Ariane M. Balizet (PhD 2007)Blood and Home in Early Modern Drama: Domestic Identity on the Renaissance Stage
(Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture)
Routledge, 2014
From Sujata Iyengar, Professor of English, University of Georgia: "Ariane Balizet cogently argues that blood on the early modern stage makes public the domestic rites and habits of private life and that in so doing, it estranges viewers, often violently, from everyday experience and, most importantly, from early modern hierarchies of gender and power."
Mary Ellis (BA 1985)
The Bohemian Flats [novel]
University of Minnesota Press, 2014
From The Star Tribune: "In the opening pages of The Bohemian Flats, a shellshocked German-American named Raimund Kaufmann comes to in a London hospital in 1919. He has been unconscious for a week, and when he wakes he does so from a dream of life in Minneapolis along the river flats, a part of the city Ellis is soon to bring to wondrous life. From that London hospital, Ellis takes readers back to the story of Raimund leaving Germany and arriving in Minneapolis. . . . Ellis is a magician with historical details. From the walks Raimund takes through Minneapolis neighborhoods, to the sort of food he eats and the sort of beer his Bohemian neighbors brew, the authenticity of his life comes fairly bounding off the page."
Elizabeth Fontaine (BA 1996) Eagle Peak [young adult novel]
Prizm Books, 2014
From Long and Short Reviews: "Sean has a definite opinion about what he thinks it will be like to live in the middle of nowhere, but only time will tell if his first impressions of his new home are correct. Excellent character development made it impossible for me to stop reading. Sean is a well-developed protagonist whose personal strengths and weaknesses reveal themselves almost immediately. What makes Eagle Peak such a great tale, though, is how this development spreads to the secondary characters as well. The author acknowledges certain stereotypes only to turn them upside down just when this reader thought she had everything figured out. . . . Eagle Peak is a must-read for anyone who has ever felt out of place. It captures the maelstrom of emotions that accompanies this experience well and is something I will be rereading again soon."
Patricia Hodgell (PhD 1987), as P. C. Hodgell
Sea of Time [novel]
Baen Books, 2014
From the publisher: "New novel in the Kencyrath series, sequel to Honor's Paradox. Adventure in a well-crafted high fantasy land. Kothifir the Great, ruled by an obscenely obese god-king, peopled with colorful, dueling guilds, guarded by the Southern Host of the Kencyrath. Here Jame arrives, only to find that the turbulent city claims more of her attention as the Talisman than the Host's training fields do as a second year randon cadet. . . . In order to save the present, Jame must search the past, be it fifteen years ago when as a boy her brother Torisen arrived here, unknown and unwanted, or three thousand years ago when the Wastes were a great sea ringed with rich civilizations."Hyeryung Hwang (PhD candidate), translator to Korean
Deleuze's Difference and Repetition, by Joe Hughes
Seokwangsa, 2014
Re: the original work in English, from Leonard Lawlor, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State University: "Beautifully written, Hughes' book brings an immense amount of clarity to Difference and Repetition. . . . Hughes' book is not only a great introduction to Difference and Repetition, but a great book in its own right."
Sam Kean (BA 2002)The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery
Little Brown, 2014
From The Toronto Star: "In his entrancing new book, The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, science writer Sam Kean burrows into the workings of an organ once deemed as unknowable as the far reaches of the galaxy, and does so with boyish charm, accessible language, a prodigious amount of enthusiasm and the sobering realization that throughout history a catastrophic brain injury has ghoulishly been the neuroscientist's best friend. As he did in his previous books on DNA and the Periodic Table, Kean mixes incredible historical tales and case histories with the heavier slogging that wouldn't be out of place in a classroom setting. More than once you will find yourself sitting with your mouth agape in complete wonder of the brain. . . . Though not his primary purpose, time and again, Kean shows us how we all are products of our mental circuitry, and that a wound here or a blow there can turn us into different people, a rather sobering, if not humbling, thought."
