College of Arts & Letters Bookshelf

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

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The Saints of Streets
2013
Luisa A. Igloria

In Luisa A. Igloria's newest poetry book The Saints of Streets, hungry ghosts, mullahs, would-be assassins, carnival queens, Hell Girl, Dante riding Geryon's back, and a host of other figures guide us through the dioramas and exhibits of personal and collective memory: they'll be our chauffeurs, psychopomps, tourist guides, our sweet and difficult familiars. These poems are love letters, phone calls disrupting our day to remind us of the strange and beautiful mysteries of living in the postcolonial moment. [Amazon.com]
Positive Communication in Health and Wellness
2013
Margaret J. Pitts (Editor) and Thomas J. Socha (Editor)

Inspired by recent work in positive psychology, Positive Communication in Health and Wellness gives scholarly attention to what’s going right in people’s communication lives. The book harnesses a dispersed - but powerful - body of communication scholarship that has at its center a focus on building healthy communication contexts and generating wellness. By organizing and representing contemporary communication scholarship in the area of positive communication in health and wellness, the essays in this book will inspire collective action and further scholarship that highlights the potential for flourishing health, enhanced well-being, and greater human fulfillment through positive communication. This book will be useful in health communication courses as well as those in relational and organizational communication. [From the publisher]
Hoosiers: The Poems
2013
Philip Raisor

Winner of the 2013 Palooka Press Chapbook Contest, Philip Raisor's book is fire in your hands. The war of sport. The having of dreams and the loss of them, dropped from the same hands that palm basketballs, carry rifles, attempt to erase the squiggly race lines of the '50s and '60s. He played with Wilt Chamberlain and against Oscar Robertson, but the real story here is in the flame of words, the way they burn in your stomach, in your mind, in your heart for so long after reading them. [from Palookamag.com]
Swimming in the Shallow End: Poems
2013
Philip Raisor

Swimming in the Shallow End is narrative poetry at its best, a verse memoir that examines the archetypal American conflict between the desire to stay and the passion to go. Take any community; every street, in and out, is crowded with the dreams and frustrations of characters who seek their identities on the road or in their favorite diners. In an exchange of stories between the narrator who returns like the prodigal son and his wayfaring friend, the worlds of the Bronx and Paris and Hanoi are not far from Muncie, Indiana. Like William Carlos Williams' Rutherford, New Jersey, and B.H. Fairchild's Liberal, Kansas, Philip Raisor's Middletown is a neighborhood pool that never seems long or deep enough, but grows in memory and the imagination... [Amazon.com]
The Realities of International Criminal Justice
2013
Dawn L. Rothe (Editor), James Meernik (Editor), and Thordis Ingadottir (Editor)

In The Realities of the International Criminal Justice System, Rothe, Meernik, and Ingadottir bring together expert scholars from the disciplines of law, criminology, sociology and political science to critically analyze the current state of and impact of the international criminal justice system. Through a systematic evaluation of the existing courts and their effects in the real world on states, victims, and offenders, and their impact on the development of the law related to their jurisdictions, both on the international and national level, the authors hope that lessons can be drawn for a more promising future delivery of criminal justice by international and domestic judicial bodies. [From Amazon.com]
Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology and Sociology
2013
Kent L. Sandstrom, Kathryn J. Lively, Daniel D. Martin, and Gary Alan Fine

The fourth edition of Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality provides students with a succinct, engaging, and affordable introduction to symbolic interactionism--the perspective that social reality is created, negotiated, and changed through the process of social interaction. Focusing on how elements of race and gender affect identity, the authors use real-world examples to discuss the personal significance of symbolic interactionism, its expanding theoretical scope, and its relationship to other prominent perspectives in sociology and social psychology. They skillfully
cover empirical research topics that are inherently interesting to students, such as the dynamics of self-development, impression management, identity transformation, gender play, rumor transmission, and collective action. [Amazon.com]
Body Moves: Poems
2013
Tim Seibles

