Books, music & film

Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.

Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting
Pamela Druckerman ’91
(The Penguin Press)

When American journalist Pamela Druckerman had a baby in Paris, she noticed some major differences between French and American children. The French children Druckerman knows sleep through the night at 2 or 3 months old, while those of her American friends take a year or more. French kids eat well-rounded meals that are more likely to include braised leeks than chicken nuggets. And, while her American friends spend their visits resolving spats between their kids, her French friends sip coffee while the kids play. With a notebook stashed in her diaper bag, Druckerman — a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal — set out to learn the secrets to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters, and reasonably relaxed parents. Read more [will link.]

From Rain: Poems, 1970–2010
Bruce Guernsey ’66
(Ecco Qua Press)

In simple, spare language, poet Bruce Guernsey examines the common objects around us as if they were clues to solving some kind of mystery. Ice, glass, stones, moss, and similar inanimate things take on meaning as Guernsey seeks to answer who and why we are. These poems are the detective’s magnifying glass to examine our profound connection to the natural world and its disruption by war and loss. In particular, the poet reflects on the disappearance of his father from a V.A. hospital in 1987. Suffering from Parkinson’s disease, his father vanished out the door one spring day and was never found. His wandering ghost haunts this collection, whose poems have been published in The Atlantic, Poetry, American Scholar, The Nation, and many quarterlies, as well as in less-traditional publications such as Fly Rod & Reel, The Journal of Medical Opinion, and War, Literature and the Arts. Guernsey is distinguished professor emeritus at Eastern Illinois University, where he taught for 25 years.

On the Fault Line: Managing Tensions and Divisions Within Societies
Edited by Jeffrey Herbst, Terence McNamee, and Greg Mills
(Profile Books Ltd)

On the Fault Line is based on a yearlong project examining the nature of conflict around societal divisions — or fault lines — caused by differences in race, religion, ethnicity, wealth, class, and power. Violence along fault lines within states, from Sudan to Iraq to the Congo, is the spark of much contemporary conflict and has cost millions of lives in the past 20 years alone. In extreme cases, this violence threatens to tear states apart. Yet, some countries, such as Canada, South Africa, and Northern Ireland, have largely succeeded in managing their fault lines. In a world facing acute environmental, migration, and resource challenges, On the Fault Line is a guide to understanding a phenomenon that all countries must grapple with in the 21st century. Colgate’s president, Jeffrey Herbst, co-edited the book with Greg Mills, director of the Brenthurst Foundation, and Terence McNamee, deputy director of the foundation.

Scattered Goddesses: Travels with the Yoginis
Padma Kaimal
(Association for Asian Studies)

Scattered Goddesses is about the lost home, the new homes, and the in-between journeys of 19 sculptures that now reside in at least 12 separate museums across North America, Western Europe, and South India. Padma Kaimal, an associate professor of art and art history and Asian studies at Colgate, has investigated what these goddesses and their former companions might have meant when they were together in 10th-century South India. She then traces them to the hands of private collectors and public museums as the objects became more thoroughly separated from each other with each transaction. In the process of export and purchase, and in the hostile as well as loving receptions these sculptures received within South Asia, Kaimal finds that collecting and scattering were the same activity experienced from different points of view.

Banding Together: How Communities Create Genres in Popular Music
Jennifer Lena ’96
(Princeton University Press)

Why do some music styles gain mass popularity while others thrive in small niches? In Banding Together, Jennifer Lena, visiting assistant professor of sociology at Barnard College, explores this question and explains the growth of 20th-century American popular music. Drawing on examples from 60 musical styles — from rap to South Texas polka, and including several created outside the United States — Lena uncovers the shared grammar that allows us to understand the cultural language and evolution of popular music. Offering an analysis of how music communities operate, she looks at the shared obstacles and opportunities creative people face and reveals the ways in which people collaborate around ideas, artworks, individuals, and organizations that support their work.

