'Dancing in Blackness' ... and More to Read

Halifu Osumare, professor emerita, Department of African American and African Studies, relates her journey as a professional dancer over four decades, across three continents and 23 countries, and through defining moments in the story of black dance in America. As a black studies scholar, she uses her extraordinary experiences to reveal the overlooked ways that dance has been a vital tool in the black struggle for recognition, justice and self-empowerment. This is the inspiring story of an accomplished dance artist and a world-renowned dance scholar who has boldly developed and proclaimed her identity as a black woman. (University Press of Florida/March 6, 2018)

Autobiography by Thomas A. Cahill, professor emeritus, who taught, consulted and published widely during his 50-year career on an astonishingly diverse array of topics, including air quality, global warming, chemical pollution, ecosystem health and species extinctions. Written with humor and spiced with previously untold stories, Critical Masses reveals the previously undisclosed truth about what happened — and didn’t happen — at the World Trade Center disaster, how he managed to simultaneously hold a “Q Clearance” at Los Alamos for “special nuclear materials” (the stuff that goes bang in critical mass for a nuclear chain reaction) while being erroneously listed as an Arab nuclear physicist in a Middle Eastern inventory, how government officials in India mistook him for a CIA operative, and how, in his lab, he came into possession of a pair of radioactive Levis that a student had worn while visiting Kiev four days after the Chernobyl disaster. (EditPros/January 2018)

William W. Hagen, professor emeritus of history, offers the first scholarly account of the anti-Jewish pogroms that accompanied the rebirth of Polish statehood out of World War I and the Polish-Soviet War. While scholarship on modern anti-Semitism has stressed its ideological inspiration, this study shows that anti-Jewish violence by perpetrators among civilians and soldiers expressed magic-infused anxieties and longings for redemption from present threats and suffering (“folk anti-Semitism”). (Cambridge University Press/April 2018)

By Richard Wanlass, chief psychologist and clinical professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, offering practical skills and helpful knowledge to build resilience and improve functioning. Chapters cover: self-management skills (how to increase motivation, overcome procrastination and actually make positive life changes). mood regulation (how to deal with sadness and reduced self-worth), stress and anxiety management, anger and frustration management, relationship management, memory management and pain management (how to deal with chronic pain and still live a good life). Worksheets and exercises follow almost every section to ensure concepts are understood and practiced. (Oxford University Press/2017)