Explaining the science behind memory and memory loss—including why forgetting is a crucial property of memory, as well as strategies that help people remember better—is the subject of a new book co-authored by neuroscientist Elizabeth A. Kensinger, a professor in the Boston College Psychology and Neuroscience Department. In Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory (Oxford University Press, 2023), Kensinger and Boston University Professor of Neurology Andrew E. Budson, M.D., explain how memory influences our behavior without our awareness, underscoring the fact that what and how we remember influences everything from our social relationships to the decisions we make on a daily basis. As they incorporated their own findings, as well as the body of research on the subject, the co-authors were surprised to discover that memory is not really about the past. Read more from BC News.
The science behind memory
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged brain, memory, Psychology and Neuroscience Department, science
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Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Reformation
Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Reformation: Literary Negotiation of Religious Difference (Lexington Books, 2022), a major new work of literary criticism from Professor Emeritus of English Dennis Taylor, examines Shakespeare’s dramatization of key issues of the Elizabethan Reformation, including the conflict between the sacred, the critical, and the disenchanted, as well as the Catholic, the Protestant, and the secular. This detailed work of scholarship shows how Shakespeare was negotiating the key religious differences of his time, according to Taylor. Born and raised a Catholic, as most scholars now agree, Shakespeare coped with what he and others experienced as the trauma of the Protestant Reformation. According to Taylor, Shakespeare provides an important model for modern dialogue which negotiates religious differences without denying them. Taylor joined the English Department faculty in 1971, served as chair from 1982-1987, and retired in 2008. Read more on BC News.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged English Department, literary criticism, religion, Shakespeare
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The future according to Kim Stanley Robinson
Award-winning science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson, author of more than 20 books, will present “The Future of Climate, Technology, and Society” on March 29 at 7 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. Robinson is best known for his Mars trilogy and Shaman, 2312, New York 2140, and the highly acclaimed The Ministry for the Future. He received the Hugo Award for Best Novel twice and is a two-time winner of Nebula Award for Best Novel. He has won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel three times. His work, which has been translated into 25 languages, centers on themes such as nature and culture, ecological sustainability, social justice, and climate change. In 2008, he was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine. He has traveled to Antarctica, courtesy of the US National Science Foundation, and he works with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. He received the Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement in science fiction in 2016 and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society in 2017. A prolific writer and speaker, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Nature, and Wired, and he has lectured at more than 100 institutions. His most recent book, The High Sierra: A Love Story, is a non-fiction exploration of Robinson’s years spent hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Robinson’s lecture is presented by the Lowell Humanities Series and is co-sponsored by the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Environmental Studies Program, the Lynch School’s Center for Psychological Humanities and Ethics, and English Department.
Book review by Martha Bayles
In her review of Shadi Bartsch’s book Plato Goes to China, Boston College faculty member Martha Bayles writes that the author does not fulfill the promises she lays out in the opening pages of her book. Bayles goes on to cite three reasons, including “the chatbot-style superficiality of [Bartsch’s] historical overview.” Bayles teaches in BC’s Political Science Department. She is the author of the books Hole in Our Soul and Through a Screen Darkly. Read the book review in the Wall Street Journal.
Politics is a blood sport
A new novel by Boston College graduate John Houle tells the story of the behind-the-scenes maneuverings and dirty political games involved in a special election for mayor of Providence, which is held after the sitting mayor flees to Europe to avoid criminal prosecution. The King-Makers of Providence (BookPress Publishing, 2023) is a political thriller that follows the actions of campaign consultant Henry Mercucio who puts everything on the line to make a name for himself and help his candidate win. Houle graduated from BC in 1994 with a degree in political science. He has worked as a political consultant and operates his own marketing communications firm. Houle spoke about his book with the Warwick Beacon.
