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English 1114 with Richard Jewell - Inver Hills Community College
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Office: Business 136 |
Rdngs. & Rsrcs. |
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On This Page
The Books & Articles à #4: Poverty, War, Children
Tips & Special Notes ↓ -------- Return to "Readings & Resources" Home Page
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How To Use This Page
Simply look at the books below and choose one. Do so soon. But you may want to wait until you have read the first assignment or two in your first required reading. Then make and order your second choice right away. Some of the books below are on 48 hr. reserve in the Library: go to the front desk and ask to see the books for "Jewell, Eng. 1108 and/or 1114." (I also have books reserved for Hum 1110 and/or Eng 2235--you do not need to look at those.) --------
Return to "Readings & Resources" Home |
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Tips & Notes on Getting Your Book
Note 1, AMAZON.COM & ABEBOOKS.COM: If you have a credit card, you sometimes can order more cheaply at www.Amazon.com or www.AbeBooks.com, especially if you have to order a larger paperbound (a "trade" book) or a hardbound. Amazon's used books seem always to be in very good condition, and credit card transactions on Amazon are very secure and safe. Remember, however, to allow for an extra $4 for postage shipping. Go to www.Amazon.com or www.AbeBooks.com, type in the book and author in the blank text box at the top beside "Go," and hit your "Enter" key (or click on "Go").
Note 2, CHOOSING SEVERAL: Instead of choosing just one of the selections below, you may mix and match. That is, you may read from two or three different sources below for the several required weeks.
Note 3, A BOOK OF YOUR OWN: Instead of reading a selection below, you may ask me for permission to use a book that you have found. However, you must show me the book itself--or a review or description of it from the Web--so I can determine whether it is sufficiently related to our class topics. Ask me in plenty of time for you to find something else if your first choice doesn't work.
Note 4, EXTRA CREDIT: In addition to reading something below as required, you may read something additional from this list for one-for-one extra credit. (For extra-credit options, see "Make-up and Extra Credit" in the ATTENDANCE page of this Web site.)
Note 5, USING A LIBRARY: You might want to use Google or Yahoo's "Find in a Library" function to get your choice of book(s) in a nearby library. See "Find in a Library" on the "Textbooks & Other Resources" page.
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Choose one or
more--all are nonfiction: ----------
Book by Journalist: In the Land of Magic Soldiers by Daniel Bergner. Large paperbound trade book.
This was one of the two options you had for the first required book. If you did not choose this book first, then you may, if you wish, choose it now.
Bergner is an award-winning journalist who travels the world writing about different political, social, and cultural dangerous or politically difficult hot spots. It has proven consistently popular among about 80-90% of students who have read it during the past several years in Eng 1114. The strengths of this book are several. It is a very factual but interesting--and sometimes horrifying--detailing of the terrible civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s and its aftermath. Bergner proves himself highly objective, even to the point of representing, as factually as he can, the words and beliefs of villagers and soldiers, rebels and government soldiers, and missionaries and mercenaries. The Sierra Leone civil war had all the features of the worst African civil wars--brutal maiming, killing, and rape; a plundered national resource (in this case, "blood" diamonds); and a variety of political viewpoints. Bergner offers a panorama view of it all. The shortcomings of the book, according to some students, are that there are almost too many people to keep track of, and Bergner also jumps from story to story, telling each one in part, then another, and still another before returning to tell more of the previous person's story. But if you are patient and, perhaps, can read it more quickly than the assignment calls for, it creates an indelible memory in your mind of what modern third-world life can be like at its worst.
Reading Assignment When Used as the First Required Reading: See the schedule of assignments each week.
Reading Assignment When Used as the Second Required Reading: Read any 30 pp.each week for three weeks. ----------
Book by Sierra Leone Child Soldier: A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Small hardbound, $22: New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publishers, 2007. Paperback available Aug. 2008.
This was one of the two options you had for the first required book. If you did not choose this book first, then you may, if you wish, choose it now. There is also a much shorter article, "I Was a Child Solider," listed below that can be read, instead, for one week's assignment.