Mary Logue (BA 1975)
Lake of Tears: A Claire Watkins Mystery [novel]
Tyrus, 2014
From Kirkus Reviews: "Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins becomes acting sheriff when her boss has a heart attack. Things have been peaceful in Fort St. Antoine, Wis., but that all changes when the remains of a body are found in the replica of a Norwegian longboat burned on the shore in an autumn ritual. Claire's daughter Meg, who is soon leaving for college, feels an instant attraction to a man she meets at the boat burning, little knowing that he will soon be a murder suspect. . . . The latest from Logue (Maiden Rock, etc.) is a tense psychological mystery, compulsively readable, that may seem obvious but offers up some surprising twists."Mary Logue (BA 1975), as Mary Lou Kirwin
Death Overdue (Librarian Mysteries) [novel]
Gallery, 2013
From Publishers Weekly: "In the pseudonymous Kirwin's charming, low-key sequel to 2012's Killer Librarian, Karen Nash has to decide whether to stay in England and run a bookstore with her book-collecting boyfriend, Caldwell Perkins, or return to her job as a librarian in Sunshine Valley, Minn. She's unprepared for the sudden appearance of Sally Burroughs, Caldwell's book-hating ex-girlfriend, who abandoned him--and the London B&B that he owns--several years earlier, and now wants a share of the property. But there's a bigger shock coming when Sally is killed by a falling bookshelf in the B&B's library."
Marilyn Nelson (PhD 1979)Faster than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011 [poetry]
Louisiana State University Press, 2012
Winner of the Milt Kessler Poetry Award.
Marilyn Nelson (PhD 1979)
How I Discovered Poetry [poetry]
Dial, 2014
From Booklist: "In this fictionalized memoir in verse, renowned poet Nelson lyrically recounts her passage from ages 4 to 14, from numerous military base homes; through friends, schools, and dogs; and from developmental stages of initiative through industry to identity. Chronicling the decade of 1950s America, a young self-aware speaker connects national events to daily life experiences. . . . For fans of Nelson's impressive body of children's and adult poetry, including the brilliant A Wreath for Emmett Till (2005), this insight into her modulated memories gratifies that heartfelt belief that here writes a woman of great substance."
Anca Parvulescu (PhD 2006)The Traffic in Women's Work: East European Migration and the Making of Europe
University of Chicago Press, 2014
From Rita Felski, University of Virginia: "In The Traffic in Women's Work, Parvulescu makes a compelling case for the role of East European women in the creation of a 'new Europe.' Thanks to the invisible labor of cleaners, housewives, sex workers, caregivers, and other women on the move, the map of Europe is being radically redrawn. Parvulescu's sophisticated arguments are essential reading for scholars in European studies, gender studies, and transnational studies--as well as anyone interested in bold and boundary-pushing thought."
Professor Paula Rabinowitz, co-edited with Cristina Giorcelli
Habits of Being III: Fashioning the Nineteenth Century
University of Minnesota Press, 2014
From the publisher: "In nineteenth-century Europe and the United States, fashion--once the province of the well-to-do--began to make its way across class lines. At once a democratizing influence and a means of maintaining distinctions, gaps in time remained between what the upper classes wore and what the lower classes later copied. And toward the end of the century, style also moved from the streets to the parlor. The third in a four-part series charting the social, cultural, and political expression of clothing, dress, and accessories, Fashioning the Nineteenth Century focuses on this transformative period in an effort to show how certain items of apparel acquired the status of fashion and how fashion shifted from the realm of the elites into the emerging middle and working classes--and back. The contributors to this volume are leading scholars from France, Italy, and the United States, as well as a practicing psychoanalyst and artists working in fashion and with textiles."Professor Julie Schumacher
Dear Committee Members [novel]
Doubleday, forthcoming August 19
From Newsday: "A skinny wink of a novel, this academic satire is composed entirely of letters written by a miserable Midwestern MFA prof Jay Fitger to his ex-wife, his ex-girlfriend, his agent, and to a never-ending list of institutions to whom he is asked to address letters of recommendation for his students and colleagues."Robert Stark (PhD 2007)
A Middle North [poetry]
Leaky Boot Press, 2014
From poet Seb Doubinsky: "Robert Stark's collection, A Middle North, is like a finger poking directly into the eye of bad contemporary English poetry. Its fantastic mastery of language and images . . . as well as its radical centreless cardinality--from England to Lebanon to the USA and Mexico, to name just a few roads travelled--proves how poetry is much more than just experience and language. Stark's radical stand is a welcome flood of nuances, colours and forms on the parched lands of today's boring poetica. A Middle North is now officially a personal classic for me, as it will be for the many other readers looking for words that matter."
