College of Arts & Letters Bookshelf

A gallery of books by faculty from the Batten College of Arts & Letters, Old Dominion University. Faculty books are also listed under specific departments.

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Greta Pratt: Using History
2005
Greta Pratt, Rennard Strickland (Contributor), and Karal Ann Marling (Contributor)

According to critic Howard Zinn (People's History of the United States), "Greta Pratt's extraordinary photographs give us glimpses of people and places that stimulate us to think about our history, not only of the great American West, but of the nation itself. Her point of view is delightfully antic and provocative. We want not only to enjoy the moment of our viewing, but also to study and ponder each photograph, challenged to find its larger meaning." Using History takes us on a tour of Americans celebrating their past. From Civil War battle reenactments to Abraham Lincoln impersonators to colossal buffalos and Indians, Greta Pratt's color photographs examine how historic iconography is used, and her work challenges us to question who Americans are. Taking an approach that is both affectionate toward her subjects yet sardonic about the larger implications of their actions, Pratt cuts to the heart of the ambivalent drives that move Americans. [Amazon.com]
Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American New Republic
2005
Jeffrey H. Richards

Drama, Theatre, and Identity in the American New Republic investigates the way in which theatre both reflects and shapes the question of identity in post-revolutionary American culture. In this 2005 book Richards examines a variety of phenomena connected to the stage, including closet Revolutionary political plays, British drama on American boards, American-authored stage plays, and poetry and fiction by early Republican writers. American theatre is viewed by Richards as a transatlantic hybrid in which British theatrical traditions in writing and acting provide material and templates by which Americans see and express themselves and their relationship to others. Through intensive analyses of plays both inside and outside of the early American 'canon', this book confronts matters of political, ethnic and cultural identity by moving from play text to theatrical context and from historical event to audience demography. [Amazon.com]
Race, Ethnicity, and the Politics of City Redistricting: Minority-Opportunity Districts and the Election of Hispanics and Blacks to City Councils
2004
Joshua G. Behr

Nationwide study of the proposal and adoption of minority-opportunity districts at the local level. Why do cities with similar minority populations vary greatly in the adoption of minority-opportunity districts and, by extension, differ in the number of elected Hispanic and black representatives? Through in-depth research of the districting processes of more than 100 cities, Race, Ethnicity, and the Politics of City Redistricting provides the first nationwide study of minority-opportunity districts at the local level. Joshua G. Behr explores the motives of the players involved, including incumbent legislators, Department of Justice officials, and organized interests, while investigating the roles that segregation, federal oversight, litigation, partisan elections, and resource disparity, among others, play in the election of Hispanics and blacks. Behr's book documents—for both theorists and practitioners—the necessary conditions for enhancing minority-opportunity districts at the local level…. [From Amazon.com]
"Deutschlands Einzige Kolonie ist das Meer!" Die Deutsche Hochseefischerei und die Fischereikonflikte des 20. Jahrhunderts
2004
Ingo Heidbrink

In the 20th century, the seas off Iceland, Greenland and Newfoundland were the main areas of the German deep-sea fishing fleet for many decades. The fishers and fishing vessels were often only a few nautical miles away from the coasts of the North Atlantic Islands, which was increasingly a source of conflict.

On the one hand, the good catches in the North Atlantic created the economic boom of the fishing towns on the German coast. On the other hand, the islands separated from their former European colonial motherland and developed their own interest - not only political but also economic On the sovereignty over the resource fish. The principle of "freedom of the seas" had reached its limits, and fishing conflicts between the European nations and the shores of the fishing areas arose. In the 1970s, they culminated in the so-called "Cod-war" with Iceland.

The present study analyzes the German role in these conflicts for the first time on a scientific basis and shows the consequences of the conflicts for the German coastal regions. At the same time, she explained that the drastic reduction of the German deep-sea fishing fleet had not been an unpredictable development since the 1980s, but that its rapid growth almost a century earlier was based exclusively on the colonial status of the shore areas. [From www.dsm.museum]
Buffalo Head Solos: Poems
2004
Tim Seibles

