Laurentian Reviews

By Our Alumni
Dacre Stoker '81 is co-author of the first authorized sequel to the book written by his famous relative: Dracula, by Bram Stoker. Dracula the Un-Dead, by Stoker and Ian Holt (Dutton, 2009), is based on Bram Stoker's handwritten notes for characters and plot threads excised from the original edition, published in 1897, as well as new research. Written with the blessing and cooperation of Stoker family members, Dracula the Un-Dead begins in 1912, some 25 years after Dracula "crumbled into dust."

Stoker is the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker. He is the executive director of the Aiken Land Conservancy in Aiken, S.C. The new book is his first novel. Stoker's St. Lawrence degree is in sport and leisure studies; he was a member of the swim team as an undergraduate. After college, Stoker was a member of the Canadian men's modern pentathlon team and coach of the Canadian men's modern pentathlon Olympic Team for the games held in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988.                                                                           --MD
 
Julia Costello ’68 is a co-author of  The California Missions: History, Art, and Preservation (Getty, 2010).  In an article in Santa Barbara magazine, her classmate Ann Todhunter Brode '68 explains that the book “is stock full of delightful photographs, paintings, artistic renditions and fascinating historical detail.” The book is based on Costello’s doctoral dissertation research. “Appealing to both scholars and artists,” writes Brode, “the substance of this book confirms its own opening words:  ‘The Spanish missions of California represent the state’s oldest and richest historical legacy.’”                                                                   --NSB  

Libuse Binder '97 has written 10 Ways to Change the World in Your 20's (Sourcebooks, 2009). Its introduction states, "Throwing a party. Preparing a meal. Sending an e-mail. These are things you do all the time. How can they really make a difference? 10 Ways to Change the World in Your 20's shows how to transform these everyday activities into world-changing events: Throw a party with a purpose. Prepare a sustainable meal. Send an e-mail to your representative." Among the activists included in the book is Nigel Fellman Greene '09. Binder, who was on campus last spring to discuss her book and its ideas, also runs the Web site TenWays.org.              --MD

Trisha Smrecak '06 is co-author of the new book Climate Change - Past, Present, and Future: a Very Short Guide (Museum of the Earth, Paleontological Research Institute, 2010). Smrecak is a paleontologist at the organization. The publishers state, "Intended for students, teachers, and general readers, this book is a concise, user-friendly handbook that addresses the major features of the science behind this very complex topic. The authors explain--clearly and with a minimum of jargon--the basis for the three central conclusions of modern climate science: that the Earth is warming, that humans are mainly responsible, and that these changes will be extremely challenging for humans to deal with."                                     --MD

Susan Oleksiw ’67 has brought out her sixth mystery novel, and eighth publication in the field of crime fiction. Under the Eye of Kali (Five Star/Cage/Cengage, 2010) is set in tropical South India, an area she knows well through extensive travel and study.  This is “an Anita Ray mystery,” Anita Ray being an Indian-American photographer whom Oleksiw has placed in a series of short stories.  Oleksiw is also a nonfiction writer, and is a consulting editor for The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing. She has a doctorate in Asian studies.  --NSB

To all women in the corporate world: Competition is not a dirty word. Kathryn C. Mayer ’82 tells why in her new self-published book Collaborative Competition™: A Woman’s Guide to Succeeding by Competing, available on Amazon.com. The book is based on 15 years of thriving as a leadership development coach in the tough competitive world of investment banking and consulting, and her experience as a top-ranked amateur tennis player. For more about her, see page xx.                                                                                                            --NSB

For 40 years, George Stade ’55 was a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University, where he earned the Great Teacher Award.  During that period he published extensively, and now he has written his fourth novel, Swimming through the Flotsam in Which We Live and Move and Have Our Being (Xlibris, 2009). “As America sinks into chaos…two fiercely antagonistic groups emerge,” says the back cover. Stade did a book-signing at Reunion 2010.

[image] Edward J. Erickson M'84 is an associate professor of military history at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Va., and co-author of a new book titled A Military History of the Ottomans, From Osman to Ataturk (Praeger, 2009). His co-author is Dr. Mesut Uyar, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Turkish Army currently serving in Afghanistan. Using Ottoman and Turkish sources, the authors present a revisionist view of the Ottoman army as an evolving institution that often was on the cutting edge of military transformation. This is Dr. Erickson's seventh book on the Turks.

