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Jessie Ball duPont Library

Alumni Publications

The Library provides information on alumni authored books and other materials as a service to our alumni community. To browse titles by fellow alumni, search alphabetically by last name or by class year.

Recent Alumni Publications

Women in Power by Stephanie McCarter (Editor); Christopher Michael McDonough (Contributor); Daniel Holmes (Contributor); Paige Graf, C'2024.(Contributor).

Classical stories about women who wield power, from the Amazons to Dido to Cleopatra A Penguin Classic There is no other anthology that brings together similar stories of ancient women in power. These women threaten male power by stepping into the roles traditionally held by men. They command armies, exercise sexual autonomy and even dominance, speak in public, issue laws, and subject others (even masculine heroes and citizen men) to their control. All of these stories were written by men, and none of them can be read as affirmations or celebrations of women in power. They are instead misogynistic tales that aim to shore up masculine authority by exposing the consequences when women rather than men wield it. The sexist attitudes voiced in these stories continue to justify women's exclusion from power in our contemporary world. Yet despite the fear and suspicion the male authors direct toward these women, we can find much to admire in their tales, from the coordinated action of the women of Aristophanes's Assemblywomen, to Dido's questioning of the male value system that leads Aeneas to abandon her, to the righteous anger of Boudicca against sexual violence by men in power, to the successful resistance of Amanirenas against Rome's colonial expansion. Read differently, these tales testify to the long history of women in power and help us forge new paths for female empowerment.

The Majestic Leo Marble by Robert Joseph Kuehnle (R.J. Lee), C'1968.

Leo Marble quickens in the womb during a Broadway show, but his life is lived in the Deep South in conservative Mississippi and laid-back New Orleans. He eventually emerges from the closet to become a journalist and advocate for gay rights and visibility. Along the way, he experiences heartache on an international scale, but keeps his indomitable spirit alive with show tune concerts at his spinet, eventually falling in love with a dedicated meteorologist with higher math skills.

Lenny among Ghosts by Frank Maria Reifenberg; Rachel Hildebrandt Reynolds, C'1998. (Translator)

What happens when you're the only human student in a school for ghosts? Lenny has no idea of the adventure he's in for when his parents decide to take an extended research trip and sign him up for a boarding school in an old German castle. But even before leaving for the school, it seems like something is trying to prevent Lenny from going... Once he arrives at Shadowsnout Castle Academy, a couple more things become clear: (1) this is not your average school, and (2) Lenny is probably in some serious danger. Lenny needs an escape plan--and fast. As Lenny makes his way through the school (and some most unusual classes), he's plunged into a world of turning heads, rhyming radio ghosts, invisible pirates, and floating maidens, each with their own creepiness factor--and, surprisingly, charm. And when the school comes under attack by outside forces, Lenny finds himself questioning everything he thought he knew. What if, maybe, being here, right now, was his destiny all along?

Shine Bright Anyway by Faith Broussard Cade, C'2007.

You are enough! Learn to acknowledge your wounds, embrace healing, and shine bright again with these 90 insightful and uplifting messages from Faith Broussard Cade (@fleurdelisspeaks on Instagram). The expectations we feel from others today can make us feel that we are not enough. That we should want more, do more, and be more. After a car accident in 2018 that left her with a traumatic brain injury that she still deals with today, author Faith Broussard Cade was in a place of trauma and brokenness. To this day, it hurts, it slows her down, and some days it leaves her feeling emotionally vulnerable and overwhelmed. But despite this suffering every day she chooses gratitude, love, and hard work. Faith's hand-penned notes sharing about her struggles on her Instagram account, @fleurdelisspeaks, has helped thousands of others do the same. And in this beautiful, full-color book she pairs each handwritten note with a longer message of encouragement to help you or someone you care about: Overcome the wounds of the past through honesty and humbleness Replace feelings of inadequacy with the truth of your worthiness Prioritize self-care even when life is demanding Celebrate each day with gratitude and appreciation Believe in yourself when others say you can't or that you don't matter   If life has left you feeling you are not enough or you are haunted by past choices, circumstances, or labels, Shine Bright Anyway will give you the encouragement to change your narrative. The expectations you live with today do not have to define you. You are enough!

Better Living Through Literature by Robin R. Bates, SMA'1969.

"For 2500 years people have been debating how literature changes lives, and versions of those debates continue today in classrooms, school and library boardrooms, and state legislatures. The life-transforming potential of books caught the attention of Dante, Cervantes, Jane Austen, Percy Shelley, and many others. Better Living through Literature surveys what the great thinkers have said on the subject, from Plato and Aristotle to Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to W.E.B Du Bois, Harold Bloom, and Martha Nussbaum. Contending that reading is sometimes like playing with dynamite, Robin Bates brings the issues alive with compelling accounts of stories and poems upending individual lives and sometimes history itself."--back cover.

