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U. of South Carolina Press

Titles appearing in Reference — Research Book News — December 2011
Arrangement is by title.

From barbarism to universality; language and identity in early modern France.

Coski, Christopher.
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    200 p.    $49.95    PC2075
978-1-61117-036-8

"This text...is not a study of history, linguistics, sociology, or psychology, though it brushes elbows with all of these disciplines. Instead it is a literary analysis of nonfiction works narrating a language and identity fiction inscribed in a specific historical period." So states Coski (French, Ohio U.) as he introduces his study of the emergence of the French language from Latin and its rise to dominance. He looks at works by Du Bellay, Montaigne, Descartes, Vaugelas, Condillac, and Rivarol. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The genuine teachers of this art; rhetorical education in antiquity.

Walker, Jeffrey. (Studies in rhetoric/communication)
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    356 p.    $49.95    P53
978-1-61117-016-0

In his prologue Walker (rhetoric and writing, U. of Texas at Austin) offers several definitions of rhetoric and lights on the "pedagogical enterprise" as his subject, that is, the process of rhetorical training and its role. He offers discussion of Cicero's Antonius, the Techne of Isocrates, declamation and civic theater, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the notion of rhetorical scholarship. The epilogue is titled "William Dean Howells and the Sophist's Shoes." (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

A history of the College of Charleston, 1936-2008.

Morrison, Nan.
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    289 p.    $34.95    LD891
978-1-61117-001-6

Morrison taught at the College of Charleston — the country's oldest municipal college — from 1967 to 2004, and now honors the institution with an account of its modern history. The text begins with an examination of the six-year period from 1936-1945, the last years of Harrison Randolph's 48-year career as college president. The remaining ten chapters examine key issues faced by each of the presidents who led the college over the past six decades. Major themes addressed include the periodically conflicting visions of the College of Charleston as an elite liberal arts college with high standards or as a public college offering access and practical courses to all; the complex relationship between the college and the city; and the love-hate relationship between the college and the Citadel, the state-funded military college of South Carolina also located in Charleston. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The materiality of freedom; archaeologies of postemancipation life.

Ed. by Jodi A. Barnes.
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    291 p.    $49.95    E185
978-1-61117-034-4

Barnes (staff archaeologist for the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia) presents 15 archaeological investigations of the material culture of post-slavery African-American life in the Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras that are attentive to the myriad ways in which archaeology can be and has been deployed politically. Examples of topics discussed include white privilege and silencing of African Americans in cultural resource management, archaeological investigation of the Phyllis Wheatley Home for Girls in Chicago (a charitable institution that worked to provide female African American migrants from the South with cultural and intellectual resources); gender in late 19th- and early 20th-century Black Dallas; the archaeology of Jim Crow-era African-American life on Louisiana's sugar plantations; African-American spiritual adaptation in the early 20th century; race and displacement in the archaeology of 20th-century university landscapes; the excavation of the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, New York; and infrastructure and African-American achievement in Annapolis, Maryland. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Mount Fuji; icon of Japan.

Earhart, H. Byron. (Studies in comparative religion)
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    238 p.    $39.95    BL2211
978-1-61117-000-9

This multifaceted and interesting work on the cultural, visual, and religious symbolism of Mount Fuji provides a detailed analysis of the deep influence of this iconic peak in the history and psyche of Japan. The work is organized as a series of essays arranged in groups covering the cultural aspects of the natural history and physicality of the mountain, the development of religious meaning, Fuji as a visual ideal and political idea, Fuji devotion in modern Japan, and the malleability of the icon. The work includes several color plates. Earhart is professor emeritus of comparative religion at Western Michigan University. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

New Deal, new landscape; the Civilian Conservation Corps and South Carolina's state parks.

Mielnik, Tara Mitchell.
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    201 p.    $34.95    S932
978-1-57003-984-3

Mielnik, a historian and preservation planner, studies the young men who worked for South Carolina's New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).These men worked in soil conservation, reforestation, and firefighting activities, and they founded South Carolina's State Park system. Mielnik's history begins with the October 29, 1929 stock market crash, its effect on South Carolina's already-depressed economy, and the inception of the CCC. She describes many of their projects, focusing especially the 16 state parks built by the corps. The book includes some images of CCC constructions such as picnic areas and state park shelters. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Sufi aesthetics; beauty, love, and the human form in the writings of Ibn 'Arabi and 'Iraqi.

Zargar, Cyrus Ali. (Studies in comparative religion)
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    235 p.    $59.95    BP189
978-1-57003-999-7

The editor of the Studies in Comparative Religion series provides a preface in which he summarizes this work: "The author addresses love and beauty as understood and celebrated by two great Sufi poets....Of particular significance is the author's straightforward treatment of erotic verse, which is a major emphasis of Sufi poetry animated by profound adoration of the human form as a foundation of their aesthetics." Zargar's (Augustana College) work will interest an audience of academics involved with Islamic studies, mysticism, and literature, as well as general readers drawn to Sufi mysticism. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Understanding David Mamet.

Murphy, Brenda. (Understanding contemporary American literature)
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    143 p.    $39.95    PS3563
978-1-61117-002-3

Murphy (English, U. of Connecticut) profiles playwright David Mamet (b.1947) and thoroughly discusses his significant plays (among them: Glengarry Glen Ross, American Buffalo, Sexual Perversity in Chicago), his three novels, some lesser-known and shorter works, and his numerous essays, including an autobiographical essay "The Rake." She offers a thoughtful and detailed study of a complex, enigmatic man, and his work. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Vonnegut and Hemingway; writers at war.

Broer, Lawrence R.
U. of South Carolina Press, ©2011    246 p.    $39.95    PS3572
978-1-61117-035-1

Broer (emeritus, English, U. of South Florida) explains in his introduction that the "war" referred to in the subtitle includes not only the "horrors of war and the idiocies of battle" in each writer's work, but also "...each writer's embattled psyche...." He analyzes in detail Vonnegut's antagonisms toward Hemingway (though Vonnegut is viewed by some as "the most recognizably Hemingwayesque of the new generation of writers to emerge after World War II"). Some of the works examined include A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Slapstick. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)