Minority rights
In his new book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014), historian and Boston College alumnus Kyle G. Volk focuses on grassroot moral reforms in the early nineteenth century to show how immigrants, black northerners, abolitionists, liquor dealers, Catholics, Jews and Seventh-day Baptists –moral minorities–articulated a different vision of democracy requiring the protection of minority rights. According to Volk, the moral minorities of the mid-nineteenth century pioneered fundamental methods of political participation and legal advocacy that subsequent generations of civil-rights and civil-liberties activists would adopt and that are widely used today. Volk is an associate professor of history at the University of Montana. Read an excerpt.
Boston reads
Boston.com has published a list of Boston-related recommended reading. Among the listed books are a couple by Boston College grads, The Friends of Eddie Coyle by the late George V. Higgins and Defending Jacob by William Landay.
Scary good
Boston College alumnus Chuck Hogan is co-creator of FX’s big summer hit “The Strain.” Based on the best-selling thriller The Strain, co-written by Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro, the show is about an epic battle for survival between man and vampire. Hogan also serves as one of the show’s executive producers and writers. According to FX, “The Strain”–which airs Sunday nights–has become the top cable show of the summer and FX’s all-time most popular launch. Watch a trailer. Read what Entertainment Weekly has to say about the show.
The movement of paper in colonial Latin America
The creation, movement and storage of paperwork in colonial Latin America, part of the expansive Spanish Empire, is the focus of Distance and Documents at the Spanish Empire’s Periphery (Stanford University Press, 2013) by Assistant Professor of History Sylvia Sellers-García. She was recently interviewed by Senior Reference Librarian Elliot Brandow about the case that served as the genesis of her study– a witchcraft trial in early 18th century Guatemala– and why the study of a place beyond the center of the Spanish Empire matters.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Guatemala, History Department, Latin America
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Review of Golinkin’s forthcoming book
Coming this fall is a memoir by Boston College alumnus Lev Golinkin titled A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka (Doubleday, 2014). Golinkin writes about his Jewish family fleeing the Soviet Union in the waning years of the Cold War, with only the vague promise of help awaiting in Vienna. Years later, Golinkin would return to Austria and Eastern Europe to track down the strangers who made his escape possible and say thank you. According to a review in Publishers Weekly, “Golinkin has created a deeply moving account of fear and hope.”
Cohen, senior editor of Auditing
Jeffrey Cohen, a professor of accounting in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, has become senior editor of Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory. Sponsored by the American Accounting Association, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory is the premier journal world-wide for research in auditing.
The Circle for the Class of 2018
Members of the Class of 2018 have been invited to read The Circle by Dave Eggers over the summer. The Circle touches on issues of intimacy, community, humanity, work-life balance, the role of technology in today’s society in the story of Mae Holland, a recent college graduate. Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, A Hologram for the King, and What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, among other works. He was a finalist for both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. He also is a publisher and education activist who co-founded 826 Valencia, a tutoring center for students ages six to 18. Eggers will address the Class of 2018 at Boston College on Sept. 11, part of an annual tradition called First Year Academic Convocation. Learn more about Eggers’ vision and 826 Valencia via this TED Talk.
Fr. Lennan on Mercy
Rev. Richard Lennan, a professor of systematic theology in the School of Theology and Ministry and co-editor of Hope: Promise, Possibility, and Fulfillment, has written a review of Cardinal Walter Kasper’s Mercy for America magazine.
Posted in Boston College Book Reviewer
Tagged Catholic, mercy, School of Theology and Ministry
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Dinner with Stalin
Boston College Professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies Maxim D. Shrayer has edited and co-translated Dinner with Stalin and Other Stories (Syracuse University Press, 2014), a book written by his father, David Shrayer-Petrov. According to the publisher, these 14 stories by the acclaimed master of Jewish-Russian fiction features Soviet Jews grappling with issues of identity, acculturation, and assimilation. Shrayer-Petrov explores aspects of antisemitism and persecution, problems of mixed marriages, dilemmas of conversion, and the survival of Jewish memory. He writes about Russian Jews who, having suffered in the former Soviet Union, continue to cultivate their sense of cultural Russianness, even as they—and especially their children—assimilate and increasingly resemble American Jews. Shrayer conducted a three-part conversation with his father about the book for the Visiting Scribes series of the Jewish Book Council.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged immigration, Russia, Slavic and Eastern Languages Dept
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