Faculty and Staff Books

Presidential Swing States

The 2020 US presidential race was one of the most hotly contested and contentious in recent American history. While the election produced the greatest turnout in American history and the highest percentage turnout in 60 years, the election...

Graciela : One Woman's Story of War, Survival, and Perseverance in the Peruvian Andes

Graciela chronicles the life of a Quechua-speaking Indigenous woman in the remote Andean highlands during the war in Peru that killed seventy thousand people and displaced hundreds of thousands more in the 1980s and 1990s

Teaching Matters, Volume 3 : Essays by Faculty and Staff of the University of Maine at Farmington

Essays by the faculty and staff of the University of Maine at Farmington. Edited by Linda Britt Forward by Edward Serna

Daisy in the Dark

"Her classes. Her job. Her weird friends. Her love life. Her mom's bad habits. Her mom's love life. Oh, and going into the Dungeons of Valen to seek the Lapis Circlet. Daisy, an aspiring wizard and alchemist, and her best friends, a thief...

I Know You Love Me, Too

Told from multiple perspectives, the novel-in-stories I Know You Love Me, Too follows half-sisters Ingrid and Kate as they investigate the mysteries left by their deceased father and the riddles posed by their own lives

Woodsqueer : Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life

""Woodsqueer" is sometimes used to describe the mindset of a person who has taken to the wild for an extended period of time. Gretchen Legler is no stranger to life away from the rapid-fire pace of the twenty-first century, which can often...

Tributary : Poems

"Poems that seek to expose the struggles and failings of family and faith, the rigidity of conditional love and loyalty"-- Provided by publisher

Wait : poems from the pandemic

"[A]n anthology of poetry and art by sixty-five Maine poets and visual artists created in response to the pandemic of 2020-21...Poets and artists included in Wait: Kifah Abdulla, Samaa Abdurraqib, Linda Aldrich, Carol Willette Bachofner...

Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice : Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

"What does it mean to teach for human dignity? How does one do so? This practical book shows how the leaders at four urban public schools used a process called Descriptive Inquiry to create democratic schools that promote and protect human...

In the Shadow of the Annamese Mountains

A Note from the Author"I was first introduced to the idea of political poetry on October 18, 1970, about midnight, in an all-night Harvard Square corner bookstore. A few months before that encounter I had returned from the war in Viet Nam...

Who Will Care for the Dead?

Who Will Care for the Dead? is an extended field of poetic thought, image, movement, and sound that traces a relationship of kinship between the unraveling body and the cycle of bereavement, isolation, and regeneration. - the author

In the Shadow of the Annamese Mountains

A Note from the Author "I was first introduced to the idea of political poetry on October 18, 1970, about midnight, in an all-night Harvard Square corner bookstore. A few months before that encounter I had returned from the war in Viet...

From Behaving to Belonging : The Inclusive Art of Supporting Students Who Challenge Us

"This book helps teachers use love, acceptance, joy, and compassion to foster a sense of belonging among students who exhibit challenging behavior"--Provided by publisher

An Introduction to Comparative Sociology

Not your typical sociology primer, this straightforward yet challenging text begins with a discussion of foundational theories, central concepts and areas of study. Drawing on anthropology, archaeology and history to illustrate key points...

Can't Stand Still : Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance

Born in 1893 into the only African American family in White Sulphur Springs, Montana, Emmanuel Taylor Gordon (1893–1971) became an internationally famous singer in the 1920s at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. With his musical...

Moral Contagion : Black Atlantic Sailors, Citizenship, and Diplomacy in Antebellum America

Between 1822 and 1857, eight Southern states barred the ingress of all free black maritime workers. According to lawmakers, they carried a 'moral contagion' of abolitionism and black autonomy that could be transmitted to local slaves...

The Roller Coaster: A Breast Cancer Story

This memoir traces a little over a year in the life of a forty-one-year-old breast cancer patient as she reflects critically on the loss of her breasts, her struggles as a patient and a person, and life on the other side of chemotherapy...