This autobiography by a child soldier is very readable and proved popular with all six or eight 1114 students who read it in the fall term. Beah, born in 1981, was orphaned from his family and forced to become a child soldier in the 1990s in Sierra Leone's civil war. The book, while showing a lot of violence close at hand, captures the reader with its diary-like tone and the positive, upbeat, even charismatic appeal of the young man going through all these terrible experiences and then writing about them. Beah later escaped to the United States, where he received a degree from Oberlin College, which is in the same Associated Colleges of the Midwest as many Minnesota four-year colleges. His recently published book has been a bestseller of sorts, and Beah has appeared on a number of American talk shows, where he appears to still be his youthful, positive self, belying the horrors he has seen and in some cases was forced to perpetuate. This book is well worth reading.
Reading Assignment When Used as the First Required Reading: See the schedule of assignments each week.
Reading Assignment When Used as the Second Required Reading: Read any 40 pp.each week for three weeks. ----------
Book by Journalist: Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones by Greg Campbell. Publisher: Westview Press.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy per class available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some may have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
Campbell is a journalist, and he provides a well researched and documented story that is part dramatic recounting of atrocities and part description of the movement of raw diamonds during Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s. The diamonds moved, often under the cover of false or misleading papers, through a complicated network from muddy diggers working as war captives/slaves, then to rebel soldiers and international arms traders, and finally to diamond traders throughout the world who either don't want to know the source of the diamonds--or don't want to know. Campbell is, like Bergner, a journalist, and so he attempts to cover his subject matter thoroughly, honestly, and objectively; however, unlike Bergner, Campbell adds an additional layer of editorializing--it's clear he thinks the diamond trade and those who have misused it are morally wrong.
Reading Assignment: Simply choose any 25 pp.each week for three weeks. ----------
Book on Politics & Culture in Sierra Leone: The Devil that Danced on Water: A Daughter's Quest by Aminatta Forna. Publisher: London--HarperCollins, 2002.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: none. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some may have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
This heartbreaking, real-life tragedy tells how a popular politician in Sierra Leone became railroaded by the existing administration in the early decades of independence. Some people love this book. It is a way of looking at Sierra Leone from the viewpoint of one of the privileged members of its own society.
Reading Assignment: This is a long book. Simply choose any 25 pp.each week for three weeks. ----------
Book on Northern Sierra Leone Tribal Culture: In Sierra Leone by Michael Jackson. Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2004. Large (trade) paperbound.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: none. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some may have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
Jackson, a well known European ethnographer and literary writer, is a distinguished anthropologist, poet, novelist, and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen who has plied his trade of ethnography off and on for many years in Sierra Leone. This book, part biography about important political figure and "Big Man" S.B. Marah, part history, and part poetic and philosophical musing, is an inside view of how Sierra Leoneans--especially in the northern region--view themselves, their country, and their civil war. It is a more peaceful and more intellectual book than Bergner's or Campbell's, but still a very well written and interesting alternative look at Sierra Leone. However, some readers consider it somewhat depressing because of its negative portrayal of the "Big Man" system of governance through much of West Africa. (Alternatively, you're also welcome to try Jackson's earlier book The Kuranko: Dimensions of Social Reality in a West African Tribe. I know nothing about its availability or content except that it is considered an excellent ethnographic work about the Kuranko tribe in northern Sierra Leone.)
Reading Assignment: This is a long book. Simply read any 25 pp.each week for three weeks. ----------
Article Reading #1: Excerpt by Author of A Long Way Gone: "I Was a Child Soldier" by Ishmael Beah. New York Times Magazine reprint, text with pictures. Request a free copy from me (Richard). 8000 words (about 24 pp.).
This is a much shorter version of Beah's book, A Long Way Gone, one of the two books from which you could choose your first required book for this class. The article excerpts ("includes a shortened portion of") some of the most intense moments--from becoming a child soldier to actual fighting and then to being rescued--from the book itself. If you were interested in Beah's book but haven't read it, this is a good way to get a capsule summary of some of the best of it. For more details, see the description of his book, A Long Way Gone, above.
