In his new book The Freedom of Missing Out (Loyola Press, 2022), Boston College alumnus Rev. Michael Rossmann, S.J., shatters the popular conception that we should say yes to everything lest we miss out on something better. He taps into his study of economics to consider the “opportunity cost” of saying yes. Fr. Rossmann says, “The next time you’re invited to do something, ask yourself, ‘If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to?’ A new commitment inevitably reduces the time and energy we have for our previous commitments. There is always an opportunity cost.” Instead, Fr. Rossmann urges readers to focus on the freedom of “missing out” and the joy that comes from committing to something or someone. “We can enjoy building something great rather than look around to see what might be better,” he writes. In Freedom of Missing Out, Fr. Rossmann offers a practical plan for developing emotional courage, increasing focus, and learning to say no to what depletes and yes to what gives meaning, vitality, and purpose. Fr. Rossmann, who is working on a doctorate at the Gregorian University in Rome, is a graduate of BC’s School of Theology and Ministry.
Freedom and joy in commitment
Posted in Awards/Honors
Tagged Jesuit author, School of Theology and Ministry, self-help
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Music therapy
Close to one million children on the autism spectrum are enrolled in U.S. schools. Geoff Barnes, who works as music therapist for the Campus School at Boston College, has written a book that depicts the emerging relationships and abilities that develop through musical play with children on the autism spectrum. Music Therapy With Preschool Children on the Autism Spectrum (Teachers College Press, 2022) draws upon a research study inside a music therapy group for preschoolers on the spectrum in a U.S. public school. In vivid narratives, readers follow individual preschoolers through their challenges and their steps toward shared attention, interpersonal interaction, and communication during music. Barnes is also an assistant professor at Lesley University.
Women artists
Discover Her Art (Chicago Review Press, 2022) introduces young readers to the lives and artwork of 24 women from the 16th to the 20th century. In each chapter, readers arrive at a masterwork, explore it with an artist’s eye, and learn about the painter’s life and the inspirations behind her work. The co-authors of the book are Jean Leibowitz and Boston College graduate Lisa Rogers. Rogers’ other publications include the award-winning 16 Words: William Carlos Williams and “The Red Wheelbarrow” and Hound Won’t Go.
Opening minds
Boston College graduate and education consultant Afrika Afeni Mills explores why racial identity work is crucial, especially for white educators and students, in order to achieve a learning environment that is bias-free and truly advances diversity, equity, and inclusion, in her new book Open Windows, Open Minds: Developing Antiracist, Pro-Human Students (Corwin, 2022). Mills offers a road map for educators to create and sustain learning environments that recognize and value the histories, perspectives, experiences, interests, identities, and contributions of traditionally marginalized people. In Open Windows, Open Minds, Mills shows educators how to use literacy instruction to provide more windows to racial awareness, antiracist thinking, and pro-human action in the classroom. Mills earned a M.Ed. from the BC Lynch School of Education and Human Development.
Fixing Broken Mirrors
In his newly published memoir, Fixing Broken Mirrors, 2022 Boston College graduate Taesung Kim recounts his lonely, traumatic childhood as the target of domestic abuse. Writing using the pen name Taesung, he also addresses his struggles with mental health issues. Storytelling is one of the ways Taesung says he was able to find acceptance and feel loved. He hopes his story, though dark and difficult, can offer hope to those who are facing loneliness or abuse. His memoir is also a challenge to readers to see that everyone has a story and many people carry around pain.
