17 minute read
On the Bookshelf
The Little Book of Restorative Teaching Tools
By Lindsey Pointer ’13, Kathleen McGoey, and Haley Farrar As restorative practices gain momentum, scholars and practitioners have begun to ask: How should restorative practices be taught? What educational structures and methods are in alignment with restorative values and principles? This book introduces games as a tool to teach restorative justice practices. Grounded in an understanding of restorative pedagogy and experiential learning strategies, the games allow learners to experience and understand restorative practices while building relationships and improving skills. Pointer has a Ph.D. in Restorative Justice from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and currently serves as the assistant director of the National Center on Restorative Justice at Vermont Law School. Published by Good Books, 2020.
When North Becomes South
By Becky Bronson ’79 Bronson wrote this book after visiting her son, a Peace Corps volunteer in a remote African village. What would you do without electricity or the Internet? You may find out in this dystopian novel. A massive solar flare triggers a change in Earth’s magnetic field. Suddenly, power grids fail all over the globe, the Internet shuts down, long-distance communication becomes impossible, and modern methods of transportation no longer exist. A separated family struggles to reunite in this changed landscape where each must answer the question: How do you steer your life when north and south are radically shifting? Published by Rebecca Bronson, 2020.
love is not dying
By Jeremy Zucker ’18 Zucker didn’t set out to be a career musician; in fact, he majored in molecular biology. This is his debut album release, although he had released music throughout college and had been offered multiple deals by the time he entered his senior year. Like his breakout song, “comethru,” the album digs into the singer’s personal relationships and inner fantasies. He has sold out stages across Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia, and “comethru” is platinum certified, with more than 1 billion global streams. Republic Records, 2020.
Created for Greatness
By Robert Gregory Stephens ’68 Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Have you struggled to find happiness that lasts? With all the trials, problems, pressures, and temptations you face, how can you live a happy, successful, and significant life? Told through the narrative of a father-son relationship, Stephens has written a guide to a happy life. During his 40 years of Bible study and mentoring, he found the answer in 10 life-changing skills based on God’s word. This book will help you discover how to embrace happiness that lasts; achieve peak performance; make wise decisions; conquer worry, fear, anxiety, and stress; and create a powerful prayer life. Published by Beaver’s Pond Press, 2020. JB VANNATTA EVOLVED
FEATURING YOU ARE WHERE I WANT TO BE| LOVE THAT'S BOLD| MY 45S
A Short & Happy Guide to Advanced Legal Research
By Ann Walsh Long ’89 Legal research can be costly for students and practitioners in two ways: time and money. Long, a law professor at the Lincoln Memorial University School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee, has written a book that streamlines the process of legal research involving any subject matter and during any stage of civil litigation. Included is an overview of the litigation analytics and artificial intelligence features available from Bloomberg Law, Lexis Advance, and Westlaw Edge. Long notes that the Block Plan taught her to be efficient with her time, a lesson she’s carried over to her professional life. Published by West Academic Publishing, 2020.
Evolved
By Jeremy Vannatta ’93 Elements of rock, folk, alt-country, and bluegrass color Vannatta’s first full-length album, “Evolved.” A student of music, a fan of words, a longtime mixtape maker, and a part-time rock music critic, Vannatta has culled a group of 13 original songs built mainly from love won, love lost, and love spurned. His songs sound at once original and paradoxically as if they had existed in the ether for years, ready to be plucked and pressed to vinyl. “Evolved” is available for streaming on all major platforms.
Prioritizing Sustainability Education: A Comprehensive Approach
Co-edited by Chara Armon ’95 The book presents theory-to-practice essays and case studies by educators from six countries who present dynamic approaches to sustainability education. Too often, students graduate with exploitative, consumer-driven orientations toward ecosystems and are unprepared to confront the urgent challenges presented by environmental degradation. The approaches in this book expand beyond conventional emphases on developing students’ attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors by thinking and talking about ecosystems to additionally engaging students with ecosystems in sensory, affective, psychological, and cognitive dimensions, as well as imaginative, spiritual, or existential dimensions that guide environmental care and regeneration. Published by London: Routledge, 2020.
