Speaking of Books...
Conversations with Campus Authors

Welcome to the homepage for Speaking of Books... Conversations with Campus Authors. This series of author talks and signings was begun in 2005 by the University of Maryland Libraries' Humanities Team to highlight new and interesting research by faculty members from the College of Arts and Humanities. In 2007-2008, the series was expanded to include faculty members from all schools and colleges at the University of Maryland.

These free events are open to all members of the campus community and the general public. Each author will answer questions following his or her talk and sign books, which will be available for purchase. Refreshments will be served.

If you would like more information about this series or individual events, please contact Tim Hackman, Humanities Team, at thackman@umd.edu or 301-314-8521.

Upcoming Author Conversations

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 4:30pm
McKeldin Library Special Events Room

Deborah Nelson, Director, Carnegie Seminar, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, The War Behind Me: Vietnam Veterans Confront the Truth About U.S. War Crimes.
(Basic Books, 2008)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Deborah Nelson will discuss The War Behind Me. Come hear the story of how Nelson and her co-author, military historian Nicholas Turse, gained access to the U.S. Army's secret archive of Vietnam-era war crimes investigations, "the largest compilation of U.S. war-crime reports from the Vietnam conflict ever to surface. The files include substantiated cases involving more than 300 allegations and implicate members of every major army division that served in the war. The War Behind Me describes the authors' search for answers from the men accused of committing atrocities, the witnesses who reported them, and the higher-ups who covered them up."

Professor Nelson's presentation will be followed by Q&A and book signing. Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 4:30pm
McKeldin Library Special Events Room

Robert L. Park, Research Professor, Physics, Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. (Princeton UP, 2009)

Dr. Park will discuss his latest book, Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. "From uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring past lives through hypnosis, has superstition become pervasive in contemporary culture? Robert Park, the best-selling author of Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud, argues that it has. In Superstition, Park asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded. He takes on supernatural beliefs from religion and the afterlife to New Age spiritualism and faith-based medical claims. He examines recent controversies and concludes that science is the only way we have of understanding the world." Join us for what is sure to be a lively discussion.

Professor Park's presentation will be followed by Q&A and book signing. Refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

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Past Author Conversations

FALL 2009

John W. Frece, former Associate Director, National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education
Sprawl and Politics: The Inside Story of Smart Growth in Maryland. (SUNY Press, 2008)
Read a recent article by researchers from the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education
Read a response from former Governor Parris Glendening to a Washington Post article about smart growth in Maryland
Get more information about Smart Growth from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Find the book in the UM Libraries
Purchase the book from Amazon.com

Dr. Anil K. Gupta, Ralph J. Tyser Professor of Strategy and Organization, R.H. Smith School of Business
Getting China and India Right: Strategies for Leveraging the World's Fastest Growing Economies for Global Advantage. (Jossey-Bass, 2009)
Read more on the author's Blog.
View articles written by Professor Gupta for Business Week Online.
Find the book in the UM Libraries.
Purchase the book from Amazon.com

SPRING 2009

Dr. Mark Sagoff, Senior Research Scholar, School of Public Policy
The Economy of the Earth: Philosophy, Law and the Environment
(2nd edition, Cambridge, 2007)
Read about other Earth Day activities at the University of Maryland
See a list of other books and articles written by Dr. Sagoff
Find the book in the UM Libraries
Purchase the book from Amazon.com

Dr. Robin Sawyer, Professor, Public and Community Health
Sexpertise: Real Answers to Real Questions About Sex
(Simon & Schuster, 2008)

Read about Dr. Sawyer's talk in The Diamondback (UMCP campus newspaper)
Read a write-up from The Healthy Turtle, the blog for the School of Public Health
Find the book in the UM Libraries
Purchase the book from Amazon.com

FALL 2008

  Dr. Howard D. Leathers, Associate Professor, Agricultural & Resource Economics
The World Food Problem: Tackling the Causes of Undernutrition in the Third World (3rd edition, Lynne Reinner, 2004)
  Visit Dr. Leathers' personal Web page to read news items and blog posts on the topic of world hunger.
  Read articles by Dr. Leathers at the repository, Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
  Find the book in the UM Libraries
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com

Dr. Stanley Plumly, Professor, English
Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (W.W. Norton, 2008)

  Posthumous Keats has been named a finalist for the prestigious PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, for a distinguished biography published in the United States in 2009.
  Read Dr. Plumly's profile from the Academy of American Poets site, Poets.org. You can read or listen to poems, and read interviews with the poet.
  Read the New York Times' review of Posthumous Keats.
  Read the first chapter of Posthumous Keats, courtesy of the New York Times.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com

SPRING 2008

Dr. Barry Lee Pearson, Professor, English
Jook Right On: Blues Stories and Blues Storytellers (University of Tennessee Press, 2005).
  Read Dr. Pearson's profile at AllMusic.com and find out what recordings made his "desert island" list.
  Learn more about the blues in Maryland and DC! Visit the DC Blues Society and the Baltimore Blues Society
  Find the book in the UM Libraries
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com

Dr. Paul Herrnson, Professor, Government and Politics and Director, Center for American Politics and Citizenship
Voting Technology: The Not So Simple Act of Casting a Ballot. (Brookings, 2007).

  Read more about the Center for American Politics and Citizenship
  Read a summary of the book from the UM Newsdesk
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.

Gene Roberts , Professor, College of Journalism
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).

  Read a notice about Professor Roberts' Pulitzer Prize.
  Read the transcript of an interview with Professor Roberts from National Public Radio's On the Media (Dec. 22, 2006).
  Read a review of the book from The New York Times (Jan. 21, 2007).
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.

FALL 2007

Dr. Robert Friedel, Professor, History
A Culture of Improvement: Technology and the Western Millennium (MIT Press, 2007).
  Read a review from the New York Times.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.

SPRING 2007

Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson, Assistant Professor, American Studies
Building Houses out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power (University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
  Professor Williams-Forson's book was awarded the 2006 Elli Kongas-Maranda Prize by the Women's Section of the American Folklore Society.
  Read excerpts from reviews.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com

Dr. Clare Lyons, Associate Professor, History
Sex among the Rabble: An Intimate History of Gender and Power in the Age of Revolution, Philadelphia, 1730-1830 (University of North Carolina Press, 2006.)

  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase Professor Lyons' book from Amazon.com

FALL 2006

  Dr. Shawn Parry-Giles, Associate Professor, Communication and Dr. Trevor Parry-Giles, Associate Professor, Communication
The Prime-Time Presidency: The West Wing and U.S. Nationalism (University of Illinois Press, 2006)
  Read more about the book.
  Read an article from the Diamondback (UMCP campus newspaper) about the work Shawn and Trevor Parry-Giles are doing with the Political Advertising Resource Center.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.


  Dr. Jeffrey Herf, Professor, History
The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (Harvard University Press, 2006)

  Read more about Dr. Herf's book or read a review from The Jewish Daily Forward.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.

SPRING 2006

  Dr. Verlyn Flieger, Professor, English
Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology (Kent State University Press, 2005)
  Read more about Professor Flieger's talk in the Diamondback (UMCP campus newspaper).
  Read more about her book.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.

FALL 2005

  Dr. Vincent Carretta, Professor, English
Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (University of Georgia Press, 2005)
  Read the transcript of an online chat with Professor Carretta from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
  Read a review of his book from The Guardian.
  Find the book in the UM Libraries.
  Purchase the book from Amazon.com.

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