Harmonic Materials in Tonal Music,
A Programmed Course,
Eighth Edition
By Greg A. Steinke '64, based on
the work of Paul O. Harder
Allyn and Bacon, 1998A revision of Paul O. Harder's text, this book uses programmed instruction to convey conceptual information and provides drills to develop techniques for handling harmonic materials. In programmed instruction, information is presented in small, carefully sequenced parcels which cumulatively give students mastery of the subject. Steinke is associate director of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival and director of the Newport, Oregon Composers Symposium. He is also an active composer and oboe soloist, and has revised the seventh and eighth editions of Harder's Basic Materials in Music Theory.
Testament presents black-and-white portraits of the men and women behind the founding of Israel, and their personal stories, told in their own words. The book's release date coincides with Israel's 50th anniversary. The introduction is by Shimon Peres, who states that Levin's photographs "put a face on history." Levin is a freelance photographer and journalist who lives and works in Baltimore, and specializes in photographing archaeological sites and artifacts. His work has appeared in several books about Roman and Near Eastern archaeology, and in The New York Times and Geo. An alumnus who gives generously of his time, he is chair of the Alumni Association's Magazine Committee, which has oversight of the OAM.
Testament:
At the Creation of the
State of Israel
By Aaron Levin '68
Artisan, 1998
Made in God's Image?
Eve and Adam in the
Genesis Mosaics
at San Marco, Venice
By Penny Howell Jolly '69
University of California Press, 1997Jolly interprets the significance of the mosaics in the church of San Marco in Venice that illustrate the story of Creation. She takes an unconventional approach by regarding them as a reinterpretation of the myth of divine creation, and thus as a social document that reveals a great deal about the perception of relations between the sexes in 13th-century Venice. She describes and interprets more than 20 scenes, and in the end concludes that the mosaic is a highly misogynist revision of the Cotton Genesis, the fifth-century Greek illuminated manuscript on which the mosaics are based. Jolly is professor of art history at Skidmore College.
Woman Between Two Worlds:
Portrait of an Ethiopian
Rural Leader
By Judith Olmstead '65
University of Illinois Press, 1997This anthropological account chronicles the uncommon experience of Chimate Chumbalo, a woman who became a leader in Ethiopia's male-dominated local politics during the country's turbulent transition from kingdom, to empire, to socialist state. Some years ago Olmstead was conducting fieldwork in Ethiopia when she met Chumbalo, and lived with her for several months. Several years later Olmstead returned to gather Chumbalo's life-story. Woman Between Two Worlds expands the biography with accounts of Ethiopian history, and poetic descriptions of life in rural Ethiopia. Olmstead is a mediator in private practice, and has published articles on social organization, agriculture, and women in Ethiopian culture.
Factory and Community
in Stalin's Russia:
The Making of an Industrial Working Class
By Kenneth M. Straus '77
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997The author resolves two long-standing questions in this well-researched study: was there social support in the Soviet working class for the Stalin regime during the 1930s? And, if so, why? Straus analyses the formation of the working class during Stalin's first Five-Year Plan, using the theories of Marx, Durkheim, and Weber to clarify the broad similarities and the striking differences between Western and Soviet experiences. Straus argues that the clues to understanding Stalinism can be found by examining occupational specialization and community organization. The author did much of the research for Factory and Community in Moscow, but the book had its origins, he notes, in his days at Oberlin College, studying with professor of history Marcia Colish and former professor Ronald Girgor Suny. Straus teaches at Binghamton University.
Imagining Indians
in the Southwest:
Persistent Visions of a
Primitive Past
By Leah Dilworth '82
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996"The American Southwest is not simply a place," writes Dilworth in her introduction. "It is a region of the imagination, a 'land' . . . on which Americans have long focused their fantasies of renewal and authenticity." Looking back to the period between the 1880s and the 1920s, Indians of the Southwest have been mythologized within the contexts of ethnography, tourism, the arts and crafts movement, and modernist art and poetry. Contending that Native Americans are still, in many cases, perceived as living relics of an idealized past, Dilworth examines why this happens. The epilogue considers the work of two modern Native American artists, and offers some alternative strategies for representing and understanding cultural differences. Dilworth is assistant professor of English at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus.
