May 2011: Faculty Spotlight
Bill McKibben (Scholar in Residence) has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He will be inducted at a ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 1, 2011.
The book, Social Justice Education: Inviting Faculty to Transform Their Institutions (Stylus, 2010), edited by Kathleen Skubikowski (Writing Program, English), Catharine Wright (Writing Program), and Roman Graf (German) was published in late October. Other Middlebury faculty involved in this project were Julia Alvarez (Writer in Residence); Priscilla Bremser (Mathematics); and Kamakshi Murti (German). A Middlebury student contributed a chapter as well—Zaheena Rasheed ’11.
Julia Alvarez (Writer in Residence) has published, How Tía Lola Learned to Teach (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House Children's Books, 2010), a novel for middle readers, 8-12,second of a four book series, the Tía Lola stories.
Febe Armanios’ (History) book, Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt, has been published by Oxford University Press.
Tom Beyer (Russian) has translated Mikhail Morgulis, Yearning for Paradise, into English from Russian, and the book has been published by CreateSpace and is also available as a Kindle edition.
Timothy Billings (English & American Literatures) and co-organizers at Scripps and Vassar have received funding through the Mellon Foundation’s Faculty Career Enhancement grant for an inter-institutional initiative titled 21st Century Shakespeare. This project provides funding for a group of Literature and Theatre faculty from Scripps, Vassar, DePauw, Denison, Furman, Harvey Mudd, Rhodes, and Middlebury (including also James Berg, Dan Brayton, and Marion Wells) to attend the five-play tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company in New York City this summer, and then to collaborate in a pedagogy workshop at Scripps in the spring centered around new approaches to Shakespeare.
Erik Bleich (Political Science) had an article, “Social Research and ‘Race’ Policy Framing in Britain and France,” appear in British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 13 (January 2011): 59-74.
Daniel Brayton (English & American Literatures) whose book, Shakespeare’s Hungry Ocean: Ecocriticism, Early Modern Culture, and the Marine Environment, is under contract with the University of Virginia Press, has learned that he won the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) First Book Prize. The Modern Language Association is the professional organization of language and literature scholars (English, French, Spanish, etc), and NeMLA is its northeast regional body.
Jeff Carpenter (Economics) published “Do Social Preference Increase Productivity? Field experimental evidence from fishermen in Toyama Bay,”with Erika Seki, Economic Inquiry, 49(2): 612-630 (2011).
Jeff also published “Jumping and Sniping at the Silents: Does it matter for charities?” with Jessica Holmes (Economics) and Peter Matthews (Economics), the Journal of Public Economics, 95(5-6): 395-402 (2011).
Jeff Carpenter (Economics) and Caitlin Myers (Economics) have published, “Why Volunteer? Evidence on the role of altruism, reputation and incentives,”in the Journal of Public Economics, 94 (11-12): 911-920 (2010).
Jeffrey Cason (Political Science, Dean of International Programs) has published a book, The Political Economy of Integration: The Experience of Mercosur (Routledge, 2011).
Mary Kay Cavazos (Religion) had a paper accepted to the Black Women’s Intellectual and Cultural History Project which will be holding its conference the end of April. Her proposal was one of 40 selected out of 200 submissions. The Project is headed up by some of the premier scholars in the field of African American women’s studies.
Ricardo Chávez-Castañeda (Spanish & Portuguese) has published two books, La última epidemia de risa and Desapariciones, with Biblioteca Mexiquense del Bicentenario, 2011.
Sunhee Choi (Chemistry & Biochemistry) had an article, “Oxidation of a Guanine Derivative Coordinated to a Pt(IV) Complex Initiated by Intermolecular Nucleophilic Attacks," published by Dalton Trans. 2011, 40, 2888-2897. The article was co-authored with Personick, M. L. '10; Bogart, J. A. '11; Ryu, DW '11; Redman, R. M. '12; Laryea-Walker, E. '12.
Svea Closser’s (Sociology/Anthropology) new book, Chasing Polio in Pakistan, was published by Vanderbilt University Press (2010).
Marcia Collaer (Psychology) and a colleague at St. Michael’s College have received funding through UVM’s NASA EPSCoR program (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) for their project Stress & spatial cognition: Effects of acute stress on spatial navigation & attention. Their research investigates the influence of stress on individuals’ ability to navigate virtual spatial environments and on their performance in spatial attention tasks.
James Calvin Davis (Religion) has published a new book, In Defense of Civility: How ReligionCan Unite America on Seven Moral Issues that Divide Us (Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
Darién Davis (History) and a colleague from Vassar have received funding through the Mellon Foundation’s Faculty Career Enhancement grant for an inter-institutional initiative titled Intellectuals Abroad: Cross-National Influences of Dispersal during World War II and Beyond. The grant will fund a workshop in New York City for 19 participants (from Middlebury, Vassar, Dennison, DePauw, Furman, Harvey Mudd, Rhodes, and Scripps) that will provide opportunities for them to enhance their knowledge and share ideas about the role and impact of the dispersal, exile and movement of intellectuals (broadly defined) across national borders since World War II.
