New Books at PEOSTA

Description: The publication in 2009 of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era (see below) provoked a sea change in the study of postwar literature. Even though almost every English department in the United States housed some version of a creative writing program by the time of its publication, literary scholars had not previously considered that this institutional phenomenon was historically significant. McGurl’s groundbreaking book effectively established that “the rise of the creative writing program stands as the most important event in postwar American literary history” … this collection looks beyond the traditional MFA writing program to explore the prehistory of writing programs in American universities, as well as alternatives to the traditionally structured program that have emerged along the way. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 12 Feb. 2017.

Reviewed: CHE 21 Oct. 2016

Reviewed: CHE 21 Apr. 2017 (new books)

Reviewed: NYRB 13 Oct. 2016 p. 28

Reviewed: CHE 9 Dec. 2016
Description: Suburban high school study of female-centered bullying.

Reviewed: Choice Oct 2016 vol. 54 no. 2 (Essential; Recommended for Community College Libraries)

Reviewed: NYRB 8 Dec. 2016 p. 58

Reviewed: CHE 16 Dec. 2016

Reviewed: NYRB 13 Oct. 2016 p. 28

Reviewed: LJ 15 Nov. 2016 p. 98; Choice Nov 2017 vol. 55 no. 3 (Highly Recommended; recommended for community college libraries)

Reviewed: CHE 31 Mar. 2017 p. A37
Description: Offers advice on helping students succeed, particularly during the crucial first year; draws on the author’s experience with a Retention Task Force established at the University of Mississippi. (CHE)

Reviewed: NYRB 6 Apr. 2017 p. 21; TLS 10 Mar. 2017 p. 12; LRB 10 May 2018 p. 31.
Description: As the tumultuous decade of the 1960s ended, a number of very traditional, very conservative, highly prestigious colleges and universities in the United States and the United Kingdom decided to go coed, seemingly all at once, in a remarkably brief span of time. Coeducation met with fierce resistance. As one alumnus put it in a letter to his alma mater, "Keep the damned women out." Focusing on the complexities of institutional decision making, this book tells the story of this momentous era in higher education. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 12 Mar. 2017 p. 10; NYT/M 17 Sept. 2017 p. 15

Note: Faculty Request.

Reviewed: TLS 21 Apr. 2017 p. 17.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 30 Apr. 2017 p. 13 (mention/Viet Thanh Nguyen; Pulitzer Prize author)
Description: McGurl argues that far from occasioning a decline in the quality or interest in American writing, the rise of the creative writing program [in higher education] has instead generated a complex and evolving constellation of aesthetic problems that have been explored with energy and at times brilliance by authors ranging from Flannery O’Connor to Vladimir Nabokov, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, and Toni Morrison.

Reviewed: NYRB 8 Dec. 2016 p. 58

Reviewed: CHE 5 May 2017 (new books)
Description: Focuses on Newark, St. Louis, and three other cities in a study of how a wave of teacher strikes in the 1960s and 70s eroded the liberal-labor coalition in the United States and contributed to a growing negative perception of unions.

Reviewed: Choice Aug 2016 vol. 53 no. 12 (Essential; Top 75 Titles for Community College Libraries; Outstanding Academic Title)

Reviewed: WSJ 11 Apr. 2017 p. A15
Description: From a highly regarded feminist, cultural critic, and professor comes a polemic arguing that the stifling sense of sexual danger sweeping American campuses doesn’t empower women, it impedes the fight for gender equality. “…[Kipnis’] broader theme is the disservice done to women by narratives that turn them into victims. This narrative … paints a ‘world of dastardly men with the nefarious power to bend passive damsels to their wills, a world out of storybooks.’” (WSJ)

Description: Twenty-seven professors from various disciplines explain their fields and what it is that they do. The result is an accessible, entertaining, and enlightening survey of the ideas and subjects that contribute to a liberal education.