Bethany College has produced many outstanding authors and scholars. I would like to call your attention to three recent scholarly works with significant Bethany ties (summaries excerpted from the publishers).
Bethany College: A Liberal Arts Odyssey (Chalice Press) by D. Duane Cummins
Since Alexander Campbell's 1840 charter established "a seminary of learning for the instruction of youth," Bethany College has claimed a place of national importance in education and in the history of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). D. Duane Cummins, for fourteen years Bethany's president and a noted Disciples historian, takes a fascinating and comprehensive look at the institution in Bethany College: A Liberal Arts Odyssey. Cummins intertwines Bethany's story with American history and economic patterns, from the founding of a religion-related institution in antebellum times, through the rebalancing of liberal arts and professional arts during the 1970s and 1980s, to "American Higher Education and the Liberal Arts in the New Millennium." Many resources, including a timeline connecting Bethany's history with world events, make Bethany College: A Liberal Arts Odyssey an invaluable read for academics, historians, and those who hold this beloved institution near their hearts.
D. Duane Cummins is president emeritus of Bethany College, former president of the Division of Higher Education for the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and author of several history books.
Hemingway, Cuba, and the Cuban Works (The Kent State University Press) edited by Larry Grimes and Bickford Sylvester
Ernest Hemingway resided in Cuba longer than he lived anywhere else, yet no book has been devoted to how his life in Cuba influenced his writing. Hemingway, Cuba, and the Cuban Works corrects this omission by presenting contributions by scholars and journalists from the United States, Russia, Japan, and Cuba, who explore how Hemingway absorbed and wrote from the culture and place around him.The volume opens with an examination of Hemingway’s place in Cuban history and culture, evaluations of the man and his work, and studies of Hemingway’s life as an American in Cuba. These essays look directly at Hemingway’s Cuban experience, and they range from the academic to the journalistic, allowing different voices to speak and different tones to be heard. The first section includes reflections from Gladys Rodriguez Ferrero, former director of the Museo Finco Vigía, who describes the deep affection Cubans hold for Hemingway; and recollections from the now-adult members of “Gigi’s All Stars,” the boys’ baseball team that Hemingway organized in the 1940s.
In the second part of the collection, Hemingway scholars— among them, Kim Moreland, James Nagel, Ann Putnam, and H. R. Stoneback—employ a variety of critical perspectives to analyze specific works set in Cuba or on its Gulf Stream and written during the years that Hemingway actually lived in Cuba. Also included are a long letter by Richard Armstrong describing the Machado revolution in Cuba and Hemingway’s photographs of fishermen at Cojimar, which provide vivid visual commentary on The Old Man and the Sea. Appended to the collection are Kelli Larson’s bibliography of scholarly writing on Hemingway’s Cuban works and Ned Quevedo Arnaiz’s sample of Cuban writing on those works. A chronology placing Hemingway’s life in Cuba beside historical events is also provided. This important volume illuminates Hemingway’s life and work during the Cuban years, and it will appeal to Hemingway fans and scholars alike.
Larry Grimes is professor of English emeritus and the former Perry E. and Aleece C. Gresham Chair in Humanities at Bethany College. He is the author of The Religious Design of Hemingway's Early Fiction. His co-editor, Bickford Sylvester, is emeritus professor, University of British Columbia.
This Dark Road to Mercy (HarperCollins Publishers) by Wiley Cash
This Dark Road to Mercy is a resonant novel of love and atonement, blood and vengeance, set in western North Carolina, involving two young sisters, a wayward father, and an enemy determined to see him pay for his sins. After their mother's unexpected death, twelve-year-old Easter and her six-year-old sister Ruby are adjusting to life in foster care when their errant father, Wade, suddenly appears. Since Wade signed away his legal rights, the only way he can get his daughters back is to steal them away in the night. Brady Weller, the girls' court-appointed guardian, begins looking for Wade, and he quickly turns up unsettling information linking Wade to a recent armored car heist, one with a whopping $14.5 million missing. But Brady Weller isn't the only one hunting the desperate father. Robert Pruitt, a shady and mercurial man nursing a years-old vendetta, is also determined to find Wade and claim his due. Narrated by a trio of alternating voices, This Dark Road to Mercy is a story about the indelible power of family and the primal desire to outrun a past that refuses to let go.
Wiley Cash is a former Assistant Professor of English at Bethany College. He is also the critically acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller A Land More Kind Than Home.
Each book is available either through the publisher or Amazon.com.
