For the second year in a row, the New Brunswick Libraries and the communications department have partnered with the Office of Summer and Winter Sessions on the AuthorTalks series. This year, the Libraries will host three Rutgers faculty author events during the summer session.The authors read or discuss their book, take questions from the audience, and sign copies. Rutgers’ Office of Summer & Winter Sessions sponsors a door drawing for 10 copies and Rutgers University Bookstore is on-hand to sell books, as well.
The first event with novelist Tisha Bender took place in June and was well attended. Her book, P.U.N.C.H., is a satirical take on online learning programs in academia. Though the novel is humorous, Bender writes from a position of authority, as she is also the author of two editions of Discussion-Based Online Teaching to Enhance Student Learning: Theory, Practice, and Assessment (Stylus 2003, 2012) and has trained instructors in online teaching at the SUNY Learning Network, NYU, Cornell, the New School, and in the Writing Program at Rutgers University. She also teaches hybrid courses in the Rutgers Writing Program, and has taught online for the New School and Cornell.
The next AuthorTalks event takes place at Alexander Library on July 6, 2016 at 4:00 p.m. and will feature history professor David Greenberg, reading and discussing his new, topical book Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency. His book, arriving in time for the 2016 election, moves beyond cynicism to ask more probing questions about the convergence of politics and public relations in the Oval Office—how has spin affected the landscape of American democracy in the last century, and are we right to regard it as manipulative and deceitful?
Our final AuthorTalks event will be our very own Janet Brennan Croft discussing Perilous and Fair: Women in the Works and Life of J.R.R. Tolkien at Alexander Library on July 27 at 4 p.m. Croft takes on critics who claim the works of J. R. R. Tolkien seem either to ignore women or to place them on unattainable pedestals and focuses attention on views that interpret women in Tolkien’s works and life as enacting essential, rather than merely supportive roles.
We are delighted to partner with the Office of Summer and Winter Sessions on these events and hope you will join the fun if you are available. If you have suggestions for future AuthorTalks events, please let the communications department know.
