Lessons from the F.B.I.

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Bookworm
William A. Gavin, a member of the Boston College Class of 1963, has co-authored a new book that taps into expertise gained from his 28 years of investigative and executive management positions in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Through a host of real-life FBI stories, from the front lines to the back offices, Pick Up Your Own Brass: Leadership the FBI Way reveals the leadership qualities that have enabled the Bureau to successfully navigate through a century of war, espionage, organized crime, terrorism, fraud, and corruption. Gavin and his co-author Kathleen McChesney offer 50 essential leadership lessons based on challenges that they have faced over the course of their careers. Gavin, now retired from the FBI, headed the field offices in Denver, Colorado, Miami, Florida and New York City, where he had overall responsibility for the resolution of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. In addition, he served as the assistant director at FBI Headquarters where he was responsible for all internal affairs matters, the compliance audits of all FBI domestic and foreign offices and for all long range planning for the FBI.
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Visualizing Law

Posted on June 20, 2011 by Bookworm
Visual digital technologies are having a profound impact on the practice and theory of law, according to BC Law alumnus Richard Sherwin, a professor at New York Law School and author of the new book, Visualizing Law in the Age of the Digital Baroque. According to Sherwin: Lawyers, judges, and lay jurors face a vast array of visual evidence and visual argument. From videos documenting crimes and accidents to computer displays of their digital simulation, increasingly, the search for fact-based justice inside the courtroom is becoming an offshoot of visual meaning making. What is real, and what is simulation? Left unchecked, this condition of ontological and ethical uneasiness threatens the legitimacy of law’s claim to power.
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Numbers 1,2,3,4

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Bookworm
A prose poem by Boston College English Professor Elizabeth Graver – written about a photograph of an Arctic weather station  – was selected to appear along with the photo in the current issue of Hayden’s Ferry Review.
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Banish fear of public speaking

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Bookworm
Boston  College Associate Vice President for Alumni Relations John Feudo shares advice based upon a lifetime of speaking in public in his new book, I’d Rather Eat Live Spiders: A Definitive Guide to Becoming a Successful Speaker. In the book, Feudo discusses the importance of fine-tuning one’s communication skills in any field; how to overcome fear; and tips on using voice, eye contact, and hand gestures to develop a strong presentation. The key, Feudo tells the Boston Globe (last item), is treating all public speaking situations in the same manner: as a one-sided conversation in which you’re answering an unasked question.
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Calling collect

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Bookworm
New Boston College School of Theology and Ministry alumna Heather Angell had her poem “Calling Collect” published in America magazine.
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Writers and boxing

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Bookworm
Boston College English Professor and American Studies Director Carlo Rotella is featured, along with writers Jack London, H.L. Mencken, Mike Lupica, Joyce Carol Oates, George Plimpton, Norman Mailer, and many others, in At the Fights: American Writers on Boxing, a new anthology of the best writing on boxing. The New York Times dubbed it a “remarkable volume.” Also in the Times, Rotella pens a review of Embassytown by China Miéville.
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On the Trail of Harry Potter

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Bookworm
With the final chapter of Harry Potter about to hit the big screen, Boston College Romance Languages and Literatures Professor Emerita Vera Lee has published On the Trail of Harry Potter, a literary analysis of all seven Harry Potter volumes. “Most studies that look at part or all of the series focus on aspects such as magic and fantasy, philosophy, morality, myth, religion or spirituality,” explains Lee. “But instead of trying to explain what J.K. Rowling created in Harry Potter, I wanted to demonstrate how she created it — and why, because of that, the series has been so successful.”   Read more in the Boston College Chronicle.
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“Master of the spiritual masters”

Posted on May 26, 2011 by Bookworm
Boston College Theology Professor Emeritus and Jesuit priest Harvey Egan, who has been called the “master of the spiritual masters,” has published a book that reflects his 50 years of studying and teaching the Christian mystics. In Soundings in the Christian Mystical Tradition, Fr. Egan examines figures such as Francis of Assisi, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Walter Hilton, Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, Edith Stein, Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, Thomas Merton and Mother Teresa, among many others.  Read more about the book and Fr. Egan, who is retiring from BC after 36 years on the faculty.
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More God, Less Crime

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Bookworm
James Q. Wilson, senior fellow at the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy at Boston College, reviews More God, Less Crime by Byron R. Johnson for the Wall Street Journal. A Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and one of the nation’s most eminent and influential scholars, Wilson is author or co-author of fourteen books, including The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families, Moral Judgment,  and The Moral Sense.
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Doesn’t time fly?

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Bookworm
Doesn’t Time Fly?, charts the history of Aer Lingus, the Irish state airline, on its 75th anniversary. Written by BC-Ireland Academic Director Mike Cronin, the book draws heavily on the company’s extensive archive of photographs, posters and advertisements, as well as the ephemera and memories of its staff. It chronicles the innovative ways in which Aer Lingus has met a plethora of challenges since 1936, and how it has always been able to adapt and transform itself.
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