Vigilance of Stars : A Novel

Four stories twine together in this novel set in both contemporary and 1950's Maine. Kiya, a Portland hair stylist in her early 20's, becomes unexpectedly pregnant and determined to keep the baby as she struggles to recover from her...

As Many Nows as I Can Get

In one impulsive moment the summer before they leave for college, overachievers Scarlett and David plunge into an irresistible swirl of romance, particle physics, and questionable decisions.Scarlett and David have known each other all...

Half/Life : New & Selected Poems

Poems radiate a love for life, the world, and the temporal nature of existence. Roots of memory and nostalgia become the architecture of the mind as Thomson explores the past to better grasp the future. Featured books in the collection...

Ecology and Recovery of Eastern Old-Growth Forests

The landscapes of North America, including eastern forests, have been shaped by humans for millennia, through fire, agriculture, hunting, and other means. But the arrival of Europeans on America’s eastern shores several centuries ago...

In Nietzsche's Footsteps

"In Nietzsche's Footsteps" is a thrilling, vicarious journey through Nietzsche's favorite haunts: Nice, France; Turin, Italy; and Sils Maria, Switzerland. Within the author's personal reflection lies a pragmatic rumination on the many...

McCarthyism in the Suburbs : Quakers, Communists, and the Children's Librarian

In 1953, Mary Knowles was fired as a branch librarian for the Morrill Memorial Library, a public library in Norwood, Massachusetts. She had been called before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and, when asked if she’d ever been a...

Reimagining Writing Assessment : From Scales to Stories

"This book is for teachers who want to honor their students' experiences as writers and readers-and their own." -Maja Wilson In Reimagining Writing Assessment, Maja Wilson shows us that by replacing the scales embedded in rubrics with new...

Presidential Swing States

The 2020 United States presidential race is arguably already over except for about 12 states and 20 counties. If recent presidential election trends are any indication of what will happen in 2020, Democrats in Texas and Republicans in New...

When Art Disrupts Religion : Aesthetic Experience and the Evangelical Mind

The stories gathered in these pages lay bare the power of the arts to unsettle and rework deeply ingrained religious beliefs and practices. This book grounds its narrative in the accounts of 82 Evangelicals who underwent a sea-change of...

Historicizing Post-Discourses : Postfeminism and Postracialism in United States Culture

Historicizing Post-Discourses explores how postfeminism and postracialism intersect in dominant narratives of triumphalism, white male crisis, neoliberal and colonial feminism, and multiculturalism to perpetuate systemic injustice in...

The Rules of Screenwriting and Why You Should Break Them

Community Engagement Program Implementation and Teacher Preparation for 21st Century Education

"This book examines the many ways in which community engagement is carried out in all educational settings, from K-12 to higher education"-- Provided by publisher

Gods for Sale : Stories

Short stories

Daisy In the Dark: a fantasy novel

Daisy Delatour has the usual problems. Her classes. Her job. Her weird friends. Her love life. Her mom’s bad habits. Her mom’s love life. Oh, and going into the Dungeons of Valen to seek the Lapis Circlet.Daisy, an aspiring wizard and...

Settlement Ecology of the Ancient Americas

"How did ancient societies of the Americas decide where to settle on the landscape? What were the specific social, cultural and environmental factors which mediated the placement and arrangement of different kinds of sites? In this volume...

Thoreau at Two Hundred : Essays and Reassessments

Henry David Thoreau's thinking about a number of issues - including the relationship between humans and other species, just responses to state violence, the threat posed to human freedom by industrial capitalism, and the essential relation...

