LSU Faculty Published Books

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  The Deepest Rooms

  2015
  Randolph Thomas

  Poetry. "This accomplished first collection of poems by Randolph Thomas announces itself in rich poetic narrative and character invention, well-wed in the art of the persona, which has too often been rendered as unmasked autobiography in much of the poetry of the second decade of the twenty-first century. We can happily detect a sweet new sound in the work of Randolph Thomas, a young master in full career."--Michael Heffernan

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  Jews and Islamic Law in Early 20th-Century Yemen

  2015
  Mark S. Wagner

  In early 20th-century Yemen, a sizable Jewish population was subject to sumptuary laws and social restrictions. Jews regularly came into contact with Islamic courts and Muslim jurists, by choice and by necessity, became embroiled in the most intimate details of their Jewish neighbors' lives. Mark S. Wagner draws on autobiographical writings to study the careers of three Jewish intermediaries who used their knowledge of Islamic law to manipulate the shari'a for their own benefit and for the good of their community. The result is a fresh perspective on the place of religious minorities in Muslim societies.

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  The Shapes of Things: A Practical Guide to Differential Geometry and the Shape Derivative

  2015
  Shawn W. Walker

  Many things around us have properties that depend on their shape - for example, the drag characteristics of a rigid body in a flow. This self-contained overview of differential geometry explains how to differentiate a function (in the calculus sense) with respect to a "shape variable". This approach, which is useful for understanding mathematical models containing geometric partial differential equations (PDEs), allows readers to obtain formulas for geometric quantities (such as curvature) that are clearer than those usually offered in differential geometry texts.
  
  Readers will learn how to compute sensitivities with respect to geometry by developing basic calculus tools on surfaces and combining them with the calculus of variations. Several applications that utilize shape derivatives and many illustrations that help build intuition are included.
  

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  Quantitative Methods and Socio-Economic Applications in GIS

  2015
  Fahui Wang

  The second edition of a bestseller, Quantitative Methods and Socio-Economic Applications in GIS (previously titled Quantitative Methods and Applications in GIS) details applications of quantitative methods in social science, planning, and public policy with a focus on spatial perspectives. The book integrates GIS and quantitative (computational) methods and demonstrates them in various policy-relevant socio-economic applications with step-by-step instructions and datasets. The book demonstrates the diversity of issues where GIS can be used to enhance the studies related to socio-economic issues and public policy.

  See What's New in the Second Edition:

  All project instructions are in ArcGIS 10.2 using geodatabase datasets New chapters on regionalization methods and Monte Carlo simulation Popular tasks automated as a convenient toolkit: Huff Model, 2SFCA accessibility measure, regionalization, Garin-Lowry model, and Monte Carlo based spatial simulation Advanced tasks now implemented in user-friendly programs or ArcGIS: centrality indices, wasteful commuting measure, p-median problem, and traffic simulation

  Each chapter has one subject theme and introduces the method (or a group of related methods) most relevant to the theme. While each method is illustrated in a special case of application, it can also be used to analyze different issues. For example, spatial regression is used to examine the relationship between job access and homicide patterns; systems of linear equations are analyzed to predict urban land use patterns; linear programming is introduced to solve the problem of wasteful commuting and allocate healthcare facilities; and Monte Carlo technique is illustrated in simulating urban traffic.

  The book illustrates the range of computational methods and covers common tasks and major issues encountered in a spatial environment. It provides a platform for learning technical skills and quantitative methods in the context of addressing real-world problems, giving you instant access to the tools to resolve major socio-economic issues.

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  Geo-Congress 2014: Geo-Characterization and Modeling for Sustainability: Technical Papers

  2014
  Murad Abu-Farsakh

  Proceedings of the 2014 Geo-Congress, held in Atlanta, Georgia, February 23-26, 2014. Sponsored by the Geo-Institute of ASCE.

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  Recent Advances in Representation Theory, Quantum Groups, Algebraic Geometry, and Related Topics

  2014
  Pramod N. Achar

  This volume contains the proceedings of two AMS Special Sessions `Geometric and Algebraic Aspects of Representation Theory' and `Quantum Groups and Noncommutative Algebraic Geometry' held October 13-14, 2012, at Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.
  
