The University Times welcomes information about new books, journals, plays and musical compositions written or edited by faculty and staff.

Newly published works can be submitted through this link. Please keep the book descriptions short and accessible to a general audience.

Journals should be peer-reviewed. Self-published works will not be accepted. The listings also are restricted to complete works, because individual chapters, articles, works of art and poems would be too numerous.

We’ll also be highlighting some books and book talks with connections to Pitt.

If you have any questions, please contact editor Susan Jones at suejones@pitt.edu or 412-648-4294.

Book talks

“Lighting the Fires of Freedom,” by Janet Dewart Bell (2018, The New Press)
5 p.m. Sept. 27, School of Law’s Teplitz Memorial Moot Courtroom.

Bell, a social justice activist with a doctorate in leadership and change from Antioch University in Ohio, writes about black women’s often-overlooked contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. Nine women, several now in their 90s, tell their stories about what ignited and fueled their activism. Janet Bell is the widow of School of Law graduate Derrick Bell (’57), for whom the Derrick Bell Fund for Excellence and the Derrick Bell Constitutional Law Commons in the Barco Law Library are named. 

“The Assault on National Intelligence: American National Security In An Age Of Lies” by Gen. Michael Hayden (2018, Penguin Press)
9:30-10 a.m. Oct. 1, Ridgway Center, 3930 Posvar Hall. 

Hayden, a retired Air Force four-star general and former director of the National Security Agency, will give the keynote address for the 30th anniversary of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies. It will be followed by book signing. 

“The Blues Walked In” by Kathleen George (2018, University of Pittsburgh Press)
Noon-1 p.m. Sept. 27, Hillman Library, ground floor, Cup & Chaucer

George, a professor in the Theatre Arts department and a teacher of creative writing in the English Department, will give a Literature Over Lunch Faculty Reading about her new book. “The Blues Walked In” is a fictional story with real-life Pittsburgh native Lena Horne at its center. In it, a teenage Horne befriends a Lebanese-American girl and a teen boy who helps out at her father’s hotel. Years later, the is arrested for the murder of a white man, and Lena and her friend decide they must get him out of prison — whatever the personal cost.

George is the author of seven mystery novels set in Pittsburgh and “The Johnstown Girls,” about the famous 1889 flood.

Recently published books, journals and more

“The Ship of Virtuous Ladies” (2018, Iter Press), edited and translated by Todd Reeser, professor of French, Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences.

First published in 1503 in Lyons, Symphorien Champier’s “The Ship of Virtuous Ladies” helped launch the French Renaissance version of the so-called “querelle des femmes,” the widespread debate over the nature and status of women. The text is one of the first French arguments that we might call “feminist.”  The text and critical apparatus appear for the first time in English here. 

“Old Crimes, New Scenes: A Century of Innovations in Japanese Mystery Fiction” (2018, MerwinAsia), co-edited by Charles Exley, associate professor of Japanese literature and film, Dietrich School of Arts & Science. Collaborator: Michael Tangeman, Denison University.

This collection showcases a wide range of mystery and detective fiction authors over the past 125 years, demonstrating the remarkable creativity of Japanese authors in manipulating the elements of a globally popular genre to experiment with perceived notions of the genre and to advance social critique. The anthology features a gothic spine-tingler reminiscent of Poe, a Tanizaki story cited by many authors as a singularly influential work in the genre, a down-at-the-heel workhorse of a detective, and a work that imagines a melancholic Natsume Sōseki matching wits with Sherlock Holmes. Equally divided between pre- and postwar Japan, the collection presents a more balanced survey of the history of detective fiction.

Spreadsheet Tools for Engineers, Fourth Edition (2019, McGraw Hill) by Byron Gottfried, professor emeritus, industrial engineering

This book explains how engineering and science students can carry out various technical calculations using Excel. It includes material on analyzing data, graphing data, converting units, solving algebraic equations, evaluating integrals, comparing economic alternatives, and carrying out optimization studies. This is the seventh version of Spreadsheet Tools; it was first published in 1996.

“My Running Odyssey” (2018, Daily American) by George A. Hancock, retired Pitt–Johnstown employee

This book is an account of my 45 years as a road runner. I started road running in 1973 while a UPJ student. I have run more than 102,000 miles and completed 500 road races from a 5K to a marathon. This book details how one can have a successful running program despite what hurdles marriage, a family, employment and the weather place in your path.