Heaven in Your Bones
By Caryn Daus Flanagan ’89 A young child’s world changes forever when, late one night, her parents receive a devastating phone call. Young readers follow little Sarah as she navigates sudden loss for the first time. Utilizing her natural curiosity, happy memories, and innate wisdom, Sarah’s journey leads her to a beautiful place of understanding and peace. Aimed at children 3 and older, this book, based on actual events, is a love letter to children experiencing traumatic loss. A portion of proceeds from book sales is donated to ACCESS, a nonprofit providing emotional support resources for people who have lost loved ones in aircraft accidents. Published by BookBaby, 2020.
PHOTO BY JENNIFER COOMBES
We asked Professor and Chair of Comparative Literature CORINNE SCHEINER “What’s On Your Reading List?”
“I just finished rereading Tommy Orange’s ‘There There,’ which I first read when it was published in 2018. In the novel, we hear the stories of a wide range of characters, all of whom are heading to a Big Oakland Powwow. Through these characters, as well as through its prologue, the novel takes on stereotypes of Native identity, subverting these stereotypes by offering up each character’s own story of their lived experiences. These stories are ones of shared struggle for, Orange says, ‘I wanted to have my characters struggle in the way that I struggled, and the way that I see other native people struggle, with identity and with authenticity.’
“Lately, I have been thinking a lot about identity and contemporary fiction, in particular the way(s) in which novels not only allow for representations of identity, but also provide spaces in which to deconstruct identities and I have been exploring new-to-me voices, which is how ‘There There’ found its way back to my current reading list. If you’ve not read it yet, I highly recommend adding it to yours.”
Lyme Disease and Relapsing Fever Spirochetes: Genomics, Molecular Biology, Host Interactions and Disease Pathogenesis
Co-edited by D. Scott Samuels ’83 Lyme disease, the most prevalent vector-borne illness in the U.S. and Europe and a growing threat to global health, is considered a model system of emerging infectious diseases. The 2010 book “Borrelia: Molecular Biology, Host Interaction and Pathogenesis” was the first state-of-the-art reference work covering the myriad facets of the enzootic disorders caused by pathogenic Borrelia. This current volume, by the same editors, builds on the previous work and contains a vast amount of new information. The volume highlights and describes in detail the tremendous advances in understanding the Borrelia genus at the molecular and cellular levels as well as the pathogenesis of Lyme disease and relapsing fever. Published by Caister Academic Press, 2021.
Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving A Life
By Katherine E. Standefer ’07 Standefer tells the story of her troubled relationship to her implanted cardiac defibrillator within the context of the device’s global supply chain and the dysfunctional American health care system. From the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in Southern California to the tantalum and tin mines seized by armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, the book, both a memoir and mystery, takes the reader on a global reckoning with the social, environmental, and personal costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated. Standefer’s book was named a must-read by O Magazine and received a starred Kirkus review. Published by Little, Brown, Spark, 2020.
“We Didn’t Start the Fire”: Billy Joel and Popular Music Studies
Co-edited by Ryan Bañagale ’00, director of performing arts and associate professor of music Billy Joel has sold more than 150 million records, produced 33 Top 40 hits, and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fans celebrate him, critics deride him, and scholars have all but ignored him. Emerging from a 2016 public musicology conference on Joel hosted by Colorado College, this first-of-its-kind collection of essays offers close analysis and careful insight into the ways his work has impacted popular music during the last 50 years. Ultimately, these chapters interrogate how music frames our experiences, constitutes our history and culture, and gains importance in our daily lives. Published by Lexington Books, 2020.
You Talkin’ to Me? How to Write Great Dialogue
By Linda Seger ’67 and John Rainey Unlike the chitchat of everyday life, dialogue in stories should express character, advance the story, suggest a theme, and include a few memorable lines that audiences will be quoting for decades. Inexperienced writers write wooden dialogue, have characters all speaking the same way, or awkwardly insert exposition into conversations. In this book written for screenwriters, novelists, and playwrights, the authors explore dialogue from a different angle and discuss examples of great dialogue from films and novels. Each chapter ends with examples of poor dialogue, which are annotated by Seger and then rewritten by Rainey. Published by Michael Wiese Productions, 2020.
Alumni who have written or edited books, or recorded CDs, are invited to send notifications to bulletin@coloradocollege.edu and bookstore@coloradocollege.edu. To mail a copy, send to Bulletin, 14 E. Cache La Poudre St., Colorado Springs, CO 80903. All submitted material will be donated to Tutt Library. Inscriptions inside books are always welcome.
