English Department::Keene State College

Keene Reads Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil's Highway

For six consecutive years matriculating students at Keene State College have participated in the Keene State College Summer Reading Program. The summer reading program is rooted in the idea that becoming a more engaged and productive reader is among the most meaningful outcomes of a college education. First-year students joined faculty and staff in reading a common book and discussing the book, and the issues it raises, in classes and at campus-wide events. Coordinated by the department of English, and members of the Commission on Multiculturalism and Diversity, the summer reading program has helped first-year students make the transition to college, where the reading and discussing of challenging texts is integral to the campus community.

The 2007-08 reading project, Keene Reads, invites all students at the college, and citizens of Keene and the Monandock region, to join first-year students, faculty, and staff in reading a discussing a book throughout the academic year. The Keene Reads program furthers the College’s mission of building relationships among students, faculty, and staff that emphasize creative and critical thinking and a passion for learning. It also furthers the intellectual and cultural life of the College by fostering intellectual engagement and lifelong learning with members of the local and regional community.

This year’s book selection is Luis Alberto Urrea’s The Devil's Highway (2004), a non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert. The book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and received a 2004 Lannan Literary Award and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. Luis Alberto Urrea, who teaches creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago, has published numerous books, including his National Book Award winning memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life (1999) and the novel The Hummingbird's Daughter (2005).

The Keene Reads program begins in summer orientation as the book is introduced to first year students. During the fall semester, students, faculty, and staff and member of the community will discuss the book as part of the College’s Biennial Symposium on Citizenship. And in the spring semester we will continue discussing the book, including a planned public lecture by the author. The Devil's Highway reminds us that immigration remains among the most pressing civic and moral issues of our time. Urrea’s book offers an opportunity to discuss the history and present state of immigration as well as contemporary debates about national boundaries, cultural identities and human communities at large.

For more information about the summer reading program, please contact the coordinator of the program, Dr. Brinda Charry at 358.2727

Keene State College Summer Reading Program Books

2006-07 Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis
2005-06 Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
2004-05 Janisse Ray, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood
2003-04 Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land
2002-03 Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues
2001-02 John Edgar Wideman, Brothers and Keepers

2006-07 Summer Reading Program

For the sixth consecutive year matriculating students at Keene State College have been read a book at summer orientation that has been a part of year-long discussions across campus, both in the classroom and out. Coordinated by the department of English, and members of the Commission on Multiculturalism and Diversity, the summer reading program is designed to help first-year students make the transition to college, where the reading and discussing of challenging, diverse texts is integral to the campus community. The reading program begins in the idea that becoming a more efficient, engaged, and productive reader is among the most meaningful outcomes of a college education.

Book cover Persepolis

Thsi year students have been discussing Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, a graphic novel that chronicles the period after the Shah left power and the 1979 revolution. The autobiographical narrative revolves around Marjane who is nine years old and living in Tehran when rebels supported by the nation’s theocracy overthrow the reigning Shah.

Picture of author Satrapi

Satrapi’s radical, intellectual family initially welcomes the new order but soon realize the nature of the powers taking over their beloved Iran. Readers witness momentous events including the Iran-Iraq war, the growing power and influence of religious extremists, increasing restrictions on women’s freedom and mobility, rise of political totalitarianism, as well as the passage of a girl from childhood to adolescence. Satrapi’s simple yet striking visuals and her narrative style which is a magical combination of the humorous, the unflinchingly realist, and the profoundly tragic tells the story of how individuals’ lives are shaped by larger political forces and the energy, courage and dignity with which they respond.

Persepolis lent itself to a number of classes and discussions this past year. It has been used in courses on Writing, Women’s Studies, Art, and Philosophy and has given faculty and staff the opportunity to discuss a number of timely and timeless issues including globalization, religion, systems of government, gender identity, and why and how we write stories and draw pictures. Experts in various fields have come to campus to speak on topics ranging from the history of cartooning to an introduction to Islam in the Middle-East.

Dr. Sohail Hashmi

Professor of International Studies, Mount Holyoke College
Tuesday, November 7, 3:00-4:00 Madison Street Lounge

Professor Hashmi will discuss the history and essentials of the Muslim faith. His areas of specialization include the role of Islam in domestic and international relations, ethics and international relations, and Middle East politics. Professor Hashmi became interested in the role of religion in politics as a high school student watching the Iranian Revolution unfold. Later, at Harvard College, he studied comparative Western and Islamic political theory and international relations. He focused on the history and contemporary politics of the Middle East as an M.A. student at Princeton's Department of Near Eastern Studies. He later returned to Harvard's Department of Government to work on a doctorate in the field of international ethics, focusing on the contemporary Islamic discourse on just war and peace. Professor Hashmi has taught at Mount Holyoke since 1994. His teaching and research interests lie at the intersection of Western and Islamic political and moral philosophy as they relate to normative issues in comparative and international politics. He has published on such topics as sovereignty, humanitarian intervention, international society, and the theory of jihad.

Steven R. Bissette

Faculty at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River, VT.
October 12^th12:00 -1:00 pm in the Madison Street Lounge.

Bissette has worked for a quarter-century in comics as a cartoonist, writer, editor and publisher, winning many industry awards. Best-known for Saga of the Swamp Thing, Taboo, '1963,' Tyrant, and for co-creating the character of John Constantine, his comics efforts fueled many films, (CONSTANTINE, FROM HELL, TMNT II: SECRET OF THE OOZE, etc.) and he completed the world's second '24- Hour Comic,' invented by Scott McCloud as a challenge for Bissette. Bissette illustrates books (by Joe Citro, Neil Gaiman, Joe Lansdale, Christopher Golden, Nancy Collins, etc.) while forging a writing career in fiction (short stories & the Stoker Award-winning novella Aliens: Tribes) and non-fiction (co-authoring Comic Book Rebels, The Monster Book: Buffy the Vampire Slayer; writing articles/essays for many books and magazines on cinema). He edits and writes Green Mountain Cinema, a book series on Vermont films and filmmakers. He worked with and/or lectured at Yale, Dartmouth College, Duquesne University, Smith College, Marlboro College, etc., and Middlebury College's Breadloaf Young Writers Workshop. His papers reside in the Special Collections of HUIE Library at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

Understanding Iran

This final event, the panel Understanding Iran, brings together scholars whose personal experience and academic study of Iranian history and society will help us further understand this ancient, complex society, which is also an important player in the contemporary world stage.

Dr. Mehrzad Boroujerdi is Professor of International relations at Syracuse University. His research has focused on how “Third-World” intellectual elites are coming to terms with the multifaceted challenge of modernity and cultural globalization, and the intellectual history of the contemporary Middle East. He has written a book titled Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism, and numerous articles on terrorism, globalization and other topics pertaining to Iranian politics and society. “Professor Boroujerdi is currently working on a book manuscript that deals with the legacy of authoritarian modernization in Iran in the 1920s and 1930s.

Dr. Naghmeh Sohrabi is a post-doctoral fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. She received her PhD in
2005 in History and Middle East Studies from Harvard University and is
currently working on her manuscript “Signs Taken for Wonder: Nineteenth Century Persian Travel Literature to Europe.”