New Books in Education

Shelter in A Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism (University of North Carolina Press, 2020) by Dr. Jelani Favors fills the “missing pages” of history by highighting the enduring role that Black colleges have played in African American freedom movements in the long-twentieth century. Favors shows that Black colleges created freedom fighters whose organizing, dedication, and fearlessness made the Black Freedom Struggle’s most pivotal moments possible. Favors also argues that Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were fortified interstitial spaces for consciousness-raising and solidarity-building among race women and race men. HBCU students, faculty, and administrators were vital players in fashioning blueprints for Black liberation and ensuring the inter-generational transmission of resistance wisdom. Taking the long view and moving through a tour of Black higher education, Favors theorizes that a hidden second curriculum and a Black college communitas thrived on each campus, making them both seedbeds of racial justice and shelter in a time of storm.Amanda Joyce Hall is a Ph.D. Candidate in History and African American Studies at Yale University. She is writing an international history on the global movement against South African apartheid during the 1970s and 1980s. She tweets from @amandajoycehall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Listen to this interview of Robert Samuels, author of Teaching Writing, Rhetoric, and Reason at the Globalizing University (Routledge, 2021). We talk about grammar, which is what everything really fits inside of. Mostly.Interviewer : "Clearly, the liberal globalist position will cause some pushback. What would you say to our listeners, what would you say to your readers to help them make that pushback into counterargument?"Robert Samuels : "Well, it's difficult, because on one hand, if I'm saying we should focus on logic and reason, it seems like I'm saying that we should ignore emotion, but what I'm also saying is that we should really think about how emotion is manipulated through language and the role that language plays in communication. And so the problem is you want to have a more complex argument, where it's not just either-or. But in our current debate culture it seems that everything often comes into this very polarized either-or discourse. And so it's difficult to figure out how to get people who are not already on your side to listen to you. And I think that's a general problem we have within culture and society, at least in the United States: that is, how to open up this space where people can try to judge arguments based on facts and their merit and their logic and not on some predetermined ideological investment."Daniel Shea, heads Scholarly Communications, a Special Series on the New Books Network. Daniel is Director of the Heidelberg Writing Program, a division of the Language Center at Heidelberg University, Germany. Just write Daniel.Shea@zsl.uni-heidelberg.de Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at dr.danamalone@gmail.com or cgessler@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear: reflections on the shutdown, lessons learned, leading through change and ambiguity, impacts and challenges facing students, the future of higher education, and the distinctive nuances of a vocation versus a job.Our guest is: Dr. Zebulun Davenport, the Vice President for Student Affairs at West Chester University. He earned his Doctorate in Higher Education and Leadership from Nova Southeastern University, an M.Ed. in College Student Personnel Administration, and a B.S. in Communications/Public Relations from James Madison University. His contributions have advanced campus culture, organizational structure, and student success. Dr. Davenport has served as a Vice President for Student Affairs for three institutions and under his leadership, two of those divisions of student affairs have received Diverse Magazine’s the distinction of “Most Promising Places to Work.”His expertise includes student retention, outcomes assessment, strategic planning, and strategies for assisting first-generation college students. Dr. Davenport’s publications include co-authoring two books entitled First-Generation College Students – Understanding and Improving the Experience from Recruitment to Commencement; and Student Affairs Assessment, Evaluation, and Research: A Guidebook for Graduate Students and New Professionals, a chapter in an edited volume entitled The Student Success Conundrum, in B. Bontrager (Ed.), Strategic Enrollment Management: Transforming Higher Education; a chapter in an edited monograph entitled Creating Collaborative Conditions for Student Success in S. Whalen (Ed.), Proceedings of the 8th National Symposium on Student Retention 2012, and a chapter in the fourth edition of The Handbook of Student Affairs Administration in Jossey Bass 2016. He has presented at workshops for numerous public agencies; educational institutions; state, regional, and national conferences; as well as to thousands of college students and professionals throughout his career.Your host is: Dr. Dana Malone, a higher education scholar and practitioner with a background in student affairs. Dana has known Zeb for several years. His dynamic personality and ability to relate over what really matters in work and life sparked a kindred connection from their first meeting.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Working with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman  Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni  Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman  Uncommon Candor: A Leader's Guide to Straight Talk by Nancy K. Eberhardt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: navigating academia, gender creative parenting, and a discussion of the book Raising Them.Our guest is: Dr. Kyl Myers, author of Raising Them: Our Adventure in Gender Creative Parenting. Kyl is a sociologist, parent, partner, professor, and advocate of gender creative parenting. Kyl’s work has been featured on social media, a TedX Talk, and in numerous articles. She can be found at raisingzoomer.com and at kylmyers.com.