Oberlin Alumni Magazine
Winter 2008-09 Vol. 104 No. 2
Bookshelf
When in Doubt, Sing: Prayer in Daily Life
Jane Redmont offers fresh and original ideas on ways to deepen your spiritual life through incorporating prayer into your everyday routine. Influenced by Jewish, Buddhist, and African American traditions, includes ideas for ways music, breathing, meditation, icons, and other elements can be used as part of prayer exercises.
Madness in Buenos Aires: Patients, Psychiatrists and the Argentine State, 1890-1983
Jonathan Ablard examines the interactions between psychiatrists, patients and their families and the national state in modern Argentina. Drawing on a number of previously unused archival sources, Ablard demonstrates how the experience of psychiatric patients serves as a useful case study of how the Argentine state developed and functioned over the last century, and how Argentines interacted with it.
A Celebration of Patients: A Visiting Nurse’s Story
Katherine Udall, a retired visiting nurse, worked for the Bridgeport Visiting Nurses Association in Connecticut and for the Chatham-Orleans VNA on Cape Cod, Mass. In this memoir she tells a not-often-heard story of the career of a visiting nurse, a caregiver who serves an increasingly large and valuable role on the Cape.
Ask for a Convertible: Stories
Danit Brown explores what it means to be Israeli, to be American, or to be a little bit of both. In these connected stories, Brown introduces Osnat Greenberg, a slightly fatalistic, darkly funny, and utterly winning heroine who is struggling to find her place in the world.
Dark/Light
Dark/Light is an offbeat blend of poems that reflect a range of Lois Muehl’s realities during her coming of age years. The poems, both whimsical and serious, explore Muehl’s experiences in travel, teaching, family, and crisis—her own and others.
The Future of Human Rights: U. S. Policy for a New Era
The 13 essays in this volume, by such notable scholars and activists as Philip Alston, Rachel Kleinfeld, George Lopez, John Shattuck, and Debora Spar, provide thematic assessments of the current state of global human rights programs as well as prescriptions for once again making the United States a respected and forceful proponent of human rights. Topics include democracy promotion, women’s rights, refugee policy, religious freedom, labor standards, and economic, and social and cultural rights.
Anytime Playdate: Inside the Preschool Entertainment Boom, or How Television Became my Baby’s Best Friend
Dade Hayes lifts the veil on the closely guarded process of marketing to the ultra-young and their parents. Like many parents, Dade Hayes grabbed "me time" by plopping his daughter in front of the TV, relaxing while Margot delighted in the sights and sounds of Barney and the Teletubbies. But when Margot got hooked, screaming whenever the TV was turned off, Hayes set out to explore the vast universe of this industry in which preschoolers devour $21 billion worth of entertainment.
Whistling Wings
In this children’s book, Marcel, a young tundra swan, is tired from the first half of a winter migration, so he hides in the rushes to stay behind while his parents and the flock continue south. But with the lake nearly frozen over, he soon realizes that he is not cut out for life on ice. Other animals offer advice about how to survive the winter, but their ways of living aren’t right for the swan. Hungry and scared, he falls asleep only to be awakened by a big surprise.
Twenty Heartbeats
In this beautifully illustrated children’s book, Dennis Haseley tells the story of a wealthy man who wanted a portrait of his favorite horse. However, the work took far longer than expected. When it is ready, the wealthy man received not only a portrait so lifelike that he whistled to it, but a lesson every bit as priceless.
The Skywriter
In this fictional book for readers aged 4 to 8, Dennis Haseley asks, when does a child lose faith in make-believe? How does the power of imagination fade? For the answers, Haseley takes the reader on a quiet tale of a boy’s evolving relationship with his toy airplane and the dollhouse figures that fly it. As Charles grows older, the voices of his toys grow fainter, until one day he can no longer hear them and throws them away. But their hold on his imagination remains, and he rescues them from the trash to pass on to his soon-to-be-born brother. Charles’s story is also told through large illustrations that help bring the story to life.
Coaching Whole School Change: Lessons in Practice from a Small High School
The work of professional development in small schools settings is still very much a work in progress. This book provides a guide to coaching in these settings and is intended to provide small school administrators and practitioners with a means to institute and facilitate coaching in their ranks, especially important in new small schools where many teachers are new to the system and the profession.
Benjamin Franklin and the Politics of Improvement
Alan Houston explores Benjamin Franklin’s social and political thought. Although Franklin is often considered “the first American,” his intellectual world was cosmopolitan. An active participant in 18th-century Atlantic debates over the modern commercial republic, Franklin combined abstract analyses with practical proposals. Drawing on meticulous archival research, Houston examines such tantalizing themes as trade and commerce, voluntary associations and civic militias, population growth and immigration policy, political union and electoral institutions, freedom and slavery. In each case, he shows how Franklin urged the improvement of self and society.