  Included in this volume are original research and some survey articles on various aspects of representations of algebras including Kac-Moody algebras, Lie superalgebras, quantum groups, toroidal algebras, Leibniz algebras and their connections with other areas of mathematics and mathematical physics.

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  Steward of the Land: Selected Writings of Nineteenth-Century Horticulturist Thomas Affleck

  2014
  Thomas Affleck

  In the first collection of published writings of Thomas Affleck (1812--1868), Lake Douglas re-establishes the reputation of a tireless agricultural reformer, entrepreneur, and horticulturist. Affleck's wide range of interests -- animal husbandry, agriculture, scientific farming, ornamental horticulture, insects, and hydrology, among others -- should afford him a celebrated status in several disciplines; yet until now his immense contributions remained largely unheralded. Steward of the Land remedies this oversight with a broad, annotated selection of Affleck's works, rightfully placing him alongside his better-known contemporaries Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted.
  
  After immigrating to the United States from Scotland in 1832, Affleck witnessed the burgeoning American expansion and its major advances in agriculture and technology. He worked as a journalist for the influential Western Farmer and Gardener, covering Ohio, Kentucky, and the Mississippi River Valley. Affleck moved to Mississippi in 1842 to manage his new wife's failing plantation; there, he created one of the first commercial nurseries of the South while writing prolifically on numerous agrarian topics for regional periodicals and newspapers. From 1845 to 1865 he edited Affleck's Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar, published in New Orleans. Following a postwar move to Brenham, Texas, he published letters and essays about rebuilding that state's livestock herds and rejuvenating its agricultural labor forces.
  
  Steward of the Land includes excerpts from dozens of Affleck's articles on subjects ranging from bee keeping to gardening to orchard tending. This valuable single-volume resource reveals Affleck's astonishing breadth of horticultural knowledge and entrepreneurial sagacity, and his role in educating mid-nineteenth-century readers about agricultural products and practices, plant usage, and environmental stewardship. Never before collected or contextualized, Affleck's writings provide a firsthand account of the advancement of agricultural techniques and practices that created a new environmental awareness in America.

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  The Vatican and Catholic Activism in Mexico and Chile: The Politics of Transnational Catholicism, 1920-1940

  2014
  Stephen Joseph Carl Andes

  As in Europe, secular nation building in Latin America challenged the traditional authority of the Roman Catholic Church in the early twentieth century. In response, Catholic social and political movements sought to contest state-led secularisation and provide an answer to the "social question", the complex set of problems associated with urbanisation, industrialisation, and poverty. As Catholics mobilised against the secular threat, they also struggled with each other to define the proper role of the Church in the public sphere.This study utilizes recently opened files at the Vatican pertaining to Mexico's post-revolutionary Church-state conflict known as the Cristero Rebellion (1926-1929). However, looking beyond Mexico's exceptional case, the work employs a transnational framework, enabling a better understanding of the supranational relationship between Latin American Catholic activists and the Vatican. To capture this world historical context, Andes compares Mexico to Chile's own experience of religious conflict. Unlike past scholarship, which has focused almost exclusively on local conditions, Andes seeks to answer how diverse national visions of Catholicism responded to papal attempts to centralize its authority and universalize Church practices worldwide.The Politics of Transnational Catholicism applies research on the interwar papacy, which is almost exclusively European in outlook, to a Latin American context. The national cases presented illuminate how Catholicism shaped public life in Latin America as the Vatican sought to define Catholic participation in Mexican and Chilean national politics. It reveals that Catholic activism directly influenced the development of new political movements such as Christian Democracy, which remained central to political life in the region for the remainder of the twentieth century.

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  Black Faculty in the Academy: Narratives for Negotiating Identity and Achieving Career Success

  2014
  Fred A. Bonner II, Aretha Faye Marbley, Frank Truitt, Petra A. Robinson, Rosa M. Banda, and Robin L. Hughes

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  Marketing Research

  2014
  Alvin C. Burns

  Directed primarily toward undergraduate marketing college/university majors, this text also provides practical content to current and aspiring industry professionals.
  
