New Titles Tuesday, November 21

Here is a selection of print and ebooks recently added to the collection. Click on a title for more information.

 A liturgy of grief: a pastoral commentary on Lamentations /Leslie C. Allen. In this commentary on Lamentations, a respected Old Testament scholar and volunteer hospital chaplain presents a biblical model for helping those coping with grief.

 Enacting anti-racist and activist pedagogies in teacher education: Canadian perspectives /Ardavan Eizadirad, Zuhra Abawi, and Andrew B. Campbell. Enacting Anti-Racist and Activist Pedagogies in Teacher Education  examines the complexities, challenges, spaces of resistance, and possibilities when faculty–specifically Black, Indigenous, and racialized faculty–advocate and implement anti-racism approaches and pedagogies in Canadian teacher education programs. As a collective, the chapters explore how to disrupt white normalcy by dismantling the hierarchies in place and unpacking intersectionalities, positionalities, and knowledge production through transformative anti-racist pedagogies. Gathering the voices of established and emerging academics, as well as field practitioners, this volume presents a holistic and nuanced understanding of anti-racism within the educational context from discussing collaboration and innovative methodologies for studies in racism to critiquing institutional policies and practices that uphold white supremacist ideals.  Including key terms, discussion questions, and “toolbox” sections highlighting advice for pre-service K-12 teachers, this text is an essential resource for undergraduate and graduate students in teacher education.

 Father’s road /written by Ji-yun Jang ; illustrated by Tan Jun ; edited by Joy Cowley. Wong Chung encounters many obstacles as he and his father travel along the Silk Road.

 Grandfather Whisker’s table /written by Eun-jeong Jo ; illustrated by Bimba Landmann; edited by Joy Cowley. In medieval Italy, while visiting the Palio di Siena festival with his father, young Enzo asks the world’s first banker to safeguard a toy purchased for his brother.

 Harmonia mundi /Tim Lilburn. Harmonia Mundi borrows its title from Johannes Kepler’s melodious theory of the heavens, but the ‘alarming geometry’ that Tim Lilburn presents in these forty-one poems is far from harmonious. Part One, ‘The Philosophical History’, focuses on the suppression of Plato’s Academy in the early 6th century, followed by its disastrous relocation to the court of Khusrau in Persia. Part Two, ‘Actants, Conatus’, is rooted in contemporary Canada, albeit with a cast of characters that include Augustine, Christ, Duns Scotus, Aelred of Rievaulx and even Kepler himself. Harmonia Mundi is a timely and darkly visionary text, which, amid the spreading collapse of the world around us, clings to a single, urgent truth: ‘You must hate / nothing’.

 IntraConnected: MWe (Me + We) as the integration of self, identity, and belonging /Daniel J. Siegel. Both a personal and general meditation on identity and belonging, Siegel’s book combines personal reflections with scientific discussions of how the mind, brain, and our relationships shape who we are. Weaving the internal and external, the subjective and objective, IntraConnected reveals how our culture may give us a message of separation as a solo, isolated self, but a wider perspective unveils that who we are may be something more–broader than the brain, bigger even than the body–and fundamental to social systems and the natural world.

 Learning to love: Christian higher education as pilgrimage /Alex Sosler.  Conceiving of the Christian college as more than job preparation or the acquisition of knowledge, Sosler inspires a greater hope for education–namely one oriented toward the love of God and neighbor. This expansive vision re-imagines an education worth pursuing. While written with the student in mind, Sosler’s consideration of the purpose of Christian higher education is also great for faculty, staff, and administrators.

 Leather shoe Charlie /written by Gyeong-hwa Kim ; illustrated by Anna & Elena Balbusso ; edited by Joy Cowley. Charlie’s dream of becoming a cobbler is threatened when his family moves to Manchester during the Industrial Revolution.

 Lion, king, and coin /written by Jeong-hee Nam ; illustrated by Lucia Sforza ; edited by Joy Cowley. In ancient Turkey when trading goods at the market becomes increasingly difficult, Laos’s family is commissioned to make the world’s first coin.

 Listening to Scripture: an introduction to interpreting the Bible /Craig G. Bartholomew. A renowned Old Testament scholar offers students guidance for interpreting the Bible in an accessible, up-to-date, and theologically grounded manner.

 Living in the world as if it were home /Tim Lilburn. In these essays Lilburn shares his belief that desire for the world in which we live can lead us to a state of being that he calls the ‘chthonic self’ – a condition that moves towards resolving our separation from the natural world and its innately mysterious inhabitants. First published in 1999, this prescient text makes a vital philosophical contribution to the contemporary debate about ‘rewilding’. Lilburn explores a rare path of early Christian mysticism known as apophatic theology – the ‘negative way’; sharing his belief that a route used to reach the divine can also be used to forge a genuine relationship with nature, which is no less divine than anything alluded to in theological texts. Surrendering to this new way –  becoming a disciple of deer, soil, lichen – eventually alters our perceptions, reinvigorating them, stripping away the extraneous so what we are left with is the poverty of a truthful ‘seeing’, a never-ending longing, and a ceaseless desire that may restore us to a genuine relationship with the world surrounding us, the world which we long to return to as home.

