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In 2011, I was a newly minted college professor who was trying to support my students’ interests (Greek life) in hopes that they would return the favor and support mine (medieval literature). Never in a million years would I have guessed that accepting an invitation to attend a Greek event on campus would snowball into receiving a bid to join a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my perspective uniquely positioned me to shed new light on the longstanding controversies plaguing these organizations and provide a new lens through which to view their impact not only on campus culture but society at large.
I’ve long had a professional crush on sociologist Lisa Wade as her work is a deadly combination of brilliant and compulsively readable.
Her study was published while I was writing my book and serves as a companion piece to understanding how hookup culture operates on American college campuses. As de facto speakeasies, fraternity houses serve as the campus party and, by extension, hookup headquarters.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s not always a good thing either.
The hookup is now part of college life. Yet the drunken encounter we always hear about tells only a fraction of the story. Lisa Wade offers the definitive account of this new sexual culture and demonstrates that the truth is both more heartening and disturbing than we thought. Offering invaluable insights for parents, educators and students, Wade situates hookup culture within the history of sexuality, the evolution of higher education and the unfinished feminist revolution. Using new research, she maps out a challenging emotional landscape marked by unequal pleasures, competition for status and sexual violence. Accessible and open-minded, compassionate and…
In 2011, I was a newly minted college professor who was trying to support my students’ interests (Greek life) in hopes that they would return the favor and support mine (medieval literature). Never in a million years would I have guessed that accepting an invitation to attend a Greek event on campus would snowball into receiving a bid to join a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my perspective uniquely positioned me to shed new light on the longstanding controversies plaguing these organizations and provide a new lens through which to view their impact not only on campus culture but society at large.
There aren’t a lot of scholarly studies of fraternities and sororities in part because, until recently, academia didn’t see the topic as worthy of serious study.
Turk’s groundbreaking study dives deep into the archives to tell the origin story of the oldest Panhellenic sorority, and in the process, reveals a dramatic shift in organizational culture between its early years and second and third generations.
You’ll have to read the book to find of what happened and why…
A look at the intricate history of collegiate women's support networks-otherwise known as sororities
Sororities are often thought of as exclusive clubs for socially inclined college students, but Bound by a Mighty Vow, a history of the women's Greek system, demonstrates that these organizations have always served more serious purposes. Diana Turk explores the founding and development of the earliest sororities (then called women's fraternities) and explains how these groups served as support networks to help the first female collegians succeed in the hostile world of nineteenth century higher education.
Turk goes on to look at how and in what…
In 2011, I was a newly minted college professor who was trying to support my students’ interests (Greek life) in hopes that they would return the favor and support mine (medieval literature). Never in a million years would I have guessed that accepting an invitation to attend a Greek event on campus would snowball into receiving a bid to join a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my perspective uniquely positioned me to shed new light on the longstanding controversies plaguing these organizations and provide a new lens through which to view their impact not only on campus culture but society at large.
Often viewed as the fraternity counterpart to Turk’s history of sororities, this book chronicles the rise of white fraternities on college campuses, with a specific focus on the role that these organizations play in the construction of American masculinity.
What do fraternities have in common with freemasonry? What was their role during Prohibition and the Civil Rights Movement? How and why did hazing rituals start—and why are they often sexual?
This book is chock full of lightbulb moments that will make everything about contemporary fraternity culture make so much more sense.
Tracing the full history of traditionally white college fraternities in America from their days in antebellum all-male schools to the sprawling modern-day college campus, Nicholas Syrett reveals how fraternity brothers have defined masculinity over the course of their 180-year history. Based on extensive research at twelve different schools and analyzing at least twenty national fraternities, The Company He Keeps explores many factors--such as class, religiosity, race, sexuality, athleticism, intelligence, and recklessness--that have contributed to particular versions of fraternal masculinity at different times. Syrett demonstrates the ways that fraternity brothers' masculinity has had consequences for other students on campus as well,…
In 2011, I was a newly minted college professor who was trying to support my students’ interests (Greek life) in hopes that they would return the favor and support mine (medieval literature). Never in a million years would I have guessed that accepting an invitation to attend a Greek event on campus would snowball into receiving a bid to join a National Panhellenic Conference sorority and serve as its faculty advisor. Somewhere along the way, I realized that my perspective uniquely positioned me to shed new light on the longstanding controversies plaguing these organizations and provide a new lens through which to view their impact not only on campus culture but society at large.
