Eng­lish Fac­ulty Mem­ber Pub­lishes a New Book

MISHAWAKA—Eliz­a­beth McLaugh­lin, Ph.D., an As­so­ci­ate Pro­fes­sor of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion at Bethel Col­lege, re­cently came out with a new book en­ti­tled, “Wom­an’s Voices of Duty and Des­tiny.”

“The theme of the book, tran­scend­ing gen­der, is ex­plain­ing how many peo­ple see re­li­gion, par­tic­u­larly Chris­tian­ity and Is­lam, to pull women back and pull them into their gen­der roles. So the theme is some­what cen­tered around the pull of duty verses the call of des­tiny,” McLaugh­lin said. 

Her new book is the first book to be pub­lished in a se­ries by Pe­ter Lang Pub­lish­ers with the theme, Speak­ing of Re­li­gion. She was in­spired to take on the task of writ­ing this book af­ter talk­ing to a friend at a con­fer­ence, al­though it had been on her mind to write for a while. The book con­tains 14 speech texts that are pub­lic ad­dresses given by women any­where from the 19th cen­tury un­til now. This col­lec­tion of speeches shows how wom­en’s re­li­gious con­vic­tions for­ward the march to hu­man free­dom and dig­nity. Some of the speeches have Chris­t­ian au­thors but other re­li­gious voices and faiths are rep­re­sented as well. The book is di­vided into dif­fer­ent themes such as: ed­u­ca­tion, re­form, so­ci­ety, roles in so­ci­ety, hu­man free­dom, and peace mak­ing.

The book is tar­geted to serve some­what as a trade book. Not ex­actly a text­book but per­haps an ac­com­pa­ni­ment to one for stu­dents of gen­der, re­li­gion, and his­tory of pub­lic ad­dress, she said. It is a book that is “ac­ces­si­ble” to any­one, so it would not be con­fus­ing to in­di­vid­u­als who are not par­tic­u­larly study­ing the spec­i­fied topic of the book.  

McLaugh­lin teaches classes in which her book could be used as a teach­ing tool, but that is not the spe­cific rea­son she wrote the book.

It would be a good book for any stu­dent to read to pos­si­bly broaden one’s mind­set and also be able to sup­port a Bethel pro­fes­sor.  

McLaugh­lin at­tended Tay­lor Uni­ver­sity, then got mar­ried straight out of col­lege. Her ca­reer path has in­cluded jobs in ad­ver­tis­ing in pub­lic re­la­tions, work­ing for sev­eral dif­fer­ent agen­cies and she also had her own agency. She was able to fin­ish her mas­ter’s de­gree while stay­ing at home with her two daugh­ters.

McLaugh­lin has been work­ing at Bethel for 22 years as of this year. She had just com­pleted her Mas­ter of Min­istry be­fore com­ing to work at Bethel. Her hus­band had a job in the area, so she was al­ready liv­ing nearby. She be­gan her ca­reer as a Pi­lot by work­ing with a grad­u­ate pro­gram while also in­struct­ing an ad­junct writ­ing course. She has worked in the Eng­lish De­part­ment and the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment. She earned her Ph.D. in 2008 from Re­gent Uni­ver­sity.