Urwa Hameed, who was accepted to Boston College at age 14 and will graduate this month with a degree in political science and international studies, has published Steering Towards Change: Women Politicians Challenging Patriarchy, Class and Power in Pakistan. Hameed was born in Pakistan, a democratic nation based on Islamic principles yet deeply rooted in traditional conservative cultural practices. The book is based on in-person interviews Hameed conducted with 45 female politicians in Pakistan. The politicians spoke to her about the role education, religion, and financial dependence played in their political journeys. Hameed was moved by the personal stories of women who had overcome poverty, patriarchal oppression, and abuse to achieve their political goals, and she hopes Steering Towards Change will serve as an inspiration for girls and young women. The book has been published in English and Urdu. Hameed plans to attend law school and envisions working as a global advocate for immigrant and women’s rights. Read more from BC News.
Challenging patriarchy in Pakistan
One hiker’s exploration of the Appalachian Trail
Over the course of 11 years, Alan Richardson, a professor of English at Boston College, hiked the entire Appalachian Trail (AT), a nearly 2,200-mile journey that extends from Georgia to Maine. His approach was unique. Rather than hike from one end to the other, Richardson “jumped and danced around,” backpacking the AT in sections and out of order. From 2004 to 2015, he explored the AT via 47 different trips. He captured his experiences in the new book, Breakfast with Salamanders: Seasons on the Appalachian Trail (2021). “Hiking the AT in sections, rather than thru-hiking it from end to end allowed me to experience the trail in every season and in all weathers…seeing an unusual variety of mosses and wildflowers, birds and mammals, and nearly every atmospheric condition you can imagine,” he writes in the book’s preface. Breakfast with Salamanders is also informed by Richardson’s practice of Zen Buddhism. He notes: “I have tried to give a sense of what mountains and rivers and the footpaths that wander through them can still mean to us at a time when the concept of nature is being challenged and the natural environment itself has come under unprecedented stress.” An expert in British Romantic literature, Richardson has taught at BC for more than 30 years. He grew up in Washington State where he would backpack and mountain climb in the North Cascade and Olympic ranges.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged English Department, environment, nature, travel
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War diary of a Boston College Jesuit
A new digital publication provides an eyewitness account of war from a Boston College Jesuit priest who served as a chaplain in the North Africa and Pacific theaters during World War II. John P. Foley, S.J., who temporarily left his post as dean of admissions and assistant dean of freshmen and sophomores at BC in 1942 to serve in the U.S. Navy, recorded his observations and experiences in a notebook. He documented horrors and heroism alike while chronicling the life and times of the young men he served, comforted, and buried. His journal has been developed into a digital work, For God and Country: The War Diary of Lieutenant Commander John P. Foley, S.J. Fr. Foley relates encounters and conversations—from the casual to the in-depth—with various officers and enlisted men and gives often vivid descriptions of the places he saw, such as the beautiful yet battle-ravaged Solomon Islands and the ruins of Tokyo. Other entries are of a more personal nature, in which he reflects on larger questions of faith and muses on the joys and sorrows of his job: helping an enlisted man sort out his complicated emotions about being in combat; giving last rites to soldiers for whom he had said Mass earlier that same day; writing letters to families informing them of a loved one’s death. For God and Country, which includes photographs and explanatory footnotes, was edited by retired Boston College Magazine Editor Ben Birnbaum and retired BC senior administrator Joseph P. Duffy, S.J., a devotee of 20th-century Jesuit history who discovered the diary in the Society of Jesus New England Provincial Archive. Read more from BC News.
