Professor's book helps men transform their lives

News Release - Nov. 30, 2006

Media contact:
Karen L. Gill
Office of Communications and Public Relations
(757) 594-8428

“A New Path at Midlife: Transformative Relationship & Story for Men,” by Christopher Newport University's Dr. Terry Lee, was published in November

(NEWPORT NEWS, Va.) — A Christopher Newport University professor’s new book seeks to help men through midlife. Dr. Terry Lee, associate professor of English at CNU, is the author of “A New Path at Midlife: Transformative Relationship & Story for Men,” published in November 2006 by Men’s Studies Press. The book provides a focused and illustrated discussion of how men — with the help of a woman partner — can move out of the stagnation and despair that often comes with midlife, transforming their lives by taking note of the stories and films that affect them emotionally and using those as guides, along with a woman’s voice, to their own untapped resources. “‘A New Path at Midlife’ finds energy in exhaustion, sees light in what seems dark and mines ‘gold’ from challenges that midlife presents,” writes Men’s Studies Press. “Guidance in transforming exhausted ways of being into new life comes from the stories and films that deeply affect us individually, and from our knowing partners in relationships.”

"Lee has compellingly mapped the daring descent into the shadowy psychological underworld of midlife by drawing upon the fictions of dreams, short stories, novels and films that surprisingly initiate one to a real reality in which familiar oppositions are transformed deeply," pre-publication reviewer David L. Miller writes. "Rage is also love. Steps backward are also steps forward. Drunkenness is a kind of sobriety.  Dark can be light.  And, taking leave can function as a homecoming. The book is full of insights about human psychological transformation."

Dr. Lee's work emphasizes the power of stories — from literature, films and dreams — and how they can guide our individual experience in life. He will be leading a workshop on masculinity and relationship in the spring at the Norfolk, Va., Studio for the Healing Arts.

Dr. Lee also co-edits DoubleTake magazine with his CNU colleague Dr. Roberta Rosenberg and Dr. Robert Coles, the James Agee Professor of Social Ethics at Harvard University. The bi-annual magazine features documentary writing and photography from around the world that works to  present compelling, insightful stories in words and images that open windows onto the human experience.

For more information, contact Dr. Terry Lee at (757) 594-7686 or tlee@cnu.edu.