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Powers Travel Grants Send 11 Abroad on Research Projects
by Alex Pfeifer
Lisa
Anne Abend, visiting assistant professor of history, will travel to
Spain to investigate the diverse relationship between popular religion and
politics in nineteenth-century Spain, focusing particularly on the phenomenon
of spiritualism. Abend's project," Anti-clericalism and the Afterlife:
Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century Spain" will result in a chapter
in her book manuscript, which deals with the relationship between different
forms of popular religion and politics in modern Spain.Marc Blecher, professor of politics, will travel to London, Tianjin, and Beijing in preparation for writing his book, A World to Lose: Workers, Politics and the Chinese State. Blecher will conduct research at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the leading specialist of Chinese affairs outside China. He also will travel to Tianjin and Beijing to research news reports about workers and factory life, as well as conduct interviews with workers, labor union members and researchers who compiled the most recent national surveys of workers.
David
Breitman, professor of historical performance, will travel to England,
France, Holland and Scandinavia. He will play and, when possible, record
historically significant pianos (1780-1860). Breitman also plans to visit
schools that offer programs in historical performance or early music in
order to learn about their curricula and build relationships with Oberlin's
conservatory.Stephen Deets, visiting assistant professor of politics, will conduct interviews in Hungary and Slovakia concerning the final negotiations between the two countries over a dam complex on the Danube River. Deets' investigation will detail the 13 years of negotiations and the landmark International Court of Justice ruling that brought this conflict to resolution.
Dennis Hubbard, visiting associate professor of geology, will travel to the Caribbean to examine fossil coral reefs. Hubbard's research will determine if the decline in coral reefs is in response to increased human exploitation and global warming or if it is from natural change.
Jody
Kerchner, assistant professor of music education, will attend the International
Society of Music Education's (ISME) Music in the Schools and Teacher Education
seminar in Malmo, Sweden, and the ISME 2002 World Conference in Bergen,
Norway. While overseas, Kerchner will explore music education in Sweden
and Norway andadd to her collection of world music for choirs.
John
Pearson, Young-Hunter professor of art, will visit Yorkshire and Japan
to record wildflowers in their natural habitat, which will then be translated
into new works. In Pearson's recent work he has been "creating objects
and environments that are intended to echo aspects of the human condition
that are elusive, intangible, indeterminate and non-quantifiable."
The Powers grant will allow Pearson to follow up his latest exhibitions,
"Japan Passage" and "Yorkshire Series: Regeneration Continuum."Geoff Pingree, assistant professor of English, will explore the relationship between documentary film and nationalism in Spain. Pingree will examine films that address the Spanish Civil War, its origins and its aftermath. Pingree will "consider the unique role that documentary cinema plays in constructing a nation's identity and in shaping its collective memory." His research will result in a manuscript for a book.
Ann
Sherif, associate professor of Japanese, will travel to Tokyo and Hokkaido
to research a series of highly publicized Supreme Court cases in Japan that
occured during the 1950s. The trials involved obscenity charges against
the Japanese publisher and translator of DH Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterley's
Lover. Sherif finds "the trials fascinating partly because of the
involvement of the legal system in defining what is acceptable culture/art,
but also because of the many other people and groups who were involved--translators,
publishers, scholars, critics, writers, and the general public." Daniel Stinebring, associate professor of physics, will share a discovery made by his research group regarding a new phenomenon in the scintillation of pulsars by "clouds" in the interstellar gas with colleagues in Australia. Stinebring also will conduct observations in the southern hemisphere during this trip.
David Young, professor of English, is in the process of translating Canzoniere, Petrarch's fourteenth-century Italian masterpiece. According to Young, the manuscript contains "the single most influential collection of lyric poems in European history." Petrarch's writing includes extensive references to Avignon, Carpentras, and the Vaucluse hills in France, as well as Padua, Pavia and the Euganean hills in Italy. Young will visit these places to better acquaint himself with the subjects of Petrarch's writings.
The Research and Development Committee responsible for judging the grant proposals consisted of:
Gregory Hess, Danforth Lewis professor of economics;
Warren Darcy, professor of music theory;
Jack Glazier, professor of anthropology;
William Hood, Mildred C. Jay professor of art;
David Love, director of sponsored programs;
Cathy McCormick, professor of biology;
Anu Needham, professor of English;
Bruce Simonson, professor of geology;
David Stull, associate dean of the conservatory; and
Grover Zinn, associate dean of arts and sciences.
Please send comments, questions, and suggestions about Oberlin Online news and feature articles to online.news@oberlin.edu.
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