REVIEWS: Library and Information Science Research
Electronic Journal ISSN 1058-6768
2004 Volume 14 Issue 1; March
Bi-annual LIBRES14N1 REVIEWS\
REVIEWS
in this issue:
Bellenir, Karen (Ed.) Alzheimer's Disease Sourcebook, 3 rd ed. (2003). Reviewed by John Jaeger
Cantrell, Geneal G. & Cantrell Gregory L. (2003). Teachers Teaching Teachers: Wit, Wisdom, and Whimsey for Troubled Times. Reviewed by Robin Bergart
Coffman, Steve. (2003). Going Live: Starting & Running a Virtual Reference Service. Reviewed by Jonathan Potter
Mileck, Joseph. (2003). Hermann Hesse: Between the Perils of Politics and the Allure of the Orient . Reviewed by Stephen Shaw
Miller, Dick R. and Clarke, Kevin S. (2002). Putting XML to Work in the Library: Tools for Improving Access and Management . Reviewed by Beth Thomsett-Scott
Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C. J. & Stansbury, M. (2003) . Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide. Reviewed by Doris Munson
O'Riley, P. A. (2003). Technology, Culture, and Socioeconomics: A Rhizoanalysis of Educational Discourses . Reviewed by David Alexander
Shannon, Joyce Brennfleck. (Ed). (2003). Leukemia Sourcebook. Reviewed by Kate Mutch
Tanaka, Greg. (2003). The Intercultural Campus: Transcending Culture & Power in American Higher Education. Reviewed by Richard Wisneski
Wakefield , Thaddeus. (2003). The Family in Twentieth-Century American Drama . Reviewed by Wendy A. Rodgers
Bellenir,
Karen (Ed.) Alzheimer's Disease Sourcebook, 3rd ed. (2003)
Detroit: Omnigraphics. 600
pp. ISBN 0-7808-0666-2. $78.00
This new edition of the Alzheimer's Disease Sourcebook provides a wealth of relevant and
up-to-date information on this major degenerative neurological disorder. As is noted in the book’s preface, the
number of those suffering from Alzheimer’s in the United States is expected to
rise dramatically over the next fifty years, assuming no cure is found. While 4 million Americans presently suffer
from the disease, it is estimated that approximately 14 million will by
2050. For this reason, reference books
such as this one are particularly important.
The sourcebook is divided into seven parts, each of
which contains at least 8 chapters. The
different parts cover “Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease,” “Other Dementias and
Related Disorders,” “Diagnosing and Treating Dementias,” “Coping with
Alzheimer’s Disease: Information for the Newly Diagnosed,” “Coping with
Alzheimer’s Disease: Information for Caregivers,” “Alzheimer’s Disease
Research,” and “Additional Help and Information.” This comprehensiveness of scope, with sections covering all
aspects of Alzheimer’s Disease and treatment is particularly helpful. There is relevant information not only for
the Alzheimer’s patient, but also for family members and for caregivers. Students researching about the disease will
find significant information in part 6; this section contains 20 chapters and
is over 100 pages in length.
The final part of the book contains several useful
reference aids that make the work an even stronger source for Alzheimer’s
information. One such aid is an 18-page
glossary of terms associated with Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias. Two others are a 20-page Directory of
Alzheimer’s Disease Resources and a 14 page Alzheimer’s Disease Centers Program
Directory. There is also a good, 22
page general index.
This new edition of the Alzheimer’s Disease Sourcebook is a valuable resource that
deserves a place on the reference shelf of all types of libraries. It is a thorough and clearly-written work on
a health subject of growing significance.
John Jaeger
Reference
Librarian
Dallas Baptist University
Cantrell, Geneal G. & Cantrell Gregory L. (2003). Teachers Teaching Teachers: Wit, Wisdom, and Whimsey
for Troubled Times. New York: Peter
Lang. 147 pp. ISBN: 0-8204-6303-5.
