On the Bookshelf
Faculty Books
In an unflinching exploration, anthropology professor McIntosh shows how the American military uses language specifically designed to teach combatants to, as she writes, “assimilate violence into their inner lives so they can willingly anticipate the act of killing and swallow the possibility of dying.” From basic training on, soldiers learn a way of communicating that downplays empathy, chips away at their moral integrity and dehumanizes the enemy.
Essays by scholars survey a variety of modern Indian texts through a multilingual lens, making a case for the centrality of gender and caste in Indian modernism, and taking stock of new creative forms, such as graphic novels, autofiction and videogames. Anjaria, an English professor, heads the Mandel Center for the Humanities.
In an effort to refine the goals of history education and help students think like historians, this book proposes a new approach to historiography, which combines existing historical narratives with new information and ideas. The author is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Associate Professor of Jewish Educational Thought.
Geared toward scholars and students, “Beyond Icons” explicates the theories and methods of American archaeologists who, over the past few decades, have worked to understand the Byzantine period in Greece, Turkey, Ukraine and Egypt, and chart a way forward for their field. Brooks Hedstrom is the Myra and Robert Kraft and Jacob Hiatt Associate Professor of Christian Studies.
For 25 years, until it closed in 1981, a public high school in Sunnyvale, California, served as an unlikely model for how to build and sustain a united multiracial community. Hansen, the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Sociology, Emerita, talks to the working-class students and dedicated teachers who together created the school’s sense of pride and possibility, an achievement that offers lessons for today.
Alumni Books
Feeling trapped? According to Appelbaum, deputy executive editor at The Atlantic, that’s because you probably are. Zoning laws and discriminatory practices have eroded Americans’ mobility, which for 200 years was their ticket to greater social and economic opportunity. Deepening political divides and generational poverty have a common cause: Today, only the economic elite have the wherewithal to move to greener pastures.
A longtime Edgar Allen Poe scholar delivers a comprehensive critical biography of the author of “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” examining Poe’s turbulent life in combination with a close reading of his literary output. Kopley makes important use of information about his subject drawn from privately held letters not seen by earlier biographers.
Joffe, an OB-GYN and reproductive sciences professor at UC San Francisco, and her co-author talk to members of the abortion-providing community about their response to the 2022 Dobbs ruling. New delivery models for abortion pills, and support for abortion travel and funding are helping to ensure most people who want abortions can still get them — for now.
Rabbi Sank Ross makes 72 psalms come alive by connecting each to a specific moment of anticipation, sorrow or joy most of us face at some point in our lives. The pairings include Psalm 138 with preparing for travel, Psalm 62 with mourning multiple losses and Psalm 67 with experiencing success after hard work.
Social entrepreneur/philanthropist Ruderman says he wrote this book, which offers practical advice to fledgling agents of social change, as “a love letter to activism.” The tips he shares include “start with persistence,” “court controversy” and “take the win … then keep fighting.” Ruderman has been a member of the Brandeis University Board of Trustees since 2022.
In her debut collection of poems, Andonova draws on her interest in physics to explore human connection and disruption (the volume’s section titles include “Laws of Attraction” and “On the Gravity of Love”). There’s also a Brandeis shoutout in the intro to the book’s first section, where Andonova writes, “Love, like truth, must be examined unto its innermost parts.”
Why does March Madness often seem so predictable? The same seven teams — Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA, North Carolina, Duke, Indiana and UConn — have dominated the Division 1 NCAA Basketball Tournament, taking home 45 of the 86 championship trophies awarded since 1939. Journalist Mehler and his co-author shine a light on what’s made these squads so successful.
Successful businessman and philanthropist Cloobeck, who’s transformed dysfunctional companies into performance powerhouses, applies his problem-solving skills to a discussion of immigration, crime and other pressing social issues. “Facing Hard Truths” urges Americans to recommit to such values as integrity, collaboration, respect for rules and norms, and economic inclusivity.
With AI, have humans unleased a technology that will one day control them? To provide some clarity, Donnelly, associate professor of history at Alvernia University, shifts the focus from the relatively short history of the technical developments that led to AI to the long history of social scientific methodologies that have influenced our beliefs about human nature.
Written for religious and nonreligious readers alike, this introduction to the psychology of religion and spirituality is grounded in history as well as insights from the fields of sociology, philosophy and the biological sciences. Kressel is a psychology professor at William Paterson University and a licensed psychologist.
