The Wesleyan Connection

In the Nov. 16 issue of The New Yorker, staff writer Ariel Levy ’96 looks at two new books: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present (Little Brown) by Gail Collins, and You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary and the Shaping of the New American Woman (Palgrave) by Leslie Sanchez.

In her essay, titled “Lift and Separate,” Levy discusses not just the content of the two books but also considers how feminism is still so divisive. She discusses some of the triumphs and defeats of the feminist movement and some myths of the movement as well. For instance, Levy writes that “bra burning became the most durable and unsettling image of modern feminism,” but then continues: “So it may be worth noting that it never actually happened.”

Levy notes how activist feminists are often stereotyped and how women like Sarah Palin and Cindy McCain who describe themselves as “traditional” are far from traditional women. She recognizes how the feminist movement succeeded in getting women into the government and the private sector workforce. But she also comments that the “contours of mainstream feminism started to change accordingly. A politics of liberation was largely supplanted by a politics of identity.”

Near the end of her essay, Levy writes: “Feminism as an identity politics has enjoyed real victories. It matters that women serve on the Supreme Court, that they make decisions in business, government, academia, and the media. But a preoccupation with representation suggests that feminism has lost its larger ambitions. We’ve come a long way in the past forty years … The trouble is that the journey hasn’t always been in the intended direction. These days, we can only dream about a federal program insuring that women with school-age children have affordable child care.”

Book co-edited by Grant Brenner ’92

Grant Brenner ’92, Daniel Bush and Joshua Moses are co-editors of Creating Spiritual and Psychological Resilience: Integrating Care in Disaster Relief Work (Routledge), which explores the interface between spiritual and psychological care in the context of disaster recovery work, drawing upon recent disasters including the experiences of Sept. 11, 2001.

The book contains three sections structured around the cycle of disaster response and focusing on the relevant phase of disaster recovery work. In each section, selected spiritual and mental health topics are examined with contributions from spiritual care and mental health care providers. This is a useful reference volume for theory and an invaluable hands-on resource, which identifies and considers interdisciplinary collaborations, creative partnerships, gaps in care and necessary interdisciplinary work.

The book grew out of several conferences co-organized by two of the editors during the years following 9/11, and it represents the collective wisdom of many people who have worked diligently and often at great cost to themselves. The volume highlights the often overlooked partnership between spiritual and mental health caregivers, a partnership especially important in distressful situations involving trauma, disaster and terrorism.

Grant Brenner, MD, is in private practice in Manhattan and works as a psychiatrist, psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and consultant. He is on faculty at the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology, where he is a chief psychiatric consultant and director of the Trauma Service; is assistant clinical professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Mount Sinai School of Medicine (adjunct); and teaches and supervises psychiatric residents in addition to other academic roles.

Tanya Harrison MA ’08, who studied with Martha Gilmore, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, and is now at Malin Space Science Systems in California, is first author on a report that says her team found evidence of liquid water flowing on the surface of Mars in multiple locations as recently as this year.

An abstract of the report, titled “Present-Day Activity, Monitoring and Documentation of Gullies With the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera,” was published in the Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 41, No. 7, p. 267. The findings were reported in a speech at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting on Oct. 8, and the work also was presented at the 2009 Geological Society of America Annual Meeting Oct. 19-21.

According to the report, the group found evidence of six active gully flows that formed since 2001. Of the six new flows, three have formation dates constrained to within a single Mars year; these three formed during autumn to early spring, demonstrating that summer warming is not participating in creating the liquid involved in their formation.

“These efforts are focused on understanding how the gullies formed, how they have been degraded, and where they are active today,” the report says.

Tim Hollister '78

A father whose 17-year-old son died while driving in 2006, and who went on to take a leadership role in a statewide task force that advised the state legislature on rewriting Connecticut’s teen driving laws, has launched a national blog for parents on safe teen driving.

Tim Hollister ‘78, a West Hartford, Conn. resident and attorney, lost his son Reid in a one-car accident on Interstate 84 in Plainville, Conn. in December 2006. During 2007-08, as a member of Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell’s Safe Teen Driving Task Force, Hollister immersed himself in the issue of why driving is the leading cause of death for teens, and became an advocate for better-informed parental decision-making about teen driving.

“My son’s accident led me to study teen driving laws and statistics in Connecticut and nationally,” Hollister said, “but it was my discovery, as a task force member, that the literature and resources available to parents rarely explain the dangers of teen driving that prompted me to start this blog.”

The blog, “From Reid’s Dad,” is found at http://www.fromreidsdad.org.

“I was astounded to learn that even though 6,000 teen drivers and 2,000 of their passengers die every year, and 400,000 kids are seriously injured, the driving manuals and other literature usually say little more than ‘Be careful.’ Cigarette packs carry warnings about death, and patients going into surgery are warned multiple times that death is a potential consequence, but the driving literature doesn’t warn parents about how dangerous teen driving is, and why,” Hollister observed. “Meanwhile, every night on television we see ads with cars doing 360’s on busy city streets, crashing through glass, spinning into parking spaces, and weaving through dense traffic at high speeds, all without a scratch. Our culture glorifies risky driving. We need a counterbalance that will caution parents and teens.”

In addition, Hollister noted that “Many parents are seduced by the convenience of having another driver in the house, or their pride in their child passing a milestone toward adulthood. My blog is an effort to counsel parents not to put convenience and pride ahead of safe decisions. I have no intention of telling parents how to handle their own kids. My goal is to make important information about teen driving accessible and clear, so that parents will make better decisions.”

