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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Child Social Well-Being in the U.S.: Unequal Opportunities and the Role of the State
1999
Ingrid Phillips Whitaker

The book examines how environmental characteristics (location characteristics) are associated with and determine the social well-being outcomes children experience.
Medievalism and the Academy, I
1999
Leslie J. Workman (Editor), Kathleen Verduin (Editor), and David D. Metzger (Editor)

Edited book. Medievalism, the "continuing process of creating the middle ages", engenders formal medieval studies from a wide variety of popular interests in the middle ages. This volume accordingly explores the common ground between artistic and popular constructions of the middle ages and the study of the middle ages within the academy. Essays treat the genesis of medieval studies in early modern antiquarianism; the erection of academic medievalism through persistent, indeed perverse, appeals to heroic medieval manliness and attenuated female spirituality; the current jeopardy of the book (a medieval invention) in the face of technological assault; the politics of the nineteenth-century academy (F.W. Furnival and others); the editorial practice of Sidney Lanier; and the cultural canonization of Chaucer. [Amazon.com]
Community College Education and Its Impact on Socioeconomic Status Attainment
1998
Elizabeth Monk-Turner

This work examines the role of the community college in the United States and how community college education shapes adult income and occupational status.
Tuned and Under Tension: The Recent Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass
1998
Philip Raisor (Editor)

The essays in this book constitute a close reading of the later poetry of W. D. Snodgrass. Each writer has taken a work or theme that has led to the complexities of Snodgrass's dense layerings of content and technique. These essays also begin to define his relationship to the modern tradition. [Amazon.com]
The History of Freemasonry in Virginia
1998
Richard A. Rutyna and Peter C. Stewart

This book, a product of collaboration and cooperation between two non-Masonic historians and the Grand Lodge of Virginia, is an objective, comprehensive study of the history of Freemasonry in the state of Virginia. The authors relate a fascinating chronicle of Freemasonry, from its British origins two hundred years ago to today. Along the way, they describe the colorful figures who populate this history and debunk many myths about Freemasonry. [From Amazon.com]
Sidewalk Critic: Lewis Mumford's Writings on New York
1998
Robert Wojitowicz (Editor)

Best known for his "Sky Line" column in the New Yorker, where he served as architecture critic for over 30 years, Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) is still revered as one of America's leading cultural critics and an international authority on architecture and urbanism. His provocative and polemical pieces were as well known for the emotion of his writing as for the wit and clarity of his style. A man of letters and part of Manhattan's intellectual elite, Mumford wrote more than 20 books over 6 decades, bridging the seemingly disparate disciplines of architecture, technology, literary criticism, biography, sociology, and philosophy, which he synthesized into a highly original body of work. Sidewalk Critic collects over 50 of Mumford's writings that were originally published in the New Yorker between 1931 and 1940. These seminal essays focus almost exclusively on the New York metropolitan area, providing an unusual glimpse into one of the formative decades in the city's history. They cover all aspects of New York's architecture, including museums, theaters, bridges, tenements, parks, and recreational areas, and they range from a short musing on a midtown luncheonette to an extended series on Rockefeller Center. [From Amazon.com]
Cross-Purposes: Lesbians, Feminists, and the Limits of Alliance
1997
Dana Heller (Editor)

A collection of fifteen interdisciplinary essays examining the history, current condition, and evolving shape of lesbian alliances with U.S. feminists. Contributors explore the social and aesthetic significance of the terms "lesbian" and "feminist" with the interest of reforming and strengthening them. [Amazon.com]
Blood Sacrifice
1997
Luisa A. Igloria

“Written in an English of singular resonance, of lyric richness informed by history, by legend, by political awareness, and everywhere by a deep perception, the poems of this and her other books bring her background of Philippine culture, its past and present, into the larger world of late twentieth-century concerns. This is a poetry outside of schools, of fads and fashion, highly accomplished and deserving of wide, enthusiastic readership.”— Ralph J. Mills Jr., American poet and recipient of the Carl Sandburg Award for Poetry
John McPhee
1997
Michael Pearson

In this first full-length study of McPhee, Michael Pearson argues that the writer successfully employs the techniques of fiction writing in his journalistic art while honoring his obligation to fact. In exceptionally lucid and entertaining prose, Pearson approaches his subject thematically, examining McPhee's lifework in the realms of personal profiles, sense of place, science and technology, and nature. In a comprehensive biographical chapter, Pearson traces the chief influences shaping McPhee's works, including his virtually lifelong residence in Princeton, New Jersey, his 30-plus years as a staff writer for the New Yorker, and his experiences as camper and later counselor at Keewaydin, a boys' camp in Vermont. Separate chapters examine the development of literary nonfiction as a genre and the techniques that distinguish McPhee's writing from other journalists'. Informing the discussions throughout are quotations from personal interviews Pearson conducted with the writer; of special interest is "The Shape of the Future, " a concluding chapter in which Pearson synthesizes the comments of other literary journalists interviewed for their insights into McPhee's works. [Amazon.com]
A Gracious Plenty
1997
Sheri Reynolds

