Faculty Reading Recommendations

Joshua L. Miller Ph.D., Professor School for Social Work

Dr. Miller’s areas of interest are antiracism work, the social ecology of disaster and integrating psychosocial capacity building and disaster mental health approaches in response to disasters. He has co-authored Racism in the United States: Implications for the Helping Professions with Ann Marie Garran and co-edited School Violence and Children in Crisis. He is currently writing about the social ecology of disaster and psychosocial capacity building, and is working on related projects in Sichuan Provence, China and in Eastern Sri Lanka. Miller volunteers regularly for local and national organizations that offer disaster mental health and crisis intervention responses after tragedies and disasters. For more information, see Professor Miller's webpage.

Here are Professor Miller's responses to our questions:

Q. What are three books in your field that you feel are most helpful/interesting for lay readers who want to learn more?

• Regulating the Poor . Piven, Frances Fox & Cloward, Richard A. - Describes how public welfare serves as an instrument of social control. (Frances Fox Piven papers and Richard A. Cloward papers are housed in the Sophia Smith Collection.)
• The Hidden Injuries of Class. Sennett, Richard - Identifies how social and economic class are internalized psychologically.
• A Different Mirror. Takaki, Ronald T. - Revisionist history that serves as a counter-narrative to dominant U.S. historical discourses.

Q. What books have influenced your life?

• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Murikami, Haruki - A celebration of the surreal and coincidental.
• Survival in Auschwitz. Levi, Primo - Strength and resiliency in the face of unremitting horror and persecution.
• Hunger. Hamsun, Knut - The power of narrative to transcend suffering.
• Shambhala: the Sacred Path of the Warrior. Trungpa, Chogyam - What it means to be a non-violent warrior.
• When Things Fall Apart. Chödrön, Pema - How to be present with pain and suffering, while being gentle with oneself and others.
• Eye to Eye: the Quest for the New Paradigm. Wilber, Ken - Exploring the spectrum of consciousness.

Q. What are you reading now?

• Blood and Soil: A History of Genocide. Kiernan, Ben
• Olive Kitteridge. Strout, Elizabeth