Matthew Dickerson (Computer Science) has received funding from the National Science Foundation’s TUES program (Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science) program for a project Teaching Computational Thinking through Multi-Agent Simulation: Increasing Recruitment, Retention, and Relevance of Undergraduate Computer Science. This three-year grant will support development of a new approach to introductory level Computer Science, with applications to both environmental studies and economics. It will be integrated into a new track in the major and will also help train students majoring in other disciplines in computational thinking.
James Douglas (Executive in Residence) has published a book, The Douglas Years (The Fourteenth Star Press, 2011).
Ophelia Eglene (Political Science) has had her new book, Banking on Sterling: Britain’s Independence from the Euro Zone, published by Rowman & Littlefield (2010).
Laurie Essig’s (Sociology & Women’s and Gender Studies) book, American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards and Our Quest for Perfection was recently published by Beacon (2011).
James Fitzsimmons (Sociology/Anthropology) received a Dumbarton Oaks grant for this summer.
James has also had an edited volume published--“Living with the Dead: Mortuary Ritual in Mesoamerica.” It was co-authored with Izumi Shimada and published by University of Arizona Press.
Eliza Garrison (History of Art & Architecture) has learned that her recent book Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture (Ashgate, 2011) has received a research award from the International Center of Medieval Art (the ICMA) and the Kress Foundation.
Eliza also had an article appear in Gesta, a juried journal published by the International Center of Medieval Art. Its full bibliographic info: “A Curious Commission: The Reliquary of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg,” Gesta vol. 49, no. 1 (2010): 17-29.
Leger Grindon (Film & Media Culture) has published Hollywood Romantic Comedy: Conventions, History, Controversies (Malden, Ma.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).
Leger has also been awarded a “Robert De Niro Fellowship” from the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin to support his research in the Robert De Niro Papers at the Ransom Center. The grant will fund his research trip to the Ransom Center this summer and further work on a project, “Subjectivity and Sensation: Filming the Fights in Raging Bull.”
Larry Hamberlin (Music) has had a new book published, Tin Pan Opera: Operatic Novelty Songs in the Ragtime Era (Oxford University Press, 2011).
Mario Higa (Spanish & Portuguese) has recently had several items published. They are:
A book titled Poemas reunidos by Cesário Verde, annotated edition by Mario Higa, published by Ateliê, 2010. For this edition, he wrote a 59-page long critical introduction, established the text of the poems comparing several 19th and beginning 20th century editions, and prepared hundreds of cultural, historical, linguistic, and literary notes.
A second book: Antologia de crônicas by Lima Barreto, annotated edition by Mario Higa, published by Lazuli/Companhia Editora Nacional, 2010. For this edition, he wrote a 19-page long critical introduction, selected 45 “crônicas” among over 400 written by Lima Barreto, and prepared the explanatory notes.
An article: “Diante das armadilhas da interpretação” [“Before the Interpretation’s Traps”]. Article on the 50th anniversary of Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer, published in O Estado de S. Paulo, Sep. 25th 2010, p. S6.
And an interview. “Ele acreditava numa verdade objetiva” [“He believed in an objective truth”]. Interview with Middlebury College Professor Jay Parini about his novel The Last Station, published in O Estado de S. Paulo, Nov. 20th 2010, p. S4.
Note: Founded in 1875, O Estado de S. Paulo is the oldest newspaper of São Paulo state. It has presently the largest circulation in São Paulo state and the fourth in Brazil.
Jessica Holmes (Economics) and Peter Matthews (Economics) have published, “Endogenous Participation in Charity Auctions,” in the Journal of Public Economics, 94(11-12): 921-935 (2010).
Jon Isham (Economics) has been selected to participate this summer in a faculty seminar at Transylvania University in Kentucky, funded by the University’s Bingham Program for Excellence in Teaching. The seminar, titled Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Concept, will involve faculty from liberal arts colleges around the country. The award covers all costs of participation, including travel.
Hedya Klein (Studio Art) participated in a group exhibition titled Of Weeds and Wildness: Nature in Black & White which ran from January 13 to March 13 at Union College in Schenectady, NY. It was curated by Sally Apfelbaum and Rachel Seligman. Other artists represented included: Robert Adams, Desirée Alvarez, Arnold Bittleman, Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Harold Edgerton, Robert Gober, William Kentridge, Danny Lyon, Abelardo Morell, Margaret Moulton, Michelle Segre, James Siena, Kiki Smith, Charles Steckler and Kate Temple.
