The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany

By Pamela D. Toler, AM’81, PhD’03; Beacon Press, 2024

Sigrid Schultz was the Chicago Tribune’s Berlin bureau chief and primary foreign correspondent for Central Europe from 1925 to 1941. At a time when it was rare for women to write feature news stories, she reported on Hitler’s rise to power and was one of the first journalists to warn Americans of the dangers of Nazism. Pamela D. Toler uncovers Schultz’s work in Europe, in particular highlighting her critique of Nazi press manipulation.

For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus: A Novel

By Varun Gauri, AB’88; Washington Writers’ Publishing House, 2024

Meena is a highly educated and well-traveled business consultant turned educator from Delhi, and Avi is an Indian American attorney who has moved back to his small Ohio hometown, Southgate, to run for local political office. At the start of Varun Gauri’s debut novel, they decide to enter into an arranged marriage. Despite sharing a modern outlook and similar values, Avi and Meena get off to a rocky start as they learn about one another and adjust to life in Southgate. But when Avi’s political opponent launches a racist campaign, they must work together to defend the Indian American community in their small town.

Left Turns in Brown Study

By Sandra Ruiz, AB’99; Duke University Press, 2024

In lyrical essays, memoir, and poetry, Sandra Ruiz weaves together study and mourning. She puts forward “brown study” as an emancipatory practice and an experiment in theory and aesthetics, based in the citation of Black and Brown activists and thinkers and a repetition of language. Giving voice to ghosts, departed family members and teachers, and victims of institutional and colonial violence, Ruiz arrives at an understanding of Brownness as holding collective grief but also offering new utopian possibilities of being, thinking, and writing together.

Follow Your Bliss and Other Lies About Calling

By Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, AM’80, PhD’86; Oxford University Press, 2024

Popular conversations about following one’s calling can be overly simplistic, argues Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore. In reality, she says, pursuing meaning and passion is not simply a matter of doing what you love or following God’s will. Seeking meaningful work and sticking with it is a complex and often painful process, requiring one to negotiate obstacles like financial constraints, expectations from family members, and conflicting vocations. Bringing together religious studies and psychology, Miller-McLemore explores how a calling can shift over time as one navigates such challenges. She argues that it is through confronting these forces that one gains greater insight and fulfillment in a vocation.

The Anti–Civil Rights Movement: Affirmative Action as Wedge and Weapon

By Mike Steve Collins, AM’89; University Press of Kansas, 2024

Conservative elites have worked for the past several decades to dismantle civil rights in the United States, says Mike Steve Collins; their efforts came to a head in the June 2023 Supreme Court decision that effectively ended affirmative action in higher education. The activists behind the anti–civil rights movement, Collins argues, rely on strategies intended to divide those who might otherwise be united by shared interests. He offers readers an in-depth guide to the personalities, funds, and questions animating the battle over civil rights.