Snowshoe and Cross-Country Ski Outings in the Western Mountains of Maine

Rangeley-Saddleback, Flagstaff-Bigelow, Carrabassett Vallley-Sugarloaf, Weld-Tumbledown, and Farmington-Foothills Regions : 34 forest and lakeside routes, groomed trail systems, mountain ascents-- and tips for winter travel on foot

No Rule That Isn't a Dare: How Writers Connect with Readers

In writing, the only real rule is that there are no rules. The successful writer is a problem-solver, recognizing that each project presents its own challenges demanding specific solutions. In No Rule That Isn’t a Dare, working writers –...

Memory Thief

Twin brother and sister Benji and Kelly wander off at the local county fair after witnessing their parents argue. When Benji runs into a group of bullies, he escapes into a tent called The Memory Emporium, where he meets a strange old man...

Waiting to begin : a memoir

In the opening scene of Waiting to Begin Patricia O'Donnell speaks to incoming students at a university, telling of her transformation from a rebellious young woman to the writer and professor standing before them. Pat feels the story is...

Letters to the Wall : Memorial Day Events 2015 & 2016

The letters included in this collection were written by people who were directly impacted by the American War in Vietnam -- combat veterans, nurses, loved ones of veterans, anti-war resistors, veterans' family members, and fellow soldiers...

Teaching Matters, Volume 2: Essays by the faculty and staff at the University of Maine at Farmington

Essays by the faculty and staff at the University of Maine at Farmington.

Little Arias

Book of thisness, book of withness, book of now: Kristen Case's Little Arias meticulously situates a woman's consciousness in the immediacy of relation: with language, objects, other people, and the present tense. There is in these poems a...

Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens: The Handbook for Outdoor Learning

Environmental education expert David Sobel joins with a variety of colleagues to share their experiences and steps for creating a successful forest kindergarten program. Nature Preschools and Forest Kindergartens walks you through the...

Milton on Film

In January 2012, shooting was set to begin in Sydney, Australia, on the Hollywood-backed production of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper cast as Satan. Yet just two weeks before the start of production, Legendary...

Kayak and Canoe Outings in the Western Mountains of Maine

Canoeing and kayaking guide plus wildlife information and identification of mountains and other points of interest. Includes Rangeley Lakes Chain, Flagstaff Lake and Tributaries, Webb Lake-Weld Valley, Sandy River Watershed, and Foothills...

A G.I. in America: The Government Issue Chronicles and Selected Poems

"Poetry is meant to summarize universal feelings. Doug Rawlings' poems capture beautifully the revulsion to war and the spirit of those who work for peace." — Ann Wright, US Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former US diplomat. "Rawlings has...

Religion, Postcolonialism, and Globalization : a Sourcebook

Religion, Postcolonialism and Globalization: A Sourcebook shows how the roots of our globalized world run deeper than the 1980s or even the end of WWII, tracing back to 15th century European colonial expansion through which the 'modern...

Bar Harbor in the roaring twenties : from village life to the high life on Mount Desert Island

From the end of the Great War until the onslaught of the Great Depression, Americans had a good time, and nowhere was that more true than in Bar Harbor during high season. Amid peace and prosperity, the wealthy flocked to Mount Desert...

Teaching Matters: Essays by UMF Faculty

Essays by faculty at the University of Maine at Farmington.

The Modern Percussion Revolution: Journeys of the Progressive Artist (Routledge Research in Music)

More than eighty years have passed since Edgard Varèse’s catalytic work for percussion ensemble, Ionisation, was heard in its New York premiere. A flurry of pieces for this new medium dawned soon after, challenging the established truths...

Hoo-doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos : Conceptions of the African American West

Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos undertakes an interdisciplinary exploration of the African American West through close readings of texts from a variety of media. This approach allows for both an in-depth analysis of individual texts...

Orion rising : collected poems

"Doug Rawlings' poems about the Vietnam War, full of anger, shame, suffering and solace, are hard to bear—-as they should be. His poems about family life, children, the passing of friends since the war are honest, vulnerable, playful and...

The Family

The Annual Editions series is designed to provide convenient, inexpensive access to a wide range of current articles from some of the most respected magazines, newspapers, and journals published today.Annual Editionsare updated on a...

