The Rochester Review, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, USA
Shore has been a school psychologist for the past 20 years and is the author of two other books on school psychology and education.
Frank Shuffelton, professor of English
Frank Shuffelton's eclectic reading interests mirror those of the subject of his recently published book: Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. His edition of Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia is the most up-to-date of this oft-published text.
Shuffelton's fascination with Jefferson extends to the third president's reading material. "One of the reasons I find Jefferson interesting is that he's interested in everything," he says. Shuffelton, too, has a broad list of reading topics, including literature, history, philosophy, and "the phenomenon of ethnicity in American life."
Following is a sampling of his recommendations for a good read:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass. The Anti-Slavery Office 1845 (reprint, Penguin American Library 1982).
BOOKS
Chronicles of the Barbarians: Firsthand Accounts of Pillage and Conquest from the Ancient World to the Fall of Constantinople, by David Willis McCullough '59. Times Books 1998.
An illustrated history of largely firsthand accounts of the Goths, Huns, Vandals, Mongols, Vikings, Celts, and other groups considered barbarians by their contemporaries. The book was chosen as an October 1998 main selection of the History Book Club.
Based on the most extensive assessment to date of civic knowledge among American youth, the volume looks at what American high school seniors know about government and how they learn about it, and suggests ways to improve civics teaching. (See In Review, WHAT DO HIGH SCHOOLERS KNOW ABOUT POLITICS?)
Explores the crucial role that the boards of for-profit and nonprofit organizations play in the success or failure of those organizations. Wessell, a former president of Tufts University, served as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Just before his death in 1997, Beck, Rochester's Burbank Professor Emeritus of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy, planned to publish a collection of essays on philosophical issues other than those related to his expertise on Kant. The volume collects those essays, plus a few late essays on the German philosopher.
In 1946, Madeleine Yaude and Edwin Stephenson met as volunteers of the American Friends Service Committee, helping communities in Europe recover from the war. The book is based on their 17-month correspondence during assignments in different parts of the continent before they met again and eventually married.
Written during Jefferson's first term as governor of Virginia, Notes on the State of Virginia chronicles Virginia's natural, social, and political history.
The book is a guide for human resource personnel, union officials, employee representatives, church groups, and attorneys.
A collection of poetry that has been noted for its exploration of metaphor "to see how it unveils the world with all its complex underpinnings."
The author is chair of the Department of English at Miami (Ohio) University.
The book gives classroom teachers and specialists information and practical strategies for recognizing and responding effectively to 30 of the most common academic, behavioral, and physical problems encountered in today's classrooms.
Basing their conclusions on more than 14 years of research funded through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the authors explore new ideas about the health of America's aging population. For more on Rowe, see After Words.
RECORDINGS
Dan Willis Quartet. Led by Dan Willis (Daniel Wieloszynski) '90E, the quartet also includes Ben Monder, Drew Gress, and John Hollenbeck '90E, '91E (MM). A-Records.
"Anybody who's lived in Rochester for any time at all, I think, should have read Frederick Douglass's narrative. University of Rochester graduates should know why the Frederick Douglass Building is called the Frederick Douglass Building."
"It's an interesting and exciting period in Jefferson's life, when he's involved in politics and science, and the glamorous and sophisticated social life of the European capital. It's a period in which lots of Jefferson's contradictions emerge. He comes away from this both in love with the idea of Europe and the kind of intellectual life there, and, at the same time, he comes away a much more convinced American, convinced that Europe is in some ways a bad thing."
"This is a really interesting, complicated story, rich in historical detail. It's about the ways in which the Eastern and Western worlds penetrate and interact with each other. The author herself was born in India and now lives in the United States; the main character in the novel is born in Massachusetts in the 17th century and goes to India, so the situation is reversed."
"Tells the story of the Mirabal sisters --beautiful, spirited, popular sisters who are caught up in the vicious politics of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. I like it because of the historical detail, vivid characters, and the exploration of the kind of political pressures behind immigration."
"This is about the origins of the so-called scientific revolution in England. It's concerned to show the ways in which scientific inquiry is inextricably involved with other kinds of social concerns: religious concerns and political issues of the time, for example. Rather than describing a free-floating enterprise of people rationally trying to understand the material world, Shapin puts figures like Robert Boyle in the context of all kinds of other activities."
"Maybe one of the best accounts we have of Jefferson's inner life, the life of his feelings, the importance he placed on feeling and sentiment. Jefferson sometimes comes across as cold and rational. But there are astonishing moments of feeling and continued references to the importance of sympathy, sentiment, and sensibility."
"The book is about a Chinese-American girl growing up in a Scarsdale-like suburb in the early 1960s and being one of the few Asian-American girls in her class, and looking for her identity, which involves, among other things, conversion to Judaism."
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