The National Communication Association Interpersonal Communication Division has chosen Professor of Communication Ashley Duggan to receive a Gerald R. Miller Outstanding Book Award for her book Health and Illness in Close Relationships (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Synthesizing empirical evidence and associated theoretical constructs from the literature on health/illness in close relationships, Duggan compares foundational assumptions of research on relational processes and research on health and illness. Using this approach, she provides a cohesive, cross-disciplinary understanding of relevant theoretical and empirical issues and why health/illness provides a unique context for understanding close relationships. More from BC News.
Book award for Ashley Duggan
Review: When Magic Failed
Professor of Near Eastern Studies Franck Salameh, chair of BC’s Eastern, Slavic, and German Studies Department, has written a review of Fouad Ajami’s memoir, When Magic Failed: A Memoir of a Lebanese Childhood, Caught Between East and West. The review was published in the Journal of the Middle East and Africa. Ajami, who died in 2014, was a scholar of Middle Eastern issues. He was born in Arnoun, Lebanon and was a professor at Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Hoover Institution. Salameh writes in the review: “In this work, Ajami shows himself to have in fact been an unpretentious erudite who expressed the truths he learned in childhood from his village elders and teachers with an unassuming but profound simplicity.” | In addition, Salameh and a former student have contributed two Phoenician recipes, with historical and philological overviews, to Joukowsky Cookbook II (Brown University, 2022). Recipe: Lebanese Shawarma and the Origins of the Meat Wrap | Recipe: Waraq ’Einab / “Aate” / Dolma: Edible Vines with Ancient Roots
Henry Ford
Boston College graduate Jenna Grodzicki has written a biography for young readers about auto industry pioneer Henry Ford. In The Story of Henry Ford (Rockridge Press, 2022), readers learn that as a young boy Ford loved to take things apart and figure out how they worked. Grodzicki shares how this curious child grew up and invented creative new ways to assemble cars and made them more affordable for the first time. The Story of Henry Ford is illustrated by Katya Longhi. This is the third biography for young readers written by Grodzicki, a library media specialist and author of both fiction and nonfiction children’s books. Other biography subjects have been Princess Diana and Babe Ruth.
Personal retreat with the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Boston College graduate Joe Laramie, S.J., national director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, has written a retreat guide that draws on the wisdom of Ignatian spirituality. Love Him Ever More: A 9-Day Personal Retreat with the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Ave Maria Press, 2022) can help readers encounter Christ in the world today Fr. Laramie takes readers on a journey of reflection on the Incarnation, the ministry of Jesus, and God’s call. Each day begins with a quotation from the Spiritual Exercises and a grace to pray for, a personal story from Fr. Laramie, and contemplation on a gospel scene, and ends with reflection questions and a prayer. Fr. Laramie is also author of Abide in the Heart of Christ. He earned master of divinity and licentiate degrees from the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged Catholic, Jesuit author, prayer, School of Theology and Ministry
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A recipe for repairing brokenness
Years ago, when pastor Mack McCarter returned to his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, he found a city racially divided and mired in violence. He started a deceptively simple but powerful faith-based community rebuilding program that has since changed his hometown, and many others, for the better. Crime is down and graduation rates and home ownership are up. A new book, How to Remake the World Neighborhood by Neighborhood (Orbis Books, 2022), shares the story and philosophy of McCarter’s work conducted through his organization, Community Renewal International. Called “the premier community renewal building model in the nation,” CRI is an intentional movement to build friendship and connectedness among neighbors as a way to combat racial tensions, socioeconomic divides, fear, loneliness, and isolation. The program has spread to cities across the U.S. and Africa. How to Remake the World Neighborhood by Neighborhood is written by McCarter and Boston College alumnus and Associate Professor of the Practice of Philosophy Tim Muldoon. It offers a replicable and tested road map for renewing communities, according to the authors. Muldoon is an award-winning writer who has authored or co-authored 10 books and edited two others. He teaches in the University’s Perspectives on Western Culture program. Learn more about Community Renewal International from this 2020 CBS News video.
