On the Bookshelf
Faculty books
By Jehuda Reinharz, Ph.D. ’72,
and Yaacov Shavit In a new, English-language version of a book originally released in Hebrew, historians Reinharz, president of Brandeis, and Shavit, of Tel Aviv University, explore the dual attitude Jews living in Europe have toward the continent. Highlighted are the predictions of Jews about Europe’s future; the acculturation of Jews in various European countries; and the challenges of shaping there a distinct Jewish identity, culture and heritage. |
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Introduction to Quantitative Finance: A Math Tool Kit By Robert R. Reitano In this text, Reitano, a finance professor at Brandeis’ International Business School, illuminates math skills and theory useful in investment and quantitative finance, covering topics like option pricing, investment banking and insurance risk management. In a pre-press review, mathematician Ahmet Duran, of the University of Michigan, said Reitano “makes difficult mathematical subjects accessible by using intuitive explanations.” |
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Edited by Giovanni Casadio
and Patricia A. Johnson Brandeis classics professor Johnson joins with Casadio, who teaches religious history at the University of Salerno in Italy, to produce a work that will “set standards for subsequent discussions” of its subject matter, according to one prepress reviewer. The work includes 17 scholarly essays with titles that range from “Women and Nymphs at the Grotto Caruso” to Johnson’s “The Mystery Cults and Vergil’s Georgics.” |
Alumni books
By Mary-Lou Weisman ’60 Weisman, an award-winning journalist, tells the often sad, sometimes comic life story of Jaffee, famed for his satirical presence in more than 440 issues of Mad magazine. Still working at age 89, the artist created 65 new color illustrations for this biography, which tells how he was, at age 6, separated from his beloved father and wrested from his comfy home in Savannah, Georgia, by a troubled mother who brought him to live in a Lithuanian shtetl even as other Jews were fleeing the occupied cities of Europe. |
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Balancing Pregnancy With Pre-Existing Diabetes By Cheryl Alkon ’92 Time was when diabetic pregnant women met with horror stories that left them feeling guilty, worried, and fearful about their own health and that of their unborn babies. Here, author and researcher Alkon — a contributor to The New York Times, Woman’s Day, and other publications — gathers helpful advice on how to use tools like diet, exercise and blood sugar control to boost chances of a more relaxed pregnancy and a healthier outcome. |
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Bird Strike: The Crash
of the Boston Electra
By Michael N. Kalafatas ’65 In fall 1960, a flock of 3-ounce starlings sent a 56-ton plane, with 72 people on board, plunging into the sea off Logan Airport. Kalafatas tells how the crash happened, puts faces on some of the victims, shares eyewitness accounts, serves up technical data, and dramatizes the heroism of folks from seaside Winthrop and environs who effected 10 improbable rescues. He also addresses the ongoing threat from bird strikes and the urgent need for better safety precautions. |
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By Laura S. Lorenz, Ph.D.’08 Lorenz, a policy researcher with a dual appointment in the Heller School’s social policy and management and executive education programs, became interested in brain injury when her brother suffered a series of hockey-related concussions that left him impaired. In this book, she traces the journeys of several brain-injury survivors from diagnosis through rehabilitation while also examining policy questions. |
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Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers Edited by Dia L. Michels ’80 In 30-some fact-filled pages, science and parenting writer Michels pulled together what new fathers need to know about the benefits, challenges and pleasure of breastfeeding. In clear, succinct paragraphs, the booklet answers questions on topics from parent-child bonding to the nutritional value of breast milk, and from making love during the nursing months to the coping techniques of working moms. |
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By Sherri Alpert ’86 A dentist for over 20 years, Alpert put her experience working with children to use in creating this colorful paperback. Subtitled “Teaching Children to Care for Their Teeth,” the booklet uses a simple fiction story to familiarize kids with good oral hygiene habits, the setup of a dental office, and what it’s like to undergo treatments like cleanings, X-rays and fillings. Also included is a list of tips for parents and caregivers. |
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By Kristen H. Lindbeck ’85
The character of Elijah has many faces, and which we see depends on whether we’re reading the Bible, Talmudic writing of 50–500 C.E., or folklore. In some tales, Elijah dispenses wisdom, advice and even monetary gifts to the needy. Here, Lindbeck, assistant professor of Jewish studies at Florida Atlantic University, uses tools of narrative critique, folklore, oral history analysis and literary study to help pin down the Elijah story. |
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Footprints on a Small Planet: Memories of Mesoamerica By Theodore P. Druch, M.A.’66 This self-published work is a humorous, inspirational and candid account of the author’s cultural immersion south of the U.S. border. In a series of vignettes — some of which began as newspaper columns — Druch takes readers through Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and other Mesoamerican sites that he and his partner, Maria Ruiz, visited in an old motor home. |
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Invisible War: The United States
and the Iraq Sanctions
By Joy Gordon ’80 Sanctions leveled against Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were among the harshest ever imposed — and among the cruelest, argues Gordon, a philosophy professor at Fairfield University. In this chilling book, she demonstrates how the United States deliberately created a human tragedy, using deception to prevent critical goods from entering Iraq, overriding U.N. weapons inspectors, and manipulating Security Council votes. |
