Suggestions for Reading and Discussion (AY 2011-12)

This page offers suggestions for your own learning. For help finding instructional materials, contact dhoskins@uwlax.edu.

Sustainability Theme (AY 2011-12)
General Selections
Disabilities Gender   International LGBT   Non-Traditional Aged   Race and Ethnicity   Religion   Social Class   Veterans
African Americans       American Indians      Asian Americans        European Americans       Latinos/as
What Is Inclusive Excellence?            Older reading lists                   How to Find Your Own!
Materials for CBA, Psychology, Chemistry, and CLS

IE-Related Readings on Sustainability: UW-L's 2011-2012 Theme

Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2001). Schlosser will speak at UW-L in AY 2011-12. This book is his best-known, and offers an excellent overview of not just the environmental issues in contemporary food systems, but also the social justice issues. The link goes to the NetLibrary electronic book, available through Murphy Library!
Ronald Sandler and Phaedra Pezzulo, eds., Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007). Explores the current state of relationship between mainstream environmental movements and the environmental justice movement.
Carl A. Maida, ed. Sustainability and Communities of Place (NY: Berghahn Books, 2011) Ethnobiologists study relationships between human cultures and the environments in which those cultures develop. This is a nice survey with a global perspective.
Scot Atran and Douglas Medin, The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature (Cambrindge, MIT Press, 2010). This one is pretty technical for about 2/3 of the book, exploring the issues of "how can we best study how culture shapes the ways people learn about the natural world? That in itself might generate some good conversations across disciplines like biology, anthropology, and psychology. It's a cross-cultural study of "folk biology" -- how people organize the the natural world and what that means for how they view their relationship with the natural world. Two case studies examine what those differences mean for cross-cultural interactions. One chapter is on fishing rights in Wisconsin.

FOOD THEME: Food is a central cultural connection to environment, one that urbanization, globalization, and industrialization have altered dramatically. Food is thus central to the concept of "sustainability." Here are some selections on this theme:

Judith Carney, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa's Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Most work on slavery has focused on crops slaves were forced to produce for the profit of others, an approach that has tended to dismiss the knowledge of enslaved people. This book explores that knowledge as African Americans' basis for survival as well as for the "Africanization of foodways" in the plantation South.
Gary Paul Nabhan, ed. Renewing America's Food Traditions: Saving and Savoring the Continent's Most Endangered Foods (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008). This one's for all you foodies out there. Nabhan is an ethnobotanist, and this is a tour of North America's ethnobotany. With recipes!
The food theme is good, huh? So let's bring back the Hmong cookbook from an earlier list: Sami Scripter and Sheng Yang, Cooking from the Heart: The Hmong Kitchen in America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009). It provides a good introduction to traditional Hmong cooking and explores its adaptations in the United States. The book is available locally.

General Selections

This book explores microaggressions -- subtle digs, cuts, acts, conscious or not, but created by social hierarchies. Chapters examine similarities and differences in microaggressions directed at different groups, and it also explores solutions to subtle prejudice. Derald Wing Sue, Microaggressions and Marginality: Manifestation, Dynamics, and Impact (NY: Wiley, 2010). Several chapters are set in higher education. Use this as the Higher Education selection for any of the following populations.

Disabilities

General: Kevin Michael Connolly, Double Take: A Memoir (New York : HarperStudio, 2010). This was the selection for UWL 100 courses in Fall 2010. Still a great read.
Older sections here

Gender

General: Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (NY: Knopf, 2010). This is a very difficult read, including graphic descriptions not only of brutal rapes but also of brutal inhumanity in the aftermath of rape. But it is also a critical book for understanding the Civil Rights Movement. Men were the public leaders, but women were the sustainers. Now we know why.

International

General: Isobel Coleman, Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East (NY: Random House, 2010). Discussed on NPR's Talk of the Nation: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126309699&sc=emaf

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender

General: Susan Stryker, Transgender History (Berkley, CA: Seal Press). Well-written, well researched, very readable summary of the evolution of our understandings of sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation in the U.S.
Older selections here

Many of our LGBT students (and their straight friends) struggle with the conflict between their religious upbringing and their sexuality. The film For the Bible Tells Me So examines the issues. "Through the experiences of five very normal, very Christian, very American families -- including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson -- we discover how insightful people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child." The film is available from the Pride Center. Go here for discussion guides.

Non-Traditional Aged Students

General: Lori Holyfield, Moving Up and Out: Poverty, Education, and the Single Parent Family (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002). Explains the barriers and myths that single parents seeking a college degree face, but also explores what programs help. This book was one of the inspirations for our Self-Sufficiency Program's scholarship program.
Higher Ed: Shaun R. Harper and Stephen John Quaye, eds., Student Engagement in Higher Education: Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Approaches for Diverse Populations (NY: Routledge, 2009). This book examines best practices for the first range of historically underserved populations, and focuses on both the academic and non-academic issues. Especially good for Student Affairs folk. Chapter 2 is on commuter, transfer, part-time, and returning students. Several copies of this book are floating around campus. Contact Deb if you'd like her to find one for you.