$24.95
The adage
“those who can’t do, teach” is the tacit belief of many outside of the teaching
profession who see teachers enjoying a “short” 8-4 workday and two months
summer vacation. Yet as every experienced and novice teacher comes to know,
teaching is a stressful, challenging, and often draining, thankless, and
underpaid profession. Husband and wife team, Geneal and Gregory Cantrell, both
experienced teachers, have written this book as a balm for new schoolteachers
struggling with the demands and difficulties of learning the craft and science
of teaching.
While
thin on wit and whimsy, this book does provide a good dose of wisdom on which
the beginning teacher can build a strong foundation. The authors identify some
of the most pressing concerns for new teachers: student motivation, classroom
management, effective communication, and dealing with stress. Through
anecdotes, records of teachers’ reflections, and the research literature on
best practices and theories of learning, the authors offer up encouragement and
advice to address these issues. The prevailing refrain in all their advice is
to treat students as individuals and to respect each child’s diverse
backgrounds, needs, and aspirations. No one quick fix solution is available or
appropriate when it comes to managing a classroom, building community among
students, or dealing with stressful, complex classroom situations.
Teachers Teaching Teachers is one in a series of books on pedagogy called Extreme
Teaching: Rigorous Texts for Troubled Times that purports to “bring
together a commitment to educational and social justice with a profound
understanding of a rearticulation of what constitutes compelling scholarship.”
Despite the series title, this book does not necessarily address “extreme”
teaching situations nor call for extreme measures in teaching. It is not a
particularly rigorous text—its scholarship, while sound, is based on
well-accepted theories and norms—nor is its message radical or new. The authors rally teachers to continue their
professional development and not to be afraid to “move beyond just contributing
to our profession and make a real commitment” (141). As authors from the
American South, they attempt to assert that teaching must first and foremost
uphold and develop the values of democracy and social justice. Disappointingly, they do not pursue this
theme as deeply, or with as much “real commitment” as some of their
predecessors in the field of pedagogical writing. It has all been said before,
and said more eloquently, by pedagogues such as Parker Palmer, John Dewey (who
are cited in this book) and Jonathan Kozol.
Nonetheless,
this book is a good quick introduction to some of the basic issues beginning
teachers face, and will provide some comfort, encouragement, and support to the
new teacher. The messages the authors convey, if not new, are certainly
important, and bear repeating. Teaching is about caring, and above all is about
teaching people, not subjects. There are some heartbreakingly honest accounts
of first year teachers encountering children with pitiful lives, and the
mistakes and triumphs they experience in these encounters. These are always
interesting, and remind all teachers about the human relationship that lies at
the core of all good teaching.
Robin Bergart, MA, MJEd, MISt-
Academic Liaison Librarian
University of Guelph
rbergart@uoguelph.ca
Coffman, Steve. (2003).
Going Live: Starting & Running
a Virtual Reference Service. Chicago: American Library Association. 192 pp.
ISBN: 0-8389-0850-0. $42.00
Riding
on the wax wings of the dot.com boom and destined soon to fall from the cyber
sky, a number of personalized commercial web reference services appeared on the
scene in the late 1990s. Many of these
services attempted to do online – with the support of advertising dollars but
without MLS-trained staff – what librarians have been doing at the reference
desk for the past hundred years or so.
Going Live begins with a nostalgic
backward glance at the history of reference and at the more recent phenomenon
of popular but mostly short-lived commercial web reference services. Within that dual context, Coffman draws on
his experience as a pioneer of virtual reference services with Library Systems
& Services (LSSI) and considers the possibility of libraries and librarians
picking up the mantle of real-time online reference. The popularity of the commercial services in the dot.com glory
days, coupled with the inverse trend of increasing Internet use on the one hand
and decreasing library use on the other, leads Coffman to the conclusion that
an enormous host of information seekers are lost out there in cyberspace – and
want help – and librarians ought to be there offering them assistance. Along with that proposition, however, is an
uncertainty about how librarians should go about offering their services, who
will pay for it, how to market it successfully, and how to cope with
success. If you build it they will
come, but will you be ready for the onslaught if and when they do?