Chris McGrory Klyza (Political Science, Environmental Studies) recently had an article published (co-authored with David Sousa): “Beyond Gridlock: Green Drift in American Environmental Policymaking.” Political Science Quarterly 125 (Fall 2010): 443-463.
Sam Liebhaber (Arabic) has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support his academic leave in 2011-2012 during which he plans to complete work on a book project, Bedouin Without Arabic: Language, Poetry and the Mahra of Southeast Yemen. His goal is to create the first monograph-length analysis of the endangered Mahri language in its sociocultural context. By engaging specifically with Mahri poetry and its reception in Southern Arabia, his work will have broader application to the field of Middle Eastern sociolinguistics and Bedouin vernacular poetry.
Sam was also awarded a grant from the Fulbright Middle East and North Africa Regional Research Program for a research project, The Mahra of Oman and the Imazghen of Morocco: Language Diversity and Language Ideology in the Arab World. He was unable to accept this award because the dates overlap with those for his NEH Fellowship that funds related, but different research.
Shannon Donegan ‘08 , John Maluccio (Economics), Caitlin Myers (Economics), Purnima Menon, Marie Ruel, and Jean-Pierre Habicht have published, "Two food assisted maternal and child health nutrition programs help mitigate the impact of economic hardship on child stunting in Haiti," in Journal of Nutrition, 2010, 140(6): 1139-1145. The article is based on Shannon’s senior thesis.
John Maluccio (Economics) and colleagues from the University of Colorado and the Paris School of Economics have been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation for a research project Effects of Social Transfer Programs on Cognitive, Social, and Economic Outcomes. This project will determine the effects of the Nicaraguan Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) program on outcomes such as cognitive abilities, schooling, and labor market success, ten years after the start of the program. Included is funding for Middlebury undergraduates to serve as research assistants.
Patricia Manley (Geology) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation to support a project, Geology of National Parks. She will travel through the northwest United States, where she will experience and photograph active volcanoes in the region’s National Parks and the Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument. These visits will inform and enhance her teaching in three introductory-level Geology courses.
Michelle McCauley (Psychology) has been awarded a grant from the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation at the New York Community Trust for a project, Translating Research into Application: Creating a Manual for Social Workers and Police to use the Cognitive Interview with Children. The goal is to develop and publish a training manual for professionals and practitioners who use the Cognitive Interview to collect information.
Sujata Moorti (Women’s & Gender Studies) and Laurie Essig (Sociology), along with colleagues at Dennison, DePauw, Furman, Harvey Mudd, Scripps, and Vassar, have received funding through the Mellon Foundation’s Faculty Career Enhancement grant for an inter-institutional initiative, Queering the Curriculum: A Proposal for Re-envisioning the Liberal Arts Curriculum. Through workshops at Middlebury, this project is intended to stimulate participants to make changes in the curriculum at their respective institutions. There will be follow up meetings next year to share experiences and assess progress. Interested faculty should contact Sujata or Laurie about participating.
Tom Moran’s (Chinese) translation of Wu Zuguang's 1942 play "Return on a Snowy Night" was published in December in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, edited, with a critical introduction, by Xiaomei Chen (Columbia University Press, 2010): 448-546.
Furthermore, Tom was invited to serve as one of five jury members for the 2011 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, representing North America. The other jury members were from Great Britain, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. In October 2010 the prize was awarded to Han Shaogong.
Elizabeth Morrison (Religion) has had a new book recently published, The Power of Patriarchs:Oisong and Lineage in Chinese Buddhism (Brill, 2010).
Amy Morsman’s (History) book, The Big House After Slavery: Virginia Plantation Families and their Postbellum Domestic Experiment, was published in the fall with University of Virginia Press.
Amy has also learned that she has received a Malcolm and Mildred Freiberg Fellowship at the Massachusetts Historical Society to help support the research for a second book project on gender, race reform, and Reconstruction in the North.
Caitlin Myers (Economics), Grace Close ‘11, Laurice Fox ‘12, John William Meyer ‘10, and Madeline Niemi ’11, have published an article, "Retail Redlining: Are Gasoline Prices Higher in Poor and Minority Neighborhoods?," in Economic Inquiry, forthcoming. The student co-authors were all in Caitlin’s 2009 Winter Term course Deconstructing Discrimination.
Victor Nuovo’s (Philosophy, emeritus) book, Christianity, Antiquity, and Enlightenment: Interpretations of Locke, was published by Springer (2011).
Middlebury College has received a renewal of a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support an Emeritus Fellowship for Victor Nuovo, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy. The grant provides funding for research trips and other expenses related to his ongoing research on John Locke.
