Theology Department doctoral student Nathaniel Peters reviews the award-winning book Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin (translation by Lisa C. Hayden) for Commonweal magazine. Laurus, which has won two major Russian book prizes, has been listed in the company of such works as The Name of the Rose, Kristin Lavransdatter, The Diary of a Country Priest and Brideshead Revisited. Read the review.
Grad student reviews Laurus
Essay prize in Latin American thought
The American Philosophical Association has awarded its 2016 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought to BC alumnus Sebastian Purcell for his essay “Neltilitzli and the Good Life: On Aztec Ethics.” Sponsored by the APA Committee on Hispanics, the prize is awarded to the author of the best unpublished, English-language, philosophical essay in Latin American thought. Eligible essays must contain original arguments and broach philosophical topics clearly related to the experiences of Hispanic Americans and Latinos. Purcell will be awarded a monetary prize and his essay will be published in an upcoming issue of the APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy. Purcell completed his Ph.D. in philosophy at Boston College in 2011 and is currently an assistant professor of philosophy at SUNY Cortland. His research focuses on the areas of moral, political, and Latin American philosophy; the broad aim is to give an account of the entire ethical domain through a characterization of agents, motives, goods, history, social conditions, and their relations. Purcell also is the co-coordinator of the Latino and Latin American Studies program at SUNY Cortland.
Posted in Alumni Authors, Awards/Honors
Tagged Hispanic, Latino/a, Philosophy Department
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“Citizen Kane” at 75
In America magazine, Fr. Richard A. Blake, S.J., writes about the relevance and timelessness of the film “Citizen Kane,” which had its general release to American audiences 75 years ago. Fr. Blake is a professor of film studies at BC and the author of Afterimage: The Indelible Catholic Imagination in the Works of Six American Filmmakers and Street Smart: The New York of Lumet, Allen, Scorsese and Lee, among other works.
NYT book review by Graver
Author and BC Professor of English Elizabeth Graver reviews the latest novel from award-winning writer Maggie O’Farrell for the New York Times. She writes that O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place “though not without its fault lines, is marvelous, a contemporary and highly readable experiment whose ambitious structure both enacts and illuminates its central concern: what links and separates our 21st-century selves as we love, betray, blunder and soldier on (and back) through time.” Graver is the author of The End of the Point, The Honey Thief, and Awake, among other works.
Small Wars Journal
Small Wars Journal has published an article by alumnus Craig Noyes titled “Pragmatic Takfiris: Organizational Prioritization Along Islamic State’s Ideological Threshold.” Noyes, who earned a BA in history and an MA in political science, was a research assistant who contributed to The Project on National Movements and Political Violence at Boston College. He focuses his research on sectarianism, civil-military relations, the effectiveness of violence, and Levantine affairs. Noyes currently works in the Office of Student Services.
Posted in Alumni Authors, Boston College Authors
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A Bully Nation
In his new book Bully Nation: How the American Establishment Creates a Bullying Society (University Press of Kansas, 2016), author Charles Derber, a sociologist at Boston College, argues that bullying is not limited to a personal, psychological issue but is a structural problem of our highly militarized, capitalistic society. Derber and co-author Yale Magrass of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth say large corporations, the government, and the military all perpetrate vast bullying. They give examples in their book of the corporate bullying of workers, consumers, and animals for slaughter; military bullying of weaker nations, and government and police bullying of immigrants and prisoners. “The bullying strain is very profound due to the institutional realities of our society,” says Derber. “As a country, we have made it pretty clear that we are going to use whatever means necessary to secure our strategic interests.” Read more from BC News.
More honors for Bilder, ‘Madison’s Hand’
Founders Professor of Law and Lee Distinguished Scholar Mary Sarah Bilder has been awarded the James Bradford Biography Prize from the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic for her book Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention. This is the latest honor for Bilder and Madison’s Hand, which won a Bancroft Prize and was named a finalist for George Washington Prize. More from Boston College Law School Magazine.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged American history, Boston College Law School, constitution
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Book review of Charles Corm
The summer issue of the Middle East Quarterly has a review of Charles Corm: An Intellectual Biography of a Twentieth-Century Lebanese “Young Phoenician” by Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies Franck Salameh. The journal called it “an eloquent and profound biography” of Corm, a Lebanese writer, industrialist, and philanthropist. Salameh also is the senior editor in chief of The Levantine Review. For more about Salameh’s biography see the BC Bookmarks 7/30/15 post.
Machine Feelings
Phil Temples, a Computer Science systems administrator, has published a new short story anthology, Machine Feelings and Other Stories (Big Table Publishing, 2016). The volume features some 50 science fiction/fantasy stories from Temples, representing 15 years of writing. Temples is also the author of the novel The Winship Affair.
Karl Rahner
Fr. Robert Imbelli, associate professor of theology emeritus, offers an appreciation and critique of Jesuit Karl Rahner, one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century, in an article for First Things. Fr. Imbelli is the author of the book Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations for the New Evangelization.
BC Bookmarks 