That
question of balancing ambitious marketing with realism about staffing and
budgets frames the book’s middle chapters, which delve into the practicalities
of starting and running a “live” virtual reference service. Even as the book moves from the historical
and philosophical to more practical concerns, Coffman’s style remains consistently
engaging and his tone conversational – an experienced pro sharing insights that
have been gleaned by firsthand trial and error. The chapter on design considerations delineates the basic
start-up options for virtual reference: doing it yourself, collaborating with
other libraries (perhaps in distant time zones to achieve 24-hour coverage) or
outsourcing it. For calculating
staffing needs, Coffman suggests using the Erlang C formula that was originally
developed to predict staffing requirements in commercial call centers. A related appendix provides an extensive
checklist for choosing virtual reference software based on the services you
plan to offer. The next two chapters
cover managing and marketing a virtual reference service – including issues of
hiring, training, situating the service in an appropriate location (not at the
reference desk), soliciting customer feedback, advertising your service, making
the link to your service easy to find on your web site, getting press coverage
for your service, etc. Coffman does a
good job of dissecting the administrative issues involved in running a virtual
reference service, illustrating his points with interesting statistical nuggets
and real world examples. The concluding
chapter, which is followed by two lengthy appendices and a pared-down version
of Bernie Sloan’s “Virtual Reference Services Bibliography,” returns to the
philosophical and speculative tone of the book’s opening pages.
Going Live is an unusual blending
of highly practical advice and acute reflection on the past, present and future
of virtual reference. It is
well-written in an easy, casual style and infused throughout with perceptive
questions and thought-provoking facts, figures and anecdotes. It is the type of book that falls under the
heading of “professional” reading, and I would recommend it as such because it
is highly informative and authoritative, combining good research and in-depth
firsthand knowledge; aside from that, however, I am pleased to recommend it
because it is written with a graceful intelligence and deft touch all too often
lacking in works of this sort.
Jonathan Potter
Reference & Instruction
Librarian
Eastern
Washington University
Mileck, Joseph. (2003). Hermann Hesse:
Between the Perils of Politics and the Allure of the Orient. New York: Peter
Lang Publishing. 199pp. ISBN: 0-8204-6790-1. $62.95
Hermann Hesse was one of the foremost German writers of this
century, known both for his quiet political stances as well as his overt
flirtation with Oriental thought. He was especially drawn to the thought
structures of India, specifically Hinduism and Buddhism. Long a staple of
Comparative Literature classes in this country, Hesse has often been seen as
the standard-bearer for the Eastern point of view. His novels are steeped in
the language and ideas of the East, and it is a natural and easy assumption to
implicate the author as holding these ideas as well. He is also known for his
social commentary, and his rebelliousness in the face of censure. Other
luminaries share this critical scrutiny: Martin Heidegger springs to mind as a
figure whose political ideas have a hard time being seen as ancillary to his
philosophy. As Mileck makes clear, however, this fascination was due as much,
if not in fact more, to the vibrant mythological structure as it was the
concomitant ideology, and in fact was indicative of a turning-back to the West.
The tight structure of the text clinically analyzes the dual
issues separately. Rich in research, this book is the fruit of a lifetime of
Hesse scholarship. A drawback to the text is the lack of a synthesis that
illustrates why these two themes, albeit important and pervasive throughout the
Hesse literature, should be brought together in this format. Perhaps the shared
import is the disjunction between the views Hesse held (both the political and
spiritual), and the views (often mistakenly) attributed to his writings.
The book begins with a discussion of Hesse’s political background,
as well as the implications that his work alternately had and did not have on
contemporary German intellectual and popular culture. One of the stronger
points to this section is Mileck’s subtle recognition that while many of
Hesse’s writings seemed prima facie
political, they actually focus on issues of morality. Mileck presents us with
an apolitical Hesse, withdrawing from social activism while still making social
commentary.
Much of this withdrawal was due to the reception of his works by
the political and literary figure of the day. Initially liked, Hesse suffered
ignominy by the hands of the Nazis, only to re-emerge after the War as a
cultural icon. However, this new status also eventually faded. Mileck
brilliantly captures the reason for it, attributing it to the contemplative and
quietist nature of the author himself. The Germany in which Hesse found himself
winning waning acclaim during the 1940’s “…was no more taken with patient
reflection and trying self-realization than its counterpart in the twenties had
been.” (43) For the rest of his life, Hesse continued to swing the pendulum of
acclaim, ‘flirted’ with Communism and America, but never found the groundswell
the author implies he deserved.
