“Publication” Class Notes

Hajar Yazdiha (Col ’05) has published The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement with Princeton University Press.

In the post–civil rights era, wide-ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960s, from people with disabilities to women’s rights activists and LGBTQ coalitions. Increasingly since the 1980s, white, right-wing social movements, from family values coalitions to the alt-right, now claim the collective memory of civil rights to portray themselves as the newly oppressed minorities. The Struggle for the People’s King reveals how, as these powerful groups remake collective memory toward competing political ends, they generate offshoots of remembrance that distort history and threaten the very foundations of multicultural democracy, fracturing our collective understanding of who we are, how we got here, and where we go next.

Alden Abbott (Col ’74 CM) has published Trade, Competition and Domestic Regulatory Policy, coauthored with Shanker Singham. 

Trade, Competition and Domestic Regulatory Policy presents a combination of analysis of both international trade and investment policies, and competition and regulatory policies. This book contains a detailed treatment of how property rights protection, including intangible property rights, is a critical element of ensuring open trade and competitive markets. The book examines how property rights have developed over time and how they have been integrated into trade and competition policy, all while providing a comprehensive analysis of international trade theory and other failures to protect various kinds of property rights. 

Rusty Allen (Col ’81 CM) has published his debut novel, Ella’s War, a journey amongst women and men whose lives are deeply altered by the circumstances of WWII.  

It’s 1943 on the American home front, and Ella’s pent-up common-law husband finally decides to leave their farm and enlist. Ella must either depart their seafaring town in coastal Delaware to pursue other dreams inland or try to save their farm. Their grade-school son, Reese, won’t budge, and Ella sees that farmers have a patriotic duty to stay on the land.

The bay and ocean waters before them have been preyed upon by German U-boats, and their village has become a refuge for survivors. When an officer from a surrendered German submarine is sent to her as part of POW farm labor, can Ella embrace the help in order to survive? And what happens when Dieter becomes more than a hand to her, amid prying eyes and under her beloved but conflicted son’s watch? How will she choose when her explosive husband returns from Europe wounded from infantry duty against the Germans?

“Beautifully wrought, heart stopping, spirit lifting…. What a human brew!”
     –– Ron Suskind (Col ’81) Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Hope in the Unseen

Allen lives in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and can be reached through his website: www.rustyallenauthor.com

Mary P Harper (Educ ’75) has published her memoir, The Sound of Her Voice: My Blind Parents’ Story, which examines the challenges faced by both of her parents as they navigated life without sight. Her father was the first blind graduate of the Notre Dame University Law School, practiced law, and was elected Judge three times. Her mother raised four sighted children and ran the household. Kirkus Reviews called it “an inspiring story that avoids becoming saccharine…”

Richard E. Katholi (Med ’68 CM) has published Reflections Off a Vietnamese Moon: In Country or Boots on the Ground, a book about his experiences in Vietnam. Katholi recounts the year (1970-1971) he cared for patients in a war zone, describes the day-to-day outpatient care of troops, as well as the comprehensive military network of medical care provided by MASH units. The book title was inspired by how he reflected thoughts off the moon at night when he was walking back to his living quarters. 

Richard F. McGonegal (Grad ’75) has published The Forget-Me-Knot, a mystery novel. His book is the third in the Sheriff Francis Hood mystery series, preceded by Sense of Grace and Ghoul Duty.

McGonegal received a Master’s degree in English literature at UVA in 1975, where he was a student in Peter Taylor’s creative writing class. He and his wife, Kristie, live in Jefferson City, Missouri, and are the parents of two adult daughters, Heather and Jane.

Anthony J. Romanello (Col ’92 CM) has recently published The Girl Who Lived on the Third Floor, the story of how his fifth child came to live with their family.  All book proceeds go to Hope Tree Family Services, Inc. 

