Bookshelf

(Modern Language Association of America, 2024)
According to the publisher, “This volume brings a diverse range of voices - from anthropology, communication studies, ethnomusicology, film, history, literature, linguistics, sociology, theater, and urban geography - into the conversation about film from the People’s Republic of China. Essays seek to answer what films can reveal or obscure about Chinese history and society and demonstrate how studying films from the PRC can introduce students to larger issues of historical consciousness and media representation.
 

(Harper Muse, 2024)
As one reviewer notes, “Put on a pot of coffee, cut yourself a wedge of chess pie and dive in.”

Set in a gossipy small town during the turbulent 1960s — and full of Southern charm and unforgettable characters — this hilarious book by a first-time novelist tells the story of 38-year-old Posey Jarvis, who knows she’s the rightful “empress” of rural Spark in Cooke County, Tennessee... if only everyone else would just realize it too.

(University of California Press, 2023)
Everyone speaks with an accent, but what is an accent? This interdisciplinary collection, which was awarded the 2024 René Wellek Prize for Best Edited Collection by the American Comparative Literature Association, introduces accent as a powerfully coded yet underexplored mode of perception that includes looking, listening, acting, reading, and thinking.

(Harvard Education Press, 2024)
Drawing on extensive research and case studies, the authors outline successful strategies for whole child and whole community support that can help school systems meet broader student needs in times of disruption. They focus on Integrated Student Support (ISS), an approach to education policy and practice in which schools focus on attending to students’ basic physical, social, and emotional needs before learning occurs.

 (She Writes Press, 2024)
Klara Lieberman is 49, single, a professor of archaeology at a small college in Maine — a contained person living a contained life. That was before she receives an unexpected letter from her estranged mother, Bessie, with the long-overdue news that her father is dead. What prompts her mother’s timing? The Polish government is giving financial reparations for land it stole from its Jewish citizens during World War II, and Bessie wants the money. Klara, on the other hand, wants answers about her father. She flies to Warsaw, determined to learn more.

(Basic Books, 2024)
Founded in 1919, the Communist Party USA championed peace, justice, and fairness in society. Its members organized powerful industrial unions, took a stand against racism, and moved the nation left. At the same time, the author notes, communists “maintained unwavering faith in the USSR’s claims to be a democratic workers’ state and came to be regarded as agents of a hostile foreign power.”

(Cambridge University Press, 2024)
According to the publisher, “The study of gesture — the movements people make with their hands when talking — has grown into a well-established field, and research is still being pushed into exciting new directions. Bringing together a team of leading scholars, this handbook provides a comprehensive overview of gesture studies, combining historical overviews as well as current, concise snapshots of state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary research. ... Attention is given to different theoretical and methodological frameworks for studying gesture, including semiotic, linguistic, cognitive, developmental, and phenomenological theories and observational, experimental, corpus linguistic, ethnographic, and computational methods. It also contains practical guidelines for gesture analysis along with surveys of empirical research. Wide ranging yet accessible, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in linguistics and cognitive sciences.”

(Business Expert Press, 2024)
“Both our work and private lives require us to build new institutions or renovate old ones, from launching a business in your home to creating a new corporate division at work, from establishing a local charter school to organizing an athletic club with friends,” notes the publisher. But how does one ensure that all the resources necessary for a successful building project are within reach?

(Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2024)
The author explores the psychology and philosophical significance of the ubiquitous social phenomenon known as awkwardness. “Our aversion to awkwardness mirrors our desire for inclusion. This explains its power to influence and silence us: as social creatures, we don’t want to mark ourselves as outsiders,” the publisher notes. “As a result, our fear of awkwardness inhibits critique and conversation, acting as an impediment to moral and social progress. Even the act of describing people as ‘awkward’ exacerbates existing inequities, by consigning them to a social status that gives them less access to the social goods (knowledge, confidence, social esteem) needed to navigate potentially awkward situations.”

(New York: Hachette Go, 2024)
“How do I build a brand in today’s social media world?” That’s the question the author, the real estate broker and star of Bravo network’s Million Dollar Listing New York, answers in this, his third book. While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that 50% of the workforce will be the gig economy by 2027, Serhant says no one is being taught the skills or ideas to be successful in this new marketplace. “They are being trained for the jobs of a decade ago or a world where there weren’t personal brands or so many small businesses that need to brand and market themselves,” he says.