A diverse crop of literary works published recently by DePaul University professors covers topics ranging from specialized healthcare treatment to Holocaust/war crime trials and from groundbreaking evangelist D.L. Moody to analysis of communities’ reaction to loss of rail service. The professors are available to talk about the variety of issues surrounding their current works.

“Havens: Stories of True Community Healing” By Leonard Jason and Martin Perdoux (Praeger)

Many of society’s major healthcare treatment challenges can be most successfully addressed by communities, said Leonard Jason, DePaul University professor of psychology. These are not communities in the sense of villages or towns, but smaller entities of groups of similar individuals, united by common challenges and goals.

In his new book, co-written with Martin Perdoux, consulting editor for Behavior Online, Jason profiles groups of similarly challenged individuals who band together to cure or at least control their illnesses, addictions or afflictions. The Havens authors examine the model of Oxford House, a residence strictly for recovering alcoholics. It provides a caring, nurturing and, when needed, stricter authoritarian environment to help these individuals challenge and overcome their addiction on a more permanent basis rather than the marginal successes posted by out-patient or 30-day institutional programs.

The authors detail similarly successful real-world communities of seniors, those afflicted with low-level mental illness and multiple chemical sensitivities. With growing concern over the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, this simple community based solution provides an economical, sustained means of coping, treating and healing.

Jason can discuss community healing, smoking prevention/treatment and issues of drug & alcohol abuse/treatment. NOTE: The two authors will conduct a reading of portions of their Havens work on Thursday, June 2, 7 p.m. at the Bookseller, 4736 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago.

Leonard A. Jason
Professor of Psychology and Director of Community Research Center, DePaul University
Office: 773/325-2018
E-Mail: ljason@depaul.edu

“God’s Man for the Gilded Age: D.L Moody & The Rise of Modern Mass Evangelism” By Bruce J. Evensen (Oxford University Press)

Long before televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, preceding the fervent crusades of the Rev. Billy Graham, and even before 1920s evangelist Billy Sunday (immortalized by Burt Lancaster in the 1960 film “Elmer Gantry”), one-time boot salesman Dwight L. Moody electrified crowds and virtually invented the modern evangelical crusade. In this book, Bruce Evensen, DePaul professor of communication, traces the historic relationship between popular religion and mass media in America by examining the career of D.L. Moody, “God’s Man for the Gilded Age,” and his extraordinary impact on both sides of the Atlantic during the 1870s and beyond.

Moody’s meteoric rise to prominence during the Industrial Age was no accident, notes Evensen. It was a carefully choreographed campaign that deftly used the growing medium of mass circulation newspapers in major cities. Moody’s sermons to the masses were major news events, covered with a fervor that is almost inconceivable today. Moody deftly worked with newspaper reporters and editors to help them build excitement, and in turn, report on the record-breaking civic gatherings created by his preaching. For example, more than 1 million people heard Moody speak in Chicago during the fall of 1873 and the population of the city was only slightly greater than 500,000. More than 2.5 million people attended Moody’s meetings in greater London, England, during the spring of 1875. The scope of his meetings was unprecedented; Moody spoke directly to more than 100 million people during his lifetime; cynics said his conversions reduced the population of hell by more than 1 million souls.

This engaging portrait of Moody centers on the period of 1873-77, with a richly detailed narrative of a remarkable man and his dramatic rise to international prominence. Would Moody approve of today’s televanglists? “If he were alive today, I think Moody would be at the forefront of today’s technology, using satellite TV, the Internet, digital video and other advanced means to spread the word of the Lord to as many people as possible,” says Evensen.

Evensen can discuss D.L. Moody and issues related to religion journalism as well as journalism history.