Most non-traditional aged students (usually defined as 25 or older for undergraduate education) have been low-income single moms, but they will also include both men and women in other relationships, with or without children, including economically-displaced workers retooling for a new economy and returning veterans.

Race and Ethnicity

Our initial list started with a brief explanation of the difference between "race" and "ethnicity" and an introduction to the idea of "racial formation" -- a phrase that clarifies the process by which race is created and recreated as societal, rather than biological. If you'd like to learn more about these ideas, here are some suggestions.

Higher Ed: Christine A. Stanley, ed., Faculty of Color: Teaching in Predominantly White Colleges and Universities (Boston: Anker, 2006). Whether you are faculty of color or have colleagues who are, this book can provide insight into the issues. See Disabilities, Gender, Non-Traditional Age, Social Class, Veterans for other possibilities.

African Americans

General: Danielle L. McGuire, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power (NY: Knopf, 2010). This is a very difficult read, including graphic descriptions not only of brutal rapes but also of brutal inhumanity in the aftermath of rape. But it is also a critical book for understanding the Civil Rights Movement. Men were the public leaders, but women were the sustainers. Now we know why.
Older selections here

American Indians

General: Kathleen Tigerman, ed., Wisconsin Indian Literature: Anthology of Native Voices (Madison : University of Wisconsin Press, 2006). In consultation with elders. Includes all 12 of the nations and bands in Wisconsin.

Asian American (This section will always try to include a selection on the Hmong, if possible, but also examine one of the many other Asian American ethnic groups each year)

General: Mai Neng Moua, Bamboo Among the Oaks: Contemporary Writing by Hmong Americans (Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Press, 2002) How does an oral culture move into a text-based society? And how do the children of immigrants redefine what it means to be both Hmong and American?
Andrew Garrod and Robert Kilkenny, eds., Balancing Two Worlds: Asian American college Students Tell Their Life Stories (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). Most of these students are at Dartmouth, but the stories are relevant to students anywhere.

European Americans

General: Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (NY: W.W. Norton, 2010). How did the idea of a white race evolve, who was and wasn't included in it in the U.S. -- and why?

Latinos/as Again, this includes many ethnicities.

General: Leo R. Chavez, The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation (Stanford: Stanford University Press, c2008). Given that questions of immigration are current, this selection offers an analysis of media coverage of a broad range of immigration and border issues.

Religion

General: Karen Armstrong, A History of God: the 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (NY: Ballantine Books, 1994). Traces the evolution of the three major monotheistic religions.

Social Class

General: Nick Reding, Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town (NY: Bloomsbury, 2009). Maybe you heard about this book -- it's about Oelwein, Iowa, a town much like the places from which many of our students come. Here's a story about the book from NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106388550

Veterans

General: Marc Aronson and Patty Campbell, eds., War Is...: Soldiers, Survivors and Storytellers Talk about War (Cambridge, Mass. : Candlewick Press, 2008). One editor opposes war; the other believes that war is inevitable. Both believe that “If we ask people to fight for us . . . we owe them the respect of listening to them.”
Higher Ed: New Directions for Student Services, 126 (Summer, 2009). Several good articles in this special issue on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Includes coverage of National Guard and reserves who were often in college when deployed, women vets, and vets entering college for the first time. While the emphasis is on student services, there's much for instructors to learn here too.

As the number of veterans grows and they become eligible for the G.I. Bill, we will be able to welcome more vets to campus. While not all vets will have experienced combat, many will. Most will be a little older than our predominantly traditional-aged students so start college right after high school. Many will have families and many may also need to make a living to support them. People of color are overrepresented among military veterans, and some are women.

What Is Inclusive Excellence? AAC&U's Inclusive Excellence initiative focuses on teaching and learning and advocates three goals: 1. Achieving academic equity in inclusive, welcoming settings. 2. Teaching and learning the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed to make constructive contributions in an increasingly diverse society. 3. Shifting our thinking from diversity as a goal in itself (typically focused on numbers) to diversity as part of the educational process, a real-world factor that helps everyone learn better when it is engaged deliberately. Start with AAC&U's commissioned reports on the IE initiative: http://www.aacu.org/inclusive_excellence/papers.cfm The first and third are the most useful. Each paper starts with 11 pages explaining the history of the IE initiative, and ends with 5-6 pages of bibliography, so they are not as long as they initially appear to be!

UW-L's IE mission broadens the original concept , given that higher ed institutions are more than just places for teaching and learning (e.g., they are also workplaces, and for some, home). Here is UW-L's Inclusive Excellence mission statement:

Inclusive Excellence is
our active, intentional, and ongoing commitment
to bridge differences with understanding and respect
so all can thrive.

How to Find Your Own Stuff!

Try the Diversity Resources pages at Murphy Library: http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/diversity/index.html

An especially useful feature for people trying to identify books and media on diversity topics in the Library is the search feature on this page: http://www.uwlax.edu/murphylibrary/diversity/search.html People can search by keyword (and limit by diversity category if they choose) to pull up a quick bibliography.

Murphy Diversity page

The web page also quickly directs people to relevant (department) subject guides. Another fine service from our utterly awesome professional library staff!