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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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]
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.
Mexico and the Survey of Public Lands: The Management of Modernization, 1876-1911
1994
Robert H. Holden

In shaping modern Mexico, few events have been more crucial than the division of public lands. Drawing on previously untapped sources, Holden offers the first systematic study of prerevolutionary Mexico's public land surveys. He examines the role of private survey companies hired by the governments of Manuel González and Porfirio Díaz, demonstrating that the companies were both the agents and the beneficiaries of the greatest single movement of public property in Mexico's history. In a controversial process involving landholders, judges, lawyers, and politicians, survey companies reaped in compensation one-third of all the land they surveyed. Holden reports that in one decade, from 1883 to 1893, up to fifty private companies received 18.4 million hectares of land, approximately one-tenth the total area of Mexico.

Basing his study on official archival records, Holden details the conflicts between private and public interests, challenging long-held impressions about the surveying companies. He shows how the state used private surveyors to insulate itself from the politically risky consequences of the surveys. Rejecting the view that the companies were the instruments of a land-hungry elite that worked alongside a corrupt government to plunder the peasantry, Holden concludes that the federal government generally respected landholders' claims in disputes with the surveyors. [From Amazon.com]
In the Garden of the Three Islands: Poems
1994
Luisa A. Igloria

The poems in this collection explore the past, present and future of the city of Baguio in the Philippines. As the author writes in her preface, "The older generation ... speak(s) of the rich heritage of folklore and tradition, of the pains of dislocation, and of their uniquely individual memories. All this and the desire to pass on to my children some of these memories (including my own) have occasioned the writing of these poems."
The Lost Cause of Rhetoric: The Relation of Rhetoric and Geometry in Aristotle and Lacan
1994
David Metzger

"As the first postmodern discussion of the relation of rhetoric and time, Metzger’s book examines rhetoric as it is, breaking new ground as a study of Aristotle’s notion of faculty (dunamis), of Lacanian rhetoric, and of the relation of rhetoric and geometry as it does so. It is a book for all theorists (particularly poststructuralist theorists and others eager to know more about Lacan), Lacanians who have ignored Lacan’s relevance to rhetoric, and historians critical of the division, in modern rhetorical studies, between theory and history." [Amazon.com]
A Place That's Known: Essays
1994
Michael Pearson

Following Imagined Places, Pearson continues exploring place and writing as he mentally revisits locations that have influenced him through his life—childhood home, family vacations, the various places he’s taught, etc. [Amazon.com]
In Search of the Corn Queen
1994
Greta Pratt

Greta Pratt returns to the county fairs of her childhood to present a vision of American Midwest communities largely unfamiliar to millions of urban dwellers. In this book she has created a visual anthology of fairgoers and fair participants of all shapes and sizes. For five summers, she traveled the Midwest chronicling the rural life of the region - parades of civic pride, displays of exemplary harvests, and heifers and swine groomed by the Future Farmers of America. The photographer's journey takes us to North Dakota, Minnesota, Tennessee, Kansas, Mississippi, among other states. She stops along the way at peculiar, yet somehow familiar, communities. … [Amazon.com]
Hitler’s Japanese Confidant: General Ōshima Hiroshi and MAGIC Intelligence, 1941-1945
1993
Carl Boyd (Author) and Peter Paret (Contributor)

In 1940 the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service broke the Japanese diplomatic code. In 1975 Oshima Hiroshi, Japan's ambassador to Berlin during World War II, died, never knowing that the hundreds of messages he transmitted to Tokyo had been fully decoded by the Americans and whisked off to Washington, providing a major source of information for the Allies on Nazi activities.

Resurrecting Oshima's decoded communications, which had remained classified for several decades, Carl Boyd provides a unique look at the Nazis from the perspective of a close foreign observer and ally. He uses Oshima's own words to reveal the thought and strategies of Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Nazis, with whom Oshima associated.

In addition to providing illuminating insight into Nazi activities and attitudes--military buildup in North Africa, the unwillingness to accept a separate peace with the Soviets--Boyd illustrates the functions of MAGIC. He demonstrates how that intelligence, gathered by teams of American cryptographers, influenced Allied strategy and helped bring about the downfall of Hitler and his Japanese confidant. [From the publisher]
Shakespeare's Pluralistic Concepts of Character: A Study in Dramatic Anamorphism
1993
Imtiaz Habib

This book studies the changing dualities and polarities of Shakespearean characterization as a way of examining the playwright's basically pluralistic concept of character and of its function in his art. Illustrated. [Amazon.com]
Central and Eastern Europe: The Challenge of Transition
1993
Regina Cowen Karp (Editor)

The challenges and dilemmas posed to stability in the former Soviet Union, and Central and Eastern Europe by the collapse of Communist rule are undisputedly wide-ranging. Recognizing the need to adopt an approach that does justice to a momentous process of change, this book focuses on the security implications of continuing developments in the political, social, economic, and military spheres. The heart of the book is a set of case studies examining in detail the situation in a number of countries: Hungary, Poland, the Czech and Slovak republics, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, the Balkan region, and the former Yugoslavia. As an introduction to the case studies, a section of essays astutely assesses recent developments in Central and Eastern Europe from a broader thematic perspective, focusing on the role of European organizations in the ethnic conflicts currently prevalent throughout the region. [From Amazon.com]
Alligator Dance: Stories
1993
Janet Peery

