Faculty and Staff Books

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The Beat handbook : 100 days of Kerouactions

Rick Dale

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 everything from sex to parking your car. In the tradition of the What Would Jesus Do? books, Rick Dale reinterprets the question and applies the unique spin of beat philosophy to modern living, following the premise that in order to be a beat, one need only take one’s lead from the words of the acknowledged “King of the Beats”: Jack Kerouac. Inspired by Kerouac’s On The Road and The Dharma Bums, Dale’s The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions uses humor and whimsy to bring an old perspective on living and loving life into a fresh context. Told by a true beat aficionado, The Beat Handbook: 100 Days of Kerouactions makes what was old new again, while dispensing more than a little fun, philosophy, and Kerouacian guidance along the way.
Kayak and Canoe Outings in the Western Mountains of Maine

Doug Dunlap

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 Lakes : 22 Lake, Pond and Stream Flat Water Day Trips Accessible from Franklin County, Maine
Snowshoe and Cross-Country Ski Outings in the Western Mountains of Maine

Doug Dunlap

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
Racewalking fun! : Alex and Maria discover racewalking

Tom Eastler

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.
German foreign policy : navigating a new era

Scott Erb

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. Primarily focusing on the years of transition, 1980 to the present, he argues that German foreign policy is guided consistently by "principles of multilateralism, cooperative institution building, the peaceful resolution of conflicts, and respect for human rights." He further contends that Germany should serve as a model for other nations. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Fingers pointing at the moon : poems

Rod Farmer
Red ships : poems

Rod Farmer
The political economy of special-purpose government

Kathryn A. Foster

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 first comprehensive examination of the causes and consequences of special-purpose governments in more than 300 metropolitan areas in the United States. It presents new evidence on the economic, political, and social implications of relying on these special districts while offering important findings about their use and significance.
When Art Disrupts Religion : Aesthetic Experience and the Evangelical Mind

Philip Salim Francis

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 religious identity through the intervention of the arts. "There never would have been an undoing of my conservative Evangelical worldview" confides one young man, "without my encounter with the transcendent work of Mark Rothko on that rainy afternoon in London's Tate Modern." "The characters in The Brothers Karamazov began to feel like family to me," reports another individual, "and the doubts of Ivan Karamazov slowly saturated my soul." As their stories unfold, the subjects of the study describe the arts as sources of, by turns, "defamiliarization," "comfort in uncertainty," "a stand-in for faith" and a "surrogate transcendence." Drawing on memoirs, interviews, and field notes, Philip Salim Franics explores the complex interrelationship of religion and art in the modern West, and offers an important new resource for on-going debates about the role of the arts in education and social life.
Canning gold : Northern New England's sweet corn industry : a historical geography

Paul B. Frederic

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 demonstrates the strong community bond essential for the industry's initial success. Interviews with farmers, factory owners and cannery workers who raised and packed the corn, combined with the written record, and Frederic's insight derived from growing up in the shadow of a corn shop, enrich the work and trace various threads linking local patterns to regional, national and global forces.
Tea party talk : the governors

Amy Fried and Jim Melcher

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 governors with Tea Party backing.

Tea Party activists were blunt in expressing their views and many Tea Party governors, like Chris Christie, echoed that style. Others, like Rick Snyder, had a mellower tone. This book of quotations by two Maine political scientists collects Tea Party governors’ words from mild to wild, from bombastic to cautious, and from harsh to gentle. American politics fans will be entertained by these quotations, but they'll also better understand these 14 governors – Jan Brewer, Sam Brownback, Chris Christie, Tom Corbett, Nikki Haley, John Kasich, Paul LePage, Susana Martinez, “Butch” Otter, Sean Parnell, Rick Perry, Rick Scott, Rick Snyder, and Scott Walker.
Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice : Cultivating Practical Wisdom to Create Democratic Schools

Cara E. Furman and Cecelia E. Traugh

"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 dignity. The authors argue that teachers must attend to who a child is and find a way to create classrooms that allow everyone to feel safe and express ideas. Responding to the perennial question of how to cultivate teachers, they offer an approach that attends to both ethical development and instructional methods. They also provide a way forward for school leaders seeking to listen to, and provide guidance for, their staff. At its core, Descriptive Inquiry in Teacher Practice champions a commitment to schools as places in which children, teachers, and leaders can learn how to live and work well together. Book Features: Illustrates how to take an inquiry stance toward the difficult issues that educators face every day; Examines how themes regularly addressed in foundations can be used to improve schools; Includes engaging portraits of progressive urban schools that showcase the qualities of the leaders that guide them; Demonstrate the power of a progressive and humanistic education for children of color and for those from lower-income backgrounds"-- Provided by publisher
Daisy In the Dark: a fantasy novel