The second half of the volume opens with a summation of the
literature surrounding Hesse’s involvement with the Orient. From a dissection
of dissertations to a survey of key articles, Mileck critiques the leading
scholarship. It seems at times as if many scholars are faulted simply for not
being as penetrating in their study as Mileck, but such hubris is usually
justified.
As with many such contemporaneous authors, this involvement
attributed to Hesse typically betrayed more the leanings of the readership,
than those of Hesse himself. One of the more persuasive lines of reasoning in
this portion is Mileck’s mature understanding of Hesse’s blending, or more
properly, synthesis, of Eastern philosophy with that of the West. This point
comes across best when it is stated bluntly that the involvement Hesse had with
the East, and in particular India, was an “…aesthetic and not
religiophilosophical attraction…” (155) Specifically, Hesse’s work Siddhartha is usually seen as
autobiographical and an affirmation of the benefits of the Eastern Weltanschauung, but in fact the opposite
is claimed by Mileck. Hesse remained firmly rooted in Western ideology, and
some of the more non-strictly-Buddhist themes of Siddhartha illustrate Hesse’s desire not to blend the East and
West, but to enhance some of the sharper Western doctrines with those of the
East.
A solid addition to the field; one which will hopefully spark
discussion and interaction with one of Germany’s more provocative sons. If this
is the case, perhaps we will catch another of the waves on which Hesse’s
influence rides, and another generation of readers will be challenged by the
reticent sage of the Occident.
Stephen Shaw
Reference &
Instruction Librarian
Prairies View A&M University, Texas
sshaw@coleman.pvam.edu
Miller, Dick R. and Clarke, Kevin S. (2002). Putting XML to
Work in the Library: Tools for Improving Access and Management.
American Library Association, Chicago 2002. 208 pp. ISBN
0-8389-0863-2. $45.00
XML
is one of the most exciting things happening in libraries! Miller and Clarke
provide an excellent synopsis of the benefits of XML for Internet information
gathering in the introduction. They caution, however, that traditional
practices should be reassessed in light of the potential of XML and not to drop
everything that is done well in the haste to adopt XML.
The first chapter guides the
reader through the basics of XML, including the beginnings from HTML, through
the variants of SGML, and into XML. Markup, elements, attributes, and structure
are defined and explained, along with other necessary XML information. The
beauty of this chapter is the ability of the authors to dissect a potentially
complex subject and bring it to a level that is understandable by the novice
yet still provides sustenance for the experienced reader.
Standards and recommendations,
including XML schemas standardized by the W3C and RELAX NG (Regular Language
for XML Next Generation), and XPath, are presented in the second chapter. As
well as discussing the standards and their various ancestries, Miller and
Clarke add comments on how libraries can best apply them and provide frequent
commentary on their experiences. The chapter also provides a detailed and
informative discussion of style sheets.
Chapter three provides an
in-depth look at XML schema. The authors outline a possible procedure for the
development of a working schema in a step-by-step format. They also provide an
informative discussion on the ways XML can be used to assist libraries. The
authors continue with a look at the implications of XML on MARC coding and on
the use of AACR2 rules. Miller and Clarke also introduce XOBIS (XML Organic
Bibliographic Information Schema), an experimental schema which they hope will
address some of the issues arising in the digital library environment.
Tools that will work with XML to
perform additional functions are presented in Chapter four. The authors focus
on Open Source solutions as this is their experience. They do provide some
names of licensed alternatives and direct the reader to other sources of
information. Editors, including BitFlux and JEdit; transformers, such as Saxon
and Cocoon; and XML browsers are discussed. The authors clearly note that their
discussion of tools covers the ones that they feel the readers of the book will
be most interested in and highlight other sources of tools for those readers
who want more comprehensive lists. Miller and Clarke not only list the tools
but provide informative comments on the pros and cons for each product.
Current trends and future
possibilities, including XForms, Scalable Vector Graphics, and VoiceXML, are
discussed in the last chapter. The authors present ways in which the Lane
Medical Library is incorporating XML, including transitional E-journals and
working with MARC records.
