History: Memoir Writing and the Speculation that Dissent is Vital for Progress

Challenge your conceptions concerning heresy and learn how to write a compelling and accurate memoir.

A Call for Heresy: Why Dissent is Vital to Islam and America (BOOK): by Anouar Majid 1960-

Discover unexpected common ground in one of the most inflammatory issues of the twenty-first century: the deepening conflict between the Islamic world and the United States. Moving beyond simplistic answers, Majid argues that the Islamic world and the United States are both in precipitous states of decline because, in each, religious, political, and economic orthodoxies have silenced the voices of their most creative thinkers – the visionary nonconformists, who are often punished as heretics.

The United States and contemporary Islam share far more than partisans on either side admit. Majid provocatively argues that this “clash of civilizations” is in reality a clash of competing fundamentalisms. Illustrating this point, he draws surprising parallels between the histories and cultures of Islam and the United States and their shortsighted suppression of heresy. Drawing from Muslim poets and philosophers like Ibn Rushd to the free thinker Thomas Paine, as well as from Abu Bakr Razi and Al-Farabi to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln; Majid finds bitter irony in the fact that Islamic culture is now at war with a nation whose ideals are losing ground to the reactionary forces that have long condemned Islam to stagnation.

Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life (BOOK): edited by Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May

Memoirs have fallen under great scrutiny with questions of their accuracy. Memoirists must draw on their memories and imaginations, yet audiences demand narratives that, while worthy of fiction, are completely factual. Hampl, an essayist and memoirist, and May, the author of several books on 20^th century America, have navigated gray areas between fact and memory, history and imagination, in their writings. Together, they have collected 14 original essays from award-winning memoirists and historians who show how they tell compelling and accurate stories.

Art: African American Artists of Note

Be inspired! Art and Art Education majors with both benefit from this book.

Encyclopedia of African American Artists (BOOK): by dele jegede 1945-

African American heritage is rich with stories of family, community, faith, love, adaptation and adjustment, grief, and suffering, all captured in a variety of media by artists intimately familiar with them. From traditional media of painting and artists such as Horace Pippin and Faith Ringgold, to photography of Gordon Parks, and new media of Sam Gilliam and Martin Puryear (installation art), the African American experience is reflected across generations and works.

Land arts of the American West (BOOK): by Chris Taylor and Bill Gilbert 1965-

Land Arts of the American West is notable for presenting an unusually wide array of artistic exploration and intervention in the Western landscape. Given the range of sites presented and the depth of analysis that many of them receive, this book would have broad appeal not only to people interested in art, but also to those intrigued by landscape, land use, and Western history.

Film: Moulin Rouge, Nicole Kidman

For those who love music, romance and great costumes!



A Central Washington University ID card or library card must be presented when checking out library materials. They are the only accepted identification for borrowing circulating library materials. Users are responsible for all materials charged on the card.The loan period for DVDs and Videocassettes for students is a 3 day period while staff may check out materials for a week at a time. All materials may be renewed once.

Music: Theater and All that Jazz

Now available on the 4th floor in the Music Library.

Highbrow/Lowdown: Theater, Jazz, and the Making of the New Middle Class - by David Savran

The arrival of jazz in the 1920s sparked a cultural revolution that was impossible to contain. The music affected every stratum of U.S. society and culture, confusing and challenging long-entrenched hierarchies based on class, race, and ethnicity. Jazz was considered the first distinctively American art form, and its dissemination across the globe served to launch the United States as a cultural force to be reckoned with.

A Central Washington University ID card or library card must be presented when checking out library materials. They are the only accepted identification for borrowing circulating library materials. Users are responsible for all materials charged on the card.The loan period for General Collection, Documents, and Children's Literature for most library patrons is 21 days. Faculty members have 90 day loans.

Film: List of New DVDs from August 2009

Are musicals your thing? How about thrillers? Documentaries? Everything you need is in Brooks Library without the cost of traditional media rentals!

Moulin Rouge (DVD): A poet falls for a beautiful courtesan whom a jealous duke covets in this stylish musical, with music drawn from familiar 20th century sources.

Paddle to the Sea (DVD): This film recounts the adventures of a toy Native American canoe as it makes its way from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.

Quest for Fire (DVD): This story takes place in prehistoric time when three prehistoric tribesmen search for a new fire source. Won an Oscar in 1983.

Singin' in the Rain (DVD): A silent film production company and cast make the difficult transition to sound. “Singin’ in the Rain” was nominated for 2 Oscars.

The Sting (DVD): In 1930s Chicago, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker. It won 7 Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture.

The Wobblies (DVD): The Industrial Workers of the World (nicknamed the Wobblies) contends that all workers should be united as a class and that the wage system should be abolished. They may be best known for the Wobbly Shop model of workplace democracy, in which workers elect recallable delegates, and other norms of grassroots (self-management) democracy are implemented.

A Central Washington University ID card or library card must be presented when checking out library materials. They are the only accepted identification for borrowing circulating library materials. Users are responsible for all materials charged on the card.The loan period for DVDs and Videocassettes for students is a 3 day period while staff may check out materials for a week at a time.