Faculty and Staff Notes

Assistant Professor of East Asian Religions Andrew Macomber was awarded a Japanese Studies Fellowship from the Japan Foundation for the 2026-27 academic year. Together with an award from the American Council of Learned Societies, the fellowship will support research for Macomber's second monograph project, Everything Evil in You: Disease, Karma, and the Pathogen Pantheon in Medieval Japanese Buddhism.

Annemarie Sammartino was featured in the 99% Invisible podcast on the history of Co-op City, a massive affordable housing cooperative in the Northeast Bronx.

Cindy Frantz provided commentary in a Huffington Post article about Tucker Carlson's apology for supporting Donald Trump.

The second episode of the podcast The Confluence, co-hosted by Professor of Comparative American Studies (CAST) Gina Pérez and Shelley Lee of Brown University, features fellow Oberlin faculty Meredith Gadsby (Africana Studies and CAST) and Pablo Mitchell (History and CAST), as well as Pawan Dhingra of Amherst College. They discuss the institutionalization of ethnic studies, using CAST at Oberlin as a case study.

Professor of Sociology Greggor Mattson gave the invited talk "Gay Places, Queer Futures" at the Stephen O. Murray Queer Futurisms Symposium of James Madison College of Michigan State University on April 15.

Chief Human Resources Officer Joe Vitale was named a Top 50 Human Resources Professional at the 2026 OnCon Icon Awards, which recognize exemplary HR professionals globally. Honorees are selected for their positive impact on their organizations, leadership, innovation, and thought leadership. OnCon is a professional community and annual summit for top-level executives.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History Jonathan van Harmelen’s article “Preacher, Immigrant Defender, World War II-Era Rebel” was recently published in Zoćalo Public Square.

Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Joshua Sperling delivered the lecture "Beyond Ideology: John Berger Before and After Ways of Seeing" for the National Gallery, London as part of the educational series "From Canvas to Canon: Six Texts that Shaped Art History."

An Index to Spirituals, a 592-page book by Head of the Conservatory Library Kathleen Abromeit, was recently published by SUNY Press. The book is a new edition of her 1999 book An Index to African-American Spirituals for the Solo Voice (Greenwood Press). It indexes the printed music of spirituals with publications dating from 1867 to the present.

Conservatory Librarian Krista Mitchell presented at the Pop Culture Association's annual conference in Atlanta on April 10. Her paper was titled "Lady Gaga at Coachella 2025: Music and Mayhem as Feminist Gothic."