Reading Assignment: Simply read the whole 8000-w. article (the equivalent of about 25-30 pp. of his book) for one week. ----------
Article Reading #2: "US-Sierra Leone Slavery History" by Paul Davis
11-page article sent by email attachment. Request it from Richard.)
Each part of Africa has a different story to tell about the slave trade—and different parts of the world to which slaves were taken. The slave history between Sierra Leone and North Carolina is strong. Many natives from Sierra Leone and nearby countries were first sold to native-African slave traders, who then sold the slaves to white--often British—wholesalers (or to white middlemen under the control of British slavers). The slaves were then collected in two or three Sierra Leonean seaports in large groups, crammed into slave ships, and were sailed to ports in South Carolina and the Caribbean for sale to plantation owners. Slaves from the area of Sierra Leone were especially valued by South Carolinian plantation owners because Sierra Leoneans knew how to grow rice, a prize crop in South Carolina.
Reading Assignment: Read this newspaper article to complete one week of assigned reading. ----------
Article Reading #3: "Sierra Leone Travel Journal" by Richard Jewell
9000-w. Web article with 30 photos. Access it by clicking on http://www.tc.umn.edu/~jewel001/SierraLeone/TrJrRichardJ.htm.
This is my own account of how our fifteen-member, 2006 delegation to Sierra Leone felt throughout our trip, the difficulties we encountered, and the beauty and joy we experienced in spite of the hardships of what we came to call "The hardest trip you'll ever love." You'll read accounts and see pictures of the capital city, the remote villages, and the road trip between them.
Reading Assignment: Read this Web article to complete one week of assigned reading. ----------
Choose one or
more--all are nonfiction: Book about Peace Corps: Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris (Kristina) Holloway. Publisher: Waveland Press.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 3 copies per class available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
This 2007 book details Kris(tina) Holloway's powerful, interesting story of her two years in the Peace Corps in the West African country of Mali (just north of Sierra Leone) and the wonderful young village midwife, Monique, with whom she worked. Top reviewers around the U.S. call the book "tender, revelatory" (Publishers Weekly); "as compelling as any novel" (Entertainment Weekly "Pick"); and a "poignant and powerful book" (Kirkus, Starred Review). Holloway details in interesting, clear prose what it is like to live in a West African village, be in the Peace Corps, and have about the best kind of experience possible in such a situation. While the ending is tragic, it also is uplifting, making the whole an excellent, heart-warming book.
Reading Assignment: This is a longer book, though relatively easy to read. Read any 30 pp.each week for three weeks. ----------
Article about Missionary Work in Africa: "The Call" by Daniel Bergner
17-page article with photos sent by email attachment. Request it from Richard.)
Bergner, the author of In the Land of Magic Soldiers, is a freelance journalist who has travelled in and written extensively about Africa. In this article, he describes the typical life of an isolated and deeply committed family doing missionary work in a remote area of Kenya, East Africa..
Reading Assignment: Read this magazine article to complete one week of assigned reading. ----------
Article: "Policeman to the World" by Daniel Bergner
An approximate 15-page (4500-w.) article, a few photos. A physical handout. Request it from Richard.)
In this article, Bergner, author of In the Land of Magic Soldiers, describes the work of the chief United Nations security officer in Liberia, which is just southeast of Sierra Leone. The timeframe is immediately after the the Liberian Civil War. As you may remember from Magic Soldiers, Liberia and Sierra Leone's wars were closely intermingled because of the illegal diamonds-for-arms trade. If you have enjoyed reading Bergner and want more, this is a great article.
Reading Assignment: Read this magazine article to complete one week of assigned reading. ----------
Choose one or more--all are
nonfiction: Book on Peace Corps and Midwifery/Birthing/Female Medical Issues: Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris (Kristina) Holloway. Publisher: Waveland Press. See first choice under "Choices #2" above.