Untold Stories: Taizo Nakashima
CLASS OF 1893
Researched and written by Joan E. Ericson, Professor of Japanese, Colorado College
Colorado College’s connection with Asia was built, initially, by its international students.
Their presence has surprisingly deep roots. Two of China’s most famous modern writers — translator of the complete works of Shakespeare Liang Shih-chi [Shiqiu in pinyin] and the poet Wen Yiduo — were among nine Chinese male students at CC in 1923-24.
But Japanese students were here from the earliest decades. Taizo Nakashima (one of only five graduates from CC in 1893) would go on to acquire a master’s degree in psychology at Harvard University and a Ph.D. at Cornell University and become an eminent figure in that field in Japan.
The annual Butler Center awards event includes an award in his honor, the Taizo Nakashima Emerging Student Leader, presented to first-year and sophomore students. While several Japanese students preceded Nakashima — the first, Goto Toyohachi, entered in 1884 — and another entered with him in 1891, Nakashima’s story stands out.
Taizo Nakashima [泰蔵中島] was born in 1866 in a fishing village in Wakasa — what would become Fukui Prefecture — the son of a prosperous fisherman. His childhood and adolescence spanned tumultuous years — the restoration of the emperor, abolition of feudal system and samurai privileges, construction of a modern military and state apparatus, and a wholesale transformation of its educational system. We don’t know why Nakashima left Fukui, but the former Matsudaira daimyo (hereditary lord of the domain) was well-known for encouraging young men to seek out modern knowledge and education. The sixth of seven children and the second son, Nakashima was probably freer to leave his family since he was not expected to continue in his father’s profession. Nakashima studied at the Taisei [Peaceful Occident/Western] Gakkan school in Osaka, a small school with a liberal arts focus, founded in 1886 by a Japanese Congregational pastor. It was at Taisei Gakkan that Nakashima was baptized and presumably changed his given name from Matsutaro to Taizo [Peaceful storehouse].
Shinri Kenkyū (Study of Mind) No. 96, 1919 (edited by Shinrigaku Kenkyūkai).
CC Chinese students in 1924; Wen Yiduo, front row right; Liang Shih-chi, second from right.
Professor Joan E. Ericson
He graduated from Taisei Gakkan in 1890, the same year that the Meiji Constitution signaled a conservative shift in education and politics.
His decision to come to CC is surely rooted in the Congregational connection, especially since Nakashima became a member of the First Congregational Church in Colorado Springs.
When Nakashima came to the United States, there were 325 men and nine Japanese women studying abroad and like many in this era, he did not receive any Japanese government support. The tuition and fees at CC in 1891 were $43 per year, with an additional $6 per week for room and board, the equivalent of $7,411.04 today, a large sum for a student from Japan.
Prior to arriving at CC at age 24, Nakashima had joined a psychology discussion group in Tokyo led by Professor Yujiro Motora, the first Japanese to be credentialed abroad in psychology (Johns Hopkins University), who taught at Tokyo Imperial University. Nakashima came to CC with the intention of establishing himself as an intellectual and academic. He made a strong impression: In 1895, two years after he graduated, Taizo Nakashima was described in The Colorado Collegian as “one of the best students of philosophy and psychology that ever entered the college.”
At CC, Nakashima studied on the Bachelor of Philosophy track: This required no Greek, less Latin, more science and a choice of a modern European
Students in front of Hagerman Hall (male dorm). Hirase is front row left; Nakashima is front row, fifth from left.
language (French or German). In April 1892, under “Personal,” in The Colorado Collegian, it was noted that Nakashima was “making a specialty of philosophy anticipatory to a professorship of philosophy in Japan.”
Nakashima was an active member in the Apollonian Society, a male-only literary forum, one of three on campus that played a particularly prominent role in the extracurricular life at the college — the other two were the female-only Minerva Society and the co-ed Phoenix Society. Nakashima published a number of articles in The Colorado Collegian, including an essay on the transformation of modern Japan, with its enduring tensions between elements of Western civilization and “our own.” He also wrote of establishing a “Japanese Christian Church” as it had existed “in the mind of Christ… [with] the recognition of mutual brotherhood… .” The literary societies were also forums to polish oratorical skills and debate in which Nakashima excelled. In 1892, a joint meeting of the Apollonians and Minervans was held to debate: “resolved, that the time spent upon the study of Latin and Greek could be more advantageously spent upon English.”
