With Spring Break on the horizon and Winter Quarter nearly behind us, it’s a better time than ever to look out for reading that invigorates the soul and keeps you excited for upcoming Spring Quarter classes.
We heard from 5 MAWRD students and got their reading recommendations for you to enjoy during your Spring Break!
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature by J. Drew Lanham — Recommended by MAWRD GA Grace Von Lehman
This is a powerful, reverent reflection on being intimately curious about nature and understanding human life as an element of nature as well. J. Drew Lanham is a brilliant ecologist and writer, and his poetic memoir answers his own belief that “the best way to begin reconnecting humanity’s heart, mind, and soul to nature is for us to share our individual stories.” Highly recommend!
2666 by Roberto Bolaño — Recommended by MAWRD GA Nan Denette
I love this book because of how many different stories it weaves together. It’s a novel about a multitude of characters that travel to Mexico to investigate a series of murders, but it sprawls forward and backward in time to include narratives about the various people involved. This book is funny, strange, immersive, and overall a really cool read.
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks — Recommended by MAWRD student Reina Ashley Nomura
It’s a primer on education, teaching, and the responsibility of teachers to students. Especially for folks in the TWL concentration, it’s essential reading to inform one’s own philosophy for teaching and pedagogy. Further, as students of rhetoric and discourse, the way that hooks writes about education, teaching, learning, freedom, and is an excellent example of using our disciplinary skills for justice.
“Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert” by Maria Popova — Recommended by MAWRD GA Leo Swearingen
This article is a fun read because it combines historical insight with emotional texture. Telling the story of Emily Dickinson’s love for Susan Gilbert through Dickinson’s own letters, readers will gain insight into the deep emotions of one of my favorite poets as well as gain a new perspective celebrating a largely unrecognized love.
“In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” by Poet Laureate Ada Limón — Recommended by MAWRD student Lara Diaz
This poem was recently written this past summer as a dedication to NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission, which will investigate Jupiter’s Europa moon more closely. It should not only be read due to its beautifully written poetry about the mysteries of our solar system, but also because of its relevance: the poem itself is currently in flight to Europa now in NASA’s spacecraft vault.
Check out any or all of these reads for a great Spring Break!