By Kristen LaRue-Sandler — August 22, 2022
Four faculty members in the Department of English announce new books recently published or imminently forthcoming. Works include a German translation, a poetry chapbook, a debut novella, and an edition of instructional case studies.
'Stein: Ökologie des Nichthumanen' (August Verlag, 2022)
This German edition of Jeffrey Cohen’s 2015 treatise, "Stone: An Ecology of the Inhuman" (University of Minnesota Press) was translated by Till Bardoux and Nikola Basler and is set for a September release. From an English version of the publisher’s description:
- "'Stone' maps the force, vivacity, and stories within our most mundane matter, stone. For too long stone has served as an unexamined metaphor for the “really real”: blunt factuality, nature’s curt rebuke. Yet, medieval writers knew that stones drop with fire from the sky, emerge through the subterranean lovemaking of the elements, tumble along riverbeds from Eden, partner with the masons who build worlds with them. Such motion suggests an ecological enmeshment and an almost creaturely mineral life.
Although geological time can leave us reeling, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen argues that stone’s endurance is also an invitation to apprehend the world in other than human terms. Never truly inert, stone poses a profound challenge to modernity’s disenchantments. Its agency undermines the human desire to be separate from the environment, a bifurcation that renders nature “out there,” a mere resource for recreation, consumption, and exploitation.
Showing that what is often assumed to be the most lifeless of substances is, in its own time, restless and forever in motion, 'Stone' fittingly concludes by taking us to Iceland⎯a land that, writes the author, 'reminds us that stone like water is alive, that stone like water is transient.'"
Cohen is dean of humanities in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU, where he is a professor of English.
'Contain' (Tram Editions, 2022)
Cynthia Hogue’s ninth collection of poetry was released in July. From the publisher:
- "As much as human beings were made to stay inside their homes in many places, pulled back like the awkward weeds we can be, threatened with culling by the mind of the garden, we were, in that way, contained by the pandemic. However, in 'Contain,' the poet asks that we all remember what must not be held inside us if we are to remain resilient. Hogue meditates on the necessary questions of what is owed in return for the gift of life, as she writes out of her inspired dialogue with Morgan O’Hara’s work, and reminds us of how poetry can help us to see inside the gift of sight that is the painter’s province."
Hogue is professor emeritus of English at ASU, where she formerly held the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry.
'The Circle That Fits' (Driftwood Press, 2022)
Kevin Lichty’s fiction debut is set to launch in October. From the publisher:
- "Kevin Lichty's 'The Circle That Fits' explores the fraught relationships between two parents and their son as they live in a traveling carnival. … From taxidermied humans to a shape-shifting lion tamer, the emotional, intense surrealism on display in this compressed novel knows no bounds."
Lichty is an instructor in English at ASU, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in 2017.
'Cross-Disciplinary, Cross-Institutional Collaboration in Teacher Education: Cases of Learning and Leading' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
With co-editors Cheryl J. Craig and Denise M. McDonald, Laura Turchi presents this edition in the Palgrave Studies on Leadership and Learning in Teacher Education series. From the publisher:
- "This book focuses on the impact of sustained and evolving collaborations, showcasing research and scholarship in a faculty group―consisting of 28 professors from five regional universities―meeting and supporting each other since 2002. Originally an innovation introduced by Cheryl J. Craig and funded by a reform movement, the Faculty Academy continues to flourish in the fourth largest city in America long after the reform initiative abandoned its charge.
Contributors to this volume represent all stages of careers, include all races and genders, and write from a multiplicity of disciplinary stances (literacy, mathematics, science, social education, multiculturalism, English as a Second Language, accountability, etc.). In addition to fascinatingly diverse perspectives on teacher education, the authors also investigate issues related to career trajectories―including experiences of vulnerability. The volume illuminates how the Faculty Academy works as a dynamic academic and social bond: not only as a glue that binds members in community, but also in rigorous intellectual commitments that fuel their collective knowing and advance their careers while providing leadership, mentorship, and modelling in up-close and timely ways."
Turchi is a clinical professor of English at ASU where she works primarily with the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.