With the same piercing vision that distinguishes her novel The River Beyond the World, Janet Peery unveils a stunning collection of stories. Settled mostly in the American Southwest, her characters-men and women caught between two places, literal and figurative-try to understand the mysteries that overarch or undergird their lives. [Amazon.com]
Security Without Nuclear Weapons?: Different Perspectives on Non-Nuclear Security
1992
Regina Cowen Karp (Editor)

This book examines the question: Is the elimination of nuclear weapons feasible? Individual chapters address the major conceptual, technical, and economic issues in the design of a non-nuclear security regime. Other chapters explore more specialized issues as they relate to the feasibility of the elimination of nuclear weapons: elite perceptions and the decision-making process, verification, nuclear proliferation, fissile materials and warheads, alliance and regional hegemonies, and deterrence.
Hurdy-Gurdy
1992
Tim Seibles

Poetry. African American Studies. "From the 'sweet scat' and 'jump rope hymns' of wonder and wistfulness to the transformational, lithe, sexually charged energy of jazz, Hurdy-Gurdy earnestly explores the differences between what we want, what we get, and what we must be willing to pursue at any cost. This is an exciting book—at once fluid, shapely, and steady as stone—whose tensions lead us to an authentic meditative wholeness."—Mark Cox [Amazon.com]
Imagined Places: Journeys into Literary America
1991
Michael Pearson

Michael Pearson writes about his travels to places of literary import: Frost's Vermont, Faulkner's Mississippi, Flannery O'Connor's Georgia, Hemingway's Key West, Steinbeck's California, and Twain's Missouri. [Amazon.com]
Rethinking Canada the Promise of Women's History
1991
Veronica Strong-Boag (Editor) and Anita Clair Fellman (Editor)

The Promise of Women's History presents readings on the key developments in Canadian, and more generally, women's history. A detailed introduction to the volume notes that society must know about the past in order to understand the present and to confront the future. Once we learn, for example, that the nation's constitutional arrangements have, since their beginnings, disadvantaged women as citizens; that knowledge can become the basis for demands of redress. Once we discover that women routinely have been paid less than men for comparable labor, the case for negotiating a new deal has begun. In this third edition there are 27 readings, 8 of which have been retained from the previous second edition. There are 19 new selections which focus on a range of issues including race and ethnicity, work, sexual orientation, and disability. The readings are also organized into 4 sections: Pre-Confederation, Post-Confederation, Post-WWI, and Post-WWII. Each selection is introduced by the editors, who place the reading within its historical and historiographical contexts.
Conversations with Nadine Gordimer
1990
Nancy Topping Bazin (Ed.) and Marilyn Dallman Seymour (Ed.)

This volume collects three decades of interviews with Nadine Gordimer. In the interviews, she presents her attitudes toward her art and its interconnection with the oppressive, volatile politics in her native land. She has traveled extensively to other countries only to discover that no matter how white her skin she is indeed African and the only country she can call home is South Africa. "If you write honestly about life in South Africa, apartheid damns itself," she says. She is ruthlessly honest, and her fiction has played the vital role of communicating in detail to the rest of the world the effects of apartheid upon the daily lives of the South African people. To maintain her integrity, she writes as though she "were dead," without any thought of how anyone will react to what she has written. She remains heroically undaunted both by the banning of three of her novels by the white government and by the protests of radical blacks who assert that whites cannot write convincingly about blacks. She is concerned neither with the image of blacks nor with the image of whites, only with revealing the complexity, the full truth. This truth condemns the racism upon which apartheid is built. In her nine novels and eight volumes of short stories, Gordimer digs deeper and deeper until she has "thematic layers." These include "betrayal-political, sexual, every form" and "power, the way human beings use power in their relationships." Her accounts in these interviews of how she works and of which writers she admires will fascinate readers, scholars, teachers, and students alike.
The Feminization of Quest-Romance: Radical Departures
1990
Dana Heller

The Feminization of Quest-Romance proposes that a female quest is a revolutionary step in both literary and cultural terms. Indeed, despite the difficulty that women writers face in challenging myths, rituals, psychological theories, and literary conventions deemed universal by a culture that exalts masculine ideals and universalizes male experience, a number of revolutionary texts have come into existence in the second half of the twentieth century by such American women writers as Jean Stafford, Mary McCarthy, Anne Moody, Marilynne Robinson, and Mona Simpson, all of them working to redefine the literary portrayal of American women's quests. They work, in part, by presenting questing female characters who refuse to accept the roles accorded them by restrictive social norms, even if it means sacrificing themselves in the name of rebellion. In later texts, female heroes survive their "lighting out" experiences to explore diverse alternatives to the limiting roles that have circumscribed female development. [Amazon.com]
Cordillera Tales
1990
Luisa A. Igloria

This is a collection of stories about the different tribes in Cordillera and the myths of the indigenous people of the Mountain Provinces. [From the publisher]