In addition to literary societies, sports played a prominent role in campus life. Nakashima was reported to be a pugilist (boxer). Perhaps that came in handy when he was elected the Apollonian sergeant-at-arms. The Colorado Collegian covered triumphs on the playing fields, but would also report that “foot ball, base ball, and rowing are finding their way into Japanese educational institutions.”
Taisei Gakkan students, with Nakashima, circa 1886.
Nakashima graduated from CC in two years. What was reported to have surprised his fellow students was the public reveal of his age — or that of “the squire” (Nakashima’s nickname) — as part of the biography given of each graduate at the graduation ceremony. At that time there were a variety of students on campus attending both Cutler Academy and Colorado College, but there were few older students outside the traditional post-secondary age range. At graduation, Nakashima presented an “oration” on “the modern movement against metaphysics”: He argued “the course of human evolution shows certainty to be obtainable by no other means than the one followed by science…”
A fellow Apollonian member was E.K. Gaylord 1897, the father of Edith Kinney Gaylord Harper (1916-2001), who attended CC for two years and whose legacy continues to support the college through the Inasmuch Foundation. It was Edith Gaylord Harper, who was a charter trustee of CC, whose donation to support Pacific and Asian Studies
Nakashima with graduate school friends.
Cover of Nakashima's Ph.D. dissertation, translated into Japanese. Nakashima when he was teaching in Japan after having received his degrees in the U.S. Nakashima’s wife Sato and son Kenzo.
in 1991 enabled the study of Japanese language at CC. In a whimsical survey of 34 students taken at the end of his time at CC, Nakashima responded that he would be spending his vacation in Chicago visiting the World’s Fair, that he did not “believe in co-education” (eight others also responded in the negative) and that he expected to be engaged “in five years.” E.K. Gaylord said he was going to spend his vacation “at work” in the mountain town of Rico, Colorado, that co-education “depends on the Co.” and that he expected to be engaged “when I lose my common sense.”
At Harvard, Nakashima studied experimental psychology with William James. In his effects, his family still has a signed photo dedicated to him from James.
He returned to Japan in 1896, married, and took a position as a lecturer at Tokyo Senmon Gakko, what would become Waseda University. This was followed by a series of short-lived appointments at prestigious schools and publishing translations. He also wrote articles about Japanese culture in English for resident foreigners and later found himself teaching English and ethics at an agricultural high school in Sapporo. At this point he returned to the U.S., earning his Ph.D. from Cornell in 1909 under Professor Edward Titchener. Nakashima’s 1909 publication based on his dissertation, “Timerelations of the affective processes” is still available online in the Psychological Review, 16(5), 303–339.
During this period, Nakashima was communicating with those at CC. In October 1895, under “Alumni Notes,” the student publication notes that Nakashima had recently published a book in Japan on “Experimental Psychology.” Furthermore, Nakashima told his alma mater “that he is trying in every way to uplift his countrymen, and help them to a knowledge of the highest and best thought of civilized countries.” The last mention of Nakashima in The Colorado Collegian is the entry from May 1896 under “College Notes,” which informs readers he is writing a treatise on metaphysics in Japan.
One remarkable aspect of Nakashima’s return to the U.S. is that he was supported by his working wife, Sato, who worked as a live-in tutor for a wealthy family. She sent what she could after caring for herself and their son, born in 1903, to support her husband at Cornell.
It is worth noting that all Nakashima’s higher education was outside of Japan, and foreign (American) degrees did not carry the same weight or secure tenure in Japan. In 1914, Nakashima earned a Ph.D. from Tokyo Imperial University and continued to teach at Waseda University. He died from tuberculosis in April 1919, at age 53.
Many details of Taizo Nakashima’s family background come from the prominence of his son, Kenzo Nakajima (1903-79), an especially renowned literary critic and professor of French literature. (Although the Chinese characters are the same, his son began to use the more common pronunciation “Nakajima.”) When I contacted Nakashima’s descendants and visited them in Tokyo during late summer 2019, his great-granddaughter said, “You’re the first person who’s come to ask us about Taizo.” When they learned about his experiences at CC, they said the following mid-August, when it is customary to visit the family grave and place flowers in their memory, “We’ll have to get a bouquet of flowers to put on his grave, too.”
