Faculty and Staff Notes

Director for Intercultural Engagement Sam Yang published an article in Sparks magazine titled “Beyond the Stage and Screen: How K-Culture Is Reshaping Campus Life and Student Engagement.” It examines how K-culture has become a meaningful site of intercultural engagement, belonging, and Asian diasporic visibility on college campuses. The article considers how institutions can approach popular culture programming with greater intentionality, cultural humility, and care.

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Uche Okonkwo gave a reading at the 2026 Ithaca College New Voices Festival. She also presented on multi-genre creative writing panels titled "Find Some Compassion: Creating Space for Conflict" and "Empire of Nature."

Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies Yveline Alexis presented at the Haitian Studies Association and the Latin American Studies Association in Paris. Her paper, "Ma Cerafina: An Enslaved Womyn in Colonial Ayiti and Colonial Cuba," was well-received.

Assistant Professor of Data Science and Computer Science Joshua Davidson was recently awarded a grant from the Cleveland Foundation for a project on "New Approaches to Make Cleveland's Roadways Safer for All Users." This two-year, $100,000 grant will support research that engages students to explore the ways that spatial and statistical models can be employed to generate actionable insights for urban policymakers working to make streets safer for everyone.

Shari Rabin, associate professor of Jewish studies and religion and chair of Jewish studies, was quoted in an article in the Cleveland Jewish News about her work co-chairing the American Jewish Historical Society's Biennial Scholars' Conference, to be held in Cleveland May 31 to June 2. Assistant Professor of Jewish studies Matthew Berkman served on the program committee and Jewish studies major Aria Weiner has worked on the conference this semester as an AJHS Intern. Weiner and another Oberlin student, Lydian Domina, will serve as student assistants during the conference, which will be held on the campus of Case Western Reserve University.

Visiting Assistant Professor Thao Nguyen, a Bay Area artist, let a filmmaker follow her for six years. The Dao of Thao follows the artist’s multiple identities: outspoken performer; devoted mother, partner, and daughter; and member of the queer and artistic communities in the Bay Area. It offers a deeply personal portrait of a Vietnamese American woman balancing creativity, domestic wellness, daughterhood, and queerness. A related article can be viewed on the San Francisco Chronicle website (subscription required).

David S. Boe Associate Professor of Organ Jonathan Moyer participated as a jury member for the Jean Florentz International Organ Competition in Angers, France, in April, adjudicating both the semifinal and final rounds of the competition, held at the cathedral of Angers. 

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey has been appointed to the editorial board of the Art Bulletin, the flagship publication of the College Art Association and one of the journals of record for the discipline of art history. Rarey's four-year term begins in July.

Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager has signed a contract with Yale University Press for a new book, East Asia: A Modern History, to be published in its forthcoming History of Asia series. The series brings together leading historians to present a broad, accessible account of Asia from premodern times to the present.

Donald R. Longman Professor of English and Comparative Literature Wendy Beth Hyman published two book chapters this spring: one on Renaissance lyric and the other on Renaissance drama. "Minute/Minute: On Time and Scale in Renaissance Lyric" appears in the Lyric Temporalities (Toronto University Press), and "Theatre as Portal: A Shakespearean Thought Experiment," is out in the volume Experiential and Experimental Knowledge on the Early Modern English Stage (Edinburgh University Press).