As the year draws to a close, UVa Today will look back at milestones, achievements, trends and big stories of 2011. To share your 2011 thoughts, visit the UVA Today News Blog or send us a tweet @uva using hashtag #uva2011.
December 16, 2011 — From Mrs. Nixon to Vietnam media, the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era, the grassroots food movement to Muslim women's freedom of movement, University of Virginia faculty members published books on a range of subjects in 2011. Several faculty authors drew a lot of media attention, including sociology professor Josipa Roksa, co-author of "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," and Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies and law, for "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)."
It was also a great year for alumni of the College of Arts & Sciences' Creative Writing program, with Chad Harbach's "The Art of Fielding" and Eleanor Henderson's "Ten Thousand Saints" being included on the top 10 lists of the New York Times and the New Yorker. Several other recent grads received favorable reviews on their debut works.
The following is a selection of notable new books in 2011, plus a few book awards. More books are listed in UVA Today's "Off the Shelf" section.
• Ann Beattie, Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English and Creative Writing in the College of Arts & Sciences, "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life." Scribner.
• Tomiko Brown-Nagin, law professor, "Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement." Oxford University Press.
U.Va. Law Professor's New Book Focuses on Unsung Civil Rights Lawyers, Activists
• Sylvia Shin Huey Chong, associate professor of English, film and Asian American studies and a faculty member of the American Studies program, "The Oriental Obscene: Violence and Racial Fantasies in the Vietnam Era." Duke University Press.
"Images of Vietnam War Show Perspectives Changing Over Time"
• Tanya Denckla Cobb, professional environmental mediator in the University of Virginia's Institute for Environmental Negotiation and a teacher of food system planning in U.Va.'s School of Architecture, "Reclaiming Our Food," Storey Publishing.
U.Va. Professor Launches New Book About Grassroots Food Movement
• Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist, a Curry School of Education professor, a Youth-Nex Center program director and director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, co-editor, "Columbine a Decade Later: The Prevention of Homicidal Violence in Schools." Jossey-Bass.
U.Va.'s Cornell Co-Edits 'Columbine a Decade Later: The Prevention of Homicidal Violence in Schools'
• Rita Dove, former U.S. poet laureate and Commonwealth Professor of English, "The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry."
Looking Back at 20th-Century Poetry: Q&A with Rita Dove
• Edward R. Ford, Vincent and Eleanor Shea Professor of Architecture, "The Architectural Detail." Princeton Architectural Press.
U.Va. Architecture Professor Examines Concepts of Architectural Detailing in New Book
• Gary Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War, "The Union War." Harvard University Press.
U.Va.'s Gary Gallagher Examines Motivations Behind One Side in Civil War
• Brandon Garrett, law professor, "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong." Harvard University Press.
U.Va. Law Professor Brandon Garrett's Book Examines Wrongful Conviction
• Douglas Laycock, law and religious studies professor, "Religious Liberty, Volume Two: The Free Exercise Clause." Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Laycock Releases Second Volume of Collected Works on Religious Liberty
• Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward R. Stettinius Professor of American History, and Jeffrey W. Legro, Randolph P. Compton Professor of World Politics, editors, "In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin Wall and 9/11." Cornell University Press.
Off the Shelf: Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro
• Michael Levenson, William B. Christian Professor of Modern Literature and Critical Theory, "Modernism." Yale University Press.
U.Va. English Professor's Book Takes Fresh Look at Modernism
• Farzaneh Milani, professor and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures and a faculty member in the Studies in Women and Gender program, "Words Not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement." Syracuse University Press.
Milani: Muslim Women's True Struggle Is for Freedom of Movement"
• Deborah Parker, Italian professor, with husband Mark Parker, an English professor at James Madison University. "The DVD and the Study of Film: The Attainable Text." Palgrave Macmillan.
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Faculty Celebrate Record Year of Book Publication
• Josipa Roksa, sociology professor, and Richard Arum, a professor of sociology and education at New York University, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses." University of Chicago Press.
U.Va. Sociologist's Study of College Learning Sparks National Attention
• Robert Sayler and Molly Bishop Shadel, law professors, "Tongue-Tied America: Reviving the Art of Verbal Persuasion." Aspen Publishers.
U.Va. Law Professors Revive Public Speaking in New Book, 'Tongue-Tied America'
• Dr. J. Anderson "Andy" Thomson Jr., staff psychiatrist at U.Va. Student Health and a clinical faculty member at the Institute for Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, "Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith." Pitchstone Publishing.
Thomson's Book Analyzes Why People Believe in God
• Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies and law, "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)." University of California Press.
U.Va. Professor's 'Googlization of Everything' Urges Reflection on Google's Huge Influence
• Joshua Yates, research assistant professor of sociology and James Davison Hunter, LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory, "Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present." Oxford University Press.
New Book on Thrift and Thriving Promises to Illuminate Ethics of Economic Life
Book Awards
• Deborah Eisenberg, creative writing professor, "The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. Picador.
U.Va.'s Deborah Eisenberg Receives 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Jennifer Greeson, assistant professor of English, "Our South: Geographic Fantasy and the Rise of National Literature." Harvard University Press. In January 2011, the book was named winner of the C. Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.
U.Va. Professor's Award-Winning Book Looks at the South in American Identity
Jahan Ramazani, Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, "A Transnational Poetics." University of Chicago Press.
Jahan Ramazani's Book Wins Comparative Literature Prize
Ramazani won the American Comparative Literature Association's Harry Levin Prize for "A Transnational Poetics," recognized as the best book in comparative literary history published in the years 2008 to 2010.
