FSU Libraries' Celebration of Tenure 2015

Below are the newly tenured faculty and a brief explanation of the books or materials they hand-picked to be purchased and book plated in their honor.

 

Andrew W. Askew
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Physics

Calorimetry: Energy Measurement in Particle Physics by Richard Wigmans (2000)

I selected Calorimetry: Energy Measurement in Particle Physics by Richard Wigmans as a book with particular meaning to me because of how the subject matter has informed my research over the past six years. It is a book which delves into the practical aspects of energy measurement in particle physics experiments, which has been quite helpful as I began to analyze the first data from a brand new experiment (the Compact Muon Solenoid) in 2010. Even though it was published fifteen years ago now, I still refer my students to various passages that will help to facilitate their understanding of the experimental methods that we apply at the Large Hadron Collider, studying the highest particle collisions ever achieved in a laboratory.

 

Alexander Aviña
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of History

Capital: A Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx

Beyond teaching me how the economic system that dominates our lives functions, Karl Marx's Capital taught me how to think critically. Marx's method of bringing together seemingly disparate intellectual approaches and subjecting them to unrelenting critique provided an invaluable lesson on how to critically engage and challenge established orthodoxies from within to advance new knowledge. As a historian, such a lesson proved key. Applying a critical thinking approach to the field of history reveals concepts like agency, contingency, process, and struggle. In other words, Marx taught me that just because we live in the "desert of the real," it has not always been like this—nor does it have to continue to be like this.

 

Jeff Broome
College of Fine Arts
Department of Art Education

Real Lives: Art Teachers and the Cultures of School by Tom Anderson

I read Real Lives: Art Teachers and the Cultures of School by Tom Anderson before I had ever been accepted into a doctoral program. Tom Anderson had been my one of professors when I was an undergraduate student many years ago, and was studying to become a K-12 art teacher. After working in public schools for a number of years, I came across Tom's book on my own, and devoured it. The book presents the stories of six practicing art teachers in various contexts across the United States. Although I didn't realize it at the time, Real Lives was my first introduction to qualitative research and the use of narratives as a way to present data—a strategy that I now use frequently in my own work. In many ways, Real Lives served as my inspiration to seek a doctoral degree.

Tom Anderson would go on to serve as the major professor of my doctoral dissertation. After working at other universities for a number of years, I have now returned to Florida State University where Tom is my colleague. Both Real Lives and Tom Anderson have been enormously influential in my growth as a K-12 teacher, researcher, professor, and—more importantly—as a kind and compassionate human being.

 

Brian P. Chadwick
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Biological Science

The Sex Chromatin edited by Keith L. Moore

This book is a collection of microscopic analyses of the inactive X chromosome (Xi) in a wide variety of organisms, and includes a chapter contributed by Murray Barr, after whom the Xi acquired its alter ego of "Barr body". Although almost half a century has passed since the publication of this book, much research, including my own, continues to use microscopic techniques to further understand this enigmatic facultative heterochromatin structure.

 

Eric A. Coleman
College of Social Sciences and Public Policy
Department of Political Science

Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action by Elinor Ostrom

Governing the Commons is perhaps the most influential book in the fields of collective action theory and natural resource management. It was the primary reason for Elinor Ostrom's Nobel Prize in Economics, the impetus for my graduate studies, and the most influential book in my intellectual development. Ostrom represents a new way of thinking about the ability of groups to cooperate and solve problems. Before Ostrom, most theories of collective action pessimistically concluded that humans were destined to behave selfishly and ruin the natural environment. In this book, she demonstrates how ordinary people—the world over—can participate in private, public, and community-based institutions to improve their lives and sustainably manage natural resources.

 

Jesse R. Cougle
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Psychology

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

This is my favorite novel, and I was sad when it ended. It touches on themes of faith and destiny--topics I think about quite a bit. An unforgettable book!

