Faculty and Staff Notes

Kirk Ormand Publishes Fifth Book

August 25, 2015

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 Dobbins Publishes Book

August 25, 2015

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 Moderates Panel

August 25, 2015

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.

Jan Thornton Co-Authors Review Based on Research

August 24, 2015

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.

Ken Grossi, Carol Lasser, and Team Present Panel

August 24, 2015

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.”

Joanne Erwin Conducts Orchestra in Panama

August 21, 2015

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.

Tim Scholl Appointed Director of Center for Languages and Cultures

August 17, 2015

Tim Scholl, professor of Russian and comparative literature, has been appointed director of the Oberlin Center for Languages and Cultures (OCLC), effective July 1, 2015.

Under Sebastiaan Faber’s leadership, the OCLC was instrumental in creating greater synergies among departments and divisions of the college. Scholl hopes that the OCLC will remain as successful in fostering those collaborations and looks forward to exploring new possibilities for international study during winter term and with the Office of Study Away.

Eric Estes to Chair National Consortium

August 13, 2015

Vice President and Dean of Students Eric Estes was recently voted chair-elect of the steering board for the Consortium on High Achievement and Success, the oldest and largest national organization dedicated to the academic success of students of color at liberal arts colleges. Estes has been a member of the steering board since 2011. After serving a year as chair-elect, he will serve a three-year term as chair.

Elizabeth Hamilton Interviewed

July 30, 2015

Elizabeth Hamilton, associate professor and chair of the German Language and Literatures Department, was interviewed for the Märkische Online Zeitung. The article (in German) describes Hamilton’s on-site research at the Samariteranstalten, a cluster of homes and schools for people with cognitive disabilities in Fürstenwalde, Brandenburg. Hamilton is translating and writing a scholarly edition of a photo-essay collection that was created there, Was für eine Insel in was für einem Meer.

The original work, created in the former East Germany in 1985, depicts residents of an institution for people with cognitive disabilities in astonishingly beautiful black-and-white photographs by then up-and-coming photographer Dietmar Riemann and in probing, poignant essays by the esteemed literary author Franz Fühmann. The subjects of their photographs and texts lived in care of the Samaritans’ Institution, or Samariteranstalt Fürstenwalde, a Protestant Church-run institution about 35 miles east of Berlin. The artistic value of the Fühmann-Riemann collection transcends the geographical and historical context of the now-defunct GDR. These are intimate and respectful portraits of people who in most cultures, even today, remain hidden from public view. As fuller, global histories of disability are now being written, Fühmann and Riemann’s work opens an essential window onto a formerly shuttered world.

Ann Cooper Albright Teaches and Lectures, Produces Conference

July 30, 2015

At the end of May, Ann Cooper Albright, professor of dance and chair of the dance department, taught a weeklong intensive at the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD) in Salzburg, Austria. While in Austria, she also gave an invited lecture at the University of Salzburg.

Following these ventures, Albright produced the international dance studies conference Cut & Paste: Dance Advocacy in the Age of Austerity. Held in Athens, Greece, the annual conference is a joint effort between the organizations Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) and Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS), the latter of which Albright is president.

The 2015 conference panels addressed issues surrounding dance advocacy on local and global levels and also put dance advocacy into practice by supporting a dance community that has been hit especially hard by the global financial crisis. By going to Athens at this particular historical moment, international dance scholars supported their colleagues in Greece, giving them an opportunity to participate in a multifaceted dance studies conference without having to travel abroad. In addition to a scholarly conference, there were free dance classes offered and curated performances by Greek companies. Scholars also donated more than 100 books to seed the first international dance research collection in Greece.