An Integrated Boyhood: Coming of Age in White Cleveland
Phillip Richards
(Kent State University Press)

This “memoir of a bookish black youth in mid-20th century Cleveland” tells the story of Colgate English professor Phillip Richards who, when he graduated from Yale in 1972, had fulfilled his parents’ dreams. They had moved from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of better schools, all while providing Richards with what they called “good situations”: classes at the Institute of Music, Boy Scouts, and education at University School. Richards candidly describes how this exemplary middle-class sojourn left him hopelessly confused and provides the background to a more private turmoil: a struggle to read the meanings of his privileged experience amid the city’s shifting racial lines, the fringe on the Left, the tumult of rising black consciousness, and the fears of nervous white suburban neighbors. Like all black Clevelanders, Richards was forced to struggle for his understanding of the city’s — and his own — racial confusion in the midst of frightening historical change.

Overcoming America/America Overcoming: Can We Survive Modernity?
Stephen Rowe ’67
(Lexington Books)

In Overcoming America/America Overcoming, Stephen Rowe contends that the moral disease
and political paralysis that plague America are symptomatic of the country being overtaken by modern values that have been exported to the rest of the world. A professor at Grand Valley State University, Rowe points to a way out of this “current and potentially fatal malaise”: join other societies that are also struggling to move beyond the modern and consciously reappropriate elements of tradition. Rowe discusses how this reappropriation must be undertaken in dialogue with those who also have come to recognize the unsustainable quality of the modern way of life, and who have been able to live beyond the nihilistic wish to tear it down. The book allows for an ongoing dialogue between traditional and modern values — both worthy and problematic in their own ways — “through which reliable policy and healthy living become possible.”

A Book of Miracles: Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude, and Love
Bernie Siegel ’53
(New World Library)

Bernie Siegel compiled this uplifting collection of stories about the cross-section of healing and miracles that he has witnessed in his more than 30 years as a practicing surgeon and pioneer of Exceptional Cancer Patients, a groundbreaking synthesis of group, individual, dream, and art therapy that provided patients with a “carefrontation.” His approach facilitated patients’ awareness of their own physical, spiritual, and psychological healing potential. With a foreword by Deepak Chopra, A Book of Miracles includes stories of how having a baby helped a woman heal from a debilitating condition; a girl whose baby brother helped her overcome anorexia; how cancer taught a woman to stand up for herself; and what a 7-year-old girl taught her family about hope and letting go. Without diminishing the reality of pain and hardship, the stories show real people turning crisis into blessing by responding to adversity in ways that empower and heal.

Also of Note:
In I’m Fed Up With the Tea Party! (Infinity Publishing), Philip Salisbury ’65 “sets forth the substantive issues that make the Tea Party a diversion from the interests of main street America.”


In the media

“Investing in education and work opportunities will yield far greater benefits for American families than restricting women’s reproductive rights or legal access to marriage for same-sex couples.”
        — Janel Benson, assistant professor of sociology, weighs in on regulating sexuality in the New York Times’s “Room for Debate”

“I tend to bedazzle everything. And I wear pink when I’m stressed out.”
        — Maggie Dunne ’13, voted one of Glamour’s “Top 10 College Women 2012” for founding the Lakota Pine Ridge Children’s Enrichment Project
 
“My introduction to the game happened later than most of my peers. My dad played lacrosse at Colgate, so I always knew about the game a little bit. However, I couldn’t actually start playing in Portland until the sixth grade, whereas back east you can start as young as kindergarten.”
        — Peter Baum ’13 (son of Richard Baum ’78) in the New York Times’s “The Quad” sports blog post about the Raiders’ standout season

“Contending that God takes an active interest in the ever-shifting sands of American politics, and that God has a firm set of preferences concerning who should occupy the White House seems, frankly, to border on blasphemy.”
        — Tim Byrnes, political science professor, quoted in the Post-Standard’s (Syracuse) report on a live debate about religion and politics held at the Everson Museum

“Our applicant pool was among the best that we’ve ever had… [It] was the most diverse pool that we’ve ever seen, measured in lots of different ways.”
        — Gary Ross ’77, vice president and dean of admission, speaks to Bloomberg radio