Honoring Our Faculty Achievements 2013

Goodnight Moon
Margaret Wise Brown

This book is beloved by my three beautiful boys. As all three were born during my husband’s and my time as Assistant Professors at Illinois; the book bonds me to my children and to my husband, while serving as a temporal reminder of uncertainty of the pre-tenure years.

Hug Time 
Patrick McDonnell

It is a wonderful story about exploring the world and giving out hugs, even to baobabs in Africa, and then coming back home. I have been reading it to my children since they were babies and they have always loved the hug by the polar bear.

The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography 
Sidney Poitier

I like the life lessons that he portrays while describing his journey from the Bahamas to Hollywood and expressed in an unassuming way. It also reminds me of the wonderful movie, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage 
Alfred Lansing

I read Endurance when I was toiling to finish my doctoral dissertation. It’s a thrilling and inspiring tale of leadership, teamwork, courage, patience, and tremendous good luck – all important ingredients for success. And Endurance reminds me that success in the end may be quite different from the outcome I had in mind.

Shape Memory Materials
K. Otsuka and C. M. Wayman

A great book for those who want to learn more about the fascinating world of shape memory materials and their applications. It was a source of help and inspiration for me when I first started working in this amazing field.

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos
Deborah Heiligman

There are two important things in my life: 1) Mathematics as my profession, influenced by Paul Erdos, his results and my work with his close collaborators, including my advisor Bela Bollobas. 2) The education of my children. This book serves as a bridge between the two.

Developmental Plasticity and Evolution
Mary Jane West-Eberhard

I first read this book as I was finishing my PhD and it synthesized many themes that had preoccupied me over the course of my dissertation work. West-Eberhard argues that the environment plays a central role (comparable to, rather than secondary to, genes) in generating diversity within and among species.

The Foundation Trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation
Isaac Asimov

The Galactic Empire verges on collapse! A social scientist saves the day! Hari Seldon saves civilization using an imagined computational social science. Yet, Seldon’s success will fail: Scientific understanding created a new society, but the old science will no longer explain the new world. Unexpected changes to the object of study require unforeseen changes to the science. Even if social science saves the day, only imagination will save humanity.

A Modern History of Tanganyika
John Iliffe

Iliffe’s national history of Tanganyika (today’s mainland Tanzania) sets a standard of industrious research and interpretive clarity to which all historians of modern Africa should aspire.

The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935
James D. Anderson

This book changed the field in which I work, and its author changed this university. Both the field and the institution are far better for his efforts.

The Snow Goose
Paul Gallico

This book, which I read as a child many times and pick up when I need a shot of faith in human goodness, touches some core belief that amidst all the frailties and weaknesses of humans, there is something fundamentally good and kind, which is stirred by an empathy with nature in all its wildness.

Atlas of the World
Oxford University Press

My parents gifted me an Atlas when I was a child. I remember my excitement going around challenging people to name a place that I could not find in my Atlas! When I grew up, looking for places I will visit next with my family and friends became one of my favorite past-times.

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Siddhartha Mukherjee

A superbly engaging book on cancer which I would not have imagined possible. One of the best books I have read in recent years.

A Room of One’s Own
Virginia Woolf

Published in 1929, when women were not allowed in some universities and libraries, this book develops an inspiring proposition for women’s independence in creative endeavors. This enlightening book has empowered me to find my own identity as an individual, a thinker, and an author over my identity as a daughter or wife or mother.

Epigenetics 
C. David Allis, Thomas Jenuwein, Danny Reinberg, and Assoc. Editor, Marie-Laure Caparros

Epigenetics is a straight forward book about epigenetics. Anybody who is interested in learning about epigenetics should be able to figure it out by reading this one.

Environmentality
Arun Agrawal

The MacArthur Study Bible (English Standard Version)
John MacArthur (author of study notes)

The Bible most profoundly influenced our culture, and my own life. This study Bible has helpful notes on the context, and the historical and cultural background of the scriptures. It is eye-opening and easy to read. It has been translated into many languages. Even the international space station has a copy.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

This was the first book I read when I arrived to the States, almost 20 years ago, while attending English as a Second Language (ESL) program. I also enjoyed the movie; Gregory Peck was perfect as Atticus, and exploring complex issues through the eyes of a child made it all the more impressive.

Carry Me Like Water 
Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Sáenz beautifully weaves the stories of a diverse group of characters exploring the terrain of race, gender, and sexuality. The novel speaks to the geographic and psychic borders that we all inhabit, as people come to terms with their own histories and identities while creating new definitions of family and community.

Readings in Uncertain Reasoning 
Glenn Shafer and Judea Pearl, Editors

Many of the papers collected in Uncertain Reasoning were pivotal in the late 20th-Century’s increased application of probabilistic and statistical methods for dealing with information. But the work in this book has more than historical interest; it is inspiring too. Uncertain Reasoning shows many of the world’s best scientists working in top form.

The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien

This amazing tale of an epic journey contains much wisdom about life as it poignantly conveys the intermingling of struggle and triumph, pain and joy, and ultimately the victory of truth. It captured my imagination and encouraged me when I first encountered it years ago, and I am now enjoying it again with my children.

Attachment
John Bowlby

The ideas presented in this volume inspired generations of psychological scientists to study human attachment relationships and their role in personality development and interpersonal functioning.

Diary
Witold Gombrowicz

Here presented in a single-volume format, Diary is a classic of authorial self-creation (and mystification) by one of twentieth-century Europe’s most startlingly original voices. Not exactly a day-to-day journal, this experiment in literary genre-bending also constitutes a history of Polish literature.

The Sun Girl 
Elizabeth Polingaysi Qoyawayma, illustrated by Komoki

A children’s story about a young girl named Dawamana (Sun Maiden or Sun Girl) from Oraibi that learns the Butterfly Dance at my village of Moencopi. It is one of the first Hopi-authored books on the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona, and it has always inspired me to write Hopi books of my own.

Pass It On
Marilyn J. Goddard

The book, written by my mother, Marilyn J. Goddard, in 2000, summarizes key values my parents instilled in me growing up. It calls parents to action and guides them in raising African American children to achieve educational success. The book is especially meaningful to me as I transition from child to parent.

Antinomies of Realism
Fredric Jameson

My work on the geopolitical aesthetic takes off from Jameson’s groundbreaking work on the social foundations of literary form. Collecting his thoughts on realism over several decades, this book came out just as my work on 19th-century fiction was completed. Though the newer material may not stray far from Jameson’s long-cultivated view that realism lacks formal flexibility, I cannot but imagine that this volume does justice to its subject. I am grateful for the opportunity to acknowledge my debts and to share Jameson’s work with a future generation of Illinois scholars.

The Giving Tree
Shel Silverstein

I have selected this book in honor of my mother, Helene H. Graber, who always places her children before herself and has inspired my life and career in so many different ways. When I read this book, I think of her . . . selflessly giving through love.

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
Shunryu Suzuki

Though it appears at first that this book is mainly for the committed practitioner of Zen, it has universal application and importance for any creative artist and has had a very profound influence on my creative work. Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Dreaming By the Book
Elaine Scarry

Daring and wildly sophisticated, this book is never far from my mind. I first encountered Scarry’s writing in graduate school, when I was beginning to pursue links between literary and visual expression. This book, which explores the strategies writers employ to create vivid pictures in readers’ minds, demonstrates the profound artistry of metacritical thinking.

Nobel Prize Women in Science
Sharon Bertsch McGrayne

This book is a compilation of biographies of successful women in Science, several of whom were awarded the Nobel Prize. And it is not the Nobel Prize that I found fascinating. Rather, what I thoroughly enjoyed is the vivid descriptions of the daily struggles of scientists to excel in the laboratory and at home.

