LESLIE BUTLER

HISTORY

FAVORITE BOOK TO TEACH:

Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin

MUST-READ BOOK IN YOUR FIELD:

Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America, by Kathleen Brown

FAVORITE PLEASURE READS:

Harry Potter, byJ.K. Rowling The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis

CURRENTLY READING:

William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism, by Robert Richardson

Baldwin's collection of essays is one of the most probing and beautifully written meditations on identity in 20th-century America. He wrote most of these essays while living as an expatriate in France and Switzerland, thus continuing a long tradition of American writers and intellectuals who found that being abroad gave them fresh perspective on the problems of home.

Brown's new, prize-winning book examines ideas of cleanliness in early America and how they have changed over time. Through imaginative and exhaustive research, Brown, a Penn professor, demonstrates how "body care" has been bound up with religious ideals, the rise of a market economy, the formation of a middle class and changes in gender roles.