Good Reads: Fascinating Faculty Tomes

In the second installment of Good Reads, we present four books by Seattle University faculty worth checking out. 

The Self-Talk Workout: Six Science-Backed Strategies to Dissolve Self-Criticism and Transform the Voice in Your Head by Rachel Goldsmith Turow, PhD

Psychology Adjunct Professor Rachel Goldsmith Turow, PhD, knows that many people want to be nicer to themselves. The Self-Talk Workout just may change how you treat yourself. 

“I wrote The Self-Talk Workout after working with hundreds of college students and psychotherapy patients whose excessive self-criticism was damaging their mental health and impeding their academic, professional and personal goals,” explains Turow.

Do Not Separate Her from Her Garden by Carlyn E. Ferrari, PhD

Carlyn E. Ferrari, PhD, an assistant professor of English, has written a fascinating book about New Negro Renaissance poet and civil rights activist Anne Spencer. The book is a reminder that Black people are deeply connected to the natural world and always have been. 

“I wrote this book out of sheer admiration and genuine respect for Anne Spencer,” explains Ferrari. “So many Black women writers are overlooked and understudied and I wanted to reintroduce her to the public and do my part to make sure that she is not forgotten.”

The Laughter by Sonora Jha, PhD

An explosive, tense and illuminating work of fiction, The Laughter by Professor of Communication and Media Sonora Jha, PhD, is a fascinating portrait of privilege, radicalization, class and modern academia.  

“The book is drawn from my research on Islamophobia in France and the USA, as well on the intersections of race, gender and power in academia,” explains Jha. “The book is also a social satire situated on an American campus and I chose to tell it in the voice of a white male professor to show his limitation and unreliability in being ‘the authoritative’ voice.”

Single Mothers and the State’s Embrace: Reproductive Agency in Vietnam by Harriet M. Phinney

In the mid-1980s, many single women in Vietnam found themselves without suitable marital prospects due to deaths brough about by the Vietnam War. These women embraced motherhood by “xin con”—or, asking for a child.  

“I wrote this book because many Vietnamese had encouraged me to research xin con and write about it,” explains Associate Professor of Anthropology Harriet M. Phinney, PhD. “I want readers to comprehend how the war, combined with gendered socialist policies, affected women at the most intimate level—their ability to love, marry and have children.”

Read more about these authors and how to get their books in The Newsroom.

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