Faculty and Staff Notes

Professor of Politics and East Asian Studies Marc Blecher, along with co-author Hengxuan Wu ’17, published the article "Workers' Politics in China."

Blecher also published “Working Class Re-formation and De-Formation in the People’s Republic of China” in the Handbook on Class and Social Stratification in China, edited by Yingjie Guo. This article compares the development of the Chinese working class in the three decades of Maoist state socialism with that in under the structural reforms that began in 1978. It tries to solve two major puzzles: Why, despite its much improved material life in the Maoist era compared with the despotic conditions of earlier decades, did the working class turn profoundly radical? And why, when the structural reforms knocked the working class off its very privileged Maoist-era perch, has it responded in far less radical ways?

Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager published “Decoding North Korea's Bluster,” an op-ed on understanding North Korea's recent provocations involving a nuclear test and missile launch, in The Diplomat. The piece argues “seeing Pyongyang's provocations for what they really are could help avoid disaster" and explains how domestic—more than international factors—underlie North Korea's often perplexing actions. The Diplomat is a leading international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region.

Assistant Professor of Classics Chris Trinacty has published the essay Imago Res Mortua Est: Senecan Intertextuality" in Brill's Companion to the Reception of Senecan Tragedy, an edited volume on the reception of Senecan tragedy. The essay establishes the importance of intertextuality for understanding Seneca's relationship to his literary, philosophical, and rhetorical predecessors.

Trinacty also published a book review on E.M. Young’s Translation as Muse: Poetic Translation in Catullus’s Rome in the Classical Journal online.

Renee Romano, professor of history, comparative American studies, and Africana studies, was featured in an interview on the National Public Radio program The Takeaway on Monday, February 22. In the interview, Romano discussed ongoing battles over how the past should be remembered and what should be done with memorials and monuments to controversial figures such as Woodrow Wilson and Robert E. Lee. Visit this webpage to listen to the interview.

Professor and Chair of Politics Eve Sandberg, along with Seth Binder ’07, contributed the chapter “The Moroccan Spring and King Mohammed VI’s Economic Policy Agenda: Evaluating the First Dozen Years” in The Birth of the Arab Citizen and the Changing Middle East. Stuart Schaar served as author and editor and Mohsine El Ahmadi served as editor of the book.

Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Karl Offen, along with former colleague Robert Rundstrom, published “Indigenous People and Western Cartography" in Cartography in the Twentieth Century, volume 6 in the History of Cartography Series, edited by Mark Monmonier (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

“Mitigating the Effects of Low Birth Weight: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Adoptees” by Assistant Professor of Economics Martin Saavedra has been published in the American Journal of Health Economics. Brian Beach, assistant professor of economics at the College of William and Mary, served as the corresponding author.

Professor of Computer Science Richard Salter and his colleague, Berkeley professor Wayne M. Getz, had two presentations at the 2015 Winter Simulation Conference in December: "The Numerus Platform - An Innovative Simulation and Modeling Building Environment” and "Using Nova to Constructed Agent-Based Models for Epidemiological Teaching and Research.” The former was 90-minute workshop and demo of Salter’s Nova simulation platform. The Winter Simulation Conference is the premier international forum for disseminating recent advances in the field of system simulation. Salter and Getz also presented a 2-hour pre-conference demo of the system.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Alberto Zambenedetti, along with Paola Bernardini, Joanne Granata, and Teresa Lobalsamo, co-edited Federico Fellini: Riprese, Riletture, (Re)visioni. The collection of essays is the result of three days of studies and celebrations: Fellini: A Disorderly and Passionate Genius of Italian Cinema / Fellini: messy genius and lover of Italian cinema" held at the University of Toronto October 17 to 19, 2013.

Zambenedetti has also written a book review for Parallel Lines. Post-9/11 American Cinema, written by Guy Westwell. Read his review on this webpage.

The paper "Climate modeling in differential equations," written by Professor of Mathematics Jim Walsh, appeared recently in the Journal of Undergraduate Mathematics and Its Applications. The 38-page "module" recounts Walsh’s efforts in bringing climate modeling into Oberlin's Math 234 Differential Equations course.

Walsh also spoke in January at the annual Joint Meetings of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and Mathematical Association of America (MAA) in Seattle, describing his new course Math 305 Mathematics of Climate Modeling in the MAA Session Mathematical Modeling in the Undergraduate Classroom.