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The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms

Author(s):
Robert B. Grossman
Book summary:

Intended for students of intermediate organic chemistry, this text shows how to write a reasonable mechanism for an organic chemical transformation. The discussion is organized by types of mechanisms and the conditions under which the reaction is executed, rather than by the overall reaction as is the case in most textbooks. The treatment emphasizes unifying principles, showing how common mechanisms link seemingly disparate reactions. Each chapter discusses common mechanistic pathways and suggests practical tips for drawing them. Worked problems are included in the discussion of each mechanism, and “common error alerts” are scattered throughout the text to warn readers about pitfalls and misconceptions that bedevil students. Each chapter is capped by a large problem set. The author has drawn on his own research and the current literature to ensure that appropriate attention is given to topics across the range of modern organic chemistry. The text is unique in its inclusion of a chapter on reactions mediated or catalyzed by transition metals, an area in which mechanistic understanding is now essential. Relatively new topics such as olefin metathesis and cycloaromatization are covered without giving short shrift to more traditional areas such as carbonyl chemistry. The text assumes a basic knowledge of organic chemistry. It can be used either in a formal course or by students working on their own, and will be particularly useful for graduate students studying for qualifying examinations. It will also be useful to students and researchers in biochemistry, pharmacology, and inorganic chemistry.

Publication year:
2003
Publisher:
Springer
Praise:
Quote:
The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms has an entirely different scope, dedicated to teaching the application of first principles to the construction of organic mechanisms. … The number of problems incorporated into the text is extraordinary. The author provides the student a Web site that includes the detailed mechanisms for every problem in the book … . The writing is clear, concise, engaging and, at times, outright entertaining. … All sections are expertly written, well organized and up-to-date.
Credit:
R. W. Holman, Journal of Chemical Education, Vol. 80 (11), 2003
Quote:
In principle, most mechanisms are derived from a basis set of fundamental steps. … Grossman has succeeded in explaining these fundamentals in detail in an easily accessible monograph. … Readers can reinforce their incipient skills with practical illustrations, and are challenged throughout with complicated examples. … the present text offers additional lucid explanations and ideal opportunities for practice. This work will thus be indispensable for students who are interested in mechanisms, or who wish to gain an additional perspective.
Credit:
www.organische-chemie.ch, July, 2004
Quote:
Robert Grossman in his book attempts to familiarize the student with the awesome power of reaction mechanisms … . What makes this book special and praise-worthy is the clarity of its presentation of the subject matter. The text is lucid and sharp-edged throughout. The production quality of the book is first-class, too. Paper, printing and binding are excellent, the reproduction of the numerous formulae and reaction schemes is outstanding. … Full marks for this ‘survival guide’ to the ‘organic jungle’.
Credit:
T. Lazar, Synthesis, Issue 17, 2003
Quote:
Robert Grossman discusses ideas on organic chemical reactivity, selectivity and structure in a logical way that gives the student confidence in attempting the many practice problems provided. … This book provides a snapshot of examples of how to consider and approach the writing of simple and sophisticated examples of pushing electrons in and out of orbitals. Students will enormously benefit from using the principles and concepts in this book in writing their own mechanisms.
Credit:
Helmut Hügel, Chemistry in Australia, 2003
Quote:
I have just finished my first year of graduate studies in organic chemistry at Duke University. I just wanted to let you know how much your book got me through the past year of course work. We, like everyone else, use Carey and Sundberg for our advanced organic classes. I personally do not care much for those books and therefore seek better explanation/understanding through other texts such as Lowry an Richardson and Carrol. When it came to mechanisms, I found the clarity and thoroughness I needed only in your book. It was impressive how you were able to present so much information in a clear and comprehensive manner yet keep the book so managable [sic] in size.

In addition to the text, I also was able to benefit from the problems. I was sure I had the answer for more than a couple but I was way off on some of them! Great practice!! The on-line answers are much better than looking up answers by reference as in Carey and Sundberg. The JOC and JACS journals in our library from 1960s-1980s are a wreck because every year 20 or so first year grad students go tearing off through the journals looking up answers.