I’m a self-professed history junkie, and this recent contribution to the history of white Greek life picks up more or less where Turk left off.
The most fascinating and important argument that this book makes is that white southern sororities fundamentally influenced the definition of femininity in the South in the mid-twentieth century.
Understanding how and why southern sororities constructed womanhood before the advent of social media goes a long way in explaining why sorority women at universities in Oregon and Minnesota look and act eerily like sorority women at Ole Miss and the University of Alabama.
Women of Discriminating Taste examines the role of historically white sororities in the shaping of white womanhood in the twentieth century. As national women’s organizations, sororities have long held power on college campuses and in American life. Yet the groups also have always been conservative in nature and inherently discriminatory, selecting new members on the basis of social class, religion, race, or physical attractiveness. In the early twentieth century, sororities filled a niche on campuses as they purported to prepare college women for “ladyhood.” Sorority training led members to comport themselves as hyperfeminine, heterosocially inclined, traditionally minded women following a…
I am a writer whose passion for Dark Academia developed in the academic world, teaching and studying at universities, as well as working in libraries and archives across the U.S. and Europe. I hold a master’s degree and Ph.D. in History from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. The hallowed halls of historic universities provide an ideal backdrop to explore ruthless competition and the relentless drive for intellectual supremacy, which is integral to the Academy. It’s a happy coincidence to me that Dark Academia books have become so popular recently. Fun fact: The Bequest was written before I had ever heard the term!
I love a Dark Academia book that knows the world of academia intimately, and this thriller, which focuses on controversial Greek life at the University of Georgia, gets everything right.
Competition between students, peer pressure, department intrigues, and more come alive in this brilliant debut. This comes as no surprise, as Nossett, in addition to being an amazing writer, is herself a professor, and holds a PhD in German literature.
In addition to being a total page-turner, this enthralling novel highlights contemporary issues faced on college campuses, with an emphasis on ethical debates surrounding fraternities and sororities. Nossett’s characterization is excellent, and her determined, whip-smart, and yet imperfect protagonist, Detective Marlitt Kaplan, is one I rooted for, and you will, too.
Lauren Nossett’s artfully written debut, The Resemblance is an exhilarating, atmospheric campus thriller reminiscent of If We Were Villains and The Likeness.
Never betray the brotherhood
On a chilly November morning at the University of Georgia, a fraternity brother steps off a busy crosswalk and is struck dead by an oncoming car. More than a dozen witnesses all agree on two things: the driver looked identical to the victim, and he was smiling.
Detective Marlitt Kaplan is first on the scene. An Athens native and the daughter of a UGA professor, she knows all its shameful histories, from the skull…
I’ve always been fascinated by books that explore the slow, painful unraveling of the human psyche. In part, I think because it’s something so many more of us either fear or experience (at least to some degree) than anyone really wants to admit—but it’s also just such rich material for literary unpacking. I also love books with strong, angry female protagonists who fight back against oppression in all of its forms, so books about pissed-off madwomen are a natural go-to for me. Extra points if they teach me something I didn’t know before-which is almost always the case with historical novels in this genre.
I love this because, in many ways, it is a kind of modern take on Sargasso Sea, with a liberal dash of Catcher in the Rye thrown into the soup: an exploration of what happens when you apply the same kinds of patriarchal oppression and expectations Antoinette suffered in the 19th century to a young 20th-century woman living in what is supposedly a more “progressive” and “modern” era.
Esther Greenwood’s unraveling is both brutally relatable and unexpectedly humorous at points, and there are images from it that are so starkly drawn that they stay embedded in your mind like glass shards after an explosion. It’s a modern classic for a reason.
When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realise her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiralling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously.
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, was originally published in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria…
As a screenwriter I’ve always enjoyed noir stories, whether books or movies. Stories where the characters are not your squeaky-clean “good guys.” I like to see “ordinary” people; people who are flawed (like all of us), or maybe with a shady past, who are swayed or manipulated by dire circumstances into doing something they would not ordinarily do. I enjoy stories with unique, interesting characters that are not your run-of-the-mill private eyes, and whose moral compass might be a bit off. I particularly like stories where characters are forced to become investigators because of a situation they are thrust into, whether by accident or by their own dubious actions.
