Rhonda Kitchens
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The Testaments (2020) is a dystopian novel of resistance. There is nothing straight-forward about this novel, For this reader, they all highlight the power of literate |
Book Talk: Sara Bauer, Chemistry Instructor
Title: I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough".
Author: Brené Brown
SB:
I should probably be embarrassed at how many Brené Brown books I own, but thanks largely to her work, I am not… or at least I am learning not to be. If you repeatedly asked me which of the five of her works on my bookshelf was my favorite, I would tell you a different one every time I am sure; I can never decide and I think my answer changes by the day of the week. But if you instead asked me which ONE you should read if you were only willing to read one, I think it would be this one. Though perhaps you should ask me tomorrow too just to be sure.
Dr. Brown is a research professor who has spent two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame and empathy. If you are human, which I suspect you are, you relate to these concepts whether you want to our not. According to her research: we all experience shame, we all hate feeling vulnerable but actually think it’s very courageous to be so, and we all appreciate and long for empathy.
This book sheds light not only on these universal truths of human existence in a way that leaves you feeling your own surprised “me too” moments, but it outlines why you may feel the way you do, how normal that is, and what you can do about it. As someone who has been accused of lacking empathy on occasion (because I do sometimes struggle to empathize) but who is committed to growing in that critical area of human connection, I especially appreciated the researcher’s perspective on what empathy is, what can get in the way of it, and how to cultivate it. The following quote was one of the many that I highlighted during my reading for further reflection: “We can only respond compassionately to someone telling her story if we have embraced our own story—shame and all. Compassion is not a virtue – it is a commitment.”
Due to my own personal beliefs, I think that recognizing and responding well others’ shame and gently holding space for others’ stories is one of the most important things we can ever do, which means, I am realizing thanks to such authors, that I must do the work of learning to embrace my own, shame and all. I would wish everyone read this book.
We chose this as Database as the Month for April as we all have experienced some upheavals that have often left us with more questions than answers. This database indexes and provides OER links to eBooks, and more to support staff, students, and faculty. While these resources can support learning, they may also support online learning components by providing readings on specified topics.
We have listed Faculty Select on the library's website under Databases A-Z under our trial database section.
To find full OER text that is immediately available, select for OER in the limiters on the left. OER books have a link in the record to take you to full-text work.
"To support distance learning at institutions impacted by COVID-19 closures, we have created a simplified version of EBSCO Faculty Select to help faculty easily find Open Educational Resources and DRM-free e-books to support remote classroom needs."
Faculty Select is a single interface where faculty can easily discover and access Open Educational Resources (OER), as well as find and request access to unrestricted, DRM-free e-books from top academic publishers.
With this option, EBSCO is offering a simplified version of Faculty Select that includes access to OER material as well as the option to discover more than 225,000 DRM-free EBSCO eBooks™ in one place, available at no charge for faculty to use through June 30, 2020" -- from Publisher.
OER eBooks:
Crosslin, M. (2018). Creating Online Learning Experiences. Mavs Open Press.
Heikka, J., Hujala, E., Rodd, J., Strehmel, P., & Waniganayake, M. (2019). Leadership in Early Education in Times of Change. Verlag Barbara Budrich. https://doi.org/10.3224/84742199
Olmsted, J. (2019). Tools for Podcasting. American University.
FROM: Jennifer McCarthy, French & German Instructor
BOOK: The Water Dancer
AUTHOR: Ta-Nahisi Coates
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Literary criticism uses the word defamiliarization to describe the author’s ability to render the familiar unfamiliar, and the normal strange, by simultaneously interpreting, re-imagining and re-presenting the world to the reader. Ta-Nahisi Coates’ wondrous 2019 novel The Water Dancer presents the hopes, memories, dreams, and aspirations of Hiram Walker in gloriously lyrical language that has been freed of conventional meaning through defamiliarization and a touch of magical realism. The people enslaved are the “Tasked.” The white owners are the “Quality.” Hiram possesses the supernatural gift of “Conduction” just as his great-grandmother Santi Bess also possessed and which legend says she used to ferry a number of the Tasked to their freedom across the ocean and to the continent of Africa. Coates’ vocabulary seems at the same time as the 19th century and apart from it: it exists only within and throughout the novel itself. -- Jennifer McCarthy |
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