 Mikis and the donkey /written by Bibi Dumon Tak ; illustrated by Philip Hopman ; translated by Laura Watkinson. Mikis is thrilled when his grandfather buys a new donkey, but soon begins to worry that he is overworking the animal.

 Nothing special: a novel /Nicole Flattery. New York City, 1966. Seventeen-year-old Mae lives in a rundown apartment with her alcoholic mother and her mother’s sometimes-boyfriend, Mikey. When she drops out of high-school, she is presented with a job offer that will remake her world entirely: she is hired as a typist for the artist Andy Warhol. Warhol is composing an unconventional novel by recording the conversations and experiences of his many famous and alluring friends. Tasked with transcribing these tapes alongside several other girls, Mae quickly befriends Shelley and the two of them embark on a surreal adventure at the fringes of the countercultural movement. Nothing Special is a whip-smart coming-of-age story that brings to life the experience of young girls in this iconic and turbulent American moment.

 Panthera tigris /written by Sylvain Alzial ; illustrated by Hélène Rajcak ; translated from the French by Vineet Lal and Sarah Ardizzone. After devouring every available book on Bengal tigers, a great scholar travels to the jungle and discovers that his encyclopedic knowledge cannot compete with his guide’s practical experience.

 Practical divinity /Thomas A. Langford. Practical Divinity traces the growth of Wesleyan thought from Britain to North America and to other continents, and views it against the background of general historical and institutional developments.  Practical Divinity is the primary choice for textbook use in courses on Wesleyan/Methodist history, theology, and doctrine.

 Rouge: a novel /Mona Awad. When her estranged mother mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother’s considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother’s demise, followed by a cryptic video about a transformative spa experience – La Maison de Méduse, the same lavish, culty spa to which her mother was devoted. There, Belle discovers the frightening secret behind her (and her mother’s) obsession with the mirror–and the great shimmering depths (and demons) that lurk on the other side of the glass. With black humor and seductive horror, Rouge explores the cult-like nature of the beauty industry–as well as the danger of internalizing its pitiless gaze. Rouge holds up a warped mirror to our relationship with mortality, our collective fixation with the surface, and the wondrous, deep longing that might lie beneath.

 Snowmen live forever /by Thierry Dedieu. When the Snowman disappears one spring, four animal friends set out to find their friend.

 Teaching the Bible in the liberal arts classroom /edited by Jane S. Webster and Glenn S. Holland. This collection of pedagogical essays reflects the practical experience of instructors who have spent years teaching biblical studies successfully to undergraduates at liberal arts colleges. The essays address both methodological approaches and specific classroom strategies for teaching biblical studies effectively in a way that advances the skills of thinking and expression that are essential to a liberal arts education. The product of several years of conversation among working professors from an array of liberal arts colleges, these essays offer insights and inspiration for biblical studies instructors who work in a very specific and demanding academic environment.

 The value of ecocriticism /Timothy Clark, University of Durham. The Value of Ecocriticism offers a brief, incisive overview of the fast-changing field of environmental literary criticism in a bewildering age of global environmental threat.  Clark surveys recent developments in ecocriticism lucidly, but also sometimes critically. This book examines ecopoetics, material ecocriticism, and the ideas of world literature as well as contentious claims that we are living in a new geological epoch.

 Understanding the Christianity-evolution relationship /Michael Ruse. This book focusses on the Christianity-evolution relationship. It shows that two paradigms – the world as an organism and the world as a machine – have critically informed and guided the discussions. The author uses his deep understanding of the history and philosophy of science, particularly Darwinian evolutionary theory and its controversies through the past 150 years, to bring fresh ideas to the debate and to wider discussions such as environmental issues and hate. Understanding the Christianity-Evolution Relationship provides a lively and informative analysis and lays out multiple views so that readers can make their own judgements to increase their understanding.

 White saviorism in international development: theories, practices and lived experiences /edited by Themrise Khan, Kanakulya Dickson, Maïka Sondarjee. This captivating volume dives into the complexities of racism and White Saviorism in North/South relations. With contributions from 19 experts across the Global South, this book examines its prevalence within Western initiatives for international development. Through a blend of theoretical topics, testimonies, stories and personal experiences these contributors shed light on implicit as well as explicit forms of White Saviorism – all with sensitivity to broaden an understanding through multi-dimensional approaches that truly transcend borders. Uniting scholars and practitioners from around the world, this book will address white saviorism as one of the perennial underbelly challenges of the global development aid industry. Overall, this book will analyze how development practices can undermine voices in the Global South and perpetuate a harsh myth of white superiority. The innovative chapters it encompasses will serve as a basis for more empirical work on white savior practices in international development.