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Book on Women Around the World: Sisters Listening to Sisters by Peggy Andrews. Publisher: Bergin & Garvey.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: none. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: a few may have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Publisher: Bergin & Garvey. 185 pp.
The subtitle of this book is "Women of the World Share Stories of Personal Empowerment." It has sections on empowerment in the areas of economics, politics, body and self, and religions. Each section starts with a chapter introducing the subject and then has four more chapters telling real stories of women from four geographical areas: Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States.
Reading Assignment: Wk. 1: Read the Africa chapters, Chapters 1, 3, 8 13, & 18. Wk. 2: read any additional 25 pp. Wk. 3: Read another 25 pp. ----------
Book on Rape: Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery by Patricia Weaver Francisco. Publisher: Cliff Street Book/HarperPerennial.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy per section available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some will have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies may be cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
War is increasingly, in our times, also about rape: rape of inducted teenage "soldier wives," rape of village and town females, and rape for the purpose of impregnating one ethnic group with the heirs of another. While Patricia Weaver Francisco's book is not about wartime rape, it describes her own rape in Minneapolis and her recovery. Like any survivor of wartime rape or other profound violence--and in very similar ways--she was changed forever. Weaver, a popular Twin Cities literary and children's author, moves back and forth between the past and the present, seeking to understand and account for what was done to her and how she responded. It is one of the most personal, real, and direct accounts available by a rape survivor.
Reading Assignment: This book is 222 pp. long and reads easily, like a story. Simply choose any 35-40 pp. each week for three weeks. ----------
Book on Rape: Lucky by Alice Sebold. Publisher: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheaper. IHCC Bookstore: 3 copies per section available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some will have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
As mentioned in the entry above, war often is also about rape: rape of inducted teenage "soldier wives," rape of village and town females as punishment, rape as a sport of war or as its reward, and rape for the purpose of ruining destroying bloodlines by impregnating one ethnic group with the heirs of another. While Alice Sebold's book is not about wartime rape, it describes her own rape and recovery. Reviewers call it "inspirational," even "exhilarating," "ironic" and "nervy" (Francine Prose, Elle magazine); "stunningly crafted and unsparing" (Kirkus Reviews); and "gruesome and strangely enchanting" (Newsday). Newsday adds, "The quiet achievement of Sebold's memoir of her rape as a college freshman is that she handles her subject with the integrity of a journalist and the care of a survivor."
Reading Assignment: This book is 243 pp. long and reads easily, like a story. Simply choose any 35-40 pp. each week for three weeks. ----------
Web Pages on Female Genital Mutilation in Africa: (Read/skim all 3 Web pages for just one of your weekly assignments.) Beware: it is difficult to read/view some of these materials.
)1) http://www.fgmnetwork.org/Lightfoot-klein/prisonersofritual.htm.
"Prisoners
of Ritual: Some Contemporary Developments in the History of Female Genital Mutilation"
by Hanny Lightfoot-Klein.
"This paper was presented at the Second
International Symposium on Circumcision in
(2) http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;102/1/153. "Female
Genital Mutilation."
(3) http://www.religioustolerance.org/fem_cirm.htm.
(Viewpoint
from Islamic beliefs.) "Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in
Reading Assignment: Read all three of these Web articles to complete one week of assigned reading. ----------
Book on Female Genital Mutilation: Warrior Marks by Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar. Publishers: Hardbound--Scribner's; Softbound--Back Bay Books/Little, Brown.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: No copies. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: Even used copies may be expensive (I paid $30 for mine); add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple and is considered one of our best American novelists. She has studied the subject of female genital mutilation and, in this nonfiction book, she and journalist Pratibha Parmar make the subject come alive by interviewing women who have been circumcised and the older women who perform the "ritual"--almost always on young girls. Beware: it is difficult to read some of these materials.