Nazis in Boston
Boston College Associate Professor of History Charles R. Gallagher, S.J., has written a new book about American terrorists who, in the name of God, conspired to overthrow the government and formed an alliance with Hitler. Nazis of Copley Square: The Forgotten Story of the Christian Front (Harvard University Press, 2021) tells the story of members of the Christian Front, who imagined themselves as crusaders fighting for the spiritual purification of the U.S., under assault from godless Communism. Fr. Gallagher chronicles the evolution of the Christian Front, the transatlantic cloak-and-dagger intelligence operations that subverted it, and the mainstream political and religious leaders who shielded the Front’s activities from scrutiny. According to the publisher, “Nazis of Copley Square is a grim tale of faith perverted to violent ends, and a warning for those who hope to curb the spread of far-right ideologies today.” A Boston Globe book review called Nazis of Copley Square “a searing examination of how [Boston] … played host to a group whose leading figures spoke favorably of Nazi Germany.” Fr. Gallagher discusses Nazis of Copley Square in this Q&A. His book is also the subject of a Commonweal podcast.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged antisemitism, Boston, History Department, Jesuit author
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Cybersecurity
Mike Steinmetz, a faculty member in the Woods College of Advancing Studies’ M.S. in Cybersecurity Policy & Governance program, has authored two chapters in the new Oxford Handbook of Cyber Security. The volume taps experts from around the world to discuss the identification, avoidance, management, and mitigation of risk in, or from, cyber space. The risk concerns harm and damage that might occur as the result of everything from individual carelessness, to organized criminality, to industrial and national security espionage and, at the extreme end of the scale, to disabling attacks against a country’s critical national infrastructure. Steinmetz’s professional background includes 25 years of service within the U.S. Department of Defense, and more than 12 years in the private sector serving in various positions inside the international aerospace defense arena where he worked on numerous cyber and cybersecurity capabilities, solutions, and international cyber business strategy. A decorated combat veteran, Steinmetz is a committee member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Classified National Information Security Program for State, Local, Tribal, and Private Sector Policy Advisory Committee.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged cybersecurity, Woods College of Advancing Studies
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Remote work is here to stay
Remote work became a necessity for many during the pandemic, and some workplaces are looking to permanently incorporate remote work into their regular operations. But remote work comes with challenges. Employees want to know how to build trust, maintain connections without in-person interactions, and strike a proper work/life balance. Managers want to know how to lead virtually, how to keep their teams motivated, what digital tools they’ll need, and how to keep employees productive. In her new book, Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere (2021, Harper Collins Business), Tsedal Neeley, a leading expert in virtual and global work, provides compelling, evidence-based solutions to pressing issues surrounding remote work, enabling workers and employers to successfully use remote work to benefit themselves, their groups, and ultimately their organizations. Neeley is the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and a 1991 graduate of Boston College. She is also the author of the award-winning book, The Language of Global Success: How a Common Tongue Transforms Multinational Organizations. She has published extensively in leading scholarly and practitioner-oriented outlets and her work has appeared in media outlets such as BBC, CNN, Financial Times, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist. Neeley answered the most pressing questions about the shift to hybrid work in this piece for the Harvard Business Review.
After the rain
A powerful and emotional new young adult novel from Natália Gomes tells a story about friendship, healing, and hope. After the Rain (HarperCollins, 2021) is about Jack and Alice, two strangers who forge an unlikely friendship in the aftermath of trauma. Gomes is also the author of We Are Not Okay and Blackbird. Gomes earned a master’s degree from the Lynch School of Education and Human Development and worked as a special education coordinator in the U.S. She now lives in Scotland has an MLitt in Scottish Literature & Creative Writing and is completing a Ph.D. in English Studies.
Robin Wall Kimmerer on indigenous wisdom and science
Robin Wall Kimmerer will give a lecture based on her nonfiction book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Press), on December 1 at 7 p.m. (ET). Her presentation will be in webinar format followed by a moderated discussion and audience Q&A. Kimmerer is a scientist, educator, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation whose interests include restoration of ecological communities and restoration of our relationships to land. A SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, she is founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for shared goals of sustainability. According to the publisher of Braiding Sweetgrass: “In a rich braid of reflections, [Kimmerer] circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.” She also is the author of the award-winning book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Kimmerer’s talk is presented by the Lowell Humanities Series and is co–sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program and the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department. Pre-registration is required.
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series
Tagged botany, environment, Native American
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In honor of Fr. Bernauer
A special issue of the journal Philosophy & Social Criticism has been published in honor of Kraft Family Professor Emeritus James Bernauer, S.J., former director of BC’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning. Fr. Bernauer retired in 2020 after a 40-year career at the Heights. The special issue consists of essays written by Fr. Bernauer’s colleagues and former students. The volume’s guest editor is Joseph Tanke, who earned master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy from BC. More from BC News.
Posted in Alumni Authors, Boston College Authors
Tagged philosophy, Philosophy Department
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A guiding light
Boston College alumnus Steve Pemberton is the author of The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People Can Have an Extraordinary Impact in the World (Zondervan, 2021). He writes about what he calls “human lighthouses”—the mentors, teachers, friends, and colleagues who selflessly guide us along life’s voyage. Book trailer. One of the quietly heroic people Pemberton highlights in his book is fellow Boston College Welles Crowther, who saved the lives of strangers on 9/11. Pemberton is also the author of a memoir, A Chance in the World, which chronicles his journey from a childhood spent in cruel foster homes to an adulthood of happiness and success. Learn more about Pemberton and The Lighthouse Effect in a Q&A from Boston College Magazine.
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