Goucher Reads

Kathryn Dehler

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

My name is Kathryn Dehler and I’m a junior American Studies major. I’m interested primarily in people—so I’m interested in history, philosophy, art, politics, language, literature, sociology, psychology, food, and most other things. Right now, I’m organizing my academic interests specifically around the criminal justice system, race, and capitalism. I work as an office assistant at the library and as a tutor at the Writing Center. I’m also interested in trees and the ocean and being around both as much as possible. 

I’m currently reading various texts for various classes and research: assorted essays by Martin Heidegger, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison by Jeffrey Reiman, The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order by Bernard E. Harcourt. 

I’m taking a seminar on Heidegger right now, so reading his works throughout the class has been intellectually invigorating, and I recommend him to anyone grappling with the question of what it means to be (which is everyone, I would say, on some level). 
Reiman’s book is fascinating. He argues that the criminal justice system functions better today as a vehicle for perpetuating crime rather than for stopping it, and that it does this largely by creating an image of crime as the work of the poor. Very compelling, and very well-articulated.   

Harcourt’s book, which I’m about half-way through, discusses relationships between the economy, punishment and government intervention; he basically argues that “free markets” don’t really exist, and that free market ideology, in trying to be independent of government involvement, assigns the sphere of punishment as the legitimate place for exercising government power. It opens with this cool and fairly detailed history of market regulation in early France, which he then compares to current views of US market regulation, which is pretty interesting, especially if you’re interested in French history as I am.    

Levi Jones

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

Levi A. Jones, a junior-ish Anthropology major. I’m interested in political science, history, trivia, Judaic studies, philosophy, death (as Woody Allen said in Annie Hall, “It is a very important subject!”), comic books, mixology, music and films that nobody cares about (but I ramble about them anyway), pet rodents, dog breeds, and absurdity.

2. What are you reading now?

A couple of things, actually.  Another Country by James Baldwin, Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley, and I’m finishing up Mourning and Celebration: Jewish, Orthodox and Gay Past and Present by K. David Brody. None of these are things that I have to read for classes, so I don’t have as much time to devote to them as I would like. Then there are all the essays, articles, and comic books (decided to re-read Vol.1 of Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen last night) that I go through…

3. What was the most important book you have ever read?

I’d say the combination of having read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, The Complete Frank Miller Batman, and Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes all before I hit 5th grade probably ruined me for life (my father gave me these books). Aspects of those three books are pretty ingrained into my personality and thinking…So my family really wasn’t surprised when in early high school I became that weirdo who would read Arthur Rimbaud and William S. Burroughs. 

4. If you could suggest one book, what would it be and why?

Well, I read How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden over Spring Break.  It is a brilliantly written and drawn memoir of a politically-conscious young woman’s experience on a Birthright trip as she tried to deal with all the social and political grey areas, different accounts, and her own feelings.  I’m a big fan of autobiographical comics (and find it fantastic that more women are making them; I love Alison Bechdel’s and Ariel Schrag’s works) and think they should get more notice in the public eye.

Ben Mueser

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

My name is Ben Mueser, from Henniker, NH. I am a senior history major, with a minor in social and political theory. My interests are in political theory and philosophy. In political theory I am particularly interested in the concept and critique of sovereignty, and in philosophy I am especially interested in how the self and identity is created. 

2. What are you reading now?

Right now I am reading Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov. Its a novel about an absurd world and the protagonist’s (Cincinnatus C.) struggle to transcend the ludicrous prison he sits in while he waits to be executed for a nonexistent crime. It is both funny and interesting, but Nabokov’s style isn’t easy to get through sometimes, and I have not been exactly speeding through it. 

I am also reading a lot of social/political theory for a few different classes. At the moment, it includes: Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, Power/Knowledge, The Birth of Biopolitics; Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. I am enjoying all of these texts, but the enormity of my reading load means that, unfortunately, I just can’t spend the time on each one that I would like to. 

 I can’t identify one book that is most important to me, but here are a few. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon is just the most wonderful and interesting story I have ever read, and is written in beautiful prose. The Great Gatsby has always been important to me, mostly because it was the first book that I read in high school that I got truly excited about and just loved to read more than once. The Fall by Albert Camus is important to me because the conclusion truly unsettled me, and made me feel personally uncomfortable, and affected me in an actual visceral way. The Master and Margarita by Mikhael Bulgakov is a hilarious and provocative story about the devil and his entourage coming to Moscow in the 1930s to perform a black magic show. I could list more, but lets leave it at that for now. 

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera is one of my favorite books. I have given away two copies already, and I always recommend another book by him as well, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I like Kundera for two reasons. First, because he addresses an anxiety of hedonism that is relevant for all of us whether we want to talk about it or not. Second, because I think he recognizes that as an author, he has the right to inject himself into his writing, but he does it elegantly and smoothly, so that throughout his writing you feel like you are learning an interesting story, but through a conversation with him. 

I also recommend The Lord of The Rings because its just straight up badass, beautiful, and brilliant. Also, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is an incredibly dark and foreboding tale of a band of indian scalp hunters on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s. Finally, I recommend The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway because its a book that, in my opinion, is impossible to read and not enjoy. 

Max Temkin

1. Who are you and what are you interested in?

My name is Max, I’m a designer from Chicago and an alumni (barely) of Goucher College. I’m interested in philosophy, games, and bugs (I know a lot of facts about ants).

2. What are you reading now?

I just finished a really cool book about philosophy and games called *The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia by Bernard Suits, although a cursory glance at the Goucher library website shows that you don’t have that book, so I hope I haven’t sabotaged your project now. The Grasshopper was recommended to me by Richard Lemarchand, who made the Uncharted games, so that’s a good reason to read it right there.

Some other books I’ve read in the last few months: Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens (excellent), In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson (just okay), The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (great, funny), and the execrable Walter Issacson biography of Steve Jobs (riddled with errors; for a much better book on Apple and Jobs, check out Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertzfeld).

Some design books I’ve read recently that I loved: Thoughtless Acts by Jane Fulton Suri, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren, Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockmann, Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski, and Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type by Kimberly Elam. I also highly recommend Distance, a journal of long essays on design - Benjamin Jackson’s article Hard Fun is interesting.

Finally, John Campbell sent me the new printing of his book Pictures for Sad Children and I can report that it made me feel things and is very funny.

3. What’s the most important book you have ever read?

My desert island book is Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, who is my favorite author. What can I even say about Infinite Jest other than that it’s laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking and clever all at the same time? To quote DFW, it’s about “what it is to be a fucking human being.”

If you want to get into Wallace (and who doesn’t) I suggest starting with his non-fiction Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again which books I personally checked out from the Goucher library and accrued late fees on, and then moving on to either I.J. or Broom of the System.

A more boring answer to this question could also be Moby Dick by Herman Melville which I keep in my bedroom and am always reading (as soon as I finish it, I start back on the first page).

4. If you could suggest one book to read, what would it be and why?

I’m constantly yelling at people to read a tiny little book called Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff. It’s one of those things where once you read it, you’ll divide your life into before you read Elephant and after. 

For my fellow philosophy enthusiasts, I think John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality is the best thing I’ve read since I graduated, it blew my mind.

*The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia by Bernard Suits, Hitch-22: A Memoir by Christopher Hitchens, Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertzfield, Thoughtless Acts by Jane Fulton Suri, Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren, Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski, Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type by Kimberly Elam, and Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff are not available in the Goucher collection, but can be ordered through Interlibrary Loan through Worldcat. If you want to read this book, suggest it to be added into our circulation!