After sustaining terrible burns from a household accident as a young girl, Finch Nobles refuses the pity of her hometown. The brave and feisty loner finds comfort in visiting her father’s cemetery, where she soon discovers that she can hear the voices of those buried underground. When she begins to speak to them, their answers echo around her in a remarkable chorus of regrets, explanations, and insights. A wonderfully wrought amalgam of Steinbeck, Faulkner, Spoon River Anthology, and Our Town, A Gracious Plenty is a masterful tale not soon forgotten. [Amazon.com]
Bitterroot Landing
1997
Sheri Reynolds

Bitterroot Landing introduces Jael, born into a hard life, but a survivor. She will survive even River Bill. The almost impersonal kindness of strangers will rescue her; a priest with a good heart will shelter and teach her; a careful man will take his time and love her back into the world. Voices have always spoken to Jael in her mind, and some of what they have told her to do has been frightening. But the voices she hears now speak of comfort and courage, teaching her to master the ways other people manage to live. Jael has a job now, cleaning in a church, and a room of her own in the church's basement. As she dusts the statue of the Virgin Mary, the Virgin speaks peace to her. "There's definitely too much hurt around here, " she says. "In flaws, you find the truth, " says the small, dark figure of a woman Jael sculpts out of wax. "Come and look at the moon, " says the homeless woman she meets at the laundromat. "Hello, I'm an incest survivor, " say the women in the recovery group that meets every week the church, just the other side of Jael's room. Voices both real and imagined make Jael stronger every day, until she finds she no longer needs them. Until she finds that at last she has a voice of her own. [Amazon.com]
Early American Drama
1997
Jefferey H. Richards (Editor)

This unique volume includes eight early dramas that mirror American literary, social, and cultural history: Royall Tylers The Contrast (1789); William Dunlap's Andre (1798); James Nelson Barker's The Indian Princess (1808); Robert Montgomery Bird's The Gladiator (1831); William Henry Smith's The Drunkard (1844); Anna Cora Mowatt's Fashion (1845); George Aiken's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852); and Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon (1859). For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. {Amazon.com]
The Persian Gulf Crisis
1997
Steve A. Yetiv

Ideal for student research, this book provides a reference guide to the war as well as seven essays analyzing a variety of aspects of the war and its consequences. The essays address questions such as: How did Saddam Hussein become such a major threat and how has he survived the war? How critical was George Bush in driving U.S. and global foreign policy during the crisis? How were key decisions made? Did the war fail or succeed in retrospect? What were its long-run political, economic, strategic and cultural effects? Can collective security work? Is the United Nations likely to be effective in future crises? What lessons can be learned from the crisis? Yetiv draws on primary documents and extensive interviews with many key players such as Colin Powell, James Baker, and Brent Scowcroft, and Arab and European leaders which cast new light on the event… [From Amazon.com]
Rethinking Language and Gender Research: Theory and Practice
1996
Victoria L. Bergvall, Janet Mueller Bing, and Alice F. Freed

Rethinking Language and Gender Research is the first book focusing on language and gender to explicitly challenge the dichotomy of female and male use of language. It represents a turning point in language and gender studies, addressing the political and social consequences of popular beliefs about women's language and men's language and proposing new ways of looking at language and gender. The essays take a fresh approach to the study of subjects such as language and sex and the use of language to produce and maintain power and prestige. Topics explored in this text include sex and the brain; the language of a rape hearing; teenage language; radio talk show exchanges; discourse strategies of African American women; political implications for language and gender studies; the relationship between sex and gender and the construction of identity through language. [Amazon.com]
Ballistic Missile Proliferation: The Politics and Technics
1996
Aaron Karp

This book addresses the current concern that ballistic missile technologies are spreading throughout the world. It examines the missile and missile-armament programs and technologies, and the ability of countries to acquire such technologies. The concluding chapter investigates international efforts to control ballistic missile proliferation.
The River Beyond the World
1996
Janet Peery

Luisa Cantu is a girl from a Sierra Madre mountain village. After being impregnated in a fertility ritual of ancient origin, she leaves Mexico to work in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas as a housemaid for Mrs. Eddie Hatch, a woman with a strong will and a narrow worldview. Their complex relationship-turns mystical and pragmatic, serious and comic-reveals the many ways human beings can wound one another, the nature of love and sacrifice, and the possibility of forgiveness. [Amazon.com]
Lewis Mumford and American Modernism: Eutopian Theories for Architecture and Urban Planning
1996
Robert Wojitowicz

Lewis Mumford and American Modernism examines the career and writings of America's leading critic of architecture and urbanism. The author of numerous books on the history of architecture, Mumford focused on the roles that technology and urbanism have played in modern civilization. Indeed, his writings have proved to be prescient, forming the basis for architecture and urban planning at a time of transition and redefinition at the end of the twentieth century. [From Amazon.com]
American Command of the Sea Through Carriers, Codes, and the Silent Service
1995
Carl Boyd

American Command of the Sea examines the development of Allied code breaking expertise, the role of signal intelligence in the global war at sea in the 1940s, and the ways in which the modern American navy has been shaped by the experience of World War II. This books draws on recently declassified documents to show that many Allied naval victories hinged on the work of a small, multinational group of Allied code breakers.