The Celling of America:
An Inside Look at the
U.S. Prison Industry
Edited by Daniel Burton-Rose '98 with
Dan Pens and Paul Wright
Common Courage Press, 1998
An indictment of the criminal justice system, The Celling of America argues that America has become "a nation that builds prisons instead of schools." The book focuses on the commodification of prisoners and examines the "new industrial sector [that] has arisen around the penal system." Most of the book was written by two currently incarcerated prisoners, Burton-Rose's co-editors, Pens and Wright. They are the editors of Prison Legal News, the monthly prisoner-produced publication that inspired the book. Included are chapters on the mainstream media's coverage of crime, the worsening of conditions within prisons, prison-labor in the U.S., and the societal conditions that have created the prison-industrial complex. Noam Chomsky writes that the contributions "are serious, informed, and thought-provoking, and merit very serious attention--and reaction." Burton-Rose graduated from Oberlin in May 1998 with
a double major in history and religion, and honors in history. He is currently a freelance journalist in the Bay Area.
Mary Moody Emerson and
the Origins of Transcendentalism:
A Family History
By Phyllis Cole '66
Oxford University Press, 1998This biography suggests that Mary Moody Emerson was not, as historians often cast her, simply Ralph Waldo Emerson's eccentric aunt. Based on new material, including Mary's long-lost diary, Cole portrays a woman who deserves to be recognized as a strong thinker, writer, and spiritual seeker in her own right. Her influence on her nephew may have been deeper and more significant than is generally acknowledged; Cole says their close relationship formed the matrix in which Ralph Waldo developed his essential philosophic and aesthetic themes. Cole is associate professor of English and Women's Studies at Pennsylvania State, Delaware County, and has written numerous articles on American transcendentalism and women writers.
Stress and the Risk of Psychological Disorder
in College Women
By Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr. '49
University Press of America, 1997Discover current research on three programs measuring the risk in college women of three psycho-biological disorders: anorexia nervosa, menstrual dysfunction, and type A vulnerability to cardiovascular problems. Heilbrun's research is based on a new approach to developmental psycho-pathology. Risk factors for future disorders were isolated within a relevant normal population, suggesting the possibilities of early detection of disorders and intervention, and may contribute to the understanding of how these disorders develop. Stress and Risk is directed primarily toward mental health professionals and others responsible for student problems on campuses. Heilbrun is Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Emory University.
The Shortest Distance Between You and a Published Book:
20 Steps to Success and
How One of You Can Bring the Two of You Together:
Breakthrough Strategies to
Resolve Your Conflicts and
Reignite Your Love
By Susan Page '65
Broadway Books, 1997
The Shortest Distance is a step-by-step guide to publishing manuscripts. It explains how publishing works, from finding the perfect title through dealing with royalty checks and paperback reprints. There are chapters on coping with the emotional ups and downs every author experiences.
In How One of You Can Bring the Two of You Together, Page found that most people assume that repairing relationships is a two-person task. She believes this idea is actually a myth, and demonstrates that one partner can take individual action that will result in mutual strength and happiness. The author furnishes step-by-step long- and short-term strategies to achieve this goal. John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, affirms that "this is a message that truly helps relationships." Formerly director of Women's Programs at the University of California, Berkeley, Page has been conducting workshops for couples since 1980 and has written two other books. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Mayer Schacter.
Butterflies of New Jersey:
A Guide to their Status, Distribution, Conservation,
and Appreciation
By Michael Gochfeld '61
and Joanna Burger
Rutgers University Press, 1997The first comprehensive guide to butterflies in New Jersey in over 50 years, this volume includes a history of butterfly studies in North America. The authors explore the geography and changing ecology of New Jersey, and include chapters on butterfly conservation, evolution, taxonomy, and ways to design gardens to attract butterflies. The second half of the book provides detailed information on the 150 known butterfly species in New Jersey, with guidelines for finding and studying them. Gochfeld is clinical professor of environmental law and community medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute.
