A new book by Executive Director of Research Infrastructure Joshua Z. Rappoport explores the social, ethical, and economic impacts of modern genetics, where cutting-edge technologies have provided unprecedented access to personal genetic information. Mapping Humanity: How Modern Genetics Is Changing Criminal Justice, Personalized Medicine, and Our Identities (BenBella Books, 2020) is a guide for readers looking to understand the potential risks and benefits of genetic information technologies and genetic engineering. Topics covered include personal genetic testing products, such as 23andMe, DNA’s impact on the criminal justice system, Genetically Modified Organisms, genome editing, and gene therapy. Rappoport, who joined Boston College in 2019, earned a Ph.D. from the Program in Mechanisms of Disease and Therapeutics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Graduate School of Biological Sciences of New York University.
A closer look at modern genetics
Remembering the Big, Bad Bruins
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Boston Bruins’ 1970 Stanley Cup championship. Boston College alumnus Thomas Whalen takes readers on a trip back to that memorable season in his new book, Kooks and Degenerates on Ice: Bobby Orr, the Big Bad Bruins, and the Stanley Cup Championship That Transformed Hockey (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020). He opens the book with a look at the U.S. in 1970 and what was happening outside the sports world in politics and pop culture. He then delves into the 1969-70 Bruins, led off the ice by coach Harry Sinden and on the ice by players like Bobby Orr, Johnny Bucyk, Phil Esposito, and Derek Sanderson. A Massachusetts native, Whalen earned a master’s degree and doctorate from Boston College and teaches at Boston University. His previous books include Dynasty’s End: Bill Russell and the 1968-69 World Champion Boston Celtics, When the Red Sox Ruled: Baseball’s First Dynasty, 1912-1918, and Spirit of ’67: The Cardiac Kids, El Birdos, and the World Series That Captivated American. He was interviewed about his book by the Salem News and Boston 25 News.
A deeper look at Karl Rahner
A scholar of Christian mysticism, Boston College Professor Emeritus Harvey D. Egan, S.J., earned his doctorate in theology under the direction of the influential Jesuit priest and theologian Karl Rahner. He combines his interest and expertise in both mysticism and Rahner in the new book, The Christology and Mystical Theology of Karl Rahner (Herder & Herder, 2020), co-authored with Fr. Joseph H. Wong, OSB, Cam. The authors delineate what Rahner means by the mysticism of daily life, the mysticism of the masses, the mysticism of the classical masters, the difference between infused and awakened contemplation, the relation of mysticism to Christian perfection, and Rahner’s controversial view that the mystical life does not require a special grace. The book also considers Rahner’s views of Jesus Christ and St. Ignatius Loyola.
Fénelon
François Fénelon (1651-1715) was a French theologian, writer, and Roman Catholic archbishop who is arguably one of the most neglected major philosophers of early modernity. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, and yet only a small fraction of his influential writings have appeared in modern English translation. BC Political Science Professor Ryan Patrick Hanley’s new publication is the first book-length interpretative study of Fénelon’s writings to appear in English. Edited and translated by Hanley, Fénelon: Moral and Political Writings (Oxford University Press, 2020) includes Fénelon’s work on topics ranging from education to literature to religion and statecraft. With an extensive introduction to Fénelon’s life and work, this volume is a critical resource for students and scholars of French history and political philosophy. A companion volume to the translation is Hanley’s book, The Political Philosophy of Fénelon (Oxford University Press, 2020), which focuses on Fénelon’s political thought and its connections to fields such as economics, education, literature, theology, and spirituality. Hanley constructs a new understanding and appreciation of Fénelon, whose work has direct relevance to today’s political world.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged France, political philosophy, Political Science department, translation
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STM scholarly publications
The School of Theology and Ministry’s annual celebration of its faculty’s scholarship was virtual this year due to the pandemic. The video showcase recognizes 2019-20 scholarly publications by STM faculty, including book chapters and journal articles, translations, authored and edited books, and the three issues of Volume 63 of New Testament Abstracts. Faculty members recognized are: John Baldovin, S.J., André Brouillette, S.J., Francine Cardman, Andrew R. Davis, Brian Dunkle, S.J., Thomas Groome, Margaret Eletta Guider, OSF, Angela Kim Harkins, Franklin T. Harkins, David W. Jorgensen, Richard Lennan, Rafael Luciani, Christopher R. Matthews, Theresa O’Keefe, Hosffman Ospino, Michael Simone, S.J., Thomas D. Stegman, S.J., and O. Ernesto Valiente.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged Jesuit author, School of Theology and Ministry
