New books have been published involving School of Arts and Communication faculty members Kevin Burke and Yanek Mieczkowski.
Burke, associate professor of music, wrote a chapter in the new book, The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound, edited by William Gibbons and Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard. His chapter is, “Hard Limitations and Soft Possibilities: A ‘Systematic’ History of Early Video Game Sound Technology.”
According to publisher Oxford Academic, Burke surveys and assesses “the hardware and software that powered early video game sound and analyzes how the hardware limitations and innovative software led to specific compositional styles across platform developers.”
The book is available for purchase through Oxford University Press, Amazon and other retailers.
A new book from Mieczkowski, assistant professor of history, looks at a story of defeat, death, and resilience during World War II through the experiences of his parents, Bogdan and Seiko Mieczkowski.
Surviving War, Oceans Apart: Two Teenagers in Poland and Japan Destined for Life Together (McFarland Press, 2024), tells the harrowing but ultimately uplifting tale of Bogdan Mieczkowski, a member of the Polish resistance who fought the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising and later spent time in multiple POW camps, and Seiko Kawakami, a teenager who was forced to leave school and work in a Japanese wartime factory.
Both came to the U.S. to pursue their respective educations, with Bogdan earning a doctorate in economics and Seiko gaining a second bachelor’s degree. Job opportunities drew them to New York City, where they met, eventually marrying and starting a family.
“For Bogdan and Seiko, the war had come full circle,” Yanek Mieczkowski wrote in an article on his book. “Destructive beyond belief, World War II brought these two young survivors to the U.S., a country that gave them a chance to start anew. In a sense, their new life together was a gift from that cruel war.”
The book is available for purchase through McFarland Press, Amazon and other retailers.
Mieczkowski is also the author of Gerald Ford and the Challenges of the 1970s and Eisenhower’s Sputnik Moment: The Race for Space and World Prestige. He has also written more than 40 biographies for The American National Biography.
