Sweet Spot, by J.T. Barbarese
Northwestern University Press published Sweet Spot, Dr. Barbarese’s fifth book of poems, in the spring of 2012. His earlier books include the poetry collections The Black Beach (UNT Press, 2005) and A Very Small World (2004) and a translation of Euripides Children of Herakles (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999).
Adopting America: Childhood, Kinship, and National Identity in Literature, by Carol Singley
Carol Singley’s most recent book, Adopting America: Childhood, Kinship, and National Identity in Literature, was published by Oxford University Press in April 2011. This book tells an American story of family and national identity. In narratives from Cotton Mather to Edith Wharton, adoption functions both as a narrative event and a trope that describe the American migratory experience, the impact of Calvinist faith, and the growth of democratic individualism.
Professor Singley is author of Edith Wharton: Matters of Mind and Spirit (1995) and editor or co-editor of five volumes, including The American Child: A Cultural Studies Reader (2003) and Anxious Power: Reading, Writing, and Ambivalence in Narrative by Women (1993). At Rutgers, she teaches courses in American literature, women’s studies, and the literature of childhood.
Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present: An Introduction, by M.A.R. Habib
M. A. Rafey Habib’s most recent book, Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present: An Introduction, was published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2011. This work presents a concise overview of the development of Western literary criticism and theory, with introductions to the various periods of literary history, from classical times through the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods to post-Modernism.
Professor Habib is author of seven books, including Shades of Islam: Poems for a New Century (2010), A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present (2005), An Anthology of Modern Urdu Poetry in Translation (2003), and The Early T. S. Eliot and Western Philosophy (1999). He is currently editing volumes on literary theory and criticism for Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Wiley-Blackwell. At Rutgers he teaches modern and post-colonial literature, literary criticism and theory, and Islamic literature.
A Friend of the Family, by Lauren Grodstein
Lauren Grodstein’s most recent novel is A Friend of the Family, published by Algonquin in November 2009. Advance reviews describe this story of a father who tries to force his son to live the life that he wants for him as “wise and enormously compelling,” a “Jewish family saga” that is also a “page-turner.”
Professor Grodstein’s previous works include Reproduction is the Flaw of Love (Dial, 2004), an Amazon.com Breakout Book and Borders Original Voices pick; the story collection, The Best of Animals (Persea, 2002); and the pseudonymous Girls Dinner Club (Harper Collins, 2005), which was a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. She is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers-Camden, where she teaches creative writing and American literature.
The Centennial Study of “Anne of Green Gables,” edited by Holly Blackford
In summer of 2009 the University of Calgary Press published 100 Years of Anne with an “e”: The Centennial Study of “Anne of Green Gables,” edited by Holly Blackford. This volume brings together an internal community of scholars who situate L. M. Montgomery’s novel in its original historical and literary context, discuss its timeless themes, and explore its aesthetic and cultural legacy across time and place.
Dr. Blackford has published extensively on novels of youth and development by such authors as Louisa May Alcott, J. M. Barrie, Margaret Atwood, Lewis Carroll, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Harper Lee. Her first book, Out of this World: Why Literature Matters to Girls (Teachers College Press, 2004), is an ethnographic study of girls who find a meaningful aesthetic experience in literature. She is an associate professor of English at Rutgers-Camden, teaching children’s and young adult literature and American literature.