Reading Assignment: This book is 374 pp. long and is about the filming of a
documentary video. The back section has interviews with women involved in female
circumcision. Please read the following: 2nd Wk.: Read middle third of pp. 255-350. 3rd Wk.: Read final third of pp. 255-350. ----------
Choose one or more--all are
nonfiction: Book on Third-World Development: The End of Poverty--Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs; foreword by Bono. Available in both large (trade) paperbound and hardbound, 383 pp.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheaper. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy per section available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: most should have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
Time magazine considers Sachs one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He has personally had a hand in helping to alleviate hunger and poverty in a number of undeveloped countries throughout the world. In this New York Times bestseller, he describes how and why the world can eliminate most poverty in two decades--just as the United States did so after the Great Depression in the 1930s. The London Economist says, "Book and man are brilliant, passionate, optimistic and impatient.... Outstanding."
Reading Assignment: This is a book dense with facts (and long). Simply choose any 20 pp. each week for three weeks. ----------
Book on Why World's Societies Developed at Different Rates: Guns, Germs, and Steel--The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. Available in both large (trade) paperbound and hardbound, 494 pp.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheaper. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy per section available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: most should have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
This book won the Pulitzer Prize. In addition, the author has won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellowship and a National Medal of Science award. The New Yorker says, "The scope and the explanatory power of this book are astounding." According to Paul Ehrlich, the book "is a brilliantly written, passionate, whirlwind tour through 13,000 years of history on all the continents.... The origins of empires, religion, writing, crops, and guns are all here. [T]he book demolishes the grounds for racist theories of history. Its account of how the modern world was formed is full of lessons for our own future. After reading the first two pages, you won't be able to put it down." It gives detailed meaning to the fact that cultures in all continents and nations are equal in their citizens' intelligence, hard work, and love, but by virtue of location, resources, and timing, some have had much more difficult situations in which to develop as a people than have others.
Reading Assignment: This is a book dense with facts (and long). Simply choose any 20 pp. each week for three weeks. ----------
Book: War--The Lethal Custom by Gwynne Dyer. Available in both large (trade) paperbound and hardbound, 484 pp. Older version, 1985; revised/updated version 2005.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheaper. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: most should have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. When you check it out from a library or buy a used copy, be sure you know whether you want the older (1985) edition or the newer, revised (2005) edition.
Dyer, who served in the Canadian, British, and American navies and received a PhD. in military history from the University of London, won a Columbia University School of Journalism Award for the 1985 version of this book. It also became a seven-part television series, an episode of which was nominated for an Academy Award. Find the revised and updated 2005 version, which has both the 1985 materials, revised, and new discussions of 9-11 and the global fight against terrorism. Some people consider this book the best available in popular form on the history of war and its meaning for humankind.
Reading Assignment: This is a book dense with facts (and long). Simply choose any 20 pp. each week for three weeks. ----------
Book: Children at War by P.W. Singer. Available in large (trade) paperbound. 264 pp. (but there are only 211 pp. of regular reading text--the rest is footnotes). 2006. Publisher: University of California Press.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheaper. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: most should have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
This is a harrowing book detailing how children have become a major part of a majority of wars throughout the world, especially in third world countries. Children as young as six and seven can now learn to dismantle, clean, and load an AK-47 machine gun or grenade launcher; more importantly, advances in weaponry have made such weapons so light that even young children can carry them through long marches and into battle. Children also are more easily brainwashed and frightened into fighting and, in battle, they have much less sense of danger to themselves, hence they make excellent--and easily directed--soldiers. This book details the many ways they are controlled, abused, and cheaply expended. This is not a book for the weak in spirit, but it offers important insights into today's wars and conditions for children in poor countries and other countries at war, including Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, South and Central America, and even southeast Europe.