Seibles may write of everyday events sleeping, teaching a class, talking on the phone in direct, simple language, but he invests each event with lyric significance: "you slept/ with your mouth open/ and the moon/ slipped inside"; "fluorescent light falls/ like a fine snow/ in the classroom"; "The phone rings. A low voice/ bleeds through the wire." Throughout, we sense despair and a concerted effort, barely accomplished, to resist it: the poet mourns "faces bruised/ with unspent desire," says of breakfasting alone in a MacDonald's, "There's nothing but eating to do." Other poems deal more directly with social concerns: "In Philadelphia/ I went back to the school/ we integrated." The cumulative result is an accessible yet thoughtful work that may well draw in readers new to poetry. [From Library Journal]
The Nevergiveups: The Extraordinary Life Stories of Six South African Grandmothers
2013
Jo-Anne Smetherham, Eric Miller, and Jennifer N. Fish

The Nevergiveups tells the extraordinary life stories of six grandmothers now living in Cape Town, South Africa. These women have experienced hardship and sorrow, yet their stories are cameos of ingenuity and resilience – a testimony to the indomitable human spirit. The biographies describe how a group of ordinary women have experienced the dramatic transitions of the past six decades, between rural and urban lifestyles, African and Western cultures, the apartheid and post-apartheid eras, and from a time in which the elderly expect to be cared for, to one in which they are thrust into a care giving role once again as providers for their Aids-orphaned grandchildren and unemployed adult members. The poignant biographies are accompanied by the portraits and handwritten memories of 17 of their fellow grandmothers from Grandmothers Against Poverty and Aids, a grassroots organization formed by grandmothers in the Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. The book is a tribute to these grandmothers and others like them, across South Africa: a generation of unsung heroes. [From Amazon.com]
US Politics and Climate Change: Science Confronts Policy
2013
Glen Sussman and Byron W. Daynes

Why is climate change the subject of such vehement political rhetoric in the United States? What explains the policy deadlock that has existed for nearly two decades―and that has resulted in the failure of US leadership in the international arena? Addressing these questions, Glen Sussman and Byron Daynes trace the evolution of US climate change policy, assess how key players―the scientific community, Congress, the president, the judiciary, interest groups, the states, and the public―have responded to climate change, and explore the prospects for effective policymaking in the future. [From Amazon.com]
The Game Culture Reader
2013
Jason C. Thompson (Editor) and Marc A. Ouellette (Editor)

In The Game Culture Reader, editors Jason C. Thompson and Marc A. Ouellette propose that Game Studies—that peculiar multi-, inter-, and trans-disciplinary field wherein international researchers from such diverse areas as rhetoric, computer science, literary studies, culture studies, psychology, media studies and so on come together to study the production, distribution, and consumption of games—has reached an unproductive stasis. Its scholarship remains either divided (as in the narratologists versus ludologists debate) or indecisive (as in its frequently apolitical stances on play and fandom). Thompson and Ouellette firmly hold that scholarship should be distinguished from the repetitively reductive commonplaces of violence, sexism, and addiction. In other words, beyond the headline-friendly modern topoi that now dominate the discourse of Game Studies, what issues, approaches, and insights are being, if not erased, then displaced? [From the publisher]
The Blood of Heaven
2013
Kent Wascom

The Blood of Heaven is the story of Angel Woolsack, a preacher’s son, who flees the hardscrabble life of his itinerant father, falls in with a charismatic highwayman, then settles with his adopted brothers on the rough frontier of West Florida, where American settlers are carving their place out of lands held by the Spaniards and the French. The novel moves from the bordellos of Natchez, where Angel meets his love Red Kate to the Mississippi River plantations, where the brutal system of slave labor is creating fantastic wealth along with terrible suffering, and finally to the back rooms of New Orleans among schemers, dreamers, and would-be revolutionaries plotting to break away from the young United States and create a new country under the leadership of the renegade founding father Aaron Burr.

The Blood of Heaven is a remarkable portrait of a young man seizing his place in a violent new world, a moving love story, and a vivid tale of ambition and political machinations that brilliantly captures the energy and wildness of a young America where anything was possible. It is a startling debut. [Amazon.com]
The Philosopher's Book of Questions and Answers
2013
Dylan E. Wittkower

Do you ever wonder how important money really is in life or what you need to do to achieve happiness? With The Philosopher's Book of Questions and Answers, you will be one step closer to solving these uncertainties. Inside, you'll find the basics of philosophy, written in plain English, and thoughts for applying these important theories to your own life. You'll also be encouraged to dig deep into the philosophical reasoning behind your everyday actions.

