” commemorations of the Wall of Respect. The result includes essays, instructions for performance, a tear-off flyer, and a music playlist, among other interventions. Lauren Berlant ’79, who died in 2021, and Naeem Mohaiemen ’93 are among the contributors. —JH
Actually, You Can Deerhoof, with Greg Saunier ’91
Eleutheria is set in a world like ours—only more so. The growing impact of climate change, made worse by a vain, egomaniacal, imperial president who goes blind staring at the sun during an eclipse, inspires a rootless woman, Willa Marks, to seek refuge in Camp Hope, a tropical utopian eco-colony intent on showing the world a path forward through their own example. Willa is willful but rudderless—or at least without a paddle (literally, in the novel’s early scene). She flails and stumbles, but remains a committed devotee, possessing, as one character says of her, an innocent recklessness—itself a possible path forward. —JH
Deerhoof’s inclination toward innovation sees them mixing their trademark outlandish guitar riffs and playful, surreal lyricism with operatic instrumental flourishes and a winking classical sensibility, leading to a style they’ve dubbed “DIY baroque.” The album is stridently political, seeking to fight an oppressive status quo and pandemicenforced isolation with music that inspires action and builds community. Simultaneously abrasive and gorgeous, elegant and anarchic, grounded and spiritual, Actually You Can is another deftly-executed left turn for rock’s most consistently surprising group. —Will Hagan ’21
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