December 16, 2011 — From Mrs. Nixon to Vietnam media, the Civil War to the Civil Rights Era, the grassroots food movement to Muslim women's freedom of movement, University of Virginia faculty members published books on a range of subjects in 2011. Several faculty authors drew a lot of media attention, including sociology professor Josipa Roksa, co-author of "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses," and Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies and law, for "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)."
It was also a great year for alumni of the College of Arts & Sciences' Creative Writing program, with Chad Harbach's "The Art of Fielding" and Eleanor Henderson's "Ten Thousand Saints" being included on the top 10 lists of the New York Times and the New Yorker. Several other recent grads received favorable reviews on their debut works.
The following is a selection of notable new books in 2011, plus a few book awards. More books are listed in UVA Today's "Off the Shelf" section.
• Ann Beattie, Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English and Creative Writing in the College of Arts & Sciences, "Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life." Scribner.
• Tomiko Brown-Nagin, law professor, "Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement." Oxford University Press.
U.Va. Law Professor's New Book Focuses on Unsung Civil Rights Lawyers, Activists
• Sylvia Shin Huey Chong, associate professor of English, film and Asian American studies and a faculty member of the American Studies program, "The Oriental Obscene: Violence and Racial Fantasies in the Vietnam Era." Duke University Press.
"Images of Vietnam War Show Perspectives Changing Over Time"
• Tanya Denckla Cobb, professional environmental mediator in the University of Virginia's Institute for Environmental Negotiation and a teacher of food system planning in U.Va.'s School of Architecture, "Reclaiming Our Food," Storey Publishing.
U.Va. Professor Launches New Book About Grassroots Food Movement
• Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist, a Curry School of Education professor, a Youth-Nex Center program director and director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, co-editor, "Columbine a Decade Later: The Prevention of Homicidal Violence in Schools." Jossey-Bass.
U.Va.'s Cornell Co-Edits 'Columbine a Decade Later: The Prevention of Homicidal Violence in Schools'
• Rita Dove, former U.S. poet laureate and Commonwealth Professor of English, "The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry."
Looking Back at 20th-Century Poetry: Q&A with Rita Dove
• Edward R. Ford, Vincent and Eleanor Shea Professor of Architecture, "The Architectural Detail." Princeton Architectural Press.
U.Va. Architecture Professor Examines Concepts of Architectural Detailing in New Book
• Gary Gallagher, John L. Nau III Professor in the History of the American Civil War, "The Union War." Harvard University Press.
U.Va.'s Gary Gallagher Examines Motivations Behind One Side in Civil War
• Brandon Garrett, law professor, "Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong." Harvard University Press.
U.Va. Law Professor Brandon Garrett's Book Examines Wrongful Conviction
• Douglas Laycock, law and religious studies professor, "Religious Liberty, Volume Two: The Free Exercise Clause." Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Laycock Releases Second Volume of Collected Works on Religious Liberty
• Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward R. Stettinius Professor of American History, and Jeffrey W. Legro, Randolph P. Compton Professor of World Politics, editors, "In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin Wall and 9/11." Cornell University Press.
Off the Shelf: Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro
• Michael Levenson, William B. Christian Professor of Modern Literature and Critical Theory, "Modernism." Yale University Press.
U.Va. English Professor's Book Takes Fresh Look at Modernism
• Farzaneh Milani, professor and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures and a faculty member in the Studies in Women and Gender program, "Words Not Swords: Iranian Women Writers and the Freedom of Movement." Syracuse University Press.
Milani: Muslim Women's True Struggle Is for Freedom of Movement"
• Deborah Parker, Italian professor, with husband Mark Parker, an English professor at James Madison University. "The DVD and the Study of Film: The Attainable Text." Palgrave Macmillan.
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Faculty Celebrate Record Year of Book Publication
• Josipa Roksa, sociology professor, and Richard Arum, a professor of sociology and education at New York University, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses." University of Chicago Press.
U.Va. Sociologist's Study of College Learning Sparks National Attention
• Robert Sayler and Molly Bishop Shadel, law professors, "Tongue-Tied America: Reviving the Art of Verbal Persuasion." Aspen Publishers.
U.Va. Law Professors Revive Public Speaking in New Book, 'Tongue-Tied America'
• Dr. J. Anderson "Andy" Thomson Jr., staff psychiatrist at U.Va. Student Health and a clinical faculty member at the Institute for Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy, "Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith." Pitchstone Publishing.
Thomson's Book Analyzes Why People Believe in God
• Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies and law, "The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry)." University of California Press.
U.Va. Professor's 'Googlization of Everything' Urges Reflection on Google's Huge Influence
• Joshua Yates, research assistant professor of sociology and James Davison Hunter, LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory, "Thrift and Thriving in America: Capitalism and Moral Order from the Puritans to the Present." Oxford University Press.
New Book on Thrift and Thriving Promises to Illuminate Ethics of Economic Life
Book Awards
• Deborah Eisenberg, creative writing professor, "The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg. Picador.
U.Va.'s Deborah Eisenberg Receives 2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Jennifer Greeson, assistant professor of English, "Our South: Geographic Fantasy and the Rise of National Literature." Harvard University Press. In January 2011, the book was named winner of the C. Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.
U.Va. Professor's Award-Winning Book Looks at the South in American Identity
Jahan Ramazani, Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, "A Transnational Poetics." University of Chicago Press.
Jahan Ramazani's Book Wins Comparative Literature Prize
Ramazani won the American Comparative Literature Association's Harry Levin Prize for "A Transnational Poetics," recognized as the best book in comparative literary history published in the years 2008 to 2010.
— By Anne Bromley
Media Contact
Article Information
December 16, 2011
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