Just wanted to say thanks for such a helpful book. I am reading it again this summer in preparation for my preliminary exam next Spring.
Credit:
David Gooden, personal communication
Quote:
I am David Peralta, a Master's student and lecturer at the Department of Chemistry in the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. I am writing in admiration (and gratitude) for your book, "The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms" (2nd Ed.). You see, I have just finished taking my Organic comprehensive exam last Tuesday and (even though I still had a difficult time with the exam) I am ecstatic that I passed. As I have always considered organic mechanisms my Waterloo in Org-Chem, I have found your book and methods of great help. The explanations were very clear and all ideas were excellently presented. The excercises [sic] with the online answers were helpful in preparing too. I'd gladly recommend the book to anyone preparing for similar exams or even those who just want to brush up on mechanisms.

Again, thanks for the great book. A lot of chemistry students (undergraduate and graduate) at our University are already finding your book really helpful.
Credit:
David Peralta, personal communication
Quote:
I bought this book to practice mechanisms because I'll be taking a physical organic class in the spring that uses them heavily. I used this book instead of sitting in on a sophomore organic class, because by job as a TA conflicted.

Anyway, this book is extraordinary. Dr. Grossman has taught me so many things about how to write a correct mechanism and how to recognize a bad mechanism when I see one. The book is written in a very clear and friendly manner and it's really quite hard to put down when you start reading it.

The book also has practice problems and the book's website has the answers, giving even more incentive to practice mechanisms.
Credit:
Jason B., Amazon.com
Quote:
Wow. I have been searching for a book like this since my undergrad days at the University of Pittsburgh. Not much more to say about this book than has already been said. I will however say that this is the most concise book that I have ever found on the theory of mechanisms. It is decievingly short, for it encompases all the major topics you will find in your 1200 page O-chem text, and dare I say, may be just as, if not more usefull.

In organic chemistry it is not important to memorize a vast amount of material as, incorrectly, most neophyte students believe. The science really is an art with a few major rules that outline the whole of the science. If you truly UNDERSTAND these rules, and use this book for that purpose, you will succeed at any Organic course any school has to offer. Buy this book. Practice your problems. Be prepared to learn, not memorize.
Credit:
Michael Cook, Amazon.com
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Robert B. Grossman earned his A.B. at Princeton University, where he carried out research under the direction of Robert A. Pascal. After graduating in 1987, he moved to MIT and worked under the direction of Stephen L. Buchwald to develop zirconium- and titanium-mediated and -catalyzed organic synthetic methodology. He earned his Ph.D. in 1992 and moved from Steve’s lab in Cambridge to Steve’s lab in Cambridge, England, where he worked in the Ley group on various aspects of the chemistry of azadirachtin. In 1994 he left the UK to join the faculty at UK. His research interests are the development of new synthetic methodology and the study of biosynthetic pathways.
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
http://www.uky.edu/~rbgros1/textbook.html

Language and Material Culture

Author(s):
Allison Burkette
Book summary:

This innovative and provocative work introduces complexity theory and its application to both the study of language and the study of material culture. The book begins with a wide-ranging theoretical background, covering the areas of dialect geography, the anthropological study of material culture, and a general introduction to the study of complex adaptive systems. Following this general introduction, the principles of complexity theory are demonstrated in data drawn from linguistics and material culture studies. Language and Material Culture further highlights the principles of complexity through a series of case studies, using data from the Linguistic Atlas, colonial American inventories and the Historic American Building Survey. LMC shows that language and material culture are intertwined as they interact within the same cultural complex system. The book is designed for students in courses that focus on language variation, American English and material culture, in addition to general courses on applications of complex systems.

Publication year:
2015
Publisher:
John Benjamins
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286383494_Language_and_Material_Culture

Approaches to Teaching History of the English Language

Editor(s):
Allison Burkette
Mary Hayes
Book summary:

The History of the English Language has been a standard university course offering for over 150 years. Yet relatively little has been written about teaching a course whose very title suggests its prodigious chronological, geographic, and disciplinary scope. In the nineteenth century, History of the English Language courses focused on canonical British literary works. Since these early curricula were formed, the English language has changed, and so have the courses. In the twenty-first century, instructors account for the growing prominence of World Englishes as well as the English language's transformative relationship with the internet and social media.