The blog, launched in the wake of the federal government’s national summit on distracted driving, includes the story of the death of Hollister’s son and how it led to his service on Connecticut’s task force and his advocacy for safer driving; a list of tips for parents of teen drivers; a summary of Hollister’s teen driving activities; two initial posts, “There Is No Such Thing As A Safe Teen Driver” and “Baseline Dangers and Higher Risks;” and links to informative national websites and databases.

Book by Sabrina McCormick ’96

In No Family History (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009), Sabrina McCormick ’96 offers convincing and compelling evidence of environmental links to breast cancer, ranging from everyday cosmetics to industrial waste. She writes lucidly about the a growing number of experts who argue that we should increase focus on prevention by reducing environmental exposures that have contributed to the sharp increase of breast cancer rates.

McCormick also weaves the story of one breast cancer survivor with no family history of the disease into a powerful exploration of the big business of breast cancer—as drugs, pink products, and corporate sponsorships generate enormous revenue to find a cure. Money continues to be allocated for the search for a cure, and McCormick argues that the companies that profit, including some pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies, may contribute to the environmental causes of breast cancer. Her book reveals how profits drive our public focus on the cure rather than prevention, and also suggests new ways to reduce breast cancer rates in the future.

McCormick is a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and an assistant professor of environmental science and sociology at Michigan State University. She is the director and producer of the independent feature-length documentary No Family History. Her web site is www.nofamilyhistory.org.

Book by Michael Dylan Foster ’87

In his recent book Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai (University of California Press, 2009), Michael Dylan Foster ’87 focuses on Japanese water sprites, mountain goblins, shape-shifting animals, and the monsters known as yokai.

He considers the role of these creatures in folklore, encyclopedias, literature, art, science, games, manga, magazines, and movies, and brings attention to an abundance of valuable and previously understudied material.

Foster traces yokai over three centuries, from their appearance in 17th-century natural histories to their starring role in 20th-century popular media as he examines the monsters’ meanings within the Japanese cultural imagination.

Book by Celina Su ’99.

Celina Su ’99 is the author of Streetwise for Book Smarts: Grassroots Organizing and Education and Reform in the Bronx (Cornell University Press, 2009) in which she explores the efforts of parents and students who sought to improve the quality of education in their local schools by working with grassroots organizations.

In these organizations, everyday citizens pursued not only education reform but also democratic accountability and community empowerment. These groups had similar resources and operated in the same political context, yet their strategies and tactics were very different: while some focused on increasing state and city aid to their schools, others tried to change the way the schools themselves operated.

Su closely observed four activist groups in the Bronx, including Mothers on the Move and Sistas and Brothas United, in order to better understand strategies that may lead to better and safer schools everywhere.

Kaylie Jones '81 (photo by Scott Christian Anderson)

Novelist Kaylie Jones ’81 has written a new memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me (William Morrow, 2009) in which she explores her life growing up with her well-known father, who was also a writer (From Here to Eternity) and her mother, who as an alcoholic who could be cruel and unloving.

Jones also writes about her adulthood as she struggles to overcome her own drinking problem and to become a writer in the shadow of her father, and the difficulties of dealing with her mother as she declines physically and mentally.

Book by Kaylie Jones ’81.

In her review of the book in The New York Times, Janet Maslin writes: “… it’s a bright, fast-paced memoir with an inviting spirit. There is real immediacy to the family portraits … There is deep frustration: when Kaylie discovers that her mother has secretly resumed drinking after pretending to quit, she finds herself too weak to ‘do some anger work’ … at her therapist’s office. There’s also great daughterly love for James Jones, as his daughter sometimes insists on referring to him, and palpable pride in his achievements.”

Link to New York Times review:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/books/31maslin.html?ref=books

Book by Melody Moezzi ’01

More than 1,700 incoming University of Dayton (UD) students are required to read Melody Moezzi’s ’01 book, War on Error: Real Stories of American Muslims, before they arrive on campus Aug. 22 for first-year orientation, according to a July 26 Dayton Daily News article.

The book is an award-winning collection of essays about young American Muslims, Moezzi is an American Muslim of Iranian descent.

UD is a Marianist Catholic university.

Moezzi’s book will serve as the basis for a series of student dialogues on the issue of diversity and differences.

“I hope that they’ll be able to see a human side of Islam and not a politicized version of it, which obviously we all get too much of,” Moezzi said in the article.

“War on Error” was one of 48 books nominated for the first-year read in a UD campus poll. It was selected in part because of Moezzi’s Dayton roots and its timely subject matter.

Book by Mark Schafer '85.

Mark Schafer ’85 is the translator for Before Saying Any of the Great Words: Selected Poems of David Huerta (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), a bilingual anthology of one of Mexico’s foremost living poets, David Huerta. The collection contains translations of 84 of Huerta’s poems selected from 12 of his 19 collections along with the original Spanish-language poems. The book is a powerful antidote to recent news coverage of Mexico that depicts the country as often violent and drug-ridden.

Huerta has been a central figure in two of the most influential poetic movements in late-20th-century Latin America—the neobaroque movement and that of postmodern language poetry. His imagery, intertextuality, and dense lyricism remain unparalleled in Mexican letters. In 2005 he was awarded the prestigious Xavier Villaurrutia Prize for his lifelong contributions to Mexican literature.

A graduate of Wesleyan’s College of Letters, Schafer has worked as a literary translator for 25 years. His career started with his senior year thesis, which he expanded and later published.

He edited and translated Before Saying Any of the Great Words with the support of a NEA translation fellowship. He also has received a variety of honors for his translations including grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Fund for Culture Mexico-USA, an NEA translation fellowship, and the Robert Fitzgerald Translations Prize. Translations in the Huerta anthology previously appeared in more than 15 literary journals, including American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, BOMB Magazine, Massachusetts Review, Salamander, and Review: Latin American Literature and Arts.