Weather Update

Due to the storm, Barnard College closed at 4pm Friday, for non-essential personnel. “Essential personnel" include staff in Facilities, Public Safety and Residence Halls.  

Friday evening and weekend classes are cancelled but events are going forward as planned unless otherwise noted. The Athena Film Festival programs are also scheduled to go forward as planned but please check http://athenafilmfestival.com/ for the latest information. 

The Barnard Library and Archives closed at 4pm Friday and will remain closed on Saturday, Feb. 9.  The Library will resume regular hours on Sunday opening at 10am.  

Please be advised that due to the conditions, certain entrances to campus may be closed.  The main gate at 117th Street & Broadway will remain open.  For further updates on college operations, please check this website, call the College Emergency Information Line 212-854-1002 or check AM radio station 1010WINS. 

3:12 PM 02/08/2013

Books

President Spar is the author of three books, including The Baby Business: How Money, Science, and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception, her provocative and often-referenced book on the business of fertility. She is also the co-author of three books and has contributed chapters to numerous others.

The Baby Business
Debora L. Spar
2006
 
Despite legislation that claims to prohibit it, a thriving market for babies is spreading across the globe. Fueled by rapid advances in reproductive medicine and the desperate desires of millions of would-be parents, the acquisition of children--whether through donated eggs, rented wombs, or cross-border adoption--has become a multibillion dollar industry that has left science, law, ethics, and commerce deeply at odds. In The Baby Business, Debora Spar argues that it is time to acknowledge the commercial truth about reproduction and to establish a standard that governs its transactions. The first purely commercial look at an industry that deals in humanity's most intimate issues, this book challenges us to consider the financial promise and ethical perils we'll face as the baby business moves inevitably forward.
 
 
Debora L. Spar
 2003
 
Beginning with the development of the compass, Ruling the Waves examines a series of technological revolutions that promised, in their time, to transform the world's politics and business. Debora Spar recounts the histories of the printing press and maps; of the telegraph, radio, and satellite television; of software, encryption, and the advent of digital music. At each of these junctures Spar suggests that invention led to both a wave of commerce and of chaos. A fascinating history of business, Ruling the Waves is also an original, thought-provoking analysis of the parallels between past innovations and inventions and our own tumultuous times.
 
 
 
 
Debora L. Spar
1994
 
Why does international cooperation work for some enterprises and not for others? And what distinguishes the few that succeed from the majority that fail? Debora Spar finds answers to these questions when she examines the workings of four commodity cartels, having interviewed and secured documents from mid-level and senior players in the global markets for diamonds, uranium, gold, and silver. Spar suggests that certain kinds of states will be better equipped than others to resolve the dilemmas of cooperation. In her concluding chapter she points out the characteristics that mark these "cooperative" states, explores the internal trade-offs that are often entailed in international cooperation, and proposes a series of tactics that states can employ to gain and maintain the cooperative edge.