Maria de los Angeles Torres, associate professor of political science at DePaul University, tells the story of the 1960s political exodus of more than 14,000 Cuban children to the United States in her latest book “Lost Apple.” She gives her own personal account of the experience as well as the recollection of many children who were sent away by their families unaccompanied on a secret U.S.- sponsored mission called “Operation Pedro Pan” (Spanish for Peter Pan) to theoretically escape the Communist brainwashing of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. But was that the real reason? In her quest to unearth the truth, Torres returned to Cuba repeatedly to review records, interview the families of the airlifted children and fight for the right to review some of the CIA files on this covert operation. “I had been doing a lot of U.S.-Cuba research and didn’t quite understand the depth of the contention between my home and host countries,” Torres explains. “There was both an intellectual journey as well as an emotional journey.”

Torres shows how children were used as pawns in the tense Cold War antagonism between Cuba and the United States that escalated into the Bay of Pigs conflict. She tells of the tragedy that befell many of the children who were never reunited with their families or relatives and were shipped throughout the country to foster homes, orphanages, camps and boarding schools – some suffering physical and sexual abuse. Torres, one of the fortunate ones, was reunited with her parents after only four months.

Torres is an expert on immigration issues, Cuban exiles, U.S.-Cuba relations, and Operation Pedro Pan. She is the editor of the recently published “By Heart/De Memoria Cuban Women’s Journeys In and Out of Exile.”

Francesca T. Royster, associate professor of English at DePaul, takes an intense look at Cleopatra, the symbol of exotic femininity, in her book “Becoming Cleopatra: the Shifting Image of an Icon.” Royster examines Cleopatra's ethnicity and then goes beyond the question of her racial origins, showing how she has been a central character in popular culture since Shakespeare. “I decided to write the book because I have been fascinated with the ways that the Cleopatra icon seems to pop up in the most heated and emotional discussions about race, gender, history, culture and ownership,” explains Royster. She explores the significance of Cleopatra for staging the formation of the white female film celebrity and the combined attraction and repulsion of fame. The second half of the book focuses on African-American women and the Cleopatra icon.

Royster is an expert on Shakespeare on film, literature and film, and images of black women in film.

Grace Budrys is director of the School of Health and Public Services at DePaul. Her book, “Unequal Health,” examines the reasons some people are healthier and live longer while other people get sick and die much earlier. She devotes time to the discussion of the general health of the U.S. population but also examines the health of people in other societies. Budrys suggests that the messages we receive from the media may be misleading, especially when it comes to commercials regarding our health and nutrition, products aimed at helping us to kick the smoking habit, exercise equipment that promises us perfect bodies, and corrective surgery to enhance undesirable body parts.

Budrys uses tables and statistics to illustrate why some people engage in risky behavior that is damaging to their health. She discusses how age, gender, race, poverty, lifestyle, behavior, medical care, genetics and stress are related to life expectancy and health status. She offers compelling evidence to show that there is a significant relationship between health and socio-economic status. Budrys argues that focusing on social inequality is critical to the discussion of health. “There wasn’t anything available that was accessible to students,” she explains. “I thought I would take difficult material and synthesize it into a form that would be more readable, it would be all in one place, it would be all in one package so that the students would get the full picture.”

Budrys has written on health care delivery, health policy and HMOs. She is the author of a well-received book on doctors’ unions titled “When Doctors Join Unions” (1997) and a more recent book titled “Our Unsystematic Healthcare System” (2001).

Larry Bennett, professor of political science at DePaul, co-wrote with Costas Spirou “It's Hardly Sportin': Stadiums, Neighborhoods and the New Chicago” a book that calls attention to the essential role of sports centers in American culture. The book points out the significance of redeveloping areas surrounding sports arenas and the importance of involving the impacted community in the planning process. “This is a convergence of two scholars’ interests,” explains Bennett. “Costas Spirou is very interested in the sociology of sports…and how sports culture has become such an important part of American culture. I’m especially interested in how urban development projects affect neighborhoods.”

Bennett, the director of DePaul’s public policy program, is an expert on city planning, redevelopment and neighborhood issues.