From Socrates and Epicurean to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, The Philosopher's Book of Questions and Answers will not only help you grasp history's greatest thoughts, but will also unveil the world in a whole new light.
Ender's Game and Philosophy: Genocide Is Child's Play
2013
Dylan E. Wittkower (Editor) and Lucinda Rush (Editor)

Ender's Game and Philosophy brings together over thirty philosophers to engage in wide-ranging discussion on the troubling, exciting, and fascinating issues raised in and amidst the excitement and fear of Orson Scott Card's novels and Gavin Hood's film. The authors of Ender's Game and Philosophy challenge readers to confront and work through the conceptual and emotional challenges that Ender's Game presents, bringing a new light on the idea of a just war, the virtues of the soldier, the nature of childhood, the social value and moral corruption of lies and deception, the practices of education and of leadership, and the serious work of playing games. -- Publisher website.
National Security Through a Cockeyed Lens: How Cognitive Bias Impacts U.S. Foreign Policy
2013
Steve A. Yetiv

How do mental errors or cognitive biases undermine good decision making?" This is the question Steve A. Yetiv takes up in his latest foreign policy study, National Security through a Cockeyed Lens.Yetiv draws on four decades of psychological, historical, and political science research on cognitive biases to illuminate some of the key pitfalls in our leaders’ decision-making processes and some of the mental errors we make in perceiving ourselves and the world… [From Amazon.com]
Leisure and Cultural Conflict in Twentieth-Century Britain
2012
Brett Bebber (Editor)

This collection of essays addresses research trends in the history of British leisure while also presenting a wide range of articles on cultural conflict and leisure in the twentieth century. It includes innovative research on a number of topics, including television, cinema, the circus, women's leisure, dance, football and drug culture. It provides an excellent entry to leisure studies and history, while addressing the contributions of other disciplines and exploring key historiographical trends. The chapters aim to emphasize contextualization to build studies of leisure into broader discussions of social and cultural change in twentieth-century Britain, as well as key moments and transitions in the 'society of leisure'. Three broad topics structure the collection; cultural contestation and social conflict in leisure, regulation and standardization, and national identity embodied in leisure and popular culture. The book will be useful to students and educators of twentieth-century and British history, as it offers accessible and topical studies that pique historical curiosity. In addition, historians, sociologists and cultural analysts of the twentieth century will find it essential for understanding pleasure and recreation in twentieth-century British society. [From Amazon.com]
Violence and Racism in Football Politics and Cultural Conflict in British Society, 1968-1998
2012
Brett Bebber

This study, based on government records, newspaper articles and fanzines, explores the complex interaction between politicians, police and the perpetrators of football violence. Bebber looks at how successive governments tried to impose law and order on football ‘hooligans’, whilst inadvertently escalating the violence. [From Amazon.com]
Tyrannosaurus Lex: The Marvelous Book of Palindromes, Anagrams, and Other Delightful and Outrageous Wordplay
2012
Rod Evans

Tyrannosaurus Lex is your guide to the intriguing world of logology—the pursuit of word puzzles or puzzling words .... So sit back and get ready to learn about everything from antigrams and aptanagrams to kangaroo words and phantonyms. You’ll never look at language the same again! [Amazon.com]
Interpreting the Asian Past
2012
Qiu Jin Hailstork

A survey of Asian civilization and history. Covers the political, social, cultural, religious, and economic development in East, South, and Southeast Asia.
In the Name of Italy: Nation, Family, and Patriotism in a Fascist Court
2012
Maura Elise Hametz

Explores the shifting perceptions of the importance of individual rights and community responsibilities in interwar Italy. Focusing on the proceedings of the case revealed in local documents and national court records, the account of the woman who pit Fascist officials against the national government engages legal scholars, historians, onomasticians, and theorists of Fascism, nationalism, and borderlands in debates over the nature of citizenship and the meanings of nationalism, patriotism, and justice. It explores Fascist legal reform and sheds light on the nature of Fascist authority, demonstrating the fragmentation of power, the constraints of dictatorship, and the limits of popular quiescence. The widow's triumph indicates that while Fascist dictatorship appeared in many guises, dissent adopted many masks. Winner of The Smith Prize [From Amazon.com]
Red Ink: Native Americans Picking Up the Pen in the Colonial Period
2012
Drew Lopenzina

Reexamines the writings of early indigenous authors in the northeastern United States. The Native peoples of colonial New England were quick to grasp the practical functions of Western literacy. Their written literary output was composed to suit their own needs and expressed views often in resistance to the agendas of the European colonists they were confronted with. Red Ink is an engaging retelling of American colonial history, one that draws on documents that have received scant critical and scholarly attention to offer an important new interpretation grounded in indigenous contexts and perspectives. ... In a compelling narrative arc, Lopenzina enables the reader to travel through a history that, however familiar, has never been fully appreciated or understood from a Native-centered perspective. [Amazon.com]
Last to Leave the Field: The Life and Letters of First Sergeant Ambrose Henry Hayward, 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry
2012
Timothy J. Orr (Editor)

Revealing the mind-set of a soldier seared by the horrors of combat even as he kept faith in his cause, Last to Leave the Field showcases the private letters of Ambrose Henry Hayward, a Massachusetts native who served in the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Hayward’s service, which began with his enlistment in the summer of 1861 and ended three years later following his mortal wounding at the Battle of Pine Knob in Georgia, took him through a variety of campaigns in both the Eastern and Western theaters of the war. He saw action in five states, participating in the battles of Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg as well as in the Chattanooga and Atlanta campaigns. Through his letters to his parents and siblings, we observe the early idealism of the young recruit, and then, as one friend after another died beside him, we witness how the war gradually hardened him. Yet, despite the increasing brutality of what would become America’s costliest conflict, Hayward continually reaffirmed his faith in the Union cause, reenlisting for service late in 1863… [From Amazon.com]
The Homespun Wisdom of Myrtle T. Cribb
2012
Sheri Reynolds

The #1 New York Times bestselling author Sheri Reynolds returns with a “nontraditional devotional”—at once a hilarious and inspirational novel packed with profound advice from the journey of the unforgettable Myrtle Cribb. [Amazon.com]
Fast Animal
2012
Tim Seibles

This collection by African American poet Tim Seibles explores a range of poetic form, including lyric, ode, narrative, and mystical. Like a "fast animal," the poet's voice can swiftly change direction and tone as he crisscrosses between present and past. [Amazon.com]
A World Recast: An American Moment in a Post-Western Order
2012
Simon Serfaty

The end of the unipolar moment completes the passing of a Western era that was prolonged for half a century when the United States took over for a defeated and exhausted group of European states after World War II. Distinguished scholar Simon Serfaty vigorously argues that while it is possible, and even desirable, to acknowledge the passing of the Western era, it is exaggerated to present it as an irreversible decline of the West relative to an irresistible rise of the Rest. Rather, he shows that the unfolding post-Western moment will be messy. In addition to the United States and the states of Europe as a Union, the new cast of significant powers will involve a dozen or more countries: emerging powers like China and India, post-imperial powers such as Japan and Russia, new influentials like Brazil and Turkey, pivot states like Egypt and Pakistan, nuisance states like Iran, failed or failing states like North Korea and Sudan, and others. Echoes of a Sarajevo moment played out this time in the greater Middle East, the new global Balkans for the twenty-first century. But Serfaty convincingly contends that even during a zero-polar moment of geopolitical transition, American power remains superior, and thus indispensable though no longer decisive; Western power stands on top and thus is inescapable though no longer exclusive; and even as the Rest gains broadly in stature and reach it is unlikely to achieve preponderance any time soon. This powerful and provocative book should be read by all who share a deep concern for the future of America—and a recast world. [From Amazon.com]
The Positive Side of Interpersonal Communication
2012
Thomas J. Socha (Editor) and Margaret J. Pitts (Editor)

Building on past research that includes prosocial-antisocial communication, positive psychology, as well as complementing the dark side of interpersonal communication, this groundbreaking volume brings together veteran interpersonal communication scholars to examine the bright, positive sides of communication in human relations. Together, they begin to frame a conceptual foundation for studies on the «positive» side of interpersonal communication, or in general terms, relational communication that promotes happiness, health, and wellness. In the process they examine moments of relational beauty, laughter and play, positive emotion, relational support, understanding, and forgiveness, as well as facilitation of positive character traits and positive relational communication values. The Positive Side of Interpersonal Communication is intended to serve as a starting point for future research as well as inspiring new areas of interpersonal communication scholarship. [Amazon.com]