Tryst with Destiny:
Free India's First Half-Century
By Paul R. Dettman '43
Times Books International, 1997Dettman examines the India of the 1990s and compares it with the India of Nehru and Gandhi, and that of the 1950s. Tryst with Destiny explores the tensions in India between modernization--the opening of trade and financial markets, the pursuit of nuclear and space programs--and recent moves away from the country's secular ideals, particularly as demonstrated by the rise of Hindu fundamentalism. Dettman lived in India from 1952-1969, and the impetus for the writing of this book was the tremendous changes he observed during a 1996 visit to India in the life and political climate of the country. Combining his deep personal engagement with India with scholarly analysis, Dettman reflects the questions of why India has lost the idealistic vision of its founders and what changes the next 50 years may bring.
New Beginnings:
A Creative Writing Guide
for Women Who Have
Left Abusive Partners
By Sharon Doane '80
Seal Press, 1996Written to help women who have experienced abusive relationships to empower themselves and move forward with their lives, New Beginnings suggests that creative writing be a part of the healing process. Chapters cover topics such as grieving and letting go, staying emotionally and physically safe after leaving an abusive relationship, and forming a new support network. Throughout are first-person stories from formerly abused women, and guided writing exercises to help spark creativity and explore the issues raised. Doane is the former program-director for a county-wide domestic violence prevention program in New York, and has taught creative writing workshops for several years. This is her first book. She and her husband live in New York's Hudson Valley Region.
The first drama anthology to address how the horrors of lynching have been reflected in American theater and culture, this volume highlights the interracial cooperation of black and white women as revealed in their artistic tradition. "Iola's Letter" is set in New York City in 1893, and examines the anti-lynching crusade of a young newspaper woman named Ida B. Wells. "Iola's Letter" received second prize in the Larry Neal Writer's Competition Awards sponsored by the D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities in 1994, and was a finalist for a Chesterfield Film Company fellowship at Universal Studios in Los Angles. Boston resides in Washington, D.C. Strange Fruit:
Plays on Lynching by
American Women
Edited by Kathy A. Perkins and
Judith L. Stephens
Including "Iola's Letter,"
by Michon Boston '84
Indiana University Press, 1998The Brave Bostonians:
Hutchinson, Quincy, Franklin,
and the Coming of the
American Revolution
By Philip McFarland '51
Westview Press, 1998Most Americans are familiar with the Revolution through its defining moments: the Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's ride. This volume presents another side of the story, tracing it through the lives of three native and eminently respected Bostonians during the turbulent years preceding the Revolution. Loyalist Thomas Hutchinson, the last civilian governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, is at the center of the story, which also portrays American patriot Josiah Quincy as he works determinedly for independence, and Benjamin Franklin as he moves from defender of the British Empire to founder of America. McFarland has also written Sojourners, Sea Dangers, A House Full of Women, and Seasons of Fear. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.
A Tribe Apart:
A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence
By Patricia Lekashman Hersch '67
Fawcett Columbine, 1998Hersch spent three years following the lives of eight teenagers in Reston, Virginia, listening to their stories and observing their behavior. In A Tribe Apart she attempts to present adolescents as they see themselves, and to provide an analysis of the complexities of teen culture and the social pressures that create it. "Nobody is paying much attention to individual adolescents," writes Hersch, "but everyone is hysterical about the aggregate." Written to fill in the gap between the oft-heard statistics about the dangers encountered by American adolescents and the lives of individual teens, the book investigates "the changing experience that eludes hard data." Hersch is a former editor of Psychology Today, and has had work published in numerous newspapers and magazines. She lives in Reston with her husband and has three sons.
Designing Feedback
By Carl G. Thor '62
Crisp Publications, 1998Part of the Crisp's Management Library series, this book presents an introduction to organizational performance measurement from the point of view of the user of the worker, rather than that of the technical developer. It addresses issues of feedback, such as flow and frequency, accuracy and gathering effort, individual and group measures, and style and format. Thor is president of Jarrett-Thor International, a consulting firm specializing in performance measurement and related issues, and is affiliated with the World Confederation of Productivity Science, the International Society of Productivity and Quality Research, and the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence. He has written six books and hundreds of articles.
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