Madame Mayor
In a book for children ages 8-11, alumna Elizabeth Wahn NC’66 introduces a new generation to Felisa Rincón de Gautier, the first woman elected as mayor of a capital city in the Americas. Felisa and The Magic Coquí, available in both Spanish and English, tells the true-life story of Felisa Rincón de Gautier in fable form. Born in 1897, Rincón de Gautier served as mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, from 1947 to 1969. She was a popular and charismatic leader who helped raise her siblings after her mother’s death, operated a successful clothing business, advocated for women’s rights, and, as mayor, famously had snow transported to her island for the children to play in. Wahn is also author of the YA novel Lindsey and The Jedgar, a fast-paced fantasy adventure that turns children onto the fun of Shakespeare. In the book, 12-year-old Lindsey jets off to visit a rich old aunt on the tropical Isle of Elsinore. Populated by exotic animals, quirky robots, and spry, poetry-loving oldsters, Elsinore seems like a topsy-turvy paradise until the mysterious Jedgar starts threatening the island. As Lindsey and her pals band together to unlock the mystery, all clues point to Shakespeare who turns out to be—or not to be—the key. A writer and teacher, Wahn is a self-described “Bostorican.” She was born and raised in Boston but every summer visited Puerto Rico, where her grandparents lived. She has traveled to more than 100 countries and currently lives in Italy.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged children's book, Puerto Rico, Shakespeare, women's history month
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The political role of journalism
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie, who has served as a CBS political analyst, will give a talk at Boston College on March 15 at 7 p.m. in Gasson 100. A journalist who covers U.S. politics, public policy, elections, and race, Bouie will present “Defending Democracy? The Political Role of Journalism.” Bouie is a former chief political correspondent for Slate. His writings has been published in the Atlantic, Washington Post, TIME and the New Yorker. His talk is co-sponsored by Boston College’s Lowell Humanities Series, the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, and the Journalism Program.
Richard Kearney: a novel and scholarship
Irish philosopher Richard Kearney, who holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, has published a novel titled Salvage (Arrowsmith Press, 2023) that centers on the timeless tension between progress and tradition. A description of the novel from the publisher: “It’s 1939 and young Maeve O’Sullivan and her family are among the last inhabitants of a windswept island off the south coast of Ireland. After her father drowns in a boating accident, Maeve finds herself the last inheritor of the old ways of healing. But the future beckons to Maeve with the arrival of Seamus, a handsome young medical student heading for Dublin. Maeve suddenly finds herself at a crossroads, torn between the pull of the past and the lure of the modern. Must she sacrifice one in order to accommodate the other?”
Kearney’s scholarship on touch, excarnation, embodiment, and hermeneutics is the focus of a recent book of essays with contributions from 13 of his former graduate students. Anacarnation and Returning to the Lived Body with Richard Kearney, edited by Kearney’s former students Brian Treanor and James Taylor, takes up a wide variety of subjects, from nature and non-human animals to the experience of the sacred and the demonic, and from art’s account of touching to the political implications of various types of embodiment. It also includes a new reflection from Kearney, in which he lays out his vision for “anacarnation.”
Understanding denial
Boston College graduate Jared Del Rosso takes a thought-provoking look at the widespread phenomenon of denial in our society in his new book, Denial: How We Hide, Ignore, and Explain Away Problems (NYU Press, 2022). Del Rosso argues that denial is so much a part of our lives that we deny its existence all the time. Drawing on examples from current events, politics, and pop culture, Del Rosso teases out the complexities of denial, from “not noticing” that someone has food stuck in their teeth, to companies that engage in widespread fraud, like Enron and Wells Fargo, to the much larger-scale denials of climate change or systemic racism. Drawing on classic studies in the social sciences and his own research of the denial of torture, Del Rosso builds a fascinating typology of the forms and meanings of denial, exploring the behavior of those who refuse to acknowledge their actions, and what it means to live in a society where such lying, fraud, and corruption is commonplace. Del Rosso earned a doctorate in sociology from BC in 2012. He is on the faculty at the University of Denver. Read an excerpt from Denial via Literary Hub.
A McAleer mystery
Boston College graduate Andrew McAleer is co-editor of a new book that features 12 original mystery stories written exclusively by Edgar Allan Poe Award and Shamus Award-winning authors, including a never-before-published story from Andrew’s late father, BC Professor of English John McAleer. Edgar and Shamus Go Golden (Down & Out Books, 2022) offers readers tales of murder, mystery, and master detection from such literary luminaries as Doug Allyn, Martin Edwards, and Art Taylor. John McAleer’s contribution is “The Case of the Illustrious Banker.” BC graduate Paul McAleer discovered the 85-year-old hand-written, unpublished manuscript among his father’s papers. John McAleer, who graduated from BC in 1945, taught at the University for nearly 50 years. A Pulitzer nominee, he was an acclaimed biographer and mystery writer who won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for his biography of Rex Stout. Andrew McAleer, who graduated BC in 1990, formerly taught at the Woods College of Advancing Studies.
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