World War II forever changed the nature of naval warfare. Aircraft carriers and submarines, in particular, were used to devastating effect against Axis forces in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, ultimately tilting the conflict in favor of the Allies. As American Command of the Sea explains, the effectiveness of these two types of warships was greatly enhanced by communications or signal intelligence.
Family Plots: The De-Oedipalization of Popular Culture
1995
Dana Heller

Family Plots traces the fault lines of the Freudian family romance and holds that the "family plot" is very much alive in post-World War II American culture. It cuts across all genres, insinuating, criticizing, reinforcing, and reinventing itself in all forms of cultural production and consumption. The family romance is everywhere because the family itself is nowhere. [Amazon.com]
Theodore H. White and Journalism as Illusion
1995
Joyce Hoffmann

In this groundbreaking study, Joyce Hoffmann examines a critical twenty-five-year period in the work of one of the most influential journalists of the twentieth century. Theodore H. White was already a celebrated reporter when Jacqueline Kennedy summoned him for an exclusive interview in the aftermath of her husband's assassination. With her help, White would preserve what the First Lady claimed had been John F. Kennedy's vision of the New Frontier as an incarnation of that wistful, romantic kingdom--Camelot. Over the years, friends and advisers to Kennedy declared that they had never heard the president speak of Camelot. But White's article, which ran in Life magazine, created a myth that still endures in the popular consciousness. .... [Amazon.com]
The Rapture of Canaan
1995
Sheri Reynolds

At the Church of Fire and Brimstone and Gods Almighty Baptizing Wind, Grandpa Herman makes the rules for everyone, and everyone obeys, or else. Try as she might, Ninah hasn't succeeded in resisting temptation her prayer partner, James and finds herself pregnant. She fears the wrath of Grandpa Herman, the congregation and of God Himself. But the events that follow show Ninah that Gods ways are more mysterious than even Grandpa Herman understands. [Amazon.com]
Mercy Otis Warren
1995
Jeffrey H. Richards

Mercy Otis Warren was a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims, a witness to the American Revolution, a participant in the debates that gave shape to the new nation. She was a patriot and a passionate believer in democracy. She was the mother of five sons, an equal partner in a marriage of 54 years, a loyal and demanding friend. But given the perspective of time, writes Jeffrey Richards in this exhaustive study of her life and complete work, she was above all a writer, one of the most important of her generation. Both political activist and historian, Warren sought through her writing to influence the course of events in her own time and to record them for posterity. Among the first playwrights - and perhaps the first woman playwright - in America, Warren used her plays as a public forum for unabashed promotion of the Revolutionary cause. In such dramas as The Adulateur, The Defeat, and The Group, she skewered Loyalists to the British crown and elevated the self-sacrificing patriot. Not only in her essays and her formidable History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution but even in personal letters did Warren express herself as a historian. Her consistently serious and responsible tone suggests the image of Warren as "Republican Mother", caretaker of the new republic, writing not just to husband or friend or son but to future generations of Americans. Basing his analysis on extensive archival research, Richards corrects many errors of fact in previous Warren scholarship, particularly in her biography and in the attribution of several plays to her authorship. These new findings make this volume valuable to the experienced scholar, while the broad coverage of Warren's work and the provision of literary and historical context make it accessible to students. [From the back cover]
Kerosene
1995
Tim Seibles

The first poetry chapbook written by Virginia's former Poet Laureate (2016-2018), Tim Seibles.
Parents, Children and Communication: Frontiers of Theory and Research
1995
Thomas J. Socha (Editor) and Glen H. Stamp (Editor)

This is the first edited volume in the communication field to examine parent-child interaction. It creates a framework for future research in this growing area -- family communication, and more specifically, parent-child communication -- and also suggests new areas of communication research among parents and children -- cultural, work-related, taboo topics, family sex discussions, conflict, and abuse. Chapter authors provide thorough coverage of theoretical approaches, new methods, and emerging contexts including lesbian/gay parent-child relationships. In so doing, they bring a communication perspective to enduring problems of discipline, adolescent conflict, and physical child abuse. The text highlights various methodological approaches -- both quantitative and qualitative -- including conversation analysis, grounded theory, participant-observation, and phenomenological interviewing of children. It also introduces and surveys various theoretical approaches -- general systems, developmental, cultural, and intergenerational transmission. [Amazon.com]
America and the Persian Gulf: The Third Party Dimension in World Politics
1995
Steve A. Yetiv

This study examines how the Iranian revolution, the war in Afghanistan, the Iran-Iraq war and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait affected American security in the Persian Gulf. It shows how regional conflicts in the Middle East made the US better able to protect its own security interests in the area.