Faculty & Staff Notes Archives :: Summer/Fall 2005

Week of December 11, 2005

Professor of German Heidi Thomann Tewarson and Faculty-in-Residence Dorothea Kaufmann recently co-edited Willkommen und Abschied: Thirty-Five Years of German Writers-in-Residence at Oberlin College (Cambden House, New York), which chronicles the history of Oberlin's German Writers-in-Residence program over the past 35 years. The book, which is bilingual, includes information on the authors who participated in the residency program, as well as updated bibliographies of their work.

The German publisher Rowohlt recently published another book by Thomann Tewarson. Titled Toni Morrison, this book represents a critical study of the Nobel Laureate's work (in German ), and includes a brief biography of her early life in Lorain, Ohio.

Week of November 28, 2005
The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread, a screenplay by Betty Gabrielli, has been named Best Northcoast Screenplay in the 2005 Ohio Independent Screenplay Competition, which was sponsored by Cleveland’s Independent Pictures and InkTip.com. Based on the classic novel by the late Cleveland author and icon Don Robertson, the screenplay is a coming-of-age story set in Cleveland during World War II. Gabrielli is a member of the Oberlin Writers Group, which will present a staged reading of the screenplay at the Oberlin Public Library in the spring.

Visiting Professor of Economics Tatyana Koreshkova recently presented the results of her research on international income inequality at Seoul National University and the University of Tokyo, two of the most prestigious universities in Asia. Her research focuses on the role of "human capital" - the productive ability imparted by education, in particular - in explaining inequality in income per person across countries. Lack of consistent cross-country measures of human capital presents a major obstacle in this research area. Koreshkova showed that by modeling the process generating income inequality within a country one can learn about inequality in human capital measures across countries.

Week of November 14, 2005
Last April, Professor of Music Theory Warren Darcy (OC '68) delivered an invited lecture at the Eastman School of Music entitled "What Lies Buried Under the Linden Tree?  Form, Tonal Process, and Meaning in the Funeral March of Mahler's First Symphony." He also gave a graduate seminar on Sonata Theory, the genre-based theory he has developed over the past twelve years in collaboration with James Hepokoski; their book "Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata" is forthcoming in Spring 2006 from Oxford University Press.

Last May, Darcy presented an abbreviated version of the Mahler paper at the annual meeting of Music Theory Midwest, held in Oberlin.  In November he presented the shorter version at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory, held in Cambridge. Darcy is currently serving his second year on the Executive Board of the SMT.

Darcy's article "'Die Zeit ist da': Rotational Form and Hexatonic Magic in Act II Scene 1 of 'Parsifal'" was recently published as a chapter in "A Companion to Wagner's 'Parsifal'", edited by William Kinderman and Kathryn Syer. This article attempts to synthesize rotational form, transformational theory, and Schenkerian analysis in an effort to explicate some of Wagner's most refractory music.

Week of November 7, 2005
Associate Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand recently published an article, "Impossible Lesbians in Ovid's Metamorphoses" in Gendered Dynamics in Latin Love Poetry, eds. Ronnie Ancona and Ellen Greene (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), pp. 79-110. Professor Ormand's article analyzes with the story of Iphis, a young woman who miraculously changes sex, in light of recent work on ancient notions of gender and sexuality.

Week of October 31, 2005
Cathe Radabaugh, senior analyst and programmer in the Center for Information Technology, recently received the Ohio Association of Historical Societies and Museums (OAHSM) 2005 Individual Achievement Award for her "many years of outstanding service" with the Oberlin Heritage Center/O.H.I.O. Radabaugh has served on O.H.I.O.'s board of trustees since 1993, first as treasurer and then as president, and most recently as the chairperson of the organization's strategic planning committee.

Week of October 24, 2005
David Cleeton, associate provost and professor of economics, has been appointed chair of the Fulbright Senior Scholar Review Committee for Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the European Union. The Fulbright Program is administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars in Washington, D.C. Professor Cleeton has served as a member of the committee since 2003. From January through June of 2002 he held the Fulbright Chair of EU-US Relations in the Department of European Political and Administrative Studies at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Week of August 29, 2005
Jed Deppman, assistant professor of English and comparative literature, has recently published two articles: "History in the Poetry of Próspero Saíz: A Reading of 'Document'" (MELUS : Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States . 30: 1 :2005: 205-233) and "Trying to Think with Emily Dickinson" (The Emily Dickinson Journal. 14: 1: 2005: 84-103).

He also co-authored, with Oberlin College student Darcy Gervasio '06, a piece entitled "'To Own the Art within the Soul': Emily Dickinson and Creative Writing." The Emily Dickinson Bulletin. (May-June, 2005): 1-3.

This July, Deppman presented an invited lecture entitled "Lost for Fun at Finnegans Wake: The Pleasures of 2.4" at the James Joyce Summer School in Dublin, Ireland.

Deppman is the 2005 recipient of the Emily Dickinson International Society's Scholar in Amherst award.

Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Composition Laurie Hovell McMillin and Associate Professor of English Tracy Scott McMillin were recently participated in a panel on the Grand Canyon at the sixth biennual conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) in Eugene, Oregon. Their panel was "Being at the Bottom: ASLE in the Grand Canyon"; Scott, the organizer of the panel, explored the work of John Wesley Powell in "Great Unconformities: World-Making in the GrandCanyon." Laurie's paper, "Worlds and Times: Nine Days on the Colorado River," dealt with time, consciousness, and the source of Hindu names in the canyon.

Week of August 22, 2005
Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Oberlin College's Henry Luce Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, recently published an online article titled "What's at the Bottom of the Growing Rift Between South Korea and the U.S.?" on the History News Network.

Professor of Art Susan Kane and Associate Professor of Psychology Sam Carrier are featured on the cover of the current issue of Archaeology magazine (September/October 2005). The magazine has dedicated several articles to their upcoming mission in Cyrene, Libya, where they will continue the excavation of the Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone that Kane began more than 20 years ago as a graduate student.

Week of August 15, 2005
Arlene Forman, Barbara Sawhill and Elio Trabal attended FLEAT5 at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah August 5 - 11, 2005.

FLEAT 5 (Foreign Language Education And Technology) was co-sponsored by the International Association of Language Learning and Technology (IALLT) and their Japanese colleagues, Language Education and Technology (LET). Conference participants came from the United States, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, China, France, Spain, and several other countries.  This was the fifth time the IALLT and LET had co-sponsored this international conference.

Arlene Forman, associate professor of Russian Language and Literature, gave a presentation on REALIA (Real Electronic Archive for Language Instruction Anywhere), a searchable digitized media database created through a collaboration between the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, the Associated Colleges of the South, and the Great Lakes Colleges Association.

Barbara Sawhill, director of the Cooper International Learning Center and President-Elect of IALLT, presented at four sessions during FLEAT 5. The titles of these sessions were: "Non-Commercial Public Performance Rights and Foreign Language Films: What you Know and What You May Never Know," "Boosting Students Oral Output Through Desktop Audio and Video Recording: Anticipated and Unanticipated Findings in a Survey of Students," "Publishing for the Profession, " and "5+ Years of Wireless: Lessons Learned and Where We Are Going From Here."

Elio Trabal (OC '05) was recently hired by the Cooper International Learning
Center as an Educational Technology Specialist.

Week of August 1, 2005
Nita Karpf, assistant to the Dean of the Conservatory, just won second prize and a cash award in the Mount Arrowsmith International Writing Competition for her novel, The Other Shore. Judging took place in Port Alberni, British Columbia, Canada.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Lynn Powell appeared on NPR's The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor on July 22, 2005.

Week of July 11, 2005
Professor of History Gary Kornblith recently participated in a group discussion about inequality in American life and history that was broadcast during The Morning Show on KPFA, 94.1 FM (Berkeley, California). Kornblith's remarks focused on the chapter he co-authored with John Murrin in the book Ruling America: A History of Wealth and Power in Democracy.

The July/August 2005 issue of Flute Talk features a profile/interview of Associate Dean of the Conservatory and Professor of Recorder and Baroque Flute Michael Lynn. The comprehensive article, complete with photos and biographical and professional information, was written by Victoria Jicha.

Week of July 4, 2005
In anticipation of the upcoming G8 meeting in Scotland, Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies Ben Wisner published an opinion piece titled "What Eggs Will Hatch from the Gleneagles Nest?" on Reuters' AlertNet.org. In the article, Wisner, who is also a hazard specialist with the Benfield Hazard Research Centre at the University of London, suggested ways to fund research at the local level and prepare for disasters at the grassroots, micro scale.

Week of May 31, 2005
The current issue of The Journal of Finance features a study co-authored by Danforth Lewis Professor of Economics Kenneth Kuttner and Princeton University's Ben S. Bernanke, who are also colleagues at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The study assesses the impact of changes in monetary policy on equity prices and concludes that the equities market reacts strongly to unanticiipated funds rate changes, most often after an increase in expected excess returns. The Journal of Finance publishes leading research articles from the fields of finance and economics, and is one of the most widely cited academic journals of its kind.

Nita Karpf, assistant to the dean of the Conservatory, has won awards for three of her poems in a national creative writing contest sponsored by John Wood Community College in Quincy, Illinois.  Her haiku, "winter dessert," won honorable mention.  In the catagory of Non-rhyming Contemporary Poetry, "Selah!" also won honorable mention, and "species counterpoint" won second place.

Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies Wendy Kozol's most recent article, "Miss Indian America: Regulatory Gazes and the Politics of Affiliation" has been published in the current edition of Feminist Studies. Kozol is also the co-editor of a new book titled Just Advocacy? Women's Human Rights, Transnational Feminisims, and the Politics of Representation, which will be published by Rutgers University Press in July.