  Marketing Research gives readers a "nuts and bolts" understanding of marketing research and provides them with extensive information on how to use it. This text provides the fundamentals of the statistical procedures used to analyze data without dwelling on the more complex and intricate concepts.

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  Adolescent Girls in Distress: A Guide for Mental Health Treatment and Prevention

  2014
  Laura Hensley Choate

  Cultural stressors are affecting girls at increasingly younger ages, resulting in mental health issues such as depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, self-injury, and even suicide. This guide offers mental health professionals evidence-based treatment approaches and strengths-based prevention strategies that promote successful navigation of childhood and adolescence. Grounded in ecological systems theory, the book focuses on the socialization processes that begin in early childhood and contribute to the development of problems that are increasing in today's adolescent girls. The book describes how the confluence of societal, family, peer, school, and individual developmental influences can negatively affect adolescents.

  It considers the pressure on young girls to be sexualized and to look and act older than they are, the effects of consumerism and materialism, the pervasive use of social media, and the pressure to excel in all areas√> =stressors that can impede the development of an authentic self during this critical period of physical and emotional growth. Practical and detailed treatment interventions are provided for issues such as depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, self-injury, relationship violence, and sexual victimization. In addition, the book emphasizes the importance of early intervention to prevent problems, and the promotion of girls' resilience to cultural pressures so they can successfully cope with complex life demands. Case studies, discussion questions, skill development activities, recommended readings, and online resources reinforce content.

  Key Features:

  Includes detailed treatment interventions including strengths-based approaches and best-practice guidelines Focuses on socialization processes that begin in early childhood and contribute to the development of mental health problems Contains case studies, discussion questions, skill development activities, recommended readings, and online resources

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  North American Odyssey: Historical Geographies for the Twenty-First Century

  2014
  Craig E. Colten

  This groundbreaking volume offers a fresh approach to conceptualizing the historical geography of North America by taking a thematic rather than a traditional regional perspective. Leading geographers, building on current scholarship in the field, explore five central themes. Part I explores the settling and resettling of the continent through the experiences of Native Americans, early European arrivals, and Africans. Part II examines nineteenth-century European immigrants, the reconfiguration of Native society, and the internal migration of African Americans. Part III considers human transformations of the natural landscape in carving out a transportation network, replumbing waterways, extracting timber and minerals, preserving wilderness, and protecting wildlife. Part IV focuses on human landscapes, blending discussions of the visible imprint of society and distinctive approaches to interpreting these features. The authors discuss survey systems, regional landscapes, and tourist and mythic landscapes as well as the role of race, gender, and photographic representation in shaping our understanding of past landscapes. Part V follows the urban impulse in an analysis of the development of the mercantile city, nineteenth- and twentieth-century planning, and environmental justice. With its focus on human-environment interactions, the mobility of people, and growing urbanization, this thoughtful text will give students a uniquely geographical way to understand North American history. Contributions by: Derek H. Alderman, Timothy G. Anderson, Kevin Blake, Christopher G. Boone, Geoffrey L. Buckley, Craig E. Colten, Michael P. Conzen, Lary M. Dilsaver, Mona Domosh, William E. Doolittle, Joshua Inwood, Ines M. Miyares, E. Arnold Modlin, Jr., Edward K. Muller, Michael D. Myers, Karl Raitz, Jasper Rubin, Joan M. Schwartz, Steven Silvern, Andrew Sluyter, Jeffrey S. Smith, Robert Wilson, William Wyckoff, and Yolonda Youngs

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  Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance

  2014
  Craig E. Colten

  Water has dominated images of the South throughout history, from Hernando de Soto's 1541 crossing of the Mississippi to tragic scenes of flooding throughout the Gulf South after Hurricane Katrina. But these images tell only half the story: as urban, industrial, and population growth create unprecedented demands on water in the South, the problems of pollution and water shortages grow ever more urgent. In Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance, Craig E. Colten addresses how the South -- in an environment fraught with uncertainty -- can navigate the twin risks of too much water and not enough.
  
