University of British Columbia Professor of Forest Ecology Suzanne Simard, author of the highly acclaimed book Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Vintage/Penguin Random House), will give a talk on September 27 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. A pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence, Simard is known for her work on how trees interact and communicate using below-ground fungal networks, which has led to the recognition that forests have hub trees, or Mother Trees. These Mother Trees are large, highly connected trees that play an important role in the flow of information and resources in a forest. Her current research investigates how these complex relationships contribute to forest resiliency, adaptability, and recovery and has far-reaching implications for how to manage and heal forests from human impacts, including climate change. Simard’s TED Talk, “How trees talk to one another,” has more than 5 million views. The event is presented by the Lowell Humanities Series and co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Biology Department, and the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society.
Forest ecologist Suzanne Simard
Trey and the Streets of Israel
Boston College graduate and basketball star Tyrese Rice has published a second children’s book featuring his characters Trey and Marcus. In Trey and the Streets of Israel, Trey learns about different people and their culture through his new friend, Kyle. While Trey is excited to learn about Kyle and Israel, he is more excited to tell his other friends about their journey. According to the publisher, the book series is for every kid who has big dreams and a strong will to turn them into reality. The books show children how understanding and using their experiences, good and bad, can guide them to great heights. Rice released his first book about Trey, Trey and the Great Greece Adventure, last year.
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Poems from Eric Weiskott
Professor of English Eric Weiskott, a scholar of poetry and poetics, has a new poetry chapbook, Chanties: An American Dream (Bottlecap Press, 2023). From the publisher: “His work is a shipboard reverie about the American boat we’re all in. Prose poems, lists, and lyrics find their sea legs while musing on a photograph of a lover left on shore. In a contemporary moment when the deep reaches of the forest already belong to IKEA, the ocean beckons. ‘The depths turn electric.’ Responding to the impasse of subjective expression in contemporary lyric theory, these poems are scored in a national ‘first-person choral.’ Inspiration comes from past and present voyagers on these waters: Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Allen Ginsberg, Elizabeth Willis, Claudia Rankine, Ben Lerner, and Solmaz Sharif.” Weiskott is the author of Meter and Modernity in English Verse, 1350–1650 and English Alliterative Verse: Poetic Tradition and Literary History, which won the 2018 English Association Beatrice White Prize. He co-edits the Yearbook of Langland Studies and his writing on literature, politics, and higher education has appeared in The Atlantic, Vox, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and elsewhere.
Writing True Crime: Mark O’Connell
Award-winning author Mark O’Connell will discuss writing true crime and his latest book, A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder (Penguin Random House, 2023), at Boston College on September 13. The event, which is free and open to the public, takes place at 5 p.m. It is sponsored by BC’s Irish Studies Program and will be held in Connolly House at 300 Hammond St. For A Thread of Violence, O’Connell spent countless hours in conversation with Malcolm Macarthur—a well-known Dublin socialite who, when faced with financial ruin, decided to commit bank robbery. But Macarthur’s plan spun out of control, and he killed two innocent civilians. The ensuing manhunt, arrest, and conviction amounted to one of the most infamous political scandals in modern Irish history. O’Connell is the author of Notes from an Apocalypse and To Be a Machine, which was awarded the 2019 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He is a contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The Guardian.
‘His Name Is George Floyd’
Robert Samuels, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Viking/Penguin Random House, 2022), will deliver the first Lowell Humanities Series lecture of the semester on September 13 in Robsham Theater at 7 p.m. His Name is George Floyd is a landmark biography by Samuels and co-author Toluse Olorunnipa that is a poignant exploration of how one man’s tragic experience brought about a global movement for change. Drawn on more than 400 interviews, His Name is George Floyd reveals how systemic racism shaped Floyd’s life and legacy—from his family’s roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing. His Name is George Floyd was a finalist for a National Book Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the J. Anthony Lukas Prize. Samuels is a staff writer for the New Yorker. He previously spent 12 years as a reporter for The Washington Post, traveling to 41 states and three countries, chronicling how political discussions in the nation’s capital affect the lives of everyday Americans. Samuels’ lecture is co-sponsored by the Boston College Forum on Racial Justice in America and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program. Please RSVP at bit.ly/lhs-robertsamuels to reserve seating.
