Happy ‘pub’ days: Bjork, Lester, Sayet, Sinclair, Viren
By Kristen LaRue-Sandler — September 27, 2024
Five faculty members in the ASU Department of English announce volumes just out this summer or forthcoming this fall. Works include a historical study, an edited collection of essays, a play, and two memoirs in paperback. Topics cover Old English studies, models of social justice, Indigenous identity, Rastafarian childhood, and the nature of truth.
‘Old English Studies and its Scandinavian Practitioners: Nationalism, Aesthetics, and Spirituality in the Nordic Countries, 1733-2023’ (D.S. Brewer, 2024)
Released in September, Robert Bjork’s exploration of Scandinavian scholarship appears in the press’s Anglo-Saxon Studies series. From the publisher:
"The discipline of Old English Studies began in Scandinavia, not England, pioneered by the work of the great Danish scholar, N.F.S. Grundtvig (1783-1872) and continues to flourish in the languages of the region (including Finland). This book offers a history of Scandinavian scholarship, in Neo-Latin, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic, as well as Finnish and Sámi, from 1733 to the present day. It surveys the major events and texts in the discipline, and evaluates translations of Beowulf and other Old English prose and verse texts.
It argues that nationalism, aesthetics, and spirituality are the chief motivators for Old English studies in the Nordic countries; although Romantic nationalism was a first mover for Old English studies, the qualities Scandinavians now seek in Old English literature-that we all seek-are transnational, existential, spiritual, and human. The study concludes with complete bibliographies of contributions in the Scandinavian languages to Old English studies and of translations of Old English literature into the Scandinavian languages."
Bjork is a Foundation Professor in the ASU Department of English’s literature program.
‘Social Justice in Action: Models for Campus and Community’ (Modern Language Association, 2024)
Neal A. Lester is the editor of this volume set to be released in November. From the publisher:
- “Addressing both veterans of justice work and novices seeking points of entry, the essays in this volume showcase practical approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion: ways to build community, earn trust, tell unheard stories, and develop solutions to problems. Emphasizing values such as empathy, self-reflection, and integrity, the volume is rooted in humanities work but also features contributions from fields as diverse as the performing arts, architecture, and evolutionary biology and represents settings beyond the college campus, such as schools, libraries, museums, and prisons.
While bringing insights from higher education, it critiques the system as well, exploring the ways that institutions reinforce power structures and exclude marginalized voices. Interspersed with the essays, brief reflections by activists and artists offer testimony and inspiration.”
Lester is the founding director of Project Humanities and a Foundation Professor in the ASU Department of English’s literature program.
‘Where We Belong’ (Dramatist’s Play Service, 2024)
Madeline Sayet’s much-heralded autobiographical show is now widely available for others to perform. From the publisher:
- “Madeline Sayet’s one-person play is a celebration of language and investigation into the impulses that divide and connect us as people. The play follows Achokayis as she travels to England to pursue a degree in Shakespeare, grappling with the question of what it means to remain or leave her own home at Mohegan, as the Brexit vote threatens to disengage the United Kingdom from the wider world.
Moving between nations that have failed to reckon with their ongoing roles in colonialism, she finds comfort in the journeys of her Mohegan ancestors who traveled to England in the 1700s to help her people. Achokayis’s transformation journey leaves us with the question, what does it mean to belong in an increasingly globalized world?”
Sayet is a clinical associate professor in the Department of English and an affiliate of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at ASU.
‘How to Say Babylon: A Memoir’ (U.S. Paperback) (37 Ink / Simon and Schuster, 2024)
Safiya Sinclair’s award-winning memoir was released in U.S. paperback this July. From the publisher:
- “With echoes of ‘Educated’ and ‘The Glass Castle,’ ‘How to Say Babylon’ is a ‘lushly observed and keenly reflective chronicle’ (The Washington Post), brilliantly recounting the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid religious upbringing and navigate the world on her own terms.
Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and a militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, was obsessed with the ever-present threat of the corrupting evils of the Western world outside their home, and worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure. For him, a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.
Safiya’s extraordinary mother, though loyal to her father, gave her the one gift she knew would take Safiya beyond the stretch of beach and mountains in Jamaica their family called home: a world of books, knowledge, and education she conjured almost out of thin air. When she introduced Safiya to poetry, Safiya’s voice awakened. As she watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under relentless domesticity, Safiya’s rebellion against her father’s rules set her on an inevitable collision course with him. Her education became the sharp tool to hone her own poetic voice and carve her path to liberation. Rich in emotion and page-turning drama, ‘How to Say Babylon’ is ‘a melodious wave of memories’ of a woman finding her own power (NPR).”
Sinclair is an associate professor in the ASU Department of English’s creative writing program.
'To Name the Bigger Lie: A Memoir in Two Stories' (Paperback) (Scribner / Simon and Schuster, 2024)
Sarah Viren’s personal “true crime” story was released in paperback in September. From the publisher:
- “This unforgettable memoir traces the ramifications of a series of lies that threaten to derail the author’s life—exploring the line between fact and fiction, reality and conspiracy.
In ‘To Name the Bigger Lie,’ Sarah Viren ‘has pulled off a magic trick of fantastic proportion’ (The Washington Post), telling the story of an all-too-real investigation into her personal and professional life that she expands into a profound exploration of the nature of truth. The memoir begins as Viren is researching what she believes will be a book about her high school philosophy teacher, a charismatic instructor who taught her and her classmates to question everything—eventually, even the reality of historical atrocities. As she digs into the effects of his teachings, her life takes a turn into the fantastical when her wife, Marta, is notified that she’s being investigated for sexual misconduct at the university where they both teach.
‘To Name the Bigger Lie’ follows the investigation as it challenges everything Sarah thought she knew about truth, testimony, and the difference between the two. She knows the claims made against Marta must be lies, and as she attempts to uncover the identity of the person behind them and prove her wife’s innocence, she’s drawn back into the questions that her teacher inspired all those years ago: about the nature of truth, the value of skepticism, and the stakes we all have in getting the story right.
An incisive journey into honesty and betrayal, this memoir explores the powerful pull of dangerous conspiracy theories and the pliability of personal narratives in a world dominated by hoaxes and fakes. An ‘ouroboros of a book’ (The New York Times) and a ‘bold new approach to the genre of memoir’ (The Millions), ‘To Name the Bigger Lie’ also reads like the best of psychological thrillers—made all the more riveting because it’s true.”
Viren is an associate professor in the ASU Department of English’s creative writing program.