Yale Bulletin and Calendar

November 15, 2002|Volume 31, Number 11

The Yale-China Association's century-long legacy of work in China is recounted in a new book by Nancy Chapman and Jessica Plumb.

Yale Books in Brief

The following is a list of books recently or soon-to-be published by members of the Yale community. Descriptions are based on material provided by the publishers.

To submit information about books for this column, send e-mail to opa@yale.edu.

The Yale-China Association: A Centennial History
Nancy E. Chapman, executive director of the Yale-China Association, with Jessica C. Plumb
(The Chinese University Press )

The product of extensive research of archived records and numerous first-hand interviews in both China and the United States, this book details the Yale-China Association's century-long legacy of work in China. From its earliest years at the close of the Qing dynasty through wars, revolutions and the modern era of reform, Yale-China's history was interwoven with China's own journey to find its place in the world.The book includes nearly 300 photographs that document Yale's involvement in China. In the book's foreword, Yale historian Jonathan D. Spence said, "Reading this absorbing history, and pondering its rich range of illustrations, I felt a genuine sense of elation over the flexibilities of the human spirit."

Women's Fitness Program Development
Ann F. Cowlin, assistant clinical professor at the School of Nursing and instructor of physical education
(University of California Press)

"Women's Fitness Program Development" introduces a new model for women's health and fitness based on Ann F. Cowlin's belief that the exercise needs of women differ from those of men.The book is divided into four sections covering women at different stages of life: Adolescence, Pregnancy, Postpartum Period and Menopause. In each section, Cowlin suggests how to set exercise goals and priorities and provides instructions for exercises. The book contains 60 photos illustrating appropriate exercises and positions for women at these various stages of life. Cowlin, a fitness expert with more than 30 years experience and the founder of the Dancing Through Pregnancy exercise class for pre- and postnatal women, also includes in her book detailed explanations of contraindications for exercise and conditions requiring assessment.

The Biochemical Basis of Neuropharmacology
Jack R. Cooper, professor emeritus and senior research scientist in pharmacology; Robert H. Roth Jr., professor of psychiatry and of pharmacology; and Floyd E. Bloom
(Oxford University Press)

This book, now published in its eight edition, is considered a classic introductory text on neurotransmitters, their role in nervous system function and their involvement in the mechanisms of psychiatric drug action. The book has served for three decades as a guide for students of neuroscience and psychopharmacology. The new edition devotes more space to clinical examples, subclasses of receptors that provide targets for new drugs, molecular genetics, the major problem of drug delivery to the brain and the growing recognition of nictinic receptors in the brain and their possible involvement in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

Hazmat
J.D. McClatchy, editor of The Yale Review and professor (adjunct) of English
(Alfred A. Knopf)

The title of J.D. McClatchy's fifth book of poetry is the abbreviation for "hazardous material," and this collection of poetry has as its theme the "hazmat" of the human body. His poem "Tattoos," for example, meditates on why people decorate the body's surface, while such works as "Cancer," "Feces" and "Jihad" offer varying perspectives on how humans live with the fact that they will eventually die. The Knopf publication catalog says of the Yale poet and editor, "Holding up a powerful poetic mirror, McClatchy shows us our very selves in a chilling series of images: the melodrama of the body being played out, as it must be, in the theater of the spirit." Drawing on McClatchy's own words, a critic for the Library Journal described the collection by saying, "Hazmat possesses a sense of grief, which 'sinks its sorrow deep within and through its own life.' In the end, these poems come to represent our own lives, our own longings, our own 'flag of surrender' to the spiritual."

Death Is That Man Taking Names: Intersections of American Medicine, Law, and Culture
Robert A. Burt, the Alexander M. Bickel Professor of Law
(University of California Press)

In this account of the psychological and social forces underlying American cultural attitudes toward death, Robert A. Burt suggests that despite growing legal acceptance of terminally ill patients' "right to die," a contrary attitude persists in American culture that sees death as inherently evil in both practical and moral terms. Burt argues that reforms in the past several decades attempting to give patients greater control of their own destinies in regard to death -- by refusing medical treatment or via physician-assisted suicide -- suppress ambivalent attitudes toward death. He likens the reform efforts concerning patients' right to die to judicial reforms in the 1970s of abortion and capital punishment, which, he maintains, also disregarded cultural ambivalence toward death. That unacknowledged ambivalence, Burt argues, is likely to undermine the beneficent goals of post-1970s reforms and harm the very people these changes were intended to help.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Yale revises early admissions policy

Koerner Center will serve as a 'focal point' . . .

$11 million grant to fund center's work on autism

Facility offers resources and a gathering place for graduate students

Former trade representative champions open markets

Graduate student Jun Saito wins a seat in Japanese Parliament

Yale artist tackles dirt and death in new projects

Fact feeds fiction in Yale alumnus' play 'Fighting Words'

Researchers create artificial 'light switch' to regulate genes

Display looks at 'Rocks, Gems and the Yale Seal'

Conference to focus on adolescents' alcohol, tobacco use

Yale staff consulted for soon-to-air PBS series . . .

Graduate student to discuss Lyndon Johnson biography

Honoring Yale's veterans

Yale Books in Brief