To All of Our Students,
While we are away from class, our faculty members have put together a list of favorite materials that can help you continue to study. These include scholarly works related directly to their specialty, readings that might interest you, as well as favorite films, documentaries, books and shorter pieces of writing. We will publish these recommendations each week, so please check back every Friday.
Gavin Furukawa’s Recommendations
Recommended Books
Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie – This is a collection of short stories involving one of the Agatha Christies most famous detectives, Miss Jane Marple. Everyone always thinks Miss Marple is just a typical boring old lady but she understands more than everyone realizes. In each story, you can see how Miss Marple’s life experiences allow her to solve the most confusing and difficult mysteries.
Angels and Demons by Dan Brown – This is a great thriller written by the author of The DaVinci Code. It’s an interesting exploration of the Catholic church, its traditions, and rituals. Brown’s knowledge of history, science, and symbolism help to make the story really interesting and exciting as the hero, Robert Langdon races to save the life of the next pope from the church’s enemies.
Last Call by Tim Powers – Last Call is a great book in the style of magical realism about a former gambler who is on the run from an evil man. It’s a great novel that combines the poetry of T.S. Elliot, psychology, and history. Last Call features a collection of strange characters involved in a strange but dangerous game.
Recommended Movies
Ocean’s 8 – This movie is one of my more recent favorites. It’s a heist movie where the main characters are all women. A group of female criminals is assembled by con artist Debbie Ocean as she plans to steal an amazing diamond necklace from the most elite party in the United States.
My Fair Lady – This is the classic movie musical with Audrey Hepburn based on George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion adapted from the hit Broadway play. Filled with great songs and beautiful costumes, My Fair Lady is a great example of the importance of language variation and language ideology in sociolinguistics. When it was released, My Fair Lady won 8 Oscars and 3 Golden Globes.
The Usual Suspects – This movie is a great mystery about a group of criminals who are brought together by a mysterious mastermind named Keyser Soze, a legendary criminal who murders men, women, and children without any remorse. A fantastic movie with an excellent cast, I highly recommend this movie as an engaging thriller which won several awards including two Oscars.
Laurence Williams’ Reading Recommendations:
TO READ:
With our lives temporarily turned upside down by the coronavirus, this seems a good time to ask what literature can teach us about this situation.
I would like to recommend two short stories (the links are below) which – although written about different illnesses – explore how individuals and societies respond to disease and death. If you read these stories and want to talk more about them with me, just send me an email.
The first story is “The Way We Live Now” (1986), by the American writer Susan Sontag. Written at the time that the HIV/AIDS epidemic was beginning in New York City, it follows the gradual decline of an unnamed man in hospital, told entirely through scattered conversations by his friends.
The story shows the stigma attaching to AIDS at this period (the “disease” is not even given a name here), as well as the psychological ways in which humans distance ourselves from the fear of death. If you have time, I also recommend reading Sontag’s essay “Illness as Metaphor” (1978).
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1986/11/24/the-way-we-live-now
The second story is “The Masque of the Red Death”, by the American mystery writer Edgar Allan Poe (1842). It is a fantasy, set in a land troubled by a terrifying plague – the “Red Death” of the title.
Prince Prospero attempts to hide from the sickness by shutting himself inside an abbey, with a number of his courtiers. To pass the time, he decides to hold a masked ball, but an unexpected guest arrives…
The story is often read as a fable about death, and the impossibility of shutting it out from our lives. But Poe is also making a point about privilege and selfishness, and the way that disease affects the rich and the poor differently.
https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Poe/Red_Death.pdf
出口真紀子 オススメの本
『よかれと思ってやったのに：男たちの失敗学入門』清田隆之 、晶文社 2019年
「鼻毛が出てるよ」と友達に指摘された時、「まじ？（鏡をチェック）」という男性が殆どだと思っていたら、「いや出ていない」「あえて出してるんだ」「お前もこないだ出てただろう」といった否定や開き直りや問題をすり替えたりする人がいると知って衝撃だった（いきなりすみません）。これはこの本に登場するエピソードですが、特権を持っている側の無意識の「あるある」言動を清田隆之が鋭い分析で解説してくれます。「男たち」とタイトルにはありますが、権力のある立場の女性にも当てはまる痛快な必読書。
まんが 『アフリカ少年が日本で育った結果』 単行本 – 2018
星野ルネ（著）
漫画だからといって侮ってはいけない。ユーモアに溢れるエピソードからも日本社会が垣間見れる貴重な作品。アフリカ生まれの星野ルネの視点が小さなことでも見落とさない。しかも関西育ちなので、日本、アフリカ、関西のトライリンガルでもある。日本社会これでいいのか！？という問いを緩やかに突きつけてくれる。文化心理学に興味のある学生には必読。
Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 2005
ナチスドイツ時代の少女が主人公で死神の視点から描かれた名作。国際基督教大学高等学校の英語の授業でも読まれているそうです。邦訳も出ていますが、ぜひ英語でチャレンジしてみてください。
