Faculty & Staff Notes Archives :: Fall 2003

Week of November 24, 2003
Three members of the division of Music Theory presented papers at the 2003 National Conference for the Society for Music Theory, held Nov. 6-9 in Madison, Wisconsin:

Brian Alegant, professor of music theory, delivered a paper entitled "Dallapiccola's Array Experiments." The paper, an outgrowth of a large-scale study of Luigi Dallapiccola's twelve-tone music, analyzed several little-known works of the composer's middle period and considered these works within the broader context of Dallapiccola's stylistic evolution.

Professor of Music Theory Warren Darcy delivered a paper entitled "Sie bleiben wie Allen:' Rotational Form and the Thematization of Failure in Mahler's Fish Sermon." His paper, an outgrowth of a large-scale study of rotational form in the Mahler symphonies, began with a formal/tonal analysis of Mahler's song "Anthony of Padua's Sermon to the Fish," then related the structure of this song to the Scherzo of the Second Symphony.

Joseph Lubben, associate professor and director of the Division of Music Theory, presented a paper entitled "Metric Saturation and Crystallization: Venezuela and Beyond." The paper, which draws on his experience as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, provided a survey of unusual rhythmic devices in Venezuelan folk music and applied tools derived from the devices to analyses of Bach and Beethoven.

Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader (Weslyan University Press 2003), edited by Associate Professor of Dance Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere (University of California) received a mention in the November 7th edition of The Chronicle Review (The Chronicle of Higher Education).The reader features a collection of classic and new writings on dance improvisation by 21 prominent dancers, scholars, and historians and reflects the development of improvisation as a compositional and performance mode in a wide variety of dance contexts.

A Norton Critical Edition: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, edited by Professor of English Katherine Linehan, was recently published by W. W. Norton and Company.

Week of November 17, 2003
Professor of Politics Marc Blecher recently presented a paper titled "What Are Chinese Workers Thinking?" at the Oxford University Institute of Chinese Studies. Blecher's paper is a quantitative analysis of workers' world views, based on a survey he conducted in China, during 1997-1998.

Professor of History Gary Kornblith recently received the History Outreach Commendation Award for his work on the conception, design, and on-going development of the Electronic Oberlin Group. The award was presented to Kornblith by the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums.

Week of November 10, 2003
Professor of Politics and East Asian Studies Marc Blecher recently published the second edition of his book China Against the Tides: Restructuring Through Revolution, Radicalism, and Reform.

Week of November 3, 2003
Professor of Environmental Studies David Orr has been invited to speak this weekend at Hamilton College. Orr's lecture, "Educational Possibilities in the Age of Terror," is part of the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center lecture series on environment and social responsibility.

Week of October 27, 2003
John Bucher, director of the College's Center for Information Technology, recently was elected to serve on the board of EDUCAUSE, a nonprofit association dedicated to advancing higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

Week of October 20, 2003
Professor of African American Studies Meredith M. Gadsby just published a co-edited collection (with Carole Boyce Davies, editor, Charles F. Peterson, Jr., and Henrietta Willisams) titled, Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies, (Africa World Press, 2003). This collection of essays argues that African Diaspora Studies has the possibility of re-engaging the decolonizing process at the level of knowledge, as emphasized by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (the mind) in an earlier contribution. In addition, the collection asserts that this is an ongoing project, worthy of being undertaken in a variety of fields of study as we confront the challenges of the 21st century.

President Nancy S. Dye recently presented the seventh annual Lena C. Bailey Lecture on Leadership at Ohio State University's College of Human Ecology. Dye's lecture was titled "Leadership and the Imagination."

Week of October 13, 2003
Following on the heels of the recent permanent acquisition of four relief pieces for the Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University has acquired artwork by Young Hunter Professor of Art John Pearson and his wife, local artist Audra Skuodas, for permanent installation in the newly built Research Institute Building. Pearson's piece is the major triptych from his Japan Series, a wooden relief structure 8' x 10' x 7" in thickness. Skuodas's piece is also a triptych, acrylic on canvas, measuring 6' x 15'. Both works are in prominent locations in the new building.

Week of October 6, 2003
Luce Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager recently published her book, Narrating the Nation in Korea: A Genealogy of Patriotism (M.E. Sharpe, 2003).

Associate Professor of Physics John Scofield presented a lecture, "What Makes a Green Building Green," at the Political Economy Research Center's (PERC) annual symposium for journalists.

Week of September 15, 2003
Erik Inglis, assistant professor of art history, recently contributed an article to Newsday.com. The article, titled "Cemetery Fitting at Ground Zero," argued for the appropriateness of memorializing the remains from victims of 9/11 on-site, making the planned memorial, in effect, a cemetery.

Leonard Podis, professor of composition and rhetoric, recently gave an invited talk, titled "Writing, Writing Assignments, and Mutual Learning in the Classroom," at the College of Wooster. Podis also contributed an essay to the anthology Teaching Composition/Teaching Literature: Crossing Great Divides. The piece, co-authored with Joanne M. Podis, is titled "Beyond Fear and (Self-)Loathing in the Composition-Literature Wars: Contextualizing the Politics of Writing Assignments in English Studies."

France and the Great War, 1914-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 2003), authored by Fredrick B. Artz Professor of History Leonard Smith, was awarded the 2003 Norman B. Tomlinson, Jr. Book Prize by the United States Branch of the Western Front Association. The prize will be formally announced at the association's annual seminar Sept. 20.