Books, music & film

Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.

Ziggurat
Peter Balakian
(University of Chicago Press)

As a young man in the late 1960s, Peter Balakian was a mail runner in downtown Manhattan, working in and around the building site as the World Trade Center slowly took shape and began to fill with people and businesses. And, like so many others, he watched in horror on Sept. 11, 2001, as it fell. “A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy,” the anchor poem in the poetry collection Ziggurat, weaves the story of the towers’ rise and fall into a complex account of life and loss in New York. The poetry in the book ranges widely geographically and culturally, from the ruins of the Bosnian National Library and tidings of war, to the relationship between high and pop art, music and memory, and catastrophe and commemoration. Balakian is Colgate’s Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in the humanities.

Berkshire October: The Final Mission of an Accidental Spy
Craig S. Bell ’65
(iUniverse)

In Craig Bell’s recent work of fiction, the New York Times reported after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that the New York CIA station, headed by Martha Prescott, had been located in a building of the World Trade Center complex. When the towers came down, the adjacent CIA offices were destroyed as well. The surviving members of the CIA station then recruited businesspeople and students going overseas to gather intelligence information. This is the story of one such recruit, the challenges he faced, and his longstanding relationship with the CIA station chief.

Islamic Law and Civil Code: The Law of Property in Egypt
Richard A. Debs ’52
(Columbia University Press)

Richard Debs analyzes the classical Islamic law of property based on the Shari’ah, traces its historic development in Egypt, and describes its integration into the modern format of a civil code. He focuses specifically on Egypt, a country that drew upon its traditional legal system as it formed modern laws, and he touches on issues that are common to societies with Western legal systems. Debs is chairman emeritus of the American University of Beirut and a trustee of the Institute of International Education, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the Barenboim-Said Foundation, and Carnegie Hall. He is also co-chair of the Advisory Board of Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and has been decorated by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

Critical Aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan
James Dorsey ’83
(Harvard University Press)

In Critical Aesthetics, author James Dorsey examines the career of literary critic Kobayashi Hideo, whose ideas were forged amidst the turmoil of the 1920s through the 1940s. Dorsey explains that by adhering to his own worldview throughout the war, Hideo came to assume a complex stance in which he exhibited both resistance and acquiescence to the wartime regime.
    Dorsey, associate professor of Japanese at Dartmouth College, was also recently a co-editor and translator for Literary Mischief: Sakaguchi Ango, Culture, and the War (Lexington Books). This collection of essays and translations brings renewed focus to the work of Sakaguchi Ango, a writer in postwar Japan.

Cartelization, Antitrust and Globalization in the US and Europe
Mark S. LeClair ’80
(Routledge)

In recent years, globalization has forced firms into more direct competition, and the result has been global price-fixing and the emergence of cartels, explains Mark LeClair in his new book. The situation has challenged antitrust authorities because competition policy is regional or national, not inter-national, in scope. LeClair explores the motivations behind, and perceived necessity for, organizations entering into cartels, and he raises questions about the impact of various regulatory strategies. He sets the history of cartels and antitrust law in a theoretical framework, and provides suggestions for reforms of antitrust laws that he hopes could improve the situation moving forward.

Law’s Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration
Peter Margulies ’78
(New York University Press)

In Law’s Detour, Peter Margulies explores the various ways in which he believes the Bush administration skirted the rule of law after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Margulies is a Roger Williams University School of Law professor. From creating a law-free zone at Guantánamo, to pressuring prosecutors to pursue political enemies, to undermining the protection of refugees, the administration distracted the government from urgent priorities, tarnished the nation’s reputation, and threatened civil rights, Margulies argues. He states that the government needs flexibility to address risks to national security, but he questions the Bush administration’s tactics.

Divorce Mediation: A New Vision of the Law
Lenard Marlow ’54
(Xlibris)

Divorce Mediation is the latest book by Lenard Marlow, a practicing attorney and divorce mediation professional. Marlow contends that the nature of our legal system and its method of validation is such that the system necessarily favors equity over certainty. Ironically, because it is not possible for the law to give an undeniably correct answer, it winds up granting divorcing couples neither equity nor certainty, he says. Therefore, Marlow proposes a new vision of the law that places greater weight on clarity. He writes that those involved in a divorce should be able to consult the law and come away with an answer, or at least a narrow range of answers, rather than a continuously ongoing debate.