Paul Gies

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 alchemist, and her best friends, a thief and a cleric, start off looking mostly for adventure. But they’re immediately caught up in the race to find the Circlet, caught up with new friends and new enemies and some which are neither or both: the brainless barbarian warriors, the smarmy archer guy, the blond frenemy enchantress, the enigmatic elf maiden, amidst hordes of orcs and goblins, monsters and dragons. The Circlet is found, defended from evil wizards, and returned to its presumed rightful owners. But a much more mysterious treasure beckons: not a Ring of Power, not a Wand of Wonders, not an amulet or an enchanted sword, just a plain-looking key planted in Daisy’s dream.

Daisy and the enigmatic elf, the redoubtable Zelin, become convinced that the key is important in some way beyond the reach of their world’s comprehension. And while it seems to have no magical qualities—it’s not even jewel-encrusted, it’s just a key—it does seem to have attracted other seekers, powerful people shrouded in mystery. Daisy and Zelin and their friends can’t let it fall into the wrong hands, which may mean any hands but their own. And to win it, they have to steal it from under the nose of Thyrssa the Black, the most dangerous dragon in Valen.

This is the story of how Daisy develops her skills, grows into her powers, and wins her boon, while navigating the minefield of the end of her teenage years, finding love, losing it, finding it again, and finding friendship as her life finally shows signs of meaning something. - from Amazon
Daisy in the Dark

Paul J. Gies

"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 and a cleric, start off looking mostly for adventure. But they're immediately caught up in the race to find the Circlet, caught up with new friends and new enemies and some who are neither or both: the brainless barbarian warriors, the smarmy archer guy, the blond frenemy enchantress, the enigmatic elf maiden, amidst hordes of orcs and goblins, monsters and dragons, not to mention that rather ordinary-looking key... that too." -- Back cover
Thorn: the Prophet

Peter Garth Hardy

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 incarnation, Thorn pushes farther into his past to reveal many other extraordinary lives. Meanwhile Paxton tries to find a way to retrieve the knowledge contained in his past life as Albert Einstein so that he can continue his work on Unified Field Theory while Tucker struggles to save Thorn from the impending clear-cut on Blueberry Hill.
Thorn: The Tree

Peter Garth Hardy

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 mental telepathy. Thorn explains that he acquired his vast knowledge through the airwaves and his spiritual acuity through meditation, where it is possible to visit "The Chords" and examine both past and future lives. They help each other unravel their past incarnations and witness a future Earth devastated by war and natural disaster, which Thorn warns could be close at hand.
McCarthyism in the Suburbs : Quakers, Communists, and the Children's Librarian

Allison L. Hepler

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 member of the Communist Party, she declined to answer, relying on her Fifth Amendment rights. She was fired less than three weeks later. Knowles thought she was unlikely to find a position as a librarian again and left the area. She found a job at a small library outside Philadelphia, where anticommunists who learned of her past tried to create public support for a Loyalty Oath, resulting in the loss of public funding for the library. The resulting controversy eventually brought national attention to the local Quakers who had hired Knowles, the FBI was asked to investigate, Knowles was convicted of contempt of Congress, and the Quakers were subpoenaed and testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Knowles, however, was never fired from this position, retiring from the library in 1979.

This book illustrates the impact of McCarthyism on small towns and “ordinary” people and local officials, some of whom abided by the standards of the era. There were others however, who challenged the status quo. Their actions provide readers with models of behavior often at odds with what has been thought of as the 1950s. People who spoke up risked families and jobs. At the same time, anticommunists also tapped into citizens’ fears of the cold war, not just of Communists but of a broad swath of people who promoted social justice and equality. The resulting interactions as described in this book offer important lessons on how fear and bravery operate local communities against the backdrop of (and involvement with) national events.
Women in labor : mothers, medicine, and occupational health in the United States, 1890-1980

Allison L. Hepler

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 hours in an often unhealthy and dangerous workplace created risks to the performance of that task. In the 1970s, many Fortune 500 companies began implementing "fetal protection policies" to prohibit women from working in areas deemed risky to reproductive capacity. Again, assumptions about motherhood were the driving force behind employment regulations.

