Joyce Berkman, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, is editor of a new book, Contemplating Edith Stein.   Controversy surrounding the beatification & canonization of Edith Stein, a Catholic convert of Jewish heritage who was murdered at Auschwitz, has eclipsed scholarly & public attention to Stein’s extraordinary development as a philosopher.   Divided into three sections—biographical explorations, Stein's feminist theory & pedagogy, & her creative philosophical contributions—the sixteen essays in this volume represent the first comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis in English of Stein’s life & philosophical writings.   (2006)

Northampton resident & City Councilor, Rita Bleiman has just had her first novel published, Dirty Tricks.   —What happens when a young, lonely, ambitious political idealist comes up against a handsome, brilliant, powerful, older, married Texas State Senator?   Ideals are dropped almost as quickly as clothes in this laugh-out-loud novel about sex & politics in the ’60s.   With a zany cast of characters that could only originate in the Lone Star State, or in the mind of someone who grew up there, Dirty Tricks presents an insider’s view of the perceived high stakes of grassroots politics & the lengths to which ordinary people will go in order to promote themselves & their causes once they are infected with the virus called power.   Bleiman left Texas in the sixties for Washington, D.C., where she worked for Senator Walter F. Mondale & the Carter White House.   (2005)

Amherst High School English teacher & Ultimate Frisbee champion coach Tina Booth has written (with Michael Baccarini) a new book— Essential Ultimate: Teaching, Coaching, Playing.   The book introduces the basics of the sport & prepares one to teach, coach, & play it.   As a fun, cost–effective recreational sport, one of Ultimate’s appeals is in being self–officiated.   This requires players to participate in fair play, teamwork, & good sportsmanship, helping them develop responsibility & character.  With its thorough coverage of the sport, Essential Ultimate will also help players improve their skills—& aid coaches & teachers in applying the information in a variety of settings, thus making it an important resource for anyone interested in the world of Ultimate.   (2008)

Annie Boutelle, who teaches in the English Department at Smith College, where she founded the Poetry Center, is author of a new collection of poetry, Nest of Thistles.   Writing of Boutelle's book, which won the 2005 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, Eric Pankey observed that, “Boutelle’s eye for the revelatory detail, her ear for a craggy consonance & airy assonance, & her mind with its well-honed intelligence, reveal & explore the self, in particular a self wrought from history, myth, & tradition.   Line by line, her ‘articulate relishing & mastery of phenomena in general’ make a corporeal & tangible world out of the strata of yesterdays . . .”   (2005)

In the long tradition of biography-in-poetry collections, Annie Boutelle’s first collection probes the layered life of one of nineteenth-century America’s most popular poets, who is now almost forgotten.   The Celia Thaxter who speaks these poems disturbs the placid myth created around her public persona, & focuses on the fierce mysteries & ironies that frame her.   Boutelle carefully reveals Thaxter’s childhood on the stark Isles of Shoals off the New Hampshire coast; the trap of a Victorian marriage; the struggle to invent herself as writer & painter; & her celebrated circle of friends, including Nathaniel Hawthorne & Childe Hassam.   Gerald Stern, writing of Becoming Bone said, “the poems are stark, original, lovely, the poetic knowledge terrific.   Read this fine book.”   (2005)

University of Massachusetts economics professor Jim Boyce, along with Sunita Narain & Elizabeth Stanton, has edited new collection of studies— Reclaiming Nature: Environmental Justice & Ecological Restoration.   In the book Boyce has assembled articles by leading environmental thinkers from across the globe whose work explores the relationship betwen the natural world & human activities.   The authors draw inspiration & lessons from diverse experiences, from community–based fishery & forestry management to innovative strategies for combating global warming.   Contributors include local authors Matthew Riddle & Krista Harper.   (2007)

Brian Breed, a professor of classics at the University of Massachusetts, has a new book: Pastoral Inscriptions: Reading & Writing Virgil’s Eclogues.   In it, Breed examines the tension between representations of orality in Virgil’s pastoral world & the intense textuality of his pastoral poetry.   The book argues that separation between speakers & their language in the Eclogues is not merely pastoral preciosity.   It shows rather how Virgil uses representations of orality as the point of comparison for measuring both the capacity & the limitations of the Eclogues as a written text that will be encountered by reading audiences.   (2006)

Malian’s Song is a new children’s book by Marge Bruchac.   Bruchac—an Abenaki Indian, is an instructor at the University of Massachusetts, performer, & historical consultant who works to decolonize representations of northeastern Native peoples from the 17th century to the present by disseminating more accurate historical information & deconstructing stereotypes in museums & the academy.   This book illustrates the Abenaki experience of the attack conducted by Major Robert Rogers on the St. Francis Abenaki community in 1759.   Malian’s account of Rogers’ Raid, passed down through generations of Abenaki descendants through oral tradition, reveals that many people actually survived the attack that destroyed their village; this fact stands in direct contrast to Rogers’ journal records.   Jeanne Brink, a modern–day Abenaki descendant living in Vermont, told the little–known version of the brutal attack to the Vermont Folklife Center.   In a text that interweaves Abenaki & English, Bruchac presents a story of a people’s strength & fortitude in the face of unspeakable loss.   With the author’s aid, illustrator William Maughan has used a range of visual reference material about the 18th century Abenaki to draw the most authentic portrait of their life & environment to date.   (2006)

In her new book, In an Abusive State: How Neoliberalism Appropriated the Feminist Movement Against Sexual Violence, Amherst College political science professor Kristin Bumiller argues that the feminist campaign to address sexual violence has evolved into a problematic alliance with the neoliberal state.   She chronicles this evolution by examining the history of that campaign, the production of cultural images about sexual violence, professional discourses on intimate violence, & the everyday lives of battered women.   Bumiller also scrutinizes the rhetoric of high–profile rape trials & the expansion of feminist concerns about sexual violence into the international human–rights arena.   In the process, she reveals how the feminist fight against sexual violence has been shaped over recent decades by dramatic shifts in welfare policies, incarceration rates, & the surveillance role of social–service bureaucracies.   (2008)

University of Massachusetts history professor Brian Bunk has a new book, —Ghosts of Passion: Martyrdom, Gender, & the Origins of the Spanish Civil War   In Ghosts of Passion Bunk argues that propaganda related to the revolution of October 1934 triggered the Spanish Civil War by accentuating existing social tensions surrounding religion & gender.   Through careful analysis of the images produced in books, newspapers, posters, rallies, & meetings, Bunk contends that Spain’s civil war was not inevitable. &nsbp; Commemorative imagery produced after October 1934 bridged the gap between rhetoric & action by dehumanizing opponents & encouraging violent action against them.   (2007)

Postcards from the Brain Museum: The Improbable Search for Meaning in the Matter of Famous Minds by Brian Burrell, professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts, relates the story of the first scientific attempts to locate the sources of both genius & depravity in the physical anatomy of the human brain.  As Martin Gardner wrote, reviewing the book, "Like explorers searching for the Fountain of Youth, scientists undertake their own quixotic quests.  Brian Burrell details the fascinating but so far frustrating search for the brain bases of genius, criminality, & madness."   (2005)