Recently Published Books by W&M Faculty

THE REBIRTH OF REVELATION: GERMAN THEOLOGY IN AN AGE OF REASON AND HISTORY, 1750-1850

By Tuska Benes, James Pinckney Harrison Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History

Despite being a pillar of belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the idea of revelation was deeply discredited over the course of the Enlightenment. The post-Enlightenment restoration of revelation among German religious thinkers is a fascinating yet underappreciated moment in modern efforts to navigate between reason and faith. “The Rebirth of Revelation” compares Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish reflections on revelation from 1750 to 1850 and asserts that a strategic transformation in the term’s meaning secured its relevance for the modern age. Tuska Benes argues that “propositional” revelation, understood as the infallible dispensation of doctrine, gave way to revelation as a subjective process of inner transformation or the historical disclosure of divine being in the world. Published by University of Toronto Press

VILLAGE INFERNOS AND WITCHES’ ADVOCATES: WITCHHUNTING IN NAVARRE, 1608-1614

By Lu Ann Homza, Professor of History

This book revises what we thought we knew about one of the most famous witch hunts in European history. Between 1608 and 1614, thousands of witchcraft accusations were leveled against men, women, and children in the northern Spanish kingdom of Navarre. Presenting important archival discoveries, Lu Ann Homza restores the perspectives of illiterate, Basquespeaking individuals to the history of this shocking event and demonstrates what could happen when the Spanish Inquisition tried to take charge of a liminal space. Published by Pennsylvania State University Press

LGBT VICTORIANS: SEXUALITY AND GENDER IN THE NINETEENTHCENTURY ARCHIVES

By Simon Joyce, Cloud Professor of English

LGBT Victorians draws on scholarship reconsidering the significance of sexology and efforts to retrospectively discover transgender people in historical archives. It highlights a broad range of individuals, key thinkers and activists, and writers to map the complicated landscape of gender and sexuality in the Victorian period. In the process, it decenters Oscar Wilde and his imprisonment from our historical understanding of sexual and gender nonconformity. Published by Oxford University Press

MICHELANGELO L’ARCHITETTURA

By Adriano Marinazzo

Curator of Special Projects, Muscarelle Museum of Art

Designer in Residence & Affiliated Scholar, Applied Science

Michelangelo famously wrote, “I’m not an Architect,” although he was the protagonist of the most ambitious architectural undertaking of the Renaissance. Readers will learn about his grandiose projects through the author’s innovative and informative virtual reconstructions. This work is part of “Art e Dossier,” the world’s most comprehensive series of art monographs, written by prominent scholars with a circulation of 180,000 copies. Published by Giunti

HOPE: A LITERARY HISTORY

By Adam Potkay, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities and Professor of English

Hope for us has a positive connotation. Yet it was criticized in classical antiquity as a distraction from the present moment, as the occasion for irrational and self-destructive thinking, and as a presumption against the gods. To what extent do arguments against hope today remain useful? If hope sounds to us like a good thing, that reaction stems from a progressive political tradition grounded in the French Revolution, aspects of Romantic literature and the influence of the Abrahamic faiths. Ranging both wide and deep, Adam Potkay examines the cases for and against hope found in literature from antiquity to the present. Published by Cambridge University Press

CAMERA PALAESTINA: DISPLACED HISTORIES OF PALESTINE

By Stephen Sheehi, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies, Professor of Arabic Studies

“Camera Palaestina” is a critical exploration of Jerusalemite chronicler Wasif Jawhariyyeh (1904–1972) and his seven photography albums entitled “The Illustrated History of Palestine.” The book locates this archive at the juncture between the history of photography in the Arab world and the social history of Palestine. Shedding new light on this foundational period, the authors, Sheehi, Tamari and Nassar, explore not just major historical events and the development of an urban bourgeois lifestyle but a social field of vision of Palestinian life as exemplified in the Jerusalem community. Published by University of California Press

PSYCHOANALYSIS UNDER OCCUPATION: PRACTICING RESISTANCE IN PALESTINE

By Lara Sheehi and Stephen Sheehi, Sultan Qaboos bin Said Chair of Middle East Studies, Professor of Arabic Studies

“Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine” unpacks the intersection of psychoanalysis as a psychological practice in Palestine, while also advancing a set of therapeutic theories in which to critically engage and “read” the politically complex array of conditions that define life for Palestinians living under Israeli settler-colonialism. Published by Routledge

UNDUE PROCESS: PERSECUTION AND PUNISHMENT IN AUTOCRATIC COURTS

By Fiona Shen-Bayh, Assistant Professor of Government

Why do autocrats use courts to repress? Shen-Bayh argues that judicial punishment can enforce obedience when power is contested. Using finegrained data and archival sources, “Undue Process” provides insight into the disciplinary dimensions of autocracy and speaks to scholars of political science, legal studies and African affairs. Published by Cambridge University Press

BANKING ON BEIJING: THE AIMS AND IMPACTS OF CHINA’S OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

By

Michael

J. Tierney ’87, George and Mary Hylton Professor of Government and Director, Global Research Institute; Bradley Parks ’03, Research Professor and Executive Director of AidData; and Austin Strange ’12, Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Hong Kong, Research Affiliate at Global Research Institute

China is now the lender of first resort for much of the developing world, but Beijing has fueled speculation among policymakers, scholars, and journalists by shrouding its grant-giving and lending activities in secrecy. Introducing a systematic and transparent method of tracking Chinese development projects around the world, this book explains Beijing’s motives and analyzes the intended and unintended effects of its overseas investments. This book will be of interest to policymakers, students and scholars of international political economy, Chinese politics and foreign policy, economic development, and international relations. Published by Cambridge University Press

The Myth Of The Twelve Tribes Of Israel

By Andrew Tobolowsky, Associate Professor of Religious Studies

This book explores the fascinating history of peoples all around the world who have identified as “Israelites” from biblical times to the present. From ancient Israel, to medieval legends of the Lost Tribes, to the Beta Israel of Ethiopia, it investigates how Israelite identities have been constructed, and what Israel has meant to whom. Published by Cambridge University Press

TERREURS DE FRONTIÈRE : LE MASSACRE DES HAÏTIENS EN RÉPUBLIQUE DOMINICAINE EN 1937

By Richard Turits, Associate Professor of Africana Studies, History, and Latin American Studies; and Lauren Derby,, UCLA. Edited by Denis Watson .

Collection of essay, articles, interviews and other historic texts on the 1937 Haitian massacre published by well-known historians of Dominican and Haitian history, Lauren Derby and Richard Turits. The 1937 Haitian massacre was the mass killing of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic's northwestern Cibao frontier region in October 1937. Dominican Army troops carried out the massacre on the orders of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.

Published by Les Publications du Centre Challenges Port-au-Prince, Haïti

COVERING MUSLIMS: AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

By A. Maurits van der Veen, associate professor of government at W&M, and Erik Bleich

Covering Muslims presents the first systematic, large-scale analysis of American newspaper coverage of Muslims. By comparing it over time with reporting on other groups and issues as well as coverage of the subject in other countries, we demonstrate conclusively how negative American newspapers have been in their treatment of Muslims across the two-decade period between 1996 and 2016, both in an absolute sense and compared to a range of other groups. The same pattern holds in other countries, such as Australia, Canada, and the UK. While 9/11 did not make coverage more negative in the long run, it did dramatically increase the prevalence of references to terrorism and extremism. Published by Oxford University Press

BETWEEN DREAMS AND GHOSTS: INDIAN MIGRATION AND MIDDLE EASTERN OIL

By Andrea Wright, Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies

"Between Dreams and Ghosts: Indian Migration and Middle Eastern Oil" is an ethnography of Indian migration to oil and gas projects in the Gulf. More than one million Indians travel annually to work in oil projects in the Gulf; one of the few international destinations where men without formal education can find lucrative employment. "Between Dreams and Ghost"s follows their migration, from villages in India to oil projects in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, and back again. Published by Stanford University Press