 

Jim Dawkins
College of Fine Arts
Department of Interior Design

Architecture: Form, Space & Order by Francis D. K. Ching

Architecture: Form, Space & Order —it was one of two books by Frances D. K. Ching that I purchased as a sophomore in high school based on advice from Professor Joe Young in Clemson University’s College of Architecture back in 1979. I went to Clemson for a visit just to see what architecture was all about. I was considering taking technical and architectural drawing classes in lieu of art in high school and wanted advice for college preparation. Joe said to stay with the art classes; he didn’t want me to ‘stiffen up’ my creativity with the technical rules of drawing. Instead, he wanted me to explore creative thinking through loose, highly expressive (although more elusive) sketching. This is where Ching and his work came into play. Ching’s work is thoughtful, measured, accurate, and beautiful. Not only are the images excellent drawings, they convey the visual wonderfulness of architecture when the elements and principles of design—line, shape, form, scale, and proportion among others—are appropriately used to communicate an object or scene. Thirty-six years later I still remember discovering in Ching’s books that there was an art to the ‘rules’ of design. The rules were there to guide and express creative thought, and it wasn’t until I started teaching drawing in the Department of Interior Design at FSU that I learned my life as an architect and designer had its roots in thinking through drawing, of being in a moment of creative clarity.

 

Jonathan H. Dennis
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Biological Science

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics, Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher by Richard P. Feynman

When I was in college, I remember being very impressed with the brilliance of my organic chemistry professor. How could he possibly know all of these things that he spoke of in class that I could barely grasp—I did very bad in Organic Chemistry. A year later when I was taking Modern Physics, I read Six Easy Pieces, by Richard Feynman. This book made me realize that a mark of brilliance is not obfuscation, but clarity in explanation. Reading these essays shaped how I give lectures and seminars, and how I teach students to do the same. Researchers in my lab my lab preparing a talk frequently hear me say, "don't show the audience how smart you are, show them how smart they are." Six Easy Pieces was the start of that teaching philosophy for me.

 

Emily H. DuVal
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Biological Science

Cotingas and Manakins by Guy M. Kirwan

My research investigates cooperation and mate choice behavior in the lance-tailed manakin, one of many colorful species in the family Pipridae. This book profiles individual species of that family and closely related cotingas, providing a thorough summary of the current state of knowledge about each taxon. I appreciate the depth and care that went into compiling this information, and hope it will be a resource both for future generations of researchers and for library patrons who stumble unexpectedly onto the fascinating diversity shown by this group of tropical birds.

 

Charles C. Hinnant
College of Communication and Information
School of Information

Quasi-experimentation: Design & Analysis Issues for Field Settings by Thomas D. Cook and Donald T. Campbell

I have always found Cook and Campbell’s classic book Quasi-Experimentation: Design and Analysis Issues for Field Settings to be an important resource for designing and implementing research studies focused on public policy and management issues. Stuart Bretschneider, my doctoral advisor at Syracuse University, first introduced me to this book during my graduate training. The book is one of a handful of resources that I always find myself consulting when I start to design and plan a new research project.

 

Keith David Howard
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli

My specialization is the early modern Hispanic reception of Machiavelli. So for obvious reasons Machiavelli’s Prince is important for my career, and this specific edition and English translation by Harvey Mansfield was the first one I read. But it is also special for me, because it includes the famous letter to Francesco Vettori in which he mentions that he has written “a little work” on principalities. In this letter, Machiavelli describes a typical day in his life while in exile from Florence at the time. After finishing his daily chores and spending the afternoon in the village inn playing card games, he returns home and goes to his study to read and write for four hours. His brief description of that time he spends in his study every night inspired me to become a scholar myself.

 

Kathryn M. Jones
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Biological Science

Microbiology: An Evolving Science by Joan L. Slonczewski and John W. Foster

This book, Microbiology: an Evolving Science, by Slonczewski and Foster is the microbiology text that I wish I had had as a student. The material is explained clearly and as concisely as possible. I love teaching from this book. Since most of the texts I need for my research are scientific journal articles, Slonczewski and Foster is the book that I have used most as a faculty member at FSU. I immensely enjoy sharing it with my students.

 

Iris Junglas
College of Business
Department of Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Information Systems

Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte

I have two passions in life: art and technologies. Technologies, primarily in form of information systems, have accompanied me for more than 20 years now. Information systems structure data and use algorithms and analytics to make organizations more efficient, to aid managerial decision-making and to transform how business is conducted. For me, the way information is treated in information systems represents the epitome of logical human thinking.

