Automobility to Prudentius

Dickinson professors author eclectic array of new books

February 17, 2009

Professors and authors of recent and forthcoming books Adrienne Su (left front) and Cotten Seiler; rear, from left, Neil Diamant, Douglas Edlin and Marc Mastrangelo. Not shown is Blake Wilson.

It's been an extra busy year for Dickinson College professors and authors Neil Diamant, Doug Edlin, Marc Mastrangelo, Cotten Seiler, Adrienne Su and Blake Wilson. Su's book of poetry will be released this week and Wilson's book is scheduled for next month. Diamant, Edlin and Seiler published books in December, and Mastrangelo is marking the first anniversary of the release of his work.

Here are some of the recent and forthcoming books:

Adrienne Su

Su, associate professor of English and poet-in-residence, will release Having None of It (Manic D Press) on Feb. 20 and will hold a book signing and book reading Feb. 27 from 6:30 to 8 p.m., at the Whistlestop Bookshop on 129 W. High Street in Carlisle.

In Having None of It, Su combines a number of concerns—"a fragmentary immigrant narrative, struggles with gender roles and parenthood, the impossibility (for most) of 'having it all' if 'having it all' means career, family and marriage for both men and women."

Su drew on her own experiences to tell the stories of others.

"Parts of Having None of It employ the voices of people I am not. How could I speak for Chinese immigrants in the American South from segregation to the Civil-Rights movement? How could I speak as a community or as a man? Those are the things I needed to imagine in order to reconcile some of the contradictions I face because of who I am," Su said. "I wouldn't have been drawn to these particular fictions if I hadn't been challenged so often—and often unintentionally—by preconceptions about what constitutes a Southerner, an American, a good mother, a good mother who has a career, and—if this is even in the culture—a good single mother who has a career."

Having None of It is Su's third book of poetry. Her other works are Middle Kingdom (Alice James Books, 1997) and Sanctuary (Manic D Press, 2006).

Neil Diamant

Diamant, associate professor of Asian law and society and chair of the political-science department, offers a rare insight into the plight of Chinese veterans in Embattled Glory: Veterans, Military Families and the Politics of Patriotism in China, 1949-2007 (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers).

Diamant said his work, released in December, is the first-ever book-length scholarly analysis of how veterans of the People's Liberation Army were treated after World War II, the Korean War, and China's war against Vietnam in 1979.

Based almost entirely on never-before-seen archival materials from urban and rural China, Embattled Glory recounts how veterans—including those who were disabled in war—were treated by employers, families, officials and fellow citizens in the context of their struggles to obtain rights, jobs, medical care, housing and respect. Diamant also questions the repeated emphasis in media reporting about Chinese affairs concerning the "rise" of Chinese patriotism.

"If patriotism has been so important in China, then why did many veterans, ostensibly the heroes of the country, complain that they were treated 'like tossed-away dirty socks' and 'donkeys slaughtered after they finished grinding the wheat?' " Diamant asked.

Embattled Glory also compares the treatment of Chinese veterans to the treatment received by their counterparts in the United States, the former U.S.S.R., Australia, several European countries, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan and Israel.

Diamant, by using a comparative approach, also focuses on issues that can lead to better treatment of veterans. He concludes that veterans have tremendous challenges getting a "fair shake" in society unless the war in which they fought is considered highly legitimate and they have powerful "allies" among society's elite who are willing to champion their cause.

Diamant predicts that veterans of the war in Iraq are not likely be treated as "worthy heroes" and will have to fight very hard to get the benefits they deserve. The legitimacy of this war has been widely contested, and the overwhelming majority of American political, social and economic elites do not have children serving in the military today.

Doug Edlin

Edlin, associate professor of political science, published Judges and Unjust Laws: Common Law Constitutionalism and the Foundations of Judicial Review (The University of Michigan Press) in December. Edlin uses case-law analysis, legal theory, constitutional history and political philosophy to examine the power of judicial review in the common-law tradition.

Edlin argues that common-law tradition gives judges a dual mandate: to apply the law and to develop it. He said there is no conflict between their official duty and their moral responsibility. Consequently, judges have the authority—perhaps even the obligation—to refuse to enforce laws that they determine unjust.

"With keen insight into the common-law mind, Edlin argues that there are rich resources within the law for judges to ground their opposition to morally outrageous laws and a legal obligation on them to overturn it, consequent on the general common-law obligation to develop the law," said Gerald J. Postema, professor of philosophy and law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "Thus, seriously unjust laws pose for common-law judges a dilemma within the law, not just a moral challenge to the law, a conflict of obligations, not just a crisis of conscience. While rooted firmly in the history of common law jurisprudence, Edlin offers an entirely fresh perspective on an age-old jurisprudential conundrum. Edlin's case for his thesis is compelling."

Marc Mastrangelo

In The Roman Self in Late Antiquity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), Mastrangelo, associate professor of classical studies, places poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens within a broad intellectual, political and literary context of fourth-century Rome. Mastrangelo demonstrates how Prudentius drew on both pagan and Christian intellectual traditions—especially Platonism, Virgilian epic poetics and biblical text analysis—to define a new vision of the self for the newly Christian Roman Empire.

Mastrangelo presents an original theory of Prudentius's allegorical poetry and establishes the poet as a successor to Virgil. He interprets the meaning and influence of Prudentius's work and positions the poet as a vital author for the transmission of the classical tradition to the early modern period.

Published in January 2008, The Roman Self in Late Antiquity provides a "cogent, masterful account of Prudentius's work," said Sarah Spence, professor of classics at the University of Georgia. "This book will make a welcome addition to the list of late antique and early Christian literary readings, expanding beyond Prudentius to engage larger questions of early Christian reading. It will also stand alongside works on the epic tradition, such as Hardie's, while contributing a clarifying view of Augustine's sources and predecessors."

Cotten Seiler

Seiler, associate professor of American studies, combed through historical, social scientific, philosophical and literary sources to illustrate the importance of driving to modern American conceptions of the self and the social and political order. The result: Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America (The University of Chicago Press), released in December.

A Times Higher Education review called Republic of Drivers a "landmark book," one that will reward readers with "an unprecedented appreciation of what automobility has meant and may yet mean."

Seiler describes how, from 1895 to 1961, "automobility emerged as a shaper of public policy and the landscape, a prescriptive metaphor for social and economic relations, and a forge of citizens." He addresses cultural, philosophical and political questions—the affect generated by driving and the instrumentation of that affect under shifting regimes of liberalism and capitalism in the 20th century.

"Seiler brilliantly illuminates the phenomenon of 'automobility' as key to U.S. society and culture from 1895 to 1961; from the creation of the U.S. auto industry to the end of the Eisenhower administration that instituted the Interstate Highway System," touted the review.

The review also said: "Despite the American automobile industry's catastrophic decline in popularity, profits and market share, there has been no shortage of scholarly analyses of its historical importance. If pioneering studies were pedestrian accounts of particular cars and companies, they were followed by more sophisticated works that connected automobiles to U.S. values and social changes such as the acceptance of women drivers and the growth of suburbs. Cotten Seiler's Republic of Drivers elevates this subject to a new level."

Seiler describes how as the figure of the driver blurred into the figure of the citizen, automobility became a powerful resource for women, African Americans and others seeking entry into the public sphere. And yet, he argues, the individualistic but anonymous act of driving has monopolized our thinking about freedom and democracy, discouraging the crafting of a more sustainable way of life. As our fantasies of the open road turn into fears of a looming energy crisis, Seiler vividly describes just how we ended up a republic of drivers—and where we might be headed.

Seiler said that while the ongoing economic decline in the U.S. automotive industry is "a bit far afield from my work," he is confident that "whatever happens to the Big Three, automobility as a structure will certainly be around for quite some time. Its practices and the feelings that it promotes are essential to the key ideologies of American political culture, especially individualism and autonomy."

Blake Wilson

In his forthcoming book Singing Poetry in Renaissance Florence, Wilson, associate professor of music, reconstructs a pervasive oral singing culture that thrived at all levels of Florentine society from the late 14th through the mid-16th centuries.

"Our ideas about the musical soundscapes of early modern European cities tend to rely on surviving written musical sources," said Wilson, who added that his work "reveals how restricted such evidence can be."

Wilson's book includes a CD database with more than 1,800 records searchable by fields dedicated to song titles, poetic forms, poets, composers, sources and bibliographic information.

The book explores the patterns and trends revealed by the database regarding the creation, dissemination and performance of music and poetry in Renaissance Florence. The result is an unprecedented view of the ebb and flow in Florence of nearly every musico-poetic repertory of the day.

"This is a case study in a number of interactive dualities that shaped the urban cultures of early modern Europe: the transition from manuscript to print culture, the complex interaction of oral and written traditions, and a confluence of local and imported cultural goods that tended to blur boundaries between 'popular' and elite culture," Wilson said.

This article does not include books that have been mentioned in either Extra Features or Dickinson Magazine.