Humanities

Summer 2018

Briefly noted

A Day in the Life of a Country Vet

Fred Newschwander ’74 DVM

2018

Mostly true stories, anecdotes, and illustrations about the animals and people from the life and career of a retired mixed animal veterinarian.

Notes in the Category of C: Reflections on Laboratory Animal Care and Use

Steven Niemi ’82 DVM

Academic Press: 2017

Niemi’s professional analysis and experience informs ways to improve laboratory animal care and use. His book characterizes the current state of the industry and speculates on its long-term future. Niemi, director of the Office of Animal Resources at Harvard University, has spent a lot of time in … » More …

Spring 2018

Briefly noted

On the Arctic Frontier: Ernest Leffingwell’s Polar Explorations and Legacy

Janet R. Collins

WSU Press: 2017

Arctic explorer and geologist Ernest deKoven Leffingwell(1875–1971) helped determine the edge of the continental shelf—the first solid evidence that searching for land north of Alaska was likely futile. He also left detailed, accurate maps of Alaska’s northeast coast, groundbreaking permafrost studies, and charted the geology and wildlife of the region. Collins, a Western Washington University librarian intrigued by Leffingwell’s work, reveals a relatively unknown, meticulous, and detailed explorer devoted to the Arctic.

Re-Awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry: Fifty Years of Basketry Studies in Culture and Science

Ed … » More …

Spring 2018

Losing Eden: An Environmental History of the American West

Sara Dant ’91 MA, ’00 PhD

Wiley: 2017

The 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition welcomed millions of people to Chicago to celebrate the rise of industrial America, the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ arrival on the continent, and the romanticization of the “frontier” West. Historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented his thesis that the western advance into a wild and savage frontier defined the American spirit, and … » More …

Spring 2018

At Home with Ernie Pyle

Edited by Owen V. Johnson ’68

Indiana University Press: 2016

A glimpse into the life and times of American journalist and Indiana favorite son Ernie Pyle, as seen through an extensive collection of Pyle’s folksy newspaper columns stretching from his student days in 1921 until his death by sniper fire during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.

The homespun Hoosier, as Pyle was known, grew up in small-town … » More …

Spring 2018

Video: Ancient warriors in glass forts

Watch the legend of Grimsa, daughter of a mighty Viking chieftain, and her death at Broborg hillfort.

The video also tells the history and construction techniques of the unique glass-fused rocks of Broborg. Read more about that glass in “Fires burned, cauldrons bubble.”

Winter 2017

Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast through Cross-Cultural Marriages

Candace Wellman ’68

WSU Press: 2017

Clara Tennant Selhameten was born the daughter of Lummi tribal leader in what became Whatcom County, and eventually married John Tennant, the son of a famous Methodist minister around 1859. Tennant established the first permanent farm in the region, on Lummi land. In later years, she and John traveled as missionaries and built many churches. It was clear that the couple were true partners in both spiritual … » More …

Winter 2017

Briefly noted

Untold Stories: Forty Years of Field Research on Root Diseases of Wheat

By R. James Cook

American Phytopathological Society Press: 2017

Throughout the compelling stories and personal experiences shared by Jim Cook, a retired research plant pathologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and emeritus professor of plant pathology at Washington State University, readers can find practical crop management techniques and other beneficial information that can be used in the field and the lab. Cook also chronicles many of his insightful experiences—and imparts his philosophy, wisdom, and practical guidance.

Living on the Edge: Adventures of a Hunter

By Shannon L. … » More …

Winter 2017

Ethics and effectiveness in medicine

“Can you be an effective physician without also being an ethical physician?” That’s the question students in the inaugural class of the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State University faced for the first time on day two of classes. They’ll revisit it regularly as they make their way towards the MD degree and entry into a profession that has, many bioethicists and physicians believe, an ethic built right into it. To say that there is an ethic internal to medicine is to say that certain kinds of moral responsibilities are built right into what it means to be a part of … » More …

Winter 2017

Homer on a flash drive

Plato is sitting at the feet of his mentor Socrates, writing down what the old philosopher says. What Socrates is saying, ironically, is that writing is bad for you: It rots your memory. Preserved in Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates’s opinion of the then-emerging technology sounds strange to us now—until you recall that that’s pretty much exactly what pundits in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have been saying about TV, video games, and texting.

Dene Grigar, director of Washington State University Vancouver’s program in Creative Media and Digital Culture, laughs and nods. She’s also the president of the Electronic Literature Organization, an international team of scholars and … » More …

Winter 2017

Lit Bits: Electronic literature on the web

“Redshift & Portalmetal” by Micha Cárdenas. Your planet is dying. You have an apparent choice: travel to the Ice Planet and start over, or stay and try to help. Every layer of this piece is rich with video, audio, and a textual narrative that triangulates between science fiction, philosophy, and a sort of future-tending Romanticism.

High Muck a Muck: Playing Chinese, an Interactive Poem was created and conceived by the High Muck a Muck Collective. You enter this gorgeously illustrated and written story by clicking on a lottery card–an appropriate visual metaphor for taking your chances on a narrative that determines itself as … » More …