In his new book, Boston College graduate Mukul Sheopory draws business lessons from the life of Alexander the Great, and compares his military strategies and tactics to events from the lives of moguls like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and George Soros. Bucephalus’ Shadow: Ten Business Lessons From the Life of Alexander the Great connects the dots between past and present, military and business, as it attempts to change how the reader thinks about strategy. Sheopory earned an M.B.A. from Boston College, lives in California, and works with technology companies to serve small-business owners.
Lessons from Alexander the Great
Magdalene Laundries and the campaign for justice
Between 1922 and 1996, over 10,000 Irish girls and women, specifically unmarried mothers, and those considered promiscuous, sexually abused, and/or a burden to their families or the state, were imprisoned and subjected to forced labor in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. The Laundries’ initial objective to “protect, reform, and rehabilitate” devolved to a regimen of cruel, psychological, and physical maltreatment of the incarcerated women and young girls. Utilizing the Irish government’s 2013 inquiry, as well as state records and survivors’ witness testimonies, a new book, Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury, 2021), not only provides a detailed account of life behind the asylums’ secluded walls, but explores academic and survivor activism. The volume is co-authored by Boston College Associate Professor of English and Irish Studies James M. Smith; BC alumna Katherine O’Donnell of University College Dublin; Claire McGettrick (University College Dublin); Maeve O’Rourke (National University of Ireland, Galway), and Mari Steed, born in the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in County Cork, whose mother lived in a Magdalene Laundry, and one of more than 2,000 children exported—at age two—from Ireland for adoption in the U.S. Smith is also the author of the 2007 book Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (Notre Dame Press). Read more from BC News.
Posted in Alumni Authors, Boston College Authors
Tagged adoption, human rights, Ireland, social justice
3 Comments
From Beirut to Belfast
Czar Alexei Sepe, a 2021 Boston College graduate who majored in political science and history, has turned his senior thesis into a book, From Beirut to Belfast: How Power-Sharing Arrangements affect Ethnic Tensions in Post-Conflict Societies. Sepe uses Northern Ireland and Lebanon to illustrate a theory of sites of social interaction (SSI) and strategies of social cohesion in power-sharing institutions. Sepe writes that SSIs and cohesion strategies that increase tensions will cause power-sharing failure in the long run, and vice versa. He contends that there is a causal link between power-sharing and ethnic tensions in divided societies, through mechanisms of SSIs and cohesion strategies. For this work, Sepe won the University’s Donald S. Carlisle Award for academic excellence in political science. Sepe studied in Beirut via BC’s Omar A. Aggad Travel and Research Fellowship. He also studied abroad in Ireland. His thesis advisor was Political Science Associate Professor Peter Krause.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Political Science department
Leave a comment
Meet Millie Gogarty
In her debut novel, Boston College alumna Rebecca Hardiman introduces readers to the quirky but lovable Gogarty clan: Kevin, who is unemployed and overwhelmed, his sulky teenaged daughter Aideen, and his 83-year-old mother Millie, who has just been caught shoplifting—again. Good Eggs (Simon & Schuster/Atria Books, 2021) is a warmhearted and humorous look at three generations of a spirited Irish family. In an interview about Good Eggs, Hardiman, a former magazine editor, said, “I wanted to show that family isn’t always easy and personalities will clash, conflicts will arise, but in the end there’s a lot of love there as well.” According to Publishers Weekly, “Hardiman’s endearing novel stands out for its brilliant insight into the mixed blessings of family bonds.”
The librarian with a secret
Belle da Costa Greene was hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. She became a fixture in New York City society and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world. But the more her reputation grew, the tighter Belle held onto a secret: She was passing for white. In the new book The Personal Librarian (Berkley/Penguin Random House, 2021), co-authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray tell the story of a remarkable woman, and the lengths to which she went to keep her secret. Benedict is a Boston College graduate and a bestselling author. Her previous titles include The Only Woman in the Room, The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, and Lady Clementine, among others. The Personal Librarian was chosen as the July GMA Book Club pick. Benedict and Murray talked about their collaboration with the Washington Post. Exhortation and advice
Francesco Sacchini (1570–1625) was a much-respected rhetorician, biographer, and official historian of the Society of Jesus. At his death, he left behind two essays—The Protrepticon (“exhortation”) and the Paraenesis (“advice”)—valuable, ever-ready resources for those assigned to teach the younger students in the literary courses in the Society’s schools. Generations of teachers through the golden age of Jesuit education in the 17th century profited from Sacchini’s wisdom, and much remains quite relevant and useful today. Cristiano Casalini, Endowed Chair of Jesuit Pedagogy and Educational History at Lynch School of Education and Human Development, and Claude Pavur, S.J., associate editor of Jesuit Sources, have edited a new text based on Fr. Sacchini’s words. Exhortation and Advice for the Teachers of Young Students in Jesuit Schools, a publication from the Boston College Institute of Advanced Jesuit Studies’ Jesuit Sources, provides a window into a Jesuit spirituality of teaching. This annotated bilingual edition presents the first English translation of the pedagogical classic and is considered a great contribution to the study of Jesuit pedagogy and what it means to be a Jesuit educator. The co-editors discussed this volume in an Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies video.