Reading Assignment: This is a book dense with facts. Simply choose any 20 pp. each week for three weeks. ----------
Book about a Child Soldier: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. See above, in first two listed books. ----------
Book on Cambodian Genocide: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. Available in large (trade) paperbound. 242 pp. (but there's only 211 pp. of regular reading text--the rest is footnotes). 2000. Publisher: HarperCollins.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade" size) is cheaper. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy available. 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: large ones will have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
This book is the author's own story of how she, as a daughter and sister beginning at the age of five, was forced with her family to flee Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. She was trained as a child soldier in a work camp, her siblings were sent to labor camps, and she and two million other Cambodians--roughly one-fourth of the country's population--were ruthlessly and systematically killed or worked and starved to death over a period of five years. This is a modern genocide about which many people know nothing.
Reading Assignment: Please read the following: 1st Wk.: See "Author's Note," p. xi; "Family Chart," p. xiii; map, p xv; and pictures between pp. 110 and 111. Then read at least 25 pp. Wk 2., read at least 25 pp. more. Wk. 3, read at least 25 pp. more. ----------
Choose one or
more--all are nonfiction: Book by Concentration Camp Teenager: Night by Elie Wiesel ("vee-zel")
The small paperback size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: Required as first book in Eng 1108; 3 copies in bookstore per Eng 1114 class. (1114 class in Fall '08 only: if you can't find it on the Eng 1114-03 store shelf, check the Eng 1108-15 shelf for leftover copies.) 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: a commonly found book; IH Library has a long-term checkout copy. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
This is a classic Jewish Holocaust autobiography. Wiesel ("vee-zel") was just a young teenager when he and his family were sent to the concentration camps, where he lived with his father. Both were laborers in the camps. Night is a detailed, moving, and sometimes depressing account of how Wiesel came of age in the camps. Wiesel also is a Nobel Peace Prizewinner, in part because of his celebrated writings and in part because of his lifelong efforts to make people understand more about the Holocaust.
Reading Assignment: For Eng 1114, read 1/3rd of this book each week for three weeks. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) ----------
Book by College-Educated Concentration Camp Laborer: Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi. Publisher: several.
Find whatever is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 6 copies per Eng 1108 class; 2 copies per Eng 1114 class. (Fall '08 only: find this book on the Eng 1108-15/Jewell bookstore shelf). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: a commonly found book. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
This is yet another classic Jewish Holocaust autobiography. Levi, a 25-year-old Italian chemist, was arrested in Italy and shipped to Germany. It is, according to the back back of the book, a "classic account of his ten months in theGerman death camp, a harrowing story of systematic cruelty and miraculous endurance." It is at once more intellectual yet just as basic in its own way as Wiesel's account. Some people consider Levi one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He tells this story in narrative form, step by step. Reading Assignment: Before starting, look at the picture on p. 1, the two maps just before it, and the picture on p. 71. Then read as follows, depending on your course. (There are seventeen chapters—you don’t have to read them all.) Eng 1108 (Comp I): Wk. 1: Chap. 1, "The Journey,” through Chap. 2, “On the Bottom.” Wk. 2: Chap. 3, “Initiation,” through Chap. 5, “Our Nights.” Wk. 3: Chap. 6, “The Work,” through Chap. 8, "This Side of Good and Evil." Wk. 4: Ch. 9, "The Drowned and the Saved," through Chap. 11, “The Canto.” Eng 1114 (Comp
II): Wk. 1: Read Ch. 1, "The Journey," through Ch. 4,
"Ka-Be." Wk. 2: Read Ch. 5, "Our Nights," through Ch. 8, "This
Side of Good and Evil." Wk. 3: Read Ch. 9, "The Drowned and the
Saved," through Ch. 12, "The Events of the Summer." (Note:
If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me
or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this
book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.)
Book by Concentration Camp Inmate-Doctor: Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Note: you may NOT use this book if you took Eng. 1108 from me (because it was assigned in 1108).