Research in Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership
Liz Hollingworth and Arnold Danzig

This book contains a chapter co-authored with doctoral student, Art Fessler, containing important findings from his dissertation research, which received the 2012 Outstanding Dissertation award from the Learning and Teaching in Educational Leadership Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. This book signifies my commitment to my students’ academic growth and professional success.

The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization 
Elaine Svenouis

In the field of information and library science, on one hand, the only thing constant about technology is that it’s changing – rapidly and massively. On the other hand, the principles of information organization underlying bibliographic metadata remain steady. As I move along with those changes, the book has helped me find my coordinates.

Motivational Design for Learning and Performance: The ARCS Model Approach 
John M. Keller

The book articulates a collection of theoretical frameworks related to the design of learning engagement that has inspired and guided my teaching and research agenda for many years. Through this bookplating opportunity I would like to introduce it to my colleagues and students on campus.

Basic Writings
Chuang Tzu

I discovered this as a freshman in college and spent the next several years reading it cover to cover and back again, convinced that it contained the answers to all life’s questions. Nothing has had a greater impact on my temperament, my self-conception, and my well-being. Must be read with patience and an open mind.

The Ramayana
R. K. Narayan

I was introduced to the stories in the book first by my mother, then by television, and subsequently the book. The book provided me with a large number of role models that I have tried to emulate in my professional and personal life.

All Our Kin
Carol B. Stack

This book captures the work of insightful ethnography. Written by a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign graduate, the author shaped my own ethnographic pursuits as my graduate advisor.

My mother, Alison, sparked in me the interest in science, nature and learning that has become my profession. She also introduced me to the benefits of hard work and the pleasure of relaxing in a good book. Selecting this collection from her favorite home country poet expresses my heartfelt thanks.

The Bronze Age(Chinese Language Version)
Xiaobo Wang

The book portrays lives of the Chinese people under totalitarian rule and reveals its absurdity with audacious and vivid imagination. The book became and remains my favorite since my high school years. Today, it reminds me of my friends and family in China, their pursuit of wisdom and dignity, their humor and courage.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic 
Stephen R. Covey

I learned two humble lessons from the book. The first one is to focus my energy on the things that I can make a difference. The second is to take the time to figure out what are the important things in life.

The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences 
William J. Hardcastle, John Laver, and Fiona E. Gibbon

The Great Transformation
Karl Polanyi

This monumental contribution to political economy makes the crucial and memorable distinction between a “market society” and a society with markets. Polanyi’s insights on this difference have substantially shaped my thinking, and are worth remembering in discussions of public policy, as well in how we see our world.

Igneous Petrology 
A. R. McBirney

Written as a text for upper level undergraduate classes, this book brings the subject alive with incredible breadth of geological observations related to Earth’s magmatism. While its probably too detailed for many undergraduates, it is a treasure trove of insight from one of the best petrologists ever that has had great influence on my research.

Color Atlas of Medical Bacteriology
Luis de la Maza, Marie T. Pezzlo, Janet T. Shigei, Grace L. Tan, and Ellena M. Peterson

I feel that this reference would be helpful to medical and veterinary students as well as microbiology graduate students interested in clinical microbiology. Laboratory time is limited as are the number of organisms that can be observed first hand. Despite all the molecular methods for identification of pathogenic bacteria, the first step is recognition of suspect colonies and Gram morphology. This classical training is essential.

Where the Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak

The expanding frame of Max’s world leads him from his bedroom and his wolf suit out into the world of wild things. The thrill of this journey into the unknown is what I aspire to teach my students to love.

Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
Sarah H. Bradford

I chose this book because I am overwhelmed and amazed by Harriet Tubman’s level of resistance against slavery as seen in her quote, “I’ve got a right to death or liberty…one or other I mean to have” (excerpt from first published edition of 1869, p. 21). I want her inspirational words to be read over and over again by each new generation.

