Class Notes
Suzanne Marriott recently published her memoir, Watching for Dragonflies: A Caregiver’s Transformative Journey, the inspirational story of her spiritual and psychological growth over the ten years she cared for her husband who suffered from multiple sclerosis.
Class of 1953 classmates are invited to sign up for the virtual lectures schedule for this fall: June 9 and August 21st, both at 1-2 pm. Lectures will highlights on the state of Cal today.
Information will be included about the Golden Bear Luncheon during Homecoming October 6th 11:30 am for classes celebrating 50th reunions and beyond – that includes our Class of 1953 70th reunion!
Go Bears! After receiving his PhD in Business (minor in Anthropology) John Lawrence Graham has spent the last four decades in research, teaching and writing about peace in a variety of contexts — within families, neighborhoods, international commerce, and foreign relations. Graham has published nine nonfiction books on those topics.
Continuing this endeavor — teaching peace — he has a new historical novel being published this spring. The title is Charlotte’s War. Themes explored in the book include:
• Men’s vs. women’s affection for firearms
• Nuclear weapons and war crimes
• Paths to peace – women’s leadership and international trade
• Biographies of Henry Kissinger and Ho Chi Minh
• The romance and humor of everyday life, and more
Charlotte, the main fictional character, is a Berkeley Anthropology PhD alumna protesting the war in Vietnam. Frighteningly, her son is headed into that harm’s way as a Navy SEAL. Please see the reviews posted on Amazon and pass the word if you like the book.
Patrick Slavin has accepted a letter of appointment as the Communications Lead at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Previously he worked for the United Nations for 25 years, serving in Pakistan, Jerusalem, Haiti, New York, and across Africa.
After graduating from Cal in 1999, Lisa Goddard settled in Los Angeles where she began her career as a film studio marketing exec, while she simultaneously cultivated her keen interest in all things food-related by honing her cooking skills entertaining friends and family, relishing any chance to dine out on an expense account, and documenting her favorite spots and taking photos of restaurant dishes before the popularity of social media. She also adopted a 10-week-old puppy who changed her life and lived an amazing 15+ years. His name was Stitch, and Lisa cooked for him on-and-off throughout his life to ease his inflamed bowel disease and to treat him on special occasions until he crossed the rainbow bridge in March 2022 due to a brain tumor. Lisa and her husband have just recently adopted an adult Boston Terrier through a rescue group that pulls animals from Asia. They named him Rango, and he is settling in quite nicely!
On May 2nd, 2023, Lisa’s debut cookbook “Delicious Dishes for You and Your Dog” was released by Clash Media. The book began as a labor of love during lockdown, a project to give more purpose to all the extra hours Lisa spent at home with Stitch, and she is happy and grateful to now see this cookbook out in the world, available through all major retailers. She crafted every recipe so that they would be safe for dogs to consume while also being delicious for humans. These dishes are meant to be shared with truly the entire family, including our loyal pups. The recipes span all cooking levels and diets, from healthy to indulgent, including tasty gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan options. As a bonus, the concept happens to be very low-waste, because even if a cook makes a mistake, the food won’t have to go to waste if there is a dog around!
Michele Wong McSween, author of the first Mandarin words board book series Gordon & Li Li, has released her latest title, Gordon & Li Li: Colors in Mandarin. Loveable panda cousins, Gordon & Li Li are learning a rainbow of yummy colors in their newest book, Gordon & Li Li: Colors in Mandarin. Children, caregivers and parents alike will delight in the colorful, playful, and recognizable Asian-inspired foods as they learn the colors of the rainbow in English and Mandarin. Each page spread features the color and the coordinating food to reinforce learning colors in a simple, fun, and easy-to-read format. Available at: gordonandlili.com and Amazon.com.
Shelley Wong‘s debut poetry collection As She Appears (YesYes Books) was longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award and is a finalist for the 2023 Lambda Literary Award.
