Kaleidoscope

kaleidoscopeKaleidoscope International Journal is an international relations and global studies publication run by Boston College undergraduates, with funding from the Institute for the Liberal Arts. Its goal is to promote greater awareness and understanding of international issues through research, articles and photography by students from a variety of disciplines. The most recent issue includes articles about Kuwait’s expatriate labor force and the preservation of Italy’s cultural heritage, as well as a photo essay on Patagonia. “It’s becoming increasingly important for all citizens to be better informed of international issues, events and trends,” said Omeed Alerasool ’15, who served as editor-in-chief for four years. “We want to reach out to people who are simply looking to learn more about the world.” Kaleidoscope Spring 2015 issue

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Being Catholic during the Dirty War

argentinaDuring Argentina’s Dirty War — an attempt by the government to fight communism by eliminating subversives —15,000 people were killed, 8,000 were jailed and some 6,000 were exiled. The Catholic Church and Argentina’s Dirty War (Oxford University Press, 2015), a new book by Boston College sociologist Gustavo Morello, SJ, explores the complex relationship of the Catholic Church and the political violence. Fr. Morello, who is a native of Argentina, focuses on the 1976 kidnapping, detainment and torture of American priest James Weeks and five seminarians by the Argentine military government as a means of understanding the broader issues of religion and politics that took place in that Latin American country. More from BC News

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Life on 6th Street

ontherunSociologist Alice Goffman, author of On The Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (The University of Chicago Press, 2014), will speak on Sept. 8 at 7:00 p.m. in Devlin Hall, 101.  Listed among the best nonfiction books of 2014 by Publisher’s WeeklyOn The Run examines the largely hidden world of warrants and surveillance that pervades daily life for young people in one poor neighborhood in Philadelphia. Goffman spent six years living in the neighborhood, observing the toll that pervasive policing and the presumption of criminality takes on families and young people’s futures. She is on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Listen to her TED Talk. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series.

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The Whiskey of Our Discontent

shakespeare bookShakespeare, Not Stirred (Perigee Books, 2015), a new book co-authored by Associate Professor of English Caroline Bicks that seeks to relate Shakespeare to everyday life, presents cocktails and hors d’oeuvres inspired by the Bard’s characters and their predicaments. The volume has been featured by the Boston Globe and the Folger Shakespeare Library’s “Shakespeare Unlimited” podcast. Bicks also is the author of Midwiving Subjects in Shakespeare’s England and co-editor of The History of British Women’s Writing, 1500–1610, Volume 2.

 

 

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The New Bostonians

newbostonBoston College History Professor Marilynn Johnson examines the historical confluence of recent immigration and urban transformation in the Boston area in her new book, The New Bostonians: How Immigrants Have Transformed the Metro Area since the 1960s (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015). Since the 1980s, the Boston area has experienced an astounding renaissance—a development, Johnson argues, to which immigrants have contributed in numerous ways. Like the older Irish and other European immigrant groups whose labor once powered the region’s industrial economy, these newer migrants have been crucial in re-building the population, labor force and metropolitan landscape of the New Boston–although the fruits of the new prosperity have not been equally shared. Johnson also is the author of Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City and The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II.

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Incarnate Grace

graceBoston College alumna Moira Linehan’s second collection of poetry, Incarnate Grace (Southern Illinois University Press, 2015), explores various meanings of the word margin. “Margin” is chosen by the poet after hearing the word in response to her breast cancer diagnosis. From her travels to Ireland and Pacific Northwest to her home in Massachusetts, Linehan links the mundane to the mythic, intertwining connections between scripture and nature, storms and loss, winter and light, and breast cancer and embroidery. Her earlier collection of poems, If No Moon, was named an Honor Book in Poetry in the 8th annual Massachusetts Book Awards. Her poem, “Last Wishes,” received the Foley Poetry Award from America magazine.

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The story of Samuel Battle

sambattlePulitzer Prize winner Arthur Browne has published One Righteous Man: Samuel Battle and the Shattering of the Color Line in New York (Beacon Press, 2015), the story of New York City’s first African American police officer. With an unpublished manuscript by Langston Hughes as his starting point, Browne conducted  archival research and interviews to create an important social history of New York and riveting life and times of an American civil rights pioneer. Browne, a Boston College alumnus, is the editorial page editor of the New York Daily News. For more than 40 years he has been a part of the coverage of New York’s biggest stories. In 2007, he led a team that won the Pulitzer Prize for editorials that documented the epidemic illnesses afflicting thousands of 9/11 rescue and recovery workers. Read an excerpt of One Righteous Man in the latest issue of Boston College Magazine.

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Poet Brendan Galvin and the natural world

galvin poetry bookAward-winning poet Brendan Galvin, a Boston College alumnus, has published a book of poetry titled The Air’s Accomplices (LSU Press, 2015). The collection vividly evokes Galvin’s love for the rugged landscapes of Cape Cod and Ireland and their inhabitants. Weaving themes of death, migration and aging into an exploration of the natural world, Galvin’s work reflects a deep engagement with the places he and his family have called home, as well as with the triumphs and tragedies of human life. The latest issue of Boston College Magazine features one of the poems from The Air’s Accomplices, “This Morning’s Pep Talk at Egg Island.”

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The Outcasts

outcastsBoston College alumnus Chuck Abdella, who teaches history at St. John’s High School in Shrewsbury, Mass., has published his debut novel, The Outcasts: Book I: The Lies of Autumn.  The novel is described as “fantasy with a twist, with equal helpings of romance and action.” Abdella tells the story of several outcasts brought together for what they believe to be an epic struggle against a shadowy threat has emerged in a realm populated by serious wizards, pious elves, passionate humans, and hedonistic morphs. Yet the story is not all it seems to be. Abdella thanks BC History Associate Professor Emeritus John Rosser in the book’s acknowledgements. While at BC, Abdella wrote for the undergraduate arts and literary magazine, The Stylus.

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The other side

suicideBoston College alumnus Robert Colacurcio has published The Other Side of Suicide (Xlibris, 2015) to offer a full discussion and consideration of a host of questions not being asked today in the discussion of suicide. Colacurcio has a number of book titles to his name, including The Little Book of Better Questions, The Translucent Imagination and The Virtual Self: Beyond the Gap in Buddhist Philosophy, among others.

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