Baseball Between the Numbers; Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong 
Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts, edited by Jonah Keri

With this book, I discovered the application of the scientific method to baseball strategy. Importantly, many of the traditional baseball strategies I learned as a boy do not hold up to rigorous evaluation.

Brilliant Blunders
Mario Livio

It is difficult to chart a course in science, and sometimes even the greatest of minds can misinterpret what they observe. This book gives some interesting examples that provide lessons for scientists and insight into how science works for non-scientists.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull 
Richard Bach

Christmas in Purgatory: A Photographic Essay on Mental Retardation 
Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan

Seed Genomics
Edited by Philip W. Becraft

Seeds are key to human life, and discoveries about seed biology are of great scientific, economic, and cultural importance. This book describes one of my research areas and includes a chapter contributed by one of my graduate students, representing why I chose a career focused on science and education.

Chaos: Making a New Science
James Gleick

First popular book on the history of chaos theory. At age 15, this book helped pique my interest in science, mathematics, and the use of computers to study complex phenomena. I coded using BASIC on my Commodore 128 the recursion relation for the Mandelbrot Set and spent countless hours exploring this fractal object.

The Gangster We Are All Looking For
Lệ, Thi Diem Thúy

I love Lệ’s poetic prose. She can find life in everyday objects and pain in the places that are supposed to feel most like home.

Transport Modeling for Environmental Engineers and Scientists
Mark M. Clark

Mark Clark is a former professor of U of I. I use this textbook to teach Environmental Engineering students since I came to Illinois. I chose this book because it gives students the fundamental knowledge needed to lead environmental engineering projects in both research and practice.

Robinson Crusoe
Daniel Defoe

One of my favorite books since I was a kid.

Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts
La Tour, Bruno and Steve Woolgar

The best aspect of exploring the Library is finding the gems that are hidden in plain sight. Laboratory Life – which presents scientific facts as products of particular social environments – stunned me, and it suggests a new path forward, as the University Archives seeks to document faculty culture and life in the digital age.

Voice and Speech Training in the New Millennium: Conversations with Master Teachers 
Nancy Saklad

Nancy Saklad was the first fellow teacher to encourage and guide me in the early years of my teaching. She was my friend, colleague and mentor at a time when I needed those things most. Her book honors Voice and Speech Teachers everywhere and the great tradition of speaking for the Theater.

Protein NMR Spectroscopy: Principles and Practice
John Cavanagh, et al.

This book is the authoritative reference on modern biological nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy methodology, yet readily accessible to advanced undergraduates in the molecular sciences.

Reading for me is a means of wrestling with angels. Here I was overcome. Few books overcome me.

Wildlife in Danger
James Fisher

When I was a young boy, I discovered a copy of Wildlife in Danger in my local public library. The text and the wonderful images of endangered wildlife fostered a lifelong interest in preventing the further loss of species. The book continues to inspire me in my scientific career.

Social and ethical interpretations in mental deelopment 
James Mark Baldwin

Social psychology is in the title; and personality progresses, always developing. Ego and alter born together. Invention from imitation. Genius, play, art, moral character. Behavior as leading edge for evolution of species and society. It’s all here, irony writ large: “the socially unfit person is the person of poor judgment.”

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller 
Carlo Ginzburg

And that volume, moving, became mass, exactly like cheese comes out of milk, and there worms were born, and those were angels. A 16th Century miller tries to make sense of the universe and Ginzburg miraculously finds a way to let the subaltern speak through history. The subject of my very first lecture.

Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley
John Gaventa

Power is a complex phenomenon that is challenging to investigate empirically. Gaventa’s study shows us one way to do this, and gives insight into how power shapes not only what we do or don’t do, but what we want to or consider doing.