By Our Faculty and Staff
[image] A new book co-authored by Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies R. Danielle Egan is a study of the history of ideas about children and sexuality. Theorizing the Sexual Child in Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), say the publishers, is a “ground-breaking work (that) provides the first history of ideas about the sexual child in modernity. Beginning with 21st-century panics about sexualization, the authors address why the sexual child excites such powerful emotions in the Anglophone west. Drawing on a wide range of different materials from enlightenment philosophy, medicine, 'social purity' sexual hygiene, psychoanalysis and child development, this book illustrates that current panics have a consistent and fascinating history. Egan and (co-author Gail Hawkes) strive to progress beyond the current impasse of fear and anxiety."                                                                                                  --MD

Professor of Government Calvin F. “Fred” Exoo takes a critical look at coverage of the 21st century's number-one news story, terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in The Pen and the Sword: Press, War and Terror in the 21st Century (Sage Publications, 2010). The book provides an eye-opening case study of the news at war, and introduces a critical perspective on the mass media.
Exoo argues that something has changed since the Vietnam War, when the press finally found its critical voice. He also includes up-to-date information on the underpinnings of the news business -- corporate ownership and the power of elites to define the news -- and addresses such important new features of the media landscape as the media profit crisis and how it is affecting the news; the creation and mainstreaming of a new right-wing media surround-sound system; and the increasing importance of entertainment media and "soft news" in shaping public views.                                                              --MD

Hamisi Babusa, visiting international lecturer in modern languages (Swahili), has published A Dictionary of English and Swahili Equivalent Proverbs(VDM Verlag, 2009).  The book synthesizes English and Swahili cultures by comprehensively analyzing and interpreting the equivalent proverbs found in both languages. It can be used by both scholars and tourists who wish to communicate with native speakers of either language.                --NSB

[image] A former psychology professor and a former president have collaborated on a mystery novel that capitalizes on their knowledge of sailing. Dark Harbor (iUniverse, 2009) is by Vivian Lawry, the pen name of Vivian Parker Makosky, who taught in the psychology department, and W. Lawrence Gulick, St. Lawrence’s 15th president (1981-87). A pair of college professors discover the body of a colleague in his harbor-side home on Chesapeake Bay, and intrigue, plot twists and all the other ingredients in successful mystery-writing proceed from there.  –NSB

More Noteworthy Laurentian Book News

[image] President William L. Fox '75 is the editor of a new book in the Studies in Church History series published by Peter Lang Publishing, The Protestant International and the Huguenot Migration to Virginia, by David E. Lambert. President Fox is the general and founding editor of the series, whose focus, according the publisher, is "the treatment of religious thought as vital to the historical context and outcome of Christian experience.”                               --MD

[image] Stephen O'Brien Jr. ’91 is the owner and president of Stephen O'Brien Jr. Fine Arts, a sporting art gallery specializing in duck decoys, and Copley Fine Art Auctions, a sporting art auction house, both in Boston. He has written introductory material to two large-format, coffee-table art books, and is also the publisher of one of them. The Fine Art of Angling (Di Les Books, 2007) presents the fishing-related art of 10 contemporary American artists. The Art of Aiden Lassell Ripley (Stephen F. O’Brien Fine Arts, LLC, 2009), highlights the work of one artist (American, 1896-1969) whose genres ranged from still-lifes to portraits, murals to landscapes, and often featured wildlife and hunting.                                                                          --NSB

Bob McKenzie P’10 is a long-time and well-known hockey writer, author and commentator for TSN in Canada, and the father of Mike McKenzie ’10, who enjoyed a four-year hockey playing career at St. Lawrence.  His book Hockey Dad: True Confessions of a (Crazy) Hockey Parent (Wiley, 2009) chronicles his view of the college game from the point of view of a player’s parent.  McKenzie Sr. attended most of his son's games, so SLU plays a large role in this anecdotal book. “SLU fans are a special breed, supportive and passionate, and it was a pleasure to get to know them,” he said in an interview.                                                         --NSB

Dana Professor of Canadian Studies Robert Thacker is the author of a chapter in The Cambridge History of Canadian Literature, published in December 2009 by Cambridge University Press. "Quartet: Atwood, Gallant, Munro, Shields" discusses the works of those four writers. Its publishers describe the book as "a complete English-language history of Canadian writing in English and French from its beginnings.”

Assistant Professor of Education Peter D. Ladd's 2009 book, Emotional Addictions: A Reference Book for Addictions and Mental Health Counseling, won a 2010 International Book Award, in the Health: Addiction & Recovery category. For more on the book, go to http://www.stlawu.edu/news/pladdbook_emotionaladdictions.html.