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In Print Bruce
Feiler '87 At first glance, Bruce Feiler would seem the least likely writer to tackle the Bible. Author of books on his adventures in Japan, Oxford and Cambridge universities, the circus, and Nashville, Feiler had lost touch with his religion. But on a trip to Jerusalem, he viewed the cliff where Abraham went to sacrifice his son Isaac. The encounter, he wrote, "hit me like a bolt of Cecil B. DeMille lightning. It had never occurred to me that that story -- so timeless, so abstract -- might have happened in a place that was identifiable." That initial epiphany was followed by others at such places as the Dead Sea, Petra, and the Pyramids. "In the Middle East, I realized, the Bible is not some book gathering dust," says Feiler. "It's a living, breathing entity unencumbered by the sterilization of time." And so the writer was moved to undertake a quest: to follow in the footsteps of Abraham, Noah, Moses, and all the other characters of the first five books of the Old Testament. On this pilgrimage, Feiler had a guide -- charismatic archeologist Avner Goren -- and he met a remarkable group of people, from adventurers bent on finding the precise landing spot of Noah's ark to scholars attempting to reconcile the Koran and the Bible. The result
is a travelogue rich with details about the landscape, as well as
an account of how the journey changes the traveler. The author wanders
through the desert, experiencing first-hand how its harshness helped
build the spiritual unity of the sojourners. And from Mount Sinai
to the Red Sea, Feiler began feeling "the land reaching up to touch
me." As this happened, his point of view shifted and a long-buried
spirituality resurfaced. "The questions that were drawing me more
were those of symbolism, character, metaphor," he says. "I was reading
the text less as a Baedeker now and more as a Bible. I was reading
for meaning."
Jeffrey E. Garten,
Dean of the School of Management Two years ago, SOM dean Jeffrey Garten sat down with Leonard Riggio, the chairman and CEO of "bricks and clicks" behemoth Barnes and Noble. Garten was curious about how Riggio thought the business climate was changing. "Everything is in play," said the executive. "In those four words he captured the environment in which CEOs operate today -- the possibilities, the vulnerabilities, the uncertainties . and the tension between the various jobs that chief executives have to perform," says Garten. To understand the rapidly evolving role that corporate leaders are playing in what the dean terms the "third industrial revolution," Garten interviewed more than three dozen heads of some of the world's most prominent companies. Among the people he talked to were representatives of traditional firms, such as Hiroshi Okuda, who heads Toyota, and William Clay Ford Jr., chairman of Ford, as well as leaders of new-technology businesses, including Stephen Case, CEO of America Online, and Jorma Ollila, of the Finnish cellular phone company Nokia. Out of these conversations comes a guided tour of the psyche of the modern CEO and a look at how corporations are dealing with various challenges, particularly those posed by globalization and the Internet. "The online world is going to change everything," says Kenneth Chenault, the head of American Express. Many
of the CEOs assert that the interconnectedness and access to information
the Internet makes possible have fundamentally altered the way companies
do business, and this necessitates a new kind of business leadership.
In addition to ensuring corporate profitability, CEOs ought to realize
that "they should take more responsibility for shaping the environment
in which they and everyone else can prosper," says Garten. "They
should be corporate chief executives, but also business statesmen."
Christiane
Bird '77 The first surprise in Christiane Bird's account of her 1998 visit to Iran is that it occurred at all. U.S.-Iranian relations were frosty, but still more daunting to consular authorities was the prospect of a woman traveling alone in the fundamentalist Shi'ite Muslim state on a journalistic mission. Persistent as well as curious, Bird talked her way past one barrier after another, wielding rudimentary Persian and the stifling rusari and manteau that cover the female figure, and avoiding officialdom with a vengeance. A few brushes with danger enliven the proceedings, but for the most part this is a series of conversations with Iranians, a travelogue with attitudes. "Before the Revolution," an Iranian joke proclaims, "we drank in public and prayed in private. Now we pray in public and drink in private." While strictures have loosened somewhat, this disparity between home and the street colors Iranians' lives, as people gather secretly to break rules governing dress, makeup, alcohol, drugs, satellite television, and other forms of entertainment. Private screenings of Madonna and Michael Jackson, as well as some harder-core videos, alternate with visits to the booming cemeteries, where families picnic to honor their teen-age martyrs of the eight-year war with Iraq. Bird observes boarded-over swimming pools, unusable now because of the ban on public bathing, and she chats with university students whose coeducational conversations may not exceed five minutes. An evening in a jazz speakeasy reveals that there are only "three oboe players, three trombone players, and five or six trumpet players" left in all of Tehran. The intrepid author absorbs and explains this and more -- including sizeh, a legal temporary marriage, for periods as short as an hour, that is often used by "lonely" clerics during pilgrimages. (Bird receives one such proposal in the holy city of Mashhad.) Despite
all the economic hardships and the desire for more freedom, the
Iranians encountered here consistently express basic support for
their government. Having lived in Iran as the daughter of an American
medical missionary, Bird brings inexhaustible empathy to her task,
along with the right dose of erudition.
Marc
Ian Barasch '71 Thomas
M. Daniel '51 Karl
Jacoby '97PhD Gabriella
Safran '90 Richard
Selzer, Professor of Surgery (retired) Bob
Woodward '65
Lori
Andrews 1975, 1978JD, and Dorothy Nelkin Edward
J. Balleisen 1995PhD Edward
Bliss Jr. 1935 David
Bromwich 1973,1977PhD, Professor of English Peter
Brooks, Chester Tripp Professor of the Humanities Thad
Carhart 1972 George
A. Dudley 1936, 1938BFA, 1940MFA Allen
Forte, Battell Professor of the Theory of Music Elisabeth
Gitter 1972PhD Amihai
Glazer 1974PhD and Lawrence Rothenberg John
Hollander, Sterling Professor
of English Alex
Kerr 1974 Rogan
Kersh 1996PhD Lance
Lee 1967MFA Mark
R. Lee 1971 and Leonard Gross Quentin
Lee 1993MA Kenneth
A. Lockridge 1962, Kevin Berland, and Jan Kirsten Gilliam, Editors Paul
S. Machlin 1968 J.
D. McClatchy 1974PhD, Editor, The Yale Review James
McDonald 1937E Jeffrey
Merrick 1979PhD and Bryant T. Ragan, Editors Marcia
Millman 1968GRD Dan
A. Oren 1979BS, 1984MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, School
of Medicine Diana
Mendley Rauner 1982 Edward
Samuels 1971 Kem
Knapp Sawyer 1974 Tom
Stempel 1963 Ramie
Targoff 1989 Donald
F. Theall 1950 Eric
Tyson 1984BS and Ray Brown Keith
Wailoo 1984 Jonathan
Weinberg 1978, Lecturer, History of Art Jay
Winik 1980, 1993PhD |
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Yale
Alumni Magazine, PO Box 1905, New Haven, CT 06509-1905. USA.
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