Bryn Mawr Alum
Lonely Spirit
by Tamar Anolic '03
Quinn is one of the best Marshals, well-respected for finding criminals and bringing them to justice. His adventures pit him against criminals like Florence Finnegan, the famous brothel owner and gunslinger, and Jack Mattherson, whose attack on U.S. Senator William Quincy brings out Quinn's desire for revenge. But Quinn isn't always lucky: when one of his partners turns into his enemy on a lonely stretch of land, Quinn no longer knows whom to trust.
The fight between the Comanche and the United States Army is never far from Quinn's mind, either. When the Army kills his fiancée, Quinn must rebuild his life, even as he finds himself a lasting enemy in Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, a respected Civil War veteran.
But Quinn's journeys also bring him into contact with kindness he does not anticipate in such a wild land. To his surprise, sympathy comes in the form of Colonel Robert Graypool, whose level-headed command of the Comanche reservation at Fort Sill brings out Quinn's respect when he least expects it. Humanity also resides in Dr. Mary Newcomb, one of the few women physicians of the day. In both of them, Quinn finds some of the community for which he searches.
Poignant Song: The Life and Music of Lakshmi Shankar
by Kavita Das BMC '96
Dancer, film actor, Hindustani classical singer – Lakshmi Shankar was all this and more. Starting her journey as a teenager in Uday Shankar’s breakthrough troupe, she ventured into playback singing after a tragic illness cut short her dance career, going on to be the voice behind films such as Richard Attenborough’s critically acclaimed Gandhi. But her ultimate artistry lay in Hindustani classical music. In this book, Kavita Das, who has known her since childhood, traces Lakshmi’s fascinating story that culminated in a Grammy nomination in 2009. Poignant Song explores the Dancer, film actor, Hindustani classical singer – Lakshmi Shankar was all this and more. Starting her journey as a teenager in Uday Shankar’s breakthrough troupe, she ventured into playback singing after a tragic illness cut short her dance career, going on to be the voice behind films such as Richard Attenborough’s critically acclaimed Gandhi. But her ultimate artistry lay in Hindustani classical music. In this book, Kavita Das, who has known her since childhood, traces Lakshmi’s fascinating story that culminated in a Grammy nomination in 2009. Poignant Song explores the journey of Indian music to the West through the remarkable life of a great artisteof Indian music to the West through the remarkable life of a great artiste. Mothering While Black: Boundaries and Burdens of Middle-Class Parenthood
by Dawn Dow BMC ' 96
Necessary Trouble
by Drew Gilpin Faust '68
April 30th at 1:00 pm
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A memoir of coming of age in a conservative Southern family in postwar America.
Carrying All Before Her
by Chelsea Phillips BMC '05
The rise of celebrity stage actresses in the long eighteenth century created a class of women who worked in the public sphere while facing considerable scrutiny about their offstage lives. Such powerful celebrity women used the cultural and affective significance of their reproductive bodies to leverage audience support and interest to advance their careers, and eighteenth-century London patent theatres even capitalized on their pregnancies. Carrying All Before Her uses the reproductive histories of six celebrity women (Susanna Mountfort Verbruggen, Anne Oldfield, Susannah Cibber, George Anne Bellamy, Sarah Siddons, and Dorothy Jordan) to demonstrate that pregnancy affected celebrity identity, impacted audience reception and interpretation of performance, changed company repertory and altered company hierarchy, influenced the development and performance of new plays, and had substantial economic consequences for both women and the companies for which they worked. Deepening the fields of celebrity, theatre, and women's studies, as well as social and medical histories, Phillips reveals an untapped history whose relevance and impact persists today.
From Enforcers to Guardians: A Public Health Primer on Ending Police Violence
Mindy Fullilove is the 2023 holder of the Flexner Lectureship.
by Mindy Fullilove BMC '71
A public health approach to understanding and eliminating excessive police violence.
Excessive police violence and its disproportionate targeting of minority communities has existed in the United States since police forces first formed in the colonial period. A personal tragedy for its victims, for the people who love them, and for their broader communities, excessive police violence is also a profound violation of human and civil rights.
Most public discourse about excessive police violence focuses, understandably, on the horrors of civilian deaths. In From Enforcers to Guardians, Hannah L. F. Cooper and Mindy Thompson Fullilove approach the issue from a radically different angle: as a public health problem. By using a public health framing, this book challenges readers to recognize that the suffering created by excessive police violence extends far outside of death to include sexual, psychological, neglectful, and nonfatal physical violence as well.
Arguing that excessive police violence has been deliberately used to marginalize working-class and minority communities, Cooper and Fullilove describe what we know about the history, distribution, and health impacts of police violence, from slave patrols in colonial times to war on drugs policing in the present-day United States. Finally, the book surveys efforts, including Barack Obama's 2015 creation of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, to eliminate police violence, and proposes a multisystem, multilevel strategy to end marginality and police violence and to achieve guardian policing.