The Shepherd of Hermas
The Shepherd of Hermas is one of the oldest and most widely read Christian works. Copied in Latin, Ethiopic, Coptic, Middle Persian, and Georgian, the Shepherd had far-reaching influence. A new volume of essays looks at the religious experience in the Shepherd, a topic that has received little scholarly attention. Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas (De Gruyter, 2022) was co-edited by Boston College School of Theology and Ministry Associate Professor Angela Kim Harkins and Harry O. Maier (Vancouver School of Theology). Harkins, Maier and the other scholars contributing to the volume approach Shepherd of Hermas from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including critical literary theory, anthropology, cognitive science, affect theory, gender studies, intersectionality, and text reception. Harkins has published extensively on the topic of prayers, emotions, and religious experience in early Jewish and Christian texts and serves as an editor of the Journal of Ancient Judaism. Experiencing the Shepherd of Hermas is part of the Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages series.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Christianity, School of Theology and Ministry
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Coming of age through grief and music
Boston College graduate Katie Moulton tells the story of her coming of age through grief and the music of Tom Petty in her new audiobook memoir, Dead Dad Club. Moulton’s father, a former record store manager who passed on his love for rock-and-roll to his daughter, died unexpectedly from addiction shortly before Moulton’s 17th birthday. Moulton eventually moved to Bloomington, Indiana—the town where her parents began their love story—to write and work as a radio DJ, spinning records that defined her father, and her relationship to him. She grappled with the inevitable questions of one’s 20s: How should we relate to our families as we become our own people? Moulton’s story is a quintessentially American tale about family, grief, identity, and dependency. Moulton narrates Dead Dad Club, which features an original score by Evan Stephens Hall of Pinegrove. Moulton graduated from BC in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in English and concentration in creative writing. She is an educator, writer, and music critic. Her essays and articles have appeared or are forthcoming in New England Review, The Rumpus, Tin House, Catapult, Boulevard, Denver Post, Post Road, and Village Voice, among other outlets.
A path to purpose
Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development Professor Belle Liang and Tim Klein, a licensed certified social worker, have taken the science and knowledge they gained through their experiences as educators, mentors, and practitioners and channeled it into a new book, How to Navigate Life: The New Science of Finding Your Way in School, Career, and Beyond (St. Martin’s Press, 2022). The co-authors share a framework that helps students find their “purpose”—or “true North”—which is the key to harnessing the core qualities that lead to choosing a course of study and a career. Liang and Klein have devoted their careers to counseling students and providing guidance that slices through the daily pressures to achieve, whether they are imposed by society, parents, or peers, or are self-inflicted. Their systematic advice prioritizes cultivating students’ self-discovery and drawing out their intrinsic interests—the antithesis of the “snowplow parenting” style of child-rearing driven by fear, obsession with future success, and the constant impulse to shovel obstacles from kids’ paths. Read more in BC News.
Conscience and Catholic ed
How might recent developments in the theology of conscience in the Catholic tradition be better incorporated into the administration and teaching of K-12 Catholic schools and in Catholic colleges and universities? That question is the driving force behind a new book, Conscience and Catholic Education: Theology, Administration, and Teaching (Orbis Books, 2022), co-edited by Kevin C. Baxter (University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education) and David DeCosse, a Boston College graduate. The volume is a collection of essays from leading moral theologians, including Boston College scholars James F. Keenan, S.J. and Cathleen Kaveny, that explore the social, cultural, and structural dimensions of the theology of conscience in the context of Catholic education. Topics addressed include religious freedom, the challenge of diversity, academic freedom, conscience formation and neuroscience, and more. DeCosse, who earned a Ph.D. in theological ethics from BC, is director of religious and Catholic ethics and campus ethics programs at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, where he also is an adjunct associate professor of religious studies. His other publications include Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism in the United States: The Challenge of Becoming a Church for the Poor and his writings have appeared in National Catholic Reporter, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Unruly souls
In her new book, Unruly Souls: The Digital Activism of Muslim and Christian Feminists (Rutgers University Press, 2022), Boston College Assistant Professor of Communication Kristin Peterson explores how those marginalized from traditional religious spaces–due to their sexuality, gender, or race–employ the creative tactics of digital media to seek justice and to display their fundamental equality in the eyes of God. Through an analysis of various digital projects from hip-hop music videos and Instagram accounts to Twitter hashtags and podcasts, Peterson argues digital spaces facilitate intersectional feminist activism within Evangelical Christian and Muslim American communities and beyond. Peterson is also the author of book chapters and articles in publications such as Journal of Media, Religion, and Digital Culture and Critical Studies in Media Communication.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged activism, Communication Department, media, religion, women
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