Approaches to Teaching the History of the English Language addresses the challenges and circumstances that the course's instructors and students commonly face. The volume reads as a series of "master classes" taught by experienced instructors who explain the pedagogical problems that inspired resourceful teaching practices. Although its chapters are authored by seasoned teachers, many of whom are preeminent scholars in their individual fields, the book is designed for instructors at any career stage-beginners and veterans alike.

The topics addressed in Approaches to Teaching the History of the English Language include: the unique pedagogical dynamic that transpires in language study; the course's origins and relevance to current university curricula; scholarly approaches that can offer an abiding focus in a semester-long course; advice about navigating the course's formidable chronological ambit; ways to account for the language's many varieties; and the course's substantial and pedagogical relationship to contemporary multimedia platforms. Each chapter balances theory and practice, explaining in detail activities, assignments, or discussion questions ready for immediate use by instructors.

Publication year:
2017
Publisher:
Oxford
Praise:
Quote:
This fine collection offers plenty of new ideas and is a must-read for anyone teaching the history of English.
Credit:
E. L. Battistella, CHOICE
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/approaches-to-teaching-the-history-of-the-english-language-9780190611057?cc=us&lang=en&

Exploring Linguistic Science

Author(s):
Allison Burkette
William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.
Book summary:

Exploring Linguistic Science introduces students to the basic principles of complexity theory and then applies these principles to the scientific study of language. It demonstrates how, at every level of linguistic study, we find evidence of language as a complex system. Designed for undergraduate courses in language and linguistics, this essential textbook brings cutting-edge concepts to bear on the traditional components of general introductions to the study of language, such as phonetics, morphology and grammar. The authors maintain a narrative thread throughout the book of 'interaction and emergence', both of which are key terms from the study of complex systems, a new science currently useful in physics, genetics, evolutionary biology, and economics, but also a perfect fit for the humanities. The application of complexity to language highlights the fact that language is an ever-changing, ever-varied product of human behavior.

Publication year:
2018
Publisher:
Cambridge
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/exploring-linguistic-science/4E6FAC2029D3531A06103F9863DA8678

Language and Classification: Meaning-Making in the Classification and Categorization of Ceramics (Routledge Studies in Sociolinguistics)

Author(s):
Allison Burkette
Book summary:

This volume adopts a practice-based approach to examine the different ways in which classification is communicated and negotiated in different environments within archaeology. The book looks specifically at the archaeological classification of ceramics as a lens through which to examine the discursive and social practices inherent in the classification and categorization process, with perspectives from such areas as corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology forming the foundation of the book’s theoretical framework. The volume then looks at the process of classification in practice in a variety of settings, including a university course on ceramics classification, an archaeological field school, an intensive petrography course, and archaeometry laboratory at a nuclear research reactor, and highlights participant observation and audiovisual data taken from fieldwork practice completed in these environments. This volume offers a valuable contribution to the growing literature on language and material culture, making this a key resource for students and scholars in sociolinguistic, anthropological linguistics, archaeology, discourse analysis, and anthropology.

Publication year:
2018
Publisher:
Routledge
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.amazon.com/Language-Classification-Meaning-Making-Categorization-Sociolinguistics/dp/1138243361
Book keywords:

From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures (Studies in Language Gender and Sexuality)

Author(s):
Rusty Barrett
Editor(s):
Mary Bucholtz
Book summary:

This book examines gendered language use in six gay male subcultures: drag queens, radical faeries, bears, circuit boys, barebackers, and leathermen. Within each subculture, unique patterns of language use challenge normative assumptions about gender and sexual identity. Rusty Barrett's analyses of these subcultures emphasize the ways in which gay male constructions of gender are intimately linked to other forms of social difference. 

In From Drag Queens to Leathermen, Barrett presents an extension of his earlier work among African American drag queens in the 1990s, emphasizing the intersections of race and class in the construction of gender. An analysis of sacred music among radical faeries considers the ways in which expressions of gender are embedded in a broader neo-pagan religious identity. The formation of bear as an identity category (for heavyset and hairy men) in the late 1980s involves the appropriation of linguistic stereotypes of rural Southern masculinity. Among regular attendees of circuit parties, language serves to differentiate gay and straight forms of masculinity. In the early 2000s, barebackers (gay men who eschew condoms) used language to position themselves as rational risk takers with an innate desire for semen. For participants in the International Mr. Leather contest, a disciplined, militaristic masculinity links expressions of patriotism with BDSM sexual practice.