Art is different. Art is the exact opposite. Art thrives on the interplay of colors, on the trial and error of composition and often on serendipity. Art is playfulness without even trying.

The book Envisioning Information brings together those two worlds that I am passionate about. For the longest time, I believed that both were incompatible. I believed that human beings are either confined in structure or free-spirited; either logical or creative, either monotone or colorful. The book taught me the opposite—not merely that both exist, but that both can transition from one to the other and back.

 

James Justus

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Philosophy

Rudolf Carnap and the Legacy of Logical Empiricism edited by Richard Creath

Within philosophy, cogency, breadth, and depth is a rare trifecta. More than any other figure, and perhaps to the extent any one individual can do so, Carnap 'got it right.' His analysis penetrates the deepest and extends the farthest of any philosopher offering anything resembling a world-view. The absolute clarity and ineluctable rigor of his work sets the aspirational benchmark for my own work, and for how I would like to understand the world and my place within it more generally.

 

Daniel Lee Kaplan

College of Medicine

Department of Biomedical Sciences

DNA Replication by Arthur Kornberg and Tania A. Baker

As a Yale medical student, I was fascinated by the basic science courses. We were required to accomplish a research thesis at Yale, and I embarked upon a molecular biology project. I found such great delight in making my own research discoveries at the bench! I knew that biomedical research was for me; I just didn’t know what I wanted to focus on. I next joined the graduate school at Yale in 1994, and enrolled in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. While studying in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Steitz, I was introduced to the book DNA Replication by Arthur Kornberg and Tania Baker. Reading this book, I began to learn the function and mechanism of the macromolecular machines that catalyze DNA replication. Importantly, I realized that the best work in the DNA replication field was yet to come, because there were so many unanswered, important questions in DNA replication! I was particularly excited by the book’s description of the replication fork helicase, the protein assembly that unwinds double-stranded DNA during DNA replication. Almost nothing was known about how this “helicase” functions, according to this state-of-the-art textbook! I then began enthusiastically pursuing my benchtop investigations of helicase function and mechanism. My helicase research continues to this day, in fact it is now more vigorous than ever, some 21 years after reading the DNA Replication textbook. And believe it or not, I still believe the best discoveries in DNA replication are yet to come!

 

Sanjay S. Kumar

College of Medicine

Department of Biomedical Sciences

From Neuron to Brain by John G. Nicholls, A. Robert Martin, Paul A. Fuchs, David A. Brown, Mathew E. Diamond and David A. Weisblat

You’re about to delve into a newer addition of what I consider a Classic textbook of Neuroscience– one that is responsible for initiating and sustaining my interest in this great discipline and, in no small measure, shaping my career. Lovingly dubbed as “the book by 3 authors”—Kuffler, Nicholls & Martin originally, this text deals with important topics in Neuroscience in a narrative form that I found most appealing. The topics are dealt comprehensively and include suggested readings right there within the text for easy reference. The Figures are second to none, and the Glossary at the end of the book makes for an invaluable resource for the beginner. Never judge a book by its cover [or size] they say, and this book lives up to that adage for what it promises to deliver­– a fascinating insight into Neuroscience, covering the gamut, From Neuron to Brain.

 

David Landau

College of Law

Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis by Martin Shapiro

Courts: A Comparative and Political Analysis, by Martin Shapiro, is perhaps the seminal work in modern, interdisciplinary comparative legal scholarship. The work argues that courts derive legitimacy from a simple dyadic model in which an independent judge applies preexisting legal rules to disputes. Shapiro's book uses comparative analysis shows that this vision is largely a myth. In particular, he looks across a range of different legal systems—the UK, the European civil law, Chinese law, and Islamic law—to show that systems illustrating paradigmatic features of this model collapse upon close inspection. This book was an exciting read to me as an undergraduate and later graduate student because of its mastery of comparative method: it showed how comparative work could have more ambitious aims than merely classifying legal systems, and how careful case selection could elucidate important issues in judicial politics. This book inspired me to try and ask difficult questions about how courts function in their broader political and social context, and about drawing structured comparisons between seemingly very different judiciaries.

