The Wayward Preacher in the Literature of African American Women

by James Robert Saunders

2017 · McFarland

In African American culture the preacher has traditionally held many roles: minister of faith, orator, politician, idealist, and most importantly, leader. But the preacher was also traditionally male, and in many ways this advanced the perception that African American women were incapable of questioning the authority of black men. Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Paule Marshall, Gloria Naylor, and Terry McMillan wrote of flawed African American preachers, empowering their female characters by exposing the notion of the black preacher as beyond reproach. The writings of these five women warn African American women—and society as a whole—of the power of the religious functionaries who insist that the self must be virtually obliterated in order for salvation to be attained.

The Hovde Years

by Robert W. Topping

2019 · Purdue University Press

This biography details Hovde’s life and times from his birth at Erie, Pennsylvania, through his boyhood at Devils Lake, North Dakota, and includes his student days at the University of Minnesota and in England and Europe as a Rhodes scholar. In addition, it outlines his career from the time he returned to the United States from England in 1932, as well as when he went back again in 1941 as the United States secretary for American-British scientific research and development exchange efforts. Principally, it covers his twenty-five years as president of Purdue University, his impact on higher education generally, and his retirement in 1971. The book depicts Hovde the president and Hovde the man. It focuses on the growth of Purdue University from the post-World War II years through the tumultuous times of the late 1960s and Hovde’s own comments on those periods.