Anne Holub (Col ’99) has published her first chapbook of poetry, 27 Threats to Everyday Life. The poetry book was a semi-finalist in the press’ New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition, and the collection includes the poem “Mudslides,” which was chosen as runner-up in the 2021 Mountain West Writers Contest by the Western Humanities Review. After attending UVA, Anne earned a MA from Hollins University and a MFA from the University of Montana in creative writing. She now writes and lives in Montana. 

Dr. William T. “Bill” Sheahan, MD (Engr ’81, Med ’85 CM) has published A Doc Who Jots: The More you Know About Your Patient’s Story, his fourth collection of unique, uplifting or funny patient encounters. Proceeds will be donated to the Fisher House Foundation, which builds comfort homes at military and VA medical centers so families can stay free of charge while a loved one is in the hospital receiving treatment.

Ben Krakauer (Col ’03) has recorded an album of original banjo music called Hidden Animals.The album will be released March 22 by Adhyâropa Records. The music moves between blazing bluegrass romps, conversational jams, harmonically tender daydreams and chaotically cohesive grooves. It’s an album of gratitude, grief, hunkering down and celebrating the beauty of friendship, nature and human expression during a time when nothing can be taken for granted. 

Chapman Hood Frazier (Grad ’94) has recently published a collection of poetry entitled The Lost Books of the Bestiary. The collection of poems explores animals, culture, myth and the spirit through unusual perspectives. The book was a finalist for the V Press LC Award. 

The poems have won awards from The Virginia Poetry Society and some have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Southern Poetry Review, The South Carolina Poetry Review and other publications. 

Javier Escudero Rodríguez (Grad ’88, ’92) has published a photography book entitled Pierre Fatumbi Verger: United States of America 1934 & 1937 (Bologna, Damiani 2022). The book presents a collection of 150 photographs by Verger, as well as an introductory analysis that contextualizes the collection in the Great Depression. 

In the introduction, Javier Escudero Rodríguez discusses Verger´s important contribution to modern photography as well as the lasting relevance of this previously unknown collection of iconic images of the Great Depression. The 150 images, the majority of which are published here for the first time, were selected from among 1,110 negatives in the archive at the Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador after laborious and meticulous research. 

Mary Brancaccio (Col ’81 CM) has published her first poetry collection, Fierce Geometry. Her poetry travels the emotive back roads and roadside attractions of one woman’s journey through longing, love and loss. 

Brancaccio’s poetry has appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Minerva Rising, Edison Literary Review, Lake Affect Magazine and Adana, among others. Her poem, Unfinished Work, was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is included in several anthologies of poetry, including Writing the Land: Maine, Writing the Land: Northeast, Farewell to Nuclear, Welcome to Renewable Energy (a response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster) and Veils, Halos and Shackles: International Poetry on the Oppression and Empowerment of Women. 

Holly Donahue Singh (Grad ’05, ’11 CM) published her first book, Infertility in a Crowded Country: Hiding Reproduction in India (Indiana University Press), an academic monograph based on long-term fieldwork in North India.

In Lucknow, the capital of India’s most populous state, the stigmas and colonial legacies surrounding sexual propriety and population growth affect how Muslim women, often in poverty, cope with infertility. Singh draws on interviews, observation, and auto ethnographic perspectives in local communities and Lucknow’s infertility clinics to examine access to technology and treatments and to explore how pop culture shapes the reproductive paths of women and their supporters through clinical spaces, health camps, religious sites, and adoption agencies.

Singh is a faculty member at the Judy Genshaft Honors College at the University of South Florida. 

For more information about the book: https://iupress.org/9780253063878/infertility-in-a-crowded-country/

Above left: Singh presents a copy of the book to Dean Charles Adams (Grad ’79, ’85) of the Judith Genshaft Honors College at the release event at USF.

Justin Humphreys (Col ’01) wrote the introduction to a new edition of The Man Who Fell to Earth, published by Centipede Press. 

Dr. Mark W. Dewalt (Grad ’86 CM) published an article in The Journal of Plain Anabaptists Communities this past fall, entitled “Amish Mortality Rates in the Twenty-First Century.”