Black teenage girls are often negatively represented in national and global popular studies, either as being “at risk” for teenage pregnancy, obesity, or sexually transmitted diseases, or as helpless victims of inner city poverty and violence. These pervasive popular representations often portray Black adolescents’ consumer and leisure culture as corrupt, uncivilized, and pathological. In her insightful new study She’s Mad Real (New York University Press), Oneka LaBennett '94 draws on more than a decade of researching teenage West Indian girls in the Flatbush and Crown Heights sections of Brooklyn to argue that Black youth are, in fact, strategic consumers of…

In her first novel, Among the Wonderful (Steerforth Press), Stacy Carlson ’96 brings to life 1840s New York City, a time when Phineas T. Barnum is a young man, freshly arrived to the area and still unknown to the world. Barnum transforms a dusty natural history museum into a place of human wonders and an extraordinary live animal menagerie, which will become not only the nation's most popular attraction, but also a catalyst that ushers America out of a culture of glassed-in exhibits and into the modern age of entertainment. In this kaleidoscopic setting, Carlson focuses on two compelling characters.…

Jim Drummond ’69 has written a new collection of quirky, funny, and sometimes disturbing short stories, The Coyotes Forgive You (Mongrel Empire Press). His sardonic tales take place in a world where the unexpected is a sure deal, strangers and acquaintances are often more reliable than family, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Themes, settings, and characters from the author’s past and present adventures appear throughout the stories, which contain elements of science fiction, surrealism, and dystopian writing. Drummond says, “Earlier days as a tank driver, drover in a cattle sale barn, murderer of mesquite trees with chainsaws…

Photographer Stephen Gorman ’82 (www.stephengorman.com)  has published Arctic Visions: Encounters at the Top of the World, a lavish and memorable tribute to the land, sea, wildlife, and people of Canada’s North. Gorman traveled throughout the Canadian Arctic and the Northwest Passage aboard the expedition ship Lyubov Orlova for four seasons, giving him an unprecedented opportunity to take pictures of some of our planet’s most spectacular landscapes and wildlife populations. The book’s stunning images and lively text offer a true sense of the spirit and being of this vast, awesome, and historic region. The publication received the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Award…

Justin Kurian ’94 has published his first novel, The Sunlight Lies Beyond (Regent Press), whose protagonist John Arden, a disillusioned American from a Wall Street background, lives in Romania in 1992, a country in transition three years after the collapse of the Communist regime. His life becomes entangled with various people caught in a tumultuous world, among them actors at the National Opera and a talented, ambitious businesswoman who is repressed by society. Arden finds that if he can successfully confront the tribulations ahead, he may possibly vanquish his inner demons. Kurian recently shared some thoughts about working on the…

Anne Adelman ’83 is the co-author (with Karry Malawista and Catherine Anderson) of Wearing My Tutu to Analysis and Other Stories: Learning Psychodynamic Concepts from Life (Columbia University Press), a book that is certain to enliven psychodynamic theory for students, teachers, clinicians, and others eager to learn the ins and outs of practice. The authors share amusing, poignant, and sometimes difficult stories and reflections from their personal and professional lives as they invite readers to explore the complex underpinnings of the profession, along with analytical theory’s esoteric nature. The vehicle of the story is an integral part of psychodynamic practice…

In his remarkable sports book, Knocking on Heaven’s Door (University of Massachusetts Press), Marty Dobrow ’83 explores the “anguish of almost” as he examines the lives of six minor league baseball players who are so close to something they want so much, something they have always wanted, but something they still might not get. What links them together, aside from their common goal of wanting to play on a major league team, is that they are all represented by the same team of agents whose own aspirations parallel those of the players they represent. The book explores the contradictory culture…

In his new book, Paul on Mazursky (Wesleyan University Press), film scholar Sam Wasson ’03 talks to writer and director Paul Mazursky about his substantial career, which includes such memorable movies as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, An Unmarried Woman, Moscow on the Hudson, Down and Out in Beverly Hills and many more. His rich human comedies, grounded in pure emotion, are hard to classify and contain scenes that are simultaneously sincere and hilarious, realistic and romantic. His works represent Hollywood’s most sustained comic expression of the 1970s and 1980s but they have not really…

Sam Han ’06 has written Web 2.0 (Routledge), a highly accessible introductory text which examines crucial discussions and issues surrounding the changing nature of the World Wide Web. It puts Web 2.0 in context within the history of the Web and explores its position within emerging media technologies. The book discusses the connections between diverse media technologies including mobile smart phones, hand-held multimedia players, “netbooks” and electronic book readers such as the Amazon Kindle, all of which are made possible by the Web 2.0. The publication also considers new developments in mobile computing as it integrates various aspects of social…

Ten years ago, Susan Petersen Avitzour ’76 lost her 18-year-old daughter Timora to leukemia, after a six-year struggle. In her new memoir, And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones (ZmanMa), Avitzour deals with a number of profound personal, philosophical, and spiritual questions which face many bereaved parents. Using both narrative and a personal and philosophical journal, she takes the reader up close to the long years of her daughter’s illness and into her own emotional, intellectual, and spiritual journey after her child’s death. She addresses topics that range from food to fun to forgiveness, from pain to purpose to prayer—and…

Melissa Myozen Blacker ’76 is co-editor (with James Ishmael Ford) of The Book of MU: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan (Wisdom Publications, 2011). The word “mu” is one ancient Zen teacher’s response to the earnest question of whether even a dog has “buddha nature”—and discovering for ourselves the meaning of the master’s response is the urgent work of each of us who yearns to be free and at peace. “Practicing Mu” is synonymous with practicing Zen, and “sitting with Mu” is an apt description for all Zen meditation. It has been said that thousands and thousands of koans…

From 1741 until Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867, the Russian empire claimed territory and peoples in North America. In his new book, Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867 (Oxford University Press), Ilya Vinkovetsky ’88, an assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University, examines how Russia governed its only overseas colony. Russian America was effectively transformed from a remote extension of Russia's Siberian frontier penetrated mainly by Siberianized Russians into an ostensibly modern overseas colony operated by Europeanized Russians. Under the rule of the Russian-American Company, the colony was governed on different…