Correspondence written by Jews during the Hellenistic period reveal a divide. Jews who lived in the land of Israel believed those who lived abroad were guilty of sin and suffering divine rejection. Jews living outside their homeland rejected such interpretations. This disagreement produced a tension that lay at the core of Jewish identity in the ancient world, finds Simkovich, chair of Jewish studies at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union.
A novel about a woman’s compulsive search to fill in the details of another woman’s life and death. After discovering how little her Chinese American husband knows about his mother, a Polish American woman does some sleuthing into family secrets that date back to 1940s China. In the process of unearthing why a woman’s history was expunged, difficult truths are revealed.
A venerable anthropologist refutes the pervasive aspersions — “appropriation,” “complicity with colonialists,” “dehumanization” — embedded in the 21st-century take on 20th-century scholarship in his field. These tropes become weaker when historians take a closer look at how early anthropologists actually conducted their work, Lewis shows.
A little girl is entertained by her grandfather while the rest of the family prepares for a Passover Seder. Ruthie and Zayde have a great time together — but who is babysitting whom, exactly? A sweet story for readers ages 4-9.
Jews today possess different kinds of legal rights, some stemming from religious-freedom protections, others from a long history of Jewish autonomy. By comparing laws in nations around the world, Rabinovitch, Northeastern University’s Stotsky Associate Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies, uncovers a fascinating history of Jewish sovereignty and religious freedom.
In 1942, Elaine, a Jewish American woman, faced an impossible choice. Her husband, Karl, and their 3-year-old son were among the thousands of people of Japanese descent imprisoned in the Manzanar internment camp. Karl wanted to enlist in the U.S. Army, but that would leave their chronically ill son alone at the desolate outpost. And if Elaine could persuade officials to let her live at Manzanar, she would have to abandon her daughter from a previous marriage. A Kafkaesque account of one family’s life during wartime.
Singers who can consistently deliver moving performances know how to analyze the meaning of the songs they sing, even when it’s not readily apparent. To teach practical analysis techniques that can be applied to all types of music, this volume takes readers through an in-depth look at 20 songs by Franz Schubert.
To better understand the clash of religious values that led to genocide in Europe during World War II, Weisberg analyzes works of fiction centered around that war and similarly seismic conflicts. Novels under scrutiny include “The Reader,” “The Tin Drum,” “The Fixer” and “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.”
The author, a retired physician, shares poignant, inspiring portraits of people he met while serving as medical director at the Center for Elders’ Independence, in Oakland, California. Both a memoir and a critique of societal attitudes toward aging, the book conveys an important message: Every life is a story worth telling, and every voice matters.
This volume, aimed primarily at an academic audience, examines how the term “slut” is being used in the 21st century, and how that’s leading to a shift in the ways the practice widely known as “slut shaming” is depicted and understood in popular culture. McMillan is dean of liberal arts and sciences at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.
A step-by-step guide to going from couch potato to exercise enthusiast, “Mind Your Movement” shows older adults how to develop fitness regimens they’ll enjoy doing. Areas covered include breathing and balance exercises, and a look at how your thoughts can sometimes derail your health and wellness journey.
A account of the author’s childhood during the Holocaust, which included two years of living in a hole underneath a stable. Gold artfully tells her harrowing story as if the events are being seen though a child’s eyes.
Engel delves into Donald Trump’s past to analyze what he sees as 128 examples of the president’s corruption and criminality, from the 1970s through 2024. This book, the author writes, attempts to “provide an overview of the corruption [and] contextualize it,” “argue that it is not normal,” and “link Trump’s corruption to its impacts.”
Educators and researchers discuss the latest trends and ideas that are helping schools around the world foster global citizenship, and shape crosscultural communication and understanding. Co-editor Baum is the director of global education at Buckingham Browne & Nichols, a K-12 school in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Brandeis University Press
In this brief volume, a celebrated Irish novelist gets straight to the heart of what makes James Baldwin a master of telling stories that can change lives. Besides possessing finely honed stylistic skills, Tóibín writes, Baldwin was both bruised and fearless, “prepared as a writer to explore difficult truths about his own private life.”
Filled with beautiful maps and illustrations, “The Spice Ports” explains the 15th-century trading patterns that gave birth to an early form of globalism — both economic and cultural — when exotic spices were loaded onto ships in Malacca, Goa and Bombay, and brought to the bustling commercial centers of Venice, Amsterdam and Lisbon.