Juan de Segovia and the Fight for Peace : Christians and Muslims in the Fifteenth Century

Juan de Segovia (d. 1458), theologian, translator of the Qur'ān, and lifelong advocate for the forging of peaceful relations between Christians and Muslims, was one of Europe's leading intellectuals. Today, however, few scholars are...

Thorn: the Prophet

The story of the sentient oak tree continues as Thorn, Paxton and Tucker go back into The Chords to unravel more of their past, and future lives. Having recently discovered that he was the founder of the Bahai religion in his last...

Thorn: The Tree

Thorn is a one-hundred year-old oak tree with a consciousness. He is discovered on the top of a mountain in Maine by a lumberjack named Tucker and his mathematician friend, Paxton. They begin a two-week long conversation with Thorn through...

Shakespeare in Performance

The fourteen essays included in this collection offer a range of contributions from both new and well-established scholars to the topic of Shakespeare and performance. From traditional studies of theatrical history and adaptation to...

Finding Kluskap : a journey into Mi'kmaw myth

The Mi’kmaq of eastern Canada were among the first indigenous North Americans to encounter colonial Europeans. As early as the mid-sixteenth century, they were trading with French fishers, and by the mid-seventeenth century, large numbers...

Annual Editions : The Family, 40e

he Annual Editions series is designed to provide convenient, inexpensive access to a wide range of current articles from some of the most respected magazines, newspapers, and journals published today.Annual Editionsare updated on a regular...

The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods

The Changing Nature of the Maine Woods is both a fascinating introduction to the forests of Maine and a detailed but accessible narrative of the dynamism of these ecosystems. This is natural history with a long view, starting with an...

Vodník

When Tomas was six, someone something tried to drown him. And burn him to a crisp. Tomas survived, but whatever was trying to kill him freaked out his parents enough to convince them to move from Slovakia to the United States. Now...

Tea party talk : the governors

The Tea Party isn’t just influential in Washington, DC. Tea Party political passions, first seen in demonstrations and town meetings, echo through the United States. In many states, 2009 and 2010 voters re-elected or elected new Republican...

Necessary places : a novel

But the old man, helpless with Parkinson’s, is impelled by unspoken business that will rock her ordered world. And so will the revelations coming from Anna’s only child, heretofore-perfect 19-year-old Chloe—revelations gleaned from...

History, Advice, and Other Half-truths

History, Advice and Other-Half Truths explores the intersections of Western legends, landscapes, love, terror, as a range of characters struggle to live passionate lives. Here Doc Holliday is turned in by his worn-out lover, Jim Younger...

American pragmatism and poetic practice : crosscurrents from Emerson to Susan Howe

Wittgenstein wrote that "philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry." American poetry has long engaged questions about subject and object, self and environment, reality and imagination, real and ideal that have...

Assessment of children and youth with special needs

This highly respected text focuses on current assessment issues and procedures that every special educator needs to know. The author’s integrated approach emphasizes in-class assessment approaches as well as more formal measures and...

The wicked small people of Whiskey Bridge

The Little People were a happy and peaceful clan who lived in the crater of a wonderful volcano. There, they were surrounded by their favorite smellssweet sulfur, in particularand were always warm and comfortable. It was safe there, too...

Maine : the Pine Tree State from prehistory to the present

The first comprehensive history of Maine to be published in decades.

The wicked small people of Whiskey Bridge

The Little People were a happy and peaceful clan who lived in the crater of a wonderful volcano. There, they were surrounded by their favorite smellssweet sulfur, in particularand were always warm and comfortable. It was safe there, too...

Religion, writing, and colonial resistance : Mathias Carvalho's Louis Riel

Mathias Carvalho’s Louis Riel is a three-part monograph revolving around a poem about the Canadian Métis leader, Louis Riel. The poem was written by an obscure Brazilian poet just months after Riel’s conviction and execution for treason in...

