Faculty and Staff Notes

Kirk Ormand, professor of classics, published an article on the fragmentary 6th-century (BCE) poetry of Stesichorus and Hesiod. “Helen’s Phantom in Fragments” examines the earliest known references to an alternative Greek mythological tradition that suggested that Helen never went to Troy and that the Trojan War was fought over an eidolon, an “image” of Helen, while the real Helen spent the entire war in Egypt. Ormand’s piece was published in Poetry in Fragments: Studies on the Hesiodic Corpus and its Afterlife, ed. Christos Tsangalis (Walter de Gruyter 2017), pp. 115-135.

David Young, emeritus Longman professor and editor at Oberlin College Press, has published two books: Moon as Bright as Water: 17 poems by Qin Guan, translated with William McNaughton from Chester River Press, and The King's a Beggar: A Study of Shakespeare's Epilogues, from Archway Publishing.

Jiyul Kim, visiting assistant professor of history, presented the lecture "Conflict in the South China Sea" on October 6 as part of Kendal at Oberlin's Great Decisions lecture series. He also provided an update to his December 2016 talk "The Koreas" through discussion of the current situation in North Korea.

Talise Campbell, visiting assistant professor of Africana studies and dance, produced and choreographed the 8th Annual African Dance and Drum Festival and Juneteenth Concert in Cleveland, Ohio. Campbell also traveled to the village of Hadiyala in Sénégal, West Africa, where she presented her choreography. 

Alysia Ramos, assistant professor of dance, taught a summer workshop at Barnard College in New York.  In August, Ramos and her artistic partner Liz Ivkovich co-created a new immersive dance theater work, Those with Wings inspired by Terry Tempest Williams' memoir When Women Were Birds. The production ran for six sold-out performances and was positively reviewed in the Salt Lake Art Magazine. 

Ann Cooper Albright, professor of dance, was a visiting fellow at the Interweaving Performance Cultures Research Center in Berlin, Germany where she presented a talk entitled “On Being and Unknowing: Moving with an ‘Other’ in Capoeira, Contact Improvisation, and Queer Tango.”  She also performed with Benoit Lachambre at the Freiburg Contact Festival in August.

Bobby Wesner, visiting instructor of dance, along with Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, produced Oberlin Dance Intensive, a week of intensive dancing and sharing for high school students. Wesner and Handman-Lopez also performed their duet Eleven Years in at the Akron Fringe Festival. Wesner’s professional company, Neos Dance Theater, was installed on the third floor of the New Union Center for the Arts in September 2017. 

Holly Handman-Lopez, visiting assistant professor of dance, along with Bobby Wesner, visiting instructor of dance, produced Oberlin Dance Intensive, a week of intensive dancing and sharing for high school students. Handman-Lopez and Wesner also performed their duet Eleven Years in at the Akron Fringe Festival.

Sebastiaan Faber, professor of Hispanic studies, was widely interviewed and quoted about the escalating situation in the Catalonian region of Spain. He co-authored an article in the Nation and was quoted in both the Washington Post and Bill Moyers' Daily Reads. Faber appeared on Democracy Now!, both in television and web features, Real News Network, Free Speech TV's Rising Up with Sonali , and on KPFT's Hi Monitor. He was also interviewed in Slate.