From quantum physics to Japanese history, psychology of death, colonialism and environment, urban planning, science fiction, and the commodity of enslaved 16th century African women, IFK's Summer Reading list has something for all intellectual curiousities. Recommendations from IFK Faculty and students.
Books available for purchase from Seminary Co-op
Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime By Sean Carroll
Recommended by Jacy Reese Anthis, IFK AI Research and Programming Assistant
"This is an incisive, accessible introduction to how we know about the fundamental nature of reality and why Hugh Everett's "many-worlds" theory is so compelling."
Shaping Science: Organizations, Decisions, and Culture on NASA's Teams by Janet Vertesi
Recommended by Jordan Bimm, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2020-22
"As rovers continue to make news on Mars, Princeton sociologist of science Janet Vertesi offers an embedded study of the NASA engineers and scientists controlling these distant robotic explorers. Her comparative ethnography of two planetary missions reveals how different organizational structures and team cultures back on Earth shapes the knowledge these machines end up producing about the cosmos."
Animal Intimacies: Interspecies Relatedness in India’s Central Himalayas by Radhika Govindrajan
Recommended by Brad Bolman, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2021-23
Pollution Is Colonialism by Max Liboiron
Recommended by Neil Brenner, IFK Faculty and Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology
“Max Liboiron presents a framework for understanding scientific research methods as practices that can align with or against colonialism.”
The Blizzard Party by Jack Livings; Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro; The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Recommended by Adam Cifu, IFK Faculty and Professor of Medicine
Genetic Crossroads: The Middle East and the Science of Human Heredity By Elise K. Burton
Recommended by Iris Clever, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2020-22
“I look forward to reading my friend's book, which just came out. In fact, I ordered it for the UChicago library and the e-book is now available for everyone!”
The Laws of Chaos: A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy by Emmanuel Farjoun and Moshé Machover
Recommended by Isabel Gabel, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2021-23
“An attempt to develop a scientific, non-determinist theory of political economy.”
The Raven Tower by Anne Leckie
Recommended by Tirtzah Harris, IFK Marketing and Outreach Assistant, AB '21
“I'm finally getting around to reading Anne Leckie (who I love!)'s standalone novel, The Raven Tower. Could be a fun contrast to Terry Pratchett's Small Gods.”
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Recommended by Patrick Jagoda, IFK Faculty Research Fellow 2021-22 and Professor of English and Cinema and Media Studies
“The truly transdisciplinary creativity and ambitious temporal scale [of this work] felt genuinely joyful amidst pandemic lockdown.”
I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination by Francis Spufford
Recommended by Anastasia Klimchynskya, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2019-22
“During the warm summer months, I will be reading I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination by Francis Spufford, a study of how the Arctic captured the English imagination in the nineteenth century, with its vast expanses forming a great white blank that poets, explorers, and natural philosophers filled in with their speculations, their imaginings, and their attempts to known a vast unknown.”
The 99% Invisible City by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt
Recommended by Luc Lampietti, IFK Marketing and Outreach Assistant, AB '21
“Encyclopedia format and covers all the surprising reasons behind small urban artifacts most people never stop to take notice of.”
Noise by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein
Recommended by Christos Lazaridis, IFK Faculty Research Fellow 2020-22 and Associate Professor of Neurology
"[The book] explores caveats in human judgment, and how to improve it."
The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
Recommended by Vivian Li, IFK Communications Assistant
“I plan to read again this summer. It might be a somber read for some people, but I'm really interested in psychoanalytic theories and love the comprehensive approach he took at explaining our deepest fear — the fear of mortality.”
Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan by Shigeru Mizuki; Ôoku: The Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga
Recommended by Ada Palmer, IFK Faculty and Associate Professor of Early Modern European History and the College
“Both series expect a reader with some familiarity with manga, but not too much, and both are very mature, intelligent works, nothing like the kids' action series which most people who are less familiar with manga think of first.”
Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman
Recommended by Yan Slobodkin, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2019-21 and Lecturer on History and Literature, Harvard University
“Overcoming a paucity of historical sources with a combination of encyclopedic knowledge and imagination, this beautiful and original book presents American history from the perspective of the black women and girls whose voices are so often erased.”
Reckoning With Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic by Jennifer Morgan
Recommended by SJ Zhang, IFK Faculty and Assistant Professor of English
Also be sure to check out these new & recently released books by IFK Scholars
The Aeneid
Translated by Shadi Bartsch Zimmer, IFK Director and Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor of Classics
Art Cinema And India's Forgotten Futures: Film And History in the PostColony
Written by Rochona Majumdar, IFK Faculty and Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies, South Asian Languages and Civilizations
Written by Stuart M. McManus, IFK Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2016-18 and Assistant Professor of History, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Written by Gene Wolfe with a new entry by Ada Palmer, IFK Faculty and Associate Professor of Early Modern European History and the College
and if you're really into it, listen here to John Miller discuss The Book of the New Sun with Ada Palmer on National Review's Great Books podcast.