Faculty and Staff Notes
Darrett Adkins CD Release Receives Praise
December 6, 2017
Cello professor Darrett Adkins teamed with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble under the direction of Timothy Weiss in a 2017 release titled Myth & Tradition. ClevelandClassical.com weighed in—“deep in the Passacaglia of Richard Wernick’s Concerto for Cello and Ten Players (1979), the cellist opens a door and finds himself alone. Manic, thoughtful, and personal, his four-and-a-half minute cadenza is the heart of the album.” Read the complete review.
Christina Neilson Gives Lectures in the United Kingdom
December 5, 2017
Christina Neilson, associate professor of Renaissance and Baroque art history, gave three lectures in the United Kingdom. Neilson presented "Wood, Flesh, Vermillion, Blood: Making Supernatural Sculpture" on November 27 in the Department of the History of Art at the University of York. She gave the annual Robert H. Smith Renaissance Sculpture in Context Research Seminar titled, "Animating Automata in the Age of the Miraculous, 1400-1600” on November 29 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Neilson gave a talk, "Incarnating Skin: Polychroming Sculpture in Early Modern Europe" at The Porous Body in Early Modern Europe conference on December 1, at King's College in London.
Farshid Emami Gives Talk
December 5, 2017
Farshid Emami, assistant professor of Islamic art history, gave a talk titled "Safavid Shahrashub: Literary Form and City Experience in Seventeenth-century Isfahan" on September 29 at the Comparative Persianate Aesthetics Symposium at Boston University.
Jiyul Kim Presents Lecture on Afghanistan and Pakistan
December 5, 2017
Jiyul Kim, visiting assistant professor of history, presented a lecture, “Prospects for Afghanistan and Pakistan” on December 1, 2017, as part of the Great Decisions lecture series at Kendal at Oberlin.
Karl Offen Presents
December 5, 2017
Karl Offen, professor of environmental studies, presented "Environment and Space in Colonial Afro-Latin America" in September for the Department of Geography at Kent State University and in October for the Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) at the University of Pittsburgh The presentations were a shortened version of a chapter written for the book Afro-Latin American Studies: An Introduction, edited by Alejandro de la Fuente and George Reid Andrews and slated to publish in 2018 by Cambridge University Press.
The presentations illustrated how environment and space are constitutive of human experience, and they explored how Afro-Latin Americans established important cultural relationships with their environments and transformed abstract spaces into meaningful places in ways that profoundly influenced other dimensions of their lives and those around them.
Sebastiaan Faber Co-authors Article
December 5, 2017
Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastiaan Faber has co-authored an article in the Nation about political corruption in Spain. Read the article, "Spain's Conflict Over Catalonia is Covering Up Massive Political Corruption."
Sheila Miyoshi Jager Interviewed for USA Today
December 5, 2017
Professor of East Asian studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager was interviewed and quoted by USA Today in an article about North Korea. Read the article, “How Safe is the U.S. from a North Korea Nuclear Attack?”
Arnie Cox Gives Keynote Address and Lectures
November 29, 2017
Associate Professor of Music Theory Arnie Cox gave a keynote address at the 12th International Conference on Music Theory and Analysis in Belgrade, Serbia, on October 15, 2017. While in Serbia, Cox also gave lectures at the Institute of Musicology (of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts) and to music students at the University of Arts in Belgrade.
Cindy Frantz Quoted in Washington Post
November 29, 2017
Professor of Psychology Cindy Frantz was quoted in the Washington Post about the recent tide of apologies made by famous men accused of sexual misconduct.
Darko Opoku, Eve Sandberg Edit and Author
November 29, 2017
Associate Professor of Africana Studies Darko Opoku and Professor of Politics Eve Sandberg edited the book, Challenges to African Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). Both Opoku and Sandberg each contributed two individually authored chapters.
This book asks—why have black African businesses been so difficult to establish and sustain? The authors argue that African states’ domestic political networks, not their markets, are the primary variables that determine the success of African businesses. Additionally, in order for their enterprises to survive, African business actors have had to devise creative coping strategies. The book explores the challenges and coping strategies of aspiring African entrepreneurs.