Author Archives: Walt

December 2018 Sourisseau Academy photo album and video

Long before television commercials and the Internet, local merchants were seeking effective and innovative ways to advertise their services to the public. In the December 2018 Sourisseau Academy photo album Anthropology Professor Emeritus Tom Layton cruises the delivery wagons, buggies, vans, and trucks that became moving billboards, reaching even the most remote corners of the Santa Clara Valley.

The December 2018 Sourisseau Academy news video visits the many locations that have vanished from our modern landscape.

 

Ruma Chopra in the Academic Spotlight

Dr. Ruma Chopra (Professor, Department of History) was recently featured in the SJSU Office of the Provost “Academic Spotlight” online newsletter. The November 2018 “Emeritus and Retired Faculty Support Scholarly Work” post outlines Professor Chopra’s Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association’s Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Award, which enabled her “to travel to various libraries across the United Kingdom to conduct research on how climate-based migrations shaped empires — in this case, the eighteenth-century British Empire’s expansion into the Americas, West Africa, South Asia and the South Pacific.” Professor Chopra’s latest book — Almost Home: Maroons between Slavery and Freedom in Jamaica, Nova Scotia, and Sierra Leone — was published earlier this year.

Faculty books published in 2018

On November 2, 2018 the SJSU Annual Author & Artist Awards event celebrated faculty who published books in 2018. The following College of Social Sciences faculty were recognized:

 

Theodorea Regina Berry, Author

States of Grace: Counterstories of a Black Woman in the Academy

Publisher: Peter Lang, 2018

This book recognizes, acknowledges and centers race and gender through the embodiment of Black womanhood in the academy in the context of grace. Encapsulated in concepts of grace, this book reveals the dynamic, multidimensional presence of a scholar who brings her wholeness into her scholarship and teaching, providing insights and guidance along the way.

  

Ruma Chopra, Author

Almost Home

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2018

This is the story of a small community of escaped slaves who revolted against the British government and managed to maneuver and survive against all odds.

 

Stephanie Coopman, Co-Author, James Lull, Co-Author

Public Speaking: The Evolving Art

Publisher: Cengage, 2018

works.bepress.com/stephanie_coopman/

The fourth edition of this book combines time-tested techniques with innovative variations on the foundations of public speaking instruction to produce more confident, competent and ethical public speakers. Integrating examples from popular culture, this edition analyzes the public speaking success of such contemporary figures as Bernie Sanders and Malala Yousafza and prompts learners to put their new skills into practice.

 

Gordon Douglas, Author

The Help-Yourself City: Legitimacy and Inequality in DIY Urbanism

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2018

works.bepress.com/gordon-douglas/

This book looks closely at people who take urban planning into their own hands with homemade signs and benches, guerrilla bike lanes, and more. It explores the frustration, creativity, and technical expertise behind these interventions, but also the position of privilege from which they often come. Presenting a needed analysis of this growing trend from vacant lots to city planning offices, The Help-Yourself Citytells a street-level story of people’s relationships to their urban surroundings as well as a worrying individualization of civic responsibility.

 

Deanna Fassett, Co-Author, John T. Warren, Co-Author, Keith Nainby, Co-Author

Communication: A Critical/Cultural Introduction

Publisher: Cognella, 2018

works.bepress.com/deanna_fassett/

This book provides first-year students a comprehensive yet focused overview of communication theory, interpersonal communication, and public communication and culture through the lens of contemporary critical theory. The authors show how we produce our world through communication, challenging us to explore power, ideology and diversity through daily interactions, both public and private.

 

Joel Franks, Author

Asians and Pacific Islanders in American Football

Publisher: Lexington Books, 2018

works.bepress.com/joel_franks/

This book is an analysis of the experiences of Asians and Pacific Islanders with American football. In particular, it examines how Asian and Pacific Islander peoples used American football to develop and maintain a sense of community while experiencing institutional racism, colonialism and labor exploitation.

 

Robert Ovetz, Author

When Workers Shot Back: Class Conflict 1877-1921

Publisher: Brill, 2018

This book explores one of the most tumultuous times in United States history and argues that the escalation of working class conflict drives rather than reacts to the consolidation and reorganization of capital and economic and political reform of the state. Studying the class composition of this period illustrates why workers escalated the intensity of their tactics, even using tactical violence, to extract concessions and reforms when all other efforts to do so were blocked, co-opted or repressed.

 

Mary Pickering, Co-Editor, Michel Bourdeau, Co-Editor, Warren Schmaus, Co-Editor

Love, Order, & Progress: The Science, Philosophy, and Politics of Auguste Comte

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh, 2018

This book examines Auguste Comte’s system of positivism. Comprising essays from leading Comte scholars, the work is the most comprehensive book in English on his philosophy of science and political and social philosophy.

 

Matthew Spangler, Author

“The Kite Runner” (stage script)

Publisher: Penguin, 2018

works.bepress.com/matthew-spangler/

This is a stage script based on Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, coinciding with the London West End production of the play and UK / Irish tour.

 

Jan English-Lueck publishes an article about Silicon Valley culture

Anthropology Professor Jan English-Lueck recently published an article in Anthropology News. Navigating Silicon Valley’s Contradictions explores how “Silicon Valley’s workers must maneuver their way through this place of diversity and discrimination, capitalist aims, and countercultural aspirations.”

November 2018 Sourisseau Academy photo album and video

In 1930, most San José residents were familiar with the towns of Alma, Perry, Pomar, Madrone, and Wrights — none of which exist today. In the November 2018 Sourisseau Academy photo album Anthropology Professor Emeritus Tom Layton pays tribute to the towns and venues that have disappeared from our modern landscape.

The November 2018 Sourisseau Academy news video presents 150 years of birds-eye views of growth and change in the Silicon Valley.