"Reading Tim Seibles reminds me of the Buddhist parable of the burning house: everyone ignores the flames, pretends there is no smoke, no pain, no prospect of death. Or, if there is, it will only happen to someone else, someone in another world. According to these teachings, aversion and attachment are not the greatest barriers to fulfillment; it is indifference that endangers a soul. Not to embrace or confront what is undeniably there but to detach ourselves and retreat. It is precisely this indifference that these poems challenge with lyric insistence - begging, assailing, teasing, affirming. In this mystical, romantic and political collection, Seibles is willing to take a chance, any chance to engage the general malaise of our times. He is a musician of the spirit and of the body, and it is that quality which carries us forward breath by breath, line by line. The journey is oddly enchanting, even transformative"--Nin Andrews. [Amazon.com]
Crude Awakenings: Global Oil Security and American Foreign Policy
2004
Steve A. Yetiv

The real story of global oil over the past twenty-five years is not about the spillover effects of Palestinians fighting Israelis, or terrorist attacks on U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, or Iraq's stormy relationship with Kuwait. It is not even about periodic small- and large-scale U.S. attacks on Iraq. Rather, the real story is about longer-term developments that have changed the international relations of the Middle East, politics at the global level, and world oil markets. These developments have increased oil stability. [From the Introduction]
Deepening Democracy: Global Governance and Political Reform in Latin America
2003
Francis Adams

Adams surveys the impact of transnational organizations and NGOs on Latin American politics since 1990. The transition from military to civilian rule in Latin American countries has benefited local progressive forces, but resilient remnants favoring the past's authoritarian politics have compelled organizations like the UN, IMF, OAS, and World Bank to engage in various campaigns to deepen democratic institutions and norms. Adams argues that to understand current political transformations in the region, one must consider the existing role of external organizations. Latin America is offered as a prime example of the increased influence transnational authorities have over political decisions that had long been the exclusive prerogative of national governments… [From Amazon.com]
Theoretical Explorations and Empirical Investigations of Communication and Prayer
2003
E. James Baesler

Nearly every definition of prayer refers to some type of communication phenomenon, yet most scholars, especially those in the field of communication, have not pursued the study of prayer as communication. This work brings the relational characteristics of communication into contact with the spiritual life of prayer. It employs quantitative and qualitative methodologies to legitimize the study of prayer as a communication phenomenon, create a theoretical model of prayer, provide three empirical tests of the model and apply the model to several different contexts, including health, eastern religions and teaching. The future of communication and prayer research is also considered in terms of theory building, improvements in methodology, and practical applications. This study should be of interest to scholars in the fields of communication, religious studies, psychology and medicine. [Amazon.com]
Wedding Song: Memoirs of an Iranian Jewish Woman
2003
Farideh Goldin

Farideh Goldin was born to her fifteen-year-old mother in 1953 and into a Jewish community living in an increasingly hostile Islamic state—prerevolutionary Iran. This memoir is Goldin’s passionate and painful account of her childhood in a poor Jewish household and her emigration to the United States in 1975. As she recalls trips to the market and the mikvah, and as she evokes ritual celebrations like weddings, Goldin chronicles her childhood, her extended family, and the lives of the women in her community in Shiraz, a southern Iranian city. Her memoir details her parents’ "courtship" (her father selected her mother from a group of adolescent girls), her mother’s lonely life as a child-bride, and Goldin’s childhood home which was presided over by her paternal grandmother. Goldin’s memoir conveys not just the personal trauma of growing up in a family fraught with discord but also the tragic human costs of religious dogmatism. ... [Amazon.com]
Not home, but Here: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora
2003
Luisa A. Igloria (Editor)

An exceptional collection of essays-- these are meditations that explore the enigma and the complexity of the Filipino diaspora as well as the hopes and triumphs of writing, living, and being in between cultures. This collection edited with a powerful introduction by Luisa Igloria, inspries the reader as well as those interested in diasporic studies to comprehend the sorrows as well as joys of living in the spaces between worlds." -- Marjorie Agosin -- Chilean American author "A lovely and powerful book -- a meditation on what it means to be other. It's about journeys; its's about memory. It's about recovery and discovery. Ultimately healing and transformative, this is a book to savor." -- Marianne VIlanueva, [Amazon.com]
Born on a Train: 13 Stories
2003
John McManus

Two years ago--at twenty-two--John McManus captivated writers and critics with his first story collection and became the youngest recipient of the Whiting Writers Award. Now McManus returns with a collection of stories equally piercing and visionary: stories about the young and old, compromised by circumstance and curiosity, and undergoing startling transformations. In "Eastbound," a car driven by two elderly sisters breaks down on an elevated highway: Beneath them lies the lost country of the South, overrun with concrete and shopping centers but still possessing the spectres and secrets of the past. In "Brood," a plucky young heroine moves with her mother into the home of the mother's online boyfriend: She will use the Audubon Guide to Birds, and her own wits to survive the advances of the boyfriend's teenaged son. In "Cowry," two backpackers in New Zealand race to witness the first sunrise of the twenty-first century. [Amazon.com]
At the Crossroads: Indians and Empires on a Mid-Atlantic Frontier, 1700-1763
2003
Jane T. Merritt