The New Testament in Color by Esau McCaulley, C'2002.(Editor)

In a first-of-its-kind volume, The New Testament in Color offers biblical commentary that is: Multiethnic Diverse Contextual Informative Reflective Prophetic Inspiring "I wish someone had handed The New Testament in Color to me twenty-five years ago, and I hope many will read it now." --Nijay Gupta, bestselling author of Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church. Historically, Bible commentaries have focused on the particular concerns of a limited segment of the church, all too often missing fresh questions and perspectives that are fruitful for biblical interpretation.Listening to scholars from diverse backgrounds and ethnicities offers us an opportunity to explore the Bible from a wider angle, a better vantage point. The New Testament in Color is a one-volume commentary on the New Testament written by a multiethnic team of scholars holding orthodox Christian beliefs. Each scholar brings exegetical expertise coupled with a unique interpretive lens to illuminate the ways social location and biblical interpretation work together. Theologically orthodox and multiethnically contextual, The New Testament in Color fills a gap in biblical understanding for both the academy and the church. Who we are and where God placed us--it's all useful for better understanding his Word.

An Intimate Good by Laurel Mathewson, T'2013.

At age twenty-one, the pain of losing her mother to cancer sent Laurel Mathewson--with a naturally skeptical and questioning outlook--on a years-long existential journey. After an unexpected, overwhelming experience of God's love, Laurel felt God say to her, "Turn to Teresa. She will guide you." She understood that "Teresa" was the sixteenth-century saint Teresa of Avila, but she knew very little about her. Even after becoming an Episcopal priest, she had never read more than a few pages of Teresa's writings. Laurel began to read The Interior Castle, Teresa's book about the "dwellings" within our souls that we move through to develop an ever-deepening relationship with God through prayer. She truly marveled at discovering a text that illuminated her own spiritual path with such insight, candor, and clarity. And she continued to experience the intimate presence of a God who kept defying and transforming her cynical nature--and offered her the gift of healing. This beautifully written and moving memoir illustrates an ancient reality still very much alive today: the love and closeness of a good God, as known through Jesus Christ, who seeks to move out into the world, into our very bodies and lives. Not by nature or training inclined to believe such a wild claim, Laurel discovered that God is full of surprises. In every age, but perhaps particularly in our own, people hunger for personal narratives that help bring to life complex frameworks and ideas. An Intimate Good brings into focus not just Teresa's Interior Castle but also the living God who is at the heart of it, especially for modern readers who take the life of the mind seriously and yearn for confirmation of meaning and belovedness. Laurel's journey will lead you to a clearer understanding of the varied avenues God works in our lives over time, through prayer and other people, leading us in ways only possible by One who knows us intimately and loves us deeply.  

Walk the Dark Hills by Joe Nunley, T'1986.

An historical adventure set in 1891-1892. Cade Schild, wrongly convicted of a crime, is sent to Tracy City where he must survive the dangers of a coal mine, a sadistic guard, and life among convicts where brutal beatings and death are common events. Unexpectedly, he is transferred to the coal baron's estate to maintain his grounds and stables where he meets Lacey Jennings. A romantic relationship is forbidden, but their attraction is irresistible. They fall in love amid a crumbling social structure that can no longer sustain itself.

Yes Gawd! by Royal G. Cravens, III, C'2010.

Yes Gawd! explores the effects of religious belief and practice on political behavior among the LGBT community, a population long persecuted by religious institutions and generally considered to be non-religious. Royal Cravens deftly shows how faith impacts the politics of LGBT people. He details how the queer community creates, defines, and experiences spirituality and spiritual affirmation as well as the consequences this has for their identity, socialization, and political development. Cravens also demonstrates the mobilizing power of faith for LGBT people by contrasting the effects of participation in faith and secular communities on political activism. He explores how factors such as coming out, race, and LGBT-affirming churches influence political attitudes and behavior and explains how the development of LGBT politico-religious activism provides opportunities for LGBT people to organize politically. Ultimately, Cravens provides a cohesive account of how religion acts as a catalyst for and facilitator in the political development of LGBT people in the United States. In the process, he shows that there is room for both religion in LGBT communities and LGBT people in religious communities.

Pilgrims 2.0 by Lindsey Harding, L'2011.

