Faculty Books

Harvest Heritage: Agricultural Origins and Heirloom Crops of the Pacific Northwest, coauthored by Professor of Education Richard D. Scheuerman (WSU Press, 2013)

From fur traders and Spanish explorers to advancements of mechanization and irrigation, Scheuerman explores the people, history, and major influences that shaped the Pacific Northwest’s bountiful agrarian economy.

Reading a Different Story: A Christian Scholar’s Journey from America to Africa, by Professor of English Susan VanZanten (Baker Academic, 2013)

Addressing Christianity’s seismic shift toward the global South and East, VanZanten crafts a personal intellectual history that reflects on her own shifting focus from American to African literature.

The Class Meeting: Reclaiming a Forgotten (and Essential) Small Group Experience, by Professor of Theology Kevin Watson (Seedbed, 2013)

Watson offers a guide to the theory and practice of the class meeting, an essential element of Wesleyan spirituality, for clergy and congregations searching for deep discipleship, accountable community, and church revival.

Inspired: The Holy Spirit and the Mind of Faith, by Professor of Theology Jack Levison (Eerdmans, 2013) 

Levison presents an understanding of the Holy Spirit that draws on both serious biblical study and Christian spirituality, encouraging us to take the Spirit into the grit of everyday life.

Blur: A New Paradigm for Understanding Youth Culture, by Professor of Theology Jeffrey Keuss (Zondervan, 2014)

Keuss offers a holistic approach to better understand and minister to the teens of today’s mobile and morphing culture.

Experience-Driven Leader Development: Models, Tools, Best Practices, and Advice for On-the-Job Development, coauthored by Professor of Psychology Paul Yost (Jossey-Bass, 2013)

Yost provides a compendium of best practices, tools, techniques, and processes for developing leaders in the workplace, with case studies from innovative firms such as Boeing, Microsoft, and Heineken.

Performing Democracy in Iraq and South Africa: Gender, Media, and Resistance, by Professor of English Kimberly Wedeven Segall (Syracuse University Press, 2013)

Drawing from experiences with guerrilla fighters in Iraq, Iranian refugees, reconciliation groups in Morocco, and former political prisoners in South Africa, Segall examines globalization, gender, and resistance.

Building the Old Time Religion: Women Evangelists in the Progressive Era, by Professor of Theology Priscilla Pope-Levison (NYU Press, 2013)

An ordained United Methodist minister herself, Pope-Levison tells the stories of how women evangelists changed American history — by founding churches and schools, opening missions and rescue homes, and bringing many people to Christ.

Soaring With St. John: Flight Paths of the Eagle: A Pedagogical Aid, by Professor Emeritus of New Testament Eugene Lemcio (Wipf and Stock, 2013)

By exploring 35 “flight paths” through the Gospel of John, Lemcio highlights how the evangelist adopted, adapted, and arranged biblical and extra-biblical texts.

Namibian Soundscapes: Music of the People and the Land, by Instructor of Piano Myrna Capp (Trafford Publishing, 2013)

Namibian musicians — including well-known artists such as Jackson Kaujeua and Minette Mans — tell their stories of music-making, village rituals, international travels, and a struggle for independence in a territory scarred by apartheid.

The Art and Thought of John La Farge: Picturing Authenticity in Gilded Age America, by Associate Professor of Art History Katie Kresser (Ashgate Publishing Company, 2013)

Kresser introduces readers to 19-century American artist John La Farge, examining his artistic and philosophical contributions to modern art, contrasting them with works by such famous contemporaries as James McNeill Whistler, and showing how La Farge’s work was a subversive response to the mass media culture of his day.

Reading the Epistles of James, Peter, John & Jude as Scripture: The Shaping & Shape of a Canonical Collection, by Paul T. Walls Professor of Scripture and Wesleyan Studies Robert Wall and Associate Professor of New Testament Studies David Nienhuis (Eerdmans, 2013)

Wall and Nienhuis guide readers through the historical, literary, and theological integrity of the essential and oft-neglected seven letters of James, Peter, John, and Jude, considering them as an intentionally designed and theologically coherent canonical collection.

The Theological Role of Paradox in the Gospel of Mark, by Assistant Professor of New Testament Laura Sweat (Bloomsbury T and T Clark, 2013)

Sweat argues that paradoxes run deep in the Gospel of Mark, and demonstrates that the very foundation of the gospel is in God’s paradoxical activity, which is consistently both revelatory and mysterious.

Now, Now, by Professor of English Jennifer Maier (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013)

Maier’s second poetry collection explores past, present, and future — how all are present in every moment, and how time is of the essence.

A Land Without Sin, by MFA in Creative Writing Mentor Paula Huston (Slant, 2013)

Huston presents a labyrinth of a mystery — an altogether thrilling adventure in the jungles of southern Mexico — featuring guerrillas, disappearing priests, Dutch Mayanists, and political unrest.

Can Pop Culture and Shakespeare Exist in the Same Classroom?: Using Student Interest to Bring Complex Texts to Life, coauthored by Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction Kristine Gritter (Routledge, 2014)

Gritter and her coauthors offer English language arts teachers an effective way to “scaffold” students’ exploration and discussion of literature by tapping into their interest in pop culture.