Portland's past : stories from the city by the sea

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Portland, Maine, as the "beautiful town that is seated by the sea." In this volume, Maine author Luann Yetter presents the stories from its past that not only showcase this exquisiteness but also...

Science, culture, and free spirits : a study of Nietzsche's Human, all-too-human

In this insightful study, Nietzsche specialist Jonathan R. Cohen argues that Human, All-Too-Human(1878) represents the crucial watershed for Nietzsche’s philosophical development, the moment at which he "becomes who he is." Here Nietzsche...

Fingers pointing at the moon : poems

Birdwatching in wartime : poems

Jeffrey Thomson's award-winning fourth collection of poems, Birdwatching in Wartime, takes place around the globe, but finds its home in the rainforests of Costa Rica and Peru. The diverse and complexly layered environments of the...

Remembering Franklin County : stories from the Sandy River Valley

Snow swirled around the first Sandy River settlers in the winter of 1780, testing pioneering spirits. But the founders proved tough and able, incorporating Farmington in 1794 and soon establishing other towns, raising crops, building roads...

Brokering democracy in Africa : the rise of clientelist democracy in Senegal

This book examines the achievements and limitations of democratization in Senegal - and Africa more broadly - as a result of the continuing political culture of clientelism.

Maine's place in the environmental imagination

The essays in Maine’s Place in the Environmental Imagination address – from a variety of perspectives – how Maine’s unique identity among the states of the United States has been formed, and what that identity is: A place that is still...

Teaching students with mild and moderate disabilities : research-based practices

Encouraging high standards and expectations for all students, this title goes beyond other methods texts by personally connecting education professionals with the knowledge, tools, and practical strategies to be effective in today's...

The Beat handbook : 100 days of Kerouactions

The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions, by Rick Dale, brings the wit and wisdom of the beat generation, and its titular head, Jack Kerouac, into contemporary application through one hundred daily suggestions on how to deal with...

Racewalking fun! : Alex and Maria discover racewalking

Racewalking? Alex thinks it sounds silly. Maria thinks it doesn’t sound fun. Learn to racewalk with them and discover how racewalking is really fun and not silly at all.

Louis Riel and the creation of modern Canada : mythic discourse and the postcolonial state

Since he was tried and hanged for treason in November of 1885, Louis Riel has been the subject of more histories, biographies, novels, and poetry than any other figure in Canadian history. Politician, founder of Manitoba, and leader of the...

War & society in the American Revolution : mobilization and home fronts

The War for Independence touched virtually every American. It promised liberty, the opportunity for a better life, and the excitement of the battlefield. It also brought disappointment, misery, and mourning. In this collection of original...

A darker, sweeter string

In these poems of the moral imagination, Lee Sharkey explores the disfigured psychic landscape of cruelty, violence, and war. Her lyric poems chart a geography that draws its imagery from Israel/Palestine, Somalia, the Balkans, Iraq, and...

Insect poetics

Insects are everywhere. There are millions of species sharing the world with humans and other animals. Though literally woven into the fabric of human affairs, insects are considered alien from the human world. Animal studies and rights...

The same river twice : a boatman's journey home

In the summer of 1991 Michael Burke, an experienced river guide, embarks on a three-week journey down a series of remote rivers in British Columbia. Leaving behind his pregnant wife, he embraces the perils of a voyage with a companion he...

The ghosts of you and me : poems

In this new collection, Wesley McNair offers his fullest vision of human life, both its hardships and its rich possibilities. Opening with poems about growing up with family conflict in a New England of broken farms and towns, McNair...

Not your mother's vampire : vampires in young adult fiction

Examining young adult vampire fiction and how it fits in both the contemporary and classic vampire canon, the book's analysis begins with a primer on vampire scholarship, including a brief deconstruction of ten seminal vampire...