Examining interactions between Native Americans and whites in eighteenth-century Pennsylvania, Jane Merritt traces the emergence of race as the defining difference between these neighbors on the frontier. Before 1755, Indian and white communities in Pennsylvania shared a certain amount of interdependence. They traded skills and resources and found a common enemy in the colonial authorities, including the powerful Six Nations, who attempted to control them and the land they inhabited. Using innovative research in German Moravian records, among other sources, Merritt explores the cultural practices, social needs, gender dynamics, economic exigencies, and political forces that brought Naive Americans and Euromericans together in the first half of the eighteenth century.

But as Merritt demonstrates, the tolerance and even cooperation that once marked relations between Indians and whites collapsed during the Seven Years' War. By the 1760s, as the white population increased, a stronger, nationalist identity emerged among both white and Indian populations, each calling for new territorial and political boundaries to separate their communities. Differences between Indians and whites--whether political, economic, social, religious, or ethnic--became increasingly characterized in racial terms, and the resulting animosity left an enduring legacy in Pennsylvania's colonial history. [From Amazon.com]
Crime in the Home Health Care Field: Workplace Violence, Fraud and Abuse
2003
Brian K. Payne

Over the past couple of decades, individuals have come to rely more on home health care visits for their health care needs. While there have been decreases in hospital stays and in the percentage of older persons living in nursing homes the consequence has been the emergence of a new type of occupational crime: home health care abuse. In considering offending in the home health care industry, it is important to focus on crimes by and against home health care professionals. This book is one of the first to fully address abuses occurring in the home health care industry. Its intent is not to suggest that home health care is a dangerous field for workers and consumers; rather, the intent is to shed some light on the types of misconduct found in home health care. Each chapter will include a wealth of examples to illustrate that these incidents actually are real, devastating, and significant. At the end of each chapter the reader will find a series of discussion questions designed to encourage the reader to reflect back on the content of the chapter through the eyes of those involved in the response to home health care fraud… [From Amazon.com]
Shohola Falls: A Novel
2003
Michael Pearson

A coming-of-age novel with a twist - along with two interracial love stories, a depiction of the explosive 1960s in America and a cross-country search for Mark Twain. [Amazon.com]
Outside Shooter: A Memoir
2003
Philip Raisor

Philip Raisor was on the losing side in two of the most storied basketball games ever played. He started at guard for the Muncie Central Bearcats, who fell in the 1954 Indiana state final to tiny Milan, the David-over-Goliath event that inspired the movie Hoosiers. On a basketball scholarship to the University of Kansas, he watched his Wilt Chamberlain–led Jayhawks lose the 1957 NCAA championship in triple overtime to North Carolina. In Outside Shooter, Raisor recounts the hard knocks and hard-won triumphs of a basketball odyssey across 1950s America, from Indiana to Kansas to Louisiana, and from adolescence to adulthood... [from Amazon.com]
A Meditation on Social Problems
2003
Ron Roberts, Wynne Wrights, and Kent Sandstrom

Sociological reflections on contemporary social problems.
The Sunday of Fiction: The Modern French Eccentric
2003
Peter Schulman

In a world of increasing conformity, the modern eccentric can be seen as a contemporary hero and guardian of individualism. This study defines the modern eccentric in twentieth-century French literature and compares the notions of the eccentric in nineteenth and twentieth-century French literature by tracing the eccentric's relationship to time, space, and society. While previous studies have focused on the notion of eccentricity in purely formal terms, The Sunday of Fiction delineates the eccentric as a fully fictional character. This work also completes prior criticism by exploring twentieth-century fictional eccentrics in works by authors such as Raymond Queneau, Jean-Echenoz, Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and Georges Perec, and by filmmakers such as Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix. Notions of eccentricity since the nineteenth century shift from rather foppish, outlandish representations of aristocratic eccentrics towards a more popular, discreet figure who is uniquely in tune with vanishing spaces of daily life: amusement parks, cafes, grand movie palaces. While the modern world around them is obsessed with speed, technology, and innovation, modern French eccentrics view daily life as a sort of holiday to be savored. In this way, The Sunday of Fiction details the various means modern eccentrics employ to successfully transform the humdrum into the marvelous, or rather Mondays into Sundays. [From Amazon.com]
The Marketing of Eros: Performance, Sexuality, Consumer Culture
2003
Peter Schulman and Frederick Alfred Lubich (Editors)

