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Bonnie French ’01
Race at Predominantly White Independent Schools
Lexington Books

“My seven years as an independent school student, five years as an independent school teacher, and three years researching independent schools have led to this book,” French writes, describing why she was driven to explore and confront the pervasive individualized and systemic racism she encountered. “The fundamental question of my research is this,” the assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice adds, “how does diversity in independent schools relate to racial equity in independent schools?”

Edward Keenan ’59
Eliminating the Universe
World Scientific Publishing

Synthesizing nearly four decades of the logical expressive power of natural language, this book is aimed at linguists, logicians, and computer scientists. Keenan begins cheekily by thanking Noam Chomsky for inspiring him to “think I could discover interesting things about the mind without doing any work, just sit on my duff, ponder my language and prove some theorems. Of course things didn’t turn out as simple as that, but this work appears to have brought me full circle.”

Adam Morris ’06
American Messiahs
Liveright

Dating back to the American Revolution, our national consciousness has been influenced by a string of dangerously charismatic prophets, such as Cyrus Teed, Father Divine, and Jim Jones. “Although messianic sects are usually dismissed as ‘cults’ that distract from more legitimate social forces, Americans claiming to be the messiah have organized impressive experiments in alternative lifestyles,” Morris writes in this re-evaluation, “and often located themselves on the radical fringe of movements for progressive social change.”

Naomi Sokoloff ’75 and Nancy Berg, editors
What We Talk About When We Talk About Hebrew
University of Washington Press

Despite the vitality of contemporary Hebrew language and culture, why is its study languishing at American universities? In this collection, essaysists from across the U.S. share their perspectives and experiences. “One of my main motivations for working on this project was to profess my enduring belief in the value of language learning as part of a liberal arts education,” Sokoloff writes. “It changed the way I think, the way I see the world, and the way I see myself.”