In all of these groups, the construction of gendered identity involves combining linguistic forms that would usually not co-occur. These unexpected combinations serve as the foundation for the emergence of unique subcultural expressions of gay male identity, explicated at length in this book.

Publication year:
2017
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Praise:
Quote:
In these refreshingly sympathetic chapters, Rusty Barrett explores the ways in which notably contrastive groups of gay men use language as a central medium at once reflecting and constructing a sense of belonging and distinctiveness. In the complex field that aligns sexuality with race, class, and gender identities, among others, From Drag Queens to Leathermen guides us to appreciate the sites of performance, of ritual, and of ecstatic practice where the semiotic work is of indexically infusing sexual identity with sociocultural meaning and value, and with the dignity of subjectivity, is accomplished.
Credit:
Michael Silverstein, Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics, and Psychology, University of Chicago
Quote:
Barrett (linguistics, Univ. of Kentucky) uses ethnographic techniques--interviews, participant observation, archival research, and textual/discourse analysis--to offer a meticulous analysis of language use within six subcultures of gay men: African American drag queens, radical faeries, bears, circuit boys, barebackers, and leathermen. Using concepts such as performativity and indexicality, Barrett looks at how these subcultures espouse various and competing scripts of gender and sexuality
Credit:
Choice
Quote:
This is an illuminating book that eloquently demonstrates the necessity of analyzing sexuality and gender simultaneously and thereby revels the intersectional nature of language across cultures.
Credit:
Men and Masculinities
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.amazon.com/Drag-Queens-Leathermen-Subcultures-Sexuality/dp/0195390180

Exploring the Consequences of the Normative Gap in Legal Protections Addressing Violence Against Women: Normative Gaps in International Law

Author(s):
Jillienne Haglund with David Richards
Editor(s):
Routhledge
Book summary:

Violence against women remains one of the most pervasive human rights violations in the world today, and it permeates every society, at every level. Such violence is considered a systemic, widespread and pervasive human rights violation, experienced largely by women because they are women. Yet at the international level, there is a gap in the legal protection of women from violence. There is currently no binding international convention that explicitly prohibits such violence; or calls for its elimination; or, mandates the criminalisation of all forms of violence against women.

This book critically analyses the treatment of violence against women in the United Nations system, and in three regional human rights systems. Each chapter explores the advantages and disadvantages coming from the legal instruments, the work of the monitoring systems, and the resulting findings and jurisprudence. The book proposes that the gap needs to be addressed through a new United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women, or alternatively an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. A new Convention or Optional Protocol would be part of the transformative agenda that is needed to normatively address the promotion of a life free of violence for women, the responsibility of states to act with due diligence in the elimination of all forms of violence against all women, and the systemic challenges that are the causes and consequences of such violence.

 

Bio:
Short bio:


Jillienne Haglund is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Kentucky. She received her Ph.D. at Florida State University in 2014 and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Washington University in St. Louis from Fall 2014-Spring 2015. Her research and teaching interests fall broadly in the fields of international relations and comparative politics. More specifically, she is interested in human rights, international organizations, international law, and comparative political institutions. Her work seeks to illuminate the extent to which international law constrains state human rights behavior. Her research appears in The Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Perspectives, and Paradigm-Routledge Publishers.

Jillienne teaches undergraduate courses on world politics, international organizations, and international human rights, as well as graduate seminars on international relations and international human rights.

