This summer, members of the Georgetown community are spread out across the globe, from internships to study abroad opportunities, research experiences and more.
We asked a few Georgetown professors for their favorite summer reads based on the parts of the world they research and teach about.
From a French professor’s pick of a novel in Nazi-occupied France to a religious scholar’s favorite deep dive into Chinese Confucianism, here are the books they say you should crack open this summer whether you’re traveling or staying put — along with travel recommendations based on years of studying their specific corners of the world.
Books to Read This Summer If You’re…
Exploring America’s Backyard
Brian Hochman, Professor, Hubert J. Cloke Director of American Studies, College of Arts & Sciences
For lovers of hip-hop: Dilla Time. Dan Charnas’ book is a biography of the pioneering hip-hop producer J Dilla, whose innovations in sampling and drum machine technique revolutionized the sound of popular music. It’s an exhaustive account of one man’s all-too-brief life and the legacy that he left behind. But it’s about so much more than that too: the burden of artistic genius; the relationship between humans and machines; race and class in the city of Detroit; chronic illness and care; and so much more. It’s a fascinating and at times deeply moving read.
If you want to discover the world of design: The Invention of Design. Maggie Gram’s book is a surprising intellectual history of a topic that’s as misunderstood as it is ubiquitous. The book shows how “design” — a specialized category of knowledge, once relegated to the domain of the fine and industrial arts — came to embody an imagined solution to society’s most intractable problems, from racial inequality to disability access. Gram is herself a designer, and she writes with sympathy and skepticism about the figures who turned her professional field into a sort of panacean master discipline. You come away from the book feeling like you understand why the world is the way it is, and why we can’t ever seem to imagine anything better.
My summer travel recommendation: This channels my wife, who hails from South Brooklyn and has introduced me to the many delights of her home borough. Snag an outdoor table at the legendary L&B Spumoni Gardens in Gravesend, then order two square slices of pizza. What follows will approach transcendence.
Curious About Africa
Lahra Smith, Associate Professor and Director of the African Studies Program, School of Foreign Service
My African fiction recommendation: My Friends, by Hisham Matar. My students and I read this Booker Longlisted book in our spring African Studies capstone course and found it so beautiful, sad and poetic. It is a story of three friends who are forced into exile by the authoritarian regime in Libya. It also explores friendship, diaspora and loss.
If you want to better understand migration: Darfur Allegory, by Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf at Georgetown University Qatar. My first-year seminar students and I read this book to understand the complexities of forced migration and diaspora, especially in Sudan. Abusharaf mixes crucial social theory with a textured and vibrant set of ethnographic stories she recorded with exiles and refugees from Darfur now living in multiple cities and countries around the world.
When in Africa, visit: Djibouti City, Djibouti, is an amazing place. Despite rarely being in the news in the U.S., and usually for the wrong reasons, it is a country with some of the most kind and hospitable people, gorgeous scenery and amazing regional food traditions. Djibouti also sits at the intersection of historic routes of human movement and trade. In just one recent week of research travel, I enjoyed Djiboutian fish seasoned with Ethiopian berbere, Yemeni fish with flatbread and various spiced dipping sauces, Somali breakfast of ambabur (a fermented pancake smothered in sweet tea or yogurt) and fresh shrimp, watermelon and so much more!
Discovering China
Erin Cline, Tagliabue Professor, Chinese Philosophy/Religion Scholar, College of Arts & Sciences
My fiction recommendation set in China: Peony in Love, by Lisa See. This book will take you into the world of Chinese religious belief and Chinese literature. It is impeccably researched — as all of See’s novels are — and thoroughly captivating. I recommend it to my students as a great way to get a firsthand understanding of what traditional Chinese beliefs about spirits and life after death entail.
If you’re interested in Chinese philosophy: Confucian Reflections: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times, by Philip J. Ivanhoe at Georgetown. This book introduces early Confucianism and explores how it can inform our lives in a contemporary setting. It’s written by one of the world’s leading scholars of Chinese philosophy and is a deeply compelling book.
When traveling in China: I recommend asking locals (and taxi drivers) where you can find smaller, local temples (Buddhist, Confucian and Daoist) that people who live there visit regularly, as opposed to the larger temples that are popular tourist stops. You will get a wonderful window in local religious life that is not the same as what one finds at larger, more popular locations.
Taking a French Break
Susanna Lee, Professor and Chair, Department of French and Francophone Studies, College of Arts & Sciences
For those nostalgic for French class: David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, which is about the author moving to France and learning French but is prefaced with his hilarious and somewhat lunatic family life. Seeing France through his eyes is a gift even if you’ve been there many times.
If you want historical fiction: I can recommend The Secret of the Grand Hôtel du Lac by Kathryn Gauci. It is an adventure story, based on historical events, set in France during the lead-up to D-Day. Or if you want something that takes place during World War II that is not a book, please see L’Armée des Ombres (Army of Shadows), directed by Jean-Pierre Melville and with an incredible cast.
A really lovely book I recently read: Published in French and not yet translated, is Amit Weisbeger’s Le Profil de Galatée. Weisbeger is an Israeli author living in France for the last fifteen years and the “profile” of the title means a dating profile — not his, but the character’s. It’s beautifully written and published by Editions Velvet, a great independent publishing house in Paris.
When in Paris: I recommend the Musée Gustave Moreau in the 9th arrondissement. You can visit it in two hours and the man was so prolific that it is actually alarming. And of course you can never go wrong walking all over Paris, particularly the 11th and 19th arrondissements.
Adventuring Through Latin America
Angelo Rivero Santos, Teaching Professor and Director of Academic Affairs of the Center for Latin American Studies, School of Foreign Service
My first recommendation: Siblings of Soil: Dominicans and Haitians in the Age of Revolutions by Charlton Yingling. The book is a history of the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath that sheds light on the cooperative nature of the independence movements of two different sides of Hispaniola before the island gave birth to two different nations: Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A previously untold analysis that helps the reader understand, two centuries later, that the seemingly irreconcilable differences between the two countries today may be based on wrong assumptions about their common origins.
My second recommendation: Tu sueño imperios han sido (Anagrama) by the Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue. In a fascinating combination of history and fiction, the author explores a question that all of us in Latin American studies have pondered about at some point in our lives: What happened, and what could have happened, in 1519 when the ninth emperor of the Aztec Empire, Moctezuma II, met the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés? A fascinating narrative of an encounter between two worlds that changed the history of the world.
The must-do in Latin America: The region is a vast wonder of hybrid cultures, natural beauty and architectural wonders. However, when traveling in the region, the following three destinations should be on anyone’s bucket list:
- The Panama Canal and its museum. A technological wonder that connects the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. It was built (1903-1914) by the blood and sweat of more than 40,000 workers, mainly from the Caribbean. Over 5,000 of them perished in the process.
- The Mercado Central in Santiago de Chile, founded in 1872. A dream for seafood lovers! There is a reason why National Geographic chose the Mercado Central as the fifth-best food market in the world in 2012.
- Los Roques National Park. No better place for beach lovers than this spectacular archipelago, composed of over 300 islands, cays and islets. It is located in the Caribbean Sea just off the coast of mainland Venezuela. Simply marvelous.
