Month: June 2024

Here is a selection of titles recently added to the collection and ready for use

 How and why books matter: essays on the social function of iconic texts /James W. Watts.  By calling attention to the iconic dimension of books,  Watts argues that we can better understand how physical books mediate social value and power within and between religious communities, nations, academic disciplines, and societies both ancient and modern. How and Why Books Matter will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in books, reading, literacy, scriptures, e-books, publishing, and the future of the book. It also addresses scholarship in religion, cultural studies, literacy studies, biblical studies, book history, anthropology, literary studies, and intellectual history.

 How to build a boat /Elaine Feeney. A funny and deeply moving novel about a boy, his dream, and the people who lend him a hand. How to Build a Boat is the story of how one boy and his mission transforms the lives of his teachers, and brings together a community. Written with tenderness and verve, it’s about love, family and connection, the power of imagination, and how our greatest adventures never happen alone.

 In quest of the historical Adam: a biblical and scientific exploration /William Lane Craig. Was Adam a real historical person? And if so, who was he and when did he live? Craig sets out to answer these questions through a biblical and scientific investigation. He begins with an inquiry into the genre of Genesis 1-11, determining that it can most plausibly be classified as mytho-history–a narrative with both literary and historical value. He then moves into the New Testament, where he examines references to Adam in the words of Jesus and the writings of Paul, ultimately concluding that the entire Bible considers Adam the historical progenitor of the human race–a position that must therefore be accepted as a premise for Christians who take seriously the inspired truth of Scripture. Working from that foundation of biblical truth, Craig embarks upon an interdisciplinary survey of scientific evidence to determine where Adam could be most plausibly located in the evolutionary history of humankind, ultimately determining that Adam lived between 750,000 and 1,000,000 years ago as a member of the archaic human species Homo heidelbergensis. He concludes by reflecting theologically on his findings and asking what all this might mean for us as human beings created in the image of God, literally descended from a common ancestor–albeit one who lived in the remote past.

 Indigenizing the classroom: engaging Native American/First Nations literature and culture in non-native settings /Anna M. Brígido-Corachán, ed. To counter distorted representations and neo/colonialist readings, this book presents a strategic selection of critical case studies that set specific texts within cross-cultural contexts wherein Native-based methodologies and key concepts are placed at the center of the reading practice. This volume provides a set of critical analyses and practical resources that may enable teachers outside the United States and Canada to incorporate Native American/First Nations literature and related cultural and historical texts into their teaching practices and current research interests in a creative, decolonizing, and responsible manner.

 Interwoven lives: indigenous mothers of Salish coast communities /Candace Wellman. Interwoven Lives is a continuation of Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages. It adds four new biographies to the four published in Peace Weavers. Together the books offer a fresh look at the role indigenous women and their Euro-American husbands played in helping people of two colliding cultures live together in new communities.

 Peace weavers: uniting the Salish coast through cross-cultural marriages /Candace Wellman. Combining primary and secondary sources, genealogy, and family memories, Wellman illuminates this hidden history and shatters stereotypes surrounding cross-cultural relationships of an earlier era. The four women she profiles exhibited exceptional endurance, strength, and adaptability as farmers and business operators, and acted as cultural interpreters and mediators. Although each story is unique, collectively they and other intermarried individuals helped found Puget Sound communities and left a lasting legacy.

 Playing God: science, religion and the future of humanity /Nick Spencer and Hannah Waite. For too long, the ‘science and religion’ debate has fixated on creation, evolution, cosmology, miracles and quantum theory. But this, argue Spencer and Waite, is a mistake. Playing God brings readers up to date with the latest developments but also draws out their moral and religious dimensions. In so doing, it shows how the future of science and religion is inextricably tied up with the future of humanity.

 Research design: quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, arts-based, and community-based participatory research approaches /Patricia Leavy. With a new chapter on the literature review, this accessible step-by-step guide to using the five major approaches to research design is now in a thoroughly revised second edition. For each approach, the text presents a template for a research proposal and explains how to conceptualize and fill in every section.

