Faculty and Staff Notes

Assistant Professor of Dance Al Evangelista recently had his screendance "Dragon Fruit" selected for three film festival premieres. "Dragon Fruit" will make its Midwest premiere at RAD Fest, Pacific Northwest premiere at Disorient, and international premiere at Queerbee.

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Allegra Hyde had her short story "Bury" featured in PRIVATE LIVES, an anthology of select fiction published by The Missouri Review. "Bury Me" had previously appeared in the "Ultra-Violence" issue of The Missouri Review, as well as in The Pushcart Prize XL, and in Hyde's debut story collection: OF THIS NEW WORLD.

The debut novel by Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Allegra Hyde, ELEUTHERIA, was reviewed in a recent print issue of Entertainment Weekly. Of the novel, EW said: "Allegra Hyde has a sharp eye for the culture-war chaos and breezy narcissism of modern American life. And enough hope to hint that the youth might (might!) save us from ourselves."

Visiting Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies Jennifer Blaylock recently published an article about Oberlin alumnus Shirley Graham Du Bois for a special issue of Feminist Media Histories on decolonial feminisms edited by Pavitra Sunar and Debashree Mukherjee. Shirley Graham Du Bois was the first director of Ghana Television and likely the first Black woman to head a national television station in the world. Blaylock's article, "The Mother, the Mistress, and the Cover Girls: Ghana Broadcasting Corporation and the Coloniality of Gender" analyzes Graham Du Bois' theorization of television as a tool for decolonization and shows that while Graham Du Bois' media practice rarely addressed gender inequality specifically, her work as a female broadcast leader in the mid-1960s set a precedent for decolonial feminist futures. 

On February 25, Routledge published Professor of Politics and of East Asian Studies Marc Blecher’s two newest books: Class and the Communist Party of China, 1921-1978; and Class and the Communist Party of China, 1978-2021.

Blecher coauthored the books with colleagues from Harvard, Sciences Po, the University of Sydney, and Xi’an Jiaotong Liwupu University (in Suzhou, China). To mark the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary, the scholars put together this project of research, writing, and conferences on its century-long encounter with the question of class. 

Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing Robin Beth Schaer's poem "Holdfast" was set to music by composer Matthew Recio in a composition for vocal chamber choir. The piece was recently performed by the Chicago ensemble "Stare at the Sun." A recording is available online. 

Professor of Politics Stephen Crowley recorded an interview about his recent book, Putin's Labor Dilemma, on the SRB Podcast. In November and December 2021 Crowley was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Bologna.

Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies Yveline Alexis gave a talk on Haiti's Independence Day Soup (Soup Joumou) for the African-American fraternity Omega Psi Phi at Tufts University. Planners included a nutrition graduate student (Diego Meritus) and their Africana Studies Department. Organizers partnered with Haitian restaurants who served the delicious soup to the attendees. 

Associate Professor of French and Cinema Studies Grace An co-edited a special issue of French Screen Studies on French documentary film and the ethics of care since 1968. Articles in the issue explore films that addresse topics including education, migration and refugees, disability, incarceration, and postcolonial trauma. An authored the article "Care across divides: militant abortion and film around the Veil Law," which discusses the ways feminists and activist doctors sought alternative practices of reproductive care and justice during the years that led to the legalization of abortion in 1975. Reframing abortion as a labor of care, the filmmakers filmed an ethics of care avant la lettre, just years before the ethics of care was conceived during the 1980s in the U.S., yet developed eventually in France. This article benefitted from the insight and research conducted by Amelia Connelly, Lillian Enoch, Skylar Kleinman, Alison Simonds, Daisy Vollen, and Kiki Widran during the first Junior Practicum (Fall 2020). French Screen Studies is the only English-language academic journal to focus exclusively on French cinema and media.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature Anna Levett has published a review of The Albert Memmi Reader in the Journal of North African Studies.