The small paperback size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 4 copies per Eng 1108 class; 2 copies per Eng 1114 class. (Fall '08 only: find this book on the Eng 1108-15/Jewell bookstore shelf). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 2 copies. Libraries and Bookstores in General: a commonly found book; IH Library has a long-term checkout copy. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies are cheap, but add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
This book, like Wiesel's and Levi's, is a powerful, classic autobiography by a Jew about the Jewish Holocaust. The book details Frankl's different true stories from his stay in concentration camps. Unlike Wiesel and Levi, Frankl had already established a very successful career in his mid-adult years--as a Vienna psychiatrist. In addition, he generally worked as a doctor rather than a laborer, under conditions that were nevertheless horrible. His story is more incidental--a collection of different events, with each section focusing on a feeling or attitude--and is not only more intellectual, like Levi's, but also offers more of an overall psychological theory about survival in the camps. Frankl also has a stronger message of hope.
Reading Assignment: Eng 1108 (Comp I): Divide it into four readings: 1st and 2nd half of "Part I," and the 1st and 2nd half of "Part II." Eng 1114 (Comp II): Read the first half of "Part I" in the first week, and the second half of "Part I" in the second week. Then read "Part II" in the third week. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) ----------
Book by Prison Worker in Nazi Gas Chambers: Eyewitness Auschwitz by Filip Muller. Publisher: Ivan R. Dee.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 3 copies per Eng 1108 class; 1 copy per Eng 1114 class. (Fall '08 only: find this book on the Eng 1108-15/Jewell bookstore shelf). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies may or may not be cheap; add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
This book is what the front cover says is “a very detailed description of day-to-day life…in Hell’s inmost circle” by a Eastern European Jewish camp inmate who worked in the actual gassing chambers and cremation area for three years at the most famous Nazi concentration camp. He was 20 years old when he arrived and, after liberation, was unable to return to normal work for eight years.
Reading Assignment: Before starting, look at the five maps and the “Glossary” in the very back. Then read as follows, depending on your course: Eng 1108 (Comp I): any 25 pp. per week for four weeks. Eng 1114 (Comp II): any 30 pp. per week for three weeks. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) ----------
Book by Young Upper-Middle Class Wife Interned in Concentration Camps: Five Chimneys by Olga Lengyel. Publisher: Academy Chicago.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 5 copies per Eng 1108 class; 1 copy per Eng 1114 class. (Fall '08 only: find this book on the Eng 1108-15/Jewell bookstore shelf). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies may or may not be cheap; add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
Lengyel’s book, subtitled “A Woman Survivor’s True Story of Auschwitz,” is about how she, a young, beautiful wife of a hospital director, survived after her family was killed and she was interned in Birchenau and Auschwitz, two of the most famous Nazi concentration camps. The New Yorker calls it a surprisingly dispassionate account of life in the Nazi murder camps…and the mentality of the persons who administered it.” Other reviewers on the cover call the book “a stark account…vividly articulated,” “a picture of utter hell,” and “passionate, tormenting.”
Reading Assignment: Before starting, look at the “Glossary” in the very back. Then read as follows, depending on your course: Eng 1108 (Comp I): Wk. 1: Chapters I-II. Wk. 2: Chapters III-VI. Wk. 3: Chapters VII-X. Wk. 4: Chapters XI-XV. Eng 1114 (Comp II): Read any 25-30 pp. per week for three weeks. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) ----------
Book about Nazi Doctor Running “Experiments” in Concentration Camps: Children of the Flames by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel. Publisher: Penguin.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 6 copies per Eng 1108 class; 2 copies per Eng 1114 class. (Fall '08 only: find this book on the Eng 1108-15/Jewell bookstore shelf). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies may or may not be cheap; add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
This book is about infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele who ran horrible experiments on Jewish inmates in the concentration camp Auschwitz, such as making them stand in freezing water,cutting out their body organs to see how long it took them to die, and tortures even worse. The book is a nonfiction recounting in story form of Mengele and his experiments with twins by a journalist who interviewed countless subjects and by the wife of one such subject. It exposes the so-called “scientific” research by Nazis on concentration camp inmates not only as inhumane but also ineffective and poorly done.