Linus Owens (Sociology/Anthropology) has been awarded a grant to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, American Material Culture: 19th-Century New York, which will be held at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. He is currently working on a project researching mobilities in social movements, hoping to extend his focus to include not only moving bodies, but also objects. Further, he intends to incorporate the information from the course into his teaching, including more attention on material culture in his classes on cities and on the environment.
Cynthia Packert (History of Art & Architecture) has had a new book published, The Art of Loving Krishna: Ornamentation and Devotion, with Indiana University Press (2010).
Roberto Pareja (Spanish & Portuguese) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation to visit archives in Bolivia and Peru, where he will collect print and photographic materials for a new interdisciplinary seminar titled National Culture and Space: Art, Narrative, and Travel in 19th-Century Bolivia and Peru.
Patricia Saldarriaga’s (Spanish & Portuguese) article “La monstruosa creación de las imágenes divinas” appeared in an electronic magazine, La Habana elegante. Fall-Winter 2010, vol. 48. See: http://www.habanaelegante.com/
Patricia also published an article (co-authored with Emy Manini) titled “Hacia la búsqueda del sentido en la representación: Juan Damasceno y Jacques Derrida,” Lienzo 31, 2010, 175-202.
Michael Sheridan (Sociology/Anthropology) has been awarded a fellowship from the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation for a project, African Landscapes in the Americas. He will travel to three Caribbean islands and visit botanical gardens, sugar plantations, and farming communities there to inform development of a unit on African diasporic landscapes for his class Africa: Continuity and Change.
Paul Sommers (Economics) has recently published several articles, the first five of which appeared in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics:
--"'Born to Run' ... Chi-Square Tests: Mathematics in Music," Vol. 35(4), pp. 261-267;
--"Is There Home-Field Advantage in Interleague Play?," Vol. 35(4), pp. 268-274; and
--"Derby Drop-Offs" (co-authored with Nicholas B. Angstman ‘11, Andrea L. Buono ‘11, Trevor B. Dodds ‘11, and Andrew K. Somberg ‘11), Vol. 35(4), pp. 275-280. The four student co-authors were members of Paul’s 2009 Winter Term course, “The Application of Statistics to Sports.”
--“Do New Ballparks Affect the Home-Field Advantage?” Vol. 36(1), 2011, pp. 16-20.
--“Does Shooting Efficiency Matter in Explaining NBA Salaries?” Vol. 36(1), 2011, pp. 21-23.
Note: These final two articles are Paul’s 163rd and 164th journal articles with a total of 155 Middlebury College student co-authors.
Paul also published, "Have Sports Venues Mitigated the Home Foreclosure Crisis?," in Atlantic Economic Journal 38 (December 2010): 459 and “Real March Madness: Rewarding Schools for Low GSRs” in Atlantic Economic Journal. The latter was co-written with Alyssa Allen Chong ’10.
Steve Snyder’s (Japanese Studies) translations into English of two Japanese novels, Yoko Ogawa’s Hotel Iris and Kotaro Isaka’s Remote Control, have recently been published. His translation of Hotel Iris was a finalist for the Man Asian Literary Prize.
Louisa Stein (Film & Media Culture) has had an essay published recently, "'Word of Mouth on Steroids': Hailing the Millennial Media Fan," in Flow TV: Television in the Age of Media Convergence. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Steve Trombulak (Biology, Environmental Studies) has had the book he co-edited with Robert Baldwin published recently—Landscape-scale Conservation Planning (Springer, 2010). Steve began working on this book during a Mellon-funded course release in fall 2008.
Frank Winkler (Physics) has received funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Chandra X-Ray Observatory General Observer Program for a project that involves collaborators from the Space Telescope Science Institute, Johns Hopkins University, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the University of New South Wales, Australia. A long Chandra observation will be done to detect and measure properties of X-ray sources in the spiral galaxy M83, located 16 million light years away--a galaxy in which the rates of star formation, and destruction via supernovae, is unusually high. The goal is to study the life cycle of stars, and how they interact with the interstellar medium to produce X-ray emission.
Rich Wolfson (Physics) published a paper, "Spreadsheet Lock-in Amplifier," in the November issue of The American Journal of Physics. His coauthor, Darcy Mullen ‘10, is the daughter of one of Wolfson’s first thesis students, Peter Mullen ‘78.
Rich has also had a second edition of Essential University Physics published by Pearson Addison Wesley, 2010.
Phani Wunnava (Economics) has recently published an article, “The Value of Green: The Effect of Environmental Rankings on Market Cap,” co-authored with Nate Blumenshine ’09.5, published by Technology and Investment in November 2010.
Phani has also had a co-written journal article published in African Finance Journal, “Southern African Economic Integration: Evidence from an Augmented Gravity Model.” It was co-written with Thierry Warin (Economics), Kirsten Wandschneider (formerly of the Middlebury Economics Department), and Moshi Optat Herman ’06.