Queer inclusion in the United Methodist Church
The General Conference 2000, particularly the restrictive votes and the inclusionist protest, is where Amanda Udis-Kessler begins this story of the UMC LGBT inclusion struggle. The logic behind the votes and the protest, their relation to each other, and their impact on those invested in the struggle (Evangelicals, inclusionists, the Methodist middle) are the subject of this book.
Experimental Heart: A Novel
During his many long nights in the lab, scientist Andy O’Hara has plenty of time to wonder about the mysterious and beautiful Gina, first glimpsed in a lit window across the courtyard. He doesn’t realize she is consumed by her vaccine research, concerned about her biotech company’s financial problems, and about to become the prime target of animal rights activists. When Andy finally meets Gina, his monotonous life starts to unravel. Narrated with Andy’s irreverent view of a profession that both fascinates and frustrates him, Experimental Heart is an engaging romantic thriller set against the backdrop of contemporary scientific research.
A Method for Harp: The Power of Music
“The book Judith Liber has so painstakingly written goes into the minutest details of everything one can think of to do with the harp,” writes opera conductor Zubin Mehta in his introduction to the book. “One could even imagine a beginner on the harp, perfecting his or her playing just by reading her book.”
The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen
The first full-length study of its kind, the book investigates recurring themes and motifs across Ang Lee’s astonishingly diverse range of works. From the blockbuster, Hulk, to the period drama, Sense and Sensibility, each film is studied in depth to reveal Lee’s interest in gender, cultural identity, family ritual and social duty.
Thinking About Retirement? Think Again!
Thinking About Retirement? is relevant for all adults at midlife and beyond who are concerned about their, job security, benefits, financial, future and retirement lifestyle in these uncertain times, whether employed, thinking about retirement or retired. Organized in two parts, this guide provides ideas for examining a variety of possibilities and solutions for attaining a satisfying and meaningful life. Readers are guided through a practical, step-by-step, easily read process for exploring options and attaining goals.
Saving Miss Oliver’s: A Novel of Leadership, Loyalty, and Change
In this novel, the prestigious New England boarding school, Miss Oliver’s School for Girls, is on the cusp of going under. The trustees have just fired the woman who has been the headmistress for the last 35 years because she has been derelict as a financial manager. But she is a brilliant educator, beloved by the alumnae and students, who are angry and rebellious and will hate her successor. Nevertheless, if her successor can get the support of a legendary senior teacher, he has a fighting chance to save the school. But to that teacher, anyone who replaces the former headmistress represents disaster.
The Complete Writer’s Kit: Everything you need to Get Inspired, Get Writing, and Get Published
This kit is for anyone who’s ever wished they could become a writer, but didn’t have the foggiest notion of how to begin. Included is a 30 Steps to Becoming a Writer book, which takes the reader methodically through the process of getting thoughts on paper. Once the steps have been completed, it’s time for Edelstein’s miniature book, Get Published in 6 Months or Less. As a bonus feature, best-selling author Natalie Goldberg contributes a card deck, which offers 52 quick lessons and jumpstarts for overcoming writer’s block and unleashing one’s creativity.
Seeking Justice: The Judging of Supreme Court Nominees
In the long shadows cast by the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas nominations, Supreme Court confirmations remain highly contentious and controversial. This is due in part to the Senate’s increasing reliance upon a much lengthier, much more public, and occasionally raucous confirmation process-in an effort to curb the potential excesses of executive power created by presidents seeking greater control over the Court's ideological composition. Michael Comiskey offers a comprehensive, systematic, and optimistic analysis of that process.
Music Box
This is Our Moosic
This Is Our Moosic encompasses a variety of styles, sounds, and signifiers. The songs, named after towns in Pennsylvania, interplay between trumpeter Peter Evans, saxophonist Jon Irabagon, bassist/composer/leader Moppa Elliot, and drummer Kevin Shea.
The Dynamic Duo
Dan Frankowski’s Dynamic Duo is an intimate and playful trumpet and guitar riff of original jazz.
Sages of Chelm
The Sages of Chelm is based on Hebrew and Yiddish folklore and melodies, presented in a late Romantic idiom.
To add your recently published and produced book or CD to the list, write to us at alum.mag@oberlin.edu, typing “Bookshelf/Music Box” in the subject line, or mail your materials to: Oberlin Alumni Magazine, Bookshelf/Music Box, 145 West Lorain Street, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. No self published books or CDs please.