  From the arrival of the first European settlers, the South's inhabitants have pursued a course of maximum exploitation and control of the area's plentiful waters, investing widely in wetland drainage and massive flood-control projects. Disputes over southern waterways go back nearly as far: obstruction of fish migration by mill dams prompted new policies to protect aquatic life as early as the colonial era. Colten argues that such conflicts, which have heightened dramatically since the explosive urbanization of the mid-twentieth century, will only become more frequent and intense, making the shift toward sustainable use a national imperative.
  
  In tracing the evolving uses and abuses of southern waters, Colten offers crucial insights into the complex historical geography of water throughout the region. A masterful analysis of the ways in which past generations harnessed and consumed water, Southern Waters also stands as a guide to adapting our water usage to cope with the looming shortage of this once-abundant resource.

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  Rhetorical Public Speaking

  2014
  Nathan Crick

  Offers students an advanced approach to public speaking through a comprehensive discussion of rhetorical theory

  This text begins by addressing Aristotle's "Five Canons of the Art"-a means of covering the basics through the lens of rhetorical theory- and progresses into a sophisticated outline of understanding, constructing and delivering artful rhetoric. The book incorporates scholarship on mediated communication, pragmatic speaking genres, the rhetorical situation, and aesthetic form.

  Rhetorical Public Speakingaims to encourage students to be engaged citizens of society. Upon completing this book, readers will be able to:

  Understand Aristotle's Five Canons of Rhetoric Construct and execute speeches Explore how they can use rhetorical speech in their daily lives

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  The Big "R" : A Forensic Accounting Action Adventure

  2014
  D. Larry Crumbley

  Risk.

  It's a factor calculated into all big-time sports operations. But baseball was completely unprepared for the risk this season -- major league murder in the stands.

  When Fleet Walker, internal auditor for the New York Yankees, figures out that the killers are striking on the anniversaries of perfect games, he becomes embroiled in a plot to hold the national pastime for ransom. Working with a forensic accountant and a FBI agent, he is on the trail of the killers, using his skills as an auditor and his knowledge of baseball history to try to save baseball and its fans.

  This teaching novel is designed to supplement a forensic auditing, internal auditing, or fraud examination course. Topics covered include interviewing, internal controls, risk assessment, fraud detection, litigation support, forensic accounting consulting, and many more. Students will enjoy the suspense of this psychological thriller that integrates the fundamentals of forensic accounting and brings its applications to life, and they will learn important techniques and concepts as the mystery unfolds and Fleet Walker moves closer to nabbing the killers.

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  Handbook of Autism and Anxiety

  2014
  Thompson Elder Davis

  The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has evolved greatly since Asperger's day. And as our clinical understanding of this spectrum of disorders has grown, so has recognition of the connections between anxiety disorders and ASD--a welcome development, but also a source of confusion for many in the field.

  The Handbook of Autism and Anxiety brings together leading experts to explain this comorbidity, the diagnostic similarities and differences between the two disorders and the extent to which treatment for each can be coordinated for optimum results. Focusing on repetitive behaviors, social difficulties and fears as core components of anxiety disorders as well as ASD, contributors discuss specific symptoms in depth to aid in diagnosis. Assessment and treatment issues relevant to the autism-anxiety connection are considered in clinical and school contexts. And an especially timely conclusion details how key changes in the DSM-5 affect the diagnosis and conceptualization of each disorder.

  Key topics addressed in the Handbook include:

  Phenotypic variability in ASD: clinical considerations. Etiologic factors and transdiagnostic processes. Social worries and difficulties: autism and/or social anxiety disorder? Implementing group CBT interventions for youth with ASD and anxiety in clinical practice. Autism and anxiety in school settings. DSM - 5 and autism spectrum disorder.

  The Handbook of Autism and Anxiety is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals and graduate students in child and school psychology, psychiatry, social work, education, clinical counseling and behavioral therapy.