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Life Histories of the Dobe !Kung
By Nancy Howell ’63 Howell, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Toronto, first illuminated the lives of Kalahari bushmen in her landmark book “Demography of the Dobe !Kung.” Here, she mines the same data set to shed light on how the !Kung maintain their notably good health throughout life. In a prepublication review, anthropologist Frank Marlowe calls this new work “a unique, scholarly book that reads like a detective novel.” |
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Meeting the Demands of Reason:
The Life and Thought of
Andrei Sakharov
By Jay Bergman, Ph.D. ’70 The first Russian awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Sakharov was renowned as a physicist, dissident and human rights advocate who made an ethical about-face to denounce his own work on nuclear weaponry. In this biography, Central Connecticut State College history professor Bergman chronicles Sakharov’s life and intellectual development, focusing on his political thought and impact on Soviet society. |
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Mendez v. Westminster:
School Desegregation and
Mexican-American Rights
By Philippa Strum ’59 From a Woodrow Wilson International Center scholar comes this civil rights story not often told: the account of the first federal court case to challenge “separate but equal” education. Strum adeptly covers the legal issues and human drama emerging from the 1945 case, in which a judge ruled that the social, psychological and pedagogical costs of segregated education were damaging to Mexican-American children in California. |
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My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility By Eliezer J. Sternberg ’09 Sternberg published his first book when he was still a Brandeis undergraduate. Now a 22-year-old Tufts medical student, he has released this second volume, which asks provocative questions about self-control, free will and whether our decisions arise out of personal responsibility or mechanistic processes. In a five-star review, the BBC Focus called the work “a masterful study of this interface between science and philosophy.” |
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By Heather Hartt-Sussman ’87 Life is getting stressful for the hero of this picture book, who suddenly has to share his beloved Nana with a bewhiskered intruder. Suddenly, there are no chewy chocolate chip cookies in the oven, and Nana’s familiar fuzzy slippers and curlers are giving way to open-toed pumps, mascara and snazzy updos. But in a few enchanting pages, our narrator learns to admire the endearing senior suitor who will soon enlarge his happy family. |
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Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion By Barbara Herrnstein Smith ’54 Is religion a natural outcome of cognitive science and evolutionary biology? How do scientifically educated theologians reconcile the natural sciences with traditional religious beliefs? In this thought-provoking book, Smith, who holds distinguished professorships at Duke and Brown universities, probes scholarly investigations taking place at the nexus of science, religion and human cognition. |
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Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest Edited by Pavel Cenkl ’92 Author Cenkl is dean of academics at Vermont’s Sterling College, where he teaches humanities and regional studies. In this volume, he brings together 14 essays about the vast forests of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. In an introductory essay, he notes that the chosen writings draw on cultural studies, nature studies, literature and ecocentrism to display the region’s diversity and complexity. |
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No Secret Where Elephants Walk By Carol ’65 and Arnie ’64 Kanter Weaving together Carol’s poetry and Arnie’s photographs, the book chronicles the couple’s three trips to Africa. With only a few exceptions, her words and his images were produced independently, but they discovered that their separate approaches to what they experienced complemented each other. Author Scott Turow calls the book “beautiful in every sense.” |
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Not by Chance Alone: My Life as a Social Psychologist By Elliot Aronson ’54 Born in coastal Revere, Mass., Aronson rose from the poverty of the Great Depression to become a world-renowned experimental psychologist and professor before ultimately losing his eyesight. In this memoir, he talks of his Brandeis experience studying with mentor Abraham Maslow, and he shares the stories behind key discoveries in 20th-century psychology — including his own celebrated theory of cognitive dissonance. |
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Passion, Betrayal and Revolution in Colonial Saigon By Hue-Tam Ho Tai ’70 Subtitled “The Memoirs of Bao Luong,” this book chronicles the life of Vietnam’s first female political prisoner, a member of Ho Chi Minh’s Revolutionary Youth League and fighter for women’s equality. The author, Bao Luong’s niece, is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard. Her previous books include “Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution” and “Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam.” |
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By Samuel Heilman ’68
and Menachem Friedman Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known to worldwide followers as the Rebbe, was a Russian-born engineer who helped build the Lubavitcher sect through his passionate belief the Messiah’s arrival was at hand. Heilman, professor of sociology at Queens College, teams up with co-author Friedman, of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, to chronicle the “life and afterlife” of a charismatic leader who believed he could deny death. |
