A roundup of Skidmore faculty books published in 2015

In 2015, Skidmore scholars published books on a wide range of topics.

Benjamin Bogin, associate professor of Asian studies, has written The Illuminated Life of the Great Yolmowa (Serindia Publications), a first English translation of the illustrated autobiography of 17th-century Tibetan Buddhist master Yolmo Tenzin Norbu. [more]

Robert Boyers, professor of English, has published his 10th book, The Fate of Ideas (Columbia University Press), The ideas the book explores include authority, fidelity, pleasure and "the other." [more]

Victor Cahn, professor emeritus of English, is the author of two new plays about academic life: A Dish for the Gods and Sheepskin (Steele Spring Stage Rights). Dish has been called "a strong love letter to complex women," while Sheepskin presents "a comic portrait of male vanity, female manipulation, and the academic environment in which such exploitation may flourish." [more]

Janet G. Casey, professor of English and director of the First-Year Experience, is the editor of a new book titled Teaching Tainted Lit (University of Iowa Press). The collected essays "address a broad variety of issues concerning canonicity, literature, genre, and the classroom." [more]

Greg Hrbek, senior writer-in-residence in English, has a new novel, Not on Fire, but Burning (Melville House), set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco. [more]

Tom Lewis, professor emeritus of English, is the author of Washington: A History of Our National City (Basic Books). [more]

David Porter, president emeritus, was volume editor for the publication of Willa Cather’s novel Lucy Gayheart for the series of Cather Scholarly Editions. He contributed the 100+ page “Historical Essay,” helped choose the illustrations, and contributed to the extensive explanatory notes on the text of the novel. [more]

Rik Scarce, professor of sociology, is the author of Creating Sustainable Communities: Lessons from the Hudson River Region (SUNY Press). [more]

Sheldon Solomon, professor of psychology, is co-author of The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (Random House), which explores the theory that human behavior is largely driven by the unconscious fear of death. [more]

Marc Woodworth ’84, associate editor of Salmagundi and lecturer in English, and Ally-Jan Grossan ’10 co-edited How to Write About Music (Bloomsbury), a book that is equal parts instruction manual and anthology of music journalism. Grossan is Woodworth's former student in "Writing Rock," an English Department workshop where the prototype for the book was first tested. Stephen Burt of Harvard writes that How to Write About Music is a "collection of great long and short pieces on (pop) music, profiles, analyses and personal reactions; practical manual for breaking into a challenging and protean business; text for a cool college course--‘it’s hard to imagine a better place to start.’ ” [more]