Book Marks
Recent books by Indiana University faculty members and alumni and from IU Press
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 9, 2009
Searching for Cioran. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston's biography of the Romanian-born French philosopher, Searching for Cioran, retraces the life of E. M. Cioran, from his early years as a mystical revolutionary drawn to right-wing nationalist movements to his self-imposed exile to France in 1937. Cioran became one of the most famous French moralists of the 20th century as an enthusiast of the popular anti-rationalist philosophies of the time. Influenced by the European thinking, Cioran became an advocate of the fascist Iron Guard. By researching and writing this biography, Zarifopol-Johnston, who passed away in 2005, hoped to better understand how Cioran and other brilliant young intellectuals were drawn to such passionate national revival movements. The late Romanian émigré author began her quest by seeking out the aging philosopher in Paris during the early 1990s. She retraced his steps from his home village of Rasinari and youthful years in Sibiu, through his student years in Bucharest and Berlin, to his early residence in France. Her IU Press book Searching for Cioran is complemented by an engaging autobiographical account of rediscovering her own Romanian past. Zarifopol-Johnston was an associate professor of comparative literature at Indiana University Bloomington.
Debussy's Late Style. Marianne Wheeldon's recently relased IU Press book Debussy's Late Style explores composer Claude Debussy's musical responses to World War I. This period of compositions encompasses the duration of the war and the last four years of Debussy's life. The pieces from this time reflect wartime events and the composer's self-conscious desire to define his own musical legacy as he felt his life nearing its end. Debussy's complete wartime compositions comprise a small but significant body of works, some little known and some now acknowledged as among the masterpieces of his career. These include the Berceuse héroïque, En Blanc et noir, the Douze Études, the "Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons," and three instrumental sonatas (the Cello Sonata; the Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp; and the Violin Sonata). Through music analysis, musicology and cultural history, Wheeldon offers interpretive readings of Debussy's late works, focusing on how they reflect the unique cultural milieu of wartime Paris. Wheeldon is an associate professor of music theory at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests include the late works of Claude Debussy, musical culture in fin-de-siècle Paris and Schenkerian analysis.
Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible. Author Carolyn J. Sharp, an associate professor of Hebrew Scriptures at Yale Divinity School, suggests that many stories in the Hebrew Scriptures may be ironically intended. In her new IU Press book, Irony and Meaning in the Hebrew Bible, she deftly interweaves literary theory and exegesis, while illuminating the power of the unspoken in a wide variety of texts from the Pentateuch, the Prophets and the Writings. She argues that reading with irony in mind creates a charged and open rhetorical space in the texts that allows character, narration and authorial voice to develop in unexpected ways. Main themes explored include the ironizing of foreign rulers, the prostitute as an icon of the ironic gaze, indeterminacy and dramatic irony in prophetic performance, and irony in ancient Israel's wisdom traditions. Sharp focuses on how irony destabilizes dominant ways in which the Bible is read today, especially when it touches on questions of conflict, gender and the Other. She is also the author of Prophecy and Ideology in Jeremiah: Struggles for Authority in the Deutero-Jeremianic Prose and Old Testament Prophets for Today.
Child Maltreatment and the Law: Returning to First Principles. It's time for the U.S. legal system to re-emphasize "first principles," including protection of individual and family rights, in laws dealing with the abuse and neglect of children, Indiana University Bloomington faculty member Roger J.R. Levesque writes in a new book. Child Maltreatment and the Law: Returning for First Principles, published by Springer, is the first book-length attempt to integrate principles of family law with developments in U.S. civil and criminal justice. Levesque, professor and chair in the IU Department of Criminal Justice, examines trends and developments in legal regulation of family life and legal responses to child maltreatment, and concludes with a call for affirming foundational principles and developing legal mechanisms that better recognize and respect basic rights. He describes how the child welfare system developed as an alternative to the criminal system, which was seen as not sufficiently focused on the welfare of children. But especially in the past 20 years, he said, civil law has reacted to dramatic cases of child abuse and neglect by making it more likely that authorities will intervene in family relations. Previous books by Levesque include Adolescents, Media, and the Law (2007), which recently won the American Psychology-Law Society Outstanding Book Award, and Not by Faith Alone: Religion, Law and Adolescence (2002), which won the Society for Research on Adolescence Outstanding Book Award.
Muslims in Western Politics. "Muslims are now an integral part of the West and are here to stay," writes Abdulkader Sinno, assistant professor of political science at Indiana University Bloomington. "Yet the interactions between Western Muslims and the institutions of their countries have been problematic in many ways." Muslims in Western Politics, edited by Sinno and published by IU Press, takes an institutional approach to looking at the place of Muslims in Western societies, comparing conditions and relationships in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. Contributors include officials from the Pew Research Center and scholars from the U.S., Canada and Denmark. They write about Muslim political participation and activism, perceptions about Islam and politics, Western attitudes about Muslim visibility in the political arena, and other topics. Sinno, along with editing the volume, contributes an introduction, a chapter on Muslim elected officials in the United Kingdom (co-written with IU Bloomington doctoral student Eren Tatari) and a concluding section of policy recommendations for institutions and suggestions for Western Muslims.
