Penn Press Log

A Century of Social Work and Social Welfare at Penn--Now Available

A Century of Social Work and Social Welfare at Penn
Ram A. Cnaan, Melissa E. Dichter, and Jeffrey Draine, Editors
632 pages | 7 x 10 | 26 illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4103-7 | $65.00 | £42.50

The University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice is a leader in promoting theoretical and practical social work knowledge. Celebrating the school's centennial, this volume heralds the progressive thinking of its leaders and students while setting the stage for the next century of work at the frontier of the field. Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Career Talk Columnists Discuss Updated Handbook

In today's Chronicle of Higher Education, Career Talk columnists Julie Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong discuss the latest edition of The Academic Job Search Handbook. In a Q&A session with The Chronicle, Vick and Furlong share their thoughts on recent developments in the academic employment market that inspired them to write the new edition, such as the impact of the Internet and the challenges facing dual career families. Here's an excerpt:

The Academic Job Search Handbook was first published in 1992. How has the hiring process in academe changed since then? What's different about today's market?

Julie and Jenny: Probably the most significant change is the emergence of the Internet. It has altered the way candidates communicate with search committees, and drastically increased the amount of information about a given institution that they can use in preparing for interviews.

Conversely, the Internet has given search committees the opportunity to meet candidates online before meeting them in person — either through use of a search engine like Google or by looking at a link to a professional Web site provided by the candidate. Search-committee members are forming first impressions based on Web content that may not be in the candidate's control. That's why we continued to include some sample Web pages in the new edition, and it's why we would encourage candidates to pay close attention to their Web personae.

The complete interview is available at Chronicle.com.

 

Boyarin and Idel Comment on Ancient Hebrew Tablet

"Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection," an article in yesterday's New York Times, outlines the potential religious significance of a centuries-old stone tablet that "may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days." The article quotes Daniel Boyarin, author of Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, to provide some theological context for the controversy surrounding the document.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

 According to the New York Times, the tablet will be the subject of discussion at an upcoming conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Moshe Idel, author of the forthcoming Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought, was also quoted in the article.

The Academic Job Search Handbook, Fourth Ed.--Now Available

The Academic Job Search Handbook
Julia Miller Vick and Jennifer S. Furlong
Fourth Edition
304 pages | 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 | 3 illus.
Paper 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-2016-2 | $18.95 | £12.50

For more than 15 years, The Academic Job Search Handbook has assisted job seekers in all academic disciplines in their search for faculty positions. The new fourth edition provides updated advice and addresses hot topics in today's competitive job market.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Black Phliosopher, White Academy--Now Available

Black Philosopher, White Academy: The Career of William Fontaine
Bruce Kuklick
192 pages | 6 x 9 | 7 illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4098-6 | $55.00 | £36.00

At a time when almost all African American college students attended black colleges, philosopher William Fontaine was the only black member of the Penn faculty. Bruce Kuklick sheds light on Fontaine's career as a black scholar as well as on the discipline of philosophy and academic life at mid-century.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here. 

Bruce "Monty" Montgomery

The staff of Penn Press was saddened by news of the passing of Bruce Montgomery, composer, educator, director, and author of Brothers, Sing On!: My Half-Century Around the World with the Penn Glee Club. Montgomery died on June 21 in his home in Maine shortly after his 81st birthday. As director of Penn's Glee Club and founder of the Penn Singers, Monty cut a memorable figure on campus for generations of students. Montgomery will also be remembered as the lyricist and composer of the off Broadway hit, "The Amorous Flea". He was recently honored at an Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts gala where a studio theater was renamed the "Bruce Montgomery Theatre."

More information on Montgomery's work and legacy is available at The Philadelphia Inquirer online.

Stir It Up--Now Available

Stir It Up: Home Economics in American Culture
Megan J. Elias
248 pages | 6 x 9 | 15 illus.
Cloth 2008 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4079-5 | $45.00 | £29.50

Stir it Up explores the changing aims of home economics while putting the phenomena of Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray, Ty Pennington, and the "Mommy Wars" into historical context.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here. 

Richard Helgerson

Staff at the University of Pennsylvania Press were saddened by the news of the death of Richard Helgerson, Professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, author of numerous books--including A Sonnet from Carthage: Garcilaso de la Vega and the New Poetry of Sixteenth-Century Europe--and translator of Joachim du Bellay: "The Regrets," with "The Antiquities of Rome," Three Latin Elegies, and "The Defense and Enrichment of the French Language."  Professor Helgerson passed away on Saturday, April 26  in Santa Barbara, home of the institution where he had taught for over thirty-five years.

An obituary of Helgerson appears on the homepage of The Early Modern Center of the Department of English, UCSB and contains a link to Thoughts on Richard, a weblog where visitors can share their memories of the late scholar.

Thomas M. Nichols on History News Network

Welcome to the new age of preventive war, in which states and their leaders will no longer be content to wait for signs of imminent attack in order to strike first, and will choose instead to eradicate even potential threats long before they can fully ripen into major terrorist attacks or mature into working weapons of mass destruction.

The quote above is from Thomas M. Nichol's new History News Network essay, "The Coming Age of Preventative War". In this piece, Nichols, Professor of Strategy and Forrest Sherman Chair of Public Diplomacy at the United States Naval War College and author of Eve of Destruction: The Coming Age of Preventive War, outlines the concepts that will shape future geopolitical violence and calls for truly international governance over the use of preventive force.

Blum Lecture Available Online

In a post titled "Du Bois in the Lone Star State 2.0", The Bald Blogger has made a recent lecture by Edward J. Blum, author of  W. E. B. Du Bois, American Prophet, available on line. In this talk, "The Noose and the Cross: Race, Religion, and the Redemption of Violence in the Works of W. E. B. Du Bois," (a 53.5 MB mp3) Blum discusses the image of the Black Jesus that developed in the United States in response to racial oppression.