ACADEMIC CIRCLES

About the Book

When injustice is inflicted on subordinates by those in authority who fear no legal penalties, what should the victims do? Should they accept their fate meekly and hope for justice in some after life, or should they seek to enforce their own vigilante justice? How reliable are friendships and collegiality among co-workers when there are advantages to jumping on the bandwagon of the powerful who can mete out rewards or punishments to those who may take sides in this struggle between the weak and the strong? This story revolves around such questions at a university in the American south. Marginal differences and minor disputes steadily escalated among faculty on this campus resulting in two intractable opposing camps. Differences between the academic factions were partly intellectual, but mainly concerned personality conflicts, zealous ambitions, gender-relations, and sexual-orientations. A virtual "coup d'etat" then took place at the highest echelons of the university generating sweeping personnel changes campus-wide. Faculty and administrators who were terminated or humiliated suffered physical and mental trauma, and financial hardships. One committed suicide. Subsequently, there was severe retribution against these seemingly invincible power elites at the university, causing further uncertainties and complexities in the lives of those directly involved or indirectly affected

About the Author

RAJU GEORGE CURIAN THOMAS specializes in international and transnational security issues. He is the Allis-Chalmers Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Marquette University. He was US Fulbright Professor at Belgrade University, Serbia, 2005-2006, and the University of Bologna, Italy, Spring 2007. He was a Research Fellow at Harvard University-CSIA-KSG (1980-1981 and 1988-1989), UCLA (1982-1983), MIT (1988-1989), and the International Institute for Strategic Studies-London (1991-1992). Other fellowship offers from Harvard-CFIA-Coolidge (2004-2005), Stanford (1980-81), Cornell (1980-81) and Cambridge (2004-2005) universities, and a Research Fulbright to India (1988-89) could not be accepted. He was educated at the Bombay Scottish School, St. Xavier's College of Bombay University, the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Southern California (USC), and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) from where he obtained his Ph.D.