Young Exceptional Children Monograph Series 14: Supporting Young Children who are Dual Language Learners with or at-risk for Disabilities
Rosa Milagros Santos, Gregory A. Cheatham and Lillian Duran (co-Editors)

This monograph represents my scholarly work related to the translation of research to practice. To effectively address the most challenging issues in our society, practices should always be informed by research and vice versa. This monograph highlights that bridge between rigorous research and best practices for young Dual Language Learners with disabilities and their families.

Middletown: A Study in American Culture
Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd

In this book the Lynds capture the zeitgeist of ‘place’. I was born and raised in a central Indiana locale near Middletown (Muncie, Indiana) that shaped my core sensibilities and insights to such a degree that their book, characterizing the people and culture of a particular era, represents the fundamental heart of my creative work.

Handbook of Epictetus
Epictetus (translated by Nicholas P. White)

As a freshman at the University of Arizona, this book was my first glimpse into everything that’s so amazing about the classical world. Anybody can readily understand its content: why seeking knowledge is so important for one’s life. There couldn’t be a better introduction to whatever obsession one chooses to pursue.

The Words to Say It
Marie Cardinal

Teatrzyk Zielona Ges
Galczynski, Konstanty Ildefons

The plays in this collection disregard all known rules of drama and are intentionally unstageable. They fall somewhere between absurdism, satire, and utter nonsense, so reading them can be sweetly liberating. These plays helped me acquire an abiding fascination with the structure and sounds of Slavic languages.

Inner Peace
Paramahansa Yogananda

Great help avoiding stress of modern life.

The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
Mancur Olson, Jr.

Li’l Bastard: 128 Chubby Sonnets 
David McGimpsey

It was about noticing something held on to, with wit and ferocity, until the day is done.

Psychology of Working: A New Perspective for Career Development, Counseling & Public Policy
David L. Blustein

The individual meaning and value derived from work is often times taken for granted by those who are working and a quest for those who are not. Blustein provides a framework for understanding the how and why work is such a powerful force that contributes to individual well-being and the primary mechanism of social connectedness.

Demanding Choices: Opinion, Voting, and Direct Democracy
Shaun Bowler and Todd Donovan

I selected this book in honor of Todd Donovan, who was my undergraduate advisor and thesis director at Western Washington University. It was in his Introduction to American Politics course that I decided I wanted to be a political scientist, and this was the book that he was writing at the time.

Foundations of Fisheries
expected publication early 2014
Greg Sass and Michael Allen

This book was compiled by fisheries professionals, and represents seminal works that have defined this field. Many of these papers have influenced my research, teaching, and approach to fisheries questions.

Statistical Physics of Biomolecules: An Introduction
Daniel M. Zuckerman

A very well written book by a careful teacher and scientist making complex statistical mechanical concepts accessible to a wide range of students and researchers with interest in modern molecular sciences.

Squids Will Be Squids: Fresh Morals, Beastly Fables
Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith

I think of teaching and parenting as highly analogous. This book is about both. It renders for contemporary readers many basic truths about life, relationships, and love. When working with students, giving a lecture, or talking with my children, I think of the ideas wonderfully illustrated in this book.

Lectures on Analysis on Metric Spaces
Juha Heinonen

This book, by my advisor, introduced many to my field of research. My advisor passed away tragically in 2007 from cancer at the untimely age of 47. It is an honor to receive this promotion; it is bittersweet not to be able to share it with him. I gratefully recognize his memory with this selection.

Global Solutions of Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations
Jean Bourgain

Jean Bourgain was my postdoctoral advisor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. I read his book as a graduate student and made a lasting impression on me. This book was one of the main reasons that I decided to work on dispersive partial differential equations.

The Selected Poems of Rosario Castellanos (Palbra Sur Book)
Rosario Castellanos, translated by Magda Bogin

One of the most elegant, insightful, and enlightening theories that inspired my enthusiasm for scientific research.

The Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology: Second Edition
Leonie Huddy, David O. Sears, and Jack S. Levy