 The archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea scrolls /Jodi Magness. In a book meant to introduce general readers to this fascinating area of study, Magness provides an overview of the archaeology of Qumran that incorporates information from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other contemporary sources. Magness identifies Qumran as a sectarian settlement, rejecting other interpretations including claims that Qumran was a villa rustica or manor house. By carefully analyzing the published information on Qumran, she refines the site’s chronology, reinterprets the purpose of some of its rooms, and reexamines archaeological evidence for the presence of women and children in the settlement. Numerous photos and diagrams give readers a firsthand look at the site. Considered a standard text in the field for nearly two decades, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls is revised and updated throughout in its second edition in light of the publication of all the Dead Sea Scrolls and additional data from Roland de Vaux’s excavations, as well as Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg’s more recent excavations.

 The disappearance of ethics: the 2021 St. Andrews Gifford lectures /Oliver O’Donovan. The 2021 Gifford Lectures by O’Donovan evaluate the state of ethics as a discipline and its relationship to theology.

 The end of memory: remembering rightly in a violent world /Miroslav Volf. Volf here proposes the radical idea that letting go of memories of historical past wrongs –after a certain point and under certain conditions–may actually be an appropriate course of action. The book includes an appendix on the memories of perpetrators as well as victims, a response to critics, and a James K.A. Smith interview with Volf about the nature and function of memory in the Christian life.

 The Pharisees /edited by Joseph Sievers and Amy-Jill Levine. A multidisciplinary appraisal of who the Pharisees were, what they taught, and how they have been understood and depicted throughout history

Just two print books added in the past week, ready for use ( by Canadian history buffs?)

A very brilliant affair: the Battle of Queenston Heights, 1812 /Robert Malcomson ; maps by Christopher Johnson. This is the first full-length study of the Battle of Queenston Heights. We see the American government stumble into war and send a weakly supplied force to invade across the Niagara River.  We follow the battle through the eyes of participants. The battle was a sharp lesson for the young U.S. Army and its political masters in Washington and a critical morale booster in Upper Canada. This new look at the battle tackles many of the myths that have grown over the years. Malcomson’s exciting and readable account will add a new level of appreciation for the drama and significance of the War of 1812.

 Ridgeway: the American Fenian invasion and the 1866 battle that made Canada /Peter Vronsky. What happened at Ridgeway and in Fort Erie on June 2, 1866, marked a signal moment in Canada’s emerging sense of itself in the year before Confederation. The actual events of that day were covered up by the Macdonald government. The history was falsified so thoroughly that most Canadians today have never heard of Canada’s first modern battle or of the first military casualties. Historian and investigative journalist, and filmmaker Peter Vronsky uncovers the hidden history of the Battle of Ridgeway and its significance to Canada’s nation-building myths and traditions.

Here is a selection of titles recently added to the collection and ready for use.

 A basic guide to the just war tradition: Christian foundations and practices /Eric Patterson. A concise, accessible introduction to the just war tradition from a Christian perspective.

 America’s book: the rise and decline of a Bible civilization, 1794-1911 /Mark A. Noll. America’s Book shows how the Bible decisively shaped American national history even as that history decisively influenced the use of Scripture.

 Decision points /George W. Bush. In this candid and gripping memoir, Bush describes the critical decisions that shaped his presidency and personal life.

 Evidence-based practice for nurses /Nola A. Schmidt, Janet M. Brown. This comprehensive resource guides students through the hierarchy of evidence while interweaving concepts such as the evolution of nursing science, quality improvement projects and how they relate to evidence-based practice, as well as search strategies and how to choose a specific research design.

 Improving person-centered innovation of nursing care: leadership for change /Barbara Sassen. This edition helps students and nursing professionals give each patient their unique position in healthcare delivery. In this volume, care starts from the patient’s point of view rather than from the role and function of the healthcare professional. The author relates themes such as relational care delivery, shared decision-making and empowerment to key concepts such as patient- and family-centred care, integrated care, patient-centred leadership(styles), quality of care and value-based healthcare.

 Research literacy for health and community practice /Sonya L. Jakubec and Barbara J. Astle. TWU AUTHOR Research Literacy for Health and Community Practice introduces students to fundamental research concepts that will enable them to think critically about research and recognize effective methods for understanding and utilizing research for practice. This textbook teaches skills for engaging with research literature, including how to frame and organize knowledge, interpret and evaluate evidence using qualitative and quantitative approaches, distinguish between research and other forms of information, and use this evidence in practice settings. This second edition features content on Indigenous knowledge and research, including contributions by two Indigenous scholars, as well additional examples of qualitative and quantitative designs, updated content on literature reviews, and updated exercises and examples throughout the text to balance the focus on medicine and nursing and broaden the scope to include different care providers in health, community services, and other fields.