Women in Labor examines how gender norms affected the workplace health of men and women. Did the desire to protect women result in a safer workplace for all workers? Did it advance or hinder the status of women in the work-place? In answering these questions, Hepler describes a complex network of medical experts, state bureaucrats, business owners, social reformers, industrial engineers, workers, and feminists, many with overlapping interests and identities. This overlap often resulted in tradeoffs and unintended consequences. For instance, efforts promoting gender equality sometimes created equal risks for workers, whereas emphasizing social realities resulted in job discrimination. Reformists efforts to promote the important connection between the home and the industrial environment also allowed an employer to shirk responsibility for worker health.

The issue of women in the workplace will remain crucial in the twenty-first century as workers worldwide struggle to create safer workplaces without sacrificing socioeconomic benefits or the health of women and their children.
Black masculinity and the frontier myth in American literature

Michael K. Johnson

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 efforts by black authors to develop a frontier identity that transcends the gaps between the cultures of Africa and the mainstream culture of the United States.
Can't Stand Still : Taylor Gordon and the Harlem Renaissance

Michael K. Johnson

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 partner, J. Rosamond Johnson, Gordon was a crucially important figure in popularizing African American spirituals as an art form, giving many listeners their first experience of black spirituals.

Despite his fame, Taylor Gordon has been all but forgotten, until now. Michael K. Johnson illuminates Gordon’s personal history and his cultural importance to the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, arguing that during the height of his celebrity, Gordon was one of the most significant African American male vocalists of his era. Gordon’s story—working in the White Sulphur Springs brothels as an errand boy, traveling the country in John Ringling’s private railway car, performing on vaudeville stages from New York to Vancouver to Los Angeles, performing for royalty in England, becoming a celebrated author with a best-selling 1929 autobiography, and his long bout of mental illness—adds depth to the history of the Harlem Renaissance and makes him one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century.

Through detailed documentation of Gordon’s career—newspaper articles, reviews, letters, and other archival material—the author demonstrates the scope of Gordon’s cultural impact. The result is a detailed account of Taylor’s musical education, his career as a vaudeville performer, the remarkable performance history of Johnson and Gordon, his status as an in-demand celebrity singer and author, his time as a radio star, and, finally, his descent into madness. Can’t Stand Still brings Taylor Gordon back to the center of the stage.
Hoo-doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos : Conceptions of the African American West

Michael K. Johnson

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 and a discussion of material often left out or underrepresented in studies focused only on traditional literary material. The book engages heretofore unexamined writing by Rose Gordon, who wrote for local Montana newspapers rather than for a national audience; memoirs and letters of musicians, performers, and singers (such as W. C. Handy and Taylor Gordon), who lived in or wrote about touring the American West; the novels and films of Oscar Micheaux; black-cast westerns starring Herb Jeffries; largely unappreciated and unexamined episodes from the "golden age of western television" that feature African American actors; film and television westerns that use science fiction settings to imagine a "postracial" or "postsoul" frontier; Percival Everett's fiction addressing contemporary black western experience; and movies as recent as Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained.

Despite recent interest in the history of the African American West, we know very little about how the African American past in the West has been depicted in a full range of imaginative forms. Hoo-Doo Cowboys and Bronze Buckaroos advances our discovery of how the African American West has been experienced, imagined, portrayed, and performed.
Maine : the Pine Tree State from prehistory to the present

Richard W. Judd (editor), Edwin A. Churchill (editor), and Joel W. Eastman (editor)

The first comprehensive history of Maine to be published in decades.
Settlement Ecology of the Ancient Americas

Lucas C. Kellett, ed. and Eric E. Jones, ed.

"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, leading researchers address these questions by utilizing a settlement ecology approach for understanding the spatial arrangement of prehistoric settlement patterns across the Americas"--Provided by publisher
Graciela : One Woman's Story of War, Survival, and Perseverance in the Peruvian Andes

Nicole Coffey Kellett and Graciela Orihuela Rocha

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

Tanya Ann Kennedy

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 America. By examining various locations within popular culture, including television shows such as Mad Men and The Wire; books such as The Help and Lean In; as well as Hollywood films, fan forums, political blogs, and presidential speeches, Tanya Ann Kennedy demonstrates the dominance of postfeminism and postracialism in US culture. In addition, she shows how post-discourses create affective communities through their engineering of the history of both race and gender justice.