Key to student engagement
Education experts Dennis Shirley and Andy Hargreaves have written a new book aimed at educators looking to promote active engagement in the classroom and improve student learning. Based on examples from seven years of research, Five Paths of Student Engagement: Blazing the Trail to Learning and Success (Solution Tree, 2021) integrates psychological and sociological perspectives and delves deeply into the what, why, and how of student engagement. Teachers will learn who and what the true enemies of student engagement are and how to implement practices that lead directly to students’ well-being, learning, and success. Five Paths of Student Engagement is featured by TES Research Review. | Shirley is a Duganne Faculty Fellow and professor at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College. He is the author/co-author of several books, including The Mindful Teacher. Hargreaves is professor emeritus at the BC Lynch School and author/co-author of Collaborative Professionalism and the memoir Moving, among other titles. Shirley and Hargreaves have previously collaborated on the books The Fourth Way and The Global Fourth Way.
Chaos in the face of COVID
A new book co-authored by Boston College graduate Damian Paletta and fellow Washington Post journalist Yasmeen Abutaleb offers a detailed account of the White House’s actions from January 2020 to Election Day while the nation faced COVID-19. Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History (Harper, 2021) is based on extensive reporting and interviews with some 180 people, including White House senior staff members and government health leaders. Paletta and Abutaleb reveal the numerous times officials tried to dissuade Trump from following his worst impulses as he defied recommendations from the experts and even members of his own administration. And they show how the petty backstabbing and rivalries among cabinet members, staff, and aides created a toxic environment of blame, sycophancy, and political pressure. Even after an outbreak that swept through the White House and infected Trump himself, he remained defiant in his approach to the virus, say the authors. Paletta is the economics editor at the Washington Post and previously covered the White House for the Post and the Wall Street Journal. An excerpt from the book was published in the Washington Post. The authors discussed their book on Washington Post Live | Transcript.
Alliance politics
Accommodative wedge strategy, a form of divisive statecraft and diplomacy designed to isolate adversaries from allies and potential supporters through inducements, is a powerful tool in the international politics arsenal. In his new book, The Power to Divide: Wedge Strategies in Great Power Competition (Cornell University Press, 2021), Boston College Associate Professor of Political Science Timothy Crawford looks at eight cases of alliance diplomacy from 1915 to 1941 and assesses the record of countries that tried an accommodative wedge strategy, and why ultimately, they succeeded or failed. Crawford argues that a deeper historical and theoretical grasp of the role of these wedge strategies in alliance politics and grand strategy is important for consideration of contemporary U.S. relations with China and Russia. Crawford concludes his book with a survey of China’s potential to use such strategies to divide India from the U.S. and the United States’ potential to use them to forestall a China-Russia alliance. Crawford wrote about the wedge strategy logic of U.S.-Russian dialogue ahead of last month’s summit between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin. For more from Crawford about his book, read this Q&A from Cornell University Press.
Faculty authors honored
Faculty in the Philosophy and Theology departments have been honored for their work by organizations recognizing outstanding Catholic books, magazines, newspapers, and other communications vehicles. The Catholic Media Association (formerly Catholic Press Association) awarded Kraft Family Professor Emeritus James Bernauer, S.J., a second place CMA Book Award for his publication, Jesuit Kaddish: Jesuits, Jews, and Holocaust Remembrance (Notre Dame Press). The book was recognized in the category of ecumenism or interfaith relations. The CMA also awarded the Theology Department’s Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics Andrea Vicini, S.J., an honorable mention for Best Writing – Analysis (magazine category) for his article “Reflecting on CRISPR Gene Editing.” The article appeared in Health Progress, the journal of the Catholic Health Association of the United States. The Association of Catholic Publishers awarded Professor of Philosophy Marina Berzins McCoy a first place prize in the category of general interest books for her publication The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness (Loyola Press). Read more from BC News.
Posted in Awards/Honors, Boston College Authors
Tagged Catholic, Philosophy Department, Theology Department
Leave a comment
BC Bookmarks 