In her review of the Kathryn Bigelow movie “Detroit,” released 50 years after the 1967 riots/rebellion in the Motor City, Martha Bayles faults the filmmakers’ attempts to capture the essence of Detroit, writing: “Instead of letting Detroit’s unique history enrich their film, the filmmakers reduce the past to a brief opening montage of selected paintings from ‘The Migration Series’ by Jacob Lawrence.” Bayles, a faculty member in the Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences’ Honors Program, is a film and TV critic for The Claremont Review of Books and the author of Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroad and Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music. | Full review
Understanding Detroit
Advent reflections
Advent is a season of hopeful waiting for the light of Christ. A new publication from Boston College alumnus Daniel P. Horan, O.F.M. provides an opportunity for readers to pray and reflect on the meaning of Advent and Christmas. In Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Advent and Christmas (Liguori Publications, 2017), Fr. Dan uses short Scripture passages to show that God in Christ Jesus is always present and that the Savior’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and redemption have already been given, but has not yet been fully realized. Fr. Dan is a Franciscan friar of Holy Name Province in New York and the author of several books including the award-winning The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton: A New Look at the Spiritual Influence on his Life, Thought, and Writing, as well as more than 120 articles. He also is a columnist for America magazine.
Lifting the fog
In the tradition of Thoreau’s Walden, Boston College graduate and former Presidential Scholar Will Dowd takes readers on a journey through a year of New England weather in Areas of Fog (Etruscan Press, 2017), a collection of essays that combines wit and poetry with humor and erudition. Areas of Fog is Dowd’s first novel and was initially an exercise to combat writer’s block. His work has appeared in LitHub, Tin House online, Post Road Magazine and The Rialto, among other places. Listen to John Dankosky’s interview with Dowd on WNPR.
Blackbird
Boston College alumna N.D. Gomes has published her second novel, Blackbird (HarperCollins UK/HQ Young Adult, 2017), a young adult thriller. Set on the island of Orkney, Scotland, the book tells the story of 14-year-old Alex McCarthy’s quest to solve the mystery of her sister Olivia’s disappearance from a New Year’s Eve party. Gomes is also the author of Dear Charlie, which was recently longlisted for the 2018 International DUBLIN Literary Award.
Creating a world beyond poverty
The Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics presents entrepreneur and author Jacqueline Novogratz on Nov. 20 at 5:30 p.m. in Robsham Theater for an evening focused on “Creating a World Beyond Poverty.” Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a non-profit venture capital fund whose goal is to use entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty. Under her leadership, Acumen has invested $110 million to build more than 102 social enterprises in countries like Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Pakistan, India, Colombia, the U.S. and others. These companies have created and supported 60,000 jobs, leveraged an additional $522 million, and brought basic services like affordable education, health care, clean water, energy and sanitation to more than 200 million people. Novogratz is the author of The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World, which was inspired by an encounter she had while in Kigali, Rwanda.
Environmental Martyrdom and Defenders of the Forest
Award-winning writer and environmental justice advocate Rob Nixon will present “Environmental Martyrdom and Defenders of the Forest” on Nov. 16 at 7:00 p.m. in the Murray Function Room at the Yawkey Athletics Center. Nixon is the author of four books, including Dreambirds: the Natural History of a Fantasy and Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Throughout his career, he has sought to engage in both scholarly and public writing on environmental concerns and social movements, particularly as they pertain to the global South. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Atlantic, Guardian, Nation, London Review of Books, Village Voice, Slate, Huffington Post, Times Literary Supplement, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among other publications. Nixon holds the Currie C. and Thomas A. Barron Family Professorship in Humanities and Environment at Princeton University. Sponsor: Park Street Corporation Speaker Series.
Telling Tales: Patience Agbabi
Poet and performer Patience Agbabi will present Telling Tales, her most recent book, on Nov. 15 at 7:00 p.m. in Gasson Hall, room 100. Agbabi has presented Telling Tales, a contemporary retelling of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, to audiences throughout the world, including in Namibia, the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Germany, and Switzerland. Her other poetry collections include R.A.W., Transformatrix and Bloodshot Monochrome. A former Poet Laureate of Canterbury, Agbabi was a recipient of the Cholmondeley Award and was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Prize for New Work in Poetry. She is currently a Fellow in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University. Sponsor: Lowell Humanities Series. Read more from BC News.
Posted in Guest Authors, Lowell Humanities Series
Tagged Lowell Humanities Series, poet
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Male survivors of sexual abuse
BC School of Social Work Associate Professor Scott Easton has contributed a chapter to the new book Understanding the Sexual Betrayal of Boys and Men: The Trauma of Sexual Abuse, edited by Richard B. Gartner. The book presents chapters from the leading experts in the trauma, psychoanalytic, medical, and survivor treatment fields. In his chapter “Building Knowledge for Recovery: Contemporary Research on the Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse on Men,” Easton provides an overview of existing research on male survivors of sexual abuse. He focuses on three areas: predictors of mental health problems for male survivors of sexual abuse, barriers to disclosure, and survivor growth post-trauma. Read more from Innovate, the BCSSW blog.
Posted in Boston College Authors
Tagged abuse, research, School of Social Work, trauma
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Best Book Award for Erickson
Dangerous Trade: Conventional Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation (Columbia University Press), written by Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies Jennifer L. Erickson, was awarded the 2017 Best Book Award by the Foreign Policy Section of American Political Science Association. Dangerous Trade explains why major arms exporting democracies have come to support new humanitarian arms trade norms, articulated in the new UN Arms Trade Treaty and related multilateral initiatives, intended to restrict small and major conventional arms exports to human rights violators and conflict zones. Yet it also shows that states’ compliance with new norms in practice has so far been limited. Dangerous Trade makes important and timely contributions to the study of international security and arms control and government transparency and accountability.
How our government segregated America
The Joseph E. Corcoran Center for Real Estate and Urban Action presents author Richard Rothstein on Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. in the Murrary Function Room of Yawkey Center. Rothstein will discuss his new book, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright, 2017), in which he argues that segregation in America is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state, and federal levels. Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a fellow at the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and of the Haas Institute at the University of California (Berkeley). He is also the author/co-author of several other books, including Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right; Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap, and The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement. Publishers Weekly named The Color of Law one of its Top 10 books of 2017. | National Public Radio interviews: “All Things Considered,” “Fresh Air.”
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