Esin Aka Atil '58, a native of Turkey now living in Arlington, Virginia, has written and/or edited some 22 books as a foremost authority on Islamic and Turkish arts. Surely one of the most notable is the rich and elegant facsimile edition, Levni and the Surname: The Story of an Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Festival, published in 2000. The book presents a masterpiece of Ottoman art: 137 brilliant miniatures by renowned court poet Levni, illustrating the poet Vehbi's description of the 1720 festival commemorating the circumcision of four sons of Sultan Ahmet III  -- which the publisher calls "possibly the last great example of illustrated Islamic manuscript." Esin has authored "scholarly chapters on the historical and cultural settings of the age, Ottoman tradition of festivals and festival books, and analysis of the artist's methodology ... ." After graduating from Western, where she coordinated the International Student Show, Esin went on to earn both M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Her distinguished career includes serving as Curator of Islamic Art at the Smithsonian's Freer Gallery of Art for more than 25 years and lending her expertise as a featured scholar on the 2001 PBS documentary on Ottomans and Islam, Empire of Faith. She recently donated her personal collection of some 2,000 books and journals and 18,000 slides to Koc University, in Istanbul.

Alice Wondrak Biel '92 knows whereof she speaks in her first book, Do (Not) Feed the Bears: A Cultural History of People and Bears in Yellowstone National Park, published this year by University Press of Kansas. She is a writer/editor for the National Park Service, working for Yellowstone, but telecommuting from her home in Bryce Canyon, Utah, and has won awards for her work from both the Montana Historical Society and Forest History Society. Using documentation of close encounters -- both written and photographic -- Bears examines the complex relationship between the grizzlies who live in the park and the tourists who visit it, tracing the evolution from early wildlife viewing to something like circus performance to, finally, a return to respect for the natural state of things. Reviews are positive, citing Alice's "solid research" and "look at the conflict between commerce and ecology throughout Yellowstone's history," but also noting her "humorous insights." Publishers Weekly quotes her comment that a 1961 pamphlet using Yogi Bear to discourage feeding the park bears was "like Bart Simpson warning kids to respect their elders." The book is based on her dissertation, written while she was a Ph.D. candidate in geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder.