Faculty members in the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences have published books on topics ranging from poetry to probing the past to planning to ever-lengthening retirement in the past year. A sampling of some:
"Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage up the Ganges River to the Source of Hindu Culture " (Harcourt) by writer-in-residence Stephen Alter. An account of the author's physical and spiritual journey to the source of the Ganges River and an exploration of the myths and traditions of India's ancient religious culture.
"Sheepshead Bay " (Zoland Books) by senior lecturer in writing Ed Barrett. A collection of poetry that addresses the larger life we intuit but cannot grasp for long.
"Downtown: Its Rise and Fall, 1880-1950" (Yale University Press) by Professor of History and Urban Studies Robert M. Fogelson. On how America's downtown has changed over time and how businessmen and property owners worked to promote the well-being of downtown, even at the expense of other parts of the city.
"Working in America: A Blueprint for the New Labor Market " (MIT Press) by Professor of Industrial Relations and Political Science Richard M. Locke; Michael Piore, the David W. Skinner Professor of Political Economy; Thomas A. Kochan, the George Maverick Bunker Professor of Management; and Professor of Management Paul Osterman. Traces today's labor-market policy and laws back to the New Deal and to a second wave of social regulation that began in the 1960s.
"Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe " (Cambridge University Press) by Associate Professor of Political Science Roger Petersen. A sequence of forces--social norms, focal points and rational calculations--combines to drive individuals into roles of passive and, under certain circumstances, active participation in community-based rebellion organizations.
"The Role of Annuity Markets in Financing Retirement " (MIT Press) by Mitsui Professor of Economics James M. Poterba, Jeffrey R. Brown, Olivia S. Mitchell and Mark J. Washawsky. Life annuities can help protect people planning for retirement on the assumption that they will live into their eighties, nineties, or even beyond.
"Framing 'India': The Colonial Imaginary in Early Modern Culture " (Stanford University Press) by Associate Professor of Literature Shankar Raman. Colonial engagement with the East, and in particular with the figure of India, distinctively shaped 16th- and 17th-century European literature and thought.
"The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865-1901 " (Harvard University Press) by Associate Professor of History Heather Richardson. Social class significantly affected the post-Civil War struggle to integrate African-Americans into a progressive and prospering nation.
"The Walled Arab City in Literature, Architecture and History: The Living Medina in the Maghri b" (Frank Cass Publishers) edited by Susan Slyomovics, the McMillan-Stewart Professor of the Study of Women in the Developing World and Professor of Anthropology. Essays by American, European and North African scholars demonstrate new sources and new theoretical approaches now being used in historical narrative.
"Analyzing Congress: The New Institutionalism in American Politics " (W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.) by Charles Stewart III, associate dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and professor of political science. Congress and congressional politics are analyzed from a rational-choice perspective.
"Culture and Inflation in Weimar Germany " (University of California Press) by Bernd Widdig, lecturer in German studies. Inflation during the Weimar Republic and its effects on German culture.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on June 5, 2002.
