Summer Reading 2023: Recent Books by AAUW Fellows & Grantees
Nightbloom
Peace Adzo Medie, is a scholar and writer. She is Senior Lecturer in Gender and International Politics at the University of Bristol. Her research addresses gender, politics, and conflict in Africa. She is a co-editor of African Affairs, the top-ranked African studies journal, and of the Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations book series. Her debut novel, His Only Wife, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a New York Times Notable Book of 2020, and a Time Magazine Must-Read Book of 2020. Nightbloom
Big Girl
Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Ph.D., is the author of the novel Big Girl (W.W. Norton & Co. 2022), a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection. Her previous books are The Poetics of Difference: Queer Feminist Forms in the African Diaspora, winner of the MLA William Sanders Scarborough Prize, and the short story collection, Blue Talk and Love (2015), winner of the Judith Markowitz Award for Fiction from Lambda Literary. Her writing has appeared in Best New Writing, Kenyon Review, American Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, The Cut, American Literary History, Black Futures, American Quarterly, GLQ: Lesbian and Gay Studies Quarterly, Ebony, The Root, and others. Mecca is Associate Professor of English at Georgetown University.
Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope
Victoria Reyes, is a feminist sociologist who studies culture, borders, and empires. She is author of two award-winning books: Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope (Stanford Briefs, an imprint of Stanford University Press, 2022) and Global Borderlands: Fantasy, Violence, and Empire (Stanford University Press, 2019). Her award-winning work has also been published in Social Forces, Ethnography, Theory and Society, City & Community, Sociology Compass, Poetics, and International Journal of Comparative Sociology, among other outlets.
Killingly
Katharine Elizabeth Beutner, is an author and an assistant professor of English at the College of Wooster in Ohio, where she also runs the online eco-writing literary journal The Dodge. Her novel Alcestis, a retelling of the Greek myth, was published by Soho Press in February 2010. Alcestis won the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award from the Publishing Triangle in 2011 and was also a finalist for a Lesbian Debut Fiction Award from the Lambda Literary Association and the BSFS Compton Crook Award.
Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim
Patricia Park, is an Assistant Professor of Literature at American University, a Fulbright scholar in Creative Arts, and Jerome Hill Artist Fellow. She is the author of the acclaimed adult novel, RE JANE, a Korean American reimagining of Brontë’s JANE EYRE named Editors’ Choice by The New York Times Book Review; Best Books of 2015 by American Library Association; O, The Oprah Magazine pick; NPR “Fresh Air” pick; and others. She has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Guardian, Salon, and others.
I Was Determined to Remember: Harriet Jacobs and the Corporeality of Slavery's Legacies
Koritha Mitchell, is an award-winning author, literary historian, cultural critic, and professional development expert. Her research focuses on African America literature as well as violence in United States history and contemporary culture. Her first book, Living with Lynching, won awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and from the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. She is a professor of English at Ohio State University. Her passion and expertise combine in workshops, lectures, and media appearances to inspire and empower audiences to think critically and take intentional action on their goals and ideals.
Postpartum is Forever: Social Support from Conception through Grandparenthood
Jane Honikman, M.S., became a leader of the social movement to promote the emotional wellbeing of parents and their families through her work with Postpartum Education for Parents (PEP) in the 1970’s and the founding of Postpartum Support International (PSI) in 1987. She has written several books on the topic and continues to lecture and train internationally on the role of social support and the emotional health of families. In 2015, Jane co-founded the Parental Action Institute with the mission to energize and revitalize professionals and parent advocates in order to support new families.
The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia
Tamika Y. Nunley, is Associate Professor of History with courses and research focused on the history of slavery, African American women’s and gender history, the early Republic, and the American Civil War. Her first book, At the Threshold of Liberty: Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C. (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) reveals how African American women—enslaved, fugitive, and free—imagined new identities and lives beyond the oppressive restrictions intended to prevent them from experiencing liberty, self-respect, and power. Her second book, The Demands of Justice: Enslaved Women, Capital Crime, and Clemency in Early Virginia, 1662-1865 examines clemency in legal cases that involve enslaved women accused of capital crime in early Virginia.
Drawing Deportation Art and Resistance among Immigrant Children
Silvia Rodriguez Vega, is an interdisciplinary scholar and assistant professor at UCSB’s Department of Chicana/o Studies. Her research explores the ways anti-immigration policy impacts the lives of immigrant children through methodological tools centering participatory art and creative expression. Her first book, Drawing Deportation: Art and Resistance among Immigrant Children (NYU Press, 2023) argues that immigrant children are not passive in the face of the challenges presented by U.S. anti-immigrant policies. Based on ten years of work with immigrant children in two different border states—Arizona and California— Drawing Deportation gives readers a glimpse into the lives of immigrant children and their families.
Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes Around the World
Robin Kirk, is the author of numerous books, including The Bond Trilogy: The Bond, The Hive Queen, and The Mother’s Wheel. Her nonfiction book for kids, Righting Wrongs: 20 human rights heroes around the world, profiles some of the visionaries behind human rights. Kirk is a Faculty Co-Chair of the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute and is a founding member of the Pauli Murray Center, which explores the legacy of this Durham daughter and examines America’s past of slavery, segregation, and continuing economic inequality. She is a professor of the practice in Duke’s Department of Cultural Anthropology.
A Mermaid Girl
Sana Rafi, is a Pakistani-American author of children’s books. Sana is especially passionate about creating diverse books for children. Her latest book, About A Mermaid Girl, follows a young girl as she celebrates the experience of wearing a burkini for the first time in this lyrical and heartwarming picture book that casts a fresh light on timeless summer activities, and celebrates cultural traditions and intergenerational bonds.
Fellowships & Grants
Essential summer reading for 2022 from stellar scholars and authors who have received educational funding from AAUW.