Bruce J. Evensen
Professor of Communication, DePaul University
Office: 773/325-2894
E-mail: bevensen@depaul.edu

“Crimes of the Holocaust: The Law Confronts Hard Cases” By Stephan Landsman (University of Pennsylvania Press)

With the impending trial of Iraqi dictator Sadaam Hussein later this year, it’s timely to examine case law relating to war crimes trials. In his new book, Stephan Landsman, the Robert A. Clifford Professor of Tort Law and Social Policy at DePaul, reviews and analyzes the carefully crafted template the Allies developed for the war crimes trials of Nazi leaders, held in Nuremburg, Germany, during 1945-46. Subsequent chapters scrutinize numerous issues including how the Nuremburg framework shaped Israel’s proceeding against Adolf Eichmann; the U.S. extradition and subsequent Israeli trial of suspected concentration camp guard John Demjanjuk, purported to be the infamous Ivan the Terrible; the Canadian prosecution of Hungarian Imre Finta and international tribunals investigating Serbian atrocities in the Balkans.

The Nuremburg proceedings, despite being highly politicized by pressures from within the Franco-British-American alliance and the tensions of the burgeoning Cold War with the Soviet Union, were extraordinarily fair, said Landsman. Previously undistinguished judges stepped up to a monumental task, navigating tricky rules of evidence while balancing defendants’ right to a fair trial. He notes that not all of the 24 defendants were found guilty.

Landsman examines the lessons of Nuremburg and how its judicial and prosecutorial benchmarks were weakened in subsequent international proceedings. He says Sadaam Hussein’s upcoming trial, viewed with a global magnifying glass, will employ the lessons of Nuremburg and other war crimes trials.

Landsman is a nationally recognized expert on the civil jury system and can discuss history and procedures of war crimes trials.

Stephan Landsman
Professor, DePaul College of Law
Office: 312/362-6647
E-Mail: slandsma@depaul.edu

When The Railroad Leaves Town; American Communities in the Age of Rail Line Abandonment – Western United States (Truman State University Press)

Few industries are more closely intertwined with the expansion of the American West than the railroad. The laying of railroad track created municipalities overnight where there was once only dusty prairie. Trains brought Western towns a vast array of otherwise unattainable goods, the latest news, fashions from distant cities and even new settlers and immigrants from far away lands. The “iron horse” carried away the fruits of a community’s labor -- lumber, ore, farmers’ cattle and crops, even products manufactured by a town’s industries for sale to the rest of the country and the emerging global marketplace. But what happens to a town when the trains no longer run?

Driven by a boyhood fascination with trains and fueled by an academic’s curiosity, Joseph Schwieterman, DePaul professor of public services management and director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, began a seven-year project examining hundreds of the more than 3,000 communities that lost their railroad service in the previous decades. “Railroads are symbolically important to communities, especially in the American West,” he said. In travels to all 50 states (a companion volume of When the Railroad Leaves Town covering Eastern cities was published in 2000), he discovered that various communities dealt with the railroad’s demise in different ways. “In some cities, the final train was bedecked with banners and flowers, bands played and the townspeople gathered to mark the end of an era. In other towns, the last train slipped out under the cover of darkness, with nary a soul present to mourn its passing,” he said.

In his new volume, Schwieterman examines how communities have dealt with the loss of rail services. Some use the situation to their advantage by converting railroad properties into retail businesses, strip malls, residences, recreational trails or preserving the corridor for future service. Other towns reeled from the loss of the railroad and began a slow, descending death spiral of businesses drying up and residents moving away. Historic Promontory, Utah, was the 1869 site of the driving of the Golden Spike that signified the linking of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines, joining East with the West via rail. This vibrant community was a base for railroad crews, an engine terminal, a rest/meal stop for rail passengers and a regional center of gambling, prostitution and liquor sales. Today, years after rail service through this National Historic site was discontinued in 1942, Promontory is home to only a National Park Service ranger who tells tourists of the town’s glorious railroad past.

Other communities, such as Astoria, Ore., and Santa Monica, Calif., have risen up to save their last railroad lines so that they might see trains again. Last year, Astoria celebrated the return of its trains after a hiatus of many years; passenger trains now bring tourists to town for the events commemorating the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark expedition. “Astoria is a shining example of the benefits of saving rail lines to help alleviate the need for new highways,” notes the author.

Schwieterman is a nationally recognized expert on transportation issues and can discuss the interrelationship between highways, railroads and public transportation in your community.

Joseph P. Schwieterman
Professor of Public Services Management and
Director of Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development
DePaul
Office: 312/362-5732
E-Mail: jschwiet@depaul.edu