Faculty and Staff Notes

Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager gave a lecture on her 2013 book Brothers at War: The Unending Conflict in Korea on August 6 at the U.S. Army War College's U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Jager was invited to give the lecture as part of the Center's Brooks E. Kleber Memorial Readings in Military History series. This public series features recent works by noted authors of history. A video of the presentation is available on the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center website.

Anne Salsich, associate archivist at the Oberlin College Archives, chaired the discussion panel "Get Their Hands On It: Teaching with Objects in Archives and Special Collections" at the Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) held August 16-22 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Salsich’s panel included Oberlin College Library Special Collections and Preservation Librarian Ed Vermue and three archivists from Hamilton College, Clark University, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The session fit well with an unplanned theme that emerged from the conference: teaching with primary sources. A description of the session, can be seen here

Salsich was also on the host committee for the meeting, which drew more than 1,700 attendees. SAA annual meetings include repository tours, and Oberlin College Archivist Ken Grossi arranged a full day for 18 people that included tours at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, the Conservatory Library and Special Collections, and the main library's Special Collections and Archives.

Assistant Professor of German Gabriel Cooper delivered the invited lecture "Klezmermusik in den deutschsprachigen Ländern" (Klezmer music in German-speaking countries) on August 6 at Middlebury College's German language school. Cooper addressed approximately 100 students and faculty, including several Oberlin students studying the German language at Middlebury this summer.

Cooper also recently published the article Die lustige Globalisierung des Metals und seine zappendustere Zukunft bei der Zeichentrickserie Metalocalypse (The Funny Globalization of Metal and Its Pitch-Black Future in the Animated Series Metalocalypse). The article analyzes the portrayal of heavy metal and globalization in the pilot episode of Metalocalypse, as well as the series' immanent critique of global capitalism.

Professor of Psychology Cindy Frantz gave two talks in August at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Toronto.

The first talk, “Using Technology to Transform Environmental Norms, Identity, and Behavior,” was part of a symposium with David Miller, Toronto mayor from 2003-2010 and current World Wildlife Fund Canada president and CEO. The second talk, “What Is Systems Thinking and How Shall We Measure It? An Introduction,” was part of a symposium Frantz chaired, titled “The psychology of systems thinking: Implications for decision making, policy, and practice.”

Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand published his fifth book, Ancient Sex: New Essays this summer. The book, co-edited with University of Washington Professor of Classics Ruby Blondell, is a collection of essays dealing with sexual behaviors and their meanings in ancient Greece and Rome. It is published by the Ohio State University Press.

The volume contains seven essays by an international group of scholars, an introduction by Ormand and Blondell, and an epilogue by David Halperin ’73. The essays cover a range of topics, including Athenian vase-painting, sexual graffiti at Pompeii, and the satiric dialogues of Lucian, an Assyrian living under the Roman empire who wrote in Greek. All of the essays are informed by and respond to Michel Foucault’s fundamental work on the discursive production of sexuality in the modern West.

James C. Dobbins, James H. Fairchild professor of religion and East Asian studies, recently published Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume II: Pure Land (University of California Press, 2015). The book is an edited collection of Suzuki’s most important essays on Pure Land Buddhism with a critical introduction by Dobbins. Suzuki (1870-1966), a Japanese Buddhist scholar who published extensively in English, was a key figure in introducing Buddhism to the West during the 20th Century.

Jason Trimmer, Eric & Jane Nord Family curator of education at the Allen Art Museum, moderated a panel discussion Sunday, July 19, at the 16th annual Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (SPACE) in Columbus, Ohio.

The panel topic was the 20th anniversary of the "Spirits Of Independents Tour." In 1995, as part of a world-wide promotional tour for their monthly title Cerebus, artists Dave Sim and Gerhard organized a series of independent-focused comic conventions and participated in other small press shows under the banner of "Spirits of Independents." The city of Columbus was an early and prominent part of the tour, and that same spirit has continued for many years with SPACE.

The panel reflected on the turbulence of the comic book market of the mid-1990s and offered personal and professional reminiscences from members of the vibrant central Ohio comic book community who were active in the artistic, publishing, and retail spheres. Trimmer was a participant in Spirits '95 stops in Austin, Texas; Bethesda, Maryland; and Columbus.

CM McGregor Professor of Neuroscience Jan Thornton has written a review for the journal Hormones and Behavior based on research she presented at the International Congress on Neuroendocrinology in Sydney, Australia. Entitled “Luteinizing hormone as a key play in the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease,” the review is co-authored by Veronica Burnham ’14.

A team from Oberlin College presented the panel “Creating Opportunities for Innovative Digital Projects Through Collaboration Among Faculty, Students, Librarians, and Archivists” on August 20 at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists in Cleveland, Ohio.

The team was composed of Oberlin College Archivist Ken Grossi, The Five Colleges of Ohio Mellon Digital Scholar Jacob Heil, Professor of History Carol Lasser, and history majors Rebecca Debus, Natalia Shevin, and Joanna Wiley.

Grossi, who helped organize the meeting, led off the session. Debus, Shevin, and Wiley, who have spent their summers researching first-wave feminism at Oberlin College, were the only undergraduate students to present at the meeting.

“The panel fit well with the meeting theme Archives Change Lives,” Lasser says. “Providing this intensive experience in the Oberlin College Archives for these three students has helped them think more deeply about ‘the pastness of the past’ and the ‘presentness of the past,’ as well as about how humans change the world around them and changed by it but not always in ways that are easy to understand.”

Professor of Music Education Joanne Erwin conducted an orchestra on August 17 in the Balboa Theater in Panama City, Panama. The orchestra was composed of alumni of the Oberlin-Panama winter-term project and Panamanian alumni of the project camp. “It was an exhilarating time of renewing old friendships and making music with great passion,” Erwin says of the experience.