The Common Book Program is intended to serve as a focal point for engaging the employees of the Office of the Chancellor, both in St. Paul and at other sites, in formal and informal conversations about issues of importance that impact higher education, by offering them the opportunity to read and discuss the same book over the course of three months. The program is designed to foster communication, both structured and unstructured, regarding significant contemporary issues.
If there is a book that you have read, that you feel engages a topic which you would like discuss with us, please feel free to leave a recommendation for the book with a brief summary of the book and its topic.
Reminder. Postings are subject to System Procedure 5.22.1, Acceptable Use of Computers and Information Technology Resources.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Suggestion:
ReplyDeleteViewpoints Seventh Edition
by: W. Royce Adams
"This respected, relied-upon read is thematically organized and presents diverse perspectives on social concerns, media, human behavior, cultural differences, human rights, and other important themes and issues."
A few recommended articles include:
Forget the "Melting Pot"; Make Mine a Salad Bowl by Hannibal B. Johnson
Fish Cheeks by Amy Tan
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Viewpoints-W-Royce-Adams/dp/0547182791/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268432210&sr=8-1
I appreciate a writer who paints characters by showing us their decisions and actions. In particular I appreciated reading Marie Lazarre's struggle as a young person with the church and her personal nun. Marie showed realistic youthful indecision regarding her authority figures, but eventually came to a point of independence, although at a great price.
ReplyDeleteThis book didn't discuss the boarding schools, but those schools created life-long enmity between native people and our culture and churches in particular. This offers a sobering lesson in cultural imposition that needs to be taught and re-taught.
Although the books contains many personal stories, I didn't see them as unique to the native experience. While there is certainly a cultural backdrop for each of her characters' lives and decisions, they could be lifted out of her native context and dropped into another cultural context and replicated. Perhaps that was part of her purpose -- to show a set of common human experiences?
-- Dick McMullen
So Far I have read Chapter One and half of Chapter two. What I find fascinating so far is how interconnected each of the characters are to one another. Each character is flawed and has made mistakes in the past but they are drawn to each other and to their home, to which they return. Throughout her life June leaves and come back, King although living in the cities and has married a woman not from their community returns with his son and wife, same goes for Albertine. Their community has a strong pull on their lives. It also seems like all of the characters have an inner conflict when it comes to their community. They each act out in their own way to escape this force whether it be marring off the reservation, running away, or going to college elswhere , but yet they return, for reasons known and unknown.
ReplyDelete