Faculty and Staff Notes

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Biggs Professor of Natural Science Matt Elrod has published an article in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. This publication, "Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Atmospherically Relevant Acetalization Reactions," is coauthored by Shira Presberg ’24, Cara Waters ’21, and Sophie Lyon ’22.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey has won the 2024 Murdo J. MacLeod Book Prize for Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke, 2023). Given annually by the Latin American and Caribbean Section of the Southern Historical Association, the award honors “the best book published in the previous year in the fields of Latin America, Caribbean, American Borderlands and Frontiers, or Atlantic World history." While the MacLeod is typically reserved for historians, the prize committee called Insignificant Things compelling across disciplinary boundaries.

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers's collection of creative nonfiction, Miss Southeast: Essays, came out on September 15 from Curbstone/Northwestern University Press. From the press: "A collection of narrative essays on femininity, sexuality, community, and belonging, Miss Southeast explores the strange, often contradictory cultural circumstances of being queer and female in the American South and beyond."

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Jillian Scudder discussed a wide range of astronomical topics in a live, hourlong interview with WWL Radio in Louisiana on September 9.

Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and Religion Shari Rabin published pieces in two newly-released edited volumes: “‘Thy Soul be Accepted’: A Jewish Gravestone in Eighteenth-century Charleston” in American Contact: Intercultural Encounters and the Boundaries of Book History (University of Pennsylvania Press) and “From Beautiful Rabbi to Queer Kohenet: Gender and Judaism in and Beyond Transparent,” in Blessings Beyond the Binary: Transparent and the Queer Jewish Family eds. Nora Rubel and Brett Krutzsch (Rutgers University Press).

Professor of German Steven Huff has published a review of Ulrich Klingmann, “Kleines Buch zu Goethes Iphigenie auf Tauris. Zum Lesen—Zum Spielen,” in Goethe Yearbook. It notes that jazz musicians Esperanza Spalding and Wayne Shorter recently composed and performed an Iphigenia opera.

Professor of Music Theory Joseph Lubben coauthored an article, "La síncopa hipermétrica," with Sophia Keil ’22, which appeared in Propuestas pedagógicas e interdisciplinares sobre el análisis y la teoría musical, the conference proceedings from the inaugural meeting of the Sociedad de Análisis y Teoría Musical (SATMUS)

Nathan A. Greenberg Professor of Classics Kirk Ormand has published a book chapter in the new Oxford Critical Guide to Homer's Iliad, edited by Jonathan Ready. The volume contains critical essays by different scholars on each of the 24 books of the Iliad; Ormand's essay deals with book 19, in which Achilles renounces his anger, agrees to return to battle, and receives an prophecy from Xanthus, a talking horse.

Emeritus Professor of Religion Margaret Kamitsuka announces the publication of her new book Desirable Belief: A Theology of Eros, an examination of the complexities of love and desire, as narrated in biblical texts, allegorized by church theologians, manifested in the lives of mystics, analyzed in psychodynamic theory, and depicted in poetry, literature, and Christian art.

Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rachel Diethorn was recently awarded a $200,000 National Science Foundation grant for her research project in commutative algebra entitled “Homological investigations of differential operators, almost complete intersections, and Gorenstein ideals.” This award includes funding to support several research assistantships for students over the next two years.