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: TheybyParenting.com Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue, by Christia Spears Brown Gender Revolution, Documentary from National Geographic Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon Raising Them: Our Adventure in Gender Creative Parenting by Kyl Myers Raising Baby Grey, video and story from The New Yorker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The Global Education Effect and Japan: Constructing New Borders and Identification Practices (Routledge, 2020) volume investigates the "global education effect"--the impact of global education initiatives on institutional and individual practices and perceptions--with a special focus on the dynamics of border-construction, recognition, subversion, and erasure regarding "Japan". The Japanese government's push for global education has taken shape mainly in the form of English-Medium Instruction programs and bringing in international students who actually serve as a foreign workforce to fill the declining labour force. Chapters in this volume draw from education, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and psychology to examine the ways in which demographic changes, economic concerns, race politics, and nationhood intersect with the efforts to "globalize" education and create specific "global education effects" in the Japanese archipelago. This book will provide a valuable resource for anyone who is interested in Japanese studies and global education.Jingyi Li is a PhD Candidate in Japanese History at the University of Arizona. She researches about early modern Japan, literati, and commercial publishing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Today I talked Joe Essid and Brian McTague about their book Writing Centers at the Center of Change (Routledge 2020). We discuss about critical thinking through writing and we talk about what it is that's critical to writing.Interviewer: What's the next big change you see coming?Brian McTague: I don't know exactly what that's going to be, but I think it's going to have something to do with adapting what the previous 'normal' model was for writing centers into this new normal that definitely takes into account technology on a broader scale and how we communicate. You know, we can communicate face-to-face via technology, so does it have to be in person? One example from my own writing center: Over the last year we have done a lot of online-Zoom group workshops. And group workshops are something that we've always offered in person, and sometimes we'd get ten people, sometimes we'd get nobody. Now, we have a Zoom workshop, and we get up to eighty students, or actually, eighty participants, because there are also often some faculty and staff there, too. So to me, that shows that there's potential to learn a lot from what we've done well in this very challenging past year.Joe Essid: Brian, that's grounded optimism. And I think it's something I will do on our campus, once I have the breathing space. That's a post-pandemic opportunity to begin to host some workshops, and use Zoom, because then faculty can attend them from home, students don't have to trek to a room that we have to book. So, I think our writing workshop program is going to move to Zoom, and I can bring in outside experts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear about: the paid and unpaid workload required of adjuncts, Dawn’s personal pandemic perspective as she had to suddenly pivot from teaching on campus to teaching online, the effect of the pivot on her students, and her love of film studies and why she’s hopeful for the future.Our guest is: Dawn Fratini, who has nearly twenty years adjunct teaching experience at the community college and college level. She is currently an adjunct professor at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts where she teaches courses in Film History, Animation History, the Walt Disney Company, the Horror Genre and more. She hold an MFA in Screenwriting and is a PhD candidate at UCLA’s School of Film, Television and Digital Media. She researches technical labor in Hollywood and is currently completing her PhD dissertation, The Genies in the System: The Motion Picture Research Council, 1947-1960.Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. Christina and Dawn are members of the Friday Morning Molas, a writing group founded during the pandemic. Christina is the co-creator the Academic Life channel for NBN with Dr. Dana Malone, a channel they started during the pandemic.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Margaret Herrick Library, Digital Collections. UCLA Oral History Digital Collection. Media History Digital Archive. The Internet Archive. Aca-Media podcast of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies, which looks at a variety of issues in the field, including teaching during the pandemic. Teaching Media, which hosts an online journal on media pedagogy, and also serves as open source for sharing teaching ideas and resources. SCMS Precarious Labor Organization. "The Precarious Labor Organization provides community and advocacy for the Society’s members who are in positions without job security or a clear route to promotion and advancement."  SCMS. "The Society for Cinema and Media Studies is the leading scholarly organization in the United States dedicated to promoting a broad understanding of film, television, and related media through research and teaching grounded in the contemporary humanities tradition.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Joris Vlieghe and Piotr Zamojski's book Towards an Ontology of Teaching: Thing-centred Pedagogy, Affirmation and Love for the World (Springer, 2019) opens an original and timely perspective on why it is we teach and want to pass on our world to the new generation. Teaching is presented in this book as a way of being, rather than as a matter of expertise, which is driven by love for a subject matter. With the help of philosophical thinkers such as Arendt, Badiou and Agamben, the authors articulate a fully positive account of education that goes beyond the critical approach, which has become prevailing in much contemporary educational theory, and which testifies to a hate of the world and to a confusion of what politics and education are about. Therefore, the authors develop the idea of a thing-centered pedagogy, as opposed to both teacher-centered and student-centered approaches. The authors furthermore illustrate their purely educational account of teaching by looking at the writing and the television performance of Leonard Bernstein who embodies what teaching out of love and care for a subject is all about. This book is of interest to all those concerned with fundamental and philosophical questions about education and to those interested in (music) education.Kai Wortman is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Education, University of Tübingen, funded by the State Postgraduate Scholarship Programme. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren’t an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we’d bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN.In this episode you’ll hear: what you need to know before you go, the talk you need to have with your family and friends before you leave for school, what to do when you get there, and a discussion of the book How to College.Our guest is: Lara Hope Schwartz, the co-author of How To College. She has served as a Faculty Fellow at American University’s Center for Teaching, Research, and Learning. She teaches at American University’s School of Public Affairs, and serves as Honors Program Director. Previously, Lara was Director of Strategic Engagement at the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy, Courts Matter director at Media Matters, Legal Director at the Human Rights Campaign, and Vice President of External Affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities. She earned her Juris Doctor Cum Laude from Harvard Law School and her AB in English and American Literature Magna Cum Laude from Brown University.Our guest is: Andrea Malkin Brenner, PhD, the co-author of How To College. She was a faculty member in the Department of Sociology at American University for 20 years, and directed the University College program. She created the American University Experience (AUx) Program, a mandatory full-year course that serves as a college transition course, and a cross-cultural communication class. She holds a BA in Sociology from Brandeis University, an MA in Curriculum, Instruction and Administration in Higher Education from Boston College, and a PhD in Sociology from American University. She currently consults with colleges that wish to create their own first-year transitions courses.Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. She specializes in decoding diaries written by rural women in 19th century America.Listeners to this episode might be interested in: How to College: What to Know Before You Go and When You’re There, by Andrea Malkin Brenner and Lara Hope Schwartz What Parents Should do to Help Students Prepare for The First Year of College https://www.pennlive.com/opini... Lara Schwartz and Andrea Brenner virtual interactive workshop focused on building college learning communities where open, respectful, and collaborative communication can flourish. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

The Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton, which ruled that the Title VII prohibition on sex discrimination in employment extends to discrimination based on sexual orientation and transgender status, may imperil the fundamental right of parents to educate their children in line with their values.This right is examined brilliantly in the 2016 book, To Whom Do Children Belong? Parental Rights, Civic Education, and Children's Autonomy by scholar Melissa Moschella. Given the rise of the transgender movement and other aspects of wokeism, this book has only increased in importance. It is a rare combination of a serious scholarly work and a book that general audiences, particularly and crucially, the parents of school-age children should read.Moschella addresses timely questions such as, “Can we defend parental rights against those who believe we need more extensive state educational control to protect children's autonomy or prepare them for citizenship in a diverse society?” and draws upon psychological and social scientific research to make a compelling philosophical argument for the right of parents to determine fundamental questions of morals when it comes to their children.And this is not only a matter for philosophers. Moschella makes clear that under the cover of such seemingly innocuous verbiage as “diversity education” and “education for citizenship,” public schools are engaging in outright indoctrination of children in left-wing social justice and libertarian moral views. Moreover, progressives are increasingly targeting even private schools and some are even calling for an outright ban on homeschooling.Moschella’s book is eerily prescient in the way she was able to predict that parents who seek to pass on a traditional understanding of sexuality find their efforts directly undermined in ever more public schools. Many parents cannot afford private schools or are unable to home school—and, as noted, even those refuges are under threat. Moschella foretold in her book that if the views of the progressive scholars whose arguments she delineates with scrupulous fairness prevail, parents will have no choice but to send their children into an educational environment that may sow damaging confusion about the basic truths of human identity.Readers of this book need not even be religious but simply parents and other readers who worry that children will be stigmatized and parents’ rights erased if children are forced by schools to deny that maleness and femaleness are grounded on objective biological reality rather than subjective self-image, or that the purpose of human sexuality is not merely pleasure or self-expression, but to unite a man and woman in marriage and enable them to form a family. This is not solely a question of religious liberty but of conscience rights more broadly, which she discusses both authoritatively and movingly.Moschella examines the arguments for expanding school choice, vouchers and granting exemptions when educational programs or regulations threaten parents' ability to raise their children in line with their values and moral codes.The questions raised in this important book have become even more salient in the era of the Biden administration.Give a listen.Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education