The Likeness of the King: A Prehistory of Portraiture in Late Medieval France
Stephen Perkinson ’89
(University of Chicago Press)

Portraits occupy a central place in the history of art, but did portraits exist in the medieval era? In The Likeness of the King, Stephen Perkinson challenges the canonical account of the invention of modern portrait practices, offering a case against the tendency of recent scholarship to identify likenesses of historical personages as “the first modern portraits.” Through an examination of well-known images of the 14th- and early 15th-century kings of France, as well as objects such as wax votive figures and royal seals, Perkinson demonstrates that the changes evident in these images do not constitute a revolutionary break with the past, but instead were a continuation of late medieval representational traditions. Perkinson is associate professor of art history at Bowdoin College.

An Honorable Harvest: Shakers and the Natural World
Carl Benton Straub ’58
(Shaker Press)

The history of the Shakers in America is one in which land plays a central and pivotal role, explains Carl Benton Straub. Here, Straub explores the Shakers’ way of viewing the world they inhabit, both the natural and the created. He writes, “The essential Shaker response to the land and the varied communities of life entwined with the land — wild and domestic — is the translation through interpretation and labor of nature’s variables into patterns of meaning which reflect Shaker interest in religious community.” His work provides insight into the fields of Shaker studies, land use, and conservation, as well as contributes to the history of religion in America.

Ad Asylum
Dan Wald ’82
(iUniverse)

Mad Men hits the 21st century in Dan Wald’s first published novel, Ad Asylum. Halliday & Vine, once the greatest ad agency in New York, is on the brink of folding. Their most creative figure has disappeared when they make the final round in the pitch for the largest fashion account in the world, granting them one last chance to survive. When Drew, the new chief creative officer, is going to blow it with a bad pitch idea, underlings Ryan Simmons and Rachel Weiss take matters into their own hands. Mayhem ensues in a clash of technology, egos, nasty clients, and supermodels, as a lovable but motley crew tries to save the agency and their jobs.

Also of note:
The second novel by Allan D. Moore ’52 is the humorous story of a romance prompted by one character’s bold public statement: The Last Time I Saw You, You Were Naked! (iUniverse). In the context of the story, Moore explores the struggle for women’s rights and the question of how well Christians have managed Christianity.
In the media

“Continuing my stroll along Lebanon Street, I was repeatedly surprised. The Barge Canal coffeehouse was selling locally made quilts. Even J.J.’s Salon boasted locally made fashion accessories.”
        — In a Washington Post article, travel and lifestyle writer Josey Miller (wife of Jeffrey Wertheimer ’98) describes the burgeoning local arts scene in Hamilton and the surrounding region

“Politicians receive lots of on-the-job training in deception and dissembling, and learn to separate how they really feel and think from what they say and display.”
        — Carrie Keating, psychology professor, offering her expert insight in a Hartford Courant (Conn.) article about body language

“I really have no limitations. I can’t think of anything I can’t do.”
        — Student-athlete Hannah Fitton ’14 talks to her hometown newspaper, Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.), about a genetic disorder that affects her hearing and vision

“God kind of grabbed me. I couldn’t get enough of theology. I headed right into Yale Divinity School when I graduated.”
        — Rev. Marti Swords-Horrell ’77, pastor of a Methodist church, tells the Post-Standard (Syracuse) how a Colgate theology course shaped her life

“People are angry. Ordinary citizens don’t want their government and their lives dominated by corporate wealth and greedy special interests.”
        — Joan Mandle, associate professor of sociology emeritus and executive director of Democracy Matters, in an opinion article in the Post-Standard (Syracuse) about the Fair Elections Now Act

“We hope to, with the documentary, humanize the story and have interviews with the survivors.”
        — Alex Sklyar ’10 talks to Japanese outlet Kyodo News prior to traveling to Nagasaki to interview atomic-bomb survivors and their relatives for a documentary

Colgate bestsellers
at the Colgate Bookstore

•    Up For Renewal — Cathy Alter ’87
•    June-tree — Peter Balakian (English)
•    Berkshire October — Craig S. Bell ’65
•    Bloody Mohawk — Richard Berleth ’63
•    Run Like a Mother — Sarah Bowen Shea ’88 and Dimity McDowell ’94
•    The Competent Cook — Lauren Braun Costello ’98
•    Unlearning to Fly — Jennifer Brice (English)
•    The Thirteen American Arguments — Howard Fineman ’70
•    Political Rules of the Road — Lou Frey Jr. ’55
•    Grandma Wants to Eat My Baby Sister — Jackie Jafarian Broad ’90