On the ice : an intimate portrait of life at McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Follows the author's trip to McMurdo Station in Antartica, where she discovers how a community can allow a life to reset.

Worse than beasts : an anatomy of melancholy and the literature of travel in 17th and 18th century England

From 1500 to 1700, the English encountered the people of five continents, who were similarly portrayed in English travel literature. This monograph explores the derogatory aspect of these portrayals. Discussion begins with the coincidence...

Renovation : poems

A collection of poems by Jeffrey Thomson.

The country of lost sons : poems

Jeffrey Thomson's second collection of poems, The Country of Lost Sons, investigates the narrative environment of childhood, especially the way violence is inscribed on children through myth, culture, and legend. The poems trace the growth...

German foreign policy : navigating a new era

Describing German foreign policy after the Cold War as a "moving target," Erb (international studies, U. of Maine at Farmington) nevertheless sees a certain amount of stability and predictability than might appear at first glance...

The Maine poets : an anthology of verse

In The Maine Poets, editor Wesley McNair has selected work by poets of the state from Longfellow to the present. Chosen for their appeal to the general reader, these poems honor the full vision and diversity of Maine's poets as they...

Mapping the heart : reflections on place and poetry

In the personal and critical essays of Mapping the Heart, Wesley McNair, one of New England's most important poets, reveals the impact of place on his own poetry and the verse of several other New Englanders, past to present. He also...

Religion and global culture : new terrain in the study of religion and the work of Charles H. Long

Religion and Global Culture draws together the work of a group of historians of religion who are concerned with situating the contemporary study of religion within the cultural complexity of the modern world. The writing of each of the...

Red ships : poems

Canning gold : Northern New England's sweet corn industry : a historical geography

Canning Gold is a meticulously researched examination of how sweet corn canning helped shape the economy, landscape and people of rural Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont during the "corn shop century," 1860-1960's. Paul Frederic powerfully...

Black masculinity and the frontier myth in American literature

Folowing his discussion of the frontier in the American West, Johnson explores how writers invent new frontiers by mythologizing or reimagining various locations, such as Paris in the 1960s or the African continent. Johnson also addresses...

Slobodan Milosevic and the destruction of Yugoslavia

In Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia former U.S. foreign service officer Louis Sell fills a gap in the literature on the Yugoslav conflicts by covering both the domestic Yugoslav side of the collapse and the history and...

Women in labor : mothers, medicine, and occupational health in the United States, 1890-1980

Early in the twentieth century, states and courts began limiting the workplace hours of wage-earning women in order to protect them from fatigue and ill health. It was felt that a woman's role was to be a mother and that working too many...

The religion of Socrates

This study argues that to understand Socrates we must uncover and analyze his religious views, since his philosophical and religious views are part of one seamless whole. Mark McPherran provides a close analysis of the relevant Socratic...

The political economy of special-purpose government

In recent decades, local governments across America have increasingly turned specialized functions over to autonomous agencies ranging in scope from subdivision-sized water districts to multi-state transit authorities. This book is the...

Myth, symbol and colonial encounter : British and Miʹkmaq in Acadia, 1700-1867

From the time of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, people of British origin have shared the area of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, traditionally called Acadia, with Eastern Canada's Algonkian-speaking peoples, the...

The Quotable moose : a contemporary Maine reader

The best of Maine's contemporary authors celebrate their state in poetry, fiction, and essays that comprise a lively sampler as varied as the state that inspired it. A treasury of works --many previously unpublished--it includes Philip...

Quang Tri cadence : memoir of a rifle platoon leader in the mountains of Vietnam

Having flunked out of college in the fall of 1965, the author enlisted in the U.S. Army. After basic training he was assigned to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, an institution dedicated to the manufacture of the...

The Town of No

Maine Poetry

The player piano music of Conlon Nancarrow : an analysis of selected studies

Killer in the trap

A seal and a peg-leg gull come to the aid of a Labrador dog caught in a fishnet with a hammer-head shark