Summer Books: 9 Transportive Reads from Graduate Center Scholars

Do you have a summer reading goal? Or maybe you’re just looking for a great book to read. Either way, Graduate Center professors and alumni have got you covered. Here’s a selection of recently published books that will take you to the origins of the universe, let you explore visions of the future, and challenge your thinking about some of the most controversial questions of our time:

Learn everything you ever wanted to know about time and space in The Cosmos Explained: The History of the Universe From its Beginning to Today and Beyond, by Professor Charles Liu (GC/College of Staten Island; Physics, Astrophysics). 

Untangle the history behind gender classification rules in the U.S. and their impact on the transgender community and beyond in Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity by Professor Paisley Currah (Political Science, Women's and Gender Studies). 

Delve into the revelations of Roma in the Medieval Islamic World, for which Professor Kristina L. Richardson (GC/Queens, History, Middle Eastern Studies) won the MacArthur-style “genius grant” Dan David Prize.

Transport yourself to a single, epic day in a recording studio through Professor David Grubbs’ (GC/Brooklyn College; Music/Performance and Interactive Media Arts) book-length poem, The Voice in the Headphones.

Celebrate the writing of Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Earth and Environmental Sciences, American Studies, Africana Studies) with the new collection Abolition Geography, Essays Towards Liberation.

Get a new perspective on the many ways that immigrants have changed U.S. culture and society in One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America, by Distinguished Professor Nancy Foner (GC/Hunter, Sociology).

And counter claims that mass immigration harms U.S. workers by reading Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat, by Distinguished Professor Ruth Milkman (GC/School of Labor and Urban Studies; History, Sociology).

Get an inside look at how Bangladeshi women are gaining empowerment by confronting social norms in Village Ties: Women, NGOs, and Informal Institutions in Rural Bangladesh, by Nayma Qayum (Ph.D. ’14, Political Science).

Discover how Western dreams of ever-expanding growth contributed to our current state of environmental crisis in The Nature of Tomorrow: A History of the Environmental Future, by Professor Michael Rawson (GC/Brooklyn, History).

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