Professors unveil new books

 

It may have been April Fools Day and there may have been plenty of laughter, but the gathering in Castleton State College Library on April 1was no prank. The library lounge seemed like a good place to be around 4 p.m. when people started trickling in and gathering around the food table.

Students and colleagues were there to congratulate professors Tersh Palmer and Judy Meloy on their recently released books, now available in the school library.

“The Library Department has been known to sponsor lectures too as a more scholarly event. This is just a good excuse for people to get together,” said Library Director Sandy Duling. “We need to recognize the effort they put into this… it’s an inspiration.”

After two years of working, Palmer celebrated his book, “Vampires In The New World.” The book surveys vampire films and literature in the historic and national perspectives of the vampire figure and what they mean.

When asked why he had decided to write about vampires, Palmer responded that he’s “been into gothic things for a long time.” He later noted that this survey on vampires really “pulls out different cultural threads in history.”

Unfortunately, Judy Meloy was unable to make it to the book welcoming. Her book, “Twenty-First Century Learning by Doing,”consists largely of the thinking and doing of 69 individuals who describe various aspects of what it means to learn about and simultaneously undertake qualitative research for their doctoral thesis.

“I wanted to help. I wanted a book that would be a friend and a companion, not a telling, a list of rules or ‘how tos,'” Meloy said of her book. She said she wanted to help learners new to the process appreciate the ways of qualitative research.

When interviewed later, she described the process of writing the book like a party, hearing the voices of so many people and doing her best to understand what they wanted to share and then to represent their stories. Organizing and portraying the information was the challenge.

“I am pleased with the work, but remain a bit disquieted with the responsibility of working with so many individual experiences,” said Meloy.

But colleagues said she should be pleased with her work. Associate Academic Dean Yasmine Ziesler suggested that no matter where people were in the research process, “they can find themselves in this book.”

Duling said it was interesting to have a reception for two new books on “complete opposite ends of the spectrum.”

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