 

Karen M. McGinnis

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Biological Science

Mutants of Maize by M. Gerald Neuffer, Edward H. Coe and Susan R. Wessler

On the occasion of being awarded tenure, I have selected Mutants of Maize by M. Gerald Neuffer, Edward Coe, and Susan Wessler as my legacy book for the Florida State University Library. This comprehensive resource is significant to me for the way it represents the best of my field of science: applicable, accessible and admirable. My students and I use this book regularly during our research to identify phenotypes of maize, our organism of study. The diagrams and pictures are beautiful and informative, and this book is an essential navigational tool for our examination of plants and seeds in the laboratory and field. It guides us as we associate traits with genes, and genes with chromosomes, which is the basis of our science. My regard is deeper because this lovely and useful tool is authored by some of the most highly-esteemed scientists in the field, including two of the founders of modern maize genetics. It is a testament to the cooperation, collaboration and resource exchange common to the wonderful community of maize geneticists that this book brings together these renowned authors’ contributions with the work and expertise of many other scientists who readily shared their wealth of knowledge for the benefit of maize genetics scholars at all levels. Mutants of Maize embodies the things I love about doing science in the broader scientific community as well as with my students at Florida State University. 

 

Takemichi Okui

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Physics

The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard P. Feynman

Even though 25 years have passed since then, I still vividly remember the sensation I felt when I encountered The Feynman Lectures on Physics in a bookstore in front of the train station near my home in Tokyo. I was a sophomore in high school, and even though I was always interested in all kinds of sciences and mathematics as a kid, I was reading a lot of philosophy books at that time because, being a teenager, I was worried about the "world" and "life". It was just a day or two after I decided that I couldn't take Nietzsche anymore when I went to the science section of the bookstore to browse some science books to recover my sanity. I happened to grab and open Chapter 4 of Volume 1 of Feynman Physics, without even knowing who Feynman was, but after reading a page or two, I got sucked into the book; it was about the conservation of energy, a mundane standard topic in physics, but completely paraphrased in a thoroughly original, intuitive, and dynamic Feynman way! What a revelation! What a creative subject physics is! I immediately bought the book and read it from cover-to-cover countless times, getting a tremendous joy out of re-deriving all the calculations and reconstructing all his ingenious arguments. I never went back to Nietzsche.           

 

Kathleen L. Petersen

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Mathematics

Interactions Between Hyperbolic Geometry, Quantum Topology and Number Theory edited by Abhijit Champanerkar, Oliver Dasbach, Efstratia Kalfagianni, Ilya Kofman, Walter Neumann and Neal Stoitzfus

 

Garrick B. Pursley

College of Law

The Concept of Law by H. L. A. Hart

 

Marlo E. Ransdell

College of Fine Arts

Department of Interior Design

Creativity in Context by Teresa M. Amabile

As a design educator and researcher, I have a strong interest in creativity and creative behavior within the discipline of design. I chose the book Creativity in Context: An Update to the Social Psychology of Creativity by Teresa Amabile due to the fact that it places creativity within a number of disciplines outside of the arts. This book explains how context can influence personal motivation, and in turn how motivation along with thinking styles can lead to creative behavior within any context. This book was the basis for my dissertation research and has further followed me into developing design pedagogy for my courses.  It has helped me further my goal as an educator and a researcher by helping me find ways to enhance critical thinking and creative behavior among my design students. The book presents a comprehensive view of creativity that can be appreciated by all that value creative behavior.

