William Dowling, Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature at Rutgers University, tells the story of the Rutgers 1000 group of alumni, faculty, staff, and students and their losing battle for the institution’s academic soul and intellectual integrity. In Confessions of a Spoilsport: My Life and Hard Times Fighting Sports Corruption at an Old Eastern University, Professor Dowling gives his first-hand account of the fight against commercialized college athletics at his university.

| MORE

Homeland Mythology:
Biblical Narratives in American Culture

Though the Age of Enlightenment long ago theoretically resolved the question of how religious belief can coexist with rational understanding in human affairs, debates over the appropriate place for religion in American political life continue to rage today. In his new book Homeland Mythology, NYU Professor Christopher Collins argues that no modern American presidency has more successfully injected fundamentalist Christian theology into what was once a presumptively secular democracy than President George W. Bush’s administration.

| MORE

The Art and Science of William Bartram

PA—In Charles Frazier’s 1997 National Book Award winning novel Cold Mountain the hero, Inman, begins his quest through the American south armed only with a pistol and a tattered copy of William Bartram’s Travels. Bartram’s Travels continues to be renowned as an example of early-American travel writing, as an important historical document of the American South and its native peoples, and as an essential scientific documentation of the region’s flora and fauna. The Art and Science of William Bartram recounts Bartram’s life and his famous
journey.

| MORE