Reading Assignment: Before starting, look at the eight pp. of pictures in the middle and glance at the “Dramatis Personae”—list of people in the book—on pp. 19-22. Then see the “Contents” on p. 17 and read as follows, depending on your course: Eng 1108 (Comp I): Don’t read the “Preface” (unless it’s on your own time). Wk. 1: “Prologue”-Chap. 1. Wk. 2: Chap. 2. Wk. 3: Chap. 3. Wk. 4: Chap. 4. Eng 1114 (Comp II): Wk. 1: “Prologue”-Chap. 1. Wk. 2: Chap. 2-3a (end at middle of Chap. 3). Wk. 3: Chap. 3b-4. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) ----------
Book by Young Seamstress about Nazi Work Camps: The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara (Seren) Tuvel Bernstein. Publisher: Berkley.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 4 copies per Eng 1108 class; 1 copy per Eng 1114 class. (Fall '08 only: find this book on the Eng 1108-15/Jewell bookstore shelf). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: some have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies may or may not be cheap; add $4 postage; allow 2 wks. Note: you may NOT use this book if you read it in Eng. 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term.
As teenagers, Sara (known then as “Seren”), her sister, and her friends were taken to Ravensbruck concentration camp, the only Jewish girls there in a Gentile women’s prison camp where many died. Library Journal calls this account “unpretentious…vivid” and Booklist says, “This compelling saga is told in a warm and heartfelt manner.” The book is an account of all of Bernstein’s war years, moving here and there, often working for Nazis as a seamstress. The assignments below cover primarily her period in the concentration camp.
Reading Assignment: Before starting, look at the picture on p. 1, the two maps just before it, and the picture on p. 71. Then read as follows, depending on your course: Eng 1108 (Comp I): Wk. 1: pp. 195-233. Wk. 2: pp. 234-264. Wk. 3: pp. 265-294 (or any other 30 pp.). Wk. 4: pp. 295-328 (or any other 30 pp.). Eng 1114 (Comp II): Wk. 1: pp. 195-233. Wk. 2: pp. 234-264. Wk. 3: pp. 265-294 (or any other 30 pp.). (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) ----------
Book by Young Survivor of Cambodian Genocide: First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung. Publisher: Harper.
The wide, tall paper-bound ("trade") size is cheapest. IHCC Bookstore: 1 copy available per section (but if you're in Eng 1108, look in the Eng 1114/Jewell section of the bookstore shelves). 3-hr. Reserve at Desk of IH Library: 1 copy. Libraries and Bookstores in General: many have it. Amazon.com w/credit card: used copies may be cheap; add $4 postage; allow 2 wks.
The Denver Post calls this “an important book…a harrowing book, a book you will read through tears.” In the late 1970’s, after the end of the War in Vietnam, in next-door Cambodia the ruling party killed some two million Cambodians, almost a fourth of the population in one of the most extensive genocides of modern times. Ung recounts her story of those years, starting from age five when she and her family lived in the capital and her father was a privileged, high-ranking government official. Ung’s family had to flee and disperse with the arrival of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army. Ung was trained as a child soldier, and her siblings were sent to labor camps. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.)
Reading Assignment: Before starting, look at the picture on the back cover; the Author’s Note, p. xi; the Family Chart, p. xiii; Map, p. xv; and pictures, pp. 1110-111. Then read as follows, depending on your course: Eng 1108 (Comp I): Read any 25 pp./wk. for four weeks. Eng 1114 (Comp II): Read any 30 pp./wk. for three weeks. (Note: If you are in Eng 1114 and you have already read this book in Eng 1108 with me or for any other course during the past or present term, you cannot use this book now for your second reading in Eng 1114.) |
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Most recent update of this page: 1 Aug. 2008
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or "richardjewell" to find a link to this site. Images courtesy of IHCC, Barry's Clip Art, Clip Art Warehouse, Clip Art Universe, Clipart Collection, MS Clip Art Gallery and Design Gallery Live, School Discovery, and Web Clip Art First date of publication: January 1, 2005. Graphics
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