As well as providing
informative and readily-useful content presented in an easy-to-read and highly
understandable format, Putting XML to Work in the Library offers a
number of useable additional features. There are numerous relevant examples
that clarify the text content. An interesting example is the dedication to the
authors’ families as it is written in XML code and serves to further the
reader’s understanding of XML. The bibliography includes web sites, if
available. There is an excellent comprehensive index that includes references
to symbols used in XML, although most are spelled out with only a few indexed
as symbols. The extremely detailed table of contents makes it easy to locate
desired information.
Putting XML to Work in
the Library is highly recommended for any library collection. Library staff
involved with web site creation may want a personal copy for easy reference.
Beth Thomsett-Scott
Science Reference and Liaison Librarian
University of North Texas
bscott@library.unt.edu
Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C. J. & Stansbury, M. (2003). Virtual
Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide . Washington : Georgetown University
Press. 192 pp. ISBN: 0-8784-0999-8 $19.95
Virtual Inequality goes beyond who has computers and access
to the Internet. It explores how computer use, technological skills, the
Internet, information literacy, and even basic literacy skills affect everyday
life and influence one's opportunities. The digital divide is given a broader
definition by breaking it up into four categories: access divide, skills
divide, economic opportunity divide, and democratic divide. Each of the four
divides is discussed in a separate chapter and statistical results are
summarized in easy to scan "What Matters" boxes.
The sample data was accumulated
by surveying over 1800 people nationwide about their skills, attitudes and
experiences. The survey included people in high-poverty tracts in all fifty
states and a statistical control. Results were analyzed using multivariate
regression tables. The tables and the survey are included in appendices at the
end of the book.
The chapter on access includes a
review of eight major studies on computer and Internet access. Survey results
are compared to two of the studies. Interestingly, all three studies
"report persistent gaps in access to the Internet based on race,
ethnicity, education, and income."
In the skills divide chapter,
basic literacy is shown to be crucial to information literacy and technical
competence. The lack of appropriate computer skills and lack of information
literacy are also factors in the economic divide and democratic divide. Public
access sites would be one place to learn these skills. Unfortunately, survey
results indicate that the people for whom the public access sites are intended,
the low-income and less-educated, are the least likely to use them.
The economic divide chapter
focuses on the rising skills requirements for many jobs and attitudes about how
computer skills affect economic opportunity, online job searching, and lifelong
learning. The democratic divide looks at how willing people are to use the
Internet for online voting, political participation, and e-government.
The last chapter highlights
patterns common to all the divides. Barriers and resources for bridging the
divides are listed. Current public policy for overcoming the most important
policy issues of access, skills, and education are examined and public policy
recommendations for the future are given. Recommended.
Doris Munson
Systems & Reference Librarian
Eastern Washington University
dmunson@ewu.edu
O’Riley, P.
A. (2003). Technology, Culture, and Socioeconomics: A Rhizoanalysis of Educational
Discourses. New York: Peter Lang
Publishing. 158 pp.
ISBN:
0-8204-5793-0. $29.95
Readers
of O’Riley’s Technology, Culture, and
Socioeconomics would be advised to take a step back from the day-to-day
grind of twenty-first century life and watch the sunrise from a remote hilltop.
This would help put them in a proper frame of mind for approaching this work.
The book discusses the technology education that has developed in the
educational institutions of today. It
is also much more, and that is where the relevance to library research comes in
to play.
She
suggests that while recent revisions to educational standards are more diverse
and “high tech” than traditional industrial education curriculum were; the
focus on industrial production and design remains.
Writing
across a series of plateaus (as opposed to chapters), O’Riley takes the reader
on a rhizoanalytic journey that is intended to be “fluid, flexible, conjunctive,
regenerating, and fun” (p. 29). She asks the reader to see what we have learned
not to, and to hear what has been silenced. Constantly disrupting the
standardized practices of research writing, she approaches her theme from a
variety of angles. In the process, the reader is introduced to an impressive
review of feminist, poststructural, and postmodern theories. The work also
gives voice to the philosophy and perspective of the indigenous peoples of
North America. Part of the fun of this work is the disruption of the
traditional linearity of texts with Coyote and Raven comments of a trickster
nature, and a “dataplay,” produced by the author and her students, that
demonstrates how the student’s voice was also incorporated into the author’s
technology instruction.