A Study of Soul in Plotinus
Plotinus is often accused of writing haphazardly, with little concern for the integral unity of a treatise. In the new book From the Alien to the Alone: A Study of Soul in Plotinus (Catholic University of America Press, 2022), BC Professor of Philosophy Gary M. Gurtler, S.J., analyzes each treatise as a whole and finds much evidence that Plotinus constructed them skillfully, with the parts working together in subtle ways. From the Alien to the Alone also serves to clarify Plotinus’ rich use of images. From the publisher: “While this work confirms much recent scholarly consensus on Plotinus, many of Gurtler’s interpretations and general conclusions give constructive challenges to some existing modes of understanding Plotinus’ thought. The arguments and their textual evidence, with the accompanying Greek, provide the reader with direct evidence for testing these conclusions as well as appreciating the nature of Plotinus’ philosophizing.”
Costa-Gavras
Costa-Gavras, the screenwriter, director, and producer who won an Oscar for his political thriller Z, is the subject of a new book by Boston College faculty members John Michalczyk and Susan Michalczyk. Costa-Gavras: Encounters with History (Bloomsbury, 2022) explores the life and work of the internationally respected director within the context of historical and socio-political events. For more than half a century, Costa-Gavras’ films have entertained and inspired, while addressing issues such as immigration, unemployment, global capitalistic greed, oppression, and the abuse of political and economic power in Europe. John Michalczyk, whose previous publications includes Costa-Gavras: The Political Fiction Film, is a professor of film studies at BC. Susan Michalczyk is an associate professor of the practice at BC. They are co-editors, along with Michael Bryant, of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and the Holocaust: A Prelude to Genocide.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Art Art History & Film Department, biography, movies
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The cost of racism
Economic and social policy expert Heather McGhee, author of the best-selling book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, will present a Lowell Humanities Series Lecture on October 26 at 7 p.m. in Devlin Hall, room 110. The Sum of Us is a powerful exploration of inequality and the idea that racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color. An analysis of how the U.S. arrived at this divided point in time, The Sum of Us illuminates how racism is at the root of some of American society’s most vexing public problems. McGhee tallys what the country loses when its people buy into the zero-sum paradigm—the idea that progress for some of us must come at the expense of others. The Sum of Us also offers a hopeful message about a vision for a better America. The Sum of Us was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. It was named one of the best books of the year by Time, The Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ms. magazine, BookRiot, Library Journal. McGhee’s opinions, writing, and research have appeared in numerous outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Politico and National Public Radio. Her BC appearance is cosponsored by the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, Park Street Corporation Speaker Series, the PULSE Program for Service Learning, and the Forum on Racial Justice in America.
The centenary of the Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War of 1922-1923—a wrenching, destructive run-up to the establishment of an independent Ireland—has long persisted in the national Irish memory, despite efforts to downplay or outright erase it from official discourse. Irish historian Síobhra Aiken has written a book, Spiritual Wounds: Trauma, Testimony and the Irish Civil War (Irish Academic Press, 2022), that unearths published testimonies by pro- and anti-treaty men and women, written in both English and Irish. Most of the testimonies discussed were produced in the 1920s and 1930s, and nearly all have been overlooked in historical study to date. This wealth of published testimony reveals that the silence of the Irish Civil War was not necessarily a result of revolutionaries’ inability to speak, but rather reflects the unwillingness of official memory makers to listen to the stories of civil war veterans. Aiken will present “Forgetting the Irish Civil War (1922-23)? One Hundred Years of Silence Breakers,” at a BC Irish Studies lecture on October 25 at 4 p.m. in Connolly House. Copies of Spiritual Wounds will be available for purchase at the event. Read more on BC News.
Tragic dilemmas
Kate Jackson-Meyer, who graduated from Boston College with a Ph.D. in theological ethics, will discuss key themes from her new book, Tragic Dilemmas in Christian Ethics (Georgetown University Press, 2022), at Boston College’s Boisi Center on October 21. [See link for time and registration details.] Jackson-Meyer is a John and Daria Barry Postdoctoral Fellow at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and the assistant program director of the Harvard Catholic Forum. Her research focuses on issues at the intersection of fundamental moral theology and social ethics. In Tragic Dilemmas in Christian Ethics, Jackson-Meyer recognizes and develops a new theological understanding of tragic dilemmas (moral dilemmas that involve great tragedy) rooted in moral philosophy, contemporary case studies, and psychological literature on moral injury.
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