Aimed at anyone seeking to understand the causes and distributions of excessive police violence--and to develop interventions to end it--From Enforcers to Guardians frames excessive police violence so that it can be understood, researched, and taught about through a public health lens.
Recognize and Give Thanks
by Marcia Cantarella '68
My grandkids - - on both sides of my family both Black and White - - are the fifth generation to go to college. That makes them essentially unicorns.
I come from a long line of educators, disruptors and change agents.Beginning with my grandfather Whitney Young Sr. who ran a school with a secret college prep curriculum from the 1920s to the 1950s, to his son Whitney Young Jr., my father, who was the architect of the War on Poverty with LBJ, or his sister Arnita who flew planes for the Red Cross during WWII we have been engaged in making change. I have known powerful leaders, black and white who have been change agents and many have been part of our family legacy, and many continue that legacy today. We have had friends and allies from the white community whether serving with the National Urban League for my father or being life partners like my late husband Fancesco Cantarella, a leader in corporate responsibility.
I have had the chance to engage with college students, especially students of color to see them now in key leadership roles themselves. There have been the friends, classmates and allies with whom I have worked and played and who are change agents themselves yet unsung. There are so many that I know, and love and value who have been part of the battle for social good and equity. Yet so many are not recognized, let alone fully thanked for all they do or have done. This is my chance to do that through telling the story of how these people have been an amazing gift in my own life
Trouble With You
by Ellen Feldman BMC '64
"Rich in colorful characters, Feldman's riveting tale is one of resilience, determination, and hope." --Booklist
In an exuberant post WWII New York City, a young woman is forced to reinvent her life and choose between the safe and the ethical, and the men who represent each...
Set in New York City in the heady aftermath of World War II when the men were coming home, the women were exhaling in relief, and everyone was having babies, The Trouble With Youis the story of a young woman whose rosy future is upended in a single instant. Raised never to step out of bounds, educated in one of the Sister Seven Colleges for a career as a wife and mother, torn between her cousin Mimi who is determined to keep her a "nice girl"--the kind that marries a doctor--and her aunt Rose who has a rebellious past of her own, Fanny struggles to raise her young daughter and forge a new life by sheer will and pluck. When she gets a job as a secretary to the "queen" of radio serials--never to be referred to as soaps--she discovers she likes working, and through her friendship with an actress who stars in the series and a man who writes them, comes face to face with the blacklist which is destroying careers and wrecking lives. Ultimately, Fanny must decide between playing it safe or doing what she knows is right in this vivid evocation of a world that seems at once light years away and strangely immediate.
#Actuallyautistic Guide to Advocacy
by Jennifer Brunton BMC '92
The #ActuallyAutistic Guide to Advocacy takes an in-depth look at the key elements of effective, respectful, inclusive advocacy and allyship. Every topic was chosen, shaped, and informed by #ActuallyAutistic perspectives.
The step-by-step guide discusses various aspects of how autism is perceived, explores how best to speak up for individual needs, and introduces advocacy for the wider autistic community. Each step outlines one vital aspect of advocacy and allyship, such as emphasizing acceptance, avoiding assumptions and assuming competence. The advice and strategies laid out in this guide center the wisdom and experiences of Autistic people and enable the reader to confidently speak up with insight and understanding.Co-Creating Equitable Teaching and Learning
by Alison Cook-Sather - Professor of Education
Co-Creating Equitable Teaching and Learning invites readers to help forge a more inclusive and accessible college education by incorporating student voices via pedagogical partnerships.
Alison Cook-Sather, a pioneer of this co-creative approach, draws on more than twenty years of experience developing student-teacher partnerships in higher education to offer a wise and generous work that speaks to both students and educators. As her research underscores, a co-creative learning environment, in which relationships and communication between students and teachers are prioritized, benefits the educational experience on many levels.
Cook-Sather demonstrates how pedagogical partnerships give students the tools to advocate for their own learning while giving educators the feedback they need to improve classroom experiences. She shows how the co-creative model helps to bring about inclusive spaces and equitable teaching practices that better foster student success, especially among underrepresented and minority student populations.
Offering actionable guidance, Cook-Sather advocates enacting the following four principles to structure student voice into higher education: embracing a commitment to equity and justice; providing structure rather than prescriptions for engagement; making rather than taking up space; and developing a partnership mindset. She grounds these principles in examples of practices drawn from an undergraduate education course; a faculty development program; and cross-disciplinary, cross-constituency institutional dialogues.
This work calls for readers to reimagine the higher education structure and to cultivate an environment in which all stakeholders can work together to advance inclusivity, accessibility, and equity. As the author argues, co-creation can be a catalyst for change throughout the system.