I’m recommending this book because I really enjoyed the way this story was structured. It starts off in 1946 with an art heist in Boston where the priceless works of art are stashed in the Charlesgate Hotel, hence the title. It then jumps to 1988 when the hotel has been converted into a college dorm and one of the remaining thieves has been let out of jail, comes looking for the art, and recruits the help of one of the college students living there. It then jumps to thirty years later when the building has been turned into condos, where one of the former college students now lives, and the art is still missing. It’s a great crime story, told in a unique way, with some great shady characters.
"CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL is terrific." - Stephen King
A breathtakingly clever, twist-filled narrative that moves from 1946 to 1988 to 2014 and back again, CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL establishes Scott Von Doviak as a storyteller of the first order.
A group of criminals in 1946 pull off the heist of the century, stealing a dozen priceless works of art from a Boston museum. But while the thieves get caught, the art is never found. Forty years later, the last surviving thief gets out of jail and goes hunting for the loot, involving some innocent college students in his dangerous plan - and thirty…
After spending nearly two decades working in technology and Intelligence—working with law enforcement from all different agencies—I developed an appreciation and understanding of the worst that humans can do to each other. My specialty was domestic counterterrorism and foreign policy—and I did everything from developing software for chem/bio work to White House briefings. I have studied profiling and analysis in academic and real world settings – I have two Masters degrees – Strategic Intelligence & Criminal Justice – from American Military University, both with a minor in Terrorism Studies. While the academic background is great, the real-life experiences are what taught me the most – and find their way into my stories.
When Lacey Campbell escapes a serial killer as a co-ed, she helped send him to prison for life. Years later, she’s a forensic scientist, working for the Medical Examiner and the case comes back to haunt her.
Elliot’s skill with writing chilling suspense and steamy romance – combined with a knowledge of forensics – leaves the reader always wanting more. Luckily, there are five books in the Bone Secrets series, so there’s a lot more to enjoy.
What drew me to Kendra Elliot’s work was a review someone else wrote where they said her accuracy and penchant for realism were so good that they (a forensic scientist in real life) didn’t get pulled out of the story by any errors.
That reviewer was right. The accuracy, combined with the twists and turns in the stories, have you reading with the lights on. (My favorite kind of book!)
Hidden is the first book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion-copy bestselling series.
Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life.
Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend's.
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Campus Traditions is a complete study of college culture that spans centuries and all of the United States. It is thorough, entertaining, and presents a clear evolution of post-secondary education from old-time colleges to today’s mega-university. Professors and students from all fields will recognize their university in this book and marvel at traditions that were thought to have been unique to their school but are, in fact, part of a much greater national trend.
From their beginnings, campuses emerged as hotbeds of traditions and folklore. American college students inhabit a culture with its own slang, stories, humor, beliefs, rituals, and pranks. Simon J. Bronner takes a long, engaging look at American campus life and how it is shaped by students and at the same time shapes the values of all who pass through it. The archetypes of absent-minded profs, fumbling jocks, and curve-setting dweebs are the stuff of legend and humor, along with the all-nighters, tailgating parties, and initiations that mark campus tradition--and student identities. Undergraduates in their hallowed halls embrace distinctive traditions because…
I find the archaeology of here to be just as interesting and enlightening as any faraway land. For those of us at universities, that means that the campus itself is worthy of historical, archaeological, and anthropological study. I have been San Diego State’s University History Curator for decades and never tire of uncovering new insights into an institution with a 125-year history, nearly 500,000 alumni, and a bevy of bizarre tales. Whether it be hidden student murals, supernatural claims from the gridiron, or disputed dinosaur footprints, the immediate landscape of our workplace is often full of historical treasures.
Anne Gardiner Perkins’ Yale Needs Women combines rigorous historical research and riveting storytelling to produce a book that is both insightful and inspirational. She explains how Yale University’s first female students in 1969 faced extensive discrimination and had to fight rampant misogyny, outdated traditions, and backwards views on a daily basis to get an education.
WINNER OF THE 2020 CONNECTICUT BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION AND NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS FOR BOOK CLUBS IN 2021 BY BOOKBROWSE "Perkins' richly detailed narrative is a reminder that gender equity has never come easily, but instead if borne from the exertions of those who precede us."-Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls If Yale was going to keep its standing as one of the top two or three colleges in the nation, the availability of women was an amenity it could no longer do without. In the winter of 1969, from…