Indios en escena: La representación del amerindio en el teatro del Siglo de Oro

Author(s):
Moisés R. Castillo
Book summary:

Indios en escena engages both the Baroque and Colonial fields of Hispanism in order to reevaluate fourteen major plays of Spanish Golden Age literature from a social-historical perspective. Castillo argues that these plays portray Amerindians not in their “otherness” but as subjects of empire. It is the author’s contention that these dramas reveal the vast contradictions between the two leading ideological trends of the age as performed on the stage: the discourse of honor and the juridical-theological code, both of which attempt to assimilate the Amerindian phenomenon under the auspices of church and state. These works consistently raise the paradoxical question of how a person can be a savage and have honor at the same time. The Amerindian must become a new “subject” for the Spanish Crown (as stated by the discourse of honor in these plays), i.e., an honorable and distinguished Indian capable of lofty speech and courage in battle. Yet, Amerindians are also barbarians or wild “children” (F. de Vitoria, Las Casas) who need the redemptive intervention of the Church to mature (evolve) and to be capable of salvation. These plays reveal the effort to integrate and assimilate the new indigenous entities under the monarcho-seigneurial system while exposing the philosophical contradictions that Baroque ideology has to overcome in order to elicit obedience. 

Publication year:
2009
Publisher:
Purdue University Press
Praise:
Quote:
… a compelling view of both dramatic production and philosophical debates about indigenous people as a key intellectual milieu of the time. … transatlantic in approach and impact … The fact that Castillo never loses sight of this essential distinction [between representation of the indigenous people and representation of the Spanish Empire and its colonialist ideology] indicates the critical rigor and predicts the scholarly purchase Indios en escena will continue to have in the coming years.
Credit:
Jorge Coronado, Modern Language Notes (2011): 416-18.
Quote:
Este libro es uno de los estudios más equilibrados, mejor documentados y más iluminadores que, en mi opinión, se han publicado hasta la fecha sobre la representación del personaje indígena americano.
Credit:
José María Ruano de la Haza, Revista de Estudios Hispánicos 45.1 (Winter 2011): 227-29.
Quote:
An exhaustively researched study that fleshes out the fluctuating religiously and politically influenced image of the New World natives as well as that of Spaniards in the ‘conquest plays’ of Spanish Golden Age Theater.
Credit:
Bonnie Gasior, California State University, Long Beach (book cover)
Quote:
… el trabajo es muy sólido y erudito … Con la ventaja de no tener deudas políticas visibles, nuestro investigador supera a sus predecesores en finura interpretativa y en equilibrio ideológico, además de emplear un tono elegante y nada polémico.
Credit:
Héctor Brioso Santos, Criticón 111-12 (2011): 310-14.
Quote:
Este libro supera, en mi opinión, las ideas insuficientemente elaboradas de críticos como Tzvetan Todorov respecto al «otro» de la conquista en su La conquista de América, la cuestión del otro (1982). Esta nueva publicación de Moisés R. Castillo es justamente una lectura indispensable para quienes estudiamos el teatro del Siglo de Oro, así como para quienes valoramos la historia de América.
Credit:
A. Robert Lauer TEATRO-L Archives, (reseñas) Dec. 31, 2010, also in Bulletin of the Comediantes 68.2 (2016): 200.
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
Moisés R. Castillo. Associate Professor of Early Modern and Colonial Studies in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky. With a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Granada, Spain, and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian literature from the University of Minnesota, he is the author of Indios en escena: La representación del amerindio en el teatro del Siglo de Oro, Purdue University Press, 2009; guest editor of the special number of Romance Quarterly vol. 61, no 2, 2014 devoted to Cervantes’s Exemplary Novels; numerous chapters in volumes, and articles in refereed journals. His research focuses on Golden Age theater and Cervantes studies. Currently, he is writing a manuscript on the Cervantine comedias. He is the recipient of the College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award in the Humanities 2015-2016, at the University of Kentucky.
A&S department affiliation:
Book URL:
https://www.cla.purdue.edu/slc/psrl/authors/castillo._moises.html

THE ANC's War Against Apartheid: Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Liberation of South Africa

Author(s):
Stephen R Davis
Book summary:

For nearly three decades, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), waged a violent revolutionary struggle against the apartheid state in South Africa. Stephen Davis works with extensive oral testimonies and the heroic myths that were constructed after 1994 to offer a new history of this armed movement. Davis deftly addresses the histories that reinforce the legitimacy of the ANC as a ruling party, its longstanding entanglement with the South African Communist Party, and efforts to consolidate a single narrative of struggle and renewal in concrete museums and memorials. Davis shows that the history of MK is more complicated and ambiguous than previous laudatory accounts would have us believe, and in doing so he discloses the contradictions of the liberation struggle as well as its political manifestations.

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