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  Perspectives on the Restoration of the Mississippi Delta: The Once and Future Delta

  2014
  John W. Day Jr.

  Human impacts and emerging mega-trends such as climate change and energy scarcity will impact natural resource management in this century. This is especially true for deltas because of their ecological and economic importance and their sensitivity to climate change. The Mississippi delta is one of the largest in the world and has been strongly impacted by human activities. Currently there is an ambitious plan for restoration of the delta. This book, by a renown group of delta experts, provides an overview of the challenges facing the delta and charts - a way forward to sustainable management.

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  Best Monologues from Best American Short Plays

  2014
  William W. Demastes

  The monologues in this volume are excerpted from the series Best American Short Plays, presenting single-character pieces that range from zany comedy to poignant tales of love and loss. Each monologue includes a short introduction and a reference identifying where to locate the entire play, should anyone choose to pursue production beyond the monologue.

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  The Best American Short Plays 2012-2013

  2014
  William W. Demastes

  This edition of the highly esteemed and long-enduring Best American Short Plays series contains fresh-voiced, cutting-edge works by twenty playwrights. Thematically exploring the balance between "hot tempers and cold decrees," each of these plays reflects the enormous diversity of contemporary American theater.

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  Trayvon Martin, Race, and American Justice: Writing Wrong

  2014
  Kenneth J. Fasching-Varner

  Trayvon Martin, Race, and "American Justice" Writing Wrong is the first comprehensive text to analyze not only the killing of Trayvon Martin, but the implications of this event for the state of race in the United States. Bringing together contributions from a variety of disciplines and approaches, this text pushes readers to answer the question: "In the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, and the acquittal of his killer, how post-racial can we claim to be?" This collection of short and powerful chapters is at times angering and at times hopeful, but always thought provoking, critical, and poignant. This interdisciplinary volume is well suited for undergraduate and graduate students as well as faculty in sociology, social work, law, communication, and education. This book can also be read by anyone interested in social justice and equity through the lens of race in the 21st century.

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  Nanolithography: The Arts of Fabricating Nanoelectronic and Nanophotonic Devices and Systems

  2014
  Martin Feldman

  Integrated circuits, and devices fabricated using the techniques developed for integrated circuits, have steadily gotten smaller, more complex, and more powerful. The rate of shrinking is astonishing - some components are now just a few dozen atoms wide. This book attempts to answer the questions, "What comes next?" and "How do we get there?"
  
  Nanolithography outlines the present state of the art in lithographic techniques, including optical projection in both deep and extreme ultraviolet, electron and ion beams, and imprinting. Special attention is paid to related issues, such as the resists used in lithography, the masks (or lack thereof), the metrology needed for nano-features, modeling, and the limitations caused by feature edge roughness. In addition emerging technologies are described, including the directed assembly of wafer features, nanostructures and devices, nano-photonics, and nano-fluidics.
  
  This book is intended as a guide to the researcher new to this field, reading related journals or facing the complexities of a technical conference. Its goal is to give enough background information to enable such a researcher to understand, and appreciate, new developments in nanolithography, and to go on to make advances of his/her own. Outlines the current state of the art in alternative nanolithography technologies in order to cope with the future reduction in size of semiconductor chips to nanoscale dimensions Covers lithographic techniques, including optical projection, extreme ultraviolet (EUV), nanoimprint, electron beam and ion beam lithography Describes the emerging applications of nanolithography in nanoelectronics, nanophotonics and microfluidics
  

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  Finding Italy: Travel, Nation and Colonization in Vergil's Aeneid

