Do we really have free choice?
In his new book The Myth of Choice: Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits (Yale University Press, October 2011), Boston College Law Professor Kent Greenfield shows that the so-called “choices” that confront us daily are often not choices at all. Greenfield takes a provocative and culturally savvy look at how many of our decisions are constrained, manipulated, and forced upon us by a gauntlet of biological, economical, and cultural influences. Greenfield is an expert in the areas of constitutional law, business law and legal theory. The latest Boston College Law School Magazine features a cover story on Greenfield, as well as an excerpt from his book. Listen to Greenfield talk about The Myth of Choice.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged free will, Law School, personal responsibility
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“Adulthood II”
Writer and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, who is a visiting scholar at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College, was recently interviewed by the Boston Globe on her thoughts about post-retirement life, or what she dubs second adulthood. Bateson is the author of With a Daughter’s Eye: A Memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson and Composing A Further Life: The Age of Active Wisdom. She will be presenting a free, public lecture series at Boston College this fall titled “Love Across Difference.”
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged aging, golden years, Sloan Center on Aging & Work
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New take on Henry James
In Henry James and the Queerness of Style, Boston College Associate Professor of English Kevin Ohi asserts that to read Henry James—particularly the late texts—is to confront the queer potential of style and the traces it leaves on the literary life. Unlike other critics, Ohi maintains that James’s queerness is found in many elements of his style, with belatedness as a thematic marker. His book presents original readings of a series of late Jamesian texts, and according to the publisher, represents an exciting possibility for future queer theory and literary studies.
CPA award for student
Boston College History Department doctoral student Peter Cajka has been awarded a first place prize from the Catholic Press Association for his article “Riding with Saint Paul in the Passenger Side: The Archdiocese of Milwaukee Enters the Automobile Age, 1920-1965,” which was published in the journal American Catholic Studies. Read more.
Posted in Boston College Authors, Students
Tagged automotive history, Catholic, history
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Dark humor
As the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks approaches, a new book—A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America—illustrates through a series of essays how humor transformed 9/11 politics and how 9/11 transformed humor. Among contributors—scholars from four countries—is Boston College Professor of English Paul Lewis, who wrote “What’s So Funny about a Dead Terrorist? Toward an Ethics of Humor for the Digital Age.” A Decade of Dark Humor analyzes the ways in which popular and visual culture used humor to confront the attacks and the aftermath. Lewis the author of the book Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict, and his academic specializations include American humor since 1980.
Summer reading
Since 2004, the University’s Office of First Year Experience has sponsored Conversations in the First Year, a program that joins together the freshman class with ritual, ideas, and conversation. A common text is distributed to the incoming freshman class at orientation. Students are asked to read the text in advance of Academic Convocation where a speaker addresses the class, touching upon the themes of the summer reading. The Class of 2015 is reading National Book Award winner Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. On Sept. 15, they will gather together on Linden Lane and process to Conte Forum for a special audience with the best-selling author. As the University’s reading guide says, “The gritty world that McCann depicts within this novel is filled with cynicism, dejection, addiction, self-absorption, cruelty, and loss; however, amid this seemingly more powerful world of despair, Let the Great World Spin provides a wellspring of hope that emerges through individual acts of compassion and redemption. It is within these individual acts of generosity that the themes of forgiveness, empathy, faith, and hope emerge.” Curious what books and speakers were part of previous Conversations in the First Year? Check out this list.
The remarkable life of Clarence Darrow
Law School Professor Mark Brodin reviews the new biography Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell in the Boston Globe. Brodin calls the book “masterfully researched and elegantly written.”
CPA winner
Love One Another: Catholic Reflections on How to Sustain Marriages Today, a book co-edited by Boston College Assistant to the Vice President for University Mission & Ministry Tim Muldoon, has received a third place prize from the Catholic Press Association (CPA) in the book category Family Life. Cynthia S. Dobrzynski served as co-editor. Part of BC’s Church in the 21st Century (C21) Book Series, Love One Another contains essays that offer a look at the challenges facing married Catholics today, but also at the resources from Christian tradition that can help couples and families forge a long and satisfying relationship with one another, with children, and with the communities of the church and society. This marks the fifth CPA recognition for the C21 Book Series. More
Posted in Awards/Honors, Boston College Authors
Tagged C21 Book, Catholic, Church in the 21st Century Center, marriage
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Pottermania
With the premiere of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2” just days away, the Boston Globe and GateHouse News Service highlight a new book about the Harry Potter series by Boston College Romance Languages and Literatures Professor Emerita Vera Lee. On the Trail of Harry Potter, which was featured in BC Bookmarks last month, is a literary analysis of all seven Harry Potter volumes. An author of 13 books, Lee calls the Harry Potter novels “classics.”
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Harry Potter, literary analysis, Romance Languages Dept
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