O’Riley
suggests that there is a complex political, social, and cultural history behind
the educational technology curriculum which has marginalized female students
and students from a diversity of cultures. The revision, which stresses “high tech”
and computer skills, further disenfranchises alternative views of technology.
The problem is that the discourse on technology education tends to build on
itself. This self-referencing process creates a mirage of authority based on
the common sense nature of new developments. That is, new develops have an air
of common sense about them when they are consistent with the precedents upon
which they are based. This becomes problematic when the historical conditions
that surrounded the origins of the discourse are forgotten. In the beginning
choices were made based on the specific historical context of the time. O’Riley
argues for the importance of teaching the history behind industrial education
and its support of capitalistic production. By teaching the history, you remind
students that choices were, and still are, being made. Choice is only an option
when people are aware of different potentialities. Standardization is a
potential threat to both choice and future adaptability if the historicity of
the standard is forgotten. O’Riley argues that technology literacy in education
should affirm and celebrate difference.
This
book is part of a larger discussion that should be of interest to librarians.
Most of our standard practices are firmly rooted in the “modern”. As postmodern scholarship continues to
develop, we need to consider the implications that discourse has on how we
operate. For example, the way we classify materials has an epistemology that
privileges certain viewpoints over others. We need to keep that in mind and
consider whether or not our practices need to change as our society becomes
increasingly pluralistic in the twenty-first century. We might also question
the nature of our acceptance of information literacy (as it is currently being
defined) as a goal. Are we really helping students become better users of
information, or are we teaching information illiteracy by disenfranchising
perspectives that lie outside of the standards we teach?
This
book is not for tourists; those that Damarin (cited on p. 67) describes as
bringing an arrogant attitude to unfamiliar territory. It is about disruption
and alternative perspectives. The book questions many of the assumptions in
which the world of academia operates. In that respect, this book would be a welcome
addition to college and university libraries.
David Alexander
Reference and Electronic Resources
Librarian
South
Dakota State University
Shannon, Joyce Brennfleck. (Ed).
(2003). Leukemia Sourcebook. Health
Reference Series. Detroit:
Omnigraphics. 600 pp. ISBN:
0-7808-0627-1. $78.00
This
reference book provides a general overview of Leukemia as well as further
details about childhood leukemia, adult leukemia, treatments, and life during
and after leukemia. There is a small glossary of terms that are related to the
disease. Especially interesting is a section of facts and figures that are
broken down by state.
The
overview section contains an explanation of diagnosis methods, a chapter on
understanding blood cell counts, information on how to find a doctor who
specializes in a particular form of leukemia, and some financial issues that
should be considered.
The
next two sections deal with childhood and adult leukemia. Each section defines
a specific type, gives the incidence of that particular variety, treatment
strategies, survival rates and current research. Most helpful is information
for parents to prepare themselves and their children for treatments.
The
final two sections deal with various treatment options and life during and
after treatments. The book deals with the types of treatments ranging from drug
therapy to radiation to transplantation therapy, with explanations of side
effects, benefits, and risks for each treatment option.
Also
provided is a reproducible guide for medical record keeping. A valuable
resource throughout the book are lists of resources, references and suggested
further reading that will provide supplemental information for a particular
need.
This
book is easy to read and a wonderful overview of a disease that impacts many
lives. Each year nearly 30,000 adults and 2,000 children learn that they have
leukemia. The comprehensive treatment of the subject makes this a valued
addition to library reference collections.
Kate Mutch
Public Services Librarian
Natrona
County Public Library
Tanaka, Greg. (2003). The
Intercultural Campus: Transcending Culture & Power in American Higher
Education. New York: Peter Lang.
217 pp. ISBN 0820441503. $29.95 (pbk.)
