Book Talk: The Best Dancer, Monday, 10/26, 6:30-8pm

The Gottesman Libraries sponsors book talks and lectures by faculty, students, staff, and others interested in sharing their work with the Teachers College community. Join us as we celebrate your achievements and promote social and intellectual discourse on key topics of relevance to the educating, psychological and health professions.

• Freedom at Work, Thursday, 10/1, 4-5:30pm


Maria E. Torres-Guzman, Professor of Bilingual Education at Teachers College, will be conducting a series of book talks in the Fall Term. Professor Torres-Guzman's first talk will be on, Freedom at Work: Language, Professional, and Intellectual Development in Schools (Paradigm Publishers, 2009). Divided into three parts ("Language Development as Freedom;" "Professional Development as Freedom;" and "Intellectual Development as Freedom"), Torres-Guzman’s new book, co-authored with Ruth Swinney, is about that certain state of being and social measure of how we live our lives. It provides an inside look at PS 165, a neighborhood school on the Upper West Side, to reveal a rich story about bilingual education. The timeline of activities begins in January 1993, with the "Savage Inequality Tour" and preliminary conversations with Ruth Swinney, Principal of PS 165, and concludes in January 1998, with the evolution of 17 study groups, teacher interviews, new charter, and many more initiatives proven to stimulate deeper and more meaningful learning.

"This book explores the freedom to use the language resources we have at our disposal to learn to our fullest, to engage in inquiry about learning and teaching, and to go beyond the surface in topics of schooling and education. Within a particular school context, the author explores how these freedoms came into being, how they took shape, and what they meant for the individuals involved. She shows that the individual and social freedoms in which the teacher and the learner operate within schools are important measures and outcomes of intellectual development. In connecting language, culture, learning, and intellectual development as freedoms in her own life, the author explores a new way of seeing the role of multiple languages in education and the freedom to learn" (Paradigm).

Professor Torres-Guzman's scholarly research interests include cross-cultural communication and classroom interaction; diversity and teacher education; bicultural/bilingual curriculum; parental involvement in bilingual/bicultural education and Spanish language arts. Her publications have explored alternative perspectives on the relationship between multiple languages, multiple cultures and learning. Her current interests focus on linguistic-cultural spaces and personnel historical narratives.

Maria Torres-Guzman's opening talk enhances the theme of Freedom of Speech during Banned Books Week. Join us as we warmly welcome Professor Torres-Guzman and congratulate her on recent research publications.

Where: Russell 305


• Someone Else's Face in the Mirror, Thursday, 10/15, 4-6pm


On November 27,2005 French surgeons performed the world’s first partial face transplant on thirty-eight year old Isabelle Dinoire who suffered severe facial disfiguration after she was attacked by her Labrador, Tania, while in a state of drug-induced unconsciousness. (Was Dinoire’s dog trying to save her or acting out of sheer aggression?)

Just three years later, American doctors performed the first facial transplant in the United States on Connie Culp, the tragic victim of a shooting by her husband. Culp was unable to breathe through her nose, or eat or drink on her own after having several facial surgeries prior to going to the Cleveland Clinic for the face transplant. She made headlines on all major media.

Such stories raise obvious medical issues such as: How far should medical science go in advancing treatment? How do transplant recipients struggle with anti-rejection drugs, known recently to have killed bear-attack victim Li Guoxing, the world’s second person to undergo facial surgery?

Recent surgery cases also raise major psychological issues such as: How does it feel to look in the mirror and see a face different than the one you’ve know your entire life? How should we define our identity, given that even the way we look is up for grabs? Is someone with a disfigured face "disabled"?

Cultural questions are also conjured up: How is the face manifest in visual media, and why? What narratives about faces -- from Dorian Gray to Travolta/Cage in Face Off, the tragic fate of Kanye West’s mom, and the face-shifting Michael Jackson – teach us about body, self, and soul?

Carla Bluhm and Nathan Clendenin will speak about their recent publication, Someone Else’s Face in the Mirror: Identity and the New Science of Face Transplants (Praegar, 2009). In several readable chapters, the book discusses "unmasking," "dreaming," "analyzing," and "narrating" the face to offer compelling insight on trauma, innovation, and human development in "the face of promise and hope." Their research indicates a pressing need for education to respond to scientific and cultural dimensions of such surgical successes, and to prepare the public for future innovations which may resemble the cyborg and body-morph fantasies of recent science fiction.

Moderating the discussion will be John Broughton, who teaches Cultural Studies courses here in the Arts and Humanities Department, and is co-founder of the Film and Education Research Academy (FERA), a research, publishing, and teaching collaborative at Teachers College.

Carla Bluhm is a developmental psychologist and currently teaching in the Social Sciences Department at the College of Coastal Georgia. She has also taught at Allegheny College, Westminster College, University of Washington, Arizona State University, the University of Rhode Island, and at Columbia University. She received her M.A., M.Ed, and Ph.D. from Teachers College.

Nathan Clendenin is a doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies (Cultural Studies/English Education) at Teachers College. He graduated from Allegheny College in 2007 and previously studied Clinical Psychology at Duquesne University.

This book talk is co-sponsored by the Film and Education Research Academy and the Gottesman Libraries.

Where: 305 Russell


• This Is Where I Need to Be, Monday, 10/19, 4-6pm


Transcribes Amna Ahmad, "I was sitting in the back of the classroom while an African American Muslim Teacher in full hijab read aloud to us. When she said Allah's name, I felt a tremble in my heart. I can’t explain the feeling. It felt like a beginning. In the presence of my brothers and sisters in Islam, it seemed to come as a sign that this was where I needed to be."
(Oral History of Priscilla Mensah, African American sophomore in a Brooklyn high school, p.3).

