We Are the Wars We Wage

Phil Klay–an alumnus of Hunter College’s MFA writing program and an Iraq War veteran–won the 2014 National Book Award for fiction for his collection of short stories, Redeployment.In his acclaimed debut novel, Missionaries, heexplores the globalization of war through the stories of four people caught up in the nearly 60-year conflict in Colombia. From the Los Angeles Times review of Missionaries:“Using his formidable gifts for scene-setting, meaningful irony and deep human empathy, Klay weaves together a set of stories over the course of nearly three decades . . . Amid raging fires and illness and constitutional crises, Klay’s book roars something vital: Never forget about war or the blood and bone and the evil and the reckless idealism of who we all really are. Well worth the wait, “Missionaries” is(among its many virtues) a prime example of what can ideally follow a first great war book. . . “Missionaries” is horrifying and refreshing, challenging us to reflect not just on the destruction of our own national institutions but also on the ugly and ongoing consequences of American power abroad.” > More about Phil Klay and Missionaries

Still They Persisted: Inside the Long Battle to Adopt the ERA

In her new book, We the Women: The Unstoppable Mothers of the Equal Rights Amendment, CUNY legal scholar Julie Suk takes full measure of the century-long — and recently resurgent — battle to enshrine full equal rights for women as a Constitutional amendment. She joins Book Beat to talk about the history of the fight, the victories along the way and the sisterhood of warriors who have fought across generations to make the ERA law. And why it still matters. Julie Suk is dean for master’s programs and a professor of sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center. A graduate of Yale Law School and a scholar of comparative law and society, she was a professor at Cardozo Law School for 13 years before joining CUNY. In recent years, she’s become a prominent expert on the renewed efforts to ratify the ERA. Related Links More about “We the Women” More about Julie Suk

Carmen Boullosa Takes on Tolstoy’s Problem With Women

She’s one of Mexico’s most celebrated writers–a novelist, poet and playwright–and a distinguished lecturer at CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College. Now comes the English translation of Carmen Boullosa’s 18th novel, The Book of Anna.It’s the book she imagines Tolstoy’sAnna Karenina wrote before she committed suicide: an opium-infused feminist fairy tale set against the birth of the Russian Revolution and discovered, still in manuscript form, in the attic of Karenin Palace. “It’s obvious that Tolstoy had problems with women, and I thought if she had had her book [published] her life would have been different,” Boullosa says. “He gave her the book and then he takes it away from her so I wanted to give her the book back.” We found Boullosa quarantining in her home in Mexico City and had a free-wheeling conversation over Zoom about the book, about writing in these disconnected times and why she really doesn’t like “American Dirt.” Related Links About Carmen Boullosa About “The...

Ingenious Engineer: The Brilliant, Eccentric Life of John Roebling

The beloved Brooklyn Bridge was one of the most daring feats of 19th Century engineering. The man who designed it was equally daring and a paradox of personality: An oddball who engineered a structure that was a marvel of stability at a time when suspension bridges routinely fell down. Richard Haw, a professor in the Interdisciplinary Studies Program at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, has written two previous books about the Brooklyn Bridge. The focus of his latest–after 13 years of research–is the man behind the bridge. Engineering America: The Life and Times of John A. Roeblingtells one of the most fascinating American immigrant stories. Haw talks about it with Beth Harpaz, editor of CUNY SUM. Related Links About Engineering America About Richard Haw CUNY SUM: You Can Thank This Man for the Brooklyn Bridge

Lincoln’s 13-Day Journey to Save America

A day before his fifty-second birthday in February 1861, Abraham Lincoln boarded the Presidential Special to begin a 1,900-mile journey by rail from his Illinois home to his inauguration in Washington. It was to be a long, tumultuous and dangerous trip through hundreds of towns where millions saw and heard Lincoln as he prepared to take office with the country hurtling toward the Civil War. Historian Ted Widmer, a Distinguished Lecturer at Macaulay Honors College and former presidential advisor, tells the dramatic story of Lincoln’s passage to history in Lincoln on the Verge: 13 Days to Washington. “It’s the story of thirteen days in the life of Lincoln. He’s been elected president, the South is seceding, Washington is falling apart and somehow out of all of this chaos he’s got to get on a train, go two thousand miles, meet millions of Americans and try to avoid an assassination attempt. . . It’s not just to save the North, it’s to save the entire country, the United States o...

A Poetic Take on Life, Death and the Movies

In her latest collection of poems, Donna Masini, a professor of English at Hunter College, moves back and forth in time–and human experience–as she copes with her younger sister’s death and celebrates life through the communal act of movie-watching. She talks with Joe Tirella about 4:30 Movie, which is now out in paperback.

CCNY’s Brief Shining Moment of Glory

In March 1950, 70 years ago this month, City College made college basketball history by winning both the NIT and NCAA championships. But CCNY’s season of glory was followed by unimaginable disgrace: a point-shaving scandal that led to the arrests of seven players, traumatized the college, shook the city and forever changed college basketball. In The City Game, Matthew Goodman tells the dramatic story–a tale of post-war New York, of City College in its prime and of imperfect young heroes who paid dearly for their mistake. Related Links About Matthew Goodman Recalling City’s epic victory over Kentucky NPR review of The City Game

The Rise and Fall of The Young Lords

One of the most influential groups of the radical ’60s was the Young Lords, an organization of poor and working class Puerto Ricans that began as a street gang and rose to confront the racism of institutions from government to religion. Johanna Fernandez, a professor of history at Baruch College, traces their roots and tells the story of their rise and fall in The Young Lords: A Radical History. She talks about it with Beth Harpaz.

The Tale of Carbon-14

The 1940 discovery of a radioactive version of carbon — the element that is the basis for all life — led to the technique of carbon dating that transformed virtually every field of science. Carbon-14 has been used to study everything from Stone Age cultures to modern elephant poaching. How it all happened is the story John Marra, an environmental scientist at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, tells in Hot Carbon: Carbon 14 and a Revolution in Science.The book was long-listed for the 2020 PEN-E.I. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Related Links From The Graduate Center: John Marra’s ‘Hot Carbon’ Nominated for PEN-E.I. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award From Nature:Radiocarbon revolution: the story of an isotope From Times Higher Education: Applause fora book celebrating the many applications of carbon dating

Deciphering ‘The Enigma of Clarence Thomas’

CUNY’s Corey Robin–one of the foremost thinkers on American conservatism–set out to solve the puzzle of Clarence Thomas: How did a young black nationalist grow up to be the most right-wing justice on the Supreme Court–and without abandoning the core ideas that once animated him as a radical leftist? In his groundbreaking new book, Robin–a political scientist at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center– explores Thomas’s 28-year record on the court against the backdrop of his uniquely evolved vision of race. The Enigma of Clarence Thomas “is rigorous yet readable, frequently startling yet eminently persuasive,” wrote The New York Times reviewer Jennifer Szalai. “. . . It isn’t every day that reading about ideas can be both so gratifying and unsettling, and Robin’s incisive and superbly argued book has made me think again.” Robin is also the author of The Reactionary Mind, which The New Yorker called “the book that predicted Trump.” RELATED LINKS Read more about Corey R...