Faculty and Staff Notes

Clayton Koppes, professor emeritus of history, gave the talk "Who Gets to Tell the Story: Expanding the History of HIV/AIDS" on World AIDS Day, December 1. The virtual event was sponsored by the Community Advisory Board of the Case Western Reserve/University Hospitals AIDS Clinical Trial Unit. His talk was based on his archival research and  interviews nationally and in Cleveland.

Assistant Professor of Economics Evan Kresch presented "Do Bigger Legislatures Lead to Bigger Government? Evidence from a Brazilian Municipal Council Reform" on November 19, 2021 at the 114th Annual Conference on Taxation, "Improving the U.S. Safety Net," sponsored by the National Tax Association (NTA). The paper was co-authored by Rodrigo Schneider (Skidmore College); Henrique Veras (Centre College); and Mark M. Walker '22 (Oberlin College).

Emeriti Professors James Dobbins and Suzanne Gay are serving as the Sumitomo Visiting Professors in East Asian Studies at Yale University for the Council on East Asian Studies in the fall semester of 2021.

On November 30, James Monroe Professor of Politics and of East Asian Studies Marc Blecher addressed the Chinese Studies Association of Australia 17th Biennial Conference on “Changing China: Then and Now 變遷中國：過去與現在.” He presented three chapters from his two forthcoming books Class and the Communist Party of China, 1921–1978 and Class and the Communist Party of China, 1978-2021: Reform and Market Socialism.

Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón was named a Letras Boricuas Fellow by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Flamboyan Foundation’s Arts Fund. The fellowship recognizes Puerto Rican writers whose dynamic work spans genres including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and children’s literature. A first-of-its-kind fellowship, Letras Boricuas was created to identify, elevate, and amplify the voices of emerging and established Puerto Rican writers on the island and across the United States diaspora.

Professor of Mathematics Elizabeth Wilmer has published the paper “Combinatorics in the exterior algebra and the Bollobás Two Families Theorem” in the Journal of the London Mathematical Society.

Assistant Professor of Dance Al Evangelista was interviewed by artist Matthew Cumbie for Dance Place’s “Creative Entry Journalism Series.”

Assistant Professor of Comparative American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies KJ Cerankowski has published the book, Suture: Trauma and Trans Becoming. The book combines memoir, lyrical essay, and cultural criticism, to stitch together an embodied history of trauma and its ongoing impacts on the lived realities of trans, queer, and other marginalized subjects.

Assistant Professor of Economics Evan Kresch presented, “Sanitation and Property Tax Compliance: Analyzing the Social Contract in Brazil,” at the ABDI-IFS Conference on October 28, 2021.

Assistant Professor of Economics Maggie Brehm published the article “Taxes and Adoptions from Foster Care: Evidence from theFederal Adoption Tax Credit” in the fall 2021 issue of Journal of Human Resources. Brehm also presented her joint work with Oberlin College colleagues Paul Brehm and Martin Saavedra, “The Ohio Vaccine Lottery and Starting Vaccination Rates,” at Kent State University on September 24.