Greg Tanaka attempts to demonstrate
several aspects of current American culture: people’s “inadequate training” in
understanding racial and ethnic diversity; some conservative think tanks’
overemphasis on “categories of difference” to heighten fear among “some white
Americans”; and progressives’ failure to go beyond multiculturalism and binary
oppositionality. He further attempts to dispel what he sees as the misconception
that many Americans do not want to learn about diversity, that there are no
alternatives to Western Eurocentrism and multiculturalism, and that it is not
possible to build a community out of multiple ethnic cultures. Although
ambitious in his objectives, Tanaka makes an admirable and insightful case for
“interculturalism,” or ways a more “participatory” democracy can be achieved
through interdependence, complementarity, and personal connections to one’s
past and place.
Tanaka
focuses on American universities, which he claims have a “lead role” in better
preparing the U.S. for its future in a global society. He presents two case
studies—one concerning a university that tried to become “the first
multicultural college” in the U.S., the other concerning a private Catholic
university that tried to become the first “intercultural campus” in the U.S.
(both of which are given fictitious names)—as well as the results of a survey
by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) at UCLA of over 25,000
white students attending 159 U.S. colleges and universities from 1985 to 1989.
In
the first case study, Tanaka examines a small, private arts college in
California which attempted to become multicultural by, among other things,
hiring a distinguished African-American as its president, recruiting a large
number of students of color, and requiring courses in American cultures for all
students. Tanaka interviews several of the college’s administrators and
students, observes several campus activities, and reviews documents concerning
the college’s plan to make itself more multicultural. Ultimately, the college’s
“experiment” stalled, which Tanaka, in his analysis, attributes to the
college’s failure to address the needs of white students, over-emphasis of “binary
opposition” to Western Eurocentrism, and exacerbation of campus fragmentation.
He constructs this chapter as an “experimental ethnographic text,” in which the
pages are divided in two columns, one side consisting of storytelling based on
those he interviewed, the other his analysis of comments and observations along
the way.
Tanaka makes several insightful observations in his
chapter analyzing the 1985-1989 CIRP study. He notes students’ satisfaction
with campuses that emphasize ethnic/racial diversity, the importance of
students actively participating in cross-cultural activities rather than simply
taking courses in race and ethnic issues, and the fact that simply admitting
students of color does not in itself lead to cultural competence or racial understanding.
He further speaks at length about the ways in which white students who join
sororities and fraternities oftentimes are isolated from cross-cultural
activities. He argues for universities to hire more minority faculty, offer
formal training in interethnic communication, and have a comprehensive,
multi-faceted plan for diversity.
In
his own four-year study involving a small private Catholic university’s attempt
to be intercultural rather than merely multicultural, Tanaka employs “action
research” in which he plays the role of ethnographer and assistant to the
campus’s leaders in implementing their plan. Among the university’s
achievements, he explains, were students and staff telling their own histories,
hiring more minority faculty, and receiving administrators’ support for their
work. Tanaka acknowledges the program’s shortcomings as well, such as the
university’s failure to expose more white students to new sources of diversity.
A major thrust of interculturalism that distinguishes it from multiculturalism
is its emphasis on including white voices in discussions of diversity, as
opposed to focusing primarily on differences and dichotomies. Tanaka goes into
great depth exploring this difference, and the ways intercultural approaches
can succeed at colleges and universities across the country.
The
book’s greatest weakness lies in its writing style. Far too often, the author
tries to clarify his points with phrases such as “in other words,” “stated
differently,” and “simply put,” which, ironically, do more to distract from his
main points than reinforce them. His use of social and cultural theorists shows
that he has done his research, but again, at times, he belabors their use
rather than simply footnoting them and making his case. The chapter with two
parallel texts is an interesting experiment, but ultimately a failed one; the
side notes often distract from the points he tries to make, and occasionally
are superfluous.
Despite
these shortcomings in writing style and presentation, Tanaka makes effective
use of quantitative and qualitative analysis of past research, personal
narrative, and action research. He makes a persuasive case for intercultural
approaches to dealing with diversity in post-9/11 America while acknowledging
what further research and programs are needed. Indeed, his book may help make
“interculturalism” a familiar part of the educational lexicon in addressing
diversity at American universities and across the country as a whole.
