Book Talk

Dr. Evelin Lindner, award-winning author and Founding President of World Dignity University presents her latest book, A Dignity Economy: Creating an Economy that Serves Human Dignity and Preserves Our Planet (Dignity Press, 2012). Lindner's work provides an overview of the plurality of concepts and movements concerning the current global economic situation, calling for "a world dignity movement, a movement that creates inclusion, both locally and globally." Evelin Lindner is a transdisciplinary social scientist and humanist, in a wide range of fields from neuroscience to political science and philosophy. She holds two Ph.D.s,, one in medicine and the other in psychology. She is the Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, a global network of academics and practitioners (HumanDHS, www.humiliationstudies.org), a global network of academics and practitioners, and Co-founder and professor at the World Dignity University initiative. Lindner lives and teaches globally, and is affiliated, among others, with Columbia University in New York City, the University of Oslo, Norway, and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme in Paris. Lindner is the author of Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict (Praeger, 2006; foreword by Morton Deutsch, Professor Emeritus of Teachers College), noted as path-breaking and honored as a Choice 2007 Outstanding Academic Title; Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict (Praeger, 2009; foreword by Morton Deutsch): and Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security: Dignifying Relationships from Love, Sex, and Parenthood to World Affairs (Praeger, 2010; foreword by Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu).

Writes Eleanor Drago-Severson, Associate Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, "How can we help aspiring and practicing leaders develop the internal capacities they need to teach, learn, and lead in the increasingly complex environment that constitutes the field of education today?" In Helping Educators Grow: Strategies and Practices for Leadership Development (Harvard Education Press, 2012), Drago-Severson presents a new learning-oriented model of leadership development that draws on twenty-five years of teaching and research with educators from around the world. Favoring the creation of professional learning environments that fully support adult growth, she presents and elaborates on a valuable conceptual framework based on the core elements of care, respect, trust, collaboration, and intentionality.

Dr. Erica Walker, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education at Teachers College, will discuss her book, Building Mathematics Learning Communities: Improving Outcomes in Urban High Schools (Teachers College Press, 2012). "Drawing on perceptions, behaviors, and experiences of students at an urban high school?both high and low achievers?this timely book demonstrates how urban youth can be meaningfully engaged in learning mathematics. The author presents a 'potential' model rather than a 'deficit' model, complete with teaching strategies and best practices for teaching mathematics in innovative and relevant ways." Dr. Walker also examines societal perceptions of urban students, including their effect on teaching and learning, policies, and mathematics outcomes.

Featuring authors Andy Hargreaves and Michael Fullan; and invited panelists Lucy Calkins, Warren Simmons, Randi Weingarten, Mary Arevalo, and more. Moderated by TC President Susan Fuhrman.

Commentator and Chair: Winston Thompson, New York University Commentators : Eduardo Duarte, Hofstra University Shaireen Rasheed, Long Island University René V. Arcilla, New York University Respondent: David Hansen, Teachers College, Columbia University

Makings of The Sea, is an inquiry into the makings of the Mediterranean imagination in the 20th century. It is prompted by a strong interest that developed from a case of 'personal accident' (being Mediterranean by birth and upbringing) to an academic interest in how the Mediterranean comes to signify a narrative horizon of cultural and political particularities that have often been glossed over by generalised paradigmatic terms such as Oriental and Occidental, Modern and Post-modern. This volume is now published by Gorgias in hardback and paperback.

James Meredith, civil rights, Black History Month