 Resolving disputes in second century BCE Herakleopolis: a study in Jewish legal reasoning in hellenistic Egypt /by Robert A. Kugler. Resolving Disputes challenges the consensus that the petitions to the leaders of “the πολίτευμα of the Jews in Herakleopolis” (P.Polit.Iud. 8.4-5) prove that while the Ptolemies granted Jews limited self-governance according to their ancestral traditions, the petitioners nonetheless relied almost exclusively on Ptolemaic Greek law to make their agreements and settle their arguments. Reading the appeals in their proper juridical context, this study shows how these Jewish petitioners in fact made sophisticated use of their ancestral norms, drawing from them principles that complemented and contradicted prevailing Greek law. The Jews appealing to the leaders of the πολίτευμα in Herakleopolis embraced Torah.

 Talking to kids about gender identity: a roadmap for Christian compassion, civility, and conviction /Mark Yarhouse. Yarhouse offers parents godly wisdom and answers to their biggest questions about gender identity issues. This reliable, go-to resource will help you initiate honest, informative dialogues with your kids, model biblical conviction with civility and compassion, and more.

 The Church in an age of secular mysticisms: why spiritualities without God fail to transform us /Andrew Root. In a secular age that offers a buffet of spiritualities focused on the self and on personal transformation, Root shows the difference between these reigning mysticisms and an authentic Christian view of transformation.

 The message behind the movie reboot: engaging film without disengaging faith /Douglas M. Beaumont ; foreword by Carl E. Olson. With this book, readers will be able to understand the basics of movie interpretation, identify and interpret key ideas, and provide an uncomplicated defense of the Christian worldview.

 The Oxford handbook of Indigenous sociology /edited by Maggie Walter, Tahu Kukutai, Angela A. Gonzales, and Robert Henry. The Oxford Handbook of Indigenous Sociology is, in part, a response to the limited space allowed for Indigenous Peoples within the discipline of Sociology.  The ambition of this volume, its editors, and its contributors is larger than a challenge to this status quo. They do not speak back to Sociology, but rather, claim their own sociological space.

 The suffering servant: Isaiah 53 for the life of the church /J. Gordon McConville. An exposition of Isaiah 53, showing how this classic and beloved text can speak afresh to the life of the church today.

  The veiling issue: official secularism, and popular Islam in modern Turkey /Elisabeth Özdalga.  An important introduction to one of the issues that has been front-page news in Turkey since the 1980s. Özdalga’s focus is timely and of interest to both a Turkish audience and a Western one, although it speaks mainly to the latter. Her book attends both to the symbolic power and legal status of women’s clothing in public debate and to women’s actual participation in the re-formations of public and private definitions of citizenship.

Here is a short list of print and eBooks added to the collection recently.

 Caring for words in a culture of lies /Marilyn McEntyre. McEntyre exposes the commercial and political forces that affect public discourse in American culture and counters with twelve constructive “strategies of stewardship”–such as challenging lies (including widely tolerated forms of deception and spin), fostering the art of conversation, and encouraging playfulness and prayerfulness in writing and speaking. The timely and timeless book includes updated cultural references and questions for reflection and discussion at the end, allowing a new generation of readers to apply McEntyre’s wisdom in a world that struggles with truth and graceful language.

 Handbook of literacy in Africa /R. Malatesha Joshi, Catherine A. McBride, Bestern Kaani, Gad Elbeheri, editors. This volume highlights the shortcomings concerning literacy development in Africa and collates the current available literature based on empirical research in various countries in a coherent manner. Further emphasized is how the current research can guide practical information to improve the literacy situation in Africa.

 The collected poems of Robert Service. The author has caught the spirit of wanderlust that exists in each of us and it lives in his poetry.

 The Harper record: a selected list of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s accomplishments /by John H. Redekop (TWU Author) ; foreword by Preston Manning.

 Whose Holy Land?: the roots of the conflict between Jews and Arabs /Michael Wolffsohn. This book explains the historical roots of the conflict between Jews and Arabs, which has lost none of its explosiveness to the present day, in a comprehensive and easy-to-understand manner. Shaking up old myths and prejudices, this book presents an overall historical as well as political analysis of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim structures, actors, and actions from the very beginning to this very day, as well as a topical analysis. It combines history with theology and political science.