UDM Libraries Book of the Week

Mr. Basketball: George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers, and the Birth of the NBA

by Michael Schumacher

Before Shaquille O’Neal and before Bill Russell, there was George Mikan, a six-foot-ten, 240-pound center, whose quiet demeanor and bespectacled face belied his competitive fire. A four-time All-American at DePaul and a six-time professional champion, Mikan was such an unstoppable force–and a national sensation–that, when his Minneapolis Lakers played the New York Knickerbockers in 1949, the marquee outside Madison Square Garden read simply, “George Mikan vs. Knicks.” Drawing on extensive interviews–with former teammates, opponents, coaches, friends, and rivals–critically acclaimed author Michael Schumacher reveals, for the first time, a wonderfully nuanced portrait of one of the most unheralded athletes of our time, and a fascinating look at the birth of the National Basketball Association.

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Education and women in the early modern Hispanic world

by Elizabeth Teresa Howe

Considering the presence and influence of educated women of letters in Spain and New Spain, this study looks at the life and work of early modern women who advocated by word or example for the education of women. The subjects of the book include not only such familiar figures as Sor Juana and Santa Teresa de Jesus, but also of less well known women of their time. The author uses primary documents, published works, artwork, and critical sources drawn from history literature, theatre, philosophy, women’s studies, education and science. Her analysis juxtaposes theories espoused by men and women of the period concerning the aptitude and appropriateness of educating women with the actual practices to be found in convents, schools, court, theaters and homes. What emerges is a fuller picture of women’s learning in the early modern period.

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Women’s Rights

Despite the progress of the international women’s movement in exposing and correcting human rights abuses against females, in many countries women are still fighting to attain the most basic of civil liberties.

This program contextualizes that struggle by comparing women’s rights in the U.S. with the status of women in China Afghanistan, and Kenya. Hopeful signs such as rising levels of education for girls, female representation in government, and business opportunities for women are contrasted with the continuing practice of age-old antithetical abuses that have yet to be eliminated-nonconsensual marriage and severe domestic violence, to name two- and the demoralizing effect of seeing hard-won rights overturned.

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Women writers and detectives in nineteenth-century crime fiction: the mothers of the mystery genre

by Lucy Sussex

This book is a study of the “mothers” of the mystery genre. Traditionally the invention of crime writing has been ascribed to Poe, Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle, but they had formidable women rivals, whose work has been until recently largely forgotten. The purpose of this book is to “cherchez les femmes,” in a project of rediscovery.

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