Mark Herman (’65 MS), together with Ronnie Apter (Professor Emerita of English at Central Michigan University), has translated for the first time into English Amyris, de vita et gestis Mahometi Turcorum imperatoris / The Emiriad: The Life and Deeds of Mehmet, Emperor of the Turks, a Renaissance epic poem (1471-76) in Latin about the Turkish Sultan who conquered Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, thereby ending the Byzantine Empire. Amyris, consisting of some 5,000 lines grouped into a short Introduction and four books, is by Mehmet’s contemporary, the Renaissance Italian poet Giovanni Mario Filelfo (1426-80). A simultaneous Turkish translation, Emir, has been made by Ahmet Deniz Altunbas. Two Turkish professors at Ankara Social Sciences University, Filiz Barin Akman and Beyazit Akman, commissioned the translations and have written an extensive introductory analysis. The work, with a Foreword by Jerry Brotton of Queen Mary University of London, is published by Istanbul-based Kopernik Kitap, and was supported by the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry.
Amyris was commissioned by the Renaissance Italian merchant Othman Lillo Ferducci, whose father was a close friend of Murat II, the father of Mehmet II. The idea of an epic honoring Mehmet arose when Mehmet, without demanding any ransom, released Ferducci’s brother-in-law, who was among the prisoners captured during the 1453 conquest. Due to the Turkish-Venetian Wars, Amyris could not be taken to Istanbul and was never presented to Mehmet II. A single manuscript copy remained in Europe, eventually coming to the Geneva, Switzerland, Library where it still is, a work virtually unknown for over half a millennium, though a transcription was published in Italy in 1978.
To quote from Jerry Brotton’s Foreword:
[Amyris] is more than just an encomium praising Mehmet in the style of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid: it is a valuable document of a moment when the Latin western tradition worked closely with the Islamic eastern world to produce a new kind of text based on competition over a shared intellectual heritage that both cultures acknowledged . . . . [Amyris] should alert us . . . [who work] between east and west, Greek and Latin, Turkish and Arabic, to be aware of how scholars today need to work collaboratively and to pool their highly specialised skills . . . if we are to understand our common history, and avoid the polarised accounts of the hostility between east and west, which are as much of a myth today as they were in 1453.
Patricia A. Young, Ph.D. is a recipient of the 2023 Dean’s Medallion award from Indiana University Bloomington’s School of Education and Dean Stacy Morrone! The IU School of Education Dean’s Medallion is a lifetime achievement award given to individuals who have demonstrated an unwavering commitment and distinguished contributions to the betterment of society through education. Honorees’ work must represent extraordinary standards of excellence as evidenced by scholarship or creative activity; professional achievement; or public service.
Class of ’68 Class Gatherings are for Cal’68 members and friends of Cal. Contact Cal68@blueconnect.org for details and to join the Class of ’68 email list. Learn about upcoming Class of ’68 events as they evolve.
The Center on Civility & Democratic Engagement (CCDE), founded by the Class of ’68, continues to provide stipends to Cal undergraduate students attending University of California in D.C. (UCDC) to take classes and to undertake an internship. Three students will receive stipends for the Spring 2023 semester.
The Center also provides funding for second-year Goldman School Master’s Degree students working on an Advanced Policy Analysis (APA) project. In the Spring 2023 semester, ten students will work with client organizations including: Common Cause, California; Just Cities Institute; Office of State (CA) Senator Dave Cortese; China Digital Times/Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity; ACLU Hawaii; Berkeley Law; Ed Fund West; City of San Francisco Treasurer and Tax Collector; California Health & Human Services Agency (CalHHS); and Spur (SF).
For Center programs, including digital recordings of public lectures, see: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/centers/ccde/public-events. Many thanks to those who contribute to the Center. To make a contribution, see: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/centers/ccde/give-to-the-center.
Evalyn Hansen (Evalyn Stanley) Dramatic Arts, class of ’68, has published her book BACKSTAGE with Evalyn Hansen, available at bookstores and on Amazon. The book is a collection of over 300 interviews with prominent performing artists, writers, directors and educators gathered over 12-year period in Ashland, Oregon. What began as a theater column in the Ashland Daily Tidings to encourage and promote the arts revealed Ashland’s remarkable history as the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival as well as insights into the artistic processes of highly productive and creative people.
Jarone Lee, MD was named as one of Boston’s Most Influential Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) by Get Konnected and Boston Foundation Asian Community Fund. This recognition celebrates, amplifies
and elevates economic, civic and social contributions of individuals and collected members of the AAPI community. Also, Jarone co-founded a new global, non-profit organization supporting humanitarian disasters across the globe with digital health technologies called Health Tech Without Borders, Inc (HTWB). HTWB has supported over 62,000 consults to people affected by the Russia-Ukraine War. HTWB’s work was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst.
