Faculty and Staff Notes

Associate Professor of Creative Writing Emily Barton publishes a 2,500-word essay on Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, the leader of Liberal Judaism in France, and on her book Living with Our Dead, newly translated into English.

Media Lecturer of Cinema Studies Joey Rizzolo's film Hot Idiot (featuring the work of alums Alba Robledo Diaz ’23, India Gray ’23, Shaina Lin Chung ’20, Olivia Bentley ’21, and Rachel Yee ’23) premiered at the Astoria Film Festival this week where it took the award for Best Comedy Short.

Professor of Mathematics Jim Walsh has accepted an invitation to participate in the Mathematics and Climate Research Network, a recently formed American Institute of Mathematics Research Community. This new research community provides intellectual support and mentoring to researchers at all career stages who are eager to identify and tackle mathematical questions raised by the urgent climate and sustainability challenges facing us.

Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Shuming Chen has recently published an article, "Intermolecular hydrogen bonding behavior of amino acid radical cations," in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. Her coauthors are two current Oberlin students, Isabella Moppel ’25 and Barbara Elliott ’26.

Professor of East Asian Studies Sheila Miyoshi Jager's latest book The Other Great Game: The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2013) was reviewed by the International Institute for Asian Studies (Leiden, the Netherlands).

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature Stiliana Milkova coedited a special issue of the journal Romance Studies (41.4, 2023) where her article “The Trauma of Language Learning and Self-Translation in Elena Ferrante and Jhumpa Lahiri” was published. Milkova also published a peer-reviewed personal essay in Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts reflecting on student and faculty vulnerability post-Covid.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Anna Levett reviewed Mark Polizzotti’s new book Why Surrealism Matters for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Jillian Scudder contributed a talk on recent and upcoming work, “Conversions between gas-phase metallicities in the nearby Universe,” at the Chemical Abundances in Gaseous Nebulae workshop in São José dos Campos, Brazil. The workshop was hosted by Universidade do Vale do Paraiba.

Associate Professor of Creative Writing Emily Barton reviews Lina Wolff's new novel, The Devil's Grip, for the Times Literary Supplement (London).

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine participated in a panel titled “Short Stories: A Slice of Life” at the L.A. Times Book Festival, where his story collection Dearborn was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Dearborn was recently selected as the New York Public Library’s Book of the Day and was also longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. The story collection was awarded the 2023 Khayrallah Book Prize and included in Kirkus Reviews’ “20 Fiction Breakthroughs That Live Up to the Hype.” The book has been named a 2024 Michigan Notable Book, a 2024 American Library Association Notable Book, and a Best Fiction Book of 2023 by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, the Chicago Public Library, Powell’s, and the Writer’s Bone, and a Good Housekeeping Best Book of Fall and a Washington Post Best Book of September, among other honors.