Transcribes Quaintta Zaman, "I feel like I have something more to prove – that Muslims aren’t just at home. I want to prove that Muslims can do what everyone else can."
(Oral History of Fanta Camara, West African senior, p. 39).

This Is Where I Need to Be: Oral Histories of Muslim Youth in NYC (Student Press Initiative, 2009) is the first-ever collection of narratives by Muslim students enrolled in New York City high schools. Twelve teenagers capture personal moments and memories in their everyday lives to present an ethnic collage of growing up Muslim. The myriad of places that help situate identity include the masjid (neighborhood mosque); school art room; social studies classroom; the volleyball court; Latin dance class; grocery store; airport security; and friend’s living room.

Join Dr. Louis Abdellatif Cristillo , Lecturer and Director of the Muslim Youth in NYC Public School Study of Teachers College, Columbia University; Erick Gordon, founder and director of the Student Press Initiative; and several student contributors as they discuss their recent publication; counterbalance the post-9/11 stereotypes associated with Muslims in America; and highlight the need for fairness and justice in education. Omar Ahmad, a fifteen-year old Arab American of Palestinian ancestry in tenth grade at a high school in Manhattan; Faatimah Knight, a sixteen year-old Caribbean American student in the tenth grade at a high school in Brooklyn; and Sadia Khan, a sixteen year-old South Asian American student of Pakistani ancestry in the eleventh grade at a Queen's high school will be participating in the discussion.

Where: 305 Russell


• Global Perspectives on Multilingualism, Thursday, 10/22, 4-5:30pm


Celebrating the theme of free expression in multiple languages through a series of talks this Fall, Maria Torres-Guzman will speak on Global Perspectives on Multilingualism: Unity in Diversity, a scholarly publication she co-edited with Joel Gomez (Teachers College Press, 2009). This timely volume contains essays by a host of international contributors on the value of multilingual schooling in countries undergoing significant curriculum change as a result of rapid political change: South Africa, Nigeria, Slovakia, Germany, Taiwan, Columbia, and New Zealand. An exemplar for policy and practice, Global Perspectives on Multilingualism provides insight into new ways of thinking about the theory and application of multilingualism in K-12 American schools, encouraging educators to reflect on a broader, more inclusive definition – one that considers modes of multilingual learning and instructional design; the role of democracy; and the linkage of language and culture. In presenting a portrait of what is possible is the aspiration for social, cultural, and educational unity through greater linguistic diversity.

Maria E. Torres-Guzman is Professor of bilingual/bicultural education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Torres-Guzman has taught and conducted research in Michigan, Texas, California, New York, Puerto Rico, Spain, and New Zealand. Previous publications include: Freedom at Work: Language, Professional, and Intellectual Development in Schools (Paradigm, 2009); Creating Classroom Communities of Learning: International Case Studies and Perspectives (Multilingual Matters, 2009); Imagining Multilingual Schools: Language in Education and Glocalization (Multilingual Matters, 2006); and Learning in Two Worlds: An Integrated Spanish/English Biliteracy Approach (Longman, 1992; Allyn and Bacon, 2002).

Joel Gomez is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and interim Associate Dean for Research at the School of Education and Human Development at George Washington University. Gomez has edited numerous monographs, articles, and online sites as executive director of the former national Clearinghouse of Bilingual Education at George Washington University.

This book talk is co-sponsored by Teachers College Press and the Gottesman Libraries. It follows Professor Torres-Guzman's October 1st book talk on Freedom at Work: Language, Professional, and Intellectual Development in Schools (Paradigm Publishers, 2009).

Where: 305 Russell


• The Best Dancer, Monday, 10/26, 6:30-8pm


Christoph Keller is a Swiss writer and critic, living in New York City with his wife, the poet Jan Heller Levi. He has written three prize winning novels in his native German; plays for Swiss, Austrian, and German audiences; and most recently a memoir about living with a progressive disability, Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Also known as Kugelberg-Welander Syndrome, SMA is an incurable hereditary disease of progressive muscular degeneration. Now wheelchair dependant, Keller was diagnosed at the age of fourteen, just after playing a game of tennis.

Der Beste Tänzer received glowing reviews for its release in Germany by S. Fischer, in 2003. It spent six weeks on the Swiss bestseller list, and triggered talk show appearances, as well as an hour-long movie about Keller for the prestigious Sternstunden documentary program on Swiss National TV. The book was translated into English by Alison Gallup and made its American debut through Ooligan Press in May 2009.

Christopher Keller writes, "I hope The Best Dancer is one of those books that make you see the world differently. It's more a book about life in general, than about progressive disability. But life is progressive as well, isn’t it? In the end it’s about something we all share: loss. My wife, Jan Heller Levi, ends one of her poems with the haunting lines: 'how we’re always losing something,/how beautiful that is.' Those words reverberate through my book – and through our lives."

Writes Lois Keith, author of Take Up Thy Bed and Walk: Death, Disability and Cure in Classic Fiction for Girls, "The Best Dancer is a celebration of this new life – it's a story of love and loss and leaving things behind. Like the best kind of novel, this memoir will grab you and live in your mind long after you’ve finished reading."

Included in the U.S. edition are two new chapters: "The Island Cathedral," recounting Keller's 9/11 experiences, and a short story entitled "The Meeting with Christopher Keller." The book is illustrated richly with family mementos, personal photographs, and reproductions of art.

Following the opening reception for Disability Awareness Week (10/26-10/30), this book talk is co-sponsored by the Office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities (OASID) and the Gottesman Libraries.

Where: 305 Russell