A novel following four passengers on a luxury cruise line that promises complete reinvention through plastic surgery. PILGRIM, Canterbury Cruise Line's flagship, promises its passengers not just a luxurious fortnight away but the opportunity for reinvention. This extraordinary journey is made possible by the captain and visionary plastic surgeon Dr. Walter Heston, by the vessel's self-learning artificial intelligence called BECCA, and an all-male crew of room stewards, deck hands, technicians, and cosmetic practitioners. Pilgrims 2.0 begins on the eve of Cruise #52 and follows four women eager for transformation. Meet Bianca, the aging athlete determined to resume the competitive tennis career that motherhood sidelined. Meet Nicole, whose mommy makeover will mean she can stop hiding herself, and her debt, from her husband. Meet Lyla, an infertile maternity-ward nurse desperate to experience pregnancy, and Annalie, who wants only to stop seeing her dead twin every time she looks in the mirror. At the center of the story is Dr. Heston himself, driven to do with bodies what his late wife, Rebecca, could do with computer code--make the impossible, possible. But "excursions" like these aren't always smooth sailing--especially on this voyage, where the hopes, histories, and obsessions of clients and crew members collide. When a disruptive crewman's pranks turn dangerous, it becomes clear that some of those who embarked won't return to the Port of Los Angeles--at least not fully, at least not as themselves, and maybe not with their lives.

Alumni Publication.Titled, The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, H'2023.

The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, H'2023.

From the beloved New York Times opinion writer and bestselling author of Late Migrations comes a "howling love letter to the world" (Ann Patchett): a luminous book that traces the passing of seasons, personal and natural. In The Comfort of Crows, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: fifty-two chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons--from a crow spied on New Year's Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring--what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life. Grown children, unexpectedly home during the pandemic, prepare to depart once more. Birdsong and night-blooming flowers evoke generations past. The city and the country where Renkl raised her family transform a little more with each passing day. And the natural world, now in visible flux, requires every ounce of hope and commitment from the author--and from us. For, as Renkl writes, "radiant things are bursting forth in the darkest places, in the smallest nooks and deepest cracks of the hidden world." With fifty-two original color artworks by the author's brother, Billy Renkl, The Comfort of Crows is a lovely and deeply moving book from a cherished observer of the natural world.

Hidden in Plain Sight by Rachel Stephens, C'2002.

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, abolitionists crafted a variety of visual messages about the plight of enslaved people, portraying the violence, familial separation, and dehumanization that they faced. In response, proslavery southerners attempted to counter these messages either through idealization or outright erasure of enslaved life.   In Hidden in Plain Sight: Concealing Enslavement in American Visual Culture, Rachel Stephens addresses an enormous body of material by tracing themes of concealment and silence through paintings, photographs, and ephemera, connecting long overlooked artworks with both the abolitionist materials to which they were responding and archival research across a range of southern historical narratives.   Stephens begins her fascinating study with an examination of the ways that slavery was visually idealized and defended in antebellum art. She then explores the tyranny--especially that depicted in art--enacted by supporters of enslavement, introduces a range of ways that artwork depicting slavery was tangibly concealed, considers photographs of enslaved female caretakers with the white children they reared, and investigates a printmaker's confidential work in support of the Confederacy. Finally, she delves into an especially pernicious group of proslavery artists in Richmond, Virginia.   Reading visual culture as a key element of the antebellum battle over slavery, Hidden in Plain Sight complicates the existing narratives of American art and history.  

All shall be well : poems for Julian of Norwich by Sarah Law (Editor); Jennifer Davis Michael, C'1989. (Contributor)

To celebrate the 650th anniversary of Julian of Norwich's visionary 'Shewings', here is an anthology of new poems for Mother Julian, medieval mystic, anchoress, and the first woman to write a book in English. Lyrical, prayerful, vivid and insightful, these poems offer a poetic testament to Julian's enduring legacy of prayer and confidence in a merciful God who assured her that 'All Shall Be Well, and All Shall Be Well, and All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well.To celebrate the 650th anniversary of Julian of Norwich's visionary 'Shewings', here is an anthology of new poems for Mother Julian, medieval mystic, anchoress, and the first woman to write a book in English. Lyrical, prayerful, vivid and insightful, these poems offer a poetic testament to Julian's enduring legacy of prayer and confidence in a merciful God who assured her that 'All Shall Be Well, and All Shall Be Well, and All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well.'

Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion, C'1987.

Winner of the 2024 Crime Writers' Association Dagger Award

Two women wrenched apart by a family member's disappearance must find a way back to each other in this haunting page-turner by the author of A Crooked Tree. Nessa Garvey's sister Deena vanished without a trace in Philadelphia in 2004. In all that time, Nessa has never once doubted what her instincts told her: her sister's ex-husband has gotten away with an unspeakable crime. Nessa's niece, Ruby, is raised by her father, the man Nessa suspects, in rural Vermont, on the shores of Lake Champlain. Ruby learns how to hunt, how the plants and trees grow, how to avoid making her father angry. The one question she longs to ask is the one she knows she cannot voice: What really happened to her mother? Over fourteen years, four hundred miles apart, these two women slowly begin to unearth the family history of insidious power and control that has shaped them both in such different ways. But can they reach each other in time? Tell Me What I Am is a riveting, indelible tour de force of buried secrets and unlikely resilience.

Toward a Holy Ecology by Rabbi Ellen Bernstein, Foreword by Bill McKibben H'2012.

"Reading Ellen Bernstein's Toward a Holy Ecology is to partake in a garden of delights. She refreshes our reading of the Song by enlivening all of our senses." --Rabbi Nancy Flam, Co-founder National Center for Jewish Healing, and The Institute for Jewish Spirituality Song of Songs is known as the erotic part of the Bible, but Ellen Bernstein shows how it is also an ancient source of deep ecological wisdom. Toward a Holy Ecology is a new translation of this Hebrew text, illuminating the place of humans in the natural world and inviting you to develop a holy, ecological language for life. This book sets the natural world before you with intensity and beauty, inviting you to savor it with all your senses. Then you are able to return to the world with a renewed clarity, love, and energy necessary for creating a healthier future for the earth and all her inhabitants. Toward a Holy Ecology is for all who love the earth and its inhabitants--including outdoor enthusiasts, spiritual seekers, fellow poets, feminists, and students of the humanities, religion, and ecology. It will change how you see, how you speak, and how you live.

The House of Being by Natasha D. Trethewey, H'2023.

An exquisite meditation on the geographies we inherit and the metaphors we inhabit, from Pulitzer Prize winner and nineteenth U.S. poet laureate Natasha Trethewey In a shotgun house in Gulfport, Mississippi, at the crossroads of Highway 49, the legendary highway of the Blues, and Jefferson Street, Natasha Trethewey learned to read and write. Before the land was a crossroads, however, it was a pasture: a farming settlement where, after the Civil War, a group of formerly enslaved women, men, and children made a new home. In this intimate and searching meditation, Trethewey revisits the geography of her childhood to trace the origins of her writing life, born of the need to create new metaphors to inhabit "so that my story would not be determined for me." She recalls the markers of history and culture that dotted the horizons of her youth: the Confederate flags proudly flown throughout Mississippi; her gradual understanding of her own identity as the child of a Black mother and a white father; and her grandmother's collages lining the hallway, offering glimpses of the world as it could be. With the clarity of a prophet and the grace of a poet, Trethewey offers up a vision of writing as reclamation: of our own lives and the stories of the vanished, forgotten, and erased.

The Interior Castle by Laurel Mathewson, T'2013.

Teresa of Avila was a sixteenth-century Carmelite nun who was committed to a life of contemplative prayer. Beloved for both her deep spiritual insights and practical approach to life, her writings are considered spiritual classics, and The Interior Castle is widely recognized as her literary masterpiece. To read The Interior Castle is to put yourself in the hands of an extraordinarily qualified faith mentor who well understands our struggles to connect with God. Teresa's primary metaphor throughout this work is that the human soul is an "interior castle," or a series of "dwelling places," of great grandeur, beauty, and value. Her book is a tour of the different ways we relate to God through prayer, with varying intensity, awareness, and intimacy, culminating with spiritual unity with God. Many books on prayer are about what we do to pray, or to pray better. But there are relatively few, like The Interior Castle, that focus on what God does in prayer--particularly the sometimes inexplicable ways God gives us experiences of love, healing, strength, insight, companionship, and knowledge of God's presence in, and will for, our lives. In this new edition of The Interior Castle, editor Laurel Mathewson, author of An Intimate Good: A Skeptical Christian Mystic in Conversation with Teresa of Avila, brings this renowned spiritual leader into clear focus for contemporary readers. This edition features a modernized text with an introduction to St. Teresa and her work, brief chapter summaries, helpful footnotes for additional information and clarity, and questions for personal reflection. Mathewson encourages us to be open to the ways in which Teresa's "experiences and writings still shed light on things that happen in our world, so different from hers in many ways but still filled with human beings struggling to be in relationship with one another and God."

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism by Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, C'1984.

Provides a broad and deep survey of Roman Catholic life and thought, updated and expanded throughout The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism provides an authoritative overview of the history, doctrine, practices, and expansion of Catholicism. Written by a group of distinguished scholars, this comprehensive reference work offers an illuminating account of the global, historical, and cultural phenomena of Catholicism. Accessible chapters address central topics in the practice of Catholic theology and the development of doctrine, including God and Jesus Christ, creation and Church, the Virgin Mary, the sacraments, moral theology, eschatology, and more. Throughout the text, the authors illustrate the unity and diversity of Catholic life and thought while highlighting the ways Catholicism overlaps with, and transforms, other ways of living and thinking. Now in its second edition, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism is fully updated to include recent developments in the study of Catholicism. Extensively revised and expanded chapters, many of which written by new authors, address contemporary issues such as theology and politics, environmentalism, and the clerical sexual abuse crisis. Entirely new chapters cover the early modern Church, the Bible in Catholic theology, the Eastern Catholic churches, liturgy, care for creation, the consecrated life, challenges for the Catholic Church, and more. An informed and engaging intellectual journey through the past and present of Roman Catholicism, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism: Illustrates the diversity of modern Catholic life and thought Describes Catholics in different lands, including the Holy Land, India, Africa, Europe, the British Isles, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas Surveys spirituality and ecumenism, inter-religious dialog, Catholic schools and hospitals, art and the sciences, the Holy See, and other central Catholic institutions and practices Covers major eras in Catholic history, from the Scriptures and the early Church to Post-Modernity Features new material on diverse practices of Catholicism across cultures, the global dimensions of the Catholic Church, race and ethnicity, and Eastern Catholic Churches The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Catholicism, Second Edition, is the ideal textbook for surveys classes on Catholicism and Catholic theology in Catholic, Protestant, and non-confessional colleges and universities. It is also an invaluable resource for scholars and general readers interested in broadening their knowledge of Catholicism.

Coolest American Stories 2024 by Carly Gates C'2018.

The third volume of the annual anthology that's been praised nationwide by readers and numerous award-winning and bestselling authors, COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES 2024 exudes its editors' philosophy that a collection of widely appealing short stories can make for common ground that could unite rather than divide Americans.

Afterimage: Poems by Kathryn Weld C'2013.

Tuned with awareness keen enough to hear "a sibilance from flexing steel," the poems in Afterimage move from acute perception to the spaces between thoughts. They pause to notice both presence and absence-from weeds in the garden to the suspended interval that acts as "a comma between thunder clauses." Written under the sign of winter, familiar with landscapes of ice, dormancy, and loss, these poems offer warmth, recognition, and solace nonetheless. They are poised and intricate, attentive to the ways "[t]he mind makes / decoupage: ballerina, // oilrig, trout. Moonlight / on these canyon walls¿." Weld's crystalline and deftly measured lines move through fields of memory and grief-a youth recalled, a family's dwellings, a mother's death-and they find in these recollections not only the vulnerability and fallibility of human experience, but a rich capacity for intimacies with other people, with growing things, with light itself. -B. K. FischerKathryn Weld's Afterimage dwells in elegy and often in the sweetly and sadly elegiac moments when loss is seen, felt, and anticipated but not yet realized-- and in dealing with parental dementia, the poet confronts the loss before the loss. Often set against a lovingly observed Adirondack landscape, these clear-eyed meditations on loss are both heartbreaking and reassuring as they embrace their necessary heartbreak: "What stays? A girl's finger/tracing her mother's mouth." -Andrew HudginsKathryn Weld is a serious and singular poet. Her lush language is matched by the profundity of her observations. Simone Weil said, "Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer." Although both Weld-a mathematician by profession-and her poems are secular, her fierce and unrelenting attention to both the beauty and brutality of daily life-including caring for an ailing mother-take on an almost religious significance in the care and grace that she bestows upon them. Weld's polished voice has a conviction that is rare to find in a full-length debut collection. This is a collection of poems that shows us, without being preachy or didactic, how "living on earth is a peculiar blessing."-Jennifer Franklin, If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way Books, 2023)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season Two by Anson Mount, C'1995.(Actor)

n season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, confronts increasingly dangerous stakes, explores uncharted territories, and encounters new life and civilizations. The crew will also embark on personal journeys that will continue to test their resolve and redefine their destinies. Facing friends and enemies both new and familiar, their adventures will unfold in surprising ways never seen before on any ₁Star Trek₂ series.

The inclusion of these publications on this page is not an endorsement of the contents or values expressed in the materials. The book descriptions have been provided by the publishers and should not be considered a review of the book.