Richard Wisneski, Ph.D.
Kent State University
Wakefield, Thaddeus.
(2003). The Family in
Twentieth-Century American Drama.
New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
117 pp. ISBN 0-8204-6321-3. $54.95
This
book is an interesting explication of fourteen plays viewed through the lens of
Marxist sociological criticism.
Wakefield suggests that the central subject of American drama is the
family, and that the capitalistic culture of twentieth century America forces family
members to perceive one another as commodities. To Marx, the value of a commodity lay not in how it could be
used, but whether and for how much it could be traded. Wakefield examines how members of filial relationships
value one another only in terms of the economic advantages each can provide.
The
plays explored are, in chronological order, Phillip Barry’s Holiday
(1928), Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour (1934) and The Little
Foxes (1939), Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night (1939),
Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie (1945), Arthur Miller’s Death
of a Salesman (1949), Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
(1955), Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1959), Edward Albee’s Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1962), Lonne Elder III’s Ceremonies in Dark
Old Men (1965), Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band (1968), David
Rabe’s Streamers (1976), August Wilson’s Fences (1985), and
Cheryl L. West’s Before It Hits Home (1989).
Wakefield
states that his primary reason for choosing to analyze American plays is not
only that he enjoys them, but also that they have been largely overlooked by
academics. In stating this, he seems to
suggest that he came to the genre with his sociological point of view intact. That is, rather than studying American plays
and finding them exemplars of filial commodification, one guesses that he chose
commodification first and drama second.
Abraham Maslow might accuse Wakefield of having only a hammer in his
toolkit, and seeing every problem as a nail.
Nevertheless, Wakefield’s readings of the plays are individually
illuminating, if somewhat numbing as a whole due to the essential sameness of
each reading.
In
chapters devoted to marriage, father-child relationships, mother-child
relationships, and non-traditional families, Wakefield illuminates the dialogue
of each text and provides some interesting commentary on the economic focus of
various relationships. His analysis of
Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night extends through all but
the chapter on non-traditional families, and helps to bring some continuity to
an otherwise cafeteria-style analysis.
The chapter on non-traditional families is perhaps the most compelling,
as it introduces sexuality as a form of currency (this was not a significant
focus of the chapter on marriage), particularly in the discussion of Mart
Crowley’s The Boys in the Band.
Notably, this chapter also covers the broadest chronological territory
(1934-1989), thus giving the reader the best sense of the century promised in
the book’s title.
Wakefield
challenges the reader to accept a sometimes-questionable Marxist view of
twentieth century relationships. For
instance, he asserts that “the twentieth century marriage relationship is based
on economic factors, not religious or romantic factors (5).” Removing the Marxist spectacles, one might
consider that twentieth century America probably marks the first time and place
in history in which marriages are as frequently based on romantic or religious
factors as on purely economic factors.
Economics alone characterized the marriage contracts between suitors and
fathers for centuries, when daughters were family commodities forbidden by
social norms to attempt to obtain their own economic security.
The
writing in this book is marred by a dizzying repetition of the phrase
“twentieth century capitalistic American society” and the gloss “commodities,
or things [or objects].” The repetition
of each occurs literally dozens of times.
For example, “[Playwright X] intends to dramatically show that the
twentieth century capitalistic American society commodifies individuals by
making people see others as objects rather than as human beings” (81). The writer should consider that the reader
has probably gathered this point by page 81 (or page 6, for that matter), and
that such repetition might force a frustrated reader to stop reading and go
shopping instead.
As
a revised dissertation, The Family in Twentieth Century American Drama
is a worthy piece of scholarship that might have been better served by a little
more revision. Wakefield’s textual
explications are interesting, well-chosen, and soundly presented. The critical foundations in Marx and
Baudrillard are outlined in a mere three-page introduction (readers might
appreciate a deeper grounding in the critical theory), and then hammered out
(Maslovian pun intended) through repetitive diction. This book will be a worthwhile addition to an undergraduate
library, but it may leave the higher-level researcher wanting.
Wendy A. Rodgers
Information Services Librarian
University
of Guelph Library
wrodgers@uoguelph.ca