  2014
  Kristopher F. B. Fletcher

  Finding Italy explores the journey of the Romans' ancestor Aeneas and his fellow Trojans from their old home, Troy, to their new country, Italy, narrated in Vergil's epic poem Aeneid . K. F. B. Fletcher argues that a main narrative theme is patriotism, specifically the problem of how one comes to love one's new country. The various directions Aeneas receives throughout the first half of the poem are meant to create this love, explaining both to Aeneas and to Vergil's readers how they should respond to the new, unified Italy synonymous with Rome. These directions come from the gods, or from people close to Aeneas who have divine connections, and they all serve to instill an emotional connection to the land, creating a mental image of Italy that tells him far more about his destination than merely its location, and ultimately making him fall in love with Italy enough to fight for it soon after his arrival. The poem thus dramatizes the birth of nationalism, as Italy is only a concept to Aeneas throughout his trip; these directions do not describe Italy as it is at the time of Aeneas' journey, but as an ideal to be realized by Aeneas and his descendants, reaching its final, perfect form under Augustus Caesar.

  Finding Italy provides a very detailed reading of the directions Aeneas receives by situating them within their relevant contexts: ancient geography, Greek colonization narratives, prophecy, and ancient views of wandering. Vergil draws on all of these concepts to craft instructions that create in Aeneas an attachment to Italy before he ever arrives, a process that dramatizes a key emotional problem in the late first century BCE in the wake of the Social and Civil Wars: how to balance the love of one's modest birthplace with the love of Rome, the larger city that now encompasses it.

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  Encyclopedia of the Zombie: The Walking Dead in Popular Culture and Myth

  2014
  Anthony J. Fonseca

  A fascinating read for anyone from general readers to hardcore fans and scholars, this encyclopedia covers virtually every aspect of the zombie as cultural phenomenon, including film, literature, folklore, music, video games, and events.
  
  The proliferation of zombie-related fiction, film, games, events, and other media in the last decade would seem to indicate that zombies are "the new vampires" in popular culture. The editors and contributors of Encyclopedia of the Zombie: The Walking Dead in Popular Culture and Myth took on the prodigious task of covering all aspects of the phenomenon, from the less-known historical and cultural origins of the zombie myth to the significant works of film and literature as well as video games in the modern day that feature the insatiable, relentless zombie character.
  
  The encyclopedia examines a wide range of significant topics pertaining to zombies, such as zombies in the pulp magazines; the creation of the figure of the zuvembie to subvert decades of censorship by the Comics Code of Authority; Humans vs. Zombies, a popular zombie-themed game played on college campuses across the country; and annual Halloween zombie walks. Organized alphabetically to facilitate use of the encyclopedia as a research tool, it also includes entries on important scholarly works in the expanding field of zombie studies.

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  Information Systems Outsourcing: Towards Sustainable Business Value

  2014
  Rudy Hirschheim

  This book attempts to synthesize research that contributes to a better understanding of how to reach sustainable business value through information systems (IS) outsourcing. Important topics in this realm are how IS outsourcing can contribute to innovation, how it can be dynamically governed, how to cope with its increasing complexity through multi-vendor arrangements, how service quality standards can be met, how corporate social responsibility can be upheld and how to cope with increasing demands of internationalization and new sourcing models, such as crowdsourcing and platform-based cooperation. These issues are viewed from either the client or vendor perspective, or both. The book should be of interest to all academics and students in the fields of Information Systems, Management and Organization as well as corporate executives and professionals who seek a more profound analysis and understanding of the underlying factors and mechanisms of outsourcing.

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  The Oxford History of the Novel in English: Volume 5: The American Novel to 1870

  2014
  J. Gerald Kennedy

  The American Revolution and the Civil War bracket roughly eight decades of formative change in a republic created in 1776 by a gesture that was both rhetorical and performative. The subsequent construction of U.S. national identity influenced virtually all art forms, especially prose fiction until internal conflict disrupted the project of nation-building. This volume reassesses, in an authoritative way, the principal forms and features of the emerging American novel. It will include chapters on: the beginnings of the novel in the US; the novel and nation-building; the publishing industry; leading novelists of Antebellum America; eminent early American novels; cultural influences on the novel; and subgenres within the novel form during this period. This book is the first of the three proposed US volumes that will make up Oxford's ambitious new eleven-volume literary resource, The Oxford History of the Novel in English (OHONE), a venture being commissioned and administered on both sides of the Atlantic.