Impact of the Sexual Revolution of the 20th Century on literature, philosophy, film, fashion, journalism, ethics, gender ideologies, advertising, commodity culture, and popular entertainment. Rilke, Nietzsche, fashion and fin de siècle morphine narratives, showgirls and the New Woman, Weimar cabaret, Weimar women and advertising, renegotiating gender in the "Roaring Twenties", the representation of working women in German journals from the turn of the century to the Third Reich, film criticism of H.D. and Adrienne Rich, European and Hollywood cinema. [From Amazon.com]
Walter Mosley: A Critical Companion
2003
Charles E. Wilson

Readers of this Critical Companion will discover the richness of Mosley's writings, as well as his contributions to the African-American literary tradition, the genres of detective writing and science fiction, and American literature in general. Mosley's influences, inspirations, obstacles, and successes are presented in a richly drawn biographical chapter, which incorporates the author's most recent interviews. [Amazon.com]
Ken Burns's America
2002
Gary R. Edgerton

This is the first book-length study to critically examine the work of Ken Burns, the innovative producer-director as a television auteur, a pivotal programming influence within the industry, and a popular historian who portrays a uniquely personal and compelling version of the country's past for tens of millions of viewers nationwide. Ken Burns's America has a three-fold agenda: First it looks at the ideas and individuals that have influenced Burns in the creation of his easily-recognized style, as well as in the development and maturation of his ideological outlook. Second, the book gives readers a window on the Ken Burns production machine. Gary Edgerton shows us the inner working of Florentine Films. Finally, he looks at Burns as a popular historian who reevaluates the nation's historical legacy from a new generational perspective and, in the process, becomes one of the major cultural commentators of our era. The volume finally takes the full measure of the man and the industry he has helped to create. [Amazon.com]
Orientalism and Empire: North Caucausus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1845-1917
2002
Austin Jersild

This text aims to sheds light on the little-studied Russian empire in the Caucasus by exploring the tension between national and imperial identities on the Russian frontier. Austin Jersild contributes to the growing literature on Russian orientalism and the Russian encounter with Islam, and reminds us of the imperial background and its contribution to the formation of the 20th-century ethno-territorial Soviet state. [Amazon.com]
Wendewelten: Paradigmenwechsel in der Deutschen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte nach 1945
2002
Frederick Alfred Lubich

Through essays, interviews, and a poem, Lubich examines the changes in German literature and culture after 1945.
Altered Habits: Reconsidering the Nun in Fiction
2002
Manuela Mourão

In a comprehensive analysis of the nun in literature, Manuela Mourão challenges the notion that nuns are "women who lead unnatural lives, most probably because they were disappointed in love or because they failed to adjust to 'reality'. Unique in the breadth of its historical and literary scope--the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries and the national literatures of France and England, with references to those of Portugal, Italy, and the U.S. Altered Habits examines the representation of nuns and convents in a range of primary sources, both canonical and more culturally marginal.... [Amazon.com]
Incarcerating White-Collar Offenders: The Prison Experience and Beyond
2002
Brian K. Payne

This book provides corrections professionals and criminal justice students with a framework for understanding the white-collar offender as well as to help guide and assist those responsible for overseeing the incarceration of white-collar offenders.
Point of View and Grammar: Structural Patterns of Subjectivity in American English Conversation
2002
Joanne Scheibman

This book proposes that subjective expression shapes grammatical and lexical patterning in American English conversation. Analyses of structural and functional properties of English conversational utterances indicate that the most frequent combinations of subject, tense, and verb type are those that are used by speakers to personalize their contributions, not to present unmediated descriptions of the world. These findings are informed by current research and practices in linguistics which argue that the emergence, or conventionalization, of linguistic structure is related to the frequency with which speakers use expressions in discourse. The use of conversational data in grammatical analysis illustrates the local and contingent nature of grammar in use and also raises theoretical questions concerning the coherence of linguistic categories, the viability of maintaining a distinction between semantic and pragmatic meaning in analytical practice, and the structural and social interplay of speaker point of view and participant interaction in discourse. [Amazon.com]