What we’re writing

Miriam Paeslack
Arts Management

This essay collection, edited by UB arts management professor Miriam Paeslack, questions the tired tropes about aging Rust Belt cities and their “inevitable” decline. After moving to Buffalo in 2009, Paeslack was inspired by the city’s resiliency and enlisted 14 local artists—including seven UB faculty members—to help chronicle its fascinating urban evolution through photos, video and stories of grassroots activism. Essays in the book are by her colleagues Dorothea Braemer (media study), Michael Frisch (history and American studies), Jordan Geiger (architecture), Carl Lee (media study), Joan Linder (visual studies), Dennis Maher (architecture) and Hadas Steiner (architecture). (Ashgate, 2013)

Dimitri Anastasopoulos
English

Anastasopoulos’ second novel is an unconventional narrative about the life and times of an oddball couple—an audio restoration expert and his germaphobic wife—as they negotiate their repressed relationship and the mysteries of existence. (Mammoth Books, 2013)

Michel Bruneau
Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering

Deceased engineer Keene is the main character of Bruneau’s second award-winning novel, about the adventures Keene’s ex-wife must endure to unravel his quirky funeral request: “My casket shall be filled to the rim with 2005 Saint-Émilion.” (CePages Press, 2012)

Kelly Patterson, Social Work
Robert Silverman, Urban and Regional Planning

This collection of emerging research in community development focuses on new school-neighborhood partnerships that lead today’s most compelling policy responses to urban blight. (Routledge, 2013)