Faculty and Staff Notes

Emeritus Professor of Anthropology Jack Glazier’s book Been Coming Through Some Hard Times: Race, History and Memory in Western Kentucky was reissued by the University of Tennessee Press, with a new foreword by noted historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage. The book is described as “a unique study of race and racism across two centuries in the hinterland of the upper South. Its implications are at once depressingly familiar and distinctly fresh.”

Afterlives of the Black Atlantic, a major exhibition at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in 2019-2020, was shortlisted for a 2024 Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Arts Council of the African Studies Association. The award honors "important contributions to the dissemination and understanding of African and African Diaspora Arts made through exhibitions." Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey shares the prize with Afterlives co-curator and former Ellen Johnson ’33 Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the AMAM Andrea Gyorody.

Associate Professor of Art History Matthew Rarey's 2023 book Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press) has been named one of four winners of the 2024 Arnold Rubin Outstanding Publication Award. Given every three years by the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, the prize honors “excellence in scholarship on the arts of Africa and the African Diaspora." Earlier this year, Insignificant Things also won the 2024 Charles Rufus Morey Book Award from the College Art Association, one of highest scholarly honors in the field of art history. Insignificant Things is the first book to win both prizes.

Assistant Dean and Director of Religious and Spiritual Life Samia Mansour attended the 2024 Interfaith Leadership Summit hosted by Interfaith America with two student leaders. Through her participation in this summit and her completion of the Religion and Public Life online course, Samia earned her certificate in Interfaith Leadership.

Professor of Sociology Greggor Mattson gave the keynote "The Queer Cosmopolitanism of Rural Gay Bars" at the Rural Sociological Association in Madison, Wisconsin, the first LGBTQ-themed plenary at the RSS.

Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Manish Mehta recently published an article, "NMR-guided refinement of crystal structures using ¹⁵N chemical shift tensors," in Crystengcomm. His coauthors are Alex Nichols ’08 as well as collaborators from several institutions including Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Purdue University.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen recently published the article “Total Synthesis of (−)-Rauvomine B via a Strain-Promoted Intramolecular Cyclopropanation” in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Her coauthors include Gabriel Negrao de Morais ’25 as well as collaborators from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

Assistant Professor of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies Vladimir Ivantsov organized and chaired the 2024 North American Dostoevsky Society (NADS) Undergraduate Essay Contest. For more on this, see the official blog of the North American Dostoevsky Society.

Jody Kerchner, a professor of music education at Oberlin since 1996, has just been elected to a two-year term as president-elect of the International Society for Music Education, announced at the 36th world conference in Helsinki in July.

Kerchner joined ISME in 1998 as an early professional, and has served as an ISME Board member and ISME Executive Team member. Her service to the society has included being chair of the ISME membership standing committee (2020-2024) and the faculty sponsor for the ISME Student Chapter, since its inception in 2022. 

Kerchner says, "My ISME participation helped me develop a network of colleagues that has elevated my pedagogical, research, and community music practice as well as my quest for intercultural understandings and collaborations. I have been inspired and challenged by the diverse ways ISME members engage with, teach, advocate for, and research music." 

During her term as ISME president-elect, Kerchner will concentrate her work on four areas: She hopes to build on the society's efforts to internationalize the membership,  make services offered by ISME accessible beyond conference attendance using technology creatively, support student chapter growth, and take part in the crafting of the society's new six-year strategic plan. 

Professor of Musicology Charles McGuire hosted the 11th biennial conference of the North American British Music Studies Association, held at Oberlin July 25-28. McGuire convened a panel on changes in the field of British musical studies over the last decade and was one of five attendees honored as a founding member and given an honorary lifetime membership.