Authors and Artists

Summer 2024

Books

Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry

Austin Frerick ’12, Island Press, March 2024

Frerick notes, “This book (especially my slaughter baron chapter) stems from two MAPs I did at Grinnell with the late Jean Ketter and Tim Werner.” In Barons, Frerick explores the story of seven corporate titans, their rise to power, and the consequences. From the global coffee industry to grain businesses, Frerick chronicles the monopolies and ubiquitous corruption that define American food, and traces how the deregulation of the American food industry has brought about the consolidation of wealth in the hands of few to the detriment of neighborhoods, livelihoods, and democracy itself. Frerick also shows a different path is possible, by illustrating how taking back power from the barons could foster a fair, healthy, and prosperous food industry.

Imagined Fronts: The Great War and Global Media

Timothy Benson ’72, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 2023

Imagined Fronts is Benson’s catalog for an exhibition he curated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Imagined Fronts explores how today’s media spectacle has origins in World War I and the burgeoning mediascape of posters, photography, cinema, illustrated newspapers, and ephemera that made it the first global media war. With some 200 objects by artists, war photographers, and filmmakers as well as soldiers from across several continents, Imagined Fronts explores the intermingling of mass media and the artistic imagination.

Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape

Sam Nakahira ’19, Getty Publications, March 2024

This graphic biography delves into the early years of Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa (1926–2013), who was a teenager in Southern California when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Asawa’s father was incarcerated, and she and the rest of her family were sent to a detention center in California, and later to a concentration camp in Arkansas. Even so, Asawa managed to nurture her dreams of becoming an artist and creator of groundbreaking sculptures. Featuring illustrations and photographs of Asawa’s artwork, this story demonstrates the transformative power of making art. Nakahira is a comic artist and cultural worker from Los Angeles, who makes comics about overlooked histories, the natural world, dreams, and more.

Settlement House Girl: Growing Up in the 1950s at North East Neighborhood House, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Caroline Scheaffer Arnold ’66, Amazon, December 2023

Arnold’s book “chronicles my childhood as I interacted and shared meals with other settlement house residents, participated in clubs, sports and community activities, and observed the roles of the staff and my social worker parents. Few other families lived at a settlement house as ours did. The book ends with my graduation from Grinnell.” Settlement House Girl captures a time when settlement houses were in transition from their roots in immigrant communities at the turn of the 20th century to becoming today’s modern social service agencies.

True Companions: Life in the Field and Home with Our Hunting Dogs

Chris Madson ’72, Stackpole Books, October 2023

True Companions offers a collection of essays written with affection and humor in celebration of the field dogs Madson has lived with and loved over a lifetime. There are stories of choosing pups and the trials of the early years; stories of time in wild places across North America in pursuit of game; and stories of the bond that comes from spending years with these special companions.

When Housing Markets Meet Shadow Banking: Bubbles, Mortgages, Securitization, and Fintech

Bob Van Order ’66 and Rose Neng Lai, World Scientific Publishing,
March 2024

The authors explain that housing markets and shadow banking have been involved in a kind of “dance” over the last two decades. Side-by-side comparisons look at the dynamics at play between markets, pricing, mortgages, securitization, and “shadow banks” — and how they have factored into booms and busts — in the U.S. and China since the 1980s. When Housing notes that while markets have evolved, the dance is not over. Van Order is a professor at Washington University and was chief economist at Freddie Mac from 1987 until 2002.

Why Men? A Human History of Violence and Inequality

Nancy Starr Self Lindisfarne ’66 and Jonathan Neale, Hurst Publishers, December 2023

Lindisfarne says, “My anthropology, and latterly this book, all began with doing anthropology at Grinnell with Ronald Kurtz all those years ago!” (Professor Kurtz, who taught anthropology at the College for 31 years, passed away in 2014.) Why Men? asks whether war and inequality are inevitable because evolution made men competitive and dominant, then seeks answers by delving into the history of ‘true’ human nature and telling a story of humanity from early behaviors to contemporary cultures. Lindisfarne taught for many years at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Spring 2024

Books

Big Time: The History of Big Ten Basketball, 1972-1992

Murry R. Nelson ’69, Indiana University Press, February 2024

Nelson chronicles two decades of Big Ten basketball, when the conference was one of the most successful in the nation. Coaches such as Lute Olson, Johnny Orr, and Bob Knight led the nation in national titles, influencing the league with their playing styles, changes to rules, recruitment, and intensity. Nelson has written several books about the history of American sports and basketball. He is emeritus professor of education and American studies at Penn State University.

Failure to Thrive: A Novel

Susan Sink ’86, Lulu, August 2023

Failure to Thrive follows a North Dakota family during the 2008 financial crisis, which, combined with a personal crisis, thrusts them into the world of child protective services and the beginning of the kind of grievances that will eventually give rise to Donald Trump. For working-class people, meaningful work is being taken away and replaced with "driving truck" or relocating the men to fracking sites out west. A wife and daughter left at home with an additional tragedy can't cope. Failure is a lovely and heart-wrenching account from a part of the world few know.

Art

Exiting the Highway

Seth Hanson ’17, Dollhouse Lightning, December 2023

Hanson describes his latest album, Exiting the Highway, as a reflection on his life in Boston over the last few years and a search for hope in smallness and slowness. Also in 2023, Hanson released Singing Songs with You, a triple album of original music for children — featuring Hello Friends, Watch Out, and The Beauty’s Infinite — under the name “Mr. Seth.” Both albums are available via streaming.