Examples of liberal arts publications from 2006-2007

In addition to teaching, Liberal Arts faculty members stay busy with their respective areas of research. What follows is a sample of the types of books liberal arts faculty published this past year.

Carlos Blanton, assistant professor of history

Released in paperback in 2007, Blanton’s book, The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836-1981, (Texas A&M Press, 2004), traces the educational policies and their underlying rationales. Blanton received the Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize awarded by the Texas State Historical Association for his book.

William Bedford Clark, professor of English

The Selected Letters of Robert Penn Warren: 1943-1952 (LSU Press 2006), features a collection of newly discovered material and previously unpublished letters. Clark served as general editor. This material documents Warren’s writing and publication of All the King’s Men, his appointment as Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, and his divorce from Emma Brescia and marriage to writer Eleanor Clark.

Donald Dickson, professor of English

Texts reprinted in the new Norton Critical Edition of John Donne’s Poetry (2007), edited by Dickson, mostly come from the Westmoreland manuscript and have been compared against all 17^th and 20^th century printed editions of the poems. The work also includes the best criticism and interpretation of Donne’s writing divided into four sections.

Olga Dror, assistant professor of history

This new book about 17^th century Vietnam features two of the earliest writings about Vietnam to appear in the English language. The book, Views of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam: Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina & Samuel Baron on Tonkin (Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, 2006), was co-edited and annotated by Dror and K.W. Taylor.

Leor Halevi, assistant professor of history

In Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society (Columbia University Press, 2007), Halevi, studies the first 200 years of Islam’s history. He shows how funerary rituals and beliefs about the afterlife played a key role in the formation of an Islamic society with a distinctive identity.

Judith Hamera, professor and department head of performance studies

Hamera spent 15 years studying the role of dance in various contexts in Los Angeles, California. The result, Dancing Communities: Performance, Difference, and Connection in the Global City (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), examines amateur and professional dance in the City of Angels, and specifically how dance serves as a laboratory in which participants can develop new social and aesthetic forms.

Craig Kallendorf, professor of English

A Companion to the Classical Tradition (Blackwell, 2007), edited by Kallendorf, fulfills the need for a comprehensive introduction and overview of classical tradition. This work includes 26 essays by international experts and is divided into three sections: a chronological survey, a geographical survey, and a section illustrating the connections between the classical tradition and contemporary theory.

Walter Kamphoefner, professor of history

German Americans were among the largest immigrant groups to participate in the Civil War, making up one-tenth of the Union Army. Germans in the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), edited by Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Helbich, professor emeritus of North American history at Ruhr Universität Bochum, discusses the Civil War from a uniquely German viewpoint

Shari Kendall, assistant professor of English

Family Talk: Discourse and Identity in Four American Families (Oxford University Press, 2007) examines talk and its role in the day-to-day life of the American family. Kendall, Deborah Tannen, and Cynthia Gordon are co-editors and contributors to Family Talk. After an introduction by Kendall, the book is divided into three parts: Interactional Dynamics: Power & Solidarity, Gendered Identities in Dual-Income Families, and Family Values and Beliefs.

Stjepan Mestrovic, professor of sociology

In his latest book, Mestrovic uses the skills of sociologist and grandson to create an accurate portrayal of sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. The book, Heart of Stone: My Grandfather, Ivan Mestrovic, was published in May 2007 by Mozaik Knjiga in Croatia.

Dudley Poston, professor of sociology and George T. and Gladys H. Abell Professor of Liberal Arts

The paperback edition of Poston’s Handbook of Population was released in 2006. Poston’s edition is the first new demography handbook since 1959. The 900-page work includes information from the 2000 censuses of many countries and covers 31 subject matter areas in individual chapters that range from 45 to 70 pages each.

Harland Prechel, professor of sociology

Politics and Globalization (Elsevier Press, 2006) volume 15 of a series on Research in Political Sociology was edited by Prechel. The volume examines the politics of globalization and the political responses to globalization in diverse geographic and historical contexts.

David Vaught, assistant professor of history

Vaught’s latest book, After the Gold Rush: Tarnished Dreams in the Sacramento Valley (John Hopkins University Press, 2007), examines a community of settlers who came to California not to farm but to seek riches in gold. This dramatic story exposes the underside of the American dream and the haunting consequences of trying to strike it rich.

Diego von Vacano, assistant professor of political science

In The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche, and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), von Vacano illuminates modern politics, especially in the post 9/11 universe. The Art of Power examines Machiavelli’s philosophy of life and its relationship to Nietzsche’s contribution to moral and political theory.

Contact: Erin Wood, 979.862.4879, erinwood@libarts.tamu.edu