In his new book, Unfreedom: Slavery and Dependence in Eighteenth-Century Boston (New York University Press, 2016), BC alumnus Jared Ross Hardesty argues that slavery in Boston was part of a continuum of unfreedom. In this context, African slavery existed alongside many other forms of oppression, including Native American slavery, indentured servitude, apprenticeship, and pauper apprenticeship. Enslaved Bostonians were more concerned with their everyday treatment and honor than with emancipation, as they pushed for autonomy, protected their families and communities, and demanded a place in society. Drawing on exhaustive research in colonial legal records – including wills, court documents, and minutes of governmental bodies – as well as newspapers, church records, and other contemporaneous sources, Hardesty reconstructs an 18th-century Atlantic world of unfreedom that stretched from Europe to Africa to America. Hardesty is on the faculty of Western Washington University.
Johns Hopkins University Press has released the fourth edition of American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges, co-edited by Research Professor and Center for International Higher Education Founding Director Philip G. Altbach, Michael N. Bastedo and Patricia J. Gumport. The volume address major changes in higher education, including the rise of organized social movements, the problem of income inequality and stratification, and the growth of for-profit and distance education. Three new chapters cover information technology, community colleges and teaching and learning. Placing higher education within its social and political contexts, the contributors discuss finance, federal and state governance, faculty, students, curriculum and academic leadership. Altbach’s chapters are “Harsh Realities: The Professoriate in the Twenty-First Century” and “Patterns of Higher Education Development.” This volume follows the publication last year of two books co-edited by Altbach and CIHE Associate Director Laura Rumbley: Academic Inbreeding and Mobility in Higher Education: Global Perspectives and Young Faculty in the Twenty-First Century: International Perspectives.
Offering a range of perspectives on internationalization in higher education from a globally dispersed group of authors, 
Alumnus Bill Plunkert, a former CIA agent featured in the book 
Students representing 25 Boston-area colleges and universities will read from their own poetry at the annual 
Alumnus R.T. Rybak, who served three terms as mayor of Minneapolis, has published a memoir about his life and time as mayor of his hometown. 
This month marks the launch of 
Christopher Jencks, the Macolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, will give a talk titled “The War on Poverty: Did We Give up Too Soon?” on Apr. 11 at 4:30 p.m. in Fulton Hall, room 230. Jencks is a member of the editorial board of the American Prospect. His recent research deals with changes in family structure over the past generation, the costs and benefits of economic inequality, the extent to which economic advantages are inherited, and the effects of welfare reform. His books include The Academic Revolution (with David Riesman); Inequality: Who Gets Ahead?; The Urban Underclass (with Paul Peterson); Rethinking Social Policy; The Homeless; and The Black White Test Score Gap (with Meredith Phillips). He is a former fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC and former editor of the New Republic. Sponsors: Institute for the Liberal Arts, Political Science Department, School of Social Work, and Sociology Department.
English Department faculty members Suzanne Berne and Christopher Boucher 
BC Bookmarks 