Psychoanalysis, subjectivity, and technology
The newly published Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity, and Technology has been described as an invaluable resource for academics and students of psychoanalysis, philosophy, ethics, media, liberal arts, social work, and bioethics. The volume is co-edited by Lynch School of Education and Human Development Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and External Relations David Goodman, director of the Lynch School’s Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics, and Matthew Clemente, a research fellow at the center. The book features contributions from an international community of scholars and practitioners who consider how psychoanalytic formulations can be brought to bear on the impact technology has had on the facets of human subjectivity. Chapters examine how technology is reshaping our understanding of what it means to be a human subject, through embodiment, intimacy, porn, political motivation, mortality, communication, interpersonal exchange, thought, attention, responsibility, vulnerability, and more. Boston College faculty and staff contributors to the volume include Richard Kearney; Antonio Taiga Guterres; Karley Guterres; William Hendel; and Michael Mookie Manalili.
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A case of murder
Dermot Sparhawk has another murder case to solve in a new novel by writer Tom MacDonald, who graduated from Boston College with an MBA in 2002. The Murder of Vincent Dunn is MacDonald’s fifth book to feature the Boston-based private investigator. In The Murder of Vincent Dunn, Sparhawk is asked by the New Hampshire State Police to help solve the murder of a Boston ex-convict whose body was dumped in the Granite State. MacDonald’s other Dermot Sparhawk novels are The Charlestown Connection, Beyond the Bridge, The Revenge of Liam McGrew, and Murder in the Charlestown Bricks. Learn more about MacDonald and how he became a writer in this BC News story.
A haunted house in Maine
Mark Lance, a former labor reporter who graduated from Boston College in 1971, has published his first book, The Weber House (2022). It’s a young adult mystery that tells the story of Nicole who has moved into a house on Maine’s seacoast that locals say is haunted. She and her new friend “team up to search for a legendary treasure. They apply math and science lessons in centuries-old tunnels and on the Atlantic Ocean. But this is no game. Someone else, armed not with theorems but rather an assassin’s knife, is also searching, and watching their every move. The girls think they are hunters. In fact, they are the prey.” Lance teaches math in a GED program in New York City. He said he wrote The Weber House as gift for his daughter. He is currently working on a historical novel about the year 1877.
A kid’s guide to the First Amendment
Boston College graduate Clelia Gore, a former literary agent and vice president of a boutique literary agency, has co-authored a children’s book, Your Freedom, Your Power (Running Press Kids/Hachette, 2023). Writing under the name Clelia Castro-Malaspina, she and her co-author Allison Matulli offer middle grade readers a look at the freedoms and rights granted through the First Amendment (freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition the government). The book not only explains fundamental legal concepts, but also shares the stories behind some of the most important legal cases and social movements that have affected kids’ lives and rights.
Rough Sleepers
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder will return to campus September 7 to address BC first-year students, who were asked to read his critically acclaimed new book, Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People (Random House, 2023), over the summer. Kidder will be accompanied by Dr. Jim O’Connell—the subject of his story of a dedicated doctor who helped to create a medical system for the homeless people of Boston. A master of reporting and nonfiction storytelling, Kidder spent time over five years riding with Dr. O’Connell as he navigated the city, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, and friendship to some of the city’s endangered residents. Called a “magnificent, deeply researched, and inspiring book,” Rough Sleepers highlights the dignity of each person and the importance of integrating care for the physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of a person. “First-year students will benefit greatly from reading this honest, reflective, and authentic account of someone who has significantly impacted the way in which Boston cares for its unhoused population,” said Michael Sacco, executive director of the Center for Student Formation and Office of First Year Experience. “By engaging with both Kidder and Dr. O’Connell, we hope that our students can envision what a life of service to others might mean for them.” Read more in BC News.
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Tagged Boston, First Year Academic Convocation, homelessness, nonfiction
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