 

Sonja E. Siennick

College of Criminology and Criminal Justice

Delinquency and Drift by David Matza

Criminologists can be divided roughly into two camps: those who think people are inherently good, and those who think people are inherently bad. I had just started graduate school and was struggling to choose a camp when my advisor recommended this book. At the time this book was written, the young field of criminology was shifting from an emphasis on biological theories of crime causation to an emphasis on sociological theories. Sidestepping entirely this nature/nurture debate, Matza writes that both perspectives are overly focused on factors that at best are imperfect and partial predictors of who will offend. He instead focuses on the dualities within conventional culture, and the tension between the laws we have passed and our collective sympathy—and even nostalgia—for the times when we too have broken rules in the name of valor, loyalty, self-defense, and excitement. From this perspective, delinquents “drift” between behavioral freedom and constraint, are committed to neither, and often are acting in the spirit of traditions that the rest of us find familiar and tolerable. This nuanced response to subcultural and control theories of crime remains one-of-a-kind and had a profound impact on my own thinking and research about crime.

 

David A. Tandberg

College of Education

Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities by William G. Bowen, Matthew M. Chingos and Michael S. McPherson

I have chosen this book because it provided for me a clear example of how serious, quality empirical work can be used to answer critical and relevant policy issues. It also showed me that social scientists can address important issues, using sophisticated methods, and present their results in ways that tell compelling stories and which are accessible to the general public and policymakers alike. After reading this book I made it my goal to do likewise.

 

Silvia Valisa

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film and Fiction by Teresa de Lauretis

The first time I read Teresa De Lauretis’ Technologies of Gender. Essays on Theory, Film, and Fiction (1987) I did not, to put it bluntly, understand a thing. Part of the problem was linguistic: I had recently moved from Italy to Berkeley, California to pursue a PhD in Italian Studies. As a foreigner, I was only starting to grasp the twists and turns of academic English. But the main issue was the content: what was she talking about, exactly? I re-read, and annotated, and then discussed the book in our gender theory seminar. And I gradually realized that Teresa De Lauretis was bridging for me, for us all, the gap between feminism as political activism and feminism—and, more broadly speaking, gender theory—as a way to think about the world. She was examining not just the relationships between men and women, not just what happens between people: rather, she was drawing our attention to the gendered ways in which we perceive, describe and interpret our lives. The ways in which we tell each other stories. Her book (and all of her work) brought home for me, once and for all, the point that gender is arguably the most powerful, widespread, unsettling, and yet, even today, among the least actually and cogently discussed forms of ideology. Her critical insights, and her commitment to writing about them, have shaped my career.

 

Yanning Wang

College of Arts and Sciences

Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China by Wilt L. Idema and Beata Grant

This is an indispensable book on the reading list of Chinese women’s writings. It unfolds a multifaceted picture of women writers’ works and lives that have long been ignored. This book not only fascinated me with women’s literary achievements in the intricate social, historical, and cultural contexts of imperial China, but also inspired me to engage in scholarship of women’s writing, one of the most important research fields of Chinese studies.

 

Hannah J. Wiseman

College of Law

Distributed Renewable Energies: Off Grid Communities by Nasir El Bassam, Preben Maegaard and Marcia Lawton Schlichting

Humans require energy for nearly every endeavor, including heating and lighting homes and businesses, improving economies, and transporting people and goods. Yet many parts of the world lack the energy that they need to grow and thrive. No energy source is perfect, which makes the study of all aspects of energy—from engineering to policy issues—interesting. Renewable energy, in particular, will be an increasingly important object of academic attention because it offers several advantages yet requires further experimentation in implementation. Renewable technologies are available and are increasingly affordable, but we still need better understandings of how to best integrate them into communities. Distributed renewable energy, which is small generation equipment implemented at a local level, gives communities control over their own power source, creates local jobs, makes communities more resilient in the face of storms and other events that disrupt centralized energy infrastructure, and avoids the need for large, expensive transmission infrastructure. I hope that this book will inspire current and future students to think creatively about energy solutions needed for integrating distributed renewables into domestic and international communities.

 

Samuel R. Wiseman

College of Law

Mass Incarceration on Trial: A Remarkable Court Decision and the Future of Prints in America by Jonathan Simon

I hope that this book will inspire future generations of students to understand the causes of the problems facing society and to seek innovative solutions.

 

Others honored:

Frederick Bonney -- College of Business ; Department of Marketing

Alan Lemmon -- College of Arts and Sciences ; Department of Scientific Computing

Christian Weber -- College of Arts and Sciences ; Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics

Mei Zhang -- College of Engineering; Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering