Colleges and Universities Books

Anthologies are notoriously inconsistent. Most contain several essays considerably below the level of the best pieces and many contain a few utterly miserable ones. On the downside, no essay in this collection truly stands out; on the upside, there really isn't a weak entry in the volume. I honestly cannot think of another collection of which I can make that statement.

Whether you are a serious fan of Sci-fi or a casual reader seeking an introduction to the field, this collection will prove invaluable. I fall somewhere between those two categories. Over the years I've read a few hundred Sci-fi novels and seen most Sci-fi films that have been made, but it has never been my main source of reading or film viewing. I've read rather a lot of the historically important works such as Mary Shelly, Henry Kuttner, H. G. Wells, Olaf Stapleton, and David Lindsay, but I've never attempted anything like a comprehensive reading of the classics. And I have ready very little that has been published in the past fifteen years. Still, I found that I learned an enormous amount about the field from this book. I learned about several historical works I had not previously known of, got a better understanding of the state of the genre from one decade to another, and learned a great deal about trends in the field in the past couple of decades. I also learned something about the various literary critical reactions to the genre. For those in the academy, it is a helpful introduction to the scholarly take on things.

The book is also great at pointing the way to other books. I kept a sheet of paper beside me as I read. I have already bought a few critical books on Sci-fi based on mentions of them in this volume, while I also have compiled a list of a number of novels that I plan on reading.

The essays in the book are broken down into three separate sections. The first section deals with the history of Sci-fi, from precursor works to the magazine age to various decades after. The second and most academic section deals with various academic approaches to Sci-fi, including Marxist, feminist, postmodernist, and queer theory. The final and most wide-ranging section covers a variety of themes such as gender, race, hard science fiction, alternate history, space opera, film and TV, and religion. The writers are mainly English and mostly academic, though several are also writers of Sci-fi. Even the writers, however, are fully qualified academics. For instance, one of the more scholarly entries is that by Brian Stableford. Though most of the essayists are British, American Sci-fi has so completely dominated the genre that it automatically demands priority. If anything, I was somewhat surprised by the absence of some European writers. There is, for instance, very little discussion of Stanislaw Lem, though several deserving British writers do receive attention.

In addition to the very good essays there is also a very interesting (though certainly not exhaustive) list of chronology listing some significant novels, short stories, movies, and television series. There is also a good bibliography at the end of the book, though I wish it had been annotated.

I highly recommend this collection to anyone interested in Sci-fi either in a casual or more dedicated fashion. In all honestly I have to say it is one of the most successful volumes in the Cambridge Companions series that I have read.

This is truly a fine volume, highly recommended to anyone who wants a broad sampling of the academic thought that has been applied to the genre. Although it's a collection of chapters by many different authors, I thought the quality was uniformly excellent. The structure of the book results in some overlap of themes, for example with a chapter on "Feminist theory and science Fiction" appearing in "Part 2. Critical approaches" and a chapter on "Gender in science Fiction" in "Part 3. Sub-genres and themes". However, I didn't find this to be a flaw; it gives the reader the opportunity to read different authors approaching related topics from different angles.

My favorite authors and chapters included Ken Macleod's "Politics and science Fiction" and Edward James' "Utopias and anti-utopias". Farah Mendelsohn's chapter "Religion and science Fiction" was a real eye-opener for me, examining a side of science fiction that I'd been pretty dismissive towards.

Not cheap, but well worth it.

I purchased this book for a member of my high school speech team's storytelling entry in a forensics tournament. It is well organized by theme. Who knew spooky stories came in genres? A surprisingly scholarly approach to the weird and supernatural. The stories have introductions, and some have commentary afterwards. You don't have to believe the legends, but in some cases the individual sources are named, and all are linked to real colleges and give dates. We titled our story, "The Fatal Fraternity Initiation," and our team member managed to scare quite a few judges. Other stories, with a little "artistic license," could be used for similar purposes: talent shows, sleepovers, scripts for student-produced videos. Not recommended for college recruiters or applicants!!

Students have told stories about their daily university lives and often created legends surrounding campus experiences: unique and intriguing is CAMPUS LEGENDS: A HANDBOOK, which surveys legends ranging from pure fantasy to theories of professor relationships, pranks, rituals and other folklore. While it may prove an unusual handbook for the general collection, any college-level collection strong in folktales will find it refreshingly different and worthy of acquisition.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Of all the audio books I have listened to over the last year, this one is the absolute winner. The mix of academia and murder is reminisant of the Morse mysteries, while the detective, Father Shreader is a modern day Cadfile. To add to the enjoyment of a great mystery story is the mini latin and history lessons throughout making this one of the more unique audio book offerings. I would recomend this title to anyone with a passion for mystery who wants to lay back and enjoy a great audio book.

The Case of Ockham's Razor makes a nice introduction to Father Shrader, a burly, cigar-champing academic priest. A philosophy professor, Father Shrader solves his crimes using classical philosophical principals. Which is not only very original, but also a fun way for readers to bone up on the classics.

Set in the fictional college town of Stonehaven, at a fictional, (yet very reminiscent) catholic liberal arts college, 'St.Swithun's College', this story transported me back to my own college days under the tutelage of the Jesuits. Thankfully, all of the classical Latin allusions are translated within the story -- quite good fun! The satirical humour is non-stop. Sultry co-eds, thick-headed jocks, quirky & obsessive academics, and petty college administrators all play their parts as we would expect. But, who killed J. Garrison Nielson, the wealthy college benefactor is something very few will have expected before its revelation in the story!

Yet, the clues are there. And perhaps some mystery hounds will figure this one out. Educated readers, catholic school survivors, and mystery lovers will all enjoy this book.

Perhaps not Edgar material, but certainly worthwhile reading.

Mr. Nelson is god. One should read everything that he writes. In two thousand years people will be awaiting the second coming of Mike Nelson. Rhodes is a wonderful college, and I wish that I had been wise enough ( in my college days) to shun Yale for such a personalized undergraduate education

Celebrating The Humanities: A Half-century Of The Search Course At Rhodes College is an intriguing look at the life-cycle of that college's renowned Humanities course, which has been in existence longer than at any other comparable liberal-arts institution. The book looks at the genesis for developing the course at Rhodes (then Southwestern) during the crucible of World War II and its evolution over the years. A number of individuals involved with "The Man Course" (as it was dubbed) contribute individual chapters that touch on their era of involvement touching on the curricula and the changes that came about. The course itself sounds utterly fascinating, incorporating some of the greatest literature of the modern world from the time of antiquity to the present, yet covering it in a colloquium style course setting. I would love to take this course, but to be honest the amount of reading that is covered in the short span of time is most daunting indeed!

Michael Nelson, the editor, does a good job of keeping the text coherent and cogent, which is frequently a problem with incorporating many different authors with varying styles of writing. The book is most gripping when covering the origins of the course and its early years but loses steam towards the middle. I had expected more dramatic tension when the book got into the era that encompassed the Civil Rights and Counter-Culture Revolution of the 1960s, but it was strangely unexciting, which is surprising considering the upheaval in Memphis during that era. It was again exciting towards the end when it gave a rather lively encapsulation of what it is like to take the course today that left me wondering why more universities aren't attempting the same thing. Celebrating the Humanities is a compelling argument for the bolstering of the Humanities at campuses everywhere and should be a rallying cry for this effort, yet my hunch is few outside of academia will ever read this, which is profoundly sad.

This is an outstanding book on the social and historical development of the New York Chinese community at the turn of the century. Liu begins with and focuses on the 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel - a White woman - whose dead body was found in a trunk in the apartment of one of her lovers Leon Ling. Ling, a Chinese male, and the primary suspect in the case - who was never caught. The narrative - a discourse analysis is based on careful and extensive research is really a critical examination of the social workings of 1900s New York and the looks at the way a society runs itself. Lui uses an extensive range of primary sources - in both English and Chinese. Lui's study is an analyses of the numerous issues spun around the case rather than the facts of the case itself.

The Chinatown Trunk Mystery is an actual case study that worked as an "I told you so" about all the fears and concerns which have roots in the "Yellow Peril" narrative. In the early 1900s, and this is old news, race did matter. Elsie Sigel was not what people painted her out to be. Was she even really a missionary? Contradictory stories abounded about Chinese men. On the one hand, Chinese men were seen as asexual but on the other hand the public and media accused Leon Ling are seen as predatory.

The Chinatown Trunk Mystery is a departure from the "conventional wisdom" or "conventional narrative" of Asian America. Adding complexity to a story that is usually told in a textual format that looks like a textbook, Lui destabilizes the conventional format - in this book, all the folks that you thought were good were not actually good. She takes care to bring us into the story so we understand the process of inventing narratives about people, places, and things that were not even part of the actual event. Careful attention to her note shows that the murder mystery began outside of Chinatown proper (Lui 53). It was in the interest of particular people with agendas to maintain the narrative - even if most of the data on the case was never really substantiated and stories seemed to contradict each other. In short, nothing really substantial was resolved about the case. Much of the evidence was hearsay and inconclusive but the narrative spun around what little was there was spurious at best. As mentioned previously, Lui uses an extensive range of primary documents and representations. An analysis of the discourse reveals that is less about the facts of the case but rather how societies run and how people manage themselves.

In effect, the book is all about the "invention" of Leon Ling, Elsie Sigel and a bevy of characters surrounding the two. Lui is not only a credible historian but also a narrative craftsperson. Lui spins a yarn no less impressive than the actual events themselves. Her writing style accommodates the uninitiated and non-academic and engages both audiences which is appreciated for its clarity and simplicity.

Miguel Llora

Lui has written a wonderful book that uses a murder in New York to examine the complexity of race and gender in New York at the turn of the nineteenth century. Her research is first rate and the narrative she shapes is enthralling. One highlight of the book is the discussion of the ways that the Chinese community mobilized to defend itself from the attacks on Chinese, and Asians in general, that followed the discovery of the body. Her narrative is crisp and her analysis sharp.

Dr. Sowell is a gem! His experience and intelligence make this book a necessary read for everyone wanting to see the big picture regarding college admissions. There IS a systematic way to find the BEST college for a particular student. "Choosing a College" lays groundwork for the necessary homework and personal introspection this process ultimately requires.

Every potential applicant should read this book. I would personally advise parents (who want to get both feet firmly planted on the ground before your student begins this important and expensive life-altering process) to start by reading Dr. Sowell's "Inside American Education". He reveals many painful truths regarding our educational system, which newspapers seldom print and TV stations never broadcast.

This is a precursor to the later National Review Guide, and the ISI Guide called Choosing the Right College. Sowell's book is the BEST FIRST THING for you and your kids to read as they are in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade and you are thinking about where to ship them off to. After Sowell, read NR and ISI, and you will be well-positioned to read between the lines of all the other propaganda that's out there!

Christianity In The Academy: Teaching At The Intersection Of Faith And Learning distills the wisdom of author Harry Lee Poe (Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture, Union University), who also serves as the program director for the C. S. Lewis Foundation's Summer Institutes, a training resource on faith and scholarship issues especially for Christian Faculty. Wrestling with serious issues confronting Christian educators in institutions of higher learning, Christianity In The Academy touches upon the Christian worldview, interdisciplinary dialogue, the religious spectrum that can be found in higher education, the repercussions of the postmodern age, and much more. Tackling difficult dilemmas of faith and academics seemingly at odds, Christianity In The Academy is an opinionated but thoughtful resource recommended for personal contemplation among college educators of all levels who share a common bond through faith in Jesus Christ.

I must confess that Harry Poe's book Christianity in the Academy was not at all what I was expecting. I was expecting this book to be about teaching in an academy where an integration of Christianity and other disciplines would be assumed, and was rather surprised to find that in actuality it was mostly about how to be a Christian professor while teaching in a setting where it was not assumed. Thus the main thrust of this book seemed to be that all disciplines are related to each other, and thus are related to Christianity. This means that no matter what we are teaching there is a way for it to be taught Christianly. There is a Christian view of mathematics, a Christian view of physics, a Christian view of anthropology, etc.

Poe outlines three views on how Christianity relates to "secular" disciplines. The first view is that Christianity has nothing to do with disciplines like biology or sociology. As one mathematics professor at a Christian university said, "There is no such thing as a Christian perspective of quadratic equations." Or, as Tertullian said, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" Those who hold this view separate their faith from the "real world." They (usually) accept the faith/reason dichotomy brought by Kant, and see faith as something that really does not have much to do with the physical world or the creative world. It has little involvement with either the sciences or humanities. Perhaps the only place it could make it in is in a religion class, and even then it is usually set aside in an attempt to be unbiased about other religions (as if that were a real possibility).

The second position on how Christianity interacts with other disciplines is that we must "add Christ" into them. This view holds that in order for one to have a Christian view of a discipline, you must first add something Christian into the discipline that you wish to have a Christian view on. In other words, you take a science and add religious overtones to it. Good examples of this would be many people in the young earth creationist movement (geology), the KJV only advocates (textual criticism), etc.

Finally, there is the position that you can have a Christian position in any discipline because the Christian worldview is something that seeks to explain literally everything in the universe, and some things outside of it. One person to hold such a position would be Francis Schaeffer, who taught that the Christian worldview is about reality, not the faith realm. Nothing needs to be added to disciplines for them to relate to Christianity, they simply already do by the very virtue of existing, for everything that exists relates to one's worldview.

Not only does this view support the idea that Christianity is related to all disciplines, but it also supports the view that all disciplines are related to each other. As Schaeffer noted, theology tends to reflect the general culture, culture tends to reflect the idea present in contemporary music and art, and all of them can usually be traced back to philosophical ideas which have simply been integrated by the other disciplines. The Interdisciplinary Studies program at my own school (Lincoln Christian College) was spawned by these two ideas, and it still attempts to show how some disciplines are related (unfortunately they usually only cover art, music, and literature in any given period), although its original emphasis on relating Christianity to all the disciples seems to have waned greatly in recent years.

Poe calls for Christian professors who realize the integration of Christianity and other disciplines to step forward and teach Christianly within their field. He does not say that a biologist should start preaching to his biology class. He simply says that the biologist should teach biology from a Christian perspective. As C. S. Lewis said, "What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects--with their Christianity latent."

Understanding the relatedness of disciplines is essential to properly understanding any field which one may aspire to teach in at any level of higher academics. If, say, one wanted to teach in the field of theology, being able to grasp how theology takes its themes from philosophical, scientific, etc. issues of the day is vital to properly understanding the theological views of people in cultures and times different than our own. To understand the classical liberalists' theology we must understand the philosophical and scientific issues that were being raised in their culture at that time -- issues like naturalism and the mechanistic model of the universe taken from Newton's scientific discoveries.

Then, in order to be able to really teach theology to students so that they can truly understand the history of theology, we must be able to tell them how differing theological ideas arose in different times and places, and be able to explain the extent to which other disciplines influenced the development of theology through the ages. When this idea of ties between disciplines is lost, a field such as theology becomes largely unintelligible. Great men of the past end up looking silly, until we begin to understand what in their world was driving them to come up with what appear to us today to be extremely odd views. In order to understand historical theology, and contemporary theology, we must be able to trace its roots, and its roots are hardly ever so shallow that they do not stray into other disciplines.

Overall grade: A

This book was recommened to me by a friend and I thank him all the time! Easy to read, this books calmly explains what parents need to do. Suggestions, checklists, humor and sound advice make this book a must for parents to read as soone as think COLLEGE!

Panicked parents no more! Sally Rubenstone eliminates the needless worry and confusion associated with the college admission process. A simple yet sophisticated approach to eliminate the anxiety of securing a spot for your child in college.With a bit of humor sprinkled throughout,"College Adsmissions" was fun to read and allowed me to sleep through the night. Thanks Sally.

This book has the statistics and brief explanations on about 3000 undergraduate programs. It is a very good reference for the hard facts on the programs that one is interested in. The SAT preparation software that comes with the book is not spectacular, but the book itself is worth buying.

"The College Board Handbook" is a great general guide that stands with the best of them. I will recommend this to those who come to me, along with a number of other college reviews, and my pet favorite for kids to learn about character and leadership education and the true value of education to America, "West Point: Character Leadership Education: Thomas Jefferson" by Norman Thomas Remick.

This book has explanations and anecdotes on 150 undergraduate majors; very useful reference book.

I find the College Board Guide to 150 Popular Majors valuable in my work with college bound high school students. The information on each major includes interests and skills a student might possess, which are associated with success in this major. It recommends high school courses, which would be beneficial to a student considering a specific major, lists the college courses commonly required for the major, and careers associated with the degree. Alternative majors in the area are also suggested. We use this resource as a first step in our college selection process.