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300 years of Ireland’s literary history
Irish Literature in Transition is six-volume series from Cambridge University Press that tracks patterns of transmission and transformation between and across the centuries of Irish literature, from 1700 to the present. The general editors for the series are Boston College Associate Professor of English and Irish Studies Marjorie Howes and Claire Connolly of University College Cork. According to the publisher: “Each of the six volumes revises [the] understanding of established issues and texts and, simultaneously, introduces new questions, approaches, and authors. The series as a whole generates alternative genealogies across time and space, creating a new and dynamic version of literary history while highlighting the significance of change as a lived, felt force.” In addition to her role as series editor, Howes edited volume four, Irish Literature in Transition, 1880–1940, which covers the crucial period of the 1916 Easter Rising and the writings of Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, and Lady Gregory. Vera Kreilkamp, who teaches in BC’s Irish Studies program, contributed an essay to this volume.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged English Department, Irish literature, Irish Studies
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A memoir about moving forward
The life and career of Virginia Buckingham, the woman in charge of Boston’s Logan International Airport on 9/11, was torn apart after terrorists hijacked two planes and flew them into the World Trade Center. She was forced to resign and was sued for wrongful death by one of the victims’ family. In her new memoir On My Watch (Cavan Bridge Press, 2020), Buckingham “shares her struggle to rebuild her life and come to terms with being blamed for the unimaginable tragedy that occurred on her watch.” A Boston College alumna, Buckingham discussed her book and themes of resilience and moving forward versus moving on in a WSBT interview and in an opinion piece for the NY Post.
Posted in Alumni Authors
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The Clearing
The Clearing (Milkweed Editions, 2020), winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, is the debut collection of poetry from BC English Department Associate Professor of the Practice Allison Adair. According to the publisher, The Clearing is “luminous and electric from the first line to the last. The women in these poems live in places that have been excavated for gold and precious ores, and they understand the nature of being hollowed out. From the midst of the Civil War to our current era, Adair charts fairy tales that are painfully familiar, never forgetting that violence is often accompanied by tenderness.” The Boston Globe calls The Clearing “astonishing and luminous.”
Andy Hargreaves memoir
When you are an educator, even your memoir provides lessons. Moving: A Memoir of Education and Social Mobility (Solution Tree, 2020) follows internationally renowned educational policy expert and author Andy Hargreaves from his early days in 1950s Northern England to his university education in the early 1970s. Hargreaves connects the memoir’s theme of social mobility—the chance, through education, to achieve greater success than one’s parents—to today’s challenges of inequity and immobility. According to the publisher, “Hargreaves openly shares how class movement has affected him throughout life, links his narrative to classic and contemporary research and realities, and calls on society to reverse the increasing levels of social immobility and inequity worldwide.” Hargreaves is a professor emeritus at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development and a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa. He is president and co-founder of ARC (Atlantic Rim Collaboratory), a global initiative dedicated to advancing equity, excellence, inclusion, well-being, democracy, sustainability, and human rights in education.
Green bioethics
In her book Principles of Green Bioethics: Sustainability in Health Care (Michigan State University Press, 2019), author Cristina Richie lays out a framework for evaluating the sustainability of medical developments, techniques, and procedures. She calls for a joining of biomedical ethics with environmental ethics so the resulting bioethics are conservation-based and will reduce resource consumption in health care and lessen climate change-related health hazards. Richie is an alumna of Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry where she graduated with a master of theology. She went on to earn a doctorate in theological ethics from BC. Richie is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies at East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, with an adjunct appointment in the Department of Public Health.
Posted in Alumni Authors
Tagged bioethics, environment, ethics, health care, School of Theology and Ministry, Theology Department
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BC Bookmarks 