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Seeing More Colors: A Guide to a Richer Life By Michael S. Lewis ’64 Building on Brandeis psychologist Abraham Maslow’s teaching of self-actualization, Lewis, orthopedic surgeon and noted photographer, combines inspirational tales (some of Brandeisians) and moving quotes with his own lush images to invite readers into a more satisfying existence. Touching on topics like love, creativity, teaching, humor, friendship, and living in the moment, this self-published work suggests further readings in each area. |
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By Charles David Isbell, Ph.D.’73 A practicing rabbi, Isbell is also director of Jewish studies at Louisiana State University and the author of seven scholarly books. Here he presents 35 sermons that he preached to his congregation at Temple Sinai in Lake Charles, La. Titles run the gamut from “Can We Really Blame Eve?” to “Independence, Americans and Jews” and from “The Jewish View of Capital Punishment” to “Hanukkah: 2007? Bah, Humbug!” |
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By Sarah E. Ullman, M.A.’88, Ph.D.’90 A professor of criminology at the University of Illinois, Ullman studies violence against women, particularly the sexual victimization of adult women. Though the book is aimed at therapists, health care professionals and others working with rape victims, its clear, insightful, non-technical language makes it a compelling read for anyone who cares about society’s response to rape victims and the impact of sexual assault in women’s lives. |
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By Shawn Shimpach ’93 Over its brief life, TV has endured changes and growing pains, starting as a trio or so of broadcasters beaming limited news and entertainment into our parlors, and burgeoning to embrace countless channels accessible everywhere. Shimpach, assistant professor of communications at UMass-Amherst, tracks this growth, using case studies (such as “24” and “Smallville”) to depict a return to action tales with a new breed of global superhero. |
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By Arlene Hirschfelder ’65 Part of a series titled Health and Medical Issues Today, this volume covers tobacco taxation and health laws, misleading advertising practices, environmental health risks, and the role of the Food and Drug Administration in regulating tobacco, among other topics. The abundant historical data are illustrated with tables and graphs. Hirschfelder, a historian and educator, has been studying and writing about tobacco for almost 20 years. |
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When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans By Laura Browder, Ph.D.’94 Inspired by a huge upswing in the number of women in the armed forces, Browder, professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of “Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America,” introduces readers to 48 female veterans of contemporary warfare. Her poignant Q&A-style interviews on topics ranging from motherhood to post-traumatic stress disorder are accompanied by Sascha Pflaeging’s haunting photographic portraits. |
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Working With Bernstein: A Memoir By Jack Gottlieb, M.A.’55 A Manhattan-based composer who has written for the concert hall, the theater and the synagogue, Gottlieb was Leonard Bernstein’s assistant at the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1966. Now the senior member of the Leonard Bernstein Office in New York, the author applies sophistication, affection and good humor as he relates insider stories that begin with his experiences as a Brandeis music student and continue throughout Bernstein’s remaining life and career. |
Brandeis University Press
Learning and Community: Jewish Supplementary Schools in the 21st Century Edited by Jack Wertheimer, $35 Jewish educational programs operating outside the regular school day have a limited time to impart Jewish learning and culture, prepare youth for bar and bat mitzvah rites, instill holiday traditions, and solidify kids’ connections with the broader Jewish community. Here, Wertheimer, professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, presents 10 essays on how diverse schools have retooled themselves to meet these challenges. |
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Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient Judaism By Dvora E. Weisberg, $50 Was the ancient tradition of levirate marriage — the coupling of a childless widow to her deceased husband’s brother — a way of offering financial and social protection to widows, or a method of subjugation? In this book, Weisberg, a faculty member at Hebrew Union College, takes a scholarly look at early Israelite laws governing levirate marriage and places it in the context of broader marriage and family studies. |
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Philosophical Witnessing: The Holocaust as Presence By Berel Lang, $50 Though a lifetime and a continent away for many of us, the Holocaust continues to shape our collective thoughts, color our emotions, and send what author Lang calls “shock waves from the past.” In this volume, the author of “Act and Idea in the Nazi Genocide” and “Holocaust Representation: Art Within the Limits of History and Ethics” turns his attention to the philosophical fallout of modern history’s most well-known tragedy. |
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By David Assaf, $55 Subtitled “Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism,” Assaf’s new release casts light on dark corners of this religious movement, relating real-life tales laced with mystery, drama and tragedy. Casting himself as a detective, the author — a professor of modern Jewish history at Tel Aviv University — probed the truth behind the oral traditions to recreate events whose meanings were previously misunderstood or suppressed. |
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The Women Who Reconstructed American Jewish Education, 1910–1965 Edited by Carol K. Ingall, $60 Most histories of American Jewish education focus on its male leadership. Here, Ingall — an education professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary — presents 10 profiles of women who played key roles in the movement. Wrote Sharon Feiman-